Stronger than dirt or milkin' the turkey (Grateful Dead) (LP 2003 -2005)

The Grateful Dead   Vintage Dead/Historic Dead (Vinyl, Sunflower/Polydor Records, 1972) ****  

The Grateful Dead   Anthem Of The Sun (Vinyl, Warner Brothers Records, 1968) ****  

Grateful Dead   Blues For Allah (Vinyl, Grateful Dead Records Records, 1975) ****  

Genre: San Francisco rock 

Places I remember: All three from My Music (Taupo) a few weekends ago

Fab, and all the other pimply hyperboles: Crazy Fingers (Blues For Allah)

Gear costume: Dancing In The Streets (Vintage Dead) 

Active compensatory factors: These three albums were a real find - sitting in one of the three second hand bins in My Music. We were on a weekend retreat to Taupo and I couldn't believe my luck. I'd been looking for a copy of Blues For Allah for a while and there it was with the other two.

Even more of a bonus - I can't believe how good they sound on Vintage Dead and Historic Dead. Both come from live tapes made in 1966 at San Francisco's The Matrix club. That's a year before their debut studio album!

On extended workouts they sound eerily recognizable as the Grateful Dead they would evolve to be through the sixties and seventies. The sound isn't as good as it would become but it's still a really worthwhile purchase.

I've always shied away from Anthem Of The Sun. I'd figured that an LSD fuelled recording session with the band overlaying like tracks with studio ones would be an unholy mess.

Man alive! Was I wrong! It sounds great - very experimental, sure, but wholly recognisable as the Dead. I'd liken it a little to Jefferson Airplane's psychedelic epic After Bathing At Baxter's. Both albums are kind of anomalies in their catalogue, but, unlike the Stones' Their Satanic Majesties Request mess, they successfully explore new psychedelic territory while being listenable. Quite a trick really.

Blues For Allah comes while the band were on hiatus in 1975. It's on their own label which possibly explains why I've struggled to find a copy for so long.

It's also quite experimental as the band were working out these songs in Bob Weir's home studio. Unusual time schemes and the twisting turning song structures are intriguing! I love their lengthy workouts like Terrapin Station. In this case the whole of side two plays like one long song suite, even though its really five individual songs.

Where do they all belong? I'm not really a Dead completist - there are a plethora of live albums that I'm not that keen on collecting but if I come across them on vinyl I'd be tempted. Aoxomoxoa from 1969 is the only studio album I'm missing so I'd be keen to get that at some point.