Loading summary
Transcript168 lines
- [00:00]
A
Announcing Dogfish Head Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale Collaborating for over a decade now, Dogfish Head and Grateful Dead have crafted a light bodied pale ale brewed with sustainable kerns of grains, granola and heaps of good karma for a refreshing brew that's music to your taste buds. Check out dogfish.com for more details and to find some Grateful Dead Juicy Pale Ale in your neck of the woods. Dogfish Headcraft Brewery is located in Milton, Delaware. Please drink responsibly.
- [00:30]
B
Foreign.
- [00:35]
A
The Good Old Grateful Dead Cast the official Podcast of the Grateful Dead. I'm Rich Mahan with Jesse Jarno exploring the music and legacy of the Grateful Dead for the committed and the curious. Hello friends and welcome back to the good Old Grateful Dead cast. We have a special bonus episode for you today entitled Inside the Vault. As you may have just surmised by the title, this episode dives into the history of the live recordings of the Grateful Dead and shines a light on the heroes that have preserved the music and legacy of our favorite band. Our guests include David Lemieux, Carol Lotvala, Ronnie Stanley, Starfinder Stanley, David Gans and Mike Johnson. Visit us at our website dead.netdeadcast and check out the extra materials we have for you to explore for this episode. Also@dead.net deadcast there's all of our past episodes including the complete seasons 1, 2 and 3 and you can link from there to any and all of the podcasting platforms available so you can listen where you like to listen. Please help the good old Grateful Dead cast by subscribing hit that like button and leave us a review. Thank you very much. Just in time for the gift giving holiday season, there is a new Grateful Dead Live archival release, Listen to the River St. Louis 71721973 It's a boxed set that includes seven previously unreleased concerts from St. Louis, Missouri recorded on December 9th and 10th, 1971 at the Fox Theater, October 17th, 18th and 1972 at the Fox Theater and October 29th and 30th, 1973 at the Keele Auditorium. Dead.net will also exclusively release Light Into Ashes Fox Theater, St. Louis, Missouri 10 1872. It's a double LP on 180 gram custom vinyl limited to 7200 copies. This set focuses on an exceptional hour plus jam plucked from the Grateful Dead's October 18th, 1972 show at the Fox. The breakout show from this set is Fox Theater, St. Louis, MO 121071 and it's available as a 3 CD set and a limited edition 5LP set, also on 180 gram vinyl. All of these configurations, a Listen to the River St. Louis 7172, 73 are available now. Get more information@dead.net who was the first to start recording the Dead? What's the history of the Vault? Who were the talented engineers who captured the music so proficiently? Who's tended to this vast collection of tapes and recordings used to preserve and maintain the band's legacy? All of these questions and more are answered in this special bonus episode. It's sure to give you not only a greater understanding of how the Vault originated and now functions, but also a greater appreciation of those caretakers who painstakingly ensure its safety and play an instrumental role in curating the legacy of the Grateful Dead. Now, if we can just get this door open. I think Jesse Jarno's in here somewhere.
- [03:55]
B
In November 1965, the band formerly known as the Warlocks, then calling themselves the Emergency Crew, recorded a demo for Autumn Records, now on Birth of the Dead, their first known recording.
- [04:07]
C
I can't come down Plain sea I can't come down I've been set free who you are and what you do don't make no difference to me.
- [04:20]
B
A few weeks later, the Emergency Crew became the Grateful Dead, and the first circulating live Dead tape was made by the Merry Pranksters at the Fillmore acid test in January 1966.
- [04:32]
C
Hey, man, stop y' all babbling and fix these microphones.
- [04:35]
D
We need some power, power, power.
- [04:39]
B
But the very first Grateful Dead tapes were made soon after that by LSD chemist and budding sound engineer Owsley Stanley, with a lot of help from assistant Tim Scully. We've done episodes this year on both those topics, which you can find@dead.net Deadcast by the late spring of 1966, after the band's sojourn in LA, it could be said that the Grateful Dead tape archive existed, an accumulation of reels carted back to the Bay Area by Owsley and Tim, along with the LSD tabbing supplies. This is Owsley's son, Starfinder Stanley, from our first bonus Bear Drop last summer.
- [05:15]
E
When he started doing the recordings of the band, his sonic journals. It was his own project. The band didn't say, hey, you should tape us. It was his thing. And he bought the tape. Sometimes he didn't have tape, so he would tape over other stuff. Sometimes he didn't have tape, and so some shows weren't recorded. And sometimes he had to choose between do I spend the money buying tape or do I spend the Money buying food. Sometimes he bought tape.
- [05:46]
C
I was standing on a corner wondering what's become of me I was standing on a corner wondering what's become of.
- [05:59]
F
Me.
- [06:02]
C
Things don't seem to be the way they used to sing.
- [06:08]
B
That was Jerry Garcia singing the early Dead original standing on the Corner from Rare Cuts and Oddities, one of the places where Bear's first recordings can be heard. The story of the Grateful Dead's tapes is also the story of the Grateful Dead. Or at least another lens for it. The accidental result of the work tapes Bayer began to make in 1966 is one of the most fascinating archives in the history of popular music. An accident in some ways, each recording a documentation of an ever flowing set of circumstances. Or perhaps, to use Owsley's favorite imagery, a byproduct of an alchemical process. While the Dead's live recordings are famous for their jams, that's only one part of the flow they capture. It's possible to hear the Dead morph tape by tape from Bear's earliest recordings through the band's final shows in 1995. To witness new songs arrive and old ones disappear. To observe evolving arrangements and experience the sound of the band changing over three decades as they improve their instruments, amplifiers, techniques, PA systems and recording gear. The band had many different official recordists over the years here to guide us through the tapes, and their engineers is grateful that archivist and legacy manager David Lemieux.
- [07:20]
D
Baer's recording was very unique. The earliest stuff, 66, is definitely very keyboard heavy. It's very pig pen centric on the sound. Weir's guitar isn't heard that well in the mix, but it's a very clean sound. I love the sound of those early 66 tapes. He was big on, as you might know. Vocals on one side, instruments on the other is very big in Bears world. Beatles esque, as he said. He didn't like that stuff being messed with either in mastering. So he was very distinct with making sure that it was that way for a reason. So as much as the mastering engineers might have been interested in maybe blending the two sides to make it a little more of a maybe pleasant listening experience, Bear was pretty definite on how he wanted these things to sound. He did the early 66 stuff from about late February, mid February, like March, February, March through July. 66, there's quite a bit of that in the vault. And then he kind of did his other things.
- [08:44]
B
That was Empty Heart recorded at an unknown location sometime during the band's LA trip in February and March 1966. One of the tapes Owsley made to help both himself and the Dead get better at their jobs, preserving the music for posterity was secondary, perhaps even tertiary. The tapes also served another important purpose for Owsley in regards to those other things. Here to tell us about it is Roni Stanley. Welcome back to the Dead cast. Roni.
- [09:10]
G
Making LSD for Bear was really serious, a strong ritual. It wasn't just something he did lightly. And he looked at the date and he looked at the astrological sign and the moon aspects and the planet aspects, and he selected the music that we listened to very carefully. Making LSD was a sacrament, and what music you played while you were doing the procedure was important. I think that's significant, to help the LSD get the right vibe. When he was, you know, manufacturing it, synthesizing it, when he synthesized the lsd, playing Grateful Dead music infused the LSD with more meaning. For sure. The Grateful Dead, Bayer felt, were part of the equation, the alchemical equation of turning lead into gold.
- [10:09]
B
The Dead weren't the only band on the lab soundtrack.
