Latest / Booked On Rock with Eric Senich / [EP 404] How “Touch of Grey” Changed the Grateful Dead Forever with John Brackett

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[EP 404] How “Touch of Grey” Changed the Grateful Dead Forever with John Brackett · Booked On Rock with Eric Senich

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: As success spoiled the Dead. Yeah.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Well, I was noticing the other night, for instance, that
• 0:10
  Speaker 2: when I'm going through pistachios opening pistachios.
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: That the hard to open ones.
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: I don't bother with them anymore. Who's got time?
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: Good point. We're totally bumming rock and roll. I mean,
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: I'll leave you.
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: You're reading Little Hands this, It's time to rock and roll.
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: I totally booked. Welcome back to book Don Rock conversations
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: with authors, musicians, and insiders revealing the stories behind classic
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: rock's greatest songs, albums and artists. And before we get started,
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: if you're watching this episode, you're seeing this lovely grateful
• 0:55
  Speaker 2: Dead shirt that I'm wearing here, and I picked it
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: up at old Glory dot com. If you want to
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: get some great classic rock merch there for fifteen percent off.
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: Find something you like and use the promo code Booked
• 1:06
  Speaker 2: on Rock and you'll get fifteen percent off. Just click
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: the link in the show notes or visit booked on
• 1:12
  Speaker 2: Rock dot com and head to my deals. We are
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: going to talk about a song. Now, this shirt is
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: about Ship of Fools, but we're going to talk about
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: a different song. We're going to talk about touch of Gray.
• 1:22
  Speaker 2: Our guest is John Brackett. He's the author of Touch
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: of Gray or How the Grateful Dead Became Pop Stars.
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the podcast, John.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: Thank you so very much. It's great to be here. Eric.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: This is a question I love asking Dead fans because
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: the answer often depends on when they became a fan.
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Do you remember the first time you heard Touch of
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Gray and what was your initial response to it.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I don't think I remember the very first time, although
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: I'm very aware of when the video took over and
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: when I would see that on MTV and all of
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: the related video programs at the time. At the time,
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: I thought it was just another old rock band trying
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: to make a quick buck by coming back. You know,
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: I was kind of part of this jaded Gen X
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: generation that was listening to kind of alternative rock and
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: things of that nature, and familiar with the Dead, you know.
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: I'd heard the tunes on classic rock radio, but you know,
• 2:21
  Speaker 1: throughout much of the eighties you didn't really hear about
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: them if you weren't you know, a dead head, if
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: you didn't really follow them, and so it seemed like, oh,
• 2:28
  Speaker 1: here comes another band, you know that's trying to kind
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: of cash in at the time, so wasn't really ahead,
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: you know, until much later. So going back and looking
• 2:40
  Speaker 1: at this time and kind of reevaluating, you know, kind
• 2:44
  Speaker 1: of how this song kind of gets interpreted. You know,
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: I think it kind of really informed, you know, the
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: book and kind of why I wrote the book.
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: And it is interesting when you ask each dead fan
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: when they first heard the song and how long they
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: were a fan, because that will change used the response.
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's a divisive song for somebody like me.
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: It's the first song that I really took to as
• 3:07
  Speaker 2: a kid. It was fifteen, and then years later I
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: got into the rest of the catalog, but I got
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: to admit it's it's a great song. It just it
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: pulled me in, like so many.
• 3:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, and you were one of you know,
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: tens of thousands of people who got on the bus,
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: you know, at that time. And you know, I think
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: one of the points in the book is like, yes,
• 3:28
  Speaker 1: it's about this time, and it's about that moment in
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: the summer of eighty seven, but it's much much larger
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: than that. I mean, this song really kind of transformed
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: the prevailing historical trajectory of the band, and in some
• 3:43
  Speaker 1: ways helped to kind of lay the foundation for you know,
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: kind of what we see today. I mean, this band is,
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: you know, bigger than ever. And you know a point
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: of the book is that, Yeah, this was the moment,
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: This was the moment that has shifted and you know,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: to get to this spot now.
