I must be honest, I did try to flirt with Dead-dom in the late 70s, through indirection and stealth.  I paid a very heavy price that served as a cosmic warning away from the black hole the Dead represented to my life of straight and narrow.

As a senior in high school, I was listening to a lot of FM radio and in those days the DJs played what they wanted, and the new releases from the major bands were still considered major events.  I remember liking the song Shakedown Street, and that there was a teen controversy over whether the Dead had “gone disco” like the Stones with Miss You and so many other major groups of the era.

I wasn’t that big on Good Lovin’, I thought The Rascals’ original version was a lot more energetic.  But I had my eye on that album.  I liked that cartoon cover too, for some reason.

So I convinced one of my younger brothers to ask for it for Christmas.  A nice benefit of being the oldest.  I didn’t have to “waste” one of my gifts on the record, when he would do my bidding for me.

I was looking forward to Christmas morning, because I knew what my big present was going to be — my long-dreamed-of Dual 1225 turntable.

In those days, kids identified things they wanted and went months and even years before getting what they wanted.  Not like so many kids today, who get everything right away.  (Danger, grumpy old man emerging.)

Anyway, on Christmas morning, there it was, my audiophile Dual 1225 turntable to replace my old cheap BSR record-changer.

And that brand new copy of my bro’s Shakedown Street to play on it!

I think we got through the LP once.  Good Lovin’, well I could get used to it.  France seemed really unexpected, a lady was singing it.  I kind of liked it but wouldn’t admit it to my brothers gathered around me.

Serengetti was pretty out-there, and Fire on the Mountain was amazing.  That lady kept singing these prissy songs, and my brothers laughed at me.  New Minglewood Blues saved my bacon a bit.

Then some of my cousins came over.  We had the stereo set up on the floor, so the Dual, with its beautiful cantilevered tonearm that gently descended to the vinyl record in a slow, stately manner no matter how fast you triggered the lever, could sit under the front of the tree.

I was sitting cross-legged on the floor playing with a Motorific race car set with my older cousins when the 4 year old, right before my eyes, grabbed the anodized aluminum tonearm of my brand-new Dual 1225 and pulled it up, bending it almost 90 degrees in half.

I was sick beyond words.  In my family, we treated our guests a certain way, and it was out of the question for me at that age to make an issue to the family upstairs about what had transpired.

In those days, again, when your $200 turntable was broken, it stayed broken and unreplaced.

I could not look at Shakedown Street again.  The LP sat there on the balanced steel platter, unplayable, with the tonearm pointing skyward.

My brother took his Shakedown Street to his room, where it sat in his milk crate of records never to be played by me again.  I never took it up to my Greg Brady-style bedroom to play it on my BSR.  It was not meant to be.  And hey, that lady was all over that album anyway, what 17 year old boy wants to listen to that?