- [10:12]
G
In our lab, we had some scientific equipment that made lots of noise and was unpleasant, like compressors, loud pounding. There was a band at the time called Blue Cheer, and they played very loud music, and they made a special tape for Bear to play while he was in the lab making LSD that was even louder than their usual music. And when we had to use the compressors that made this pounding noise, we would put on that Blue Cheer tape.
- [11:22]
B
That was Blue Cheer's hit version of Summertime Blues. Probably not what they were jamming in the lab, but you can get some idea. You can read more about Rony's adventures in her memoir, Owsley and Me, My LSD Family. We've posted a link@dead.net deadcast after Owsley moved back to his day job making LSD in mid-1966, live recording went by the wayside. There's a lot missing from the historical record in those years.
- [11:47]
D
Nobody was recording in 67, which is too bad. I'd like to have a better feel of what, 67 and the development of 67. There's a few pieces, very little in the vault, but there are a few pieces. And I would like to hear that development right up until Mickey joined. And then beyond that, we do have a few pieces. We've got some October 67 and then, of course, November at the Shrine.
- [12:14]
C
Sam.
- [12:42]
B
That was the Dead playing a classic Viola Lee Blues at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, November 10, 1967, released on the 30 trips around the sun box set and as a standalone show. The engineer was Dan Healy, who would help the Dead capture the live tapes that fed into Anthem of the sun throughout early 1968. Healy acted as the front of house engineer in this era, too often serving double duty with Quicksilver Messenger Service, the band he would primarily work for from 1968 to 1972, when he returned to work full time with the dead until the 90s. Besides friends like Dan Healy, shows were also captured by engineers at venues including the Fillmores, east and west, the Matrix and the Avalon Ballroom. It wasn't until Owsley Stanley returned to duty with the dead in late 1968 that a band engineer began to capture nearly every night when he came back.
- [13:35]
D
Late 68 would really early 69 through really mid 70 when he went away. That's kind of the second distinct era of bar recordings. A very different sound. I find them very pure. The drums sound great. They're stereo drums, which are great. I feel that the two guitars, the bass sounds incredible. TC and later Pig Pen on the organ sounds exactly where it should be in the mix. And the vocal blends, you know, I. I'm always amazed with how good those recordings are. Now remember, Bear was not only doing front of house sound, he was also mixing for tape at the same time. First priority was always the crowd mixing for it. But he did put a lot of effort into, into those live recordings and it shows. I feel that when you put a Bear tape on, and I think this will be a running theme of all of the Dedra Chorus, you know who you're listening to.
- [14:28]
B
This is a little bit of St. Stephen from Dick's Picks 26, recorded April 27, 1969 at the Labor Temple in Minneapolis. Check out the beautiful stereo spread on the drums.
- [14:45]
C
Country Garland in the wind and the rain. Wherever he goes, the people all complain.
- [14:53]
D
Bears recordings, although they were separately mixed for tape, they weren't simply a PA recording. They very much reflected the live sound. And once again, when we'd be mastering something with Bear's collaboration in the, you know, in the early 2000s, let's say bear would be insistent on no EQ, no tweaking of anything, no compression, because his recordings were perfect. And Jeffrey and I, you know, Jeffrey's job is to make recordings sound better. And Jeffrey would say, you know, privately, he'd say, you know what? Bear's right. These things sound great. There's not really much to improve on.
- [15:28]
B
These were sonic journals intended by their maker to listen back to and improve. Here's Owsley Stanley himself talking about his taping practices from David Ganz's essential interview collection, Conversations with the Dead, available through David's online bookstore. We've posted a link@dead.net deadcast. Incredible. Next level. Thanks to David for this audio.
- [15:50]
H
After every show, we gather in the hotel and play back the Night Skates. That's why I was recording all the time. That's how Bear's choice got made. It got made because we were always taping was always a tape. If it wasn't a reel of the wheel, it was a cassette. It was always a tape being made, something that could be played back, something that could be listened to. That was how I was learning. They were telling me when the balance was right, when the balance was wrong, when this didn't sound right, when that didn't sound right. They were critiquing their own performances and so forth and so on. We find a weakness and we try to correct it on and on and on and on. They taught me, I taught them, they taught themselves. We all learned. It was a learning matrix in which everything was constant flow of ideas and so forth. And there was no isolation. Everybody was involved.
- [16:41]
B
The government forced Bayer into retirement from LSD production in late 1967. His sonic journals were very much his personal tape collection. Spinning down cassettes from his master reels.
- [16:51]
G
There was always music going in Bear's house, always. And he had the best sound systems, too. That house had fabulous acoustics because it had high ceilings with wooden beams and stained glass windows. And we put up a lot of tapestries. And Bear always had a lot of Oriental rugs, Persian rugs. There was hardly any furniture. There was a huge fireplace and only one couch. And the rest were like Oriental rugs on the floor. And everywhere else was hi fi equipment, big speakers. And he had cabinets for storing cassettes. And vinyl. We had a huge collection of vinyl because I was a compulsive buyer, too. We played Grateful Dead from all the tapes he recorded.
- [17:45]
B
After Bear returned to the Dead's employ, the Dead archive got its first semi permanent home outside Behr's living room when the band established a rehearsal hall at the Hamilton Air Force Base in Nevada. It was there that Owsley established a tech workshop that became known as Alembic. Probably sometime around then, the tapes migrated into the accumulation of Dead gear. For the first time, the Dead possessed their own tape vault.
- [18:08]
E
The tapes ended up being stored at the Alembic facilities, and that became the first Grateful Dead vault where anybody who had tapes, which was, you know, I think most of them, most of the crew and band brought them back in and brought them in so there'd be one central repository. And when they come back from tour and they had a box of tapes from that tour shows, they would go to this alembic facility. And it wasn't huge. There wasn't a lot.
- [18:33]
B
It was during this period, from the beginning of 1969 through mid-1970, when Bayer went to prison, that he began to develop the ideas that evolved into the wall of sound. And it all grew from the sonic journals that made the core of the Dead archive. Bear's recordings were both research and development, a seed that sprouted into the wall of sound.
- [18:52]
H
My idea about the sound man is that he has to become transparent. He should make himself so transparent as not be there. My way of doing that was constantly playing the tapes back, making the tapes exactly like the house. I listen to the house, listen to the tape, listen to the house, adjust them, listen to the tape, listen to the house and get the earphone sound just like the house, walk around the house, walk all over and walk up on stage, make the sound in the headphones like what I experienced, as close as possible to what I was experiencing in the hall. Play the tapes back to the band, and it'd tell you whether you're right or not, whether that's what they would do. So then an extension of that is why not have it in such a way that the band is standing in front of it? Was a constant idea that was thrown around before I disappeared was why not make it so that the musicians have control of everything, so I become as transparent as possible. The idea bears choice is an example of the tapes where I was trying to make myself as transparent as possible.
- [20:02]
C
Maybe I am a little made up on the scene.
- [20:12]
B
Released in 1973, History of the Grateful Dead, Volume 1. Bear's Choice represented the first fully official Grateful Dead vault recording. Originally recorded with no intent for official release that year, the band also rented out the Front street warehouse in San Rafael. That became the band's club front rehearsal hall. It became the home of the tapes for the next 20 years.
- [20:34]
E
When the Grateful Dead took over, rented the club front space in San Rafael, California. That's when it was decided to have a proper formal tape vault, somewhat secure facility. It wasn't secure in the sense that it had a lock with only one key. Anybody in the band or crew could go and take tapes out just to go home and listen to them and whatever. So it was very loose by then.
- [20:56]
B
It wasn't Just Bear's tapes in the vault. After Bear went to prison in 1970, it took a little bit of time for the band to reinstitute in house taping. But by the end of the year they'd gotten back on their game.