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: After you read your account of the December fifteen, nineteen
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: eighty six performance, I watched it and I get goosebumps
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: hearing that crowd erupped when Jerry sings I will get by,
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: I Will survive. Take us back to that night and
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: explain why that particular performance was so powerful following Jerry's
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: health crisis and in light of what was about to
• 4:19
  Speaker 2: happen with the song, because it hadn't been released yet.
• 4:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, precisely. I mean, Touch of Gray had been in
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the Dead's repertoire since nineteen eighty two, and this was
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: a song that was familiar to fans. As you pointed out,
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: it had not appeared on any recordings yet, any official recordings.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: I mean, the band hadn't released any recordings since nineteen
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: eighty one. The live records Dead Set and Reckoning then
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: released a studio album since since go to Heaven in
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty and so fans were familiar with the song.
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: It was a popular tune. It was, you know, many ways,
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: kind of one of the fastest songs in the Dead's
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: live repertoire throughout much of the eighties. But nothing really
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: stood out about it, you know, it was, you know,
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: like I said, fans enjoyed it and it was a
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: good time, but nothing really stood out. Jerry got sick
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: in the summer of nineteen eighty six and was very,
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: very ill, and it was very touch and go for
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: a while, and fans, the band, the entire Grateful Dead organization,
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: you know, had to well, the band and the fans organization.
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: They were concerned. They didn't really you know, we're quite
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: sure what was going to happen. The band had been
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: living by making money from touring, and when Jerry got sick,
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: that money stopped, so they weren't quite sure of what
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: the future of the organization would be. And when it
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: was finally announced that the band would be returning to
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: playing live again in December of nineteen eighty six, obviously
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: fans were elated. And then, you know, when the band
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: took the stage and the very first song that they
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: played was touch of Gray. You know, as you heard,
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: I mean, the crowd lost it, you know, and you know,
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: as I described in the book, you know, the response.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: There were a number of reasons for the response. I mean,
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: just the pure joy of seeing the band again, you know,
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: in light of everything that happened in the previous you know,
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: few months, but also the fact they kind of knew
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: what to expect in the song. And what I mean
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: by that is that they knew that Jerry was going
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: to sing I Will Survive and they were just waiting
• 6:39
  Speaker 1: for that moment. You can hear it on the recordings.
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: Every time the chorus comes up, you know, the response
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: gets more and more, you know, raucous for.
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: Those who may not be aware. So he was in
• 6:49
  Speaker 2: a diabetic coma. He almost he almost died.
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: Yes, his heart stopped when he was in the hospital too.
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: He had been given vallum he was allergic to that. So, yes,
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: he was in a diabetic coma. It was on dialysis.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, he was in very very bad shape, probably
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: much worse than we kind of know. And so yeah,
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: to see him back on stage, you know, six months later,
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: you know, it was pretty remarkable. Well, I mean, he'd
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: actually played in October. He'd played earlier with the Jerry
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: Garcia Band. So remarkable recovery. But the band also had
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: to get back on the road. They had to start
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: making money again. And when they're hearing the song, right,
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: I will survive, the fans are responding to that. But
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: the fans, you know, they also knew at the very
• 7:38
  Speaker 1: end of the tune, you know, the lyrics shift and
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: they shift that we will survive. And you know, fans
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: had been responding to that shift since nineteen eighty two.
• 7:49
  Speaker 1: I think they've always kind of recognized maybe themselves in
• 7:52
  Speaker 1: that we element. And December of nineteen eighty six, that
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: was the moment where it just kind of blows up.
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: You can just hear the response from the audience at
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: that point. You know, the idea that the Dead were back,
• 8:04
  Speaker 1: the dead Head community was still intact. You know, this
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: was you know, a really joyous moment for the fans,
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: but it was fraud because the band knew that, yeah,
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: they had to do something, you know, and the decision
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: then was all right, you know, we have to make
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: a record, you know, and perhaps even make a record
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: that's actually going to sell a few copies and make
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: us some money. You know, given the situation that we
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: are presently in.
