For those with a Casady tone obsession

[fronobulax]

Modified Fender in one, modified Starfire in the other.

I think the first is 1967 and the second is later but I will defer to @mellowgerman to provide more precise and informed guesses about dates and locations. (I'll also thank him for sharing the first one with me).

Definitely two different bass tones to my ears. I might eventually figure out the words to describe the differences.

 

[mellowgerman]

Definitely fun to compare the two! I know Frono is aware of this, but both videos are mis-dated. The first is from August or September 1967 and the second is from February 1970 (if memory serves correctly), so it's safe to say about 2.5years apart. The first has Jack's modified Jazz Bass and the later video features Jack's 2nd modified Starfire bass.

Some important variables to note would be the lesser fidelity of the first recording and the fact that the amps were almost certainly different. I'm not sure if Jack was gigging with the Versatone Panoflex amp yet in August/September 67... so best guess would be cranked Fender Showman amps? Hard to tell what's behind them in that video. On the flipside, for the February 70 performance, I'm certain the Panoflex was cooking in full roaring glory, which Jack openly attributes as a key component of his tone.

In any case, if we had a clean isolated track of Jack on the Jazz and another of Jack on a Starfire, running into the same amp, there would without a doubt be a noticeable difference to a listener with an ear for different bass tones. In a live mix though, the lines get blurred a bit, but you'll still hear that common thread between the two, the Jackness, which undeniably is a unique and identifiable style, created by the man's hands/brain/heart/juju/mojo/etc.

 

[Minnesota Flats]

Audio below sounds like the studio track off "Crown of Creation" to me.

Fun to watch for the visuals, though. Have never seen Jorma holding an SG before:

 

[Minnesota Flats]

 

[lungimsam]

I don't hear any diff between the two basses, especially when I also utilize "the worst of" album (all Jazz Bass, I think) against these recordings. All sounds the same to me. Just sounds like Jack and cranked amps. I definitely like his tone though. Grindy and rubbery/flabby. Nice!

 

[Minnesota Flats]

If 6 was 9...if Phil was Jack:



For the sake of comparison, same song, a year later (but, to be fair, Phil would've been "just a bit" more familiar with both the song and Garcia's playing style/tendencies):

 

[fronobulax]

Audio sounds like the studio track off "Crown of Creation" to me.

???

Ballad was on After Bathing at Baxter's.

If this is a case of mixing concert footage with studio audio then I am offended.

I did some playing of all three and I don't think they are the same. The studio and the 1970, alleged 1967 recordings seem to me to be at different pitches. That certainly can be done by manipulating tape speed but if that is the case then why?

The rhythm guitar at the opening is not identical in all three and the bass comes in at different places in the beginning. The drummer doesn't sound the same to me in the 70 and the others but then that could be confirmation bias on my part. I won't mention the bass solos or lack thereof.

Did I misunderstand your comment or are you hearing things I'm not or are you much more willing to explain things by studio tricks than I am?

Thanks.

 

[Minnesota Flats]

???

Ballad was on After Bathing at Baxter's.

If this is a case of mixing concert footage with studio audio then I am offended.

I did some playing of all three and I don't think they are the same. The studio and the 1970, alleged 1967 recordings seem to me to be at different pitches. That certainly can be done by manipulating tape speed but if that is the case then why?

The rhythm guitar at the opening is not identical in all three and the bass comes in at different places in the beginning. The drummer doesn't sound the same to me in the 70 and the others but then that could be confirmation bias on my part. I won't mention the bass solos or lack thereof.

Did I misunderstand your comment or are you hearing things I'm not or are you much more willing to explain things by studio tricks than I am?

Thanks.

My comment was about the "If You Feel Like China Breaking" video I posted, not about the posts above it, not "Balled". Sorry if that wasn't clear. Just edited it to make it more so.

 

[lungimsam]

If 6 was 9...if Phil was Jack:



For the sake of comparison, same song, a year later (but, to be fair, Phil would've been "just a bit" more familiar with both the song and Garcia's playing style/tendencies):

That "Jack" 10/30/68 track sounds like someone playing with a pick. And definitely not Jackish tone. Just sayin'!!! The bassist's musical ideas doesn't sound like the ideas of Jack or Phil to me. Not that I know enough/anything about Jacks or Phils playing. But based on what I have heard from them. But what do I know? I was only 2.5 months olde and in a foster home when that track was cut. The olde timers here who have been lifelong listeners of JA and Dead would have to chime in on their opinions. Maybe someone was there.

 

[lungimsam]

Whenever I listen to the Dead, I feel two emotions. On the one hand, I enjoy the intoxicating beauty of some of their playing. But on the other hand I also feel dread and fearful when I listen because of the ugliness of the drug culture that was going on in those days. And that the music is related to that activity. I am not commenting on anyone's character, just the activity at the time, in those days, in that cultural movement. Nevertheless, I really enjoy Phil's playing and tone. I think I like his playing and tone better than Jack Casady's.

