#65368  by Dozin
 
I highly doubt it. The B3 has been with Jeff ever since he's been with Bob.

Image
 #65370  by jdsmodulus
 
DSO did use Brents B3 for a minute I will look for pics. I forget what year or what show but I saw pics of it and they talked about it on their forum.
 #65372  by Dozin
 
YIKES! and what happen to their keyboardist? :shock:
 #65373  by jdsmodulus
 
Dozin wrote:YIKES! and what happen to their keyboardist? :shock:
thats really not that funny! I also am pretty sure that Rob B plays one of Brents yamaha's right now!
 #65374  by Dozin
 
I wasn't laughing!
 #65377  by mttourpro
 
jdsmodulus wrote:
Dozin wrote:YIKES! and what happen to their keyboardist? :shock:
thats really not that funny! I also am pretty sure that Rob B plays one of Brents yamaha's right now!
Yeah---that's partly why I thought DSO did have it, because I remember talking about how uncanny it was that yet another (GD-based) keyboardist died. Maybe Jerry was really on to something with that superstition.
 #65385  by NashvilleMike
 
Dozin'-
Where do you get all those great shots? Did you take them yourself? Is there someplace online I can just flip through and look at more pics like that?
 #65386  by NashvilleMike
 
BTW if you go all through the history of the dead and look at pics from all the different eras and line ups....

NOTHING says "get ready to go!!" like Jerry with Tiger and Brent at the B-3. Makes my pulse quicken just to see it, hell yeah...like Pavlov's dog.
 #65397  by Dozin
 
No but it would be hard to take the stickers off and have UV damage it the right spots
 #65398  by jdsmodulus
 
I cant seem to find those pics from DSO although there are a few on Flickr that show Rob B with the B3 just not identifiable, I left him a message to chime in when he gets a chance. Im sure he will!
 #65400  by Rusty the Scoob
 
Dozin wrote:No but it would be hard to take the stickers off and have UV damage it the right spots
Yep. :lol: That would be tough.

That's pretty sweet, I wonder how he got the real deal. That B3 is a piece of history.
 #65408  by Dozin
 
Like everything else, the equipment belong to the band. Tax purposes.
 #65409  by jdsmodulus
 
I was thinking about some pics that I've seen and I'm not sure where I saw this one so chime in if it sounds familiar. It was a pic of metal racks like at a store in a warehouse (probably le front or coca-cola not sure) but, it had like 10 BK Butler's a bunch af ADA units some TC and a few GT Trios, basically a huge amount of "the Gear" just kind of sitting there. I also visited the warehouse at Bel Keys back in 95 right after the Laguna Seca dayz and I remember seeing a TON of rigging and scaffolding for the outside stages just sitting there in the rain it was kinda sad.
 #65411  by playingdead
 
DSO never had Brent's B3.

Scott Larned bought Brent's Yamaha GS-1 FM synth from the 83-86 era off Brent's widow not long before he (Larned) died. That's the keyboard that replaced the CP-70 electric grand in 82 (which in turn replaced the Rhodes). It's most familiar and distinctive sound is the marimba-xylophone-wooden-mallet-like piano patch you hear on Tons of Steel (and lots of other tunes from that era). It also had a patch that was sort of a cross between a piano and a harpsichord he would use on softer tunes where the marimba-type sound would have been intrusive. It was a big heavy wooden beast of a keyboard. It cost about $25k new then, weighed 200 pounds and was the precursor to the FM synths like the DX-7.

Here's a (double) photo of it with Brent.

Image

Scott played it on a few DSO shows before he passed away. No idea what became of it from then.

I have pretty strong feelings about the other issues raised here.

Having seen numerous Dead shows starting in 1978, 93-95 was pretty much a total loss to my ears, both what I've heard on the tapes and what I witnessed in person. The FOH sound was bad after Healy was gone. Jerry's tone was bad after the amps were gone. The high vocal harmonies were bad after Brent was gone. The scene itself had become larger and uglier. But those are my ears.

Sure, some shows were decent, stuff was happening, and Jerry could rise above all those things and make some magic happen in spots, but those spots were few and far between come 1995. By that point, it seemed like Jerry would check in for a few songs, and be nodding off the rest of the time. My last show was 4-7-95 in Tampa, and despite a nice reading of Visions of Johanna in the first set, a decent Loose Lucy and a pretty good Eyes to open the second set, he was largely absent the rest of the show, with some spots of playing (Samba in the Rain and Unbroken Chain) where he just sounded completely lost and was clamming all over the place.

I also agree heavily with Dozin, the MIDI stuff, and Garcia's in particular, did nothing for me. An interminable Row Jimmy from 1990 with that lame flute-like Korg M1 patch would have been 1000 times better with just clean, perfect sparkling Garcia guitar tone, a little slide, a little straight guitar. Give me Jerry's Tiger tone, Weir's early 80s tone (over that abrasive tone he copped later) with a good old organic Brent Rhodes or CP70 and B3, Phil's bass and the straight acoustic drums and let it rock. That was the pinnacle sonically to me -- at least in terms of what I witnessed live. Then, because everyone's sound was stable and in one fixed pallete, it was all about the playing and the reading of the tunes night to night, not the effects and the MIDI and Octobans and Roto-toms and the sampled drums. It seemed like they had become bored and then got swept up in the technology, which wasn't so great at that point anyway.

PIck any show from 1973 and why is it interesting and endlessly inventive? Because Jerry played a simple Strat-type guitar into a Twin with only a wah pedal for the really spacey jams, Weir played an ES-335, Keith played a real piano, Phil played a bass and Billy played a kick, three toms and a snare. All the innovation, all the magic, everything came from the players, not the toys.

(And letting Bralove monkey around with Welnick's tone from the side of the stage was ridiculous. The organ tone sucked, the synth tones sounded cheesy against Hornsby's Yamaha piano -- like a calliope. At least in 95, as weak as a lot of the shows were, Vince was back to a more or less straight piano sound, and he was really driving the band and keeping it together when Jerry was checked out.)

The whole decline was just a tragedy to watch, especially for those of us who saw the real magic happening in the 70s and 80s (and 1990).
Last edited by playingdead on Fri Sep 04, 2009 9:39 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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