- [21:07]
D
The Legion Stadium shows at the end of December, that's when the Dead started taping again. And I don't know if that was Bob Matthews. I think it was. They sound okay. They don't sound like Betty recording. So I think Bob Matthews was recording those end of December shows. They did a three night run in LA and El Monte.
- [21:29]
B
The recording team of Bob Matthews and Betty Kanter had taken the production lead on Oxamoxoa, Live dead and working man's dead. In early 1971 they would record the live album Skull N Roses to Multi track, which we covered extensively on the last season of the Dead cast. But the band also started to make two track tapes every night as well. The duty of Rhodey Rex Jackson.
- [21:50]
D
They're very distinctly what the Grateful Dead tapes would sound like throughout 1971 into 72. And those are Betty's and Rex's and I think credited on the box, the tape boxes would be Rex. But I do think Betty was the one. You know, Betty has so much experience with Live Dead and Working Man's debt that her recording expertise was magnificent. But one of Rex's new jobs on the crew in January onward of 71 was recording. And so I. I mean I've always looked at them as Rex and Betty recordings. And that goes really through all of 1971. By the fall tour you're really getting. It's only Rex doing the recordings. All of that early Keith stuff in October, November. I don't even know if Betty was on the road then. I'm not sure. But those were Rex recordings with, I don't want to say Betty's training. I wasn't there. I don't know how it went down. But certainly her sonic fingerprints are on those recordings.
- [22:48]
C
When they come to take you down, when they bring that wake up.
- [22:59]
D
When.
- [22:59]
C
They come to call on you.
- [23:08]
B
That's Sugar E from The Fox Theater, December 10, 1971 from the New Listen to the river box set.
- [23:13]
D
They're very clean recordings. There's not a lot of eq, there's not a lot of reverb on them. Whereas I find Betty's recordings, if I listen to like May 77 to go ahead a few years, those have a fair amount of reverb on them. They're very wet recordings, which I love that Sound. I find Rex's to be a little drier, which is great. I love the sound. I love the clarity. I love the recorded tone of Phil's bass.
- [23:51]
C
Please forget you know my name My daughter Sugary Shake it, shake it, Sugary Just don't tell them nothing. No.
- [24:12]
D
The tapes that sound the most easily identifiable as her recordings are Betty's recordings of the live shows. Now, I'm talking about the two track recordings. She would get a full array of inputs from each instrument and vocal, and she would do a mix live at the show. She didn't have the benefit of being in a studio where you can tweak everything and get it perfect, where she was doing a mix live at the show that was specifically for listening back purposes.
- [24:42]
B
Betty was one of roughly a half dozen crew members to make two track recordings over the course of the 70s. When Owsley returned from prison in the summer of 1972, he began another period of recording with the dead.
- [24:53]
D
The third period. When Bear came back in the summer of 72 and his front of house position had been given to others. Healy was working it. Bob Matthews had a huge role in the sound. So Bear went back to recording was his only duty, really. Meanwhile, he was also developing the wall of sound as 73 wore on. But really the kind of late July of 72 through the whole fall of 72, all those great Bear recordings, they're very consistent, so they all sound the same in a very good way. Which is to say, you don't think, oh, well, that's an outdoor show and that's a Philly Spectrum show. And this is a small theater. He had a consistency going of how they sounded.
- [25:36]
B
This is what a version of Sugary recorded by Bear sounds like from October 17, 1972, also at the Fox Theater in St. Louis on the new Listen to the river box.
- [25:45]
C
Shake it, shake it, Sugary Just don't tell them that you know me.
- [26:08]
D
And he recorded right into mid 73. And then that's when his activities were really focused on developing the wall of sound. And that's when Kid really took over. And Kid had a whole nother sound. Kid did a lot of recordings in 73, the fall tour. That's all Kid recording stuff. Kids, again, are very dry tapes. His balance, I think, is really wonderful.
- [26:34]
C
Just one thing I ask of you there's just one thing for me Please forget you know my name My darling Sugary Shake it, shake it, sugar that.
- [27:02]
B
Was Sugary from the Winterland, 1973, the Complete Recordings box set, recorded November 11th.
- [27:08]
D
I'll tell you an interesting cool story. I was fascinated when I saw this, but there's some outtake 16 millimeter footage from the Grateful Dead movie October of 74. And it's the band now, remember, the band hadn't played together since September 21st. Presumably they came back on the 22nd from Paris after the Europe 74 tour. And as much as I'd like to think these guys were, you know, hanging out together, this wasn't the hate anymore. They lived their own lives. So when they weren't on tour, they weren't hanging out every day together. So when they get together, what I saw in the Grateful Dead movie on the first night, the October 16th show, there's a lot of backstage footage. And these guys are all seeing each other for the first time in three weeks. And they're saying, hey, how's it going? How you been? What have you been up to? And so there was this one moment where Billy came in, or maybe Jerry or the other guys came in and they were talking about the Europe tour and they thought there were some great moments and we're going to really do well here at the Winter Land shows, you know, play really well. And then Billy started talking about Kids recordings from Europe 74, and he raved about them. And every time somebody came in, whether it was Phil or Bobby or whoever, he'd say, hey, man, have you heard Kids recordings from Europe? Man, these are. They're crackling. They're so good. You got to hear these recordings. So hearing a band member refer to these and just so excited, just like we are. We're Deadheads. And like we hear them, the kid recordings, they sound incredible. And by that, the Europe tour, I just really like it. Again, I find it to be a very, and this is not a pejorative term here, or sense they're dry. But what that allows me to do is hear everything a little more clearly, as opposed to a wetter mix where everything blends together better. It might be a better listening experience, but as a Deadhead, I'm trying to pick things out and hearing, you know, Bob and Keith in separate channels, but doing similar things, but hearing it like that, I really like it.
- [29:35]
B
That was Eyes of the World, recorded September 18, 1974 in Dijon, released on the 30 trips around the Sun Box. It was during this period that the Dead established their own label, Grateful Dead Records, and Jerry Garcia co owned the adjacent Round Records for the band's friends in spin Offs. There was talk too of this subimprint called Ground Records to release archival 2 track live recordings. Steve Brown was dispatched to catalog the band's tapes, but the project never got any further than a first index of the Vault. It was an idea that would take another decade and a half to come to fruition. And the Vault continued to grow with every tour. While the Dead took their time recording studio albums in the later 70s and 80s and you know, into the 90s, there were also months where they recorded new albums virtually every night. It's taken a few decades to get them all out. It was in these years, after the band's 1975 touring hiatus, that Betty Cantor Jackson recorded the majority of what are now known as the Betty Boards.
- [30:33]
D
Her recordings truly sound like big bonafide studio mixed live recordings and I mean, I can't get enough of them. I think she's a magnificent recording engineer and the testament is how consistent the many, many shows she recorded sound and great, they really do sound. Betty started with the Comeback shows in Portland. Betty in Portland started recording again right through the summer. The June of the June shows of 76 and the Orpheum and the two on the east coast in the fall.
- [31:06]
B
Betty's husband, tour manager Rex Jackson, was killed in a tragic car accident and Betty took a road sabbatical in 1977.
- [31:15]
D
Though she was back starting immediately on February 26th of 1977, right through the end of 77, the New Year's run. She recorded everything, with one exception, and that is June 4th of 1977. The spring tour of 77 sounds very different from the June tour. Now the June tour was all theaters. The spring tour had some theaters, but it also had a lot of arenas, bigger arenas. But also she started using DBX noise reduction on the spring tour of 1977. So there is a different sound. It's a little wetter, it's. Which is to say not so dry.
