Description
The Grateful Dead – Anthem Of The Sun (LP)
Label: Warner Bros. Records – K 46021
Format: Vinyl, LP, Album, Reissue
Country: UK
Released: ?
Tracklist:
That’s It For The Other One
A1a Cryptical Envelopement
A1b Quadlibet For Tenderfeet
A1c The Faster We Go The Rounder We Get
A1d We Leave The Castle
A2 New Potatoe Caboose
A3 Born Cross-Eyed
B1 Alligator
B2 Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)
Distributed By – WEA Records Ltd.
Printed By – Garrod & Lofthouse
Notes:
“Printed and made by Garrod & Lofthouse Ltd.” credit on the right side of the back cover.
Reissue from the mid-late 70’s. Back cover is black and white.
On the label is “Made in UK” above 33⅓ RPM, Warner’s W on the rim text two o’clock.
Track A1d “We Leave The Castle” only on label, not back cover.
Vinyl and Cover in very good condition. Pricesticker residue on front cover. Address stamp and sello-tape inside the cover and on one side of the label. See photo’s for details.
+++++++++++ This time all the material was written by the group and they devised a new recording strategy: mixing the live and studio versions. It took six months and four different studios. Producer Dave Hassinger parted with the group because he found it impossible to work with them. So it was down to Jerry and Phil, together with Dan Healy, to assemble an album from live tapes and studio material. The whole lot was mixed down on a 8-track machine which gives a slightly crowded and cluttered effect… all 8 tracks being used continually with loads of stuff going on all the time. The album typified the long instrumentally orientated pieces the DeaD had been playing at the Acid Tests. Two sides of non-stop music made it difficult for airplay. The first album with two drummers and T.C. ALLIGATOR/CAUTION is a Pigpen vehicle with raucous feedback jamming. ALLIGATOR was a Hunter song although not credited as such, and came from the Trips Festival. THE OTHER ONE is dedicated to OWSLEY and sung by both Garcia and Weir. Weir sings also on NEW POTATOO CABOOSE and BORN CROSS EYED is his first major attempt as songwriter. A later Phil Lesh remix of the album brings out the ideas more clearly, but the album remains a much better indication of how the band sounded at the moment, with long, innovative numbers replacing the shorter epics of yore.+++++++++++
nr. 1 As flawed as it was ambitious, ANTHEM was a fascinating collection of sounds and feelings, cutten from excessively produced over-laden studio sessions to raw live performances. A record clearly ahead of its time. GOLDMINE, July 1987
nr. 2 It’s jumbled, it’s confused, it’s hard to get into, but I love this album just the same. A grand psychedelic experiment, ANTHEM is the DeaD at their strangest; it’s the band testing its wings after having been dissatisfies with their first record. As a result, it’s overly ambitious-a tad on the abstract side-but contains some great jams. Also, the little electronic section midway trough side one still gives me thrills. Not for the unadventurous. **** BLAIR JACKSON, THE MUSIC NEVER STOPPED, PLEXUS, UK
nr. 3 The DeaD’s long modal jams may be the stuff of mesmerism in concert (though even there it’s questionable), but they’re simply self- indulgent and boring on disc. rating ** DAVE MARSH, R.S. RECORD GUIDE
nr. 4 The DeaD set about trying to intruduce some of the excitement and fluidity of their live-act onto vinyl. This they did by taping a number of their shows, which they then mixed together, often one on top of another, adding layer upon layer to form a side-long waterfall of sound and fury. An exception of the overall lyrical abstruseness of the lp is the Weir and Kreutzman penned second section, which serves as Grateful Dead’s memorial to their old friends and Acid-Test comrade Neal Cassidy. The second side has Pigpen singing lead on two songs, bot h of which intercut between assorted live versions joined by extended jams and highlighted by Garcia’s overdubbed and ultra-sharp lead guitar . JAMIE JENSEN, BUILT TO LAST, 1990
nr. 5 As if the band wants to make up for their pretty anonymous debut album, this is an album with character. Starting with an inspired and weird OTHER ONE, mixing live- and studio recordings, all the unadventurous will get off the bus. And although it’s a “difficult” song, it swings like hell. The keyboard-work on ALLIGATOR is remarkable. ANTHEM is the first real evidence of a group who is willing to take chances and to experiment. The power and drive of the drums on the live segment of ALLIGATOR is extra-ordinairy. Dynamite!! * * * ERIK SCHOTHANS, July 1992
nr. 6 I think this is the DeaD album that I play the most, and is perhaps my favourite of them all. The whole of side one is bloody brilliant…it starts with a 3-part medley THAT’S IT FOR THE OTHER ONE – an attractive easy-paced song CRYPTICAL ENVELOPMENT that ends with an astounding change of rhythm and a drum solo. and then THE FASTER WE GO..which is pure Grateful DeaD magic. …Garcia and Lesh soloing away, crossing over and playing off each other, Weir and Pigpen adding layer upon layer of sound, and the two drummers lashing out landslide rhythms that explode on the top of your head. It all glides perfectly into NEW POTATOE CABOOSE and BORN CROSS EYED and the whole side is just one unbelievable thing after another. Superb stuff. Side two features ALLIGATOR, the mainstay of DeaD concerts in their early days, and close with CAUTION which is the only thing that sounds contrived, with an assortment of Pigpen’s growling vocals and lots of electronics. Certainly one of the best rock albums ever to come out of San Francisco. ANDY CHILDS, ZIG ZAG, vol. 3, no. 11, sept. 1973
nr. 7 Anthem Of The Sun (Warner Bro. WS 1749) Released on July 18, 1968. Some of the early pressings of the album include the phrase ‘the faster we go, the rounder we get’ pressed in the vinyl around the center. The basic music (“Alligator”, “A Cryptical Envelopement”, “The Other One”) for the album was taken from the Dead’s performance on St. Valentine’s Day, 1968, at the Carousel Ballroom, in San Francisco. Phil Lesh plays the eight bar trumpet solo (based on Miles Davis’ “Sketches Of Spain”) during the “…from time to time…” chorus on “Born Cross-Eyed”. “Alligator” was written by Hunter while he was working as a portrait artist in New Mexico, in February, 1966. I. W. Slabicky, 1993