 

[Minnesota Flats]

I lived through those times and spent most of it in the SF Bay Area. Early on, there was a lot of hope that enlightened youth was on the verge of bringing about monumental, positive, societal change. It started to become obvious fairly quickly that that hope, however well intended, was largely the result of a baseline frame of reference generously leavened with naivety and conclusions drawn during drug-altered states of consciousness. A lot of wishful assumptions were made which simply flew in the face of the hard reality that human nature has its undeniably evil side, one that has a nasty habit of disrupting utopian daydreams. A substantial number of predators, con men, and assorted sociopaths, who had also been drawn to SF by "The Summer of Love", saw all "the beautiful people" as so much easy prey.

I remember walking through the Haight in about 1968, and noticing that the "ugly" was starting to show through the cracks in "peace, love and understanding". Weed and psychedelics were slowly giving way to speed and smack, with predictable results. The Altamont concert in 1969 put an exclamation point on that inexorable trend. When Marty Balin was knocked unconscious on stage by a HA while trying to play peacemaker that, for me, put the final, inevitable, symbolic nail in the coffin of hippie.

All that said, I can still listen to and enjoy most of the great music that was produced while all that was going on. I keep tons of it in my listening rotation. I see it as something of value that came out of an era when lots of not-so-good stuff happened.

 

[Minnesota Flats]

Unfortunately, Starfire #2 gets a bit lost in the mix for a lot of this, but it is what it is. Exit Spencer Dryden, enter Joey Covington:

 

[Minnesota Flats]

Here's the J-bass, with P-bass pups added in the neck position. Pause @ .08 and note odd position of output jack. Does this mean that he had a jack for the J-pass pups and a separate one for the P-bass pups and would plug in according to which he wanted to use on a given song?

I suspect that Mellow, or someone else who has done a deeper dive into Casady's gear than I have will know the answer:

 

[Minnesota Flats]

 

[mellowgerman]

Thank you to @Minnesota Flats for your first-hand accounts of the times. I always love reading honest, personal recollections like this.

I would also say that the '68 Dark Star jam is very very likely to be mislabeled, like so much of this era's live performance recordings floating around the web. That does not sound like Jack to me. It also doesn't sound like typical/iconic Phil bassing, but it really might be him. '68 would have been early enough that Phil was barely playing bass guitar for 3 years and still coming into his own. It sounds like a pick for sure and not unlike some of the technique and sounds we hear on Anthem of The Sun.

"Go To Her" has long been one of my Airplane favorites and I love both studio versions of it (there was one recorded during the Takes Off sessions and one during the Surrealistic Pillow sessions). Somehow neither was chosen to be on either album, when I would argue that it would have been the best song on either release. Regardless, both are great examples of the Jack's modified jazz bass.

Regarding the output jack on the jazz bass, I've never seen a photo where two cables were visible and I believe the odd positioning of the output jack was just a creative decision on Jack's bass when it was rewired to accommodate the extra pickup. My best guess is that a hole was drilled in the plate for the single/mono output jack in the unused area between what would have originally been the concentric vol/tone stacks for each of the original pickups, the controls were scootched back and the single/mono output jack was inserted in the hole closest to the strings. It looks like the original output jack hole was used for the added P pickup's volume (if not a 3rd vol/tone stack). Hard to say though, as I've never seen a particularly clear, close shot of that bass. Again though, I've never seen two cables coming from that bass, so I don't think there was an extra output jack added.

One of my favorite recordings of that bass was the Takes Off tune "Let Me In", which I doctored up a bit to isolate as well as possible, Jack's bass, Skip's drums, and Paul's vocals, from the rest of the mix. Again, one must take into account Jack's unique technique and the (most likely) Fender Showman amps, but the tone is killer here too:

 

[Minnesota Flats]

Mellow,
Mea culpa: I was in kind of a hurry when I posted those two versions of Dark Star. I didn't listen to enough of that clip (the one that supposedly has Jack playing in it) or listen to it carefully enough before I posted the link. Having now gone back and given it proper attention/scrutiny, I agree with you: that doesn't sound like Jack's tone, nor does it sound like his approach: way too busy and meandering for starters.

BTW: thanks for indulging my unsolicited, armchair critique of 1960s youth culture. Lungimsam's comment sort of set me off because I sometimes also have some of those same, ambivalent feelings he expressed. I was personally fortunate enough to pass through the gauntlet of excessive behaviors typical of those times and come out the other side relatively unscathed. Many others were not so lucky.

 

[chazmo]

Veer: Is the Dark Star song somehow related to the advent of the Hammond Dark Star pickups? Just curious if anyone knows.

 

[mellowgerman]

Veer: Is the Dark Star song somehow related to the advent of the Hammond Dark Star pickups? Just curious if anyone knows.

I've always assumed in relative certainty that it's where the name of the pickup came from. Being one of the more well known psychedelic exploratory tunes, that the Dead have played live regularly since '68 (this is definitely an early recording of the tune), I'm pretty sure it's what inspired Fred Hammon's choice of name for his pickup.

 

[mgod]

I was involved in the decision. I objected to it.

 

[edwin]

I was involved in the decision. I objected to it.

I'm curious what other names might have been bandied about. Regardless, I still love the ones I have in my SG bass.