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Difference between revisions of "Year Zero"
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Year Zero (also known as Halo 24 or Year Zero: Zero-Gen-Ten in Japan) is the sixth studio album by Nine Inch Nails, released on April 13, 2007 in the UK and Europe, and April 17, 2007 worldwide, by Interscope Records. It was produced by Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor in collaboration with Alan Moulder and engineer Atticus Ross, both of whom worked in a similar capacity on Nine Inch Nails' previous major studio release, With Teeth. Mastering was done by Brian "Big Bass" Gardner.
In a 2005 interview with Kerrang!, Reznor expressed his intentions to write material for a new release during the With Teeth tour, and it was confirmed that he was working on it by September 2006. Year Zero began its mixing stage in January of 2007, and Reznor stated on his blog on The Spiral that the album was finished as of February 5, 2007. The album marks a new style of lyric writing for Reznor:
"...for the first time in my life, I wanted to break away from the idea of opening up my journal and transferring that into song lyrics. And I really thought about what was at the forefront of my concern, and, at the state I'm at right now, at the age I'm at, just the state of being an American citizen, a lot of concern I have about the direction the country's headed in, and uh, kind of the erosion of freedoms that seems like we're experiencing, and the way we treat the world and our own citizens felt like something I needed to comment on." [1]
A subsection of nin.com, yearzero.nin.com, was created and contains various things Year Zero-related. An alternate reality game was constructed by Trent Reznor and Rob Sheridan, then run in partnership and developed by 42 Entertainment to provide listeners with a greater understanding of the album's concept. Reznor paid for the ARG himself, trying to keep it a secret from his record company as much as possible[2], stating: "What you are now starting to experience IS 'year zero'. It's not some kind of gimmick to get you to buy a record - it IS the art form... and we're just getting started. Hope you enjoy the ride." The game ran from roughly February 12, 2007 to May 2007, beginning when a string of mysterious websites was discovered around the internet related to the album; the game has since been nominated for two Webby Awards[3]. Learn more at the Year Zero Research page and view the timeline of discovery for an explanation of how things unfolded, also, 42 Entertainment has a complete overview of the project here.
Trent Reznor on Year Zero
"This record began as an experiment with noise on a laptop in a bus on tour somewhere. That sound led to a daydream about the end of the world. That daydream stuck with me and over time revealed itself to be much more. I believe sometimes you have a choice in what inspiration you choose to follow and other times you really don't. This record is the latter. Once I tuned into it, everything fell into place... as if it were meant to be. With a framework established, the songs were very easy to write. Things started happening in my "real" life that blurred the lines of what was fiction and what wasn't. The record turned out to be more than a just a record in scale, as you will see over time.
Part one is year zero. Concept record. Sixteen tracks. All written and performed by me, produced / programmed by me and Atticus Ross, mixed by Alan Moulder, mastered by Brian "Big Bass" Gardner. Release date: April 17, 2007.
What's it about? Well, it takes place about fifteen years in the future. Things are not good. If you imagine a world where greed and power continue to run their likely course, you'll have an idea of the backdrop. The world has reached the breaking point - politically, spiritually and ecologically. Written from various perspectives of people in this world, "year zero" examines various viewpoints set against an impending moment of truth. How does it sound? You will hear for yourself soon enough, but given the point of this document is to provide information...
This record is much more of a "sound collage" than recent efforts from me.
A lot of it was improvised.
It is very tedious describing your own music.
It's not just music.
It's probably too long, but it felt like the right thing to do was to paint the complete picture.
It will sound different after a few listens.
You can think about it and it will reveal more than you were expecting.
You can dance to a lot of it.
You can fuck to a lot of it (maybe all of it depending on what you're into)[4]."
Track listing
Album Credits
Year Zero Hints
For full details on all hints found through the retail release of the CD see this ETS thread.
The Booklet
The CD
The Case
Regarding the leak
On April 1, 2007 a bootleg recording of the Chicago, Illinois listening party of March 18, 2007 surfaced on several peer-to-peer networks. The quality of the recording is very low and it is apparent that whoever made the recording did not have very good sound capturing equipment, presumably a cellphone.
On April 4, 2007 a high-quality leak of the promotional disc supplied to listening parties was also leaked onto peer-to-peer networks. Perhaps to counteract and discourage any piracy of the leak, the entire album was made available for free streaming on the album's official website later that afternoon. Shortly after the stream was made available, high-quality leaks found their way to various sites and P2P networks.
Perhaps in another response to the leak, Reznor commissioned Q101 in Chicago to play the entire album on their radio station.
It is widely rumored, however, that Reznor himself was responsible for leaking the album as a result of his unappreciation for RIAA's Cease & Desist warrants issued to various websites that hosted free downloads of the 4 USB "leaks". Reznor's own involvement with the leak, however, will always be speculation at best due to his own legal liability.
Multitrack Files
Reznor has stated that multitrack files for all the songs on the album will be released, making them available for fans to remix for free. In March 2007, the multitrack audio files of the first single, "Survivalism," were released in Garageband format on the official Year Zero website for fan remixing. The multitrack files for "Capital G," "My Violent Heart" and "Me, I'm Not" were then released on April 26; those for "The Beginning of the End," "Vessel" and "God Given" were released on June 12. The formats were for Garageband and Logic Pro, and there were also WAV files for other applications, with the latter distributed through BitTorrent. The entire album was released in multitrack form on the Y34RZ3R0R3M1X3D album.
Film/Television Project
Reznor has stated that Year Zero is "part of a bigger picture of a number of things I'm working on. Essentially, I wrote the soundtrack to a movie that doesn't exist."
In March of 2007, Kerrang! Radio reported that "Reznor admitted he's already in talks about a movie version of his upcoming album, a concept piece, with part two scheduled next year." Reznor has said that he is currently more interested in a television project rather than a film and that he has a producer and has met with writers."
On August 10, 2007, he announced that he and his creative team would soon be taking the concept to television networks to try and make some sort of deal: "We're about to pitch it to the network, so we're a couple of weeks away from meeting all of the main people, and we'll see what happens." [5]
On June 8, 2008, The New York Times reported that "Mr. Reznor has been working with Lawrence Bender, Quentin Tarantino's longtime producing partner, to create a cable TV series to tell the entire story. " [6]
On April 2, 2009, Reznor announced via a short Twitter post that "YZ is alive".
On September 28, 2010, The LA Times reported that the Year Zero television series detailed in the above NY Times article was going into pre-production, with Daniel Knauf as a writer and Lawrence Bender's team as staff. The miniseries is being handled by BBC America and will be broadcast on HBO. [7]
See Also
External Links


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Black PassportPhotographs by Stanley Greene
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Black Passport, world-renowned conflict photographer Stanley Greene's autobiographical monograph-cum-scrapbook, offers an experience that is both exceptionally personal and ostensibly objective. Built around Greene's narrating monologue, the book's twenty-six short, non-sequential "scenes" are each illustrated by a portfolio of his work—either personal or professional—presenting a kaleidoscope of Greene's key life experiences. The results are startling and filmic, the message raw and direct.
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Stanley Greene (born in New York, 1949) was a longtime member of the renowned photo agency Agence VU before founding Noor, of which he is part-owner. A recipient of the W. Eugene Smith Grant in Humanistic Photography and numerous other awards, his work has been featured in Newsweek, New York Times Magazine, Stern, and Paris Match. Greene's book, Open Wound: Chechnya 1994–2003, was released in 2004 to critical acclaim. Greene is based in Brooklyn and Paris.
Teun Van Der Heijden (compilation) is a graphic designer who has worked extensively with countless esteemed photographers over his ten years designing the annual World Press Photo book. He lives and works in Amsterdam.
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subset: commoncrawl


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An ongoing series of articles on songs & performances of the early Grateful Dead.
July 19, 2013
The Festival Express Guide
This post lays out all the information we have on the Dead's shows. The first part is an accurate itinerary for the tour, showing what songs come from where. The second part consists of longer explanatory notes on our sources.
I focused entirely on the Dead's onstage appearances - I haven't looked into the other bands filmed on the tour. Other researchers would have to say which dates the film footage & recordings of the Band and Janis come from.
The story behind the train tour is well-known and won't be repeated here, but for a short overview, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Festival_Express
The news articles linked at the bottom also provide more background, including a long Rolling Stone article with some details on the shows.
