GRATEFUL DEAD Vinyl & CDs

Review: Here is a great example at the power of the reissue market. A series of live recordings were released on CD only starting in 1994 from the band's tape archivist Dick Latvala. When the vinyl boom kicked back into heavy gear with reissues in 2012, some of these Grateful Dead were brought to vinyl for the first time. Like many things with the band, their fans are devoted as much as any in music history. Then you have another variable that adds to the demand: A band known for their live performances that are individually different in many ways over the years. Thus, prices went out of control for these costing as much as a Ferrari monthly payment. Thankfully, these are starting to get a another pressing. Volume two is highly regarded because of the live jam version of Dark Star. An ideal track to show the amazing live ability of the band. This version comes in double vinyl form with a very nice gatefold.

Review: The ninth studio album by the Grateful Dead, Terrapin Station came after a two-year hiatus by the band, who afterward returned to live touring and high-concept jazz-rocking. Something of an achievement in defining the more mathematic elements of prog at the time, several of the songs heard across the album deal in time signatures less common to the Westernized ear, with perhaps the most enduring of them all, 'Estimated Prophet', having been recorded in septuple time. Perhaps mirroring this sense of rhythmic ambition verging on megalomaniac grandeur, the album, seemingly springing forth from this central song, deals throughout with themes of false-prophetic grandiosity - cultic self-aggrandisement - that seemed to emanate from California and the West Coast at the time, especially in the immediate aftermath of the counterculture and in the more musical annals of history in the then-unfurling latter half of the 20th Century.

Review: Terrapin Station is the ninth studio album by Grateful Dead, and it captures the band as they moved into a new era following a two year hiatus from touring. It's notable they were paired by their new label Arista to work with producer Keith Olsen, who brought a cleaner finish to the band in a move away from their rawer psychedelic origins. The recording process was focused on a more palatable end result than the wild frontiers of their early days, but that didn't stop them from laying down sprawling, proggy epics like the 16-minute long title track. Originally released in 1977, it's landmark release in the band's mountainous back catalogue, repressed here on translucent green vinyl.

Review: On July 9th 1995, Jerry Garcia had just turned 53 and took the sated for what would be the very pastime with The Grateful Dead. It was evident fo all in attendance at this gig in Chicago that he was a very ill man - his face was pallid, his body was shaking. The whole tour is said to have been something of a disaster form start to finish but there are times in this set that all that was forgotten and Gerry manages to working his magic and make for some real musical bliss. This double album was The Grateful Dead's last ever concert with Jerry, who died in his sleep a week later on August 9th 1995. It is now pressed to vinyl for the first time.