Alembic Guitars Club

Alembic products => Showcase => Artists and Their Alembics => Topic started by: jacko on September 16, 2004, 02:18:57 AM

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: jacko on September 16, 2004, 02:18:57 AM

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(http://club.alembic.com/Images/411/12768.jpg)

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: palembic on September 16, 2004, 02:43:10 AM

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?!??!?!?!?!?!?!?

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: adriaan on September 16, 2004, 03:10:28 AM

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.

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: dadabass2001 on September 16, 2004, 05:36:02 AM

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

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: lbpesq on September 16, 2004, 08:02:21 AM

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

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: hollis on September 16, 2004, 11:10:19 AM

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.

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: hollis on September 16, 2004, 11:24:11 AM

Look at the head of Jerry's guitar... looks familiar don't it?

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: jacko on September 17, 2004, 05:35:59 AM

I believe it's 'the wolf'. Could be wrong though
 
graeme

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: hollis on September 17, 2004, 11:31:12 AM

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....

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: bigideas on September 22, 2004, 11:05:11 AM

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?

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: David Houck on September 22, 2004, 11:55:40 AM

I tried to clean it up some.
 
(http://club.alembic.com/Images/411/12920.jpg)
 

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: jacko on September 23, 2004, 01:07:44 AM

If you check out this link  
http://dozin.com/jers/guitar/history.htm (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.

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: David Houck on September 23, 2004, 05:49:23 AM

Makes sense to me.

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: adriaan on September 23, 2004, 06:20:29 AM

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.

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: dela217 on September 23, 2004, 07:26:08 AM

I am a deadgearhead.  I love all the gear.  I just don't understand the music.

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: bigredbass on September 23, 2004, 10:08:24 PM

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

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: David Houck on September 24, 2004, 07:04:47 AM

Joey; here's what I've been able to quickly patch together this morning.
 
From Susan,
http://club.alembic.com/Images/395/11103.html (http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=15162)
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://club.alembic.com/Images/411/2525.html (http://club.alembic.com/index.php?topic=8201)
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.

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: flaxattack on October 11, 2004, 12:32:04 PM

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

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: flaxattack on October 11, 2004, 12:37:24 PM

heres anotehr shot of it
botton line, ny 7/74
saunders and garcia(http://club.alembic.com/Images/411/13322.jpg)

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: andrewknight on December 01, 2004, 06:48:43 AM

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 (http://dozin.com/jers/guitars.html)
 
The interview with Irwin is a good read.
 
AndrewK

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: grateful on January 05, 2005, 06:34:59 AM

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.

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: marcm on January 05, 2005, 07:34:02 AM

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

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: grateful on January 10, 2005, 07:29:14 AM

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

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: bsee on January 14, 2005, 11:45:18 PM

Hooray for WPI (though I would have been about a dozen years behind you)

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: marcm on January 15, 2005, 09:05:50 AM

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

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: richbass939 on January 15, 2005, 02:24:07 PM

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

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: marcm on January 16, 2005, 07:29:57 AM

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

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: David Houck on January 16, 2005, 08:10:13 AM

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/ (http://www.wholeearthmag.com/)

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: richbass939 on January 16, 2005, 01:24:26 PM

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

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: lbpesq on February 01, 2005, 01:05:15 PM

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 (http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=447&item=3871151314&rd=1)
 
Bill, tgo

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: richbass939 on February 01, 2005, 06:13:49 PM

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

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: tom_z on February 01, 2005, 07:40:29 PM

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 . . . ???

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: bob on February 01, 2005, 11:07:24 PM

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.

Title: Grateful dead
Post by: David Houck on February 02, 2005, 06:26:19 AM

Thanks Bob; here's a pic from:
http://4dw.net/geolor/Geolors_Exclusive_Designs_Graphics_By_Lorrie.htm (http://4dw.net/geolor/Geolors_Exclusive_Designs_Graphics_By_Lorrie.htm)
 
 

(http://alembic.com/club/messages/411/16210.jpg)