This show was canceled before the tour started. (Fortunately for us, since that meant the Dead could play in Port Chester that day!)
A short clip of an acoustic Dead set from this free show is in the film.
The audio is Friend of the Devil - however, it doesn't match the footage, so it could come from anywhere.
Per Deadlists: "According to Malcolm O'Brien the Dead played a free acoustic set from a flatbed truck, mostly tunes from Workingman's Dead and American Beauty."
According to newspaper reports, the free park show started at 7 pm and ran til 4 am, with thousands of attendees. Other bands included Ian & Sylvia, James & the Good Brothers, and several local bands.
The Dead were likely the first band to play, starting the show around 7. They would have returned to the stadium by 9.
Garcia's afternoon stage announcement about the free show is in the film.
Nothing from the Dead's stadium show is available. But one audience member states, "I recorded the whole thing on cassette. The Dead's set list that day was as follows: 1) Casey Jones. 2) China Cat Sunflower-I Know You Rider 3) Me and My Uncle 4) Easy Wind 5) Cumberland Blues 6) Turn on Your Lovelight. The set was short due to time constraints."
Per Deadlists: "David Galbraith, an audience member, recalls that NRPS opened and that the Dead's set included Lovelight and Casey Jones."
Rolling Stone: "A kid came onstage and pointed to each member of the Dead and shouted, 'You're all phonies, you and you and you.'"
Toronto Daily Star 6/29/70 review: "The New Riders of the Purple Sage appeared at 9:00 p.m…. The New Riders injected the first signs of life when they started with their country-style almost hoe-down music. The crowd started dancing when they played Honky Tonk Woman, and stayed on their feet through Working Man Blues, I Don't Know You, and Brown-Eyed Handsome Man. Jerry Garcia just stayed on stage when the rest of the New Riders left, and took over with The Grateful Dead. They gave a great foot-stomping, pounding, hour-long set, the audience with them all the way, dancing and singing with the first hint of joy and happiness in the whole long hot day… They left the stand, all sweaty and tired… The Band…seemed anti-climactic after the Grateful Dead."
The Dead played in the park again. No audio is available from this show.
There are a few minutes of silent film footage, though - the Dead are playing New Speedway Boogie, with Pigpen on harmonica: https://vimeo.com/146999213
Rolling Stone: "The Dead, Purple Sage, Ian & Sylvia, James & the Good Brothers, and People's Revolutionary Concert Band played to 4000 kids the first day and 500 the second day."
Per Deadlists: "According to Malcolm O'Brien this was an all-electric show. Good Lovin' is the only tune he remembers."
The free show again ran til early morning, but we don't know when the Dead might have played.
The Dead did not play the stadium again on this day.
Nighttime show.
Easy Wind (film, Archive)
Candyman, electric version (Archive)
Deadlists reported back in 2000: "According to Ihor Slabicky a circulating videotape copy of Festival Express footage contains Easy Wind & Candyman."
Phil Lesh: "We were expecting more break-ins during the Winnipeg show; thankfully only about one hundred protesters showed up, chanting 'Make it free'… The show came off with no other incidents as such, except that the crowd was really small." (Searching for the Sound p.181)
John Einarson: "I remember the Grateful Dead being rather 'testy' to say the least. When someone in the crowd shouted something to them I'll never forget Phil Lesh stepping to the mike and replying, 'Suck my cock, hard rock!'"
Chris Doole: "When the Dead performed 'Alligator' it got into this groove where it started to sound like 25 perfectly synchronized locomotives with Garcia's tasty little trills on top of it all. Everyone's attention was just nailed to it."
http://www.manitobamusicmuseum.com/festivalexpress.htm (Einarson's long account of the Winnipeg festival)
Einarson also noted that during the Great Speckled Bird set, "Jerry Garcia from the Dead stood onstage and watched the GSB's steel player Buddy Cage through their whole set."
There was no show this day. I don't know why this date was reported for a Dead show.
The Calgary festival ran on 7/4 and 7/5. I believe the Dead played on 7/4, but see the notes for a discussion of this.
An afternoon show.
Acoustic: Don't Ease Me In (film)
Acoustic: Candyman, Dire Wolf, Uncle John's Band; "Now the New Riders." (Taper's Section)
NRPS clip (on youtube, no audio)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gUQW3jkHzMI (silent, Garcia up front on pedal steel)
Electric: Me & My Uncle, China>Rider (Taper's Section)
Electric: Hard to Handle (DVD & partial on Archive "7/1/70")
Electric: New Speedway Boogie (film & Taper's Section)
Electric: Lovelight (Taper's Section & partial clips on youtube)
http://www.dead.net/features/tapers-section/june-30-july-6-2008 (complete)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aJhnOq2q3ag (9 minutes of excerpts)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bXUbDTPBpKI (a brief snippet from the end of Lovelight, from a different camera – begins with the very end of New Speedway)
(The Lovelight has just recently appeared, and I think it's pretty cool to watch, even though it's just 10 minutes of snippets, and the camera angles are mostly not too great. We get some closeups of the drummers - check out Garcia around 8:00, as the band hits a peak. These shots of Garcia were also used in the Hard to Handle on the film's bonus DVD.)
Per Deadlists: "Howard Mott remembers the Dead-NRPS show running about 4 hours in all… He remarks that Bobby and Phil as well as Jerry took part in the NRPS set… Lovelight was the set closer… It was part of a 2-day festival, with Janis and the Band playing on the [next day]." He recalled several of the songs we now have, though his 4-hour estimate seems like a considerable exaggeration for a shortened festival set (or even for a regular evening).
Kreutzmann is the only drummer in the acoustic set.
Pigpen plays harmonica in two songs (Don't Ease & New Speedway), neither of them his usual harmonica songs. His keyboard is behind him, but he doesn't play it on any of these songs.
The acoustic set is unremarkable, the electric set much better. China>Rider is very good; Hard to Handle doesn't take off, but Garcia plays a nice snaky solo. The harmonica adds a bluesy feel to New Speedway, and Garcia drops in Nobody's Fault But Mine during his solo.
Lovelight sounds like it comes out of another song (maybe Not Fade Away?) - it's an average version. Pigpen gives his usual raps, for instance: "I wanna tell all you fellas somethin' - I'm gonna talk to the fellas - I know, you may be wonderin' how come you spend your life in a empty bed - tell you what - you may see some young lady sittin' next to you...I tell ya, the first thing you do...is get off your ass and stand up, and take the nearest young lady with you - come on, I see you fellas out there, you're sittin' on your butts...get 'em up, maybe you'll get a little pussy this evenin' - and the next thing you do, you take your hands out of your pockets and do something better with 'em, like make a little noise..." Judging from the film clip, a lot of people were indeed sitting at the start of Lovelight, but Pigpen succeeds in getting everyone up front to stand up & clap.
Overall, this sounds like a fine, typical 1970 show, standard setlist, with the band none the worse for wear after the drunken train parties on the ride to Calgary...
Film director Bob Smeaton: "[Editing the film,] Eddie Kramer was amazed how these guys could party all night and day on the train and still turn in such amazing performances."
Phil Lesh: "Hangovers notwithstanding, all the bands played really well at that show." (Searching for the Sound p.184)
Rolling Stone: "Musically, the groups all played better and better as the Festival progressed… At the Calgary Festival, there was an open jam featuring Bonnie & Delaney, Ian & Sylvia, Rick Danko, and Jerry Garcia. This would have been inconceivable at the Toronto Festival."
Garcia, Kreutzmann & Weir can also be seen in the nighttime jam with Ian & Sylvia doing CC Rider, probably the same day.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peDoZBWHLTE (The youtube clip is much longer than what is shown in the film, though lesser quality.)
Back in 2000 there were already circulating videos of Don't Ease Me In, New Speedway Boogie, and the CC Rider jam.
The Friend of the Devil played in the film's park scene is most likely from the Calgary acoustic set.
The end of the film has audio of an acoustic Cold Jordan with NRPS, which could come from anywhere, but is most likely from Calgary.
There is also a tape of one of the jam sessions on the train, with several guitarists & pedal steel:
http://www.archive.org/details/gd1970-07-00.aud.miller.106571.flac16 (not mixed very well)
* * *
The Dead definitely did not record their own shows on this tour. All the recordings were made by the film crew – they seem to have been poorly labeled & disorganized, and some may have been lost in the chaos after filming was completed.