- [31:59]
C
Wheel is turning and you can't slow down. You can't let go and you can't hold on. You can't go back and you can't stand still. The thunder don't catch it, then the lightning will. Won't you try just a little bit harder? Wouldn't you try just a little bit more?
- [32:31]
B
That was Betty Cantor Jackson's recording of the Dead at the mosque in Richmond, Virginia, May 25, 1977, released as Dave's Picks Volume 1, recently issued on vinyl to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Dave's Picks series. Betty made two track tapes on and off, mostly on, then mostly off from the band's return to the road in 1976. Through early 1979. Here it's important to pause and clarify some tape labeling terminology. Often Grateful Dead tapes get labeled as being either soundboards or audience tapes. That is made by the band from the soundboard or recorded in the audience by a Deadhead. There are different kinds of soundboard tapes, though. Many so called Grateful Dead soundboard tapes from the 1960s and 70s. What we've been almost entirely talking about so far are two track recordings made by feeding inputs from the soundboard through a mixer before going to tape. When Betty stopped making tapes, the tapes that followed for Most of the 80s, recorded by Front of house engineer Dan Healy, or what can be called PA tapes, they capture exactly what the sound system was putting into the room.
- [33:37]
D
They are what they are. They all sound different. And some hall, you know, and I never quite understood this. Some halls sound really big halls. Nassau Coliseum. I only saw the Dead there three times and I remember it sounded good then. But it comes through on the tapes. I mean, I listened to Nassau tapes from 79, 80, 81, the PA tapes, and they sound really good. And again, whereas some venues on that tour don't sound quite as good in that era. And some of the PA tapes, and I can only assume that the hall is reflected in the PA tape sound. So I've always found that a little interesting. Some of them do sound really good. Some of the PA tapes that Jeffrey has worked with for Dick's Picks, Deus Picks, other releases like that sound magnificent. The mix is very even and the sound is very full. You've got bottom end. The highs are where they should be. Brent is holding down the right side. It's mostly Brent era. Bob will be doing his thing and you can hear him nice and prominently. Nice stereo drums, Phil. And then there are places like there's an Alpine show that was released as Dick's Picks Volume 32, 8-7-82. And you know, I've seen the Dead many times at Alpine and I never felt there was a problem there. But there's no fill coming through on the tape. And that does seem to be a pretty big, I won't say problem. A pretty consistent recording manifestation for Alpine shows that there's not a lot of bass coming through at Alpine. Just the way it was.
- [35:13]
C
Just one thing I ask of you Just one thing for me Please forget you know my name My darling sugary Shake it, shake it, sugary Just don't tell her you know me.
- [35:45]
B
The first Vault releases didn't begin until 1991, but music from the Vault began emerging into the world in the mid-1980s via David Ganz, hero to Deadhead radio shows and podcasts everywhere, and surely a voice familiar to many of our listeners in the Bay Area. He'd gradually taken over Kay Fogg's Deadhead Hour and began to receive queries from radio stations in other cities.
- [36:08]
I
I got a call from WHCN in Hartford saying, we'd like to know if we could carry your Grateful Dead hour. Your Deadhead Hour too. And I called John McIntyre, who was at the time, one of the managers of the Dead, told him this was going on, and he said, well, let's take it to the band and see. Because I also got a call from a classic rock station in San Diego. The next call I got was from WNEW fm, which was the biggest rock radio station in the universe. And they wanted to carry my show. So McIntyre urged me to take it to the band. The band was kind enough to say, yeah, we trust you. Go ahead. Phil literally said, you don't have to ask for permission to play specific stuff. We trust your judgment. And not only that, they asked. They let me into the vault. Willie Legate. This was before diglotvala had been hired as the archivist. Willie Legate was sort of the caretaker at Front street and. And he basically just let me in, let me copy tapes.
- [37:09]
B
Willie Legate was an old friend of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter from the Palo Alto scene. He came up in our bonus episode called Jerry American Folkie. This is historian Dennis McNally, who met Willie when Dennis began working as the Dead's publicist in the 80s.
- [37:24]
H
He sent off for LSD at Sandoz, like in 58 or 59, and before any anybody even knew about it, long before Larry had ever heard of lsd, he read about it in some fashion and managed to use college letterhead to get a free sample from Sandoz. He taught people how to think funny, that's what Jerry said, to use a current cliche, to think outside the box. He was the archivist, the superintendent of Frenchie. He kept the archives, the tape archives. Before Dick got the job, he studied the Bible, but I think it was almost like a sort of numero, from a numerological point of view, almost whatever it was, his mind saw puzzles.
- [38:20]
E
Willie was kind of in charge of Club Front, and he would be the overseer and he'd make sure it was all taken care of and he'd check on it every day. He was there all the time. But I heard wonderful things about him. And really he was the original tape archivist without being a tape archivist. He was the tape archivist. I've got a binder in my studio space downstairs. It's the original Grateful Dead tape catalog, which is a typed up sheet that Willie put together with tabs. You know, it's a typical sheet with tabs for each year and stuff, and it's nothing fancy, and it doesn't really have that much information on it, aside from formats and reels and cassettes that. But it's comprehensive. And that was Willy's work. So, you know, Willie is somebody who, of all the people who I never got to work with and never got to meet, Willy is one person I really wish I had.
- [39:28]
B
Welcome to the Grateful Dead Hour. I'm David Ganz, and this week's live music is especially significant to me because this was one of the concerts that hooked me on the Dead. My first Dead concert was March 5, 1972 at Winterland, and the next time the band played in town, I went to all four shows. I didn't hear tapes of those until just a couple of years ago, and I was delighted to learn that a. But it wasn't a hallucination. The band played some amazing music, and here's some of that music that made me a Deadhead. Recorded at the Berkeley Community Theater, August 24, 1972. In the mid-80s, the Grateful Dead Hour became the first regular outlet for music from the Dead's vaults. A curated tour from the 60s up through the most recent shows. Plus breaking news from Dead World, the latest from the band members, projects, deep cuts and interviews. That mash up intro was hand cut by David Splicing together tape the old fashioned way. We've posted a link to the playlists@dead.net deadcast and you can check out the craziness that David was dropping on Deadheads who didn't have streaming access to Oceans of Live Dead or even the Dix Pick series. Like many, I taped the Dead Hour off the radio every week, and those shows became the cornerstones of my tape collection and Dead education. You can still hear it on over 100 stations nationwide as well as online.
- [40:40]
I
The Vault was fairly well organized on shelves by the time I got there. There was lots of stuff in boxes that hadn't yet been sorted out and put in. They didn't. They. They. They hired Dick Lotvalla to organize the Vault and start, like, cataloging it and figuring out what was in there.
- [40:57]
B
By the 1990s, Dick's name would become known to Deadheads everywhere for the Dick's Picks series. But the late Dick Lotvalla was one of us. He was a head. And the story of how he landed the dream gig as the Grateful Deads archivist is a fascinating path through the counterculture. Here today is Carol Lotvalla, his former wife.
- [41:15]
F
He started seeing them in 1966, and we didn't get together till 1968, which is comparatively late, but. And then we went to a couple shows in 68, and then we started going to Hawaii. So by 69. I saw one show in 69, you know, the one where they did hey Jude in March. He was a born archivist. He didn't really start until 1972, but then in 72 he got this book and he wrote, this is going to be my first entry in my diary. And once he started there, he realized he wanted to record his experiences in order to look at them more closely and evaluate what was going on. At that time we had moved into the commune.
- [42:40]
B
The Morehouse commune was one of Berkeley's most infamous experiments in intentional community, which we'll set aside right now. But a fascinating story. I wrote a bit more about it in my book, A Biography of Psychedelic America.
