GRATEFUL DEAD SHOW OFF NEW BODIES -
THEIR HEADS ARE SOMETHING ELSE AGAIN...
"There are over one million Dead Heads and your numbers keep increasing every day..." – from THE DEAD HEAD NEWSLETTER, mailed out to all those who responded to a mailing address printed on the jacket of Grateful Dead.
Three frazzled red-freak winos spill out of a battered van parked outside the Universal City Amphitheatre and pause on the long trek to the entrance to piss away their Ripple on a shiny Nova. The sharp sound of three forceful gushes harmonizing against the side of the compact can be heard from some distance.
Having finished the deed, one of the trio groggily zips himself up and affectionately pats the car. “The Dead gonna be hot,” he asserts before cutting loose with a hoarse yelp. "AAAAAAAWWWWWWOOOOOOOOO." This wine-slurred call of the wild is immediately answered by a broadside of identically soporific shrieks from all directions.
Are these men Dead Heads?
Meanwhile, in a backstage trailer behind the outdoor venue, Grateful Dead magnate Rock Scully is fielding questions from a bright-eyed Japanese media representative.
“When weo Glatefoe Day pray in Japan?,” the interview brandishes a huge microphone. Scully, a friendly Joe and sharp businessman, smiles broadly. He loves it. “The Dead,” Rock speaks slowly, pronouncing each syllable as if conversing with a group of angry African cannibals, “want very much to visit Japan. We hear it’s a very big market for pop and rock music. We love Japan. We love Datsuns, and you guys make nice television sets too...”
Rock Scully is one of the three men (the other two being Sam Cutler and Jon McIntire) who manage the Grateful Dead. Physically reminiscent of a less sallow George Harrison, Rock first became involved with the Dead when they were all part of the Diggers, a group of thirty people gathered together by Emmet Grogan and Peter Cohen for the purpose of playing street theatre on the stage of San Francisco. He’s been with them, working mainly on the promotional side of things, every since.
Is this man a Dead Head?
The next day finds KSJO, a progressive FM San Jose radio station, celebrating their six year anniversary. Steve Brown, once a locally infamous disc jockey, has returned to the airwaves on reunion day to spin those discs once more for old times sake. An immediately likeable and enthusiastic sort, Steve is an eclectic lover of off-the-wall punk-rock. Today, however, he is featuring an exclusive airing of Bear’s Choice: History of the Grateful Dead, Volume One. While rummaging through a stack of battered obscurities, Steve concedes that the Dead are his first love. His house is a repository for Dead posters, photos and general memorabilia of the countless times he’s partaken of the Grateful Dead experience. Steve, a buddy of lead guitarist-vocalist Jerry Garcia, was one of the first recently hired to staff the new Grateful Dead Records label.
Is this man a Dead Head? And just what is a Dead Head, anyway? The question has been circulating unanswered for years now, and one English magazine made a straight-faced attempt at defining the phenomenon not long ago:
"The uprising of the Haight-Ashbury culture marked a time for change for many, and the Dead became known as ‘The People’s Band.’ Blacks were demonstrating for integration, students were in revolt, Martin Luther King’s star was rising, Kennedy was elected. [Author's note: Kennedy was dead, if the truth be known.] The Haight, a beautiful area of old San Francisco [Author's note: actually an old area of beautiful San Francisco] near Golden Gate Park, became a gathering place for kids who wanted out of the existing political and social system to try to find an alternative within which they could have fun, get high, go about life with wonder, love, music and laughter instead of orders, money, bribery, violence and fear. The Grateful Dead was their band."
“Fuck ‘people’s music’.” laughs Jerry Garcia from a reclining seat in the plush, wood-finished business offices of the band. (The comfortably expansive cluster of rooms are located in a streamlined San Rafael complex.) “I mean, I thought it was a dumb discussion even when it was the big thing a while back to talk about how music should be free...that music belongs to the people and musicians rip them off. That kind of thing really irks me.
“It’s like, in order to get so you can play music you have to sacrifice a lot of what would have been your normal life. You know what I mean? For lack of a better phrase, you have to pay the dues to get so you can play music. It’s not a thing you just do. If that were so, everybody’d be making their own music and there wouldn’t be professional musicians. There’d be no need for them. For someone to deny the fact that you spent a certain amount of your life working on some sort of discipline and learning how to play...that’s the rip-off. That’s the state versus the individual. Anytime someone comes down on artists and claims their work on any level, I think that’s pure bullshit. There’s been too many great musicians who died poor. People’s music...it just ain’t so.”
Rock wanders into the room, catching the tail-end of Garcia’s statement. “That’s the confusion that’s created a lot by the press,” he says, “who identified the Dead with a sociological movement that happened in the Haight-Ashbury, right? So by the time the Grateful Dead got to New York for the first time, nobody would cover them as a music story. Instead the band got treated as some artifact from the decadence of the west-coast culture...something from Babylon.”
At 31, Garcia is not half the weathered old Grandaddy of psychedelia that one might expect from the multiplicity of legends that engulf his clouded past. “That’s all gone now,” he adds. “They don’t ask or talk about that much anymore. It’s pretty clear now that what looked like it might have been some kind of counter-culture is in reality just the plain old chaos of undifferentiated weirdness.”
Legend has it that the Dead began their evolution towards the present when Garcia, Ron “Pigpen” McKernan and Bobby “Ace” Weir fell together in Palo Alto on New Years Eve, 1964. Joined later by Bill Kreutzmann on drums, they decided to form a jug band that became Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions.
Jerry later stumbled upon Phil Lesh, who learned the bass (a la Chris Hillman) in the following two weeks and became a member of the band. By early 1965 they struck up an association with Ken Kesey. Kesey and Robert Hunter (Garcia’s writing partner) were two of the humans the State Hospital was using for pre-illegality LSD testing. It wasn’t long before the pair were infected with the idea of conducting similar experiments outside the hospital and on a considerably larger, decidedly non-clinical scale.
Kesey and his Merry Pranksters initiated their legendary Acid Tests in Palo Alto in the summer of ’65. A series of parties where (often unsuspecting) people could drop and dance the night away, it was the Warlocks who provided soundtrack for their mass hallucinations.
In 1966, their name was changed to the Grateful Dead and the group moved to (ta-da) Haight-Ashbury where a series of Be-Ins, free festivals and dances followed, as anyone who read Newsweek was made well aware.
Mickey Hart joined the Grateful Dead in 1967, leaving three years later when his father Lenny, then their manager, slipped off after having maneuvered them into a 100,000 dollar debt. (They eventually caught up with Lenny in San Diego, where he was masquerading as a priest.) Tom Constanten handled keyboards during 1969 and early 1970, and his departure left the position open until Keith Godchaux took over piano with the group a year ago. Donna, his wife, has also been added to the line-up as a vocalist.
Pigpen, the Dead’s notorious hard-drinking organist (and, in his biker leathers and psychedelic grubbiness, the symbol of the Dead as well), became very sick around the time Keith and Donna were added. Rarely did he join them on stage, their European tour being the only recent exception. “He had a whole bunch of things go wrong with his body all at once,” said Bob Weir late last year at a Dead show in Long Beach. “He had a perforated ulcer, hyperanemia, malnutrition and hepatitis all hit him at the same time.” Pigpen was found dead in his apartment earlier this year. His death was attributed to an overdose of natural cases. He was 27.
And while all this was going on, the Dead’s primarily west coast audience expanded into nation-wide, then world-wide proportions. In their hometown, where everybody still wears sandals and talks with nose-lifted reverence about how marvelous it is to live in "The City" – and while Bay Area radio has turned into a continuous grunt, sweat and toot Tower of Power record – Led Zeppelin may sell more tickets, but San Francisco still eats the Dead for breakfast.
Since the early days, the Dead have also grown into a corporation and an independent record company with well over thirty people on the payroll. Their hardcore San Francisco audience may still be locked into a 1967 consciousness, but the Grateful Dead operation is Big Business and strictly 1974. Why, Weir and Garcia have even been known to sport Nudie suits on stage every now and then.
“Pigpen was one of the main elements of our whole first years,” Garcia looks back on the Dead’s career. “His decline represented some kind of imminent change. And finally getting Keith and Donna, we’re a different band now. There are several periods we’ve gone through that overlap, but I tend to think of our existence in terms of the Pigpen-as-center period and then the more self-sufficient growing-out time that came when we got used to playing without him. I divide the band’s life span into those two categories, if any.”
The major news these days is Grateful Dead Records. Once just a pipe-dream for Scully and Garcia, it is now a reality. The new Grateful Dead album, Wake of the Flood, has been released on the band’s own independently distributed label. All things considered, could this be the end of an old and the beginning of a new era for the former Warner Brothers recording artists?
“Well,” Garcia considers while chain-smoking, “of sorts, yeah, but generally no. Grateful Dead albums have never been representative of the Grateful Dead. The live albums come the closest, but even they’re a year out-of-date by the time they’re released.
“But it’s dumb to complain about all that record company bullshit. I mean, if you’re enough of an asshole to stick it up where they can shoot at it, you can’t complain for getting shot. As far as I’m concerned the whole record trip was our mistake. It was our blunder and we’ve been living with our mistake for all these years. Now, hopefully, we’re free to make our own mistakes.”
Seeing as how the Grateful Dead and their inevitable off-shoots will market their own product, the obvious advantage will be the contractual freedom to release what they want, when they want (although leaving such considerations completely in the hands of the artist has not always proved such a wise move, as two of the Dead’s neighbors – the Airplane and the Youngbloods – have demonstrated), and make the effort more financially worthwhile in the process. If their newsletter is to be believed, the band has never made money from records in the past. “We’re a working, performing band,” Garcia emphasizes. “We’re not a recording band. Our records have always been a small part of our musical existence. That’s the truth. We’ve never been successful at records, really, and because of the way we run our scene we didn’t make any money at records either. If we want to keep feeding the babies, we’ve had to keep working.
“The bigger percentage we’ll be getting will make it possible for us to breathe and pick the concerts that we really want to do. We can also afford to lower the prices. Theoretically, that’s what should happen. But for us, the main get-off has always been playing live shows. It’s always been and always will.”
But that’s not the only reason why the last three Dead albums, Grateful Dead, Europe ’72 and History of the Grateful Dead – six records in all, have been live ones. “Our last record,” says Jerry of Europe (he prefers to ignore the History LP), “was live because we had a lot of people we wanted to take to Europe and that was the excuse to raise all the cash to do it. Warner Brothers gave us an advance that financed the vacation. You don’t make money playing England, so we needed to record an album there to pay the bills. Everything has many uses...”
The general attitude among the Dead inner-sanctum towards the History album, their final Warners product, is one of ambivalence at best. Weir is upset about the inclusion of a flat “Wake Up Little Susie” duet with Jerry. Garcia could care less about the whole thing. When handed his first copy of the album, he mumbled something about it having a less-than-stellar cover and didn’t even bother taking it home. “We had to give that record to Warner Brothers,” says Jerry, leaning back in his seat. “We weren’t contracted for it originally, but we hadda give it to them in order to make Europe ’72 a triple-lp. We could have been cut loose if we gave them two single records, rather than one triple album. We ended up giving them four discs instead of just two just to be able to go to Europe. It all goes back to that damn vacation of ours.
“As far as I’m concerned, it’s something we owe them. I’m not interested in making Warner Brothers any richer. In a way, I’m glad it’s a low-profile, non-success record. It just means there won’t be any more energy going to WB via us. The music is what it is, us in early 1970. That was a time in our existence when we never made a record. The stuff we were doing at the time never got onto any of our records before now. I might not like it, but I played it. If they were no good, it’s too late to take those notes back.”
The new lp, Wake of the Flood, was recorded during the month of August at Sausalito’s Record Plant. It’s their first studio work since American Beauty hit the racks three years ago. “We finally made a record better than we play,” chortles Garcia. “The tunes are a little more sophisticated than what we’ve done in the past, but it’s Grateful Dead through and through. The tunes that me and Hunter wrote are the best we’ve written. But then again, I can’t really look at them. When I listen to my songs I’m listening to myself talking to myself. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a closed conversation. I’m not that fascinated with my own work.”
One piece of work Jerry Garcia was fascinated by was that of the Rowan Brothers, a couple of kids down the street from his Stinson Beach home. Garcia told an interviewer he thought they were “just as good as The Beatles” and the quote came back to haunt him on national ads and Sunset Strip billboards. The overkill destroyed the Rowans.
“It didn’t work did it?,” Jerry says sheepishly. “Their record company wasn’t successful in capitalizing on what I said. The Rowans’ album only sold a couple thousand copies. It was what I said alright, but it was embarrassing to hear it back on the radio and shit like that. It was a sorta lame thing to say, but the Rowans were friends of mine and they asked me if it was cool to use the quote... My feelings towards all that shit was that I should have never, ever, opened my mouth to anybody, ever, at anytime in my life. But it’s too late, now. I already blew it, so fuck it.”
(by Cameron Crowe, from Creem, January 1974)
http://www.theuncool.com/journalism/the-grateful-dead-creem-magazine/
This was a followup to Crowe's earlier Dead article:
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/11/summer-1973-new-label-new-albums.html
Dec 23, 2012
Dec 22, 2012
Summer 1973: Alembic
ALEMBIC: SOUND WIZARDS TO THE GRATEFUL DEAD
On the first fret of Phil Lesh's new bass, two lightning bolts leap out of a block of lapis lazuli. On the third fret a Cosmic Serpent eats its own tail; on the fifth, a crescent moon either waxes or wanes, depending on how you look at it; on the seventh, there is an alchemical salamander, and so on, up through the planet Saturn and the infinity sign (equals high A, apparently), all inlaid in mother-of-pearl. On the back of the neck, the god Osiris, the Judge of the Dead, points his divine flail and impassive eyes toward whoever holds his instrument.
The significance is all pretty obvious.
This instrument is only one of the most recent productions of the Grateful Dead family's coven of hi-fi wizards, known collectively as Alembic. An "alembic" in alchemy, of course, is the "instrument of transformation, purification and refinement," and such a vessel is represented in the Alembic trademark - surrounded by a Cosmic serpent which in turn is clutched by a hand reaching down from a cloud. And transformation and refinement is the Alembic crew's official gig: "aiming for that thing electronic music has, its ability to transcend technology." It's because of them that the Dead's succession of sound systems - including the one used at Watkins Glen - have set standards for clarity and power.
It started out as strictly Dead family business. The Alembic symbol, for instance, is the work of the same artist who did the cover for Live Dead, among other things, such as getting busted a few years ago with the Dead's own LSD millionaire. But Alembic is semi-independent now, with its workshop, recording studio, and even a modest retail store located in an inconspicuous San Francisco side street about two blocks from the old Fillmore West.
"We're doing everything under the heading that might be called hi-fi as applied to rock performance," said an articulate resident wizard named Rick Turner, as he leaned against a display case in the tiny Alembic shop. "That includes instruments, sound systems, and recording. And it means whatever the musician wants. Like when Neil Young played Winterland, we did his sound system for the show. He likes a distorted sound - he uses Fender Bandmaster amps turned way up. But he needed more volume than his amps could put out in order to fill the hall, so we put a dummy load on the speaker output - a speaker turned down to the floor is what we actually used - and bridged into a McIntosh 2300. So we were able to give him a perfectly clean, clear, high-fidelity reproduction of a raunchy, distorted sound."
Alembic was started five years ago when the Dead were living in the Marin County hamlet of Novato, about 30 miles north of San Francisco. "Owsley started it," Rick recalled. "He coaxed Ron Wickersham away from the Ampex labs, where he was being a videotape genius. Ron had all sorts of radio experience, too - he'd worked at stations in the Midwest where he was engineer, announcer, everything. Owsley and Bob Matthews (who is currently part of Alembic's live-recording team) had gotten a 16-track machine for the Dead's studio in Novato, and they got Wickersham working on Phil's and Jack Casady's basses. At the time, 'Alembic' was just the name for the hangout of the whole Dead trip - their practice hall, everything.
"I had been a musician back East myself, and I'd been doing repair work on guitars on and off for ten years. When I got out here I decided I wanted to build the perfect electric instrument, to put as much craft into it as goes into classical symphonic instruments. So I started winding coils for my own pickups, because I couldn't afford commercial pickups, and anyway I wanted to do it from the ground up. It turned out my pickups had a serendipitous design. They had lower impedance and greater frequency response, and stronger magnetic fields. When I got into Alembic we started collaborating our products, designing electronics to go with the pickups. Lesh introduced me to Alembic. At the time I was working as a jeweler's assistant, with the aim of learning how to work with metal."
Phil Lesh not only introduced Rick to Alembic, he is the principal liason with the Dead. He has frequent collaborative discussions with the instrument makers and continually tries out new basses. Rick picked up Phil's latest, the one with Osiris on the back of the neck.
"This is the basic body design characteristic of all our guitars," he said, pointing at a line of light-colored wood that ran the length of the instrument, from the tailpiece clear up the neck. "The neck is continued all through the body of the instrument. Technically speaking, this is something like Asiatic spike-fiddle design. It gives solidarity. The bodies, by the way, are made at a second shop in Cotati."
He popped open a cavity on the front of the bass and plucked out a plate dangling with wires and knobs. "This is our standard electronics package. The volume controls are conventional, but we've designed our own tone controls with variable lowpass filters, so instead of rolling the highs off at some arbitrary point, you can choose the roll-off point. Here on the back" - he pointed to an odd rectangular pattern of silvery metal streaks - "we've used five op-amps, operational amplifiers. Space age technology. They're equivalent to a bunch of transistors.