David Lemieux mentioned in a 2005 interview:
"I think six songs by the Dead were filmed. Two were in the movie [Don't Ease Me In & New Speedway]. Two were in the bonus disc [Hard to Handle & Easy Wind], and there were two that didn't make the cut. I did recently hear the audio tapes from Winnipeg and Calgary and they were pretty good. It's basically two full shows, maybe an hour & a quarter each... The shows, I think they're excellent. There's some interesting material. I know there was a good China>Rider and a good Lovelight [probably the ones he's put on the Taper's Section]. Bunch of neat stuff. Typical 1970 material: some sloppy stuff, some out of tune stuff, but also some incredibly interesting Pigpen stuff. There's a good Attics of My Life, too."
So the Vault appears to have the complete shows from 7/1 and 7/4, each around 75 minutes long.
He didn't say which show Attics was from, but it was mostly played electric at that point. (There is an acoustic version at the 6/24/70 early show; but that was in the special confines of the Capitol Theater, and I wouldn't expect the Dead to try it acoustic in a festival stadium setting.)
A few years ago, Lemieux played a few tracks from the Festival Express tour on the Taper's Section, dated like this:
7-1-70 China>Rider - 3/10/08
7-1-70 Lovelight - 6/30/08
7-1-70 Candyman, Dire Wolf, Uncle John's Band, Me and My Uncle, China>Rider - 6/29/09
7-3-70 China>Rider, Lovelight - 7/2/07
7-3-70 New Speedway Boogie - 9/29/08
However, not only are the Lovelights from 7/1 & 7/3/70 the same track, the China>Riders are also the same.
(Lemieux even commented in the 6/30/08 Taper's Section that he'd played the Lovelight before, while dating it 7/1/70 – though it had been dated 7/3/70 before.)
On 6/29/09 he played a longer chunk of this show, including the end of the acoustic set; it's announced, "now the New Riders," then we cut to the electric set, with MAMU & the same China>Rider. (The opening of Dire Wolf is cut; and there are gaps between the songs, rather than running continuously.) This set is dated 7/1/70 again.
Lemieux also played New Speedway in the 9/29/08 Taper's Section, dated 7/3/70. (The only one of these clips in stereo; the rest are mono.) This is the same New Speedway that's in the Festival Express film.
Part of a Lovelight from the Festival Express tour was recently uploaded on youtube. As you can hear, it's the same one that's on the Taper's Section. It's also from the same show as Don't Ease, New Speedway & Hard to Handle in the Festival Express video – all from Calgary 7/4/70.
So, all the tracks Lemieux has played from this tour are actually from the 7/4 show – though he dates them both 7/1 and 7/3. This doesn't say much for the tape labeling, especially since there was no show on 7/3, and none of these tracks are from 7/1. Evidently there's some date mixup on these tapes in the Vault!
The possibility arises that the Vault may have duplicate reels of the same material, labeled as being from two different cities. Only Lemieux would know.
The day had started out with many crowd disturbances and interruptions; by the time the Dead came on, most of the discontented had drifted to the park and the audience was probably much more peaceful.
The New Riders started at 9 pm, and probably played about 45 minutes before the Dead, who played roughly an hour-long set. The Band followed them, closing the day and ending around 12:30. (Janis closed the show the next day, 6/28, coming on at 11:30.)
It was rather generous of the promoters to include the New Riders on this tour. There were already almost 20 bands playing, and NRPS did not even have their own album out (and weren't billed), so they would have simply extended the Dead's time slot. Fortunately, NRPS was well-received.
This page shows the planned lineup of bands in each city (though it's an incomplete listing):
Although Deadlists lists several songs for the CNE Stadium show, they're actually from the two other shows. (The Deadlists entry was written long before the Festival Express movie came out, let alone the newer material we have, so it's out of date; but it illustrates how tricky it was to date these tape clips.)
An audience member remembers Lovelight, which was the Dead's surefire crowd-pleaser that year, and as the newspaper review attests, it successfully excited the crowd.
It strikes me as curious that we have neither sound nor video for even a second of the Dead's Toronto show; nor apparently is it in the Vault. It may be lost, if it was ever filmed.
The Coronation Park show in the film can safely be established as 6/27/70. Garcia is wearing the same shirt as in his earlier stadium stage announcement; we can see the sun is low in the sky during the Dead's performance, matching a time of roughly 7 or 8 pm, when we know the park show was starting; and the Dead are playing acoustically, which a witness reported for that day's show.
The Dead played in the park two days in a row, per the Rolling Stone article. (The newspaper account for Sunday 6/28 is more vague, but it's clear there was a park show that evening as well.) Since they had the day free on 6/28, they could have played at any time that day. But all we know of the show is a dim memory that it was an electric show that included Good Lovin'. A few minutes of silent footage also exists, multiple-camera film crew outtakes evidently filmed on the 28th since the Dead are in different clothes: https://vimeo.com/146999213
Although the film has a brief snippet of Friend of the Devil from the 6/27 park show, it's not synced to the footage. They're playing acoustic, but not that song (I can't tell what they're playing, you can only see a few brief strums.) There's no telling where the audio clip comes from, but it's likely the film crew might not have recorded audio for the park show.
I suspect there isn't much more footage (& possibly no audio) from either of the park shows. The film crew would not have been prepared to film two separate concert locations at once (let alone setting up the park sound recording as well), so my guess is their filming in the park was brief & limited, and they concentrated on the stadium shows.
To make sure Easy Wind was accurately dated, I checked the Winnipeg clips, comparing Buddy Guy's footage in the film (definitely from Winnipeg) with the Easy Wind. And Easy Wind is indeed from 7/1/70.
The Rolling Stone article pointed out that the stadium was right next to the fairgrounds.
During Buddy's solo, looking out you can see a fairground ride turning around behind the bleachers. Just after his set, there's a shot of the ferris wheels lit up at night, the front one in yellow.
In the nighttime crowd shots in Easy Wind, we can see that same fairground ride turning around, and briefly during the jam, we can also see the yellow-lit ferris wheel turning around.
On the Archive tape of 7/1/70, Easy Wind is the same as in the film. Listening to the tape, we can tell that Candyman directly follows Easy Wind – they go straight from one song to the next.
So these two songs were accurately dated – however the clip also contains part of the Hard to Handle from Calgary.
Although this audio clip is said to be taken from VHS footage, I'm not aware of any video circulating for the Candyman.
From John Einarson's account of the day, with 14 bands billed, even if some of the lesser-known bands played briefer sets, we still have at best one hour per band to play even though the festival ran late. The Dead played sometime after dark; they were followed by the Band again, who apparently came on after midnight and (per Rolling Stone) "played a short set;" then Janis followed sometime after 1 am. I would be surprised if the Dead played much longer than 60-75 minutes. NRPS probably did not play.
I strongly doubt the audience memory that Alligator was played. This was infrequent at the time (mostly played in their "home" venues), and would be a surprise to find in such a short festival set.
We have a large part of this show – Lemieux said the tape of this show was "maybe an hour and a quarter," and the selections we have are an hour long. I'm not sure the show was much longer.
At Toronto 6/27, the Dead's set was about an hour (plus the NRPS set) - with even more bands appearing at Calgary, they shouldn't have had a longer time slot.
And yet, they might have played longer. Although I don't believe the deadlists witness' claim that the NRPS-Dead show was 4 hours, still, the Dead played an acoustic set before NRPS, which they did not do in Toronto 6/27. (Or, technically, they seem to have played acoustic in the park, and then electric at CNE stadium.) Playing the additional acoustic set suggests that they had some more time.
There were certainly more electric songs. Me & My Uncle was never the first song of a set, and there appears to be a missing song before Lovelight.
My guess is that Friend of the Devil & Cold Jordan in the film come from the Calgary show, that being the only known recorded acoustic set. But we have the end of the acoustic set, so it's hard to know where Cold Jordan would fit – perhaps it was an encore. (I wouldn't put it past the producers to have just grabbed the audio from an already circulating 1970 show!)
