| Author | Message | ||
| jacko
Junior Username: jacko Post Number: 21 Registered: 10-2002 |
My mum has been emptying her house and gave me an envelope full of old pictures I had stuck above me desk when I was fairly young. This one of the dead was probably cut from International musician and recording world around 1978. I guess the gig to be around 1974. that's some sound system. graeme  | ||
| palembic
Senior Member Username: palembic Post Number: 1588 Registered: 9-2002 |
Yep ...the buiders of that rig don't do it anymore. They concentrate on building bass-guitars now! Paul the bad one PS: you have to admit that it IS a funny sight: a wall of H 15m x W 30m and as you can see they put a MIKE in front of a cone ?!?!?!?!?! For amplification?!??!?!?!?!?!?!? | ||
| adriaan
Advanced Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 323 Registered: 6-2002 |
Paul, Perhaps the "wall of sound" was miked so they could record the show? Not sure if this was a PA system with someone responsible for the overall mix, or more like a separate PA for each player - then there would not have been a main mixing console where all signals came together. | ||
| dadabass2001
Advanced Member Username: dadabass2001 Post Number: 241 Registered: 6-2002 |
Hi guys, The vocals on the "Wall of Sound" came out of the curved section of smaller speakers (I'm guessing 10s and 2" dome tweeters) flying above the drums. I saw this setup live a couple of times in the early 70's at the Iowa State Fairgrounds. I believe the mixing desk out front was 2or 3 Shure M-67 4 input mixers chained together. Mike | ||
| lbpesq
Junior Username: lbpesq Post Number: 15 Registered: 7-2004 |
I was present at both the unofficial unveiling of the "Wall" (Winterland, February 1974), and the official unveiling (the Cow Palace, March 1974). After the Cow Palace concert, the audience, on the way out, receievd a free 4-song single size 33 rpm sample of tunes off the forthcoming dead family albums. All this for $4! Times have changed. My favorite factoid about the wall is that the tallest colume was 32 feet high. Why 32 feeet you may ask? Phil's bass was quadrophnic - each string had a separate pick-up, each going to its own Mac 2300 power amp. The low E string, played open, put out a wave that was 32 feet from crest to crest. The idea was to produce an entire wave, not just a part of it. The wall took so much time to set up that the Dead had to have two of them, leapfrogging each other around the country as they toured. It sounded incredible but, from what I've read, nearly bankrupted the band. Bill, the guitar one | ||
| hollis
Advanced Member Username: hollis Post Number: 350 Registered: 11-2003 |
I saw it and more importantly, heard it four times in the early '70's.... I'll never be the same. Thanks for the memory jump start.... I needed it. | ||
| hollis
Advanced Member Username: hollis Post Number: 351 Registered: 11-2003 |
Look at the head of Jerry's guitar... looks familiar don't it? | ||
| jacko
Junior Username: jacko Post Number: 23 Registered: 10-2002 |
I believe it's 'the wolf'. Could be wrong though graeme | ||
| hollis
Advanced Member Username: hollis Post Number: 358 Registered: 11-2003 |
Yeah,that's wolf (I do believe it was so named by the wolf cartoon decal/inlay below the tailpiece). I'm going on the assumtion that the decal is what's there in this picture, because Mr. Irwin hasn't removed the Alembic logo (just above the nut) yet.... | ||
| bigideas
Junior Username: bigideas Post Number: 23 Registered: 1-2004 |
i'm sure i'm just blind (or it's the light), but why does it look like wolf only has a single bridge pickup? | ||
| davehouck
Senior Member Username: davehouck Post Number: 874 Registered: 5-2002 |
I tried to clean it up some.  | ||
| jacko
Junior Username: jacko Post Number: 25 Registered: 10-2002 |
If you check out this link http://dozin.com/jers/guitar/history.htm and scroll down to 1974 theres a colour photo of jerry playing wolf - looks like it might be the same gig as the one I posted. On this you can clearly see the three strat style pickups but the scratchplate looks to be very reflective which is probably why they don't show up on the black&white. | ||
| davehouck
Senior Member Username: davehouck Post Number: 875 Registered: 5-2002 |
Makes sense to me. | ||
| adriaan
Advanced Member Username: adriaan Post Number: 328 Registered: 6-2002 |
