"One More Time At The Fillmore"
To come across the ArSeaEm remote recording van parked outside the Fillmore that windy night was to enter a time warp. The live-feed cables entwined with the line of Dark Star Orchestra fans waiting patiently on the sidewalk for the doors to open was not unusual, but the sight of Bob Matthews leaning out the door instantly put me back 35 years. From 1969 to 1974, Bob was president of Alembic, the innovative San Francisco studio that provided sound system and live recording services for the Grateful Dead in that period of early experimentation. Bob also recorded and engineered many early Dead records - Aoxomoxoa, Live Dead, Europe '72, Workingman's Dead, Garcia, Ace.
Is renewal to be expected at a Dark Star Orchestra gig? The flashback was deepened when next Betty Cantor-Jackson approached along the line of cables. It was the fabled team of Bob & Betty which recorded these albums and concerts of the '60s and '70s. To find them working again in the context of the Dark Star Orchestra, itself a restatement of the past, was, in the vernacular, mindblowing. It promised a special evening, it might lay ghosts to rest or awaken them, a faint whiff of acid test filled the air, time travel could be possible, and at the very least an exceptional recording would result.
This pre-concert reverie was further stoked when next Don Pearson stepped out of the ArSeaEm van, and I realized that Bob was not relying merely on very ancient alchemy, for Don was the head of Ultra Sound, which provided the Dead's PA system from the later 70s through to the 90s. Billed as Chief Scientist to ArSeaEm, Don would bring a systems overview, an etheric certainty to the proceedings. The rest is history going forward once again, for you hold the record in your hands. DSO delivered the promise of orchestra.
There's a time signature too, a voice from the past, a way of doing things at ArSeaEm, a set of values. Bonus material on this DVD was sacrificed for the highest audio quality possible within the medium and budget's limitations. The work is cooperative, profit is shared with artists and staff. On that windy night at the Fillmore, the future was again a certain kind of past, a time of hope.
I was going in again. - Alan Trist