The date of this show isn't known for certain. We have two initial reasons to think it was 7/4/70: a deadlists witness said the Dead played the first day of the two-day festival; and that was the way they'd done it in Calgary. (The old mistaken Deadbase date of 7/3 may also reflect that they played on the first day.)
They are clearly playing in the afternoon. On the previous two dates, they'd played evening sets, as one of the top-billed bands; so it's strange to find them one of the first bands on the first day, especially with so many local opening bands available. (About 20 bands were to appear.)
But there is also the matter of Garcia's shirt. He has a purple t-shirt on during the Dead's set.
The "all-star" jam with Ian & Sylvia is evidently later that evening, for he's wearing the same shirt, now with a denim overshirt. (Kreutzmann also appears, still wearing his flowery shirt from the Dead's set.) Then at the start of Janis Joplin's set, when she gives gifts to the promoters, Garcia seems to have the denim shirt buttoned over the same shirt still. (His pants seem to be the same as well.)
There is no evidence for what date the Ian & Sylvia jam occurred, except that it took place shortly after sunset. I thought Janis closed the festival on 7/5/70, especially given her gift-giving ceremony. And yet, Janis Joplin's Calgary live tracks released on a couple albums are dated 7/4/70. (And the Band have released a couple Calgary tracks dated 7/5/70, though they were not the closers at the earlier shows – and who else would be the last to go on?)
Not only that, but Janis apparently played a show at Seattle's Sicks Stadium on 7/5/70 (and went on to play Honolulu on 7/6). I've seen several people online mention that they went to the Seattle show, so evidently it was played, which would explain why she didn't close the Calgary festival on 7/5, but the Band did.
In short, it appears that Janis closed on the first night, 7/4, and the Dead played earlier that day.
The CC Rider jam may have come at the end of Ian & Sylvia's set. The youtube clip starts with a glimpse of Ian & Sylvia during sunset (by CC Rider it is darker) – there's also a newspaper photo from this show of Sylvia singing in daylight. At the end of CC Rider, everyone leaves the stage.
Per Deadlists: "The video contains a C.C. Rider from this show (nightime) from an all-star Jam. Slabicky lists personnel as follows: Garcia is playing [a Telecaster], Kreutzmann on tambourine, Sylvia Tyson of The Great Speckled Bird on vocals with other members of this band Jim Colegrove on bass, Buddy Cage on pedal steel, N.D. Smart on Drums, and Amos Garrett on lead guitar, Delaney Bramlett on guitar, the organ player from Delaney and Bonnie's group, and Ian Tyson on acoustic guitar. C.C. Rider is followed by Will The Circle Be Unbroken, with Bonnie Bramlett on vocals."
This is puzzling, since Will the Circle does not seem to be on youtube. Rolling Stone also says that Rick Danko played in this jam, and he's not in this segment. In any case, the jam seems to have been longer than what we have.
Weir can also briefly be seen wearing a dark hat, playing guitar in the shadows behind Buddy Cage & next to Garcia at the end.
Online trivia: "In the CC Rider performance, Garcia can be seen playing the famous rosewood Fender Telecaster played by George Harrison in the last public performance of The Beatles on the roof of Apple Headquarters. It was loaned to Garcia by Delaney Bramlett who can be seen on-stage beside Garcia. Harrison gave it to Bramlett after they toured together briefly."
It's not known whether the film crew captured entire Dead shows. Judging from the Lovelight clip, individual cameramen felt free to stop filming & move around during songs; problems could also arise, film run out, or the footage could be unusable. As a result, I suspect shows from this tour survive mainly in pieces, with only some songs filmed with multiple cameras, and others missing chunks of footage or perhaps caught by only one badly-placed camera, or others lacking audio if an audio reel went awry.
Director Bob Smeaton said it took months just to sync the film and audio: "I listened to over sixty hours of audio… Very few of the film rolls had been logged, and it was trial and error trying to match the audio to the image. Also, the cameramen would run out of film ten minutes into a performance and we would have a black hole with audio but no pictures. Songs would have to be edited..."
And elsewhere: "Allegedly there are many hours of filmed material still missing. This became evident when I would hear audio materials but be unable to find the relevant footage to go with the audio. This was the case with Janis' version of "Me and Bobby McGee." I searched in vain for this footage... This was also the case with The New Riders' performance of "Better Take Jesus' Hand" [Cold Jordan]. I hope one day this lost film footage may come to light."
One Archive commenter (N Hoey) spoke with a film producer who revealed more of the challenges:
"It was a tremendous challenge to assemble a coherent film from the available film and sound. That was mainly due to the fact that…it was a nonstop party which DID also involve the film/sound crew. MOST of the footage is technically too flawed to use. Shaky, blurry, out of focus with gaps that mean whole usable songs are few.. Shooting 16mm film back then required very serious attention to get quality footage. They had no way to see dailies, they just shot away and hoped for the best and it turned out that there was a lot of crappy useless footage… While they may have gotten far more technically sound audio, it appears the tapes were handled badly. 5 or 6 festival gigs would generate quite a few reels and apparently they weren't carefully labeled and kept fully organized. Also all the offstage filming generated numerous reels of sound to be kept track of too. Basically the whole thing was just too wild and chaotic for the documentary aspect of it to be done professionally well enough to provide a wealth of usable raw material. They had to scour all that they had to scrape together [90 minutes] of quality material that could stand as a documentary."
It's telling that all the Dead footage we have, besides the Easy Wind, is from the Calgary show. Perhaps this was the best-filmed, or the best-preserved.
With the film clips generally not identified, it took some detective work to place them in Calgary. When studying the footage, all the daytime shows tend to look similar since the same beat-up blue stage cover was used at every show, and the stadiums look more or less alike if you're not keenly viewing the background. McMahon Stadium had distinctive red & white-striped stands, though. The other way to tell that all the Calgary clips were actually from the same show is by checking the clothes the band's wearing. (Don't Ease Me In was evidently the earliest song, since Phil & Pigpen are wearing overshirts, later taken off.)
For a closer look at the research (and a couple false leads), see the comments here:
The editing in the film is quite tricky & creative - for instance the Calgary Don't Ease Me In is edited with Toronto crowd footage; and you can also see that the DVD Hard to Handle includes footage that we now know is actually from the Lovelight. (This is likely to cover for lack of extra camera angles.) It's likely that many shots in New Speedway and Hard to Handle were actually taken from the footage of other partial songs in the set.
Don't Ease Me In is a good test case of different edits – in the film it's dated 6/27/70, with Toronto's CNE Stadium shown in a crowd shot. This is a misleading mixing of shots by the film producers, though. Here we have an earlier, alternate edit of Don't Ease Me In without the Toronto footage (in fact it starts with a shot of the Calgary stadium) –
(It also ends with a bit of tuning from the electric set before New Speedway.)
We can also see that it doesn't have the variety of camera angles that the later electric-set songs have; evidently the only cameramen at that point were down in front of the band.
Lemieux said that six Dead songs were filmed, and two didn't make the DVD. He may be referring to Lovelight or Candyman; or maybe not. He might not have seen all the footage of the Dead. Perhaps he saw six complete Dead songs that had been synced & edited together, while others may be incomplete or not have sound. (There might not exist a complete film clip of that youtube Lovelight, for instance, which would be considered unusable by the filmmakers; and there could be other fragmentary pieces.)
The Dead do not own the film, just the rights. When researcher John Platt was interviewed by the Taping Compendium in the '90s, work for the Festival Express film was already underway, and he mentioned that they'd found about 90 hours and had just gotten as far as making a brief trailer reel (including Don't Ease Me In, which he misidentified as being played in a train yard - perhaps it was lacking any crowd footage). Platt said, "The production company came to an agreement with the Grateful Dead whereby the Dead are allowing these people to use X amount of Dead footage in their finished documentary. The quid pro quo is that all the remaining Grateful Dead footage will be returned to the Dead." (Taping Compendium p.576)
This apparently didn't happen. Lemieux gave no hint of it in his interview.
The stock-footage group Historic Films Archive has recently acquired all the Festival Express reels and digitized over 100 hours of footage from the tour – they're the ones who put the Lovelight clips, and several new clips of the Band, up on youtube, kind of as teasers.
This is the same group, by the way, who also have the Dead's 4/21/72 Beat Club performance.
They claim there will be an expanded release of Festival Express next year with more new footage. (For instance, they say they have the footage of Janis playing Bobby McGee on acoustic that Smeaton couldn't find.)