"On the body of the instrument we have two pickups for signal and a concealed pickup under the tailpiece for hum control. On another of Phil's basses, a modified Guild, we've installed four pickups, one for each string. The first quadraphonic bass. He can play a chord on that bass that'll sound like a pipe organ, only with 2400 watts of power going through 40 15-inch speakers.
"All our experimentation is aimed at giving the musician as much control as possible, and at the same time we make it as far out as we can, keeping the instruments compatible with plain equipment, so he can take his instrument someplace and just jam, without having to have, say, the whole Dead sound system.
"Like Weir's guitar. On his system he's got true frequency-altering vibrato, and with certain kinds of patching he can get the phasing effect (the hissing jet-roar effect first heard on such records as "Itchycoo Park"). He has a state-of-the-art parametric equalizer with a continuous-sweep range of boosts, so any part of his range can be automatically boosted.
"For Phil's next bass, we're making a synthesizer with a ring modulator for purely electronic alteration of the note sound, and tracking filters to add a note automatically at any chosen interval, which in effect will give easy feedback on any individual note, so the musician can have that control as well as the random feedback that has always been part of the Dead's thing. We're not aiming at a whole synthesizer approach, but ornamenting the string sound. We want to preserve a warm, tactile sound."
Asked about Jerry Garcia's guitar, Rick threw up a hand in resignation. "Lesh is the big experimenter. Garcia tries new guitars all the time, but always goes back to the Stratocaster."
"Yeah, that Stratocaster. You can always tell that old Stratocaster sound," murmured Jack Casady, who had just wandered into the shop and was peering around at things through smoky glasses.
"I'm tryin' to put a knob on a guitar that'll give Garcia a Stratocaster sound when he wants it," Rick said. "Actually, when he gets back in town I've got a new guitar I'm gonna bounce off him. We'll see."
In addition to designing instruments for the Dead, Alembic has built an amazing bass to Casady's specifications. The massive, heavily carved body bristles with some 16 knobs, switches and toggles; the pickups can be slid along brass trammels, to pick up the sound of the strings at different points along their length. The electronics packages can be snatched out and replaced instantly with differently wound modules for different sounds. Among the other gadgetry there is a unique arrangement of fret dots: Instead of the usual mother-of-pearl dot on the side of the neck at every other fret, there are two pearl dots, between which there is a tiny red electric light. The sensitivity of the light, natch, can be controlled by a knob on the body.
Other musicians Alembic has built for include Banana and Jesse Colin Young of the old Youngbloods and David Crosby. Besides making custom instruments, they do have a "standard" line of Alembic guitars and basses.
The Dead's sound system is Alembic's ongoing responsibility. "The Dead's PA varies from month to month," said Rick. "For instance, right at this moment they're playing at Watkins Glen. The system there - it's not the Dead's personal system, but it was done by our PA Consulting Committee: Wickersham, Bear, Dan Healey, Sparky, me and John Curl, an independent who works with us - is the same system the Band and the Allman Brothers, everybody, is using.
"At Watkins Glen the sound from the stage speakers is doubled 200 feet from the stage by four delay towers, towers with speakers wired to the stage amps but with a 0.175 second delay built in, so that by the time the sound from the stage speakers reaches the tower area through the air, the signal broadcast from the towers will be synchronized with it. There are six more delay towers arranged radially 200 feet further from those towers - 400 feet from the stage - and six more towers 200 feet further out. Sixteen delay towers in all, plus the main PA. I'd put that at 24,000 watts of quadramped stereo power.
"These days, the Dead's speakers are usually arranged onstage like this: First of all, there are the monitor speakers for the musicians to hear themselves. That's four stacks of speakers - 12-inchers, five-inchers and a bunch of tweeters - with a total of 4000 watts power for the monitors alone.
"Then there are the bass guitar extension speakers on either side of the stage, a vertical stack of a dozen 15-inch woofers on each side. The two guitars and the piano have six or eight 12-inch speakers apiece. Then there's the quadramped PA system for the singers and the drums; 16 15-inch woofers, 20 12-inch lower-mid-range speakers, 64 four-inch upper-mid-range speakers, and upwards of 40 tweeters.
"That's a lot of power. But you know, if you were to listen to it side by side with another system of the same wattage, but the kind of system a lot of promoters put up, the other system would probably sound louder. It's because it would be putting a lot of power through low-budget equipment and getting a lot of distortion. Distortion makes sound louder even though the power is the same.
"But we want a clean sound. It makes you feel better. Loud, distorted sound is fatiguing after a while. You start to get inexplicably tired. It's because subconsciously you're trying to disentangle the distortion from the music. And you're straining to make out the words. This is why, for instance, we have two mikes for each singer, one three inches above the other. This system phases out any signal received by both the speakers, which cuts down on background noise and feedback."
Alembic has its own recording studio, occupying the premises of the defunct Pacific High Recorders, where the search for the Grail of clean, outdoorsy sound is pursued along different lines. "The studio is Wickersham's work, mostly," said Rick. "We have our own ways of doing things here too. What's lost us as much business as it's gained us is the fact that we don't use a record board. We mike the session directly into the 16-track. This cuts down several stages of electronics, such as mike preamps, equalizers and line drivers, which effectively just amplify the signal, attenuate it and build up distortion.
"We control the level on the machine rather than on a board. Of course, this isn't as convenient as sitting at a console and pushing a bunch of sliders. But Europe '72 is what I'd call an example of how clean a live recording can be. That was overdubbed and mixed here, and Mickey Hart did the same on his Rolling Thunder."
Finally, there's the Alembic store, which shows recent signs of having had its act cleaned up: glass display counters, guitar racks and the like. A few months ago it was just a room where the latest guitar designs were stacked loosely around. Now it sells a studiously limited line of musicians' equipment including Alembic's own products. The latter include guitars and basses, of course; sound system components such as power supply/switching and preamp units; speaker cabinets ("The dimensions are worked out to correspond to third octave wavelengths, which smooths out the resonances and makes the cabinet neutral") made of 15-ply Finnish birch plywood, intended to survive being dropped out of airplanes by stoned roadies; low-capacitance cables; and, of course, hand-wound pickups.
The next area of design Rick could get interested in is strings. "Strings are currently the weak link in the sound system. I have a line, in fact, on a string-making machine maker, but it would involve at least $20,000 and a lot of research - say, among 400 or 500 alloys. It would be as big a trip as the pickup winding, and that's been going on for five years. I've designed 50 or 60 pickups in that time, and it's nowhere near over."
Alembic plainly doesn't see itself taking over the instrument or sound system markets. The philosophy is more that of its "founding father" Owsley: "To raise the level of bossness." A good professional-quality electric guitar, for instance, can be bought for a quarter the price of an Alembic model. "For some musicians," as Rick points out, "price is never going to be an object." And for some wizards, the effect of transformation, purification and refinement on the bossness level is its own reward.
(by Charles Perry, from Rolling Stone, September 27 1973)
On the first fret of Phil Lesh's new bass, two lightning bolts leap out of a block of lapis lazuli. On the third fret a Cosmic Serpent eats its own tail; on the fifth, a crescent moon either waxes or wanes, depending on how you look at it; on the seventh, there is an alchemical salamander, and so on, up through the planet Saturn and the infinity sign (equals high A, apparently), all inlaid in mother-of-pearl. On the back of the neck, the god Osiris, the Judge of the Dead, points his divine flail and impassive eyes toward whoever holds his instrument.
The significance is all pretty obvious.
This instrument is only one of the most recent productions of the Grateful Dead family's coven of hi-fi wizards, known collectively as Alembic. An "alembic" in alchemy, of course, is the "instrument of transformation, purification and refinement," and such a vessel is represented in the Alembic trademark - surrounded by a Cosmic serpent which in turn is clutched by a hand reaching down from a cloud. And transformation and refinement is the Alembic crew's official gig: "aiming for that thing electronic music has, its ability to transcend technology." It's because of them that the Dead's succession of sound systems - including the one used at Watkins Glen - have set standards for clarity and power.
It started out as strictly Dead family business. The Alembic symbol, for instance, is the work of the same artist who did the cover for Live Dead, among other things, such as getting busted a few years ago with the Dead's own LSD millionaire. But Alembic is semi-independent now, with its workshop, recording studio, and even a modest retail store located in an inconspicuous San Francisco side street about two blocks from the old Fillmore West.
"We're doing everything under the heading that might be called hi-fi as applied to rock performance," said an articulate resident wizard named Rick Turner, as he leaned against a display case in the tiny Alembic shop. "That includes instruments, sound systems, and recording. And it means whatever the musician wants. Like when Neil Young played Winterland, we did his sound system for the show. He likes a distorted sound - he uses Fender Bandmaster amps turned way up. But he needed more volume than his amps could put out in order to fill the hall, so we put a dummy load on the speaker output - a speaker turned down to the floor is what we actually used - and bridged into a McIntosh 2300. So we were able to give him a perfectly clean, clear, high-fidelity reproduction of a raunchy, distorted sound."
Alembic was started five years ago when the Dead were living in the Marin County hamlet of Novato, about 30 miles north of San Francisco. "Owsley started it," Rick recalled. "He coaxed Ron Wickersham away from the Ampex labs, where he was being a videotape genius. Ron had all sorts of radio experience, too - he'd worked at stations in the Midwest where he was engineer, announcer, everything. Owsley and Bob Matthews (who is currently part of Alembic's live-recording team) had gotten a 16-track machine for the Dead's studio in Novato, and they got Wickersham working on Phil's and Jack Casady's basses. At the time, 'Alembic' was just the name for the hangout of the whole Dead trip - their practice hall, everything.
"I had been a musician back East myself, and I'd been doing repair work on guitars on and off for ten years. When I got out here I decided I wanted to build the perfect electric instrument, to put as much craft into it as goes into classical symphonic instruments. So I started winding coils for my own pickups, because I couldn't afford commercial pickups, and anyway I wanted to do it from the ground up. It turned out my pickups had a serendipitous design. They had lower impedance and greater frequency response, and stronger magnetic fields. When I got into Alembic we started collaborating our products, designing electronics to go with the pickups. Lesh introduced me to Alembic. At the time I was working as a jeweler's assistant, with the aim of learning how to work with metal."
Phil Lesh not only introduced Rick to Alembic, he is the principal liason with the Dead. He has frequent collaborative discussions with the instrument makers and continually tries out new basses. Rick picked up Phil's latest, the one with Osiris on the back of the neck.
"This is the basic body design characteristic of all our guitars," he said, pointing at a line of light-colored wood that ran the length of the instrument, from the tailpiece clear up the neck. "The neck is continued all through the body of the instrument. Technically speaking, this is something like Asiatic spike-fiddle design. It gives solidarity. The bodies, by the way, are made at a second shop in Cotati."
He popped open a cavity on the front of the bass and plucked out a plate dangling with wires and knobs. "This is our standard electronics package. The volume controls are conventional, but we've designed our own tone controls with variable lowpass filters, so instead of rolling the highs off at some arbitrary point, you can choose the roll-off point. Here on the back" - he pointed to an odd rectangular pattern of silvery metal streaks - "we've used five op-amps, operational amplifiers. Space age technology. They're equivalent to a bunch of transistors.
"On the body of the instrument we have two pickups for signal and a concealed pickup under the tailpiece for hum control. On another of Phil's basses, a modified Guild, we've installed four pickups, one for each string. The first quadraphonic bass. He can play a chord on that bass that'll sound like a pipe organ, only with 2400 watts of power going through 40 15-inch speakers.
"All our experimentation is aimed at giving the musician as much control as possible, and at the same time we make it as far out as we can, keeping the instruments compatible with plain equipment, so he can take his instrument someplace and just jam, without having to have, say, the whole Dead sound system.
"Like Weir's guitar. On his system he's got true frequency-altering vibrato, and with certain kinds of patching he can get the phasing effect (the hissing jet-roar effect first heard on such records as "Itchycoo Park"). He has a state-of-the-art parametric equalizer with a continuous-sweep range of boosts, so any part of his range can be automatically boosted.
"For Phil's next bass, we're making a synthesizer with a ring modulator for purely electronic alteration of the note sound, and tracking filters to add a note automatically at any chosen interval, which in effect will give easy feedback on any individual note, so the musician can have that control as well as the random feedback that has always been part of the Dead's thing. We're not aiming at a whole synthesizer approach, but ornamenting the string sound. We want to preserve a warm, tactile sound."
Asked about Jerry Garcia's guitar, Rick threw up a hand in resignation. "Lesh is the big experimenter. Garcia tries new guitars all the time, but always goes back to the Stratocaster."
"Yeah, that Stratocaster. You can always tell that old Stratocaster sound," murmured Jack Casady, who had just wandered into the shop and was peering around at things through smoky glasses.
"I'm tryin' to put a knob on a guitar that'll give Garcia a Stratocaster sound when he wants it," Rick said. "Actually, when he gets back in town I've got a new guitar I'm gonna bounce off him. We'll see."
In addition to designing instruments for the Dead, Alembic has built an amazing bass to Casady's specifications. The massive, heavily carved body bristles with some 16 knobs, switches and toggles; the pickups can be slid along brass trammels, to pick up the sound of the strings at different points along their length. The electronics packages can be snatched out and replaced instantly with differently wound modules for different sounds. Among the other gadgetry there is a unique arrangement of fret dots: Instead of the usual mother-of-pearl dot on the side of the neck at every other fret, there are two pearl dots, between which there is a tiny red electric light. The sensitivity of the light, natch, can be controlled by a knob on the body.
Other musicians Alembic has built for include Banana and Jesse Colin Young of the old Youngbloods and David Crosby. Besides making custom instruments, they do have a "standard" line of Alembic guitars and basses.
The Dead's sound system is Alembic's ongoing responsibility. "The Dead's PA varies from month to month," said Rick. "For instance, right at this moment they're playing at Watkins Glen. The system there - it's not the Dead's personal system, but it was done by our PA Consulting Committee: Wickersham, Bear, Dan Healey, Sparky, me and John Curl, an independent who works with us - is the same system the Band and the Allman Brothers, everybody, is using.
"At Watkins Glen the sound from the stage speakers is doubled 200 feet from the stage by four delay towers, towers with speakers wired to the stage amps but with a 0.175 second delay built in, so that by the time the sound from the stage speakers reaches the tower area through the air, the signal broadcast from the towers will be synchronized with it. There are six more delay towers arranged radially 200 feet further from those towers - 400 feet from the stage - and six more towers 200 feet further out. Sixteen delay towers in all, plus the main PA. I'd put that at 24,000 watts of quadramped stereo power.
"These days, the Dead's speakers are usually arranged onstage like this: First of all, there are the monitor speakers for the musicians to hear themselves. That's four stacks of speakers - 12-inchers, five-inchers and a bunch of tweeters - with a total of 4000 watts power for the monitors alone.
"Then there are the bass guitar extension speakers on either side of the stage, a vertical stack of a dozen 15-inch woofers on each side. The two guitars and the piano have six or eight 12-inch speakers apiece. Then there's the quadramped PA system for the singers and the drums; 16 15-inch woofers, 20 12-inch lower-mid-range speakers, 64 four-inch upper-mid-range speakers, and upwards of 40 tweeters.
"That's a lot of power. But you know, if you were to listen to it side by side with another system of the same wattage, but the kind of system a lot of promoters put up, the other system would probably sound louder. It's because it would be putting a lot of power through low-budget equipment and getting a lot of distortion. Distortion makes sound louder even though the power is the same.
"But we want a clean sound. It makes you feel better. Loud, distorted sound is fatiguing after a while. You start to get inexplicably tired. It's because subconsciously you're trying to disentangle the distortion from the music. And you're straining to make out the words. This is why, for instance, we have two mikes for each singer, one three inches above the other. This system phases out any signal received by both the speakers, which cuts down on background noise and feedback."
Alembic has its own recording studio, occupying the premises of the defunct Pacific High Recorders, where the search for the Grail of clean, outdoorsy sound is pursued along different lines. "The studio is Wickersham's work, mostly," said Rick. "We have our own ways of doing things here too. What's lost us as much business as it's gained us is the fact that we don't use a record board. We mike the session directly into the 16-track. This cuts down several stages of electronics, such as mike preamps, equalizers and line drivers, which effectively just amplify the signal, attenuate it and build up distortion.
"We control the level on the machine rather than on a board. Of course, this isn't as convenient as sitting at a console and pushing a bunch of sliders. But Europe '72 is what I'd call an example of how clean a live recording can be. That was overdubbed and mixed here, and Mickey Hart did the same on his Rolling Thunder."
Finally, there's the Alembic store, which shows recent signs of having had its act cleaned up: glass display counters, guitar racks and the like. A few months ago it was just a room where the latest guitar designs were stacked loosely around. Now it sells a studiously limited line of musicians' equipment including Alembic's own products. The latter include guitars and basses, of course; sound system components such as power supply/switching and preamp units; speaker cabinets ("The dimensions are worked out to correspond to third octave wavelengths, which smooths out the resonances and makes the cabinet neutral") made of 15-ply Finnish birch plywood, intended to survive being dropped out of airplanes by stoned roadies; low-capacitance cables; and, of course, hand-wound pickups.
