I'm joined by guest Phil Stacey as we discuss the Grateful Dead's 1977 album Terrapin Station.

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.