Grateful Dead – Fox Theatre, St. Louis, MO, December 10, 1971 and Madison Square Garden, New York, March 9, 1981: My go-to era for the Dead is the Pigpen years, so I picked the St. Louis show to kick off a recent road trip from Baltimore to Long Island. While it was everything I like about early ‘70s Dead, it didn’t fit my mood. I decided to try the MSG show from ’81. The warmth and joy of this recording immediately pulled me in, and led me to a realization that seems obvious in retrospect: It’s not that I don’t like the Brent Mydland years, it’s that I haven’t paid enough attention to them. The 1981 show reminded me of all the reasons I fell in love with the Dead’s music—the story songs, the imperfectly lovely harmonies, the flow of energy, the excitement that radiates through the speakers—after spending most of my life hating the band.
Dennis Ferrer – House Legends (Blue Version): The second leg of last week’s road trip was driving from Long Island to northern NJ, a trip that usually takes about two hours but pushed four thanks to an immense rain storm. The Dead wasn’t the right soundtrack for that kind of drive, but this 3+ hour Ferrer compilation kept me smiling for the entire trip. The sequence from tracks 7 – 11 embodies everything I love about house music.
Julie Byrne – The Greatest Wings: I listened to this twice last week. It enthralled me once and bored me the other, but both times it make me realize how much I miss listening to Rachael Yamagata.