tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post5590123750331089002..comments2024-03-26T23:10:34.814-07:00Comments on Grateful Dead Sources: August 26, 1971: The Bootleg BattleLight Into Asheshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comBlogger10125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-19444652991134326502013-11-21T04:48:31.937-08:002013-11-21T04:48:31.937-08:00A Rolling Stone article on the New Riders (in the ...A Rolling Stone article on the New Riders (in the 9/2/71 issue) mentions that at the Hollywood Palladium shows in August 1971, "outside the Palladium the Dead were being accorded the honor of having a bootleg LP of theirs peddled."<br /><br />Also found a brief mention of Dead bootlegs in the 1/31/72 issue of the Atlanta underground paper, the Great Speckled Bird: <br />http://dlib.gsu.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/GSB/id/4044/rec/23 <br /> <br />“Bootleg! The End of an Era” (“A Consumer’s Guide to Bootlegs Albums available in the Atlanta area”) <br /><br />“As the cover boasts, "Grateful Dead" is a "professional quality" recording of an entire Dead concert - all 1 3/4 hours worth. The two-record set was taped from a live FM-stereo broadcast of a Fillmore East date. I won't indulge in comparisons to the legitimately available live Dead material, but suffice it to say "Grateful Dead" is comparable to any live Dead material presently on the market. <br />Another live Dead bootleg, "Sugar Magnolia" is of almost professional quality, like "Grateful Dead" it features standard Dead concert material and is a very listenable album. The primary distinction between "Sugar Magnolia" and "Grateful Dead" is quantitative. The former includes five tracks, the latter 18.” <br />[Some Dylan, Band, Zeppelin & CSNY boots are also listed.]Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-15339590922477779872013-11-12T20:56:51.386-08:002013-11-12T20:56:51.386-08:00Thanks for pointing that out!Thanks for pointing that out!Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-81634575618472153812013-11-12T16:46:22.628-08:002013-11-12T16:46:22.628-08:00I was just listening to an interview with Weir, Mc...I was just listening to an interview with Weir, McIntire, Keith (!) and Donna, 9/17/73, on GDAO, and Weir clearly speaks to the things you are describing. No to bootlegging. Quality control important. But if people want to make a tape and take it home and share it with their friends, more power to 'em! We have Jerry saying that a lot, but Weir is less well documented. <br /><br />http://www.gdao.org/items/show/378883Fate Musichttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05648291938690043423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-19378707323048611512013-11-12T13:23:17.701-08:002013-11-12T13:23:17.701-08:00(continued...)
As we see in this article, in 197...(continued...) <br /><br />As we see in this article, in 1971 the Dead were already concerned with the quality of bootlegs - they didn't want the Dead music going out to be subpar in either sound or performance quality, so they would have preferred to have artistic control over any bootleg releases. (Even if such a collaboration had happened, they probably would have rejected any releases as being 'not good enough' for their standards - even by the '90s, they still could barely bring themselves to select any shows worthy of release!) <br />Financial control, I'm sure was also an issue, as the Dead have never liked the idea of other people making money off them - whether it be denying film rights to the Monterey festival producers, or cracking down on bootleg t-shirt sellers in later years. I think one reason they became more comfortable with the tapers by '76 was the realization that these people really were trading tapes for free. But also, by then the tapers had become so numerous that it was simply no longer possible, as in the early '70s, to send some roadies out after individual culprits; and the Dead were uneasy in the role of "cops." <br />Of course, all the radio broadcasts in 1971 were basically handing free shows to bootleggers; but the Dead probably accepted that in exchange for the wider audience. At the time, a radio broadcast was the best way to get a new show out to the fans. The bandmembers probably also varied in their attitudes toward tapers and bootlegs; Phil seems to have felt a bit more lenient, for example. <br /><br />Here, it's quite interesting that Garcia himself is supposed to have said, "Liberate those bootlegs!" Maybe he did say something like that. It's quite an irony that the Dead, having the "free music for the people!" crowd always on their case, now turn the tables and "free" the bootlegs. Pretty righteous. But it's hard to say whether the band was really involved in this episode & Garcia gave the orders, or whether they stayed aloof and let Cutler handle it (which is more likely).<br />This article actually illustrates a variety of tactics, as each bootlegger is handled differently - one person gets his records given out for free, others have their confiscated. One guy puts up an argument and is left alone if he promises not to sell at the concert. <br />Despite the writer's anger, this isn't such a disaster as he depicts. Of more than 150 records being sold at the concert, 27 got handed out, 120 were confiscated and then returned, and the rest were either undiscovered or left alone, to be sold later. Apparently the outcome depended on how much you were willing to argue, so there doesn't seem to have been a simple "policy."<br /><br />Note that the article doesn't cover tapers at all, only bootleggers. Hard to say if the writer even knew audience tapers existed, or if (like the band thought) they were considered to be synonymous with bootleggers. (Of course, if the "goon squad" had encountered any taper, we can be sure he wouldn't have been left in peace!) At this point, it was simply too early for the notion of free tape exchanges to be common.Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-63815630700146630022013-11-12T13:22:50.854-08:002013-11-12T13:22:50.854-08:00The Winterland bootleg album mentioned is the famo...The Winterland bootleg album mentioned is the famous Mammary Productions bootleg featuring part of the 10/4/70 show, which became available in spring 1971. (Another bootleg called Ain't It Crazy came out in mid-1971, taken from the April '71 Fillmore East shows.) <br />Ironically, at the 8/26/71 show, Marty Weinberg was also selling his own bootleg album that he'd made that spring - "I only had a few left, and I figured I would take them to the show and sell them. What better place? I had maybe ten with me, and I sold them in three seconds." He also taped the show; but the "goon squad" overlooked him.<br />At the time, tape-trading was basically unheard of, and limited to a very few tapers. For most people, bootlegs were their only chance to hear a Dead show, and I'm sure many people were introduced to live Dead via bootleg records. 1971 was still pretty early for this, but even by August '71 there were already a few Dead bootlegs available. <br />Clearly this made the Dead paranoid, as you can hear in the 12/31/70 show when they bust a taper, shouting: ""There's bootleggers among you! Let's find out who these people are...put that spotlight out there on that microphone...Underground Records, Incorporated. Find this one for $10."<br /><br />This article mentions the rumor that "the Dead have been looking for bootleg manufacturers for some time now with the object in mind of collaborating to produce one or more bootlegs." I don't know how that idea spread or if it was just someone's imagination, but the Dead were not entirely consistent in their anti-bootleg approach. <br />When Phil heard Marty Weinberg's bootleg album, he was impressed with the selections and invited Weinberg backstage at a December '71 Felt Forum show. "He asked me how I recorded it...asked me lots of questions about what I did with the tapes...[and said,] 'We thought about that, to be able to take our performances and have them available the next day.'" <br />A few years later, Les Kippel was one of the founders of Dead Relics magazine (which considerably boosted the resources available to Dead tapers, and made tape-trading easier & more widespread) - he said, "We had a correspondence going with the Grateful Dead... They were interested in somehow creating an official tape exchange. They expressed that they were having problems with...Warner Brothers, [which] controlled a lot of the material that they produced, and the Dead couldn't release the material without permission from the record company...[which] owned the rights to everything they created." <br />Warners, as a record label, was of course entirely against taping since it would "cut into record sales;" and the Dead also wanted to make sure that any tape that came out was of the highest quality. They were also "concerned about how many people were going to get it, and they wanted to control that... The concept was to send the tape out within two weeks after the show happened; this way, you didn't have to bring your tape machine [to the shows]... For $10 you were going to get the two cassettes of the entire concert." <br />Eventually the Dead decided not to do this, for various reasons - limited technology & lack of time among them - but at least they floated the idea. (See the Taping Compendium vol, 1, p.30 - the "Outside the System" intros to the first two Taping Compendiums have a good discussion of the growth of taping in the '70s.)Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-86293333969826692202013-11-12T12:09:10.537-08:002013-11-12T12:09:10.537-08:00Yes, that's right.Yes, that's right.Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-62269473001441186962013-11-12T03:21:53.573-08:002013-11-12T03:21:53.573-08:00Am I right in remembering that the first official ...Am I right in remembering that the first official taper section was at the six-show Halloween run at the Berkeley Community Theater in 1984?Andrew Shieldshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02804655739574694901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-73371598161399588062013-11-12T03:17:44.808-08:002013-11-12T03:17:44.808-08:00Briefly: tape trading barely existed in 1971. Desp...Briefly: tape trading barely existed in 1971. Despite Weir's friendliness on the 8/6/71 recording, the Dead crew did their best to bust all tapers in those years. At the time they seem to have believed that tapers were generally recording to make bootlegs, but the band made exceptions & were inconsistent. In 1976 the Dead started, not "encouraging" but accepting tapers' presence; it was a victory of the fans over band policy. <br /><br />See the second part of this post, and the comments: <br />http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2009/08/short-guide-to-1970-audience-tapes.html Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-84633225846238521252013-11-12T02:51:38.881-08:002013-11-12T02:51:38.881-08:00Were the Dead already encouraging tape trading by ...Were the Dead already encouraging tape trading by August 1971? When did they start doing that?<br /><br />Later, they made it clear that they encouraged tape trading but not bootleg production of vinyl (or CDs, when that time came), so discouraging vinyl bootleggers in 71 was consistent with their later policy. Though Katzenjammer may mostly be protesting the strong-arm tactics.<br /><br />Interesting how the same issues are still around in different form today, but now for all bands: is copying of digital recordings promotion or piracy?Andrew Shieldshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02804655739574694901noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5195590583641426943.post-15398240188535269202013-11-12T02:50:30.701-08:002013-11-12T02:50:30.701-08:00An editorial note on the source: this seems to hav...An editorial note on the source: this seems to have been sloppily printed. This transcription is mostly faithful, though there are a few silent spelling corrections & word substitutions. But some of the sentences still don't make much sense - hasty writing or printing left parts of this a mess.<br /><br />Will comment more later, as there is a lot to discuss here.Light Into Asheshttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06943335142002007213noreply@blogger.com