Aoxomoxoa

Aoxomoxoa is the third studio album by the Grateful Dead. It was originally titled Earthquake Country. Many Deadheads consider this era of the Dead to be the experimental apex of the band's history. It is also the first album with Tom Constanten as an official member of the band. Rolling Stone, upon reviewing the album, mentioned that "no other music sustains a lifestyle so delicate and loving and lifelike."

The title of the album is a palindrome created by cover artist Rick Griffin and lyricist Robert Hunter. According to the audio version of the Rock Scully memoir, Living with the Dead (read by the author and former Dead co-manager himself), the title is pronounced "OX-OH-MOX-OH-AH". The words "GRATEFUL DEAD" on the front of the album, written in large, flowing capital letters, can also be read "WE ATE THE ACID".

In 1991 Rolling Stone selected Aoxomoxoa as having the eighth best album cover of all time.

Tapes of outtakes from the recording sessions exist among fans.

Making of the album

The group had already initiated recording sessions for the album when Ampex manufactured and released the first Multitrack recording machine offering 16 tracks of recording and playback (model number MM-1000). This doubled the number of tracks the band had available when they recorded Anthem of the Sun the previous year. As a direct consequence, the band spent eight months off-and-on in the studio not only recording the album but getting used to—and experimenting with—the new technology. Garcia commented that "it was our first adventure with sixteen-track and we tended to put too much on everything ... A lot of the music was just lost in the mix, a lot of what was really there." As a result, Garcia and Lesh went back in the studio in 1971 to remix the album, removing whole sections of songs for a re-release. Essentially, the first release in 1969 is "lost," since the current CD reissue is from the 1971 mixing.

In Grateful Dead history, Aoxomoxoa had a number of firsts connected with it. It is the first album the band recorded in or near their hometown of San Francisco (at Pacific Recording Studio in nearby San Mateo, and at the similarly named Pacific High Recording Studio in San Francisco proper). It is the first studio release to include pianist Tom Constanten as a permanent member. It was also the first to have lyricist Robert Hunter as a full-time contributor to the band, thus initiating the Jerry Garcia/Robert Hunter songwriting partnership that endured for the rest of the band's existence. It was also the first time the band would put emphasis on acoustic songs, such as "Mountains of the Moon" and "Dupree's Diamond Blues." Lesh played acoustic bass for the first time, commenting that "the fun part of that was trying to play in tune with no frets to guide my fingers, just like a violin."

The lengthy sessions for the album would put the band deeper into debt with Warner Bros. Records—specifically, a total cost of $180,000 for Aoxomoxoa, it was their most amibitous and costly venture to that date. It would be the last time the band would ever run up such high studio bills. Although the album does harbor several Dead classics (including "Doin' That Rag", "Dupree's Diamond Blues" and "Cosmic Charlie"), only two songs would remain in the Dead's live repertoire permanently, "St. Stephen" and "China Cat Sunflower". The album itself was regarded as both creatively unique and also commercially inaccessible.

The 2003 reissue (also part of the Golden Road boxed set from 2001) includes three studio jams (including an early version of "The Eleven") from the original aborted eight-track sessions for the album, and a live version of "Cosmic Charlie" recorded early in 1969.

Track listing

All songs written by Garcia and Hunter unless otherwise noted.

1. "St. Stephen" (Garcia, Hunter, Lesh) – 4:26
2. "Dupree's Diamond Blues" (Hunter, Lesh) – 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 reissue bonus tracks

1. "Clementine Jam" (Grateful Dead) – 10:46
2. "Nobody's Spoonful Jam" (Grateful Dead) – 10:04
3. "The Eleven Jam" (Grateful Dead) – 15:00
4. "Cosmic Charlie" (live) – 6:47

Musical personnel

• Jerry Garcia - guitars, vocals
• Bob Weir - guitars, vocals
• Tom Constanten - keyboards
• Ron "Pigpen" McKernan - organ
• Phil Lesh - basses, vocals
• Bill Kreutzmann - percussion
• Mickey Hart - percussion

Production personnel

• Grateful Dead - producers and arrangers
• Bob Matthews - executive engineer
• Betty Cantor - engineer
• Ron Wickersham - consulting engineer
• Dan Healy - consulting engineer
• Owsley Stanley - consulting engineer (credited as "Owsley")
• Ram Rod, John P. Hagen & Jackson - equipment managers (listed as "Kwipment Krew")

Bonus tracks production details

• Tracks 9-11 recorded live in the studio at Pacific Recording Studio, San Mateo, California on August 13, 1968
• Track 12 recorded live at Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, California on January 25, 1969.

Reissue production credits

• James Austin and David Lemieux - reissue producers
• Peter McQuaid - executive producer, Grateful Dead Productions
• Michael Wesley Johnson - associate producer, research coordination
• Eileen Law - archival research, Grateful Dead Archives
• Cassidy Law - project coordination, Grateful Dead Archives
• Jeffrey Norman - additional mixing on bonus tracks
• Joe Gastwirt - mastering, production consultant

Miscellanea

• A 5 year-old Courtney Love appears on the album's back cover.
• A remixed version of Aoxomoxoa supervised by Jerry Garcia was issued in 1971 or 1972 (with the same catalog number, WS1790), and can be identified by the legend on the back cover that reads, "Remixed September, 1971".
• A poster of Aoxomoxoa appears in one edition of Alan Moore's Watchmen.(#5, page 7, panel 6)
• The Bold As Love sequence, by Gwyneth Jones feature a rockstar character named Sage Pender [real name Stephen Pender], who often uses the pseudonym 'Aoxomoxoa'. He is the frontman of the band 'Aoxomoxoa and the Heads'. In the second book of the series, Castles Made Of Sand, it is revealed that Grateful Dead are one of his favourite bands, and a major influence for 'the Heads'
• The earlier 8 track versions or demos of material found on the album feature noticeable differences, most notably "St. Stephen" which originally included a string quartet intro, bagpipes on the William Tell (or 2nd) bridge and a ringing phone through which the 1st bridge seems to be sung through after being answered. Such material can be heard here:

References