• 8:33
  Speaker 2: What I noticed in that video is Jerry's body language
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: when he says I will survive, like he knows, he
• 8:42
  Speaker 2: puts a little emphasis on that, you know. Oh yeah,
• 8:46
  Speaker 2: And he's not one to do that, so he's not looking.
• 8:48
  Speaker 2: He's not a performative type of person on stage, you know.
• 8:51
  Speaker 2: He but even he couldn't help. But you know, he
• 8:55
  Speaker 2: couldn't hold back that emotion there.
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's so few INSS of any sort
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: of interaction right between Jerry and the audience, and I
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: mean this, this would be one of those moments that
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: you would expect it and yeah, and it's slight, it's there,
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: you know, but then it's just to move on, exactly.
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: And that's a very dead thing to do.
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: In fact, I would love to know prior to them
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: going on stage if Jerry was uncomfortable doing that, because
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: he never liked to make it about him, but there
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: was you could not you could not not play that song,
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: you know, to open that show.
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 9:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So the story of Touch a Grade begins with
• 9:36
  Speaker 2: Robert Hunter, years before The Dead performed or recorded it.
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: His nineteen eighty notebook contains dozens of possible verses, and
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: he continued changing the lyrics in concert when he performed it.
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: What do those discarded lyrics reveal about his original conception
• 9:51
  Speaker 2: of the song.
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: It's interesting. I mean he you know, listening to the
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: early performances of the tune and looking at the lyrics
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: and how they were changed. I mean, he treats it
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: very much almost you know, like a folk troubadour singer,
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: would you know, I mean I describe in the book.
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: I mean when he would perform it be acoustic guitar
• 10:12
  Speaker 1: with the harmonica around his neck. I mean, very Dylan esque.
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: The tune itself has sections, but he treated it very fluidly.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: You know. He would kind of go verse choruses bridge
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: as you know, I switch lyrics here and there. It
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: was very much an open kind of a form. You
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: would see changes to the lyrics throughout kind of the
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: between nineteen eighty to nineteen eighty two. But in terms
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: of kind of the overall shape of the song, you know,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: it's interesting to kind of follow it from Hunter's perspective
• 10:48
  Speaker 1: because it's it always seemed to be kind of a
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: work in progress, you know, and maybe you know, there
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: was no kind of kind of final idea what it
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: would become, you know, and that definitely changed once the
• 11:03
  Speaker 1: dead got their hands on it in nineteen eighty two.
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: Right the early version, the narrator sounds misanthropic, curmudgeonly responding
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: to social decline, absurdity of what's going on around him,
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: but he's responding with it's all right. Do you hear
• 11:23
  Speaker 2: that phrases genuine reassurance, weary resignation, dark humor, or maybe
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: some combination of all three, because Robert Hunter had that
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: kind of personality precisely.
• 11:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's all three. It's any interpretation you want to
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: bring to it. I mean, yes, there is that kind
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: of resigned, you know, sense of all right, Well, that's
• 11:41
  Speaker 1: just how it is. You know, there's an ironic sense
• 11:44
  Speaker 1: to it. There are all those senses to it, and
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: even with when the dead take it over, it's still there.
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: You know. It's funny that the narrator of that song,
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: it's kind of hard to pin down, you know, kind
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: of what's happening, you know, why the reactions this way,
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: But ultimately it doesn't matter, because you're right, it's all right.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: It just kind of returns to that. And I think
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: that is also a very kind of dead lyric too,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: you know, standing in the face of any type of
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: adversity or anything that's going on, or any absurdity, It's
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: all right, you know, let the situation is in charge,
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: and you know, we'll take care of it.