It seems more reels have been discovered than the Festival Express producers had a decade ago. The Historic Films site has 132 Festival Express reels on their site; the catch is that the only ones you can watch online are the few non-music reels; any clips with performances you need a paid account to watch (at $100 per hour) -
But, if you click on the pictures at least it'll tell you what's in each reel, in great detail. The truly ardent researcher would go through all this to find all the Dead material…
This was a collaborative effort. Thanks to Arck, runonguinness & pairdoc for their research!
I've also posted a few news articles written about the Festival Express at the time – though these are mostly less informative about the actual concerts than we'd like:
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2013/07/june-27-28-1970-festival-express-toronto.html (Toronto articles)
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2013/07/junejuly-1970-festival-express.html (Rolling Stone article)
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2013/07/junejuly-1970-festival-express-in-news.html (miscellaneous, non-Dead)
And for the insatiable, these are some earlier discussions of the Festival Express mysteries, mostly duplicated or superseded by this guide -
http://archive.org/post/323259/the-mystery-of-the-festival-express-what-do-we-have-from-the-tour (a valiant older attempt to put the info together)
http://archive.org/post/935393/new-festival-express-footage-and-amp-some-dating-notes (my initial attempts at this post)
Corrections & updates are welcome!
37 comments:
- AnonymousJuly 19, 2013 at 1:14 PM
An excellent pulling together of it all, we know a lot more now than we did a week ago.ReplyDelete
One small correction to Deadlists and Slabicky. Jerry is playing a Telecaster on the CC Rider Jam not his Gibson. Weir is seen briefly too wearing a black cowboy hat a coupla times behind Buddy Cage and next to Jerry. I don't think I've seen Jerry play a Tele before.
As you say we seem to have most of Calgary, which makes me think Weir's hangover was the worst. One quick cowboy song and maybe another song in what's missing hints that he was feeling the pace.
Thanks again
Made the correction, good catch.ReplyDelete
Without knowing the full Calgary setlist, I'm hesitant to think that Weir was in worse shape than the others - he belts out the end of Lovelight just fine! (Garcia was reportedly the worst off that morning.)
But it is notable that Pigpen's more upfront with his harmonica than usual. Of course, the nonstop drinking party on the train was just another average day for him...
Since the Cold Jordan at the end of the film is identified as NRPS (and director Smeaton says he looked for footage but couldn't find it), it looks like the audio tape was labeled NRPS. Yet that song was never played in an NRPS set; almost always the Dead's acoustic set. My best guess is it was an encore at Calgary (they played it as an encore a couple other times).ReplyDelete
The film end credits also have some audio of Janis & friends on the train singing Bobby McGee, with Garcia on pedal steel. This performance was written about in the Rolling Stone article.
There's also another very brief glimpse of Weir playing acoustic in the 6/27 park show.
This is amazing. Thank you!ReplyDelete
Back in the late 1970's, when I was collecting everything and anything GD or other I coulda get me hands on, I purchased a Janis Joplin songbook. It has a few things.
One was one of those flimsy 45's that was Janis with Jorma singing some blues in 1964 or so. Cassidy (Neal, not Jack) is typing in the background. (Originally circulation says it was Kerouac but my dating shows Kerouac was boozing on Long Island and not involved in the early scene).
Two is a long and detailed description of the Festival Express. I want to say it was writing by John Dawson but I don't remember. It's huge. 5-8 pages single spaced.
A few things I recall:
Dawson was Janis' boy-toy on the train. (Ha!).
They ran out of booze in Minnetoba or something and had the conductor stop the train to restock. (Like a good bunch of Dead Heads).
And while there we no real wildlife sightings, Jerry (of course), saw a black bear scratching his back on a tree from the caboose.
I mentioned this account to Jerilyn Brandalias once and she was super excited.
When the scene built I the 80's, I'm the only one I knew who had any knowledge that a festival express existed.
Hopefully I still have the book. I'll dig around at Christmas time at my parents house.
I'd love to contribute more to this excellent blog and hope the above memories are accurate. (The important one is - Jerry).
That Janis Joplin songbook sounds like a valuable relic!Delete
The "typewriter tape" from 1964 is supposed to have Margareta Kaukonen on typewriter... (Janis didn't have much of a connection with Neal Cassady.)
Otherwise your memories are accurate!
You may want to see the Rolling Stone article from 1970 - http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2013/07/junejuly-1970-festival-express.html
It has the detail about Garcia spotting a bear, and a brief mention of the booze stop - there's more detail about that in the Festival Express documentary, and Phil Lesh's & Sam Cutler's books.
Since it was written while Janis was alive, naturally it doesn't say anything about her sex life on the train, but Cutler & McNally confirm in their books that Dawson was her partner...
Sorry for bad grammar and spelling.ReplyDelete
I think I just found a rarity buried in the last 6 minutes of a 56-minute video from the Trans-Continental Pop Festival July 1970. It's the 7/1/70 electric "Candyman," which starts with about a minute of grey screen with audio from the song and then has some rough and grainy (but still pretty neat) footage of the band performing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ttQMcUd04XI&t=50m06sReplyDeleteReplies
Good find! That's the VHS footage that used to circulate, which our audio of Candyman is taken from on the Archive's 7/1/70 file. I can see why that song wasn't used in the Festival Express film, though - I think the performance is pretty rough too.Delete
The footage starts with the longest, most complete clip of the 7/4/70 all-star CC Rider jam I've seen. Garcia's having a blast, though he doesn't really step up in the music, considering just about everybody else takes a solo.Delete
Then there are the familiar video clips of Hard to Handle & Easy Wind, though in very poor quality.
all the festival express clips were pulled from youtube..... sad day :(ReplyDeleteReplies
Not every scrap of Festival Express film was pulled, but basically all the clips used in the DVD (even with 'outtake' footage). It's a shame. Youtube is hardly a permanent resource, though - I've seen things I've linked in other posts go down frequently - and eventually some clips might be re-uploaded by someone else.Delete
Is it possible to re-play the Tapers Section of these songs? I'd love to be able to d/l these and collect them.ReplyDeleteReplies
Older Taper's Sections might not be playable...if the links don't play, I'm not sure what to suggest, since a lot of the songs from the Calgary show just aren't available anywhere else. It would be a public service if someone compiled all the tracks into one copy and made it available somewhere.Delete
Hi, I've got the all files from the Tapers Section, will be uploading them to bt.etree/ Lossless legs / archive soon.Delete
This apparently just surfaced a couple of weeks ago: starting at 16:12 into https://vimeo.com/146999213 we have about 7 minutes of pretty neat silent footage which I am guessing is from the free electric GD show in Toronto on 6/28/70. The band is playing on a flatbed truck in a park, and the hairstyles are the same as in the 6/27/70 acoustic set footage seen in Festival Express but the clothes are different. From the lip movements I think I can spot Lesh and Weir singing the line "one way or another" from "New Speedway Boogie" but I am not sure.ReplyDeleteReplies
Good find! Pigpen's playing harmonica as well. I think it's New Speedway Boogie too.Delete
Here's an alternate b/w shot of the Winnipeg Easy Wind - Levon Helm (and other Band-members?) seen behind the amps starting around 5:50ReplyDelete
Robbie Robertson also shows up at 5:25. Given the bad quality, I don't know who the other people are behind the Dead; I think those are the only Band members seen. But it's nice to see them digging the Dead.Delete
There's a few more minutes of silent footage of one of the Dead's free Coronation Park shows in Toronto, starting 16 minutes into this clip:ReplyDelete
Multiple cameras, so these are outtakes from the film crew. I think the Dead are playing New Speedway Boogie in at least some shots, with Pigpen on harmonica. Looks like between songs the drummers back an enthusiastic lady dancing on stage.