And a few photos from Wolf I think you can see the peanut guitar in more detail. It's the one with the caption "March and April Jer switches to a custom built guitar. Said to be a Alembic project". Funny how you can become a deadgearhead, even when you never were a deadhead. | ||
| dela217
Senior Member Username: dela217 Post Number: 454 Registered: 6-2002 |
I am a deadgearhead. I love all the gear. I just don't understand the music. | ||
| bigredbass
Advanced Member Username: bigredbass Post Number: 295 Registered: 9-2002 |
Can SOMEBODY give me the 'USA Today' version of the controversy over this guitar? I 've never gotten the straight of it. J o e y | ||
| davehouck
Senior Member Username: davehouck Post Number: 876 Registered: 5-2002 |
Joey; here's what I've been able to quickly patch together this morning. From Susan, http://alembic.com/club/messages/395/11103.html "Doug Irwin worked for Alembic when the instrument now known as the "Wolf" guitar was built. He was an apprentice with no previous guitar buliding experience. The instrument was designed and built at Alembic, originally sporting the Alembic Headstock and logo that Doug later replaced with his own. It did not have the Wolf inlay at first that was added by Doug years later ... Those instruments have had a myriad of changes done to them since their original construction." From Mica, http://alembic.com/club/messages/411/2525.html "Wasn't the story that Jerry put a wolf sticker on the guitar and when Doug repaired the peghead from a fall and refinished the guitar, he made an inlay replica of the sticker?" So it would appear to be the case that Wolf was built by Alembic. Jerry added a wolf sticker. The headstock was damaged in an accident. Irwin, no longer working for Alembic, repaired the headstock and replaced the logo with his own. At the same time, Irwin replaced the wolf sticker with a wolf inlay. The electronics have been modified from the original. Those mods may have been done by Irwin and/or others. I guess the controversy lies in the fact that Irwin removed the Alembic logo and replaced it with his own, thus causing many deadheads and collectors to incorrectly assume that this famous guitar is an "Irwin" guitar. | ||
| flaxattack
Intermediate Member Username: flaxattack Post Number: 164 Registered: 4-2004 |
if you go to dreamin.. look up my "The direwolf" custom. THAT wolf is going on my bal k direwolf custom bass. Susan and i did some alterations to him- there is a preliminary ftc thread. am waiting for the final rendtion | ||
| flaxattack
Intermediate Member Username: flaxattack Post Number: 165 Registered: 4-2004 |
heres anotehr shot of it botton line, ny 7/74 saunders and garcia  | ||
| andrewknight
Junior Username: andrewknight Post Number: 20 Registered: 11-2004 |
Here is a good site for learning about Jerry's guitars. Yep, Wolf began as a sticker that got turned into an inlay by Doug Irwin when Jerry had Doug refinish the guitar. http://dozin.com/jers/guitars.html The interview with Irwin is a good read. AndrewK | ||
| grateful
New Username: grateful Post Number: 2 Registered: 12-2004 |
The first time the PA was set up as a wall with all speakers behind the band was at Boston Music Hall, November 30th 1973. There was no Wolf sticker on Jerry's guitar at that point. | ||
| marcm
Member Username: marcm Post Number: 68 Registered: 12-2003 |
hi mark i was there too, when i was a sophomore at m.i.t. (it seems that we are contemporaries). it was a great show my memory agrees with yours: there was no wolf sticker marc | ||
| grateful
New Username: grateful Post Number: 3 Registered: 12-2004 |
Hi Marc, I was a sophomore at W.P.I. I know there was no wolf sticker because of the photo in Dick's Pick's Vol 14 which features that show. Mark | ||
| bsee
Senior Member Username: bsee Post Number: 698 Registered: 3-2004 |
Hooray for WPI (though I would have been about a dozen years behind you) | ||
| marcm
Member Username: marcm Post Number: 70 Registered: 12-2003 |
