Category: Jerry Garcia

The Grateful Dead :: The 1975 Ace’s Sessions (2026 Edition)

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There are Dead Freaks … and then there are Dead Freaks. If you find yourself in the latter category, point your browser immediately over to the always-excellent Save Your Face blog, where you’ll find a massive collection of rehearsal sessions at Bob Weir’s home studio — Ace’s. It was there that the Grateful Dead holed up in 1975 to dream up their Blues For Allah LP up from scratch. And by massive, we mean it: the tapes total just about 24 hours.

More From The Vault :: The Grateful Dead in 1975

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Just about 50 years ago, the Grateful Dead took the stage at the Great American Musical Hall, a newly opened 500-capacity club in downtown San Francisco. The ensuing show, captured on a sparkling 16-track recording, was eventually released in 1991 as One From The Vault. As its title suggests, the double-disc set was the Dead’s first dip back into their live archives, kicking off a cavalcade of concert tapes that continues to this day.

Nineteen-seventy-five is one of the stranger years in the Grateful Dead’s long, strange trip. The band played only three other shows in addition to the GAMH gig, all hometown affairs, all fairly different from one another, all very much worth your time. Now at Aquarium Drunkard, a brief listening guide follows …

Legion Of Mary :: Oriental Theatre | Milwaukee, WI, 1975 WZMF

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Summer approaches and we’re once again under the spell of Legion of Mary, the short-lived bay area live outfit that was home to players Jerry Garcia, Merle Saunders, John Kahn, Martin Fierro and Ron Tutt. Performing around 60 shows between July 1974 to July 1975, the band’s spirited performance at Milwaukee’s Oriental Theatre in April of ’75 is one of their best in circulation, and one that, thus far, has yet to see an official release.

Bonus Tracks, Vol. 1: Jerry Garcia, Gram Parsons, David Bowie

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The compact disc era brought with it endless reissues of old albums — and to entice us all into buying those old albums for the second, third or fourth time, they often included bonus tracks. Was there a fair amount of barrel scraping as the years went by? Oh yeah. But there were also plenty of completely awesome sounds that gave us fresh perspectives on classic LPs and artists. In this new, ongoing Aquarium Drunkard column, we’ll be diving back into our CD collections to highlight some of the very best bonus tracks …

Dead Notes :: The Re-Up, Vol. 1-15

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Back by popular demand: for the first time since 2018, we’ve just re-upped the entirety of the music featured in our Dead Notes column, as penned by D Norsen from 2013-18. Get ’em while they’re hot. The two PDF zines included.

For heads, by heads.

Ned Lagin :: The Aquarium Drunkard Interview

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Experimental composer Ned Lagin began composing Seastones during his time at MIT, building off of his love of free jazz and his studies of Renaissance music. But it took firmer shape through jams and recording sessions with various members of the Dead (Garcia, Mickey Hart, Phil Lesh) and other Bay Area luminaries like David Crosby and Jefferson Airplane’s Grace Slick. Originally issued by Jerry Garcia’s Round Records, it’s being reissued by Important Records. Lagin joined us to discuss the triumph and heartbreak of this pioneering electronic work.