I attended the Toronto Festival Express show and recorded the whole thing on cassette. The Dead's set list that day was as follows: 1) Casey Jones. 2) China Cat Sunflower-I Know You Rider 3) Me and My Uncle 4) Easy Wind 5) Cumberland Blues 6) Turn on Your Lovelight. The set was short due to time constraints. My cassette recording is not great. (from the 20 yard line on a mono portable cassette recorder with a cheap mic. The vocals were pretty low in the mix for the Dead as well, but it's ok from an archival standpoint. I have a couple photos and about 15 seconds of out of focus super at film as well. Hey, it was a long day and I was only 17 at the time. Unfortunately, the only cassette missing from the 12 I recorded at the festival is the one containing the bulk of the New Riders' set, so I only have the last two songs: Portland Woman and Honky Tonk Woman. Regards, Doug McClement. www.LiveWireRemoteRecorders Toronto CanadaReplyDelete
I also have about 30 seconds of Super 8mm footage and audio of Jerry trying to calm the crowd down earlier in the day after some kid from the audience got up, grabbed a mic and said that "the cops are busting heads outside the stadium". Jerry lets everyone know that some of the bands will be playing for free across the street on a flatbed truck in Coronation Park. I also have some Toronto newspaper clippings. I was in Grade 12 at the time, and a friend of mine and I shot 45 minutes of Super 8 film of the whole festival, fancying ourselves to be documentary filmmakers. I actually ended up being a location music recording engineer for the past 40 years, doing major concerts and awards shows across Canada and the USA, though I've never worked with the Dead in any professional capacity, unfortunately.ReplyDelete
Remarkable! Not many kids would spend a whole festival taping and filming...ReplyDelete
Naturally I'd encourage you to share the Dead cassette online if possible, at least as an archival document even though the quality's not great.
In any case, thanks for the informative comments!
I was at the July 1 Winnipeg show, where I smoked a joint with Jerry, and at the Calgary one on July 4th. There was no second day in Calgary. Janis and the Band performed on the first and only night. The Dead were good on both occasions, but they were more of a cult band than a festival one. They were at their best in front of their own fans. I also got lucky when the Montreal show was cancelled, as my pal and I were in northeastern New Jersey and I caught the late show at Portchester on June 24th. It was far and away the best Dead show I ever attended. Absolutely incredible. What a shame we only have the recording of a taper in the balcony, but it beats nothing.ReplyDeleteReplies
Interesting to hear that the Dead played better to their own fans! Festival settings didn't always suit their strengths.Delete
Newspaper accounts of the Calgary festival confirm that it was a two-day event, "23 hours of music" - for instance, the 7/6/70 Calgary Herald reported that Janis closed on Sat, July 4, and the Band closed on Sun, July 5.
The Band closed on January 5th because they played after midnight. It was originally supposed to be a two-day event but they limited it to one. Both Janis and The Band played on the first and only night and they were the last two performers. I was there and I was not stoned.Delete
This is a belated reply, but I've posted all the newspaper coverage of the Calgary show I could find here:Delete
Another point. The Calgary New Speedway Boogie as it appears in the film only includes two of the three verses although the Dead sang and played all three. The filmmakers may not have film of the "who can deny, who can deny it's not just a change in style," verse, or their may have been other reasons, like cutting it short to fit it into the desired film length. Of course the Dead often sang the verses to Speedway Boogie in different orders.ReplyDelete
If you search on You Tube for 'Grateful Dead Festival Express Archival B footage' you will see the "Don't Ease Me in," video from deadvidsdotcom, plus the full version on New Speedway Boogie, which includes the second verse missing in the film.ReplyDelete
- CC Rider?October 1, 2018 at 8:38 PM
Great info here. It appears that the Youtube archival B footage of CC rider has been taken down. Does anyone know where I can find that footage?ReplyDeleteReplies
Unfortunately the long clip of CC Rider seems to be gone from youtube these days, only the short Festival Express edit is still online to watch.Delete
- CC Rider?October 2, 2018 at 8:50 PM
Thank you for the quick reply. I would like to find a way to save that clip for posterity for others to enjoy - it would be worth it. Any ideas on where to find the original?Delete
Can't help you there, I haven't seen that clip in years!Delete
See the comment from 6/24/14 above, mentioning a VHS compilation of Festival Express footage, sadly taken off youtube since. I haven't spotted it on torrent sites either. We can hope that a reader here has a copy and can upload it somewhere.
- CC Rider?October 3, 2018 at 8:34 PM
Thanks - will keep looking! I enjoyed that CC Rider clip for multiple years but took it for granted and assumed it wouldn't be removed. Great to see this thread alive after so many years. Will report back if I find it.Delete
So much above, not sure how new this is, but Alan Bershaw has posted what he thinks to be uncirculated video of a version of "New Speedway Boogie" at https://www.facebook.com/alan.bershaw/videos/2167217343348094/ReplyDeleteReplies
Yes, that's the video that used to circulate - another, better copy without the timecode is currently here:Delete
It's the same performance footage as used in Festival Express, just a couple minutes longer. Bershaw's copy helpfully patches in the stereo audio portion used in the film.


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Anton Stankowski was a German graphic designer, photographer, and classically trained painter best known for his Deutsche Bank logo. His design style utilizes minimal geometry in a really cool way through his use of grid-based formatting and bold colors. He doesn't use type a whole lot, but when he does the placement and sizing are pleasantly attractive.
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Brighten-Your-Day Posters from Pope Saint Victor
It's always great to check up on designers to see what kind of work they've been up to, kind of like listening to a new album from a band you like. But with your eyes, rather. After seeing what Victor Huckabee (aka Pope Saint Victor) has been doing, I am glad to say that his new stuff is just as awesome as his work last posted by us. You can really tell how much feeling he puts into his designs, as if it weren't apparent enough.
Some nice playing with character expressions and typography shaping and placement. And his illustrated thoughts are just too cool for school.
Follow him @Popesaintvictor
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Saturday, September 27, 2008
Kansas: The TV Calm Before The Talladega Storm
Update: New posts are up, refresh your browser or click on the logo above.
The big crowds and wonderful scenery of the Kansas Speedway are going to set the NASCAR on ESPN TV crew up for a "can't miss" afternoon of racing. Sunday afternoon should see a mix that includes a great track, strong racing and pit strategy serve-up what may be the best race of The Chase.
This is great for all concerned for one little reason. Next week, it all ends. Talladega brings the teamwork dynamic back into play with groups of team cars pushing each other like freight trains. It is also a track where one false move could easily lead to disaster for ten or more cars at one time.
Kansas has shown itself to be a track that allows for exactly the type of racing that the TV cameras enjoy. Big sweeping turns lead to three and even four-wide racing that can push the excitement level high at any time. The pictures from this facility are fantastic down the backstretch and even the in-car cameras shine because of the smooth surface.
The ESPN on ABC production gang will offer a one hour version of NASCAR Countdown to begin the day at 1PM Eastern Time. Allen Bestwick will host the program with Rusty Wallace and Brad Daugherty alongside. The Infield Pit Studio has been a very good investment for ESPN this season in more ways than one.
This innovative unit has seen Bestwick and his crew serve-up some solid programming in both good weather and bad. They have filled hours in rain delays, hosted countless drivers and erased the memory of Suzy Kolber and the network's first season. Regardless of the weather outside, this facility has been on-the-air and working. That is a true testament to the design and the tech crew.
The pictures above are the Infield Pit Studio exterior and interior. Click on the pics to see them full-size. Thanks to ESPN for the images.
Bestwick has a lot of stories to review this week from Montoya's penalty to driver changes and The Chase. As usual, two storylines will be running side-by-side with the race and The Chase both looking for attention and TV time.
The Saturday Nationwide Series race proved to be tough for Jerry Punch who had a hard time with both driver names and following the on-track action. His partners Dale Jarrett and Andy Petree called a large amount of the play-by-play and both have become pretty solid where that TV skill is concerned.
Punch will have his work cut-out for him at 2PM on Sunday, as Kansas has a lot of action and many of the Chasers will be starting far back in the field. This might be the biggest play-by-play challenge for him in quite some time. ESPN has always been mesmerized by the leaders of the race and on Sunday there may be only one or two Chasers among the top five cars. That should be interesting to sort-out.
Tim Brewer seems to have found his stride of late and did quite a good job on-the-fly describing the Montoya penalty and showing viewers exactly what happened. Kansas has been shown to be a track that can stress everything from shocks to batteries, so fans should be seeing Brewer on a regular basis in the telecast.
It's tough times for Shannon Spake on pit road this year. As the full-time rookie of the ESPN group she has found herself on the receiving end of criticism for her lack of racing knowledge and her sometimes off-balance comments. Just like Joey Logano, Spake is basically trying to get some "TV seat time" this season and learn for the future.