- [42:52]
F
And so things were very fast paced and hectic and there was a lot going on. And it's amazing that he even had time to write because we didn't sleep much in those days. I don't know where he found the time, but he did. He would sneak off in a corner or something and start to write things down. And then as he started doing that, it became more. First it was pretty small, and then it became more. And then he decided he would have to add on tapes because he couldn't write that much.
- [43:26]
B
Dick was a taper too, but in a different way. When I was working on my book heads, Carol dug up some of the tapes from the closet. Enormous thanks to Omir Barlev and his squad for facilitating the transfer. My favorite of the recordings comes from sometime in 1975. Dick and Carol had moved to Hawaii by then, the next stop on the countercultural highway, the Fillmore West. A distant memory. Dick was working part time as a zookeeper. He'd recently discovered bootleg dead LPs that he ordered from the mainland and had just gotten some of his first Dead tapes.
- [43:57]
J
My basic flash took ass. It was. And as I developed it was the highest thing in life to do is take acid and listen to Grateful Dad.
- [44:06]
B
On this particular recording, Dick has been introduced to a Deadhead visitor, possibly a hitchhiker, and he's telling him about the All Night Dead Ends he's been hosting for his friends.
- [44:16]
J
That's when you get your loving family together and you take acid and you put your attention on something together. That's just how I use these tapes. It's like for us to get a room full of mice and family. People who I love, like myself, get them in a room and, you know, take acid and put on the music and, you know, make it as comfortable as possible so that you can get a good thing, you know, good sound like you're there alive. Make it as close to that as I can afford at the time. And just tripping all night on that brings us really. That's the basic experience. That is the experience that welds us together.
- [44:58]
B
Yeah, man. You can tell Dick is psyched to have someone to listen to the Dead with. And it turns out the Visitor is the most informed Deadhead Dick has yet encountered. But Dick and the Visitor disagree on the Dead's more contemporary directions. In the mid-70s, probably all of us have Deadhead friends who share the visitors opinions. They're still far out, you know, and.
- [45:16]
E
They'Re still good, but they're not quite as caustic.
- [45:19]
B
And, you know, hey, I've probably been that guy too. But I absolutely adore Dick's response.
- [45:24]
J
You know, the feeling I always had about the Grateful Dead was these guys were so special that it was on.
- [45:30]
I
Me to come to where they were.
- [45:32]
J
To get that mind blowing thing and, you know, to have the attitude that, oh, shit, man, they're going downhill. I'm gonna miss out on the love they're sharing at that moment.
- [45:43]
B
But here's where the tape gets a little crazier. The Deadhead they've met also turns out to be the most connected tape collector Dick has yet encountered.
- [45:50]
E
I mean, you could have every one.
- [45:52]
H
Of those shelves full of real, real tapes.
- [45:54]
B
The guy tells Dick about some crazy rare tapes he's heard.
- [45:57]
J
I just always hoped that things like this was really true. Wow.
- [46:04]
B
In some ways, this is the exact moment that Dick Lotvala became Dick Lotvalla. Caught on tape just like a jam. He already had some Dead tapes, but from then on, his life was thoroughly transformed. If you were Dick and Carol's visitor that day, get in touch with us.
- [46:19]
F
He was relentless. Relics magazine was starting about that time. And so they had things in there about how you could trade tapes or get tapes from other people. And at that time, you could just send blanks and people would start, you know, filling them up and then send some more. And it wasn't that hard. But also the fact that Dick had a good connection with the local herb market, it made it easier for him to access the tapes much faster and expeditiously.
- [46:56]
B
Dick's method was to send off a pile of reel to reels to a tapir friend and send an extra box filled to the brim with delicious Hawaiian cannabis. Worked pretty well for old Dick. It was a fascinating economic manifestation of the counterculture cannabis in exchange for concert recordings. But Dick didn't just collect tapes. He became genuine lifelong friends with the people he corresponded with.
- [47:18]
F
He wrote a lot of letters to everybody and he was on the phone with everybody. And he connected people that might not have otherwise been so connected and brought them all out to Hawaii on vacation. Even though we had no income, it was still, you know, he's had the generous spirit that said, yeah, come on over, we'll have a great vacation. You could stay at my house. And so, yeah. His willingness to share connected a lot of different folks.
- [47:50]
B
Tabor friends and their partners came to visit Dick and Carol in Hawaii on one occasion. They had a massive anniversary listening party for the February 1970 Fillmore east recordings that later became Dick's Picks 4.
- [48:01]
D
Well, well, this is glorious Sunday morning the Grateful goddamn Dead.
- [48:18]
C
Driving that train high Coat, watch your speed Trouble ahead, no trouble behind and you know there's no shoes Just crossed my mind.
- [48:39]
B
It was around this time that Dick began to keep his tape notebooks. We've linked to some images of dick's notebooks@dead.net deadcast Dick's notes.
- [48:48]
D
It was a format set list. Notes, notes on. When he listened. First listen was, you know, January 12, 1980, and the second listen was 1980, and new notes for each listen and different colored for where there was a tape cut. And I love his Cornell review because he's reviewing an audience tape. So, I mean, I love Dick's notes much more than I love my own notes. I review them as often as I can.
- [49:12]
B
Dick loved his multicolored pens, as David Lemieux discovered years later in the Dead's tape vault.
- [49:16]
E
All the DAT tapes and the cassette tapes are in either coca cola or beer. 24 pack beer can, flats, cardboard flats, those little cardboard boxes that you get a 24 of beer in that have about a 2 inch lift that are perfect to house. And he'd have these little labels on them. And Dick had very distinct handwriting. Dick had. Remember those pens we all used to use in the 80s that they were. It was white at the top, blue on the bottom, and there were four buttons on the top, a Blue, Red, yeah, the green one. Dick loved those. This shelf unit behind where I'm recording, that's got dats in it, and there's some of Dick's old dats in it. And Dick would. He'd label the tape, the song label in blue, the show information in black, the tape cuts in red or anything that was weird in red. And then green would have notes at the bottom which would say, phenomenal version of Scarlet Fire and things like that. And he had very specific purposes for each of his colors. I've got a couple of those pens somewhere.
- [50:15]
F
I've been rereading his diaries this year. And he writes, at one point, someone got me a four colored pen because he was using four different pens before that to quantify things.
- [50:27]
B
And, you know, in probably the most iconic photograph of Dick, he's holding one of his binders full of taping notes, wearing a skull and roses T shirt. Stereo in the foreground, dead photos on the wall in the back. Lush Hawaiian greenery visible through the window. It was Dick's tape room.
- [50:43]
F
He was very concerned with humidity, so he got these heat bars to put in the cupboards where the tapes were kept to make sure that it, you know, mold or mildew, because in Hawaii everything just is destroyed pretty much with mold and mildew because there's so much humidity. So he had heat bars in the cabinets where the tapes were kept. So he was able to preserve them over the years that way. And that was pretty good.
- [51:13]
B
In 1978, Dick befriended the Grateful Dead crew, employing the same charms he used to win over his taping buddies. In the early 80s, he and Carol split up, though they remained good friends later, even living in adjacent houses. Dick headed back to the Bay Area where he remarried.
