Aoxomoxoa

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Aoxomoxoa
Studio album by Grateful Dead

Publication
(s)

20th June 1969

Label (s) Warner Bros. Records

Genre (s)

Folk rock , psychedelic rock

Title (number)

8 on LP, 12 on CD

running time

38:07 (LP), 79:20 (CD)

occupation

production

Grateful Dead

chronology
Anthem of the Sun (1968) Aoxomoxoa Live / Dead (1969)

Aoxomoxoa is the third studio album by the band Grateful Dead .

History of origin

The band had already started recording when Ampex developed the first 16-track recorder and launched it on the market. This enabled the band to record more audio tracks than they did on their previous album, Anthem of the Sun. On the other hand, it also meant that the band took eight months to produce the album to familiarize themselves with the new technology and its possibilities. Jerry García later commented that “this was their first adventure with the 16-track recorder and they tended to experiment and expect too much. As a result, a lot of the music that was actually there was lost. "

For this reason, Garcia and Lesh revised the album in 1971, removed original songs and song passages and released the album as a new edition . The original tracks from the 69 album are hardly available any more, as the CD version from 2001 (or 2003) is based on the 71 album.

Many premieres of the band are associated with the album Aoxomoxoa . It was the first album that she recorded exclusively in recording studios near her hometown of San Francisco ; in the Pacific Recording Studio near San Mateo and in the Pacific High Recording Studio in San Francisco. It is the first album that Tom Constanten played as a permanent member of the band. Robert Hunter worked only as the official songwriter for the band and with Garcia until his death. For the first time an emphasis was placed on acoustic songs like Mountains of the Moon and Dupree's Diamond Blues . Thus, Lesh had to play an acoustic bass for the first time , which he compared to playing a violin, since it has no frets for the fingers.

The long recording time made the album the most expensive and ambitious of Warner Bros. Records at the time. The cost was given as $ 180,000 , making the album the most expensive Dead album ever.

Although the album includes some of the band's classics including Doin 'That Rag , Dupree's Diamond Blues and Cosmic Charlie , only three songs were added to the live repertoire : China Cat Sunflowers and The Eleven as medley and St. Stephen . The Eleven was later replaced by I Know U Rider . The album itself was viewed as creatively but commercially inadequate. Many Deadheads (fans of the Grateful Dead) describe the album as the band's experimental climax. Rolling Stone wrote that no album supported a lifestyle so sensitively, lovingly and lifelike.

In 2001 a revised version of the eight songs and four more were released by Rhino Records for the box set The Golden Road (1965-1973) , which were then also released in 2003 as a single CD.

successes

In the Billboard charts the album reached number 73. On March 13, 1997, the album reached gold status .

In 1991 the music magazine Rolling Stone selected the Rick Griffin- designed cover of Aoxomoxoa as the eighth best album cover of all time.

Trivia

The album was supposed to be titled Earthquake Country before Rick Griffin, developer of the cover, and Robert Hunter decided on the Aoxomoxoa palindrome . On the audio biography Living with the Dead by Rock Scully , manager of the band, the title "OX-OH-MOX-OH-AH" is pronounced.

Hunter wrote the songs China Cat Sunflower and The Eleven under the influence of LSD when he was not yet a full member of the band. China Cat Sunflower in particular was influenced by Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland and the works of Edith Sitwell .

Alan Moore used an Aoxomoxoa poster in his Watchmen comic series (# 5, page 7, image 6).

The protagonist from the book The Bold As Love by the English fantasy and science fiction writer Gwyneth Jones uses Aoxomoxoa as an artist name. In the next book, Castles Made Of Sand , it is revealed that he is a deadhead.

Track list

Unless otherwise noted, all songs were written by Garcia and Hunter.

1969 LP

  1. St. Stephen (Jerry García, Robert Hunter, Phil Lesh) - 4:26
  2. Dupree's Diamond Blues - 3:32
  3. Rosemary - 1:58
  4. Doin 'That Rag - 4:41
  5. Mountains of the Moon - 4:02
  6. China Cat Sunflower - 3:40
  7. What's Become Of The Baby - 8:12
  8. Cosmic Charlie - 5:29

2003 CD

  1. St. Stephen (Jerry García, Robert Hunter, Phil Lesh) - 4:26
  2. Dupree's Diamond Blues - 3:32
  3. Rosemary - 1:58
  4. Doin 'That Rag - 4:41
  5. Mountains of the Moon - 4:02
  6. China Cat Sunflower - 3:40
  7. What's Become Of The Baby - 8:12
  8. Cosmic Charlie - 5:29
  9. Clementine Jam (Grateful Dead) - 10:46
  10. Nobody's Spoonful Jam (Grateful Dead) - 10:04
  11. The Eleven Jam (Grateful Dead) - 15:00
  12. Cosmic Charlie - 6:47

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ The 100 best album covers of all time; Edition: November 14, 1991
  2. ↑ Dodd, Davis. The Annotated "China Cat Sunflower"

Web links