As the races wind-down and the tempers crank-up, both Spake and Jamie Little may find themselves confronting more angry drivers and crew chiefs face-to-face. Learning to deal with NASCAR's intensity is something that both of these two reporters are still in the process of understanding. Kansas may be a good warm-up for Talladega where tempers are concerned.
Mike Massaro and Dave Burns continue to fly under-the-radar this season. Both have been given the opportunity to expand their pit reporter roles and made the most of these chances. Massaro is now a regular on the Monday NASCAR Now roundtable and Burns hosted NASCAR Countdown pre-race shows in his firesuit before Nationwide races. They may both wind-up with bigger roles on ESPN's NASCAR coverage next season.
Perhaps the key person on Sunday for ESPN will be the Producer. As the one who decides what direction the overall coverage should take, the "racer vs. Chaser" problem will fall squarely in his lap. What portion of the coverage should focus on the race and what portion should follow the progress of The Chasers? This was ESPN's toughest challenge last season and has proven to be an issue again this year.
Since so many of the Chase contenders are starting in the back of the pack, ESPN will probably choose to watch them come up through the field as the early portions of the race progress. If Sunday is anything like Saturday, there will be packs of cars running in three lanes and lots of passing.
Last week in Dover, full field recaps were a struggle because of the fast laps and the frequent interruptions in the action. ESPN did two full field rundowns on Saturday in the Nationwide race, so perhaps the network will aggressively keep viewers up-to-date on Sunday as well.
One outstanding Saturday element from ESPN was interviewing drivers who were out of the race. From a discouraged Mark Martin outside the Infield Medical Center to a tired Bobby Hillin who was back racing after a long break, the network followed-up. This element has long been missing on the Cup side and perhaps it will return on Sunday.
The chaos of Talladega surely has begun to trickle into the minds of the TV crew as they look out at the serene Kansas landscape. Sunday afternoon will be a great opportunity to put a solid race telecast in the books and head into Talladega with the ESPN momentum high.
The Daly Planet welcomes comments from readers. Simply click on the COMMENTS button below and follow the easy instructions. The rules for posting are located on the right side of the main page. Thanks for taking the time to stop by.
18 comments:
- Dot said...
JD, can I ask a question before the comments start rolling in on this topic? I have read on previous posts here about the F1 booth guys not being on site? Where are they? How does this work? Thanks.
- September 28, 2008 at 12:24 AM
- Anonymous said...
They sit in a studio while Peter is always at the race tracks.
As for Shannon Spake she's doing a great job, get off the Manske bandwagon. If she's so good in your eyes why can't she be on everynight?
- September 28, 2008 at 3:15 AM
- Anonymous said...
Dealing with Nascar's intensity is the least of the problems Little and Spake may have to deal with today. Little,Spake and Manske are all over their heads in my opinion. I'll spare you the details of one of spakes slip ups yesterday.
- September 28, 2008 at 6:33 AM
- Anonymous said...
Let's not forget the economy. I believe another blog entry pointed out how important it would be to talk about it. Nothing gets me more pumped up about a race than news about our economy.
- September 28, 2008 at 6:45 AM
- Anonymous said...
Just curious JD - you offer "Shannon Spake who has received critisism this year"
Wonder if you are willing to explain.
Has NASCAR critisized her?
Has Mike Helton or Brian France called ESPN about her? Have ESPN executives said anything to you or publically or privately about her performance.
What is the origin of your comments? Or is it just your opinion.
- September 28, 2008 at 9:14 AM
- Anonymous said...
I believe he is referring to the dozens of posters to this blog who have complained that she doesn't know what she's doing on pit road.
- September 28, 2008 at 9:33 AM
- Daly Planet Editor said...
That is certainly an interesting mix of comments.
Just like Anon 3:15AM said, it would be too expensive to have the talent travel globally for a short race. They voice F-1 from Charlotte. The F-1 guys produce a "feed" that all the networks voice, many do it the way SPEED does it. Peter is the insert from the track and he has served them well.
I had the pleasure of doing F-1 when it was on ESPN in the 1980's and we traveled the talent. It was a nightmare. This is certainly the way to go and the presentation is solid.
Anon 3:15AM,
Not so sure what you are talking about. Manske and Burr alternate traveling to the tracks. Manske is in Kansas this week and Burr is in the studio.
The studio hosting position and reporting for the show is completely different from handling the pit reporting duties.
Anon 9:14AM,
NASCAR is not in the habit of talking about TV reporters for the networks. As for ESPN, why would they do anything like that in public?
Shannon was part-time last season and just stepped into this full-time role. She is a stick-and-ball girl from Charlotte who made her way into this sport without any previous motorsports experience.
That makes it tough, especially when you have to talk technical or ask the one right question on-the-fly.
Remember, she did a good job for SPEED with an earlier show and also contributes to NASCAR Now almost every week.
This is her first season of being in the high-profile pit reporter role during The Chase. I hope things work out for her down the stretch.
Anon 6:45AM,
I don't know where you live or what your economic situation is, but if you don't believe the economy is the biggest factor this season in NASCAR's attendance issues, you may want to re-think.
- September 28, 2008 at 9:46 AM
- bevo said...
Hey JD could you please tell someone at Speed to turn of the ringer on the phone in the studio during the F1 race?
- September 28, 2008 at 10:07 AM
- Anonymous said...
I posted some of these thoughts over on the NN series comments but I wanted to reiterate them here.
I think Doc did a much better job during the first half of the NN race. He tried to keep up with the lucky dog, who was on and off pit road and who was in the garage. He stopped himself from a 'story' to address action on the track and was obviously trying to not pair drver names and numbers. He lost focus fairly quickly, but he was trying to address some of the things we complain about.
The pit reporters stopped that "I talked to so n so" and the fluff lead-ins to little info, so I feel the reporting is getting tighter and more sucsinct.
I am confused as to whether it is the producer or director who chooses what we see, but whoever it was did a great job durning the NN races; while during Cup races it SU*ks. Not being aware of what I am NOT seeing is a real plus.
I am almost always happier with the NN coverage for what ever reason, and am also always disappointed on Sunday when it goes back to being just lousy.
- September 28, 2008 at 10:47 AM
- Anonymous said...
Oh and....
Statistics are like a bakini?
Ok Ryan
- September 28, 2008 at 10:48 AM
- Anonymous said...
'Anonymous said...
Dealing with Nascar's intensity is the least of the problems Little and Spake may have to deal with today. Little,Spake and Manske are all over their heads in my opinion. I'll spare you the details of one of spakes slip ups yesterday.
September 28, 2008 6:33 AM'
I agree with this poster. Spake and Little have been doing this long enough by now. I don't buy their 'needing more seat time' excuse anymore.
- September 28, 2008 at 11:25 AM
- Anonymous said...
Doc was trying not to pair driver names and numbers yesterday? The only way I could agree with that is because there were times he just didn't even mention the driver's name and only said the car number. "There's the 88 being followed by the 11 car..." and then nothing else. That was Jerry Punch's effort to try and call the race.
I don't think that would be acceptable other than if I went to the local track and tried to announce a race without a program or knowing ANY of the driver's names.
But on this stage and on this network at this late in the season?
Announcer grade = F
- September 28, 2008 at 12:26 PM
- Anonymous said...
A little off the subject but I have a question/comment about what seems like the lazy Nascar media the past week. A lot of writers keep saying that the Chase has ruined Kyle Busch's chances for a title and that it's a shame that two races could effect his chances as much as they have.
Yet, when calculating the points after these last two races WITHOUT adjusting for the Chase, Busch would actually be behind Carl Edwards by 30-something and only 20 ahead of Jimmie Johnson.
None of them seem to mention that and it makes many of the media seem like they don't care about facts and go for the dramatic statement or that they just don't know enough about Nascar or auto racing. Does anyone 'fact check' the Nascar media on things like this?
As much as I'm not a fan of Kyle Busch, you can't go out and finish 34th and 43rd in two straight races and expect many people to feel sorry for your chances to win a title, Chase or no Chase.
- September 28, 2008 at 12:34 PM
- Anonymous said...
Now Doc wants to tell DJ and AP that KyBusch can, in fact, come back.
