XLIIs — Grateful Dead Tapes

Andrei Petrescu in Romania loaned us 58 early Betty boards he spent decades collecting. Listen to Young Bettys and three other collections this season.

Every three months, XLIIs acquires four collections of Grateful Dead live recordings on loan from collectors around the world.

Each collector has spent years — sometimes decades — assembling a set of tapes around a single idea: a particular era of the band, a run of shows that changed something, a sound engineer whose work defined how the Dead were heard. They traded for multiple recordings of every show until they had the best-sounding version. That's the tape that appears here.

We photograph every collector's original cassettes and J-card inserts, written in their native language. Our archivists consult over a hundred research sources per collection to write liner notes for each show — the venue, the setlist, what was happening on the tour, and why that night mattered. Each season, we commission an artist to create original artwork for all four collections.

SPRING 2026

Cornell and Company — 42 shows from 1977. Rhys Morgan, Cardiff, Wales.

Six Hundred Four — 37 shows from the Wall of Sound year, 1974. Anonymous, Hungary.

Young Bettys — 58 shows, 1969–1973. Andrei Petrescu, Bucharest, Romania.

New Animal — 33 shows, 1979–1980. Hendrik Tamm, Estonia.

170 shows. Full recordings, start to finish. Turn your phone sideways to see the J-card. Read the liner notes while you listen.

Free. No ads. No account. Just tapes.