- [51:30]
F
He was living in the Bay Area with his wife Christy at the time and visiting the Grateful Dead office. And he was friends with Eileen, and he would go and visit her and give her tapes. You know, you've got to listen to this, you've got to listen to that. And at one point he was visiting Eileen and he had these. He always carried around cassettes of what he thought were the best shows and this and that, and talking to her. And then Phil walked by her office, I believe, and for whatever reason, he said, phil, Phil, I really want you to listen to this. I hope someone's taking care of it, because this is the real stuff. And I guess Phil did agree to listen to one of the tapes that Dick had, and I don't know which one, but for a while, and Eileen left and Left him with the keys. And at some point, I think Phil decided maybe there was a reason to actively preserve and take care of these tapes. And Willie Legate had them all stored in a closet on Front Street.
- [52:38]
B
And so in 1985, Dick got the gig.
- [52:41]
F
In the first year, Dick didn't really get to do much in the vault. He, besides organizing the tapes, they'd send him out for coffee and sandwiches and, you know, he was the last hire. So he had to work his way into the ranks.
- [52:56]
B
He soon began to collaborate with David Ganz, feeding him recordings for the Grateful Dead Hour. David had first heard from Dick back when writing a regular Dead column for the Bay Area music magazine Bam.
- [53:07]
I
We had been friends already. I met Dick. He started when I started doing the. The column for Bam. He wrote me letters. He was living in Hawaii at the time. We started this correspondence, because that's what he did. He wrote letters to Deadheads. He was just hugely into that thing and wanted to get tapes from me and started sending me pot from over there. He would send me bags of pot and say, you know, if you want to sell some of this, just send me the money, that's fine. If you want to just smoke it, that's fine, too. So I participated in his illegal economy a little bit. So when I was ensconced in my role as the producer of the syndicated Dead show, Dick was very, very happy to be instrumental in distributing music, getting it out there. This is before the release, before they would even think about releasing. We settled into a habit of. When the band went on the road, Dick and I would get together and spend a day. I would bring over tape recorders and, you know, various devices from home. And we basically set up like three or four duplicating stations in the vault and just hang out and smoke dope and listen to music and rave for hours and hours. And I'd go home with a bunch of stuff to sort out and listen to and play on the radio. There were reel to reels, there were cassettes, there were PCMs, which is a digital format using videotape. They had used different formats in, you know, I couldn't. I couldn't. They wouldn't let me use the multi tracks.
- [54:35]
B
And fair enough, because in 1991, the Grateful Dead finally released their first archival material since bear's choice one.
- [54:42]
E
From the vault, on the piano, we.
- [54:44]
B
Have Mr. Keith Gotcha.
- [54:48]
I
On the drums.
- [54:49]
D
On stage left, Mr. Mickey Hart on bass and Florida vocals, Mr. Philip Lesh on rhythm guitar and vocals, Mr. Bob.
- [55:02]
E
Weir on the drums. On stage right, Mr. Bill Kreutzman.
- [55:09]
I
On the vocals, Mrs. Donna Jean Gotcho.
- [55:12]
D
On E guitar and vocals, Mr. Jerry Garcia.
- [55:16]
I
Will you welcome, please, the Grateful Ted.
- [55:23]
B
Over the years, alongside the two track work and PA tapes, the Dead sometimes brought in serious multi track gear for when they were working on live albums and occasionally when they weren't, as with one from the vault, the blues for a LA release party. Recorded August 13, 1975 at the Great American Music hall in San Francisco, the From the Vault series was originally conceived to highlight multi track tapes. Continuing the next year with two from the vault, recorded at the Shrine Auditorium in August 1968. In the late 80s, when the dead could afford it, John Cutler began to record multi tracks of every show. But the from the Vault releases soon met a seemingly immovable force. The editorial pickiness of the individual members of the Grateful Dead, who all had opinions about both performance and sound quality.
- [56:08]
F
Kid Candelario, who was one of the roadies, was his sponsor in saying, you know, we could release some of these things as tapes and the band didn't really think much about it. And they would listen to things and then they wouldn't like this or they wouldn't like that. So it was very hard initially to get them to agree to release anything. Then finally they said they didn't care and they let Phil be the decider in that. So then eventually they got a few things released.
- [56:45]
B
The first release came out on Halloween 1993. Recorded 20 years earlier, December 19, 1973 in Tampa, Florida. It was sold by mail order and a toll free number. Lesh made the metadata bass solo. It was called Dick's Picks Volume 1.
- [57:01]
F
I think it was Kids Idea.
- [57:03]
B
In 1995, just before Jerry Garcia's death, the Vault relocated with a ban from Front street to a new facility in a former Coca Cola bottling plant in Belmorin Keys, north of San Rafael.
- [57:14]
E
In 95, when the grateful Dead stopped touring altogether as an entity, it became almost primarily a commercial archive with a massively important historical function, which is to say it's the Grateful Dead's cultural legacy is on those tapes. So 95 it moved from San Rafael to Nevada, California to Bel Marin Keys. And a very proper tape archive was built there. And that's where I worked from 99 to 2006. As Dick and Jeffrey both told me. Jerry came up a few times during the construction and he popped his head in the vault and he said to Dick, because they were assembling these wonderful shelves. And Jerry said something along the lines of, oh, make sure that the lowest shelf is a good 12 to 18 inches off the ground in case it ever floods up here. It wasn't anywhere near a floodplain, but it was very conscious of Jerry to know that water and fire are your two biggest dangers when it comes to this stuff. So even Jerry, weeks before he passed, came up, checked things out. He was looking at the whole facility, and one of the things he specifically commented on on the design side was make sure those tapes are kept off the ground to keep them away from the water.
- [58:20]
B
Though Dick's name was on the series, he made a point to emphasize that it was a collaborative project. This is Dick speaking in 1999 on WCUW in Worcester.
- [58:29]
J
I have my own knowledge through listening on my own, but everyone has opinions. I'm in a position where I have to really, you know, try to, you know, not just have my ego stamp on it. It has to come from a general consensus almost, for I want to throw it up on the dartboard for my co teammates to evaluate.
- [58:52]
B
It was a collaboration not only between himself and his colleagues who work for the Dead, but as well as between himself and the community of tape collectors whose discourse Dick relentlessly surfed.
- [59:01]
J
It's a group effort and it goes from me, John Cutler and Jeffrey Norman, the two guys I work with that have veto power all the way down to anybody in the world that likes me or posts on DeadNet Central or in my folders areas anyway. I'm just a gathering place for information.
- [59:22]
B
He'd always been a prolific correspondent, but the real time nature of the online world wasn't a great medium for Dick. When we put out a call for Dead cast stories, Andy Perrine contributed this. Memory of Dick.
- [59:33]
D
When the organization announced the Dick's Pick series, I was ecstatic, joining the online chats about every next pick. I found that many of my fellow Deadheads were real jerks to Dick and each other in how they expressed their opinions about what show should be next and whether complete shows should be used and every other bit of minutia one could imagine. Poor Dick. I thought that the guy was just beleaguered. So I started writing him just cards with funny shit on the front and messages of appreciation and encouragement. He wrote me back every time on simple white stationery and envelopes with that great excited handwriting that filled his notebooks. Rating shows. We developed a warm and uplifting correspondence up until his sudden and untimely death.
- [60:14]
B
Dick died of a heart attack in August of 1999. Dick's Picks 14 had just come out November 30 and December 2, 1973, at Boston Music Hall. It opened and closed with Morning Dew.
- [60:41]
C
I guess it doesn't.
- [60:44]
D
Matter.
- [60:47]
C
Anyone.
- [60:56]
B
A few months before Dick's death, a Deadhead film student and former taper named David Lemieux arrived at the Deads Vault on a short contract to help catalog their video holdings.