hi mark i didn't take the very reasonable step of pulling out the dp14 cd book and checking the pictures. from '72 to '77 i went to shows with pretty much the same group of friends, and the next show i saw with them after the music hall show was the boston garden show the following june (immortalized, so to speak, in dp12). we had binoculars at the garden, and we saw the wolf sticker for the first time: "hey, wow, check that out! i think that's new! what is it? did he have that at the music hall show? i don't think it was there at the music hall" and other comments to that effect. of course we had no way of knowing from 150 feet away whether it was a sticker or an inlay, and for all we knew it could have been a representation of the disney character goofy. i was far more interested in devoting my binoc-time to checking out phil's technique and his bass the next time i saw the dead after that, at the 9 june 1976 boston music hall show, i had the front-row-center seat and jerry had a different guitar, white with a t-shaped cut-out in what looked like an aluminum peghead. a few years later a friend bought an almost-identical-looking guitar, a travis bean marc | ||
| richbass939
Intermediate Member Username: richbass939 Post Number: 104 Registered: 11-2004 |
This thread made me think of a roadie/sound man with a band I saw a bunch of times in the mid 1970s. The rumor was that he had worked with the Dead earlier. His name was Bobby Brandenburg and he went by "Cutter". I don't know why I remember that after 30 years but I'm sure that is his name. Do any of you Deadheads know anything about it, true or false? Rich | ||
| marcm
Member Username: marcm Post Number: 71 Registered: 12-2003 |
rich i'm certainly not an expert on the dead's crew, but i've heard a lot of their names in thirty-five years of being a fan and i don't recall a bobby brandenburg. the nickname 'cutter' sounds vaguely familiar, but it does have a generic 'dead-roadie' kind of sound to it. two vaguely-similar names that come immediately to mind are stewart brand, who was involved in the acid tests; and sam cutler, who managed the proto-dead in the very early days a quick check of 'dark star', 'sweet chaos', and 'living with the dead' didn't turn anything up. i have a good friend in california who knows more lore than i do; i'll ask him marc | ||
| davehouck
Senior Member Username: davehouck Post Number: 1238 Registered: 5-2002 |
In the severties, Stewart Brand was busy publishing the Whole Earth Catalog and the Co-Evolution Quarterly, now known as Whole Earth. http://www.wholeearthmag.com/ | ||
| richbass939
Intermediate Member Username: richbass939 Post Number: 106 Registered: 11-2004 |
Marc, Thanks for looking into it. I don't know of too much more that might help. I know it wasn't Cutler; it definitely was Cutter. He was a BIG guy with straight dark hair and glasses (I think). He had a little bit of a limp from polio as a kid, so I was told. But I do remember that he could pick up and carry two Marshall bottoms with a lead head on top. If he did in fact have a "disability" it certainly didn't slow him down. Rich | ||
| lbpesq
Advanced Member Username: lbpesq Post Number: 307 Registered: 7-2004 |
Check out the pictures accompanying this ebay listing for a wolf guitar magnet. Great "before" (Alembic) and "after" (Irwin) pictures of Jerry's Wolf guitar. Make sure you scroll down to see both. It looks like the earlier picture still has the wolf decal, before the inlay. Also check out the peghead where, above the Alembic logo, is what looks like one of those bent-over flute playing figures you see in New Mexico all over the place (I can't remember the name, but I know there is one). http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=447&item=3871151314&rd=1 Bill, tgo | ||
| richbass939
Intermediate Member Username: richbass939 Post Number: 130 Registered: 11-2004 |
Bill, I think you're referring to Cocopeli (spelling?). He's a god of sexuality or libido or something like that. I'm not sure that he's the thing on on the head. I couldn't see it very clearly, though. Rich | ||
| tom_z
Intermediate Member Username: tom_z Post Number: 103 Registered: 7-2004 |
According to the little Irwin blurb on the ebay page, it's a peacock inlay, which was eventually replaced with the eagle inlay. I must say, I can't actually read it as a peacock . . . ??? | ||
| bob
Advanced Member Username: bob Post Number: 364 Registered: 11-2002 |
Don't know much about the Dead, but the flute player referred to above might be Kokopelli (perhaps sometimes with one L). Dates back to the Anasazi, in what is now Colorado. | ||
| davehouck
Senior Member Username: davehouck Post Number: 1299 Registered: 5-2002 |
Thanks Bob; here's a pic from: http://4dw.net/geolor/Geolors_Exclusive_Designs_Graphics_By_Lorrie.htm  |
