Everett's Collection
Grateful Dead 07/27/1973
Grand Prix Racecourse, Watkins Glen, NY
| Recording | SHNID 180 |
| Source | sbd |
| Media | shn 1 disc |
| Notes | upgrade |
| J-Card Comment | no regular info file (circualted with covers); 2 "history txts" below: Subject: Watkins Story Date: Thu, 13 Apr 2000 23:32:12 EDT From: Nbw000@aol.com To: dankstar@mediaone.net Mike, Here's one of the posts that covers a great deal of the tape details. Noah ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ --------- Here's the story of the road to the Digital Watkins Glen Tree. This was supposed to happen two years ago in conjunction with the 25th Anniversary Watkins Glen Analog Tree. I won't bore you with the details, but the digital end never happened. A few months ago, I had decided that I would finally have my AUD Analog seeds from the Analog Tree transferred to DAT so that the digital world could finally get it's hands on the tree that was run back in 1998. In a wonderful cosmic twist of fate, on the very day that I put my precious seed tapes in the mail to go to a trusted A>D person, I got word that the a digital copy of the Master Soundboard Reels from 7/28/73 was going to be headed in my direction. Wow! I had a few conversations with Dick Latvala when I was organizing the 25th Anniversary Tree and he had told me that the SBDMR was filled with gremlins and glitches, and would never be suitable for official release, but it did exist and he had listened to it. Most of his friends had told him the show sucked (FOOLS!) so he didn't pay much attention when he did listen to it. It seemed that the SBD was destined to gather dust in the Vault for good. So be it. As it was, we had put together a very enjoyable copy of the complete show from AUD and FM sources and treed out what went on to change people's minds about a show that was always thought to be a true low point in 1973. All the folklore-ish rumors about how bad they played, and how without life the show was were put to rest. I still believe that the bad rap given to 7/28/73 in the past stemmed from the atrocious partial AUD that had circulated for years. The SBD arrived and blew my mind. The main problem was that a few songs were missing entirely from the copy. But that would be overcome by the sources I used for the first Watkins Tree (more in a moment). The gremlins and glitches consist mainly of occasional pops or clicks over both dates and a static noise over much of the recording on 7/28. It is at times a slight distraction, while at other times barely audible. It really isn't that distracting from the music at all. Just a little crackling here and there. However, there is a portion of glitching that does get a bit rough. The worst of it comes during the He's Gone>Truckin' where there are some severe buzzes and grounding noises. These get pretty bad for sure. It sounds like some cables are loose and a soundman is trying to rectify the problem time and time again. But when you compare these SBD problems during the He's Gone>Truckin' to the AUD used on the first tree where we get to listen to the taper's buddy ponder his need to go to the bathroom against never finding his way back to his spot in the crowd during the same stretch of songs, I'd say it becomes a bit of a toss up. The severe glitches clear up at about the six minute mark of Truckin' and it's relatively smooth sailing thereafter. This, coupled with a few cuts here and there within a few songs (like a small chunk of vocals missing from Eyes Of The World), rounds out most all that is wrong with the SBD. Also worth noting is that you will discern some recording level discrepancies from tape source to tape source. This was confirmed with the person that I had create the complete show seeds as unavoidable when he compiled the masters. He dealt with them as best he could (Soundforge, etc..) As for the songs that were missing entirely from the copy I received, I will give you all the information I have. I contacted the person who "held" the SBD out of the Vault to find out why these songs were missing. He informed me that they were indeed on the MR, but suffered from tremendous tape speed problem. So bad in fact, that he opted not to transfer them to the copy that made its way into circulation. This lead me to uncover and at the same time solve a real mystery. The facts now seem to indicate that what was used on the first tree as SBD, was in fact from the fabled FM broadcast of the whole show. As any of you who have copies of the show treed in 1998 know, the first 40 minutes of the show came from a SBD/5 seed. Within this first 40 minutes are two of the songs that could not be transferred from the SBDMR due to speed troubles: Here Comes Sunshine and Looks Like Rain. Neither of these songs exhibit any pitch problems at all, and further, they exhibit none of the static noise that prevails over what we have from the SBDMR. Thus, I can only surmise that this chunk that was used on the first tree actually emanated from the allusive FM broadcast made on 7/28/73; the tape for which we scoured many a local radio station in search of, all in vain. When I had in my hands all five of the different source tapes for the first tree back in the summer of 1998, I transferred each one to DAT with the help of a DAT taper buddy of mine. We made two complete DAT copies of everything involved. One set was sent to the person who was to assemble and edit together the Digital Tree, the other was just packed away at my DAT friend's house. It was this second set of DATs that I was able to pull out for use on this tree. Since no fancy splicing and editing was going to be needed for this new tree, we were able to go right to these DATs to fill the gaps in the SBDMR. So everything used here that did not come from the SBDMR is actually one generation cleaner that even the Seed tapes I made to run the old tree. It should be noted that the Encores were not to be found on the MR at all. In fact, E2 occurred some nine hours after the Dead's show that day, so it makes sense that the Reels were not still sitting there ready to roll. The job of editing all of this together fell to a person who shall remain nameless, but he needs to be thanked none the less. He shares my incredibly overbearing sense of detail when it comes to doing this sort of thing, and since I personally am not set up to do anything digitally myself, I needed someone like that in my camp. First off, his cross fade addition of the Bill Graham intro into Bertha sounds even better than the one I did on the Analog Tree. I almost wept tears of joy when I first got the discs back from him, and that |
| Trades Allowed | Yes |
| Lists | AUDIO |
SHNID 180
no regular info file (covers only); see 2 "history" posts; reported flaws: d2t3
(jam > wharf rat) has pops at 4:37, 9:22, 23:42; see pub comments for other flaw notes; circulated with 7/28/73
(jam > wharf rat) has pops at 4:37, 9:22, 23:42; see pub comments for other flaw notes; circulated with 7/28/73
Owned by Everett
· Last Updated Dec 10, 2004
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