Yeah, Doc, come on. while it is mathematically possible, your own announcers said two weeks ago when the Chase started that you could MAYBE have one bad week; two were insurmountable.
You just embarrass your co-workers when you try to force them into agreeing with you.
- September 28, 2008 at 2:12 PM
- Anonymous said...
Oh, good, now Punch has memorized the drivers' names, so he can say, "Earnhardt, Gordon, Allmendinger" when they're on his monitor instead of just listing their car numbers!
- September 28, 2008 at 2:23 PM
- Anonymous said...
Amazing how Shannon Spake kept saying that Greg Biffle was struggling when he ran in the top 5 for most of the race. Also Jerry Punch is not a play-by-play guy. He's a pit reporter. I think ESPN rewarded him for his loyalty to the network. ESPN needs to swap Bestwick for Doc.
- September 29, 2008 at 10:21 AM
- Anonymous said...
- This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
- September 29, 2008 at 10:21 AM
- Anonymous said...
JD, fellow posters. As much as I love you all, I can't wait until the week I don't need to come on here and read about how bad everyone else thinks this is, and to add my collection of complaints.
From Kolber, through Digger to Doc and Draft Track, the mistakes are frequent, the patronising endless.
Anyone who is in any doubt what a race telecast should look like, just watch the trucks on Speed. They have
(1) someone who can call the race
(2) a colour commentator who knows what he is talking about (that he is called Parsons probably helps)
(3) pit reporters who don't ask stupid questions
(4) no gimmicks, gophers, draft graphics
(5) a director who can show the race, all of it.
Sprinkled amongst the junk we have had to put up with this year have been a few jewels.
(1) Mike Joy and Allen Bestwick. The best PxP there is. Shame only 1 is doing it.
(2) Larry Mac, Andy Petree, Dale Jarrett, Wally Dallenbach, Randy LeJoie. Analysts who really add something.
(3) Wendy Venturini, Krista Voda, Lindsay Czarniak. Women who know something about racing, and show it on the broadcast.
(4) Matt Yocum, Dick Berggren, Dave Burns, Steve Byrnes. Pit reporters that get the job done.
(5) Some fantasic cameramen and soundmen, who bring some of the best pictures and sound in motorsport.
The problems unfortunately outweigh the good stuff. Poor race direction, poor choice of PxP, poor questions and choice of interviewees, inappropriate product placement, poor race timing, poor use of "toys", inappropriate storylines... Do I need to carry on?
All 3 telecasts need tweaking. ESPN needs tweaking the most.
And until then, I will be here, thankful that I am not alone in my wish for a decent telecast, and ever hopeful that someone from the Worldwide Leader, or someone called France, gives a damn, and makes the changes the coverage so desperately needs.
- September 29, 2008 at 2:49 PM


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Healthy Grilling Tips From Ellie Krieger
Ellie Krieger's Top 10 Tips For Healthy Grilling
Ellie Krieger's Top 10 Tips For Healthy Grilling
When I chatted it up with Food Network host and nutrition expert Ellie Krieger last week, she had plenty of suggestions for staying healthy during the coming months of Summer entertaining. In addition to discussing Father's Day meals, the Chefs Move to Schools program, and the new Cooking Channel, I asked Ellie to share her top cookout tips.
Here are 10 of Ellie's ways to get healthy while grilling up a storm.


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Chris Brown/Actor,Rapper, reportedly suffered a non-epileptic seisure on Friday morning 1:00 a.m. August 9 at Hollywood Record Planet recording studio.
Brown's publicist reportedly added the singer/actor has been under stress and possible dehydration. Fans are releieved that Brown is doing better, was not required to be hospitalized and no further incidences were reported.
Published on Aug 11, 2013


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A glitch on Facebook caused visitors to some of the Web's biggest sites to be redirected away from their intended destination to an error message on Facebook.
The bug affected Facebook users who were visiting sites including CNN, Huffington Post, Washington Post and Gawker, according to published reports. When attempting to go to those sites, visitors would see them only briefly before being taken to a page on Facebook.
"An error occurred. Please try again later," read the message on Facebook, according to those reports.
The glitch affected sites using Facebook's login service, the company said in a statement. That service allows users to see what their Facebook friends are doing on other sites and to log into those sites without having to create a separate identification for them.
The problem lasted for only "a short period of time," Facebook said in its statement. "The issue was resolved quickly."
A company representative declined to say how long the glitch lasted or how many sites were affected by it. The representative did not respond to a request for more information about the glitch itself.
Web users who do not use Facebook or who were not logged into their account were not affected by the glitch, according to BuzzFeed.
Contact Troy Wolverton at 408-840-4285. Follow him at Twitter.com/troywolv.


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Home >> Course Descriptions >> College of Arts and Sciences
Mathematical Methods of Physics
Three semester hours.
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This forum is to discuss legally owned NFA weapons. Remember to build or own NFA weapons you must have the proper license or tax stamp.
DO NOT ask how to convert semi automatic weapons to fully automatic weapons!!!! Doing so will mean immediate banning from the NFA forum.
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Set up
Posted by Smokey Stover on April 02, 2004
In Reply to: Set up posted by sphinx on April 02, 2004
: When a man spoke on the phone to a company that he wanted to "set up" an telephone service, did he mean that he wanted to have his telephone fixed?
: Thanks!
Set up means a host of things, but this use is one of the most typical. The man wants telephone service "set up" for him, meaning that he wants the phone company to start phone service. It does not mean he wants a phone fixed; he probably did not yet have a phone at the time of the call. (In this case, don't say "an telephone service." The "an" form of the indefinite object is used only when the following word starts with a vowel. And in this case there should be no indefinite article anyway.) Whether setting up phone service involved the phone company installing the man's phone or not depends on the practice in his area. But it certainly will include wiring his home or office for such service. But even the amount of wiring they do depends on local practice and customer preference. In any case, setting something up does not mean having it fixed. It means getting it there or getting it running, getting it started, getting it installed, getting it going, placing it there, preparing it for use. SS
Bummer! I meant "indefinite article," of course, not "indefinite object." Sheesh! SS


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5 ways to protect yourself if you were zapped by Zappos breach
As you may have heard, Zappos announced that it experienced a data breach on Sunday. In an email to customers, the online shoe and clothing retailer that's owned by Amazon said "there may have been illegal and unauthorized access to some of your customer account information on Zappos.com."Comprised data includes:
- your name
- e-mail address
- billing and shipping addresses
- phone number
- the last four digits of your credit card number
- cryptographically scrambled password
Even though the company said that passwords were encrypted ("scrambled"), it expired and reset customer passwords as a precaution and asked customers to create a new password.
1. Easy way to create different passwords for different accounts
Even though just about every security expert warns against it, many people use the same password for different accounts. The problem is that if one account is compromised, the hackers can break into your other accounts. It may seem like an overwhelming task to have a different password for different accounts, but it's actually easier than you might think.
First, come up with a phrase that you can use to generate an easy-to-remember but hard to guess password. For example, if you met someone named Susie Smith in 1995, your password could be based on the phrase "I first met Susie Smith in 95," and the password itself would be IfmSSi#95. Adding those upper case characters for proper nouns along with a # sign and numbers greatly increases security.
Then, to make the passwords unique, consider adding a character at the beginning and/or end for each site. For example, your Zappos password could be ZIfmSSi#95s, using the first and last character of Zappos in the password. For Amazon, you would use AImSSi#85n, etc.
2. Change your security questions
Most sites that use passwords have security questions that you can answer to recover a password or as an extra measure of security. Make sure these aren't obvious to answer. If lots of people know your mother's maiden name or the name of your first car, then try to come up with a more secure question and answer set if the site lets you select your own questions.
3. Consider using a password management tool
There are several password management tools including Lastpass and RoboForm that enable you to store your passwords in the cloud or on your device and have the software (or app) enter them for you. In addition to a level of security, these tools offer a great deal of convenience and make it easier to have very different passwords for each account.
4. Check your credit accounts and reports
Although credit card numbers weren't reportedly compromised in the Zappos attack, it's always a good idea to frequently look at your online credit card and bank statements for recent suspicious activity. Also, you can get a free annual credit report from each of three major bureaus.
5. Have up-to-date security
If you don't have security software, get some. And be it along with your operating system and applications are up-to-date.