The next area of design Rick could get interested in is strings. "Strings are currently the weak link in the sound system. I have a line, in fact, on a string-making machine maker, but it would involve at least $20,000 and a lot of research - say, among 400 or 500 alloys. It would be as big a trip as the pickup winding, and that's been going on for five years. I've designed 50 or 60 pickups in that time, and it's nowhere near over."
Alembic plainly doesn't see itself taking over the instrument or sound system markets. The philosophy is more that of its "founding father" Owsley: "To raise the level of bossness." A good professional-quality electric guitar, for instance, can be bought for a quarter the price of an Alembic model. "For some musicians," as Rick points out, "price is never going to be an object." And for some wizards, the effect of transformation, purification and refinement on the bossness level is its own reward.
(by Charles Perry, from Rolling Stone, September 27 1973)
Nov 8, 2012
October 1973: Grateful Dead Records
THE EXPANSION OF THE GRATEFUL DEAD
"The record company appeals to people like Jerry Garcia for two reasons," explained Ron Rakow, president of the new Grateful Dead Records.
"One is that it's dangerous, and therefore exciting. And Garcia hates security. If there's anything in the world he hates it's security. The second reason is that it's our step going counter to the trend of concentration. In every industry, they're getting larger and larger and more concentrated. This represents a step away from concentration, from collectivization. And we think that's very important."
On Monday, the first release of Grateful Dead records, "Wake of the Flood," will be in your corner record store, and the world's most individualistic major rock band will have taken another step where mortals feared to tread.
On Wednesday, the Dead will take off for the Mid- and Southwest for a tour designed to coincide with the album's release. Rakow, a 35-year-old former accountant who has been with the Dead family since 1966, continued. "Warner Bros. (for whom the Dead produced nine albums, preceded by two for Sunflower) was never able to get the ultimate participation of the band for promotion. Now, on the other hand, I made up a list of 22 cities I wanted the band to visit while the record was in its intensive release period, and they agreed to play them all." Rakow sounded mildly astonished. "It may turn out that they all can't be done, but at least I have their own unqualified cooperation and incredible enthusiasm."
The history of pop music bands with their own label is not without precedent. From the Beatles' Apple to the Rolling Stones Records and Jefferson Airplane's Grunt, major stars have been able to pry certain concessions from the biggest record companies. The result is somewhat more artistic freedom, certain added prestige, and usually, a higher royalty rate. But generally, such arrangements have also left promotion, distribution, and certain mechanical concerns to the parent company. A mail-order operation allows independence but severely restricts the availability of the albums.
There will be no such compromise for the Dead. With the recent expiration of their contract with Warner Bros., they have absconded with complete artistic and financial control of their recording affairs. By brandishing their economic power (more than $3 million in albums sold in the last year) they have solved the major problem of any independent recording effort.
"We have independent distributors who operate out of 22 major locations," Rakow continued. "Our feeling is that these people, who built their own businesses, who don't work for somebody else, will give us even stronger distribution than Warner Bros. did."
Garcia, spokesman for the band, commented on a few reasons for abandoning Warner Bros. "We've never really gotten along that well; we've always been kind of at odds. We were never satisfied with the whole trip and having to deal with people we couldn't relate to. It was mostly a communications trip. Years of that kind of corporate weirdness...it's kind of hard to explain.
"But mostly, why should we be providing juice for the Kinney Corp. (Warner's parent company)? We thought it would be groovier to do it ourselves and take a lot of the money the record company made and use it to put out a better product. And we also felt that, even if we (bleeped) up real bad, we could still sell as many records as Warner Bros. could..."
If ever the time was propitious for the Dead to undertake such a project, it is now. The band is at the peak of its popularity; bordering on superstardom. They have some 60 people in the family, their own publishing company (Ice Nine), and even a travel agency, Fly-By-Night.
But, according to Garcia, they're not rich. "We're still a wage-earning band, our income from records has been minimal, and our operation is a high-overhead trip. Right now, we're not well-to-do but we're succeeding nicely. And the music is still a get-off; that's what makes it..."
"The Grateful Dead exists comfortably but is not a secure financial scene," Rakow concluded. "As a matter of fact, we have people thinking up ways to guarantee that the Grateful Dead will never be a secure financial scene..."
(by John Wasserman, from the San Francisco Chronicle, October 12 1973)
"The record company appeals to people like Jerry Garcia for two reasons," explained Ron Rakow, president of the new Grateful Dead Records.
"One is that it's dangerous, and therefore exciting. And Garcia hates security. If there's anything in the world he hates it's security. The second reason is that it's our step going counter to the trend of concentration. In every industry, they're getting larger and larger and more concentrated. This represents a step away from concentration, from collectivization. And we think that's very important."
On Monday, the first release of Grateful Dead records, "Wake of the Flood," will be in your corner record store, and the world's most individualistic major rock band will have taken another step where mortals feared to tread.
On Wednesday, the Dead will take off for the Mid- and Southwest for a tour designed to coincide with the album's release. Rakow, a 35-year-old former accountant who has been with the Dead family since 1966, continued. "Warner Bros. (for whom the Dead produced nine albums, preceded by two for Sunflower) was never able to get the ultimate participation of the band for promotion. Now, on the other hand, I made up a list of 22 cities I wanted the band to visit while the record was in its intensive release period, and they agreed to play them all." Rakow sounded mildly astonished. "It may turn out that they all can't be done, but at least I have their own unqualified cooperation and incredible enthusiasm."
The history of pop music bands with their own label is not without precedent. From the Beatles' Apple to the Rolling Stones Records and Jefferson Airplane's Grunt, major stars have been able to pry certain concessions from the biggest record companies. The result is somewhat more artistic freedom, certain added prestige, and usually, a higher royalty rate. But generally, such arrangements have also left promotion, distribution, and certain mechanical concerns to the parent company. A mail-order operation allows independence but severely restricts the availability of the albums.
There will be no such compromise for the Dead. With the recent expiration of their contract with Warner Bros., they have absconded with complete artistic and financial control of their recording affairs. By brandishing their economic power (more than $3 million in albums sold in the last year) they have solved the major problem of any independent recording effort.
"We have independent distributors who operate out of 22 major locations," Rakow continued. "Our feeling is that these people, who built their own businesses, who don't work for somebody else, will give us even stronger distribution than Warner Bros. did."
Garcia, spokesman for the band, commented on a few reasons for abandoning Warner Bros. "We've never really gotten along that well; we've always been kind of at odds. We were never satisfied with the whole trip and having to deal with people we couldn't relate to. It was mostly a communications trip. Years of that kind of corporate weirdness...it's kind of hard to explain.
"But mostly, why should we be providing juice for the Kinney Corp. (Warner's parent company)? We thought it would be groovier to do it ourselves and take a lot of the money the record company made and use it to put out a better product. And we also felt that, even if we (bleeped) up real bad, we could still sell as many records as Warner Bros. could..."
If ever the time was propitious for the Dead to undertake such a project, it is now. The band is at the peak of its popularity; bordering on superstardom. They have some 60 people in the family, their own publishing company (Ice Nine), and even a travel agency, Fly-By-Night.
But, according to Garcia, they're not rich. "We're still a wage-earning band, our income from records has been minimal, and our operation is a high-overhead trip. Right now, we're not well-to-do but we're succeeding nicely. And the music is still a get-off; that's what makes it..."
"The Grateful Dead exists comfortably but is not a secure financial scene," Rakow concluded. "As a matter of fact, we have people thinking up ways to guarantee that the Grateful Dead will never be a secure financial scene..."
(by John Wasserman, from the San Francisco Chronicle, October 12 1973)
Nov 7, 2012
September/October 1973: Wake of the Flood Promotion
A mock Grateful Dead Records press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For further information, call
Ron Rakow or Bob Siedeman:
415-555-5555
Grateful Dead Records was conceived in a stoned flash by Ron Rakow (now President of GDR) as he was driving down Highway 1 near Bolinas in his pickup.
"Here I am," he said to himself, "friends with a big rock band, so where's the graft?" (A financial wizard besides having above average intelligence, he realized that if he was ever going to get rich, graft was the American way.) In a flash which almost caused him to run into a bus full of hippies, the answer appeared: "Why, we'll have to start a record company!" Zap-Bing-Far Out!
Thus Grateful Dead Records became a reality and its motto became, "Lay some graft on me, man."
Actually, it wasn't that simple. The band had to be convinced that their mellowed out friends, bozos, freaks and weirdos could function logically, compute figures in the hundreds of thousands, and not freak out the people who buy records. Many a long evening was spent chewing the fat or passing the joint. They spaced out on the possibilities of such a venture--like what they would do when they were all rich, would they get into politics and run Jerry Garcia for President, have the band committed and take over, buy Warner Brothers--the typical flashes of people thinking of starting a new business.
The problem was everybody wanted to be president, then nobody did; it was decided that a consensus would decide, then no consensus could be reached; ideas flew up and blew away, like the idea of calling the company Dufo Discs (a dufo is the m.r. who squishes his ice cream cone into his forehead) which didn't work because nobody, nobody knew what dufo meant and it was hard to explain.
One night when everybody was too stoned to get off the floor, Rakow proclaimed: "We'll call it Grateful Dead Records and we'll do business in a down-home way; we may even tell the truth. All those opposed rise." Nobody moved, though a few "right on, man"s were barely audible.
And that is the truth or one possible truth or part of the truth or none of the truth about how Grateful Dead Records was formed.
The record company executives, working out of a disreputable-looking old house in San Rafael, California, will answer and and all questions on any subject. If the question is good enough, they may even study it.
"Lay some graft on me, man." -- Grateful Dead Records
* * * * *
A Dead Anecdote: Related by Ron Rakow, President of Grateful Dead Records - publication unknown:
This is the true story: I ran a finance company in San Francisco. I was a straight guy, 28 years old, and I mean a straight guy - really fashion conscious, with a beautiful business office front, and I lent money, that was my scene.
And one day my secretary ushered two guys into my office and I looked up and I had never seen creatures that looked like that before. One guy had curly black hair below his shoulders and as wide as his shoulders on both sides. And the other guy had real straight hair real long. It was Rock Scully and Danny Rifkin (the Dead's managers) and they were wearing Indian feathers and beads and all kinds of weird shit.
And I looked up and I said, "Sit down, what's the story?" And they said they got this rock 'n' roll band and they needed $12,000 for equipment. So I said, "Well, I don't know nothing about it." And they said, "You'll hear all about it - you listen to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones?" And I said, "No, I listen to Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett."
And they told me to come to a concert the next Saturday. So I went to the concert and they gave me this Coca-Cola and after about an hour I got this twitch in my face and my eyes started to tear and I had this incredible need for tissues and shit like that.
And I really got off on the music - really got off on it. I solved a lot of my own personal problems, just right there at the end of some of Garcia's guitar licks. So I just started to come around and I gave them the money - I didn't lend it to them, I gave it to them, 'cause it was obvious that they were never going to be able to pay it back.
And, sure enough, seven months later, my business went into the shit house and the Grateful Dead said, "Come live with us, be somebody else, what do you know how to do?" And I said, "I'm a photographer," and they said okay, you're our family photographer. And I took so many pictures that I eventually got a few good ones and I became, like really a good photographer.
And I went through a lot of other changes. I was always a business guy and I eventually came to the Dead with a some ideas for a record company and we did it.
And that's the true story.
* * * * *
A promo letter to Dead Heads:
September 4, 1973
Fellow Dead Head,
There are two reasons for writing to you now; first to give you the earliest specific information on our new record distribution program; secondly to ask you to join us as part of our eyes, ears and feet on the ground to keep the scene straight locally.
We've decided to produce, manufacture and distribute our records ourselves. The band today finished the recording of an all new studio album (been a long time) called "Wake of the Flood". The album will be made from the highest quality vinyl available, which has the best technical properties. In addition, it will be heavier (weigh more, that is) than most albums available in this country. It will be handled locally through independent record distributors and should be available everywhere.
This adventure is a jumping off point to get us in a position of greater contact with our people, to put us in more command of our own ship, and for unspoken potentials for the "far out".
If you're interested in getting involved, drop us a line here. In any case you'll enjoy the record--it's dynamite!
Gratefully yours,
Grateful Dead Records
* * * * *
The followup letter:
FELLOW DEAD HEADS,
The response from you folks knocked us over. It was so great to hear from so many of you that we figured you'd like to see some of each other's lines which are separately enclosed.
[ . . . ]
We sell records to only 18 distributors, who in turn sell to stores, rack jobbers (who just stock record departments and racks in stores like Penney's and Supermarkets etc.), and one stops which are places where small stores get small quantities of records. They are all listed in the yellow pages under Record Dealers - Wholesale and Retail.
Radio stations exist to play what you want to hear. If you want to hear the Dead over the air waves, repeated calls to the stations should be made.
You've probably noticed that we sent you some boss art work (we call it our guerrilla kit), enough for your own stash and to put up elsewhere. The end of this road is the people, and wouldn't it be a gas if stickers, postcards, and posters were everywhere?
WHAT TO DO:
1. Nothing unless it's fun.
2. Call on the stores and one stops mentioned above, say hello and see that our stuff is neatly arranged. We've found that sometimes we've had to neaten up everybody's stuff because many of the people that work there don't understand that these things are our art.
3. Call the local distributor if a record store doesn't have our record (you can find out who our local distributor is by asking any large record store).
4. Put up posters, stickers, and handbills.
5. Call the radio stations and ask to hear your favorite album cuts.
6. Whatever you can think up that's fun for you and fun for other folks, too.
This should give you an inside look into the record industry which will at least give you some interesting pieces of information; have fun.
Gratefully,
Grateful Dead Records
* * * * *
The enclosed replies:
REFLECTION:
We received almost 3000 replies (12% of Dead Heads) to our letter of which this is a compendium.
Fellow Dead,
Aiding the cause of hypnocracy is high on our list of priorities so don't hesitate to call on us. It would be a welcome opportunity to do something in a positive manner. I mean, I'm writing this letter, right? To join you as part of our lives seems perfect. Eyes, ears, nose, and throat. To free the ship of artistic freedom from the moorings of the corporate hydra. If you need a local sales person, I have a fine street corner. I read your letter very carefully and could not understand what you would want me to do. Although many consider the Dead to be a living anachronism, the letter serves a further proof to all perceptive Dead Heads that the trip has only just recently arrived at a point where it has the capacity to realize its potential. THERE is your destination: I refuse to believe this is happening to me. You can count me in. There are no limits. It's like a new door opening. I am jumping right with you. Heinzelmannchenstaat. I also can't help thinking your concerts should be run the same way. What do you have on your minds? When do you begin to permit the entrance into your chosen field of those of equal calibre; to ignite a spark of actual movement of your musical themes. Gather up the fragments. The sensual abounds: play to our higher selves. We will drown our friends with it. We have physical plane powers under THE LAW. We certainly will act. Eliminate the drag energy. Just got back from a trip to Mo-Leuka. Spent much time looking for a Suggested Cro-Magnon (suggested mass) Remover. No luck. It's getting harder I imagine. I am open to just about all of it. If you want, I could probably sell at least 20-30 records up here. If that's not what you want, let me know what else I might do to help us get in command of the ship. While my feet are on the ground, my eyes and ears are firmly embedded in the clouds along with the rest of my head, but if this complication proves surmountable, I'll be glad to help. All might help to get the job nicely done. Wahopaky. Apres le deluge, tout le monde rie. Waiting for the sky to turn, then my rest will find me. If I had to duke it with someone to defend your excellent image I might not win, but if that's OK with you it's also aces with me. Clapsnee ap ret lountree. There are people who will respond to a resourceful idea. If you would be so kind as to allay my paranoia. That flood? I travel light, juggle and perform occasionally magical rituals. I've been wondering if anyone else has been seeing strange high-velocity lights in the sky? I would like to add some fuel to the Dead ship. Only joyful noise can follow the water (and smoke). I got your letter today which really flashed me because for the last few weeks I've been meaning to write to you about the subject of your letter. It's no accident. This is what's happening. We're starting to realize why. Source is vital. We're involved. I am extremely excited about the prospects for the future. Call me Poindexter. This is me deep inside the cornfields of the midwest reporting that all is well. I can't describe it: it's not just the music - it's the idea. I believe this is the way it should be done. Dead United. I operate a small radio station. I'm a DJ. I work in a record store. I'm feature editor of my school's newspaper. I own a bookstore. We'll keep in touch. I'm glad your (our) project is finally off the ground. A group of us are interested in contributing to the wave mechanisms of the flood. While most of us here are involved in trying to stave off the final cosmological singularity with non-Rheimanian physics, some of us are interested in non-spherical music. What do you want me to do? Conspiring to rise the level of bossness has captured the essence of life. For one reason or another I have a lot of energy coursing through me. I feel I must get involved. Who else is involved? We're a community of artists, farmers and mad inventors; potters, methane generator builders, windmill crazies, biodynamic gardeners, painters and computer technicians. Personally I'm a mime. Being Dead is a way of life. The magic flute. It's a place to meet. After all, reality is what we make of it. I lay down the life of the leather of my soles and the vibrations of my inner ear. We're interested in getting ever more involved. Providing it won't be too bizarre. I am young, clear-eyed and healthy. There is more, much more.
Fellow Dead
* * * * *
A more official press release:
WAKE OF THE FLOOD
the Grateful Dead's independent release
on October 15, 1973
WAKE OF THE FLOOD is the Grateful Dead's new studio album and the first release of Grateful Dead Records, their 'in-house' record producing and marketing company. The last studio album was released in 1970. Three live albums, ten sides of music, have intervened.
