Good evening, Kibitzers!
I’m writing before the Monday hearings, so am still currently shaking my head over the first session. The lineup for the next few, as reported by Deadline.com last Friday, is:
Hearing 3, June 15 will target Trump’s alleged plot to influence and possibly replace the U.S. Attorney General in order to further false election claims. Set to testify are Jeffrey Rosen, who was then acting attorney general, his deputy Richard Donoghue and Justice Department official Steve Engel. The Post says their testimony will take place in the morning.
Hearing 4 is intended to outline Trump’s efforts to pressure VP Mike Pence to stop the electoral count. There is some indication this hearing will take place Thursday, June 16. Greg Jacob, the former chief counsel to the vice president will reportedly testify.
Hearing 5, June 21 will trace the then-president’s alleged efforts to unduly influence state legislators and election officials. Brad Raffensperger, secretary of state of Georgia and Gabriel Sterling, one his top aides, have been subpoenaed to testify.
I’ve been seeing a lot of reports this month of big storms in the midwest and southeast. It’s been unusually rainy here, while I know you all in the west would love some storms. I wish I could distribute the rain more equitably!
I got a rainy Grateful Dead earworm the other day and, on reflection, realized the Dead have quite a few songs regarding wind and rain — oh, the dreadful wind and rain. See? Now you have it too. Don’t worry, because they’ve got lots of others to maybe drive that one out of your head.
First, the earworm: actually just Jerry, with David Grisman in 1992 at San Francisco’s Warfield Theater. [4:38]
RFK Stadium, Washington D.C. in 1991, with Bruce Hornsby on piano: Black-Throated Wind is from Bob Weir’s 1972 solo album Ace, but like most of the tracks on that album, it was absorbed into the Dead’s repertoire. [6:24]
JFK Stadium, Philadelphia, 1989: Phil does a very nice Box of Rain. [4:42]
New Year’s Eve 1982 at the Oakland Auditorium: Cold Rain and Snow, just in case the rain by itself was not dreadful enough. [6:28]
Rockpalast in Essen, Germany, 1981: Looks Like Rain. [8:31]
Madison Square Garden, New York, 1990, again with Bruce Hornsby: There’s not a lot of I Know You Rider available without China Cat Sunflower in front of it, so it’ll be a while before the March winds and the cool Colorado rain turn up. [14:59]
This Easy Wind is from a half-hour set the Dead played live in 1970 at the studios of KQED in San Francisco, broadcast on PBS with the program name Calebration [sic]. It was underwritten by Lafayette Radio, who used their mention at the top of the show to tout the spiffy new TEAC four-channel recorder. The video quality is not great, plus those psychedelic effects haven’t aged that well, but it’s still fun to look at old pictures. You can hear good audio of the whole set here if you’re so inclined. [7:04]
Jerry Garcia Band in 1980, at the Capitol Theatre in Passaic, NJ: Mission In The Rain. [12:49]
Winterland, 1974: The YouTube notes tell us this was the last complete live performance of Weather Report Suite. The Dead subsequently abandoned the first two sections and performed only Let It Grow in concerts. [16:12]
The Spectrum in Philadelphia, March 1995: The Beatles’ Rain was the encore at this show. It’s the Dead, so, obviously they sing the backwards part too. [4:07]
This 1969 clip is from Playboy After Dark, a syndicated TV show hosted by Hugh Hefner. It was supposed to represent a party at Hefner’s — that’s why the setting is so cringe. (When I saw Bob Weir in this, I had to go look up whether he was actually old enough at the time to be in a place like that, because he looks about 15 to me. In fact, he had been 21 for three whole months.) This version of St. Stephen seems to have a few holes in it, but the wind and rain are still there. [4:01]
Madison Square Garden, New York, 1991: Branford Marsalis adds some wonderful saxophone to Franklin’s Tower. The audio is fine, but for some reason, at about 1:45, the video briefly gets… odd, and then freezes. It does come back, however, just after the three-minute mark. If you get confused, listen to the music play. [10:13]
May the four winds blow you safely home!