no Good Dead

“For the Grateful Dead's second live album, released two years after its predecessor LIVE/DEAD, the band delivered an equally magnificent, but entirely different, Grateful Dead sound. Whereas LIVE/DEAD was a perfect sonic encapsulation of the band at the peak of their Primal Dead era, SKULL & ROSES captures the quintessential quintet, the original five piece band, playing some of their hardest hitting rock 'n' roll (‘Johnny B. Goode,’ ‘Not Fade Away’), showing off their authentic Bakersfield bona fides (‘Me & My Uncle,’ ‘Mama Tried,’ ‘Me & Bobby McGee’), and some originals that would be important parts of the Dead's live repertoire for the next 24 years (‘Bertha,’ ‘Playing In The Band,’ ‘Wharf Rat’).

Is there anything better than being a Dead Head when one of your favorite shows is officially released in its entirety? We'll double down on your sentiments WolfmansBrother, with DAVE'S PICK VOLUME 50: PALLADIUM, NEW YORK CITY, NY 5/3/77, and we'll bring the fire extinguisher to cool you off after you listen to Betty Cantor-Jackson's complete recording. Don't want the party to end? We'll stoke those embers with a few hot tracks from the first set of 5/4/77. Dave's Picks Subscribers score the monstrous second set from 5/4/77 featuring "Scarlet>Fire," "Terrapin," 'Playing In The Band," "Comes A Time," and more. Woowee!

The entire original KSAN, KQRS, WEBN, KSFX, WNEW & KADI FM Broadcasts Covering performances from Seven Incredible 1971 shows at The Fillmore West, Northtrop Auditorium, Taft Auditorium, Harding Theater, Felt Forum, Fox Theater and Winterland.

The 14th installment of Dave's Picks is devoted to another 1972 show, this one taken from an appearance at New York's Academy of Music on March 26, 1972 - i.e. before the Dead headed across the Atlantic for their legendary series of European shows. Generally, it's a pretty muscular performance, getting off the ground with a driving "Greatest Story Ever Told" and featuring a hefty dose of Pigpen in the first set, including "Mr. Charlie" and the one-two punch of "Big Railroad Blues" and "Big Boss Man." Here, his blues leanings seem of piece with the other roots the Dead lay down early - Jerry Garcia sings Hank Williams' "You Win Again," Bob Weir turns Marty Robbins' "El Paso" into one of his signature cowboy rambles - but by the time Pigpen surfaces toward the end singing the crawling "The Stranger (Two Souls in Communion)"…

The primary impetus behind this ambitious 12-disc box set is to gather all nine of the Grateful Dead's Warner Brothers titles. However, the staggeringly high quotient of previously unissued bonus material rivals - and at times exceeds - the content of those original albums. The Golden Road (1965-1973) truly has something - and usually a lot of it - for every degree of Deadhead. Working chronologically, the bonus material begins before the beginning so to speak, with the two-disc sub-compilation aptly titled "Birth of the Dead," a project actually green-lighted by Jerry Garcia in the mid-'80s. Disc one features studio recordings by a primordial incarnation of the band known as the Warlocks and later the Emergency Crew. Disc two contrasts their studio efforts with some of the earliest surviving live Grateful Dead recordings from July of 1966…

Three CDs. Madison Square Garden, the world-famous New York City arena, was a home away from home for The Grateful Dead, a reliable sanctuary where the band would ultimately play 52 shows, a record at the time. The venue's fine acoustics combined with the fans' unbridled energy consistently brought out the best in the Dead. At the band's 2015 induction ceremony into Madison Square Garden's Walk Of Fame, Bobby Weir said "This place was both horrifying and titillating with an audience that was discerning but ravenous. We had to rise to the occasion every time."

We're closing the books on DAVE'S PICKS 2021 with not one but two - nearly - complete shows from Noblesville, IN 7/18/90 & 7/19/90. Yes, we've packed it all on four CDs, save for that second night encore which we promise you'll get to hear in the very near future. Sometimes there really is just too much good stuff.