WAKE OF THE FLOOD has 45 minutes of previously unrecorded songs, many of them heard in concert over the past year.
[tracklist]
Visions of "our own record" and the organization to market it gestated for a year, from Independence Day 1972. WAKE OF THE FLOOD and Grateful Dead Records are the joint outcome. This originated from the base of establishing control and developing relationships in all phases of the record business. In its operational methods the company follows the direction pointed to by the musical source.
The idea was to let the feeling that goes into the music flow into every step of making the record and getting it distributed. Positive response to this simple motion for a new way came from music business people throughout the industry, and from Dead Heads everywhere.
Grateful Dead Records is an arm of the Grateful Dead, existing so as to get their music to the audience according to their own standards. WAKE OF THE FLOOD was recorded, mixed and mastered in Sausalito, Marin County. It is being pressed to weight 128 grams at three locations, where quality control will be supervised by a member of the studio production team.
Higher per unit profit is an advantage of independence. The band wants to recycle this money back into further creative possibilities.
Grateful Dead Records is run by a staff of eight, getting extra energy from the band and their management located close by in San Rafael, California. The record will be shipped to the 18 independent distributors who constitute the company's primary distribution system.
Foreign distribution is licensed to Atlantic Records for release on the same date.
* * * * *
A postcard to Dead Heads:
Our record is being counterfeited, and the authorities move too slowly not realizing our survival is at stake. We need your diligent efforts. The counterfeit has square (not round) corners on the stickers and a white (not orange) 0598 on the spine. Check all stores and immediately report phonies to us.
Thanks,
Grateful Dead Records
* * * * *
From the October 1973 newsletter, a compendium of replies to the May '73 "State of the Changes" letter:
ARBITRARY SYNOPSIS OF SOME RECENT COMMUNICATIONS
FROM DEAD HEADS IN RESPONSE TO UROBOUROS
Moliere, "Man needs nothing so much as the dance... All human unhappiness, all blows of fortune which history reports to us, all mistakes of politics...result from...that the dance is misunderstood."
Is it sad to be one's own enemy?...all that super-star hype. Don't get lost in the shuffle. It sounded like a stock report. If I don't hear the Grateful Dead at least once a day I go into withdrawals. Will you come play our softball team? Have you sold out? Whoever wants to be born must first destroy a world. The egg is the world. Is it a non-profit organization? Concerts are way too big. Their music is hair. We know each other. Remember, the truth hurts! if you got any feelings to begin with. Music to remember innumerable lifetimes. The showboat lifted into a brightening atmosphere - orange sun across numerous heads regathering from muddy drizzle fallen for 2-3 days. In case you are planning to rip-off a starship, I do simple veterinary medicine. What is hypnocracy? Who is St. Dilbert? Cut albums on astrologically auspicious days. Run twice as fast as you can run. I'm doing my best not to be a fan. Am I writing to a computer or real people? Record lots more studio material, and undersell; the more you play the better you'll get. Develop wrap-around concert sound. Get a banjo or fiddle player. Form a symphony orchestra from Dead Heads to do to classical what the Dead do to rock and roll. Make coke commercials or an underarm thing. Gibran, "Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger." The physical newcomers can go - cool, cool - but they don't dig the head. Is this bad? I don't know, do you think so? It's impossible to ask any more of any musicians than what you've given us. Release more singles. I love you.
Spiritual forces control events today; the state of conflict in the spirit world parallels conflict on earth. Satan is a liar. You are the only band who still plays for the people, not money. Whatever happened to the music for the common people? Don't call it a revolution, we still have birth and death; keep it clean and honest, we have to try just a little bit more. Annual Dead Heads reunion. The whole must shift. I want to know what's going on. Coupons in albums for concert ticket discount or annual freebie tour. You still do parties or small clubs? I dig chamber music. If the AM and FM DJs won't promote you, who can you turn to? The police band? Astral project yourselves to everywhere at once. Call it all an Opportunity to Experiment With On-Stage Sound. TV should display Dead form and style so people won't fear what it really represents. Simulcast. Do a screenplay for Dead music. Cuckoo's nest. Play a small hall five days running. Play two small halls a day or two apart. I've some ideas about concert sound. Concert sound has a long way to go. Low-budget 16mm, 35mm feature film; videotapes; independent distribution channels, campus screenings, network TV, film-to-cassette. Mobile TV w/ XCU individuals, concerts, lots of tight short tunes; blow-up to 35mm for theatres...tight pilot for TV variety series, group talk, films you already have...syndicated prime-access markets...cinema-verite concert/studio/Dead lifestyle footage for art houses, campus... Define yourselves to yourselves. Jam baroque works from Bach, Handel energetic dazzling to mellow moods of Mozart and Ludwig van, new experience in as yet nonsyncretist forms w/ symphonic format and much practice, as country-classical/spacey-acid-jazz-classical/blues-jazz-pop etc. w/ref a multitude's life-style. Literally five minutes before you came onstage the sun broke through the clouds, remained the entire show.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
For further information, call
Ron Rakow or Bob Siedeman:
415-555-5555
Grateful Dead Records was conceived in a stoned flash by Ron Rakow (now President of GDR) as he was driving down Highway 1 near Bolinas in his pickup.
"Here I am," he said to himself, "friends with a big rock band, so where's the graft?" (A financial wizard besides having above average intelligence, he realized that if he was ever going to get rich, graft was the American way.) In a flash which almost caused him to run into a bus full of hippies, the answer appeared: "Why, we'll have to start a record company!" Zap-Bing-Far Out!
Thus Grateful Dead Records became a reality and its motto became, "Lay some graft on me, man."
Actually, it wasn't that simple. The band had to be convinced that their mellowed out friends, bozos, freaks and weirdos could function logically, compute figures in the hundreds of thousands, and not freak out the people who buy records. Many a long evening was spent chewing the fat or passing the joint. They spaced out on the possibilities of such a venture--like what they would do when they were all rich, would they get into politics and run Jerry Garcia for President, have the band committed and take over, buy Warner Brothers--the typical flashes of people thinking of starting a new business.
The problem was everybody wanted to be president, then nobody did; it was decided that a consensus would decide, then no consensus could be reached; ideas flew up and blew away, like the idea of calling the company Dufo Discs (a dufo is the m.r. who squishes his ice cream cone into his forehead) which didn't work because nobody, nobody knew what dufo meant and it was hard to explain.
One night when everybody was too stoned to get off the floor, Rakow proclaimed: "We'll call it Grateful Dead Records and we'll do business in a down-home way; we may even tell the truth. All those opposed rise." Nobody moved, though a few "right on, man"s were barely audible.
And that is the truth or one possible truth or part of the truth or none of the truth about how Grateful Dead Records was formed.
The record company executives, working out of a disreputable-looking old house in San Rafael, California, will answer and and all questions on any subject. If the question is good enough, they may even study it.
"Lay some graft on me, man." -- Grateful Dead Records
* * * * *
A Dead Anecdote: Related by Ron Rakow, President of Grateful Dead Records - publication unknown:
This is the true story: I ran a finance company in San Francisco. I was a straight guy, 28 years old, and I mean a straight guy - really fashion conscious, with a beautiful business office front, and I lent money, that was my scene.
And one day my secretary ushered two guys into my office and I looked up and I had never seen creatures that looked like that before. One guy had curly black hair below his shoulders and as wide as his shoulders on both sides. And the other guy had real straight hair real long. It was Rock Scully and Danny Rifkin (the Dead's managers) and they were wearing Indian feathers and beads and all kinds of weird shit.
And I looked up and I said, "Sit down, what's the story?" And they said they got this rock 'n' roll band and they needed $12,000 for equipment. So I said, "Well, I don't know nothing about it." And they said, "You'll hear all about it - you listen to the Beatles, the Rolling Stones?" And I said, "No, I listen to Frank Sinatra and Tony Bennett."
And they told me to come to a concert the next Saturday. So I went to the concert and they gave me this Coca-Cola and after about an hour I got this twitch in my face and my eyes started to tear and I had this incredible need for tissues and shit like that.
And I really got off on the music - really got off on it. I solved a lot of my own personal problems, just right there at the end of some of Garcia's guitar licks. So I just started to come around and I gave them the money - I didn't lend it to them, I gave it to them, 'cause it was obvious that they were never going to be able to pay it back.
And, sure enough, seven months later, my business went into the shit house and the Grateful Dead said, "Come live with us, be somebody else, what do you know how to do?" And I said, "I'm a photographer," and they said okay, you're our family photographer. And I took so many pictures that I eventually got a few good ones and I became, like really a good photographer.
And I went through a lot of other changes. I was always a business guy and I eventually came to the Dead with a some ideas for a record company and we did it.
And that's the true story.
* * * * *
A promo letter to Dead Heads:
September 4, 1973
Fellow Dead Head,
There are two reasons for writing to you now; first to give you the earliest specific information on our new record distribution program; secondly to ask you to join us as part of our eyes, ears and feet on the ground to keep the scene straight locally.
We've decided to produce, manufacture and distribute our records ourselves. The band today finished the recording of an all new studio album (been a long time) called "Wake of the Flood". The album will be made from the highest quality vinyl available, which has the best technical properties. In addition, it will be heavier (weigh more, that is) than most albums available in this country. It will be handled locally through independent record distributors and should be available everywhere.
This adventure is a jumping off point to get us in a position of greater contact with our people, to put us in more command of our own ship, and for unspoken potentials for the "far out".
If you're interested in getting involved, drop us a line here. In any case you'll enjoy the record--it's dynamite!
Gratefully yours,
Grateful Dead Records
* * * * *
The followup letter:
FELLOW DEAD HEADS,
The response from you folks knocked us over. It was so great to hear from so many of you that we figured you'd like to see some of each other's lines which are separately enclosed.
[ . . . ]
We sell records to only 18 distributors, who in turn sell to stores, rack jobbers (who just stock record departments and racks in stores like Penney's and Supermarkets etc.), and one stops which are places where small stores get small quantities of records. They are all listed in the yellow pages under Record Dealers - Wholesale and Retail.
Radio stations exist to play what you want to hear. If you want to hear the Dead over the air waves, repeated calls to the stations should be made.
You've probably noticed that we sent you some boss art work (we call it our guerrilla kit), enough for your own stash and to put up elsewhere. The end of this road is the people, and wouldn't it be a gas if stickers, postcards, and posters were everywhere?
WHAT TO DO:
1. Nothing unless it's fun.
2. Call on the stores and one stops mentioned above, say hello and see that our stuff is neatly arranged. We've found that sometimes we've had to neaten up everybody's stuff because many of the people that work there don't understand that these things are our art.
3. Call the local distributor if a record store doesn't have our record (you can find out who our local distributor is by asking any large record store).
4. Put up posters, stickers, and handbills.
5. Call the radio stations and ask to hear your favorite album cuts.
6. Whatever you can think up that's fun for you and fun for other folks, too.
This should give you an inside look into the record industry which will at least give you some interesting pieces of information; have fun.
Gratefully,
Grateful Dead Records
* * * * *
The enclosed replies:
REFLECTION:
We received almost 3000 replies (12% of Dead Heads) to our letter of which this is a compendium.
Fellow Dead,
Aiding the cause of hypnocracy is high on our list of priorities so don't hesitate to call on us. It would be a welcome opportunity to do something in a positive manner. I mean, I'm writing this letter, right? To join you as part of our lives seems perfect. Eyes, ears, nose, and throat. To free the ship of artistic freedom from the moorings of the corporate hydra. If you need a local sales person, I have a fine street corner. I read your letter very carefully and could not understand what you would want me to do. Although many consider the Dead to be a living anachronism, the letter serves a further proof to all perceptive Dead Heads that the trip has only just recently arrived at a point where it has the capacity to realize its potential. THERE is your destination: I refuse to believe this is happening to me. You can count me in. There are no limits. It's like a new door opening. I am jumping right with you. Heinzelmannchenstaat. I also can't help thinking your concerts should be run the same way. What do you have on your minds? When do you begin to permit the entrance into your chosen field of those of equal calibre; to ignite a spark of actual movement of your musical themes. Gather up the fragments. The sensual abounds: play to our higher selves. We will drown our friends with it. We have physical plane powers under THE LAW. We certainly will act. Eliminate the drag energy. Just got back from a trip to Mo-Leuka. Spent much time looking for a Suggested Cro-Magnon (suggested mass) Remover. No luck. It's getting harder I imagine. I am open to just about all of it. If you want, I could probably sell at least 20-30 records up here. If that's not what you want, let me know what else I might do to help us get in command of the ship. While my feet are on the ground, my eyes and ears are firmly embedded in the clouds along with the rest of my head, but if this complication proves surmountable, I'll be glad to help. All might help to get the job nicely done. Wahopaky. Apres le deluge, tout le monde rie. Waiting for the sky to turn, then my rest will find me. If I had to duke it with someone to defend your excellent image I might not win, but if that's OK with you it's also aces with me. Clapsnee ap ret lountree. There are people who will respond to a resourceful idea. If you would be so kind as to allay my paranoia. That flood? I travel light, juggle and perform occasionally magical rituals. I've been wondering if anyone else has been seeing strange high-velocity lights in the sky? I would like to add some fuel to the Dead ship. Only joyful noise can follow the water (and smoke). I got your letter today which really flashed me because for the last few weeks I've been meaning to write to you about the subject of your letter. It's no accident. This is what's happening. We're starting to realize why. Source is vital. We're involved. I am extremely excited about the prospects for the future. Call me Poindexter. This is me deep inside the cornfields of the midwest reporting that all is well. I can't describe it: it's not just the music - it's the idea. I believe this is the way it should be done. Dead United. I operate a small radio station. I'm a DJ. I work in a record store. I'm feature editor of my school's newspaper. I own a bookstore. We'll keep in touch. I'm glad your (our) project is finally off the ground. A group of us are interested in contributing to the wave mechanisms of the flood. While most of us here are involved in trying to stave off the final cosmological singularity with non-Rheimanian physics, some of us are interested in non-spherical music. What do you want me to do? Conspiring to rise the level of bossness has captured the essence of life. For one reason or another I have a lot of energy coursing through me. I feel I must get involved. Who else is involved? We're a community of artists, farmers and mad inventors; potters, methane generator builders, windmill crazies, biodynamic gardeners, painters and computer technicians. Personally I'm a mime. Being Dead is a way of life. The magic flute. It's a place to meet. After all, reality is what we make of it. I lay down the life of the leather of my soles and the vibrations of my inner ear. We're interested in getting ever more involved. Providing it won't be too bizarre. I am young, clear-eyed and healthy. There is more, much more.
Fellow Dead
* * * * *
A more official press release:
WAKE OF THE FLOOD
the Grateful Dead's independent release
on October 15, 1973
WAKE OF THE FLOOD is the Grateful Dead's new studio album and the first release of Grateful Dead Records, their 'in-house' record producing and marketing company. The last studio album was released in 1970. Three live albums, ten sides of music, have intervened.
WAKE OF THE FLOOD has 45 minutes of previously unrecorded songs, many of them heard in concert over the past year.
[tracklist]
Visions of "our own record" and the organization to market it gestated for a year, from Independence Day 1972. WAKE OF THE FLOOD and Grateful Dead Records are the joint outcome. This originated from the base of establishing control and developing relationships in all phases of the record business. In its operational methods the company follows the direction pointed to by the musical source.
The idea was to let the feeling that goes into the music flow into every step of making the record and getting it distributed. Positive response to this simple motion for a new way came from music business people throughout the industry, and from Dead Heads everywhere.
Grateful Dead Records is an arm of the Grateful Dead, existing so as to get their music to the audience according to their own standards. WAKE OF THE FLOOD was recorded, mixed and mastered in Sausalito, Marin County. It is being pressed to weight 128 grams at three locations, where quality control will be supervised by a member of the studio production team.
Higher per unit profit is an advantage of independence. The band wants to recycle this money back into further creative possibilities.
Grateful Dead Records is run by a staff of eight, getting extra energy from the band and their management located close by in San Rafael, California. The record will be shipped to the 18 independent distributors who constitute the company's primary distribution system.
Foreign distribution is licensed to Atlantic Records for release on the same date.
* * * * *
A postcard to Dead Heads:
Our record is being counterfeited, and the authorities move too slowly not realizing our survival is at stake. We need your diligent efforts. The counterfeit has square (not round) corners on the stickers and a white (not orange) 0598 on the spine. Check all stores and immediately report phonies to us.
Thanks,
Grateful Dead Records
* * * * *
From the October 1973 newsletter, a compendium of replies to the May '73 "State of the Changes" letter:
ARBITRARY SYNOPSIS OF SOME RECENT COMMUNICATIONS
FROM DEAD HEADS IN RESPONSE TO UROBOUROS
Moliere, "Man needs nothing so much as the dance... All human unhappiness, all blows of fortune which history reports to us, all mistakes of politics...result from...that the dance is misunderstood."
