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Glastonbury Fayre

Glastonbury Fayre

Music Posted by schothFri, November 16, 2018 19:16:28

In the early seventies of the former century i bought a triple vinyl album called “Glastonbury Fayre”. I don’t remember where i bought it and what the price was. I do remember i bought it coz it had my all-time favorite Grateful Dead’s “Dark Star” on side one. The full version of 24 minutes long… This album became the base for listening and collecting other albums by the UK artists on this record. The recordings of most of the acts on this album are actually live recordings made during the 1971 festival but not all… This was thesecond year of the festival, and the first incarnation of the Pyramid stage. The album was originally made to compensate the costs of the Glastonbury Festival and costed only 3 british pounds, only 5000 copies (!) Price now is much more for both the original release as for the reissue too. There was no monetary profit – it was free. Glastonbury Fayre was held at Worthy Farm, Pilton, near Shepton Mallet, Somerset, from Sunday June 20 to Thursday June 24, encompassing Midsummers Day. It was a fair in the medieval tradition, embodying the legends of the area, with music, dance, poetry, theatre, lights and the opportunity for spontaneous entertainments.Unfortanately through the years i’ve lost the cover and the several inserts. I used the cover as a poster in my bedroom. It has a giant, blurred picture of a pyramid. In those days i was a dutch DeadHead, a fanatic fan of The Grateful Dead.


https://www.youtube.com/embed/v8gfGPnQeWs?feature=oembedI remember there were only two more in the netherlands so i did most of the correspondence and trading of the audio concert tapes (with slow mail!) with English and American Deadheads. What a coincidence when i bought the re-issue of this album on the dutch side Marktplaats and the seller knew me from the old days. He was one of the two dutch deadheads and i even had visit him once in the eighties to talk about the music of the Grateful Dead. I’ve received the reissue this week and i’m thrilled. This is a fascinating album. Not only because it is a chronicle of the first of the famous Glastonbury festivals, but alsof or the music and the cover art. a DVD of Glastonbury Fayre — The Movie, Peter Neal‘s 87-minute, rarely shown documentary of the 1971 festival was also released. Good quality vinyl, even a bit heavier, good sound quality, and all the extra inserts are included! First song to play on the record player is not Dark Star however, but the Out Demons Out of the Edgar Broughton Band. Other gems are the other long and trippy songs of Mighty Baby and Gong but all songs are quit interesting.

watch on You Tube

The Music:

Grateful Dead – Dark Star recorded at Empire Pool, Wembley

Gong – Glad Stoned Buried…The song is getting in the groove when a power fall-out occurs. Daevid Allen explains that the whole set consists of one long song but the music after the fall-out seems much more improvised.

Edgar Broughton Band – Out Demons Out I don’t know if the Broughtons are trying to play against the weather or are they singing against the elite because this was a heck of an anarchistic band !

Mighty Baby – A blanket in my muesli Beautiful english psychedelia

Pete Townshend – Classified This song was later released as a B-Side of a single, recorded at Pete Townshend’s home

LP 1: Side 1;

  • Dark Star – Grateful Dead

LP 1: Side 2;

  • Love Song – Brinsley Schwarz
  • A Blanket In My Muesli – Mighty Baby

LP 2: Side 1;

  • Sunken Rags – Marc Bolan
  • Classified – Pete Townshend
  • Supermen – David Bowie
  • Silver Machine And Welcome – Hawkwind
  • Sun Music – Skin Alley

LP 2: Side 2;

  • Glad Stoned Buried Fielding Flash And Fresh Fest Footprints In My Memory – Gong

LP 3: Side 1;

  • Do It – Pink Fairies
  • Uncle Harry’s Last Freak Out – Pink Fairies

LP 3: Side 2;

  • Out Demons Out – Edgar Broughton Band

Comes in an amazing 4fold 63,5 x 94,5 cm cardboard poster-cover with all original material as replicas included:

1) superb 32 page illustrated booklet;
2) fold-out cut-out silver pyramid insert;
3) fold-out cut-out geodesic dome insert;
4) fold-out track listing insert;
5) poster with photos.All housed in a custom printed pvc outer sleeve.

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For Deadheads only

For Deadheads only

Music Posted by schoth Sun, July 21, 2013 23:10:44

This song review is an excerpt from Mikes Grateful Dead Blog

China Doll is a moody ballad with one of the most beautiful transitions from minor to major in rock music that I’ve ever heard. This song was originally released on the From the Mars Hotelalbum in 1974 and featured harpsichord.
China Doll is very much revered but is still underrated. China Doll should be an even more high profile Grateful Dead classic than it currently is. I am sure the song is virtually unknown outside of Deadheads so it earns the distinction of being For Deadheads Only.

This song is so deep, eerie, and mysterious it disappoints me that more people aren’t exposed to it. It is a very slow melancholy dirge and another thing that might detract from it’s popularity amongst Deadheads and the public at large is that the lyrics are very vague. I am not even sure what the plot of the song is or if the dialogue is a one person monologue or between two people, etc. The opening lines are vague:

A pistol shot at 5 o’clock
The bells of heaven ring
“Tell me what you done it for”
“No I won’t tell you a thing”

It has been written in the books that (per Robert Hunter) the opening shot refers to a suicide but without that 3rd party information I wouldn’t have known that. This fact of the vague lyrics does not bother me at all because I love China Doll so much but I am just conjecturing that the unclear storyline and lack of identifiable characters (ie no “Black Peter” in this one) might have caused the song not to receive the fanfare I think it deserves.
original blog message: https://music.schothans.com/?p=117 Edit