I'm joined by guest Phil Stacey as we discuss the Grateful Dead's album From the Mars Hotel.

Show notes:

• Recorded at CompCon world HQ on the 13th birthday of the podcast

• The Dead's 7th studio album, came out in June 1974

• Watergate hearings were the big news story

• Beer was a lot cheaper back then

• In '74, there was a good variety of rock acts releasing important albums, plus funk

• Mars Hotel had some classic Dead songs

• Phil Lesh sang two songs, which was rare, and Bob Weir had one

• Garcia is in prime form on this record

• The Dead was touring with the "Wall of Sound," a massive "distortion-free" speaker setup

• Playing larger venues

• The cost was so high that they eventually quit touring for a few years

• Maybe the last great Dead studio album

• The Grateful Dead Movie was taken from the final shows of this tour

• Working out new songs in the live setting

• Rivalry between lyricists Robert Hunter and John Perry Barlow

• The Dead would play with guest musicians from time to time including Pete Townshend, Branford Marsalis, Santana, Huey Lewis

• The Dead probably got some airplay on FM rock radio in the '70s

• Rock radio has changed a tremendous amount over the years; it's mostly corporate, formatted now

• College and online stations have the most freedom

• Second-tier album in the discography

• Pretty representative of the Dead's sound

• Next: Blues for Allah

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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.