Is it sad to be one's own enemy?...all that super-star hype. Don't get lost in the shuffle. It sounded like a stock report. If I don't hear the Grateful Dead at least once a day I go into withdrawals. Will you come play our softball team? Have you sold out? Whoever wants to be born must first destroy a world. The egg is the world. Is it a non-profit organization? Concerts are way too big. Their music is hair. We know each other. Remember, the truth hurts! if you got any feelings to begin with. Music to remember innumerable lifetimes. The showboat lifted into a brightening atmosphere - orange sun across numerous heads regathering from muddy drizzle fallen for 2-3 days. In case you are planning to rip-off a starship, I do simple veterinary medicine. What is hypnocracy? Who is St. Dilbert? Cut albums on astrologically auspicious days. Run twice as fast as you can run. I'm doing my best not to be a fan. Am I writing to a computer or real people? Record lots more studio material, and undersell; the more you play the better you'll get. Develop wrap-around concert sound. Get a banjo or fiddle player. Form a symphony orchestra from Dead Heads to do to classical what the Dead do to rock and roll. Make coke commercials or an underarm thing. Gibran, "Yet unless the exchange be in love and kindly justice it will but lead some to greed and others to hunger." The physical newcomers can go - cool, cool - but they don't dig the head. Is this bad? I don't know, do you think so? It's impossible to ask any more of any musicians than what you've given us. Release more singles. I love you.
Spiritual forces control events today; the state of conflict in the spirit world parallels conflict on earth. Satan is a liar. You are the only band who still plays for the people, not money. Whatever happened to the music for the common people? Don't call it a revolution, we still have birth and death; keep it clean and honest, we have to try just a little bit more. Annual Dead Heads reunion. The whole must shift. I want to know what's going on. Coupons in albums for concert ticket discount or annual freebie tour. You still do parties or small clubs? I dig chamber music. If the AM and FM DJs won't promote you, who can you turn to? The police band? Astral project yourselves to everywhere at once. Call it all an Opportunity to Experiment With On-Stage Sound. TV should display Dead form and style so people won't fear what it really represents. Simulcast. Do a screenplay for Dead music. Cuckoo's nest. Play a small hall five days running. Play two small halls a day or two apart. I've some ideas about concert sound. Concert sound has a long way to go. Low-budget 16mm, 35mm feature film; videotapes; independent distribution channels, campus screenings, network TV, film-to-cassette. Mobile TV w/ XCU individuals, concerts, lots of tight short tunes; blow-up to 35mm for theatres...tight pilot for TV variety series, group talk, films you already have...syndicated prime-access markets...cinema-verite concert/studio/Dead lifestyle footage for art houses, campus... Define yourselves to yourselves. Jam baroque works from Bach, Handel energetic dazzling to mellow moods of Mozart and Ludwig van, new experience in as yet nonsyncretist forms w/ symphonic format and much practice, as country-classical/spacey-acid-jazz-classical/blues-jazz-pop etc. w/ref a multitude's life-style. Literally five minutes before you came onstage the sun broke through the clouds, remained the entire show.
Nov 4, 2012
Summer 1973: New Label, New Albums
THE GRATEFUL DEAD FLEE BIG BUSINESS
The History of the Dead may well be a funeral dirge for some, but it heralds the birth of an empire for the Dead.
It's an unlikely place to find a rock and roll emporium. Located just north of San Francisco, overlooking the San Pablo Bay, sits the peaceful city of San Rafael. The tiny city is surrounded by northern California’s natural splendor, but nestled in its heart is an efficient, modernistic, business complex. In one of the largest suites of offices, the walls are decorated with gold records, posters, banners, photos and mementos of the eight year existence of America’s biggest cult supergroup. Scattered across these bulletin boards are countless hits of memorabilia, attesting to the band’s incredible endurance in a business where rock groups come and go as quickly as a summer shower.
Secretaries hustle about the offices, xeroxing documents while the phones ring on and off their hooks, inquiries are answered and interview requests are received for information concerning Grateful Dead Records, the newly formed record label owned and operated by its famous namesake. Sitting in a plush, wood-paneled office adjacent to the active front room, legendary lead guitarist and Grateful Dead mastermind Jerry Garcia leans back in a squeaky swivel chair and surveys the busy scene.
Flying from the nest
When the group’s long-run affiliation with Warner Brothers Records came to an end last July with the release of History of The Grateful Dead Volume One: Bear’s Choice, the band decided not to renew their contract, and not even to move to another record company. In one of the most historic events in the history of rock they began their own record company, allowing The Dead full and complete control over their records — from the second they begin recording to the instant someone buys an album in a record store.
The idea of a rock band’s personal label is not a new one. Elton John operates through his newly formed Rocket Records. Emerson, Lake and Palmer record on their personally owned Manticore label, while the Stones own Rolling Stones Records. However, each of these independently owned recording companies is distributed by a major company, like Warner Brothers. That means, for example, that Deep Purple Records are shipped to local record stores all over the world by Warner Brothers. Most independently owned labels seek a large company to distribute their albums so they can be assured their LP will be available everywhere. Astonishingly, the Dead have decided to take the entire job of recording, pressing, shipping, and advertising into their own hands, and they claim it will be no less easy to obtain future Dead releases than it was in the past. “It took a lot of work to get this thing together,” grins the personable Rock Scully, one of a trio of Dead band managers, “but it’s well worth the effort.”
Garcia counts the pennies
Jerry Garcia couldn’t agree more. “There are a lot of people on our payroll,” he says as he tugs at his well-worn dark green polo shirt in the Dead offices, “and we can’t really count that much on record royalties to take care of business. The live shows we do are the main source of income for the band, and we’ve been playing an awful lot to pay off our overhead.
“We’ve planned for over a year to form our own record manufacturing and distributing company so as to package and promote our stuff in a more human manner. A large benefit from that will be our capability of getting away from the retail list price inflation while still keeping more of the profits. We have nothing against the way Warner Brothers have treated us. They’ve never interfered with our music. But if the records cover a larger share of our overhead, then we can pick and choose on our live shows. We can experiment a little bit and play the really groovy shows.”
A season of supershows
An indication of the surprises in store and part of the concert experimentation has already begun with the recent Grateful Dead shows that have combined the Dead with another American supergroup, The Allman Brothers. In the case of the amazing Watkins Glen Festival in New York this past July, the Dead and the Allmans were joined by the Band. The original idea for these supershows started over a year ago when a full length, cross-country tour with the Allman Brothers was booked into some of America’s largest stadiums. The two bands have been long time friends, going back to the days the members of the groups first met each other backstage at the Fillmore East. Both bands were set to hop on planes to begin the tour last fall when Allman bassist Berry Oakley was killed in a motorcycle accident just a few days before their opening show in Houston, Texas. The joint tour was cancelled until this past summer, when the Allmans and the Dead made an appearance at the RFK Stadium in Washington. The RFK Stadium appearance made concert history. Ticketron, the computer network covering the eastern coast, reported that tickets to the Dead-Allmans concert were snapped up as far away as Montreal, Canada. More than 80,000 seats were sold for the two consecutive concerts.
Garcia waxed ecstatic about the experience, saying he couldn’t have been more at home with The Allmans.
“It’s kind of like playing with us the way we were five years ago,” Jerry laughs. “Musically and set-up wise, they’re kind of similar to the way we used to be. They especially sounded like us when they were the original Allman Brothers. They had two drummers, two guitars, organ and bass...exactly the instrumentation we had (when drummer Mickey Hart and organist-vocalist Ron “Pigpen” McKernan were in the band).
“In fact, Dickey and the guys had flashed on our music when we played at a festival in Florida about five or six years ago. We really inspired them and they’ve patterned a lot of their trip after us. They’re like a younger, Southern version of us in some ways musically. I really enjoy playing with those guys, they’re fun to play with. They’re good.”
‘Eyes’ to the future
Although there are definite plans afoot to release an album of a monumental Dead-Allmans jam-session early next year, the first release of the Grateful Dead Records label will be the long-awaited Grateful Dead studio album — their first since American Beauty hit the racks three years ago. Tentatively titled We Are The Eyes Of The World, Garcia insists the band went into the studios with the objective to “do it and do it right.” He is also quick to add that the “we” is everybody and not the group.
Recorded at the prestigious Record Plant tucked away next to a humble Sausalito boat dock on the bay, time was booked every evening from six until midnight beginning in early August and lasting into September.
“We’re recording close to two albums’ worth of material,” Garcia explains as he chain-smokes his umpteenth filterless Camel of the interview, “and distill it into one record, leaving the rest in the can. It’s funny, you know, but I can’t really pin down what kind of album it’s gonna be. I never have been able to tell with past albums either. When I get the final copy home and listen to it, then I’ll be able to look back and see what it is. Right now, all I know is that the tunes are all good. The tunes that me and Robert Hunter wrote are the best we’ve ever written. For sure.”
A crush brings a spurt
Jerry is the first to admit that he is a somewhat less than prolific songwriter, but it was last January that he underwent a creative “spasm” that left him with seven new songs. The band was about to begin rehearsals the next week in their deserted and dilapidated Point Reyes rehearsal hall and Jerry, who undoubtedly felt the crush for new material, came up with the goods. “Sometimes,” he says, “I can just crank ‘em out and other times...nothing. Like I could have a spurt in which I’d write four new songs in one week, and in the next six months I wouldn’t be able to put two words together. It’s that kind of thing.”
The Dead’s newest tunes, especially ‘We Are The Eyes Of The World’, are surprisingly complex and sometimes jazz-oriented compositions. At a recent performance at Universal Ampitheatre in Los Angeles, the song stood out from the regular standards with ease. “They’re a little more sophisticated in terms of structure than our other ones, the new tunes,” Jerry admits. “But they’re Grateful Dead all the way. I mean they sound like The Grateful Dead. I can’t really look at them objectively, but I feel that they’re better. It’s hard to tell what direction they’re moving in. They’re really sort of dispersed in that they are widely-patterned. All the tunes are very different from each other and the ones that preceded them as well.”
Pigpen’s last stand
We Are The Eyes Of The World will provide especially fascinating juxtaposition with their latest release, History of the Grateful Dead Volume One: Bear’s Choice. Rather than to choose the usual “greatest hits” packaging, for their final album commitment, The Dead dispatched production manager Owsley “The Bear” Stanley to rummage through his collection of live tapes to find a unique performance LP with which to bow out.
What The Bear chose (hence the title) was a very special recording of two nights the band performed at The Fillmore East on Friday the 13th and Valentine’s Day in February, 1970. “It’s a side of the group that never went on record,” says Jerry in retrospect.
“It shows a Dead you’ll never see or hear again,” Rock picks up the story. “The album is sixty percent Pigpen and the other forty percent is acoustic material. Needless to say, Pigpen is no longer with us and The Dead don’t do acoustic material onstage anymore. The record is very, very interesting if you know the history behind it. Pigpen went out on the stage and sat down in a chair...it was the only time he ever did it. He sat down and played the bottleneck guitar. He had never done that before or after. We’d been pushing him for years to do it and finally he just got loose enough and comfortable enough with the audience there at the Fillmore to go out and do it. He went out and sat down on the stage — it was Valentine’s Day and he had a honey out in the crowd. He went out and played ‘Katie Mae’ to her. Immediately following that, Bobby (Weir) and Garcia went out and did the same thing. They sat down and played acoustic guitars. They don’t do that anymore. With Pigpen’s death, Mickey Hart’s departure and Keith and Donna Godchaux’s addition on piano and vocals it’s a whole new band.”
History Of The Dead is an historic event for many reasons, including the last of Pigpen, the last Dead album ever to appear on a major label, and the beginning of a whole new era in small recording companies. And possibly, if Jerry Garcia can keep his eyes on “the retail list-price inflation spiral”, the benefits will be reaped in terms of dollars and concerts by grateful Grateful Dead fans everywhere.
(by Cameron Crowe, from Circus magazine, October 1973)
http://www.theuncool.com/journalism/grateful-dead-circus-magazine/
The History of the Dead may well be a funeral dirge for some, but it heralds the birth of an empire for the Dead.
It's an unlikely place to find a rock and roll emporium. Located just north of San Francisco, overlooking the San Pablo Bay, sits the peaceful city of San Rafael. The tiny city is surrounded by northern California’s natural splendor, but nestled in its heart is an efficient, modernistic, business complex. In one of the largest suites of offices, the walls are decorated with gold records, posters, banners, photos and mementos of the eight year existence of America’s biggest cult supergroup. Scattered across these bulletin boards are countless hits of memorabilia, attesting to the band’s incredible endurance in a business where rock groups come and go as quickly as a summer shower.
Secretaries hustle about the offices, xeroxing documents while the phones ring on and off their hooks, inquiries are answered and interview requests are received for information concerning Grateful Dead Records, the newly formed record label owned and operated by its famous namesake. Sitting in a plush, wood-paneled office adjacent to the active front room, legendary lead guitarist and Grateful Dead mastermind Jerry Garcia leans back in a squeaky swivel chair and surveys the busy scene.
Flying from the nest
When the group’s long-run affiliation with Warner Brothers Records came to an end last July with the release of History of The Grateful Dead Volume One: Bear’s Choice, the band decided not to renew their contract, and not even to move to another record company. In one of the most historic events in the history of rock they began their own record company, allowing The Dead full and complete control over their records — from the second they begin recording to the instant someone buys an album in a record store.
The idea of a rock band’s personal label is not a new one. Elton John operates through his newly formed Rocket Records. Emerson, Lake and Palmer record on their personally owned Manticore label, while the Stones own Rolling Stones Records. However, each of these independently owned recording companies is distributed by a major company, like Warner Brothers. That means, for example, that Deep Purple Records are shipped to local record stores all over the world by Warner Brothers. Most independently owned labels seek a large company to distribute their albums so they can be assured their LP will be available everywhere. Astonishingly, the Dead have decided to take the entire job of recording, pressing, shipping, and advertising into their own hands, and they claim it will be no less easy to obtain future Dead releases than it was in the past. “It took a lot of work to get this thing together,” grins the personable Rock Scully, one of a trio of Dead band managers, “but it’s well worth the effort.”
Garcia counts the pennies
Jerry Garcia couldn’t agree more. “There are a lot of people on our payroll,” he says as he tugs at his well-worn dark green polo shirt in the Dead offices, “and we can’t really count that much on record royalties to take care of business. The live shows we do are the main source of income for the band, and we’ve been playing an awful lot to pay off our overhead.
“We’ve planned for over a year to form our own record manufacturing and distributing company so as to package and promote our stuff in a more human manner. A large benefit from that will be our capability of getting away from the retail list price inflation while still keeping more of the profits. We have nothing against the way Warner Brothers have treated us. They’ve never interfered with our music. But if the records cover a larger share of our overhead, then we can pick and choose on our live shows. We can experiment a little bit and play the really groovy shows.”
A season of supershows
An indication of the surprises in store and part of the concert experimentation has already begun with the recent Grateful Dead shows that have combined the Dead with another American supergroup, The Allman Brothers. In the case of the amazing Watkins Glen Festival in New York this past July, the Dead and the Allmans were joined by the Band. The original idea for these supershows started over a year ago when a full length, cross-country tour with the Allman Brothers was booked into some of America’s largest stadiums. The two bands have been long time friends, going back to the days the members of the groups first met each other backstage at the Fillmore East. Both bands were set to hop on planes to begin the tour last fall when Allman bassist Berry Oakley was killed in a motorcycle accident just a few days before their opening show in Houston, Texas. The joint tour was cancelled until this past summer, when the Allmans and the Dead made an appearance at the RFK Stadium in Washington. The RFK Stadium appearance made concert history. Ticketron, the computer network covering the eastern coast, reported that tickets to the Dead-Allmans concert were snapped up as far away as Montreal, Canada. More than 80,000 seats were sold for the two consecutive concerts.
Garcia waxed ecstatic about the experience, saying he couldn’t have been more at home with The Allmans.
“It’s kind of like playing with us the way we were five years ago,” Jerry laughs. “Musically and set-up wise, they’re kind of similar to the way we used to be. They especially sounded like us when they were the original Allman Brothers. They had two drummers, two guitars, organ and bass...exactly the instrumentation we had (when drummer Mickey Hart and organist-vocalist Ron “Pigpen” McKernan were in the band).
“In fact, Dickey and the guys had flashed on our music when we played at a festival in Florida about five or six years ago. We really inspired them and they’ve patterned a lot of their trip after us. They’re like a younger, Southern version of us in some ways musically. I really enjoy playing with those guys, they’re fun to play with. They’re good.”
‘Eyes’ to the future
Although there are definite plans afoot to release an album of a monumental Dead-Allmans jam-session early next year, the first release of the Grateful Dead Records label will be the long-awaited Grateful Dead studio album — their first since American Beauty hit the racks three years ago. Tentatively titled We Are The Eyes Of The World, Garcia insists the band went into the studios with the objective to “do it and do it right.” He is also quick to add that the “we” is everybody and not the group.
Recorded at the prestigious Record Plant tucked away next to a humble Sausalito boat dock on the bay, time was booked every evening from six until midnight beginning in early August and lasting into September.
“We’re recording close to two albums’ worth of material,” Garcia explains as he chain-smokes his umpteenth filterless Camel of the interview, “and distill it into one record, leaving the rest in the can. It’s funny, you know, but I can’t really pin down what kind of album it’s gonna be. I never have been able to tell with past albums either. When I get the final copy home and listen to it, then I’ll be able to look back and see what it is. Right now, all I know is that the tunes are all good. The tunes that me and Robert Hunter wrote are the best we’ve ever written. For sure.”
A crush brings a spurt
Jerry is the first to admit that he is a somewhat less than prolific songwriter, but it was last January that he underwent a creative “spasm” that left him with seven new songs. The band was about to begin rehearsals the next week in their deserted and dilapidated Point Reyes rehearsal hall and Jerry, who undoubtedly felt the crush for new material, came up with the goods. “Sometimes,” he says, “I can just crank ‘em out and other times...nothing. Like I could have a spurt in which I’d write four new songs in one week, and in the next six months I wouldn’t be able to put two words together. It’s that kind of thing.”
