@pdq check out the links to the Murder Ballad Monday discussions at the top of the thread if you take a notion - I make comment on the short number of times Mason's gets played, and New Speedway didn't last that long either (though reborn in '91, and now the post Dead lineups play Mason's sometimes.) I think, in a way, Jack Straw 'replaced' both of them, by digging at the themes in them much deeper and more universally. Mason's and Speedway deal with Altamont, but Jack Straw encompasses Altamont and much much more (or so I think, for what it's worth.)