2-13-70 Fillmore East NYC (Dick's Pick #4 3CD)

I'm a little amazed that I can still do a google search for "grateful goddamn dead" + "zacherley" or "zacherle" and get absolutely no results. From 1958 throughout most of the 1960s, John Zacherle was a horror movie (and later dance show) host on regional Philly/NYC television, a rather ghoulish character billed as "Zacherley." In 1967, he switched to FM radio just in time for the progressive rock radio heyday, and by 1969 was the 10PM-2AM rock DJ for WNEW-FM New York City. When the Dead came to town to play the Fillmore East, Zacherley was the MC for the night, and you can hear his great introduction on 2/13/70 show tapes, and officially on CD as Dick's Pick #4. "I should've brought my coffin," he mumbles, an aside to all the horror movie fans in the audience who grew up watching him, and then, suddenly, "Ladies and Gentlemen.....the Grateful Goddamn DEAD!!!"

As for the show that follows, it really is a great one. Opener "Casey Jones" has never sounded hotter as it does coming out of that Zacherley hail, a notoriously loose band at their crispest and tightest. There's also a wonderful "Dancin' in the Street," pre-Disco version obviously, here in 1960s Motown style, mutated by a cool-ass deadpan vocal by Weir and then Garcia and Lesh's monstrous extended counterweaving leads. Also a great "Dark Star," with a very clean crystalline subdued tone not quite like any other. That's all I can remember off the top of my head....I mainly just wanted to point out where the name of this blog came from.....the ghoulish progressive rock mind of the man called Zacherley.....