The Dead’s newest tunes, especially ‘We Are The Eyes Of The World’, are surprisingly complex and sometimes jazz-oriented compositions. At a recent performance at Universal Ampitheatre in Los Angeles, the song stood out from the regular standards with ease. “They’re a little more sophisticated in terms of structure than our other ones, the new tunes,” Jerry admits. “But they’re Grateful Dead all the way. I mean they sound like The Grateful Dead. I can’t really look at them objectively, but I feel that they’re better. It’s hard to tell what direction they’re moving in. They’re really sort of dispersed in that they are widely-patterned. All the tunes are very different from each other and the ones that preceded them as well.”
Pigpen’s last stand
We Are The Eyes Of The World will provide especially fascinating juxtaposition with their latest release, History of the Grateful Dead Volume One: Bear’s Choice. Rather than to choose the usual “greatest hits” packaging, for their final album commitment, The Dead dispatched production manager Owsley “The Bear” Stanley to rummage through his collection of live tapes to find a unique performance LP with which to bow out.
What The Bear chose (hence the title) was a very special recording of two nights the band performed at The Fillmore East on Friday the 13th and Valentine’s Day in February, 1970. “It’s a side of the group that never went on record,” says Jerry in retrospect.
“It shows a Dead you’ll never see or hear again,” Rock picks up the story. “The album is sixty percent Pigpen and the other forty percent is acoustic material. Needless to say, Pigpen is no longer with us and The Dead don’t do acoustic material onstage anymore. The record is very, very interesting if you know the history behind it. Pigpen went out on the stage and sat down in a chair...it was the only time he ever did it. He sat down and played the bottleneck guitar. He had never done that before or after. We’d been pushing him for years to do it and finally he just got loose enough and comfortable enough with the audience there at the Fillmore to go out and do it. He went out and sat down on the stage — it was Valentine’s Day and he had a honey out in the crowd. He went out and played ‘Katie Mae’ to her. Immediately following that, Bobby (Weir) and Garcia went out and did the same thing. They sat down and played acoustic guitars. They don’t do that anymore. With Pigpen’s death, Mickey Hart’s departure and Keith and Donna Godchaux’s addition on piano and vocals it’s a whole new band.”
History Of The Dead is an historic event for many reasons, including the last of Pigpen, the last Dead album ever to appear on a major label, and the beginning of a whole new era in small recording companies. And possibly, if Jerry Garcia can keep his eyes on “the retail list-price inflation spiral”, the benefits will be reaped in terms of dollars and concerts by grateful Grateful Dead fans everywhere.
(by Cameron Crowe, from Circus magazine, October 1973)
http://www.theuncool.com/journalism/grateful-dead-circus-magazine/
Nov 2, 2012
July 27-28, 1973: Watkins Glen, NY
WATKINS GLEN JAM TOPS WOODSTOCK
From the start everyone knew "Summer Jam" would be the year's biggest rock & roll show. The 95-acre Watkins Glen Grand Prix auto circuit was a natural site. Large, party-mood crowds are routine at the big races, such as the annual United States Grand Prix for formula one cars. The two young promoters announced early on that they would sell 150,000 tickets, at $10 each.
But no one could have predicted that 600,000 people would ultimately choose to attend and make this the largest gathering of rock & roll fans in history. About one in every 400 persons in the U.S. was there.
By Thursday night, July 26th, a full 36 hours before the music was scheduled to sound, more than 80,000 persons were camped in the woods and groves surrounding the stage site. By the next night, still with 12 hours to go, traffic toward the area, about 120 miles west ot New York City, was being affected more than 100 miles away.
By 4 AM Saturday morning, New York State Police established roadblocks 20 miles from Watkins Glen. Undaunted, the people abandoned their cars, hoisted backpacks and set out on foot. From the air, the ribbons of cars stretching toward the horizon looked if they had been dropped in place by cranes, rather than parked by human beings.
Watkins Glen was the largest gathering of its type since Woodstock, four years ago, when a tribal gathering at the late Max Yasgur's dairy farm gave the so-called counterculture a landmark. But Watkins Glen was no Woodstock. It has spawned none of the sociological sermonizing of its predecessor, unless one can say it is the middle of Watergate summer. There were no self-congratulatory, itchycoo Vibes of Nirvana Found.
Watkins Glen was, simply, a presentation of three of the most enduring rock & roll bands ever - the Grateful Dead, the Band and the Allman Brothers - a "Summer Jam."
The co-promoters, Shelly Finkel, 29, and Jim Koplik, 23, first met in 1971 when Finkel, a product of Brooklyn and NYU, traveled to Ohio with a band he was managing. Koplik, a New Rochelle, New York, native who attended Ohio State, was presenting the show.
They met again in New Haven later that year at a rock concert being presented by Finkel, and the two decided to team up. Last year they presented six shows at a 20,000-seat football stadium in Connecticut, and it was at one of those shows, featuring the Grateful Dead, that the germ of Watkins Glen took hold.
"We had the Dead at Dillon Stadium," said Koplik, "and after their set Dicky Betts and the late Berry Oakley of the Allmans came on and jammed. The music they produced was unbelievable, and we decided we had to get the two bands together for a planned concert."
In February of this year, they found out about Watkins Glen. "When we began thinking of a third act to round out the bill, we decided to ask the two bands who they wanted. They suggested the Band and everyone agreed," said Koplik.
The partners had high praise for Bill Graham and FM Productions, Graham's stage, sound and lighting people. "He's Number One, the best," said Koplik of Graham, who gave his advice and counsel at Walkins Glen free of charge. "In fact," said Koplik, "a couple of weeks ago Bill called us up and asked if it would be all right if he came."
Koplik, speaking by telephone from New York several days after the event, said he had one more thing to add: "We don't want to sound corny, but the real credit goes to the 600,000 who supported the show."
George Rehety was sitting under a large oak in his front yard on a slatwood lawn chair. Rehety is 74 years old. His face is flecked with liver spots. "You know," he said, "these are nice kids. I haven't seen one fight." All through Watkins Glen (pop. 3000) townspeople perched on lawn chairs and bridge chairs, sitting in their yards, watching the hippies. No one saw a fight.
By Saturday afternoon there wasn't an ice cube in Watkins Glen, or a potato chip. The Beverage Baron was almost out of beer. The Beverage Baron was absolutely out of cold beer. "And I'd filled the place with beer, up to the ceiling," Jack Mafianey, the Beverage Baron himself said. "This is ten times bigger than the Grand Prix."
Watkins Glen regularly draws 100,000 and more to the auto races. But these were different people. "I'd rather deal with these kids than the race crowd any day," a mounted cop said. "I've never been called 'Sir' so many times in my life."
Wooley's Liquor Store stocked up heavy on Boone's Farm fruit wine. What the race crowd drinks. But Boone's Farm didn't move. Instead Wooley's sold out of Jack Daniel's and Southern Comfort, and an extra truck full of liquor was shipped in with a police escort - to get through the traffic, not because of hijack fears.
Which is not to say there was no trouble. Friday night five youths were arrested for butchering and attempting to barbecue a farmer's pig -- SOP at races, but that was before bacon hit $1.69 a pound. Virtually every shopping cart in Watkins Glen and nearby Mantour Falls was borrowed for the hike to the festival site. There were some 200 arrests, most for misdemeanor drug possession.
At the site a Midway had been set up: shirts, $2; ice cream, 25 cents. One kid had set himself up with a sign: MEXICAN GRASS $20 AN OUNCE. Another walked the Midway singing: "Opium, opium, who wants to cop some opium."
"It's funny, we're seeing no heroin, almost no LSD. Our biggest drug problem here is alcohol." Bill Nagle, a local internist, directed medical operation. He went through $30,000 worth of Band-Aids and Thorazine and tetanus toxoid. Late Saturday night another doctor reported: "Two-thirds of the people we've seen have come in with cuts and fractures. They're all drug related, because everybody is wrecked here, but just one-third of our patients have been ODs. And half of those have come in with acute alcohol intoxication." Acute alcohol intoxication means dead drunk. Or nearly dead.
The medical tents saw 7000 people. Forty-three were helicoptered out to nearby hospitals. One remains in serious condition. OD'd on booze and downs, but he is expected to make it.
There was just one death at the site itself. A skydiver, jumping, carrying some kind of exploding device, caught fire. He was dead before he hit the ground. And at least five persons were reported killed in automobile accidents en route to Watkins Glen. There were two stabbings. Two young men refused to give away a quantity of marijuana they had been intent upon selling, so two other young men tried to pry the dope away from them.
Co-producers Finkel and Koplik estimated that costs would run to more than $1 million. Although they would not divulge exact figures, they said it was a "good estimate" that the total band fees amounted to about $400,000. "We believe," said Koplik, "that each band had its biggest payday." (Later it was learned that the Dead received a flat fee of $117,500.)
Other bills included: $30,000 for helicopters; $50,000 for police; $100,000 for rental of 1000 portable toilets; $40,000 for water; $40,000 for clean-up. Also provided were 300,000 pre-moistened facial towelettes. Bill Graham's FM Productions earned $200,000 for the stage, lighting and 50,000-watt sound system.
The Watkins Glen Grand Prix Association rented the circuit for a guarantee against a percentage. That figure was unavailable. The association also ran the concessions, and figured to make a neat profit off such items as hot dogs, pizza and 30-cents-a-can soda pop.
Promptly at noon Saturday, the Dead came on and began a five-hour set. The Band played from 6 PM until 9, and the Allman Brothers came on at 10 PM and played until 2 AM. Then everybody jammed till 3-30. The last song was an extended "Johnny B. Goode."
While the Band was playing, the rains came for about thirty minutes, churning the turf into mud. When the rain stopped, and the Band came back to finish up, there was this couple balling in the mud just below the stage. She was a little zaftig, and you heard the shoosh when she lifted her hips and the splat when she hit bottom.
At ten it was dark - country dark, and the Allman Brothers chewed 'em up and spit 'em out whole, as they say. Surveying the scene from behind the stage, a roadie said of the endless flickering campfires that could be seen: "It looks like something from the Civil War."
"The Band played brilliant music," said Bill Graham. "Robbie [Robertson] said it was the first 100 percenter he'd been to. Leon had a kick to his drums, and Manuel...great. They all had a marvelous time. And the Allmans and the Dead - of their ilk, they're the best."
Graham revealed how the early arrivals at the race circuit received unscheduled entertainment. "By Thursday night there were already 80,000 to 100,000 camped outside. I said to the promoters let's open at dawn [Friday] and do a sound check in front of 100,000 people. Everybody agreed. My theory was that rather than have a stampede, open up at dawn, and those that were up could come in and those that were sleeping could sleep, then get up and not be in the middle of a crowd.
"So they came in Friday. At noon on Friday the sound was set - and this was never reported - the Dead played two hours. It drove the kids crazy. The Band came on and did an hour. The Allmans did two hours. By Friday night 150,000 people had gotten a five-hour show. They'd gotten a taste, an appetizer, and they knew their heroes were there."
Capricorn Records, the Allmans' label, recorded their set. So some sort of Watkins Glen album seems probable. However, there won't be a Watkins Glen movie. The Grateful Dead refused to participate, and in a statement, released by manager Sam Cutler, explained:
"The Grateful Dead are sick and tired of being given cornball ideas for rock movies. The Grateful Dead are delighted that Watkins Glen is only a fond memory and that there will be no further commercial exploitation of what was a tasteful musical trip."
Sunday, 7 AM: the morning after. In the early light the compound looked, indeed, like a war had been fought there. A war fought with beer cans and plastic water jugs, whiskey bottles and Cracker Jack boxes and 10,000 jars of Skippy Peanut Butter. The young promoters, it turned out, had forgotten to rent garbage cans.
But while "Summer Jam" ended messy, it also ended happy. One youth who faced a ten-mile hike to his car - and then an all-day and all-night drive home - said he'd do it again - next week. The girl who'd hitched down from Toronto barefoot not only had a good time, but she was beaming over the pair of discarded sandals she'd found to wear home. And the guy, stark naked, drying his Levis over a fire, holding them there with a slick the way you'd roast a hot dog, he looked like any contented backyard barbecue chef.
"Things went so well," said Koplik, "there's a chance we'll do another one, but not this year. Henry Valent [of the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Association] says, 'No more.' We can't do one of this magnitude. He asked me, 'How can we hold things down the next time?' I told him, 'I don't know how we got all those people here in the first place.'" Wandering around in the rubble, I found a Bible half buried in the mud. It was open to the Book of Isaiah. Chapter 24, The Apocalypse: "Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and he maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down."
(by Joel Siegel, from Rolling Stone, August 30 1973)
This article is also included here:
http://obie1.homesite.net/deadcd/articlesrs.htm
And there is also a long article by Robert Santelli about the festival here:
http://www.superseventies.com/watkinsglen.html
http://archive.org/details/gd73-07-27.aud.weiner.gdadt26.26363.sbeok.shnf
http://archive.org/details/gd73-07-28.sbd.weiner.14196.sbeok.shnf
From the start everyone knew "Summer Jam" would be the year's biggest rock & roll show. The 95-acre Watkins Glen Grand Prix auto circuit was a natural site. Large, party-mood crowds are routine at the big races, such as the annual United States Grand Prix for formula one cars. The two young promoters announced early on that they would sell 150,000 tickets, at $10 each.
But no one could have predicted that 600,000 people would ultimately choose to attend and make this the largest gathering of rock & roll fans in history. About one in every 400 persons in the U.S. was there.
By Thursday night, July 26th, a full 36 hours before the music was scheduled to sound, more than 80,000 persons were camped in the woods and groves surrounding the stage site. By the next night, still with 12 hours to go, traffic toward the area, about 120 miles west ot New York City, was being affected more than 100 miles away.
By 4 AM Saturday morning, New York State Police established roadblocks 20 miles from Watkins Glen. Undaunted, the people abandoned their cars, hoisted backpacks and set out on foot. From the air, the ribbons of cars stretching toward the horizon looked if they had been dropped in place by cranes, rather than parked by human beings.
Watkins Glen was the largest gathering of its type since Woodstock, four years ago, when a tribal gathering at the late Max Yasgur's dairy farm gave the so-called counterculture a landmark. But Watkins Glen was no Woodstock. It has spawned none of the sociological sermonizing of its predecessor, unless one can say it is the middle of Watergate summer. There were no self-congratulatory, itchycoo Vibes of Nirvana Found.
Watkins Glen was, simply, a presentation of three of the most enduring rock & roll bands ever - the Grateful Dead, the Band and the Allman Brothers - a "Summer Jam."
The co-promoters, Shelly Finkel, 29, and Jim Koplik, 23, first met in 1971 when Finkel, a product of Brooklyn and NYU, traveled to Ohio with a band he was managing. Koplik, a New Rochelle, New York, native who attended Ohio State, was presenting the show.
They met again in New Haven later that year at a rock concert being presented by Finkel, and the two decided to team up. Last year they presented six shows at a 20,000-seat football stadium in Connecticut, and it was at one of those shows, featuring the Grateful Dead, that the germ of Watkins Glen took hold.
"We had the Dead at Dillon Stadium," said Koplik, "and after their set Dicky Betts and the late Berry Oakley of the Allmans came on and jammed. The music they produced was unbelievable, and we decided we had to get the two bands together for a planned concert."
In February of this year, they found out about Watkins Glen. "When we began thinking of a third act to round out the bill, we decided to ask the two bands who they wanted. They suggested the Band and everyone agreed," said Koplik.
The partners had high praise for Bill Graham and FM Productions, Graham's stage, sound and lighting people. "He's Number One, the best," said Koplik of Graham, who gave his advice and counsel at Walkins Glen free of charge. "In fact," said Koplik, "a couple of weeks ago Bill called us up and asked if it would be all right if he came."
Koplik, speaking by telephone from New York several days after the event, said he had one more thing to add: "We don't want to sound corny, but the real credit goes to the 600,000 who supported the show."
George Rehety was sitting under a large oak in his front yard on a slatwood lawn chair. Rehety is 74 years old. His face is flecked with liver spots. "You know," he said, "these are nice kids. I haven't seen one fight." All through Watkins Glen (pop. 3000) townspeople perched on lawn chairs and bridge chairs, sitting in their yards, watching the hippies. No one saw a fight.
By Saturday afternoon there wasn't an ice cube in Watkins Glen, or a potato chip. The Beverage Baron was almost out of beer. The Beverage Baron was absolutely out of cold beer. "And I'd filled the place with beer, up to the ceiling," Jack Mafianey, the Beverage Baron himself said. "This is ten times bigger than the Grand Prix."
Watkins Glen regularly draws 100,000 and more to the auto races. But these were different people. "I'd rather deal with these kids than the race crowd any day," a mounted cop said. "I've never been called 'Sir' so many times in my life."
Wooley's Liquor Store stocked up heavy on Boone's Farm fruit wine. What the race crowd drinks. But Boone's Farm didn't move. Instead Wooley's sold out of Jack Daniel's and Southern Comfort, and an extra truck full of liquor was shipped in with a police escort - to get through the traffic, not because of hijack fears.
