Completely Conspicuous 503: Workingman's Dead

I'm joined by guest Phil Stacey as we discuss the Grateful Dead's 1970 album Workingman's Dead. Show notes: - Recorded at CompCon world HQ - First show of the new year - Workingman's Dead is the band's 4th studio album - First of two releases in '70 - Recorded in nine days - Stripped down sound, less psychedelic - Garcia and Robert Hunter wrote the whole album - Folk, country, Americana elements - Rock was moving away from psychedelia, toward singer-songwriters and acoustic sounds - Bookended by two of the band's biggest songs - More of an emphasis on vocals like Crosby, Stills and Nash - "Suite Judy Blue Eyes" as a torture device - Phil: Prefer live Dead, but still break out the studio albums on occasion - Warm sounding record - "New Speedway Boogie" is about Altamont - Recently covered by Courtney Barnett - Hunter's solo releases are all over the place - Jay: Only heard two songs before - Fairly concise album; not much jamming - Moved away from acid blues into a new direction - "Easy Wind," sung by Pigpen, was the outlier - Like the Entwistle song on a Who album - "Casey Jones" evolved in an interesting way over the years - Talking about cocaine - Next up: American Beauty Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.