- [61:05]
E
My first day, it was a Monday morning, February 1, 1999, day after the Super Bowl. I was in the vault. I got there at 8 in the morning, and Dick was already there feeding the cat. So I was in the vault with Dick about 8:15, 8:30 in the morning. I met a lot of amazing people in the Dead world, but Dick was a guy who I only worked closely with for about three or four months. But every interaction you had with him was incredibly memorable. Like he was. I mentioned this about Ramrod. He didn't say a lot, but when he did, it meant something. Dick said a lot. Dick to talk, and it also meant a lot. There are people who talk and not a lot comes out. But Dick, I mean, he was a genuine guy. He was very authentic. He loved what he did. I think his mission in life, if you want to call it that, was to spread some joy. It was all about that. It wasn't about his ego by any means. I wouldn't even say he had much of one. He really just loved spreading the joy. He loved making Deadheads happy. With Dick, I found myself listening a lot to the way Dick did things, to the way Dick was very meticulous with his note taking, with his. The way he treated the tapes, the way that Dick was very aware that the Dead Legacy, this is 1999. Jerry had been gone four years. The dead Legacy was completely reliant upon what was held on these tapes. These were valuable historical documents. This is, you know, me coming in there as an archivist, as an historian, as a film archivist, as a filmmaker. But deep down, I'm. My identity. I'm a Deadhead. I'm a huge Deadhead. So I looked at tapes as just something that I love listening to. And it was at that moment, like, really the first day working with Dick, that I realized what I was surrounded by was so much bigger than just a bunch of music. I'd hang out with them at his house and a couple of listening sessions. And a listening session with Dick was really wonderful because he had a couple of really great big speakers at home. And he would just decide, okay, today I'm going to focus on the Academy of Music 1972 shows. And he would spend three or four hours just going through them and taking notes and asking me my opinion. That was another thing. He was really big. When I was there, the first month or so, he was working on some 19, early 80s or spring of 83, some fall of 84 stuff. So he would come in and he put on the master tape to make a DAT to bring home later. But he'd leave the vault for an hour while that tape ran and go visit people around the office or feed the cats or whatever. And then he'd come back in and ask me my opinion. I'm there cataloging the videos. And he was very curious, what did I think of that? Said, oh, what do you think of the Syracuse? What do you think of Augusta? So he was very. He never. I don't think, thought that his opinion mattered more than anyone else's. There were bell meringue keys, outdoor cats, feral cats, Comes and goes. That was their names. Comes and goes. So Dick convinced the money people, the cfo, to spend quite a bit of money building these cat condos out back, these little cubbies. The cats never use them. But Dick took his responsibility very seriously. Seven days a week, he came to the office, even if he didn't have to, and fed those cats. Comes and goes. They had feline aids. They were there for the duration that I was there. And then after Dick passed, we all took it as our responsibility to make sure those cats were fed. And Dick was the only one who could get close to them. So he's the one who could get them into a cage to bring them to the vet and stuff like that. But, yeah, there were cats out back. It was a pretty groovy speech. It was a great place, actually.
- [64:40]
B
When Dick died suddenly in 1999, David Lemieux became the dead's archivist. A knowledgeable taper, he was well qualified. Dick also left behind reams of notes and an incredibly organized tape vault.
- [64:53]
E
The audio tapes were many different formats. And there was live, there was studio, there was solo material. And that was Dick's domain. And Dick was. Dick was very proud of this, and understandably so, justifiably so. There was a database, a FileMaker Pro. I don't even know if that's a thing anymore. But the FileMaker Pro database in the vault, everything was cataloged in it, and it was in this old computer, and it was in there. And Dick said. I asked him, I said, wow, so you must use that database all the time. He said, man, he said, I haven't turned that computer on, that database on in years, he said, it is so organized in here. And shortly after that Dick passed away and I came on full time. And he was 100% correct. I in the seven years I worked in that space, I mean, I didn't turn that computer on once. It was unnecessary because the vault was organized so well by format and within each format it was chronological. So you knew that if you were looking for 2 inch multi track tapes of live shows, they were chronological. And that would go from Live Dead to the Skull and roses material, Europe 72 and then all of the one and the grateful Dead movie stuff. And then there were one offs that might be recorded for the King Biscuit Flower Hour. And there was an Arizona show, New Mexico, the Arizona Show. In 77 there was 71876 at the Orpheum. The final edit, the Orpheum 76. There was New Year 76 at the Cow Palace. All these multi tracks, all of that, all that 2 inch material on 2 inch large format analog tapes, they were all housed chronologically by format. Likewise the seven inch tapes, the stereo, the Betty boards, all that material, all chronological by format. So whenever Jeffrey needed a tape for a project we were working on, the studio and the vault were 100ft away from each other. And when Jeffrey would say, oh, you know, he'd be working on a China Rider from fall of 73, let's say, and there's a big cut in it, so he needs another China rider to fix that cut. It literally took me 20 to 30 seconds to find three more tapes from that tour that could be checked out as possible fixes for that. So it was remarkably well organized by Dick.
- [67:16]
D
Oftentimes a lot of the song titles on these recordings were on songs that hadn't been officially released yet. Like you'll see a song Ro, Jimmy, Julie, Catch a Rabbit, it'll be labeled as, you know, a lyric from the song, but not the actual song title. So it's interesting to see those kind of things. Must have been the Roses going way back. Was always from 74 on. Was always roses, roses. On certain tapes through 74, sometimes the songs would be labeled. Those would often be labeled after the fact many years later by Dick in the late 80s. A lot of these tapes have the very rudimentary early recording information by Rex or by Kid or by Bear with Dick filling. And Bear actually filled in a lot of song information, as did Kidding. But Rex a little less. And Dick would fill that stuff in, which is great because Dick's handwriting is very distinct and it's very good. I Really, I find a certain comfort to Dick's handwriting on anything Grateful Dead related. I've got some notes in my desk, just some, like, notes to live by.
- [68:22]
E
That are written by Dick.
- [68:23]
D
And I just. I love seeing it. So Dick's stuff is on it. You know, there's the. You know, a lot of archivists will say, well, you don't touch the. The original document and mark it up. You maybe put a sticker on it or maybe a note inside. I don't necessarily agree with that when these tapes are already 55 years old and Dick is part of that history.
- [68:42]
B
And a complicated part of that history. Carol is speaking here of Dick's practice of sending cannabis for tapes. But it also describes the whole of his personality.
- [68:51]
F
He was always generous, and so he just liked to share whatever he enjoyed with whoever he could. And it wasn't really. There was no exchange rate. He actually would take the shirt off his back if he. If you said, I like that shirt, he would rip it off and insist that you wear it home.
- [69:08]
B
By all accounts, Dick was the kind of person for whom the expression was invented. David Ganz was a close friend.
- [69:14]
I
He was impossible to not love. I mean, it could be a little much at times, but he was just. He had the biggest heart in creation, was utterly, completely devoted to the Grateful Dead.
- [69:25]
B
Dick's job working for the Grateful Dead had been way complicated from the day he started. But his enthusiasm for the Dead's music never diminished, nor, for better or worse, his love for sharing it. For years, it seemed that the band had no interest in ever releasing any of their vast collection in the wide taping community that emerged around the Dead, and of which Dick was a part. Rare tapes had long created a strange economy all their own and exerted a sometimes uncomfortable power.
- [69:51]
I
I have to say. Dick was susceptible to blandishments from various people. A couple of guys talked him into giving them copies of the music in the vault. He essentially gave away the contents of the vault. And he did it with the kindest of intentions. So after he died, after the band ended, it seemed like that stuff became fair game. Jerry might not have cared, but. But everybody else who understood that it was a business, I think, probably cared. But, you know, now I'm telling it to you because it's history. And it was part of the insanely complicated and often treacherous world of the Grateful Dead.