Which is not to say there was no trouble. Friday night five youths were arrested for butchering and attempting to barbecue a farmer's pig -- SOP at races, but that was before bacon hit $1.69 a pound. Virtually every shopping cart in Watkins Glen and nearby Mantour Falls was borrowed for the hike to the festival site. There were some 200 arrests, most for misdemeanor drug possession.
At the site a Midway had been set up: shirts, $2; ice cream, 25 cents. One kid had set himself up with a sign: MEXICAN GRASS $20 AN OUNCE. Another walked the Midway singing: "Opium, opium, who wants to cop some opium."
"It's funny, we're seeing no heroin, almost no LSD. Our biggest drug problem here is alcohol." Bill Nagle, a local internist, directed medical operation. He went through $30,000 worth of Band-Aids and Thorazine and tetanus toxoid. Late Saturday night another doctor reported: "Two-thirds of the people we've seen have come in with cuts and fractures. They're all drug related, because everybody is wrecked here, but just one-third of our patients have been ODs. And half of those have come in with acute alcohol intoxication." Acute alcohol intoxication means dead drunk. Or nearly dead.
The medical tents saw 7000 people. Forty-three were helicoptered out to nearby hospitals. One remains in serious condition. OD'd on booze and downs, but he is expected to make it.
There was just one death at the site itself. A skydiver, jumping, carrying some kind of exploding device, caught fire. He was dead before he hit the ground. And at least five persons were reported killed in automobile accidents en route to Watkins Glen. There were two stabbings. Two young men refused to give away a quantity of marijuana they had been intent upon selling, so two other young men tried to pry the dope away from them.
Co-producers Finkel and Koplik estimated that costs would run to more than $1 million. Although they would not divulge exact figures, they said it was a "good estimate" that the total band fees amounted to about $400,000. "We believe," said Koplik, "that each band had its biggest payday." (Later it was learned that the Dead received a flat fee of $117,500.)
Other bills included: $30,000 for helicopters; $50,000 for police; $100,000 for rental of 1000 portable toilets; $40,000 for water; $40,000 for clean-up. Also provided were 300,000 pre-moistened facial towelettes. Bill Graham's FM Productions earned $200,000 for the stage, lighting and 50,000-watt sound system.
The Watkins Glen Grand Prix Association rented the circuit for a guarantee against a percentage. That figure was unavailable. The association also ran the concessions, and figured to make a neat profit off such items as hot dogs, pizza and 30-cents-a-can soda pop.
Promptly at noon Saturday, the Dead came on and began a five-hour set. The Band played from 6 PM until 9, and the Allman Brothers came on at 10 PM and played until 2 AM. Then everybody jammed till 3-30. The last song was an extended "Johnny B. Goode."
While the Band was playing, the rains came for about thirty minutes, churning the turf into mud. When the rain stopped, and the Band came back to finish up, there was this couple balling in the mud just below the stage. She was a little zaftig, and you heard the shoosh when she lifted her hips and the splat when she hit bottom.
At ten it was dark - country dark, and the Allman Brothers chewed 'em up and spit 'em out whole, as they say. Surveying the scene from behind the stage, a roadie said of the endless flickering campfires that could be seen: "It looks like something from the Civil War."
"The Band played brilliant music," said Bill Graham. "Robbie [Robertson] said it was the first 100 percenter he'd been to. Leon had a kick to his drums, and Manuel...great. They all had a marvelous time. And the Allmans and the Dead - of their ilk, they're the best."
Graham revealed how the early arrivals at the race circuit received unscheduled entertainment. "By Thursday night there were already 80,000 to 100,000 camped outside. I said to the promoters let's open at dawn [Friday] and do a sound check in front of 100,000 people. Everybody agreed. My theory was that rather than have a stampede, open up at dawn, and those that were up could come in and those that were sleeping could sleep, then get up and not be in the middle of a crowd.
"So they came in Friday. At noon on Friday the sound was set - and this was never reported - the Dead played two hours. It drove the kids crazy. The Band came on and did an hour. The Allmans did two hours. By Friday night 150,000 people had gotten a five-hour show. They'd gotten a taste, an appetizer, and they knew their heroes were there."
Capricorn Records, the Allmans' label, recorded their set. So some sort of Watkins Glen album seems probable. However, there won't be a Watkins Glen movie. The Grateful Dead refused to participate, and in a statement, released by manager Sam Cutler, explained:
"The Grateful Dead are sick and tired of being given cornball ideas for rock movies. The Grateful Dead are delighted that Watkins Glen is only a fond memory and that there will be no further commercial exploitation of what was a tasteful musical trip."
Sunday, 7 AM: the morning after. In the early light the compound looked, indeed, like a war had been fought there. A war fought with beer cans and plastic water jugs, whiskey bottles and Cracker Jack boxes and 10,000 jars of Skippy Peanut Butter. The young promoters, it turned out, had forgotten to rent garbage cans.
But while "Summer Jam" ended messy, it also ended happy. One youth who faced a ten-mile hike to his car - and then an all-day and all-night drive home - said he'd do it again - next week. The girl who'd hitched down from Toronto barefoot not only had a good time, but she was beaming over the pair of discarded sandals she'd found to wear home. And the guy, stark naked, drying his Levis over a fire, holding them there with a slick the way you'd roast a hot dog, he looked like any contented backyard barbecue chef.
"Things went so well," said Koplik, "there's a chance we'll do another one, but not this year. Henry Valent [of the Watkins Glen Grand Prix Association] says, 'No more.' We can't do one of this magnitude. He asked me, 'How can we hold things down the next time?' I told him, 'I don't know how we got all those people here in the first place.'" Wandering around in the rubble, I found a Bible half buried in the mud. It was open to the Book of Isaiah. Chapter 24, The Apocalypse: "Behold, the Lord maketh the earth empty, and he maketh it waste, and turneth it upside down."
(by Joel Siegel, from Rolling Stone, August 30 1973)
This article is also included here:
http://obie1.homesite.net/deadcd/articlesrs.htm
And there is also a long article by Robert Santelli about the festival here:
http://www.superseventies.com/watkinsglen.html
http://archive.org/details/gd73-07-27.aud.weiner.gdadt26.26363.sbeok.shnf
http://archive.org/details/gd73-07-28.sbd.weiner.14196.sbeok.shnf
June 9-10, 1973: RFK Stadium, Washington DC
GRATEFUL DEAD, ALLMAN BROS. TAKE TO THE GREAT OUTDOORS
It was far less a concert than an event -- the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band together for two days at RFK Memorial Stadium. Every rock & roller on the East Coast worth his or her faded jeans -- about 80,000 of them -- showed up. The emphasis was so much on scene-making that the music frequently seemed incidental to the conspicuous consumption here of reefers, reds and Ripple.
Doug Sahm and Wet Willie opened the festivities on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. Sahm's Texas country-blues drew heavily on his recent album, culminating with a raucous run-through of "San Antone."
But on Sunday, June 10th, Wet Willie surprised everyone with the most lively, vibrant music of the weekend -- an energetic brand of Southern R&B. Jimmy Hall's vocals and razor-edged harp, Ricky Hirsch's scorching guitar and Jack Hall's insistent bass taxed the twin sound systems and filled the stadium with layers of funky greaseball drive.
The Allmans closed the Saturday show with an inspired performance most obvious during "Les Brers in A Minor," which was driven to incredible levels of intensity by Dicky Betts' searing guitar lines.
Sunday evening, the Dead did not fare as well. Though they frequently displayed commendable instrumental virtuosity, they suffered from a relative paucity of musical ideas, which they compounded by playing for more than six hours. After the third or fourth hour of extended variations on the "Dark Star" theme, many persons began to leave. But it must be admitted that the hard-core remainder seemed to enjoy every minute of the rest of the show, especially during "Truckin'," which was accompanied by much stomping and clapping.
The long awaited inter-group jam finally materialized around Sunday at midnight, but with Betts and Butch Trucks the only Brothers participating, it was, in effect, another 90 minutes of the Dead.
President Nixon chose not to attend. In the audience, however, was Caroline Kennedy, Sam Cutler, the Metropolitan Police and a big brown dog.
(by Gordon Fletcher, from Rolling Stone, July 19 1973)
Article also included here:
http://obie1.homesite.net/deadcd/articlesrs.htm
http://archive.org/details/gd1973-06-10.fob.barry.90351.flac16 (the "paucity of musical ideas"...)
It was far less a concert than an event -- the Grateful Dead and the Allman Brothers Band together for two days at RFK Memorial Stadium. Every rock & roller on the East Coast worth his or her faded jeans -- about 80,000 of them -- showed up. The emphasis was so much on scene-making that the music frequently seemed incidental to the conspicuous consumption here of reefers, reds and Ripple.
Doug Sahm and Wet Willie opened the festivities on Saturday and Sunday, respectively. Sahm's Texas country-blues drew heavily on his recent album, culminating with a raucous run-through of "San Antone."
But on Sunday, June 10th, Wet Willie surprised everyone with the most lively, vibrant music of the weekend -- an energetic brand of Southern R&B. Jimmy Hall's vocals and razor-edged harp, Ricky Hirsch's scorching guitar and Jack Hall's insistent bass taxed the twin sound systems and filled the stadium with layers of funky greaseball drive.
The Allmans closed the Saturday show with an inspired performance most obvious during "Les Brers in A Minor," which was driven to incredible levels of intensity by Dicky Betts' searing guitar lines.
Sunday evening, the Dead did not fare as well. Though they frequently displayed commendable instrumental virtuosity, they suffered from a relative paucity of musical ideas, which they compounded by playing for more than six hours. After the third or fourth hour of extended variations on the "Dark Star" theme, many persons began to leave. But it must be admitted that the hard-core remainder seemed to enjoy every minute of the rest of the show, especially during "Truckin'," which was accompanied by much stomping and clapping.
The long awaited inter-group jam finally materialized around Sunday at midnight, but with Betts and Butch Trucks the only Brothers participating, it was, in effect, another 90 minutes of the Dead.
President Nixon chose not to attend. In the audience, however, was Caroline Kennedy, Sam Cutler, the Metropolitan Police and a big brown dog.
(by Gordon Fletcher, from Rolling Stone, July 19 1973)
Article also included here:
http://obie1.homesite.net/deadcd/articlesrs.htm
http://archive.org/details/gd1973-06-10.fob.barry.90351.flac16 (the "paucity of musical ideas"...)
Sep 30, 2012
May 1973: State of the Dead
STATE OF THE CHANGES
How the Dragon Urobouros (Giga Exponentia) Makes Us Go Round and Round
We've received 25,000 letters to date from Dead Heads, telling us your trips, and ideas and questions and comments about ours. Whatever the voyage, the current concerns are at least real, and this newsletter is a report on the state of the ship.
The pursuit of quality presentation of our music, with more and more people wanting to hear it, has led us into larger and larger halls with an ever-increasing array of equipment. St. Dilbert calls this process 'Urobouros':
Configurations of speakers and amplifiers change almost as rapidly as we move from gig to gig. The equipment diagram shown overleaf is a schematic of the set-up at Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, 26 May 1973 (auxiliary PA's and mid-field delay towers to reinforce the sound at the back against wind, are not shown).
You are one million Dead Heads who attend the concerts. In the New York City area, given the space, we will draw some 50,000 people. As your numbers increase in each area, we play larger and larger halls. The apparent alternative to this is a kind of riot. We are musicians.
The physics of sound projection dictate that any given increase in the size of a hall requires an exponential rate of increase in equipment capability to reach everyone in the hall with quality-at-volume.
YEAR - WEIGHT - TRANSPORT
1965 -- 800 lbs ---- Bill's station wagon
1967 -- 1300 lbs --- Barney's van
1968 -- 6000 lbs --- Metro van
1970 -- 10,000 lbs - 18 ft truck
1973 -- 30,000 lbs - 40 ft semi
We're growing! - some 30 people now on payroll. We're affiliated with Alembic in San Francisco on design, research and development of equipment and recording. Our rehearsal hall in San Rafael is the center of acoustic enquiry and equipment maintenance/development. Our office here manages, controls finance, accounting, insurance and the like, and Ice Nine Publishing Company (copyrights, licenses, songbooks) and Dead Heads. Out of Town booking agency and Fly By Night travel agency, two outgrowths of our scene, are in the building.
By the nature of the beast, the energies of over a hundred directly enter our endeavor. Urobouros turns his circles. St. Dilbert is a bombast. Let's surface the moon with an electrostatic spherical tidal spatial counter-entropic sound system. Energy spoken here.
On earth, our overhead expense is $100,000 a month. In 1972 we grossed $1,424,543. Here's who ate the pie:
The Grateful Dead Dollar (1972)
Salaries 27%
Road 27% (22% Road Expenses, 5% Agency)
Equipment 18% (14% Purchase & Maintenance, 4% Support)
Office 17% (2% Overhead, 2% Dead Heads)
Tax 8%
Operating Profit 3%
70% of this income came from gigs, and 30% from record royalties. Gigs offer the only means to earn more money when it is needed to maintain our operation in all its particulars. We cannot sell more records at will, but we can go on the road, within the limits of energy: so that we must play larger halls, with more equipment, and a bigger organization, requiring more gigs.....
St. Dilbert calls this fellow 'Urobouros', and he's a good trip, but he has a mind of his own:
Greater Demand --> Larger Halls --> More Equipment --> Bigger Organization --> Larger Overhead --> More Gigs --> [repeat]
We like a variety of concert situations. Ambiance comes in different sizes. We like a small hall, and so do you, and an outdoor gig in the sun, and a large hall when it can be made to sound good (few halls over 6000 capacity aren't sports arenas with novel acoustic and environmental puzzles).
Urobouros is hungry. How do we control him? We've planned for a year to form our own record manufacturing and distributing company so as to be more on top of the marketing process, package and promote our product in an honest and human manner, and possibly stand aside from the retail list-price inflation spiral while retaining more of the net dollar (keep a tight ship). If the records cover a larger share of the overhead, then the concert situation becomes more flexible. This is the working future - possible, in the direction we see to go, now. We want this freedom to achieve gig variety, to experiment. We are musicians.
What else might do? Write and suggest it. Magic ideas welcome. Dead Heads altogether, too - what might we do with it? What might you do with it?
Your mail is an energy input, 400 letters a week that we tack on bulletin boards and read aloud and pass back and forth. The drawings ('DH') in this issue are yours. This flow enters the common pool of plans and theories and ideas and speculations and fantasties and hopes and fears and futures and galaxies and stuff.
To hear from you, furthers.
"Having been born into a world of rather curious values, values apparently unrelated to the direct experience of human truths, the Bozos and Bolos hypnocratically pursue a direction of self-determination in as many ways as interestingly possible, believing that this course will best aid a continuation of integrity and meaning in their music and other life spaces. This has meant that their business activity seeks to be in control of as many areas as become possible, employing their own people to do the work that would otherwise be farmed out to straight business. Thus there is the possibility that the message in the music can be reflected in the manner and purpose of conducting the business necessary to get the music heard."
- St. Dilbert, Bombast
Next Release:
'History of the Grateful Dead, Vol. 1: Bear's Choice.' Live recordings of 1970 vintage. Warner Bros. July Release.
Hunter Album:
Robert Hunter has written the material for his own album and recorded it with Liberty, a Bay Area band. To be released.
(from the May 1973 Dead Heads newsletter)
How the Dragon Urobouros (Giga Exponentia) Makes Us Go Round and Round
We've received 25,000 letters to date from Dead Heads, telling us your trips, and ideas and questions and comments about ours. Whatever the voyage, the current concerns are at least real, and this newsletter is a report on the state of the ship.
The pursuit of quality presentation of our music, with more and more people wanting to hear it, has led us into larger and larger halls with an ever-increasing array of equipment. St. Dilbert calls this process 'Urobouros':
Configurations of speakers and amplifiers change almost as rapidly as we move from gig to gig. The equipment diagram shown overleaf is a schematic of the set-up at Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, 26 May 1973 (auxiliary PA's and mid-field delay towers to reinforce the sound at the back against wind, are not shown).
You are one million Dead Heads who attend the concerts. In the New York City area, given the space, we will draw some 50,000 people. As your numbers increase in each area, we play larger and larger halls. The apparent alternative to this is a kind of riot. We are musicians.
The physics of sound projection dictate that any given increase in the size of a hall requires an exponential rate of increase in equipment capability to reach everyone in the hall with quality-at-volume.
YEAR - WEIGHT - TRANSPORT
1965 -- 800 lbs ---- Bill's station wagon
1967 -- 1300 lbs --- Barney's van
1968 -- 6000 lbs --- Metro van
1970 -- 10,000 lbs - 18 ft truck
1973 -- 30,000 lbs - 40 ft semi
We're growing! - some 30 people now on payroll. We're affiliated with Alembic in San Francisco on design, research and development of equipment and recording. Our rehearsal hall in San Rafael is the center of acoustic enquiry and equipment maintenance/development. Our office here manages, controls finance, accounting, insurance and the like, and Ice Nine Publishing Company (copyrights, licenses, songbooks) and Dead Heads. Out of Town booking agency and Fly By Night travel agency, two outgrowths of our scene, are in the building.
By the nature of the beast, the energies of over a hundred directly enter our endeavor. Urobouros turns his circles. St. Dilbert is a bombast. Let's surface the moon with an electrostatic spherical tidal spatial counter-entropic sound system. Energy spoken here.
