Completely Conspicuous 518: Terrapin Station

I'm joined by guest Phil Stacey as we discuss the Grateful Dead's 1977 album Terrapin Station. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Recorded at CompCon world HQ
- The Dead's 9th studio album
- Band had signed with Clive Davis and Arista
- Album was produced by Keith Olsen, later known for slick AOR albums by Eddie Money, Rick Springfield, REO Speedwagon, Heart
- Phil: Would get a tattoo of the Terrapin cover
- Cover of "Dancing in the Streets" is pretty lame
- Live, the cover turns into a long jam (duh)
- Donna Godchaux was featured a lot on this record
- Side 2 is an side-long suite written by Hunter and Garcia
- Band didn't tour for this album after Mickey Hart got in a car accident
- The tour before this album was legendary for Dead fans
- Tried songs out live before they made it to studio recordings
- Side 1 closes out with a Donna G. song that sounds nothing like anything else the Dead has done
- The Godchaux marriage was splitting up while they were in the band
- Olsen erased Hart's drums on one song and replaced them with strings
- Lyrics on Terrapin Station are pretty dense
- Relatively short album for the Dead at 35 minutes
- Phil: These songs got better in the live setting
- Jay: A lot of filler on side 2
- Album feels like a contractual obligation
- Dead & Co. plays part of the title suite now
- Phil: Not a John Mayer fan, but he's a good guitarist
- Jay: Not a fan of this album
- Next: Cornell 5/8/77

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The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.