- [70:34]
B
And it's true, it's not too hard to hear many of the recordings in the Dead's vault, but to hear them officially presented, picked out with deep love and knowledge and granted full archival treatment as something else. Just like tapes have power, so do official releases. Granting the music a different currency is part of the official canon. Plus, they sound awesome.
- [70:53]
E
We've got a lot of tapes in the vault. We've got, I think legitimately decades of material to release. What that's done is ensured that we've got decades of material to release that maintains that high quality.
- [71:07]
B
Dick's Picks kept arriving for another half decade after Dick's passing, wrapping up with volume 36 in 2005. After that came the Road Trip series running from 2007 to 2011, presenting curated micro windows into the Dead's touring world. Just like the original Dix pics, which often edited shows so the band was putting its best musical foot forward. Road Trips dropped listeners into thoughtful presentations of the Dead at their best. 2011 saw the launch of the complete show Dave's Picks series, Both celebrating its 10th birthday this year as well as surpassing the total number of original Dick's Picks with Dave's picks 37. Recorded April 15, 1978 in Williamsburg, Virginia.
- [71:49]
C
People were saying the whole world was burning. Our shells were scattered too far into turning upside out.
- [72:18]
B
In 2006, the tapes moved to a new home in Southern California, nestled in their own special section deep inside the Warner vault. Since the move, Mike Johnson has been the archivist for Rhino, who has tended to the tapes themselves.
- [72:31]
E
So it's a very, very large, nondescript building, loading docks, and it looks very, very blue collar, like anything could happen there. It's environmentally controlled. Inside, we have different levels of environmental control, but you just walk in and it does. It just looks like a gigantic airplane hangar with I believe that they're 12ft tall, shelves very, very industrial, bolted to the concrete floor. And it just goes and goes and goes and goes. Some of our former employees and even our manager, we would all ride bikes. One of our guys, Ted, bought one of those three wheel adult tricycles with a basket on it. We would ride around the vault and get the tapes. We segregated a section of the tape vault. This section is actually fenced off with a chain link fence, hence the term the cage.
- [73:24]
B
The tapes are safe and watched over by a familiar face.
- [73:27]
E
I actually have a photograph of Dick in the cage. It's eight and a half by 11 framed. So he has a. It's right at the very beginning at the gate at a place of honor. We had the owner of the company come by for a deluxe tour. It was a big deal to have this guy come by and so I Gave the nickel tour of the cage, and he actually asked me, who's that? And I said, that's the first librarian.
- [73:55]
B
You can hear more of our talk with Mike Johnson in our Friend of the Devil episode. When David Lemieux needs a tape, Mike is who gets the call. As with Dick, David builds on his own accumulated knowledge, but also collective Deadhead taper wisdom.
- [74:09]
E
I'm as everybody's as much of an expert as I am, which is to say, I don't think I'm much of an expert. I just love the Grateful Dead music. I've developed a very critical ear about it, and I feel I can objectively listen, but so can anyone, really. So I certainly don't put my ear up against anyone. That's why every suggestion I get, I take seriously. I never dismiss the suggestion. I mean, the closest I'll come to dismissing a suggestion is that if I've listened to a show several times and I know it's not a very good show, I might think to myself, I won't comment and say, well, that's a terrible idea. But I'll say, well, you know, I'll say to myself, I've listened. It's not really a feasible idea.
- [74:42]
B
And some things just aren't feasible. Perhaps there are only PA tapes in the vault and they're missing instruments in the mix. Maybe there are no tapes at all, or crucial sections are missing. As with his predecessor, he also builds on lots and lots of notes.
- [74:55]
D
There's no master list of future releases. There's nothing. Which is to say that every release we do, we work quite a bit ahead. About six or nine months ahead, sometimes as much as a year. The way it works is we always. I mean, I always have fresh in mind, what have we done the last 24 to 36 months? What have we. You know, we. Okay, we just did a 71, 72, 73 box set. We just did some releases from 78, 73, 83 and 90. When it comes down to choosing a show, it always starts with the era. I think it's time to do a 1977 show. And then there's always several shows that the last time we did a 1977 show, it always comes down to maybe two or three shows towards the end of the process. Those two or three shows get heavy rotation, listening for weeks, for months. And sometimes a few others from that same era sneak in to the list.
- [76:00]
B
And then it's down into the details.
- [76:02]
D
My handwriting is terrible, and I wish I could have something as aesthetically beautiful as Dick notes I mean, I wish I had that. I have it in spreadsheets, in computer spreadsheets, and I do. And so where my listening notes come in, they're somewhat similar to Dick's. They're not in quite as great detail. His were also very much about the recordings. Dick's notes were very much as a tape trader, whereas my notes are more as an archivist, producer guy. If it's a great show and there's no weird guitar in the mix that goes in my notes as something that. Not so much where Dick might say as a tape trader, mine is more, we can't release this show. There's no weird guitar in the mix. So I do that. But there's another good example. There's Chicago shows, the whole fall tour of 79. I spent a lot of time, a year almost working on that release. And so my notes from that entire tour are pretty extensive. It's several, several spreadsheet pages from just that.
- [77:30]
B
That was a really fantastic jam out of Franklin's tower, recorded in December 1979 at the Uptown Theater in Chicago. Now On Dave's picks 31 in pop music, producers and musicians often test out their work in different contexts. The boombox test is one standard. Another is driving around blasting music in the car. But because this is Grateful Dead archivist David Lemieux, there's a more wholesome standard.
- [77:54]
D
To be kept when a show is picked. And I'm certain it's going to be the one. And yet I haven't really told the Rhinos or Jeffrey yet, because once you tell Rhino and Jeffrey, it means we're full steam ahead in production. There's no going back. I go for a three hour walk or a hike with headphones 95% of the time on that walk. Every song, I keep getting more excited going, oh, yeah, this is why. And this is why. And this is why. And before I know it, I've got, you know, 15 or 20 things that got me really excited and reasons it was picked. And I basically say out loud, absolutely, this is the one. And then I get home from that walk or that hike and email everybody on the team and say, hey, the next release will be this. So we can start on the art and the tapes and this and that. So it's a moment where I can genuinely. Almost every release we've ever done, all the Dick's Picks and road trips and Dave's Picks, I can remember the moment where I was on a hike or a canoe outing or whatever it was that that moment happened where I've already picked it, but it's that 100% certainty where I'm ready to pick up the phone and let everyone know it can be sitting on a rock watching a sunset. I'll be out for a walk and I'll see a rock. I'm not doing anything with music. I'll see a rock. I'm like, oh, that's where I was sitting. When I call it setting in stone, where I chose, where I set in stone. Davis picks 14. Whatever it was on the ferry, looking at the other islands go by or looking at killer whales or whatever it is. It's amazing the kind of set and setting and the moment that it occurs and how it sticks with me.
- [79:25]
B
From jamming dead tapes in the Hawaiian sun to watching killer whales off Vancouver Island. Those dead archivists sure do like their vibes. Don't we all? This is Dick's Picks one, Track one. Crank it up.
- [79:43]
C
Sunshine. Sunshine.
- [80:08]
A
Thanks very much to all of our guests who helped make this episode possible. And thanks to all the tapers out there who made becoming a voracious Deadhead possible. Prior to the digital age, we all had a favorite cassette we couldn't get enough of, had to share with our friends, and mourned when it got eaten in our car cassette decks. Thanks very much for tuning in and don't forget to thank your local taper. Take care out there. We'll see you next time. Executive producers for the good old Grateful Dead cast, Mark Pincus and Doran Tyson. Produced for Rhino Entertainment by Rich Mahan Productions and Jesse Jarno. Special thanks to David Lemieux. All rights reserved.