On earth, our overhead expense is $100,000 a month. In 1972 we grossed $1,424,543. Here's who ate the pie:
The Grateful Dead Dollar (1972)
Salaries 27%
Road 27% (22% Road Expenses, 5% Agency)
Equipment 18% (14% Purchase & Maintenance, 4% Support)
Office 17% (2% Overhead, 2% Dead Heads)
Tax 8%
Operating Profit 3%
70% of this income came from gigs, and 30% from record royalties. Gigs offer the only means to earn more money when it is needed to maintain our operation in all its particulars. We cannot sell more records at will, but we can go on the road, within the limits of energy: so that we must play larger halls, with more equipment, and a bigger organization, requiring more gigs.....
St. Dilbert calls this fellow 'Urobouros', and he's a good trip, but he has a mind of his own:
Greater Demand --> Larger Halls --> More Equipment --> Bigger Organization --> Larger Overhead --> More Gigs --> [repeat]
We like a variety of concert situations. Ambiance comes in different sizes. We like a small hall, and so do you, and an outdoor gig in the sun, and a large hall when it can be made to sound good (few halls over 6000 capacity aren't sports arenas with novel acoustic and environmental puzzles).
Urobouros is hungry. How do we control him? We've planned for a year to form our own record manufacturing and distributing company so as to be more on top of the marketing process, package and promote our product in an honest and human manner, and possibly stand aside from the retail list-price inflation spiral while retaining more of the net dollar (keep a tight ship). If the records cover a larger share of the overhead, then the concert situation becomes more flexible. This is the working future - possible, in the direction we see to go, now. We want this freedom to achieve gig variety, to experiment. We are musicians.
What else might do? Write and suggest it. Magic ideas welcome. Dead Heads altogether, too - what might we do with it? What might you do with it?
Your mail is an energy input, 400 letters a week that we tack on bulletin boards and read aloud and pass back and forth. The drawings ('DH') in this issue are yours. This flow enters the common pool of plans and theories and ideas and speculations and fantasties and hopes and fears and futures and galaxies and stuff.
To hear from you, furthers.
"Having been born into a world of rather curious values, values apparently unrelated to the direct experience of human truths, the Bozos and Bolos hypnocratically pursue a direction of self-determination in as many ways as interestingly possible, believing that this course will best aid a continuation of integrity and meaning in their music and other life spaces. This has meant that their business activity seeks to be in control of as many areas as become possible, employing their own people to do the work that would otherwise be farmed out to straight business. Thus there is the possibility that the message in the music can be reflected in the manner and purpose of conducting the business necessary to get the music heard."
- St. Dilbert, Bombast
Next Release:
'History of the Grateful Dead, Vol. 1: Bear's Choice.' Live recordings of 1970 vintage. Warner Bros. July Release.
Hunter Album:
Robert Hunter has written the material for his own album and recorded it with Liberty, a Bay Area band. To be released.
(from the May 1973 Dead Heads newsletter)
July 1973: The Dead's Gear
GRATEFUL DEAD: WIRED FOR SOUND
A concert artist today performs at the center of an incredible tangle of wires connecting components of a thousand kinds. But even if he knows what they all are, the performer is not likely to discuss graphic equalizers and pink noise during an interview.
Anybody who has seen the Grateful Dead has marvelled at the mysterious mountains of gear they use at their concerts. Because of the sheer amount of this equipment, because of its high quality, and because it is privately owned by the group rather than rented from a sound contractor, GP decided to investigate.
In order to examine the technical side of the Dead's performances, we talked with Rick Turner of Alembic in San Francisco. Besides building sophisticated electronic guitars (see "Casady's Bass," GP, August '72), the craftsmen at Alembic have done extensive work on all the Dead's equipment. Without needing to consult any notes, Turner was able to provide the following information.
What equipment does Jerry Garcia use on stage?
Jerry uses an extensively re-worked Stratocaster, and also one of our Alembic guitars. He plays into a Fender Twin Reverb amp with preamp outpouts going to a McIntosh 2300 amp. This powers three Alembic B-12 speaker cabinets which are stacked on their sides, so that he has a vertical column of speakers extending about eight feet into the air. They're stacked like this because we found that it gives a much wider horizontal spread to the sound, with less spill going up into the rafters.
What about rhythm guitarist Bob Weir?
Bob alternates between a Les Paul, an SG, an ES-335 (all Gibson), and an Alembic. He plays into two rebuilt Twins, one of which powers a pair of Alembic B-12 cabinets, each having two D-120 JBL's in it. He drives his extension speakers with McIntosh 2300 amps.
And bassist Phil Lesh?
Phil has been phasing out his Fender equipment in favor of our preamps and McIntosh 2300 power amps. His bass has two ordinary low-impedance Alembic pickups and one quadraphonic pickup, which puts out a separate signal for each string. Each pickup goes into a separate Alembic preamp module, and from there each of the three signals goes into a 2300. He has six or eight Alembic B-15 cabinets, each containing two D-140 JBL's. Perhaps I should explain that our cabinets are numbered so that A means a cabinet with one speaker, B means two speakers, and so on, and the number indicates the diameter of the speaker. I should also explain that all the equipment I'm discussing is continually being revised as we re-examine what the various components are being used for, and question whether some other hookup can be devised that will do the same thing better.
What is the Dead's P.A. system like?
It varies from month to month, but basically it looks like this: Each of the four singers has a pair of Sennheisen microphones, mounted one above the other about three inches apart. They're hooked up out of phase, and this has the effect of cancelling out the background noise. Any sound that goes equally into both mikes disappears when the two signals are added together, so that all you have left is the sound of the voice, since the singer is only singing into one of them. This eliminates most of the feedback problem, and it also cleans up the sound a great deal. In addition, there are four or five Electra-Voice RE-15's on the drums. Each of the mike signals, and the output from Keith Godchaux's piano, is then split, with half the signal going to the monitor system and half to the P.A.
How is the monitor system set up?
We have an Ampex MX-10 mixer, followed by an Altec Acoustivoicette graphic equalizer. The graphic equalizer has about twenty-five sliding controls, one for each third of an octave all the way up the scale. What we do is feed pink noise into the system from a Hewlett-Packard spectrum analyzer.
What's pink noise?
It's artificially generated sound that has the same audible loudness at all frequencies. This is different from the better-known white noise in that white noise is sound that's generated with equal power all the way up the frequency spectrum, and as a result it gets louder as it gets higher, at the rate of 3 db per octave. Pink noise, on the other hand, has the same volume all the way up. We feed this into the P.A., and then check it with the graphic equalizer to see what kind of peaks and valleys we have in the frequency spectrum of the system. We then adjust the sound with the sliders until it's all equalized. By doing this in every hall they play in, the Dead eliminate any audibility or tone quality problems that might crop up. The power amps for the monitor system are four McIntosh 3500 tube amps, and their output goes to about a dozen A-12 footlight-type monitor speaker cabinets, and as well to some speaker columns on the sides of the stage.
What about the part of the P.A. the audience hears?
This is all controlled from a booth at the back of the hall. It's a stereo system; the speakers on the left and the right sides of the stage are handled completely separately. In the booth there are Ampex mixers, two more Acoustivoicette equalizers, and a Nagra two-track tape machine for recording the concert. Each side of the P.A. has a crossover network for feeding different amps. The crossover has an 18 db per octave slope dropoff, and it splits the signal into four parts. The first is everything below 350 cycles, the second from 350 to 1000 cycles, the third from 1000 to 4000, and the fourth from 4000 up. Each of these then goes to a couple of McIntosh 2300's, and from there as follows: For woofers (below 350 cycles) there are sixteen JBL 2215's on each side of the stage. The low midrange is run through sixteen JBL 120's on each side. The high midrange goes into thirty-two JBL 2105's, which are 5" speakers. And for the highs we have sixteen Electra-Voice T-350 horns.
Who's responsible for all this?
Ram Rod, Dan Healy, and Sparky Razine head the actual equipment crew. It takes them, and about eight other people, four hours or so to set it up. A lot of the original designing was done by Bear. And there's a kind of consulting committee made up of Ron Rickersham, Bob Matthews, John Curl, Peter Quaintence, Bear, and myself. All of us work on it from time to time.
Why use so much gear?
It's not just for volume. Most groups could get three times the volume out of this equipment that the Dead does, but that would be a distorted sound. Not that the Dead are quiet; the sound pressure on stage has been measured at 127 db, and that's loud. But it's all clean sound, not noise. Most independent sound contractors, whose equipment you'll see at a typical rock concert, are much more concerned with economics than with high fidelity. They charge so much to fill a given-sized room with music, and the cheaper they can do it, the more profit they make. The philosophy of the Dead's system, on the other hand, is that since we have the technology to produce a very high quality of sound, we ought to use it. If you care about music, you've got to care about what the audience hears.
(by Jim Aikin, from Guitar Player, July 1973)
A concert artist today performs at the center of an incredible tangle of wires connecting components of a thousand kinds. But even if he knows what they all are, the performer is not likely to discuss graphic equalizers and pink noise during an interview.
Anybody who has seen the Grateful Dead has marvelled at the mysterious mountains of gear they use at their concerts. Because of the sheer amount of this equipment, because of its high quality, and because it is privately owned by the group rather than rented from a sound contractor, GP decided to investigate.
In order to examine the technical side of the Dead's performances, we talked with Rick Turner of Alembic in San Francisco. Besides building sophisticated electronic guitars (see "Casady's Bass," GP, August '72), the craftsmen at Alembic have done extensive work on all the Dead's equipment. Without needing to consult any notes, Turner was able to provide the following information.
What equipment does Jerry Garcia use on stage?
Jerry uses an extensively re-worked Stratocaster, and also one of our Alembic guitars. He plays into a Fender Twin Reverb amp with preamp outpouts going to a McIntosh 2300 amp. This powers three Alembic B-12 speaker cabinets which are stacked on their sides, so that he has a vertical column of speakers extending about eight feet into the air. They're stacked like this because we found that it gives a much wider horizontal spread to the sound, with less spill going up into the rafters.
What about rhythm guitarist Bob Weir?
Bob alternates between a Les Paul, an SG, an ES-335 (all Gibson), and an Alembic. He plays into two rebuilt Twins, one of which powers a pair of Alembic B-12 cabinets, each having two D-120 JBL's in it. He drives his extension speakers with McIntosh 2300 amps.
And bassist Phil Lesh?
Phil has been phasing out his Fender equipment in favor of our preamps and McIntosh 2300 power amps. His bass has two ordinary low-impedance Alembic pickups and one quadraphonic pickup, which puts out a separate signal for each string. Each pickup goes into a separate Alembic preamp module, and from there each of the three signals goes into a 2300. He has six or eight Alembic B-15 cabinets, each containing two D-140 JBL's. Perhaps I should explain that our cabinets are numbered so that A means a cabinet with one speaker, B means two speakers, and so on, and the number indicates the diameter of the speaker. I should also explain that all the equipment I'm discussing is continually being revised as we re-examine what the various components are being used for, and question whether some other hookup can be devised that will do the same thing better.
What is the Dead's P.A. system like?
It varies from month to month, but basically it looks like this: Each of the four singers has a pair of Sennheisen microphones, mounted one above the other about three inches apart. They're hooked up out of phase, and this has the effect of cancelling out the background noise. Any sound that goes equally into both mikes disappears when the two signals are added together, so that all you have left is the sound of the voice, since the singer is only singing into one of them. This eliminates most of the feedback problem, and it also cleans up the sound a great deal. In addition, there are four or five Electra-Voice RE-15's on the drums. Each of the mike signals, and the output from Keith Godchaux's piano, is then split, with half the signal going to the monitor system and half to the P.A.
How is the monitor system set up?
We have an Ampex MX-10 mixer, followed by an Altec Acoustivoicette graphic equalizer. The graphic equalizer has about twenty-five sliding controls, one for each third of an octave all the way up the scale. What we do is feed pink noise into the system from a Hewlett-Packard spectrum analyzer.
What's pink noise?
It's artificially generated sound that has the same audible loudness at all frequencies. This is different from the better-known white noise in that white noise is sound that's generated with equal power all the way up the frequency spectrum, and as a result it gets louder as it gets higher, at the rate of 3 db per octave. Pink noise, on the other hand, has the same volume all the way up. We feed this into the P.A., and then check it with the graphic equalizer to see what kind of peaks and valleys we have in the frequency spectrum of the system. We then adjust the sound with the sliders until it's all equalized. By doing this in every hall they play in, the Dead eliminate any audibility or tone quality problems that might crop up. The power amps for the monitor system are four McIntosh 3500 tube amps, and their output goes to about a dozen A-12 footlight-type monitor speaker cabinets, and as well to some speaker columns on the sides of the stage.
What about the part of the P.A. the audience hears?
This is all controlled from a booth at the back of the hall. It's a stereo system; the speakers on the left and the right sides of the stage are handled completely separately. In the booth there are Ampex mixers, two more Acoustivoicette equalizers, and a Nagra two-track tape machine for recording the concert. Each side of the P.A. has a crossover network for feeding different amps. The crossover has an 18 db per octave slope dropoff, and it splits the signal into four parts. The first is everything below 350 cycles, the second from 350 to 1000 cycles, the third from 1000 to 4000, and the fourth from 4000 up. Each of these then goes to a couple of McIntosh 2300's, and from there as follows: For woofers (below 350 cycles) there are sixteen JBL 2215's on each side of the stage. The low midrange is run through sixteen JBL 120's on each side. The high midrange goes into thirty-two JBL 2105's, which are 5" speakers. And for the highs we have sixteen Electra-Voice T-350 horns.
Who's responsible for all this?
Ram Rod, Dan Healy, and Sparky Razine head the actual equipment crew. It takes them, and about eight other people, four hours or so to set it up. A lot of the original designing was done by Bear. And there's a kind of consulting committee made up of Ron Rickersham, Bob Matthews, John Curl, Peter Quaintence, Bear, and myself. All of us work on it from time to time.
Why use so much gear?
It's not just for volume. Most groups could get three times the volume out of this equipment that the Dead does, but that would be a distorted sound. Not that the Dead are quiet; the sound pressure on stage has been measured at 127 db, and that's loud. But it's all clean sound, not noise. Most independent sound contractors, whose equipment you'll see at a typical rock concert, are much more concerned with economics than with high fidelity. They charge so much to fill a given-sized room with music, and the cheaper they can do it, the more profit they make. The philosophy of the Dead's system, on the other hand, is that since we have the technology to produce a very high quality of sound, we ought to use it. If you care about music, you've got to care about what the audience hears.
(by Jim Aikin, from Guitar Player, July 1973)
May 1973: Garcia's Guitar Tips
PRO'S REPLY
JERRY GARCIA
Questions submitted by Gary Lambert, Lenox, Massachusetts.
After playing Gibsons ever since the Dead's first album, why the switch to a Fender Stratocaster?
The characteristic sound of a Fender is texturally different from the sound of the other instruments in the band. Two Gibsons get muddy-sounding.
What gauge strings do you use and how often do you change them?
I use .011, .013, .016, .026, .036, and .046. I change them every couple of performances.
Where do you normally set up the controls on both your guitar and amp?
There really isn't any "normal" setting. I change guitar settings all the time, and I change amp settings depending on the room I'm playing in. I never turn the Fender Twin Reverb amps up past seven.
Did you feel that the Dead's huge rise in popularity posed the threat of forcing you to compromise your musical integrity?
No!
Now that you've left the New Riders of the Purple Sage, is there any chance we might see you play pedal steel with the Dead occasionally? Also, who are some of your favorite pedal steel players?
I'll probably not play pedal steel with the Dead. Some of my favorite pedal steel players are Buddy Emmons and Lloyd Green.
One of my main problems in playing is damping. What do you do, either in your picking or left hand technique, to keep the wrong strings from sounding?
On pedal steel guitar, blocking (or damping) is done with the right hand and is one of the most difficult techniques to pick up on the steel. Try a local music instructor in pedal steel, or have someone show you, as it's really a little hard to explain by writing.
_________________________________________
The Dead's Equipment Detailed Next Issue!
(from Guitar Player, May 1973)
JERRY GARCIA
Questions submitted by Gary Lambert, Lenox, Massachusetts.
After playing Gibsons ever since the Dead's first album, why the switch to a Fender Stratocaster?
The characteristic sound of a Fender is texturally different from the sound of the other instruments in the band. Two Gibsons get muddy-sounding.
What gauge strings do you use and how often do you change them?
I use .011, .013, .016, .026, .036, and .046. I change them every couple of performances.
Where do you normally set up the controls on both your guitar and amp?
There really isn't any "normal" setting. I change guitar settings all the time, and I change amp settings depending on the room I'm playing in. I never turn the Fender Twin Reverb amps up past seven.
Did you feel that the Dead's huge rise in popularity posed the threat of forcing you to compromise your musical integrity?
No!
Now that you've left the New Riders of the Purple Sage, is there any chance we might see you play pedal steel with the Dead occasionally? Also, who are some of your favorite pedal steel players?
I'll probably not play pedal steel with the Dead. Some of my favorite pedal steel players are Buddy Emmons and Lloyd Green.
One of my main problems in playing is damping. What do you do, either in your picking or left hand technique, to keep the wrong strings from sounding?
On pedal steel guitar, blocking (or damping) is done with the right hand and is one of the most difficult techniques to pick up on the steel. Try a local music instructor in pedal steel, or have someone show you, as it's really a little hard to explain by writing.
_________________________________________
The Dead's Equipment Detailed Next Issue!
(from Guitar Player, May 1973)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)