• 12:25
  Speaker 2: And going back to the we will survive part at
• 12:28
  Speaker 2: the end, Hunter initially saying we can get on by,
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: but Garcia changed it to the more personal I will
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: get by before the song returned to we will survive
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: at the end. How important was that movement from the
• 12:40
  Speaker 2: individual to the collective in creating the song's emotional impact.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: I think it's incredibly important. I mean, it's the debut
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: performance of Hunter doing it in nineteen eighty. You can
• 12:51
  Speaker 1: listen to the live recording on Internet at archive, and
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: you know, when he says we you hear a response
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: from the audio, you know right away. You know there's
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: a sense of you know, wanting to be involved, you know,
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: And this is always something I think very much part
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: of the Dead culture. Dead fans always kind of sensing
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: this relationship, you know, imagining this kind of communal relationship
• 13:16
  Speaker 1: to it. When the Dead took it over, I think
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: they understood definitely the rhetorical impact of what that meant
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: to the song and to the fans. You know, so
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: I kind of trace, you know, how that section gets shifted.
• 13:33
  Speaker 1: You know that we can get by, get on by.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: You know, Hunter would always kind of vary those texts
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: a little bit, but you're right, as soon as it
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: got with the band, I Will Survive, We Will Survive,
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: you know, became a very kind of established form. But
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: what I think is very interesting is understanding when that
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: shift occurs, you know, in the song itself, because said
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: it had been occurring earlier in performances, and it kind
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: of took away from the dramatic impact of when that
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: kind of really hits with the audience. And so by
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: the end of nineteen eighty two, as the band continued
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: to kind of mold it on the road, that's when
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: they decided to wait for the We Will Survive to
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: put it at the very end of the tune. So
• 14:22
  Speaker 1: instead of just one more chorus, it now becomes a coda.
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: It becomes this triumphant coda where you know, you can
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: feel the expectation and the drive kind of building towards it,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: which is a much more dramatic musical, rhetorical effect than
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: what was happening before, you know, when the shift took
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: place earlier in the song and I.
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: Love you could hear Jerry really hit the chords hard.
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: Man, Yeah, definitely, you know, and it's interesting, Yeah, you
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: hear it and he's hitting it hard. It's you know,
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: you listen to some of these early performances, it's because
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: they're still like figuring out the tune, you know, because
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: the is continuing to change each night, you know, night
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: to night it might change, and so I just imagine
• 15:06
  Speaker 1: what it must have been like on stage, you know,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: being a musician and having performed you know, doing live improv.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: You know, not sure quite you know where this is
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: going to happen. You know, there was a lot of
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: kind of uncertainty in some of those early performances. You know,
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: it's fun to listen to those, really.
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: Is Yeah, that that extra you know, like I said,
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: when he's hitting those cordially hard, it's like defiance or
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: it's it's just something there's something in there that it
• 15:32
  Speaker 2: was coming out of Jerrea at that moment. You could
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: feel it. And they debuted it on September fifteen, nineteen
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: eighty two, Capital Center in Maryland, performed it for nearly
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: five years before recording it. How did the song evolve
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: during that period? How different was the first performance from
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: the eventual studio version, not just lyrically, but the pace
• 15:51
  Speaker 2: of it, Right, it's a little faster in their early only.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, what's interesting if you listen to some of
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: the earliest recordings, and one of them was from nineteen
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: eighty two, there is a studio kind of recording. It's
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: one of the earliest recordings of the tune, and it's
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: it's a lot of the shape is there, most of
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: the melody and the chords and stuff there. The form
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: is there, you know, for from what we've become familiar
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: with it. One of the main things that's very different
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: about it is the song is has a halftime feel
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: instead of you know, that strong snare drum on two
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: and four, and it's more of this reggae feel that
• 16:35
  Speaker 1: d d d dam dum dum, you know. So it
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: has this kind of slower groove to it that kind
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: of fits in with some of their more contemporary tunes
• 16:46
  Speaker 1: that also kind of had, you know, this reggae type
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: of feel, you know, Roe Jimmy and tunes like that, Right,
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: But they got rid of that, you know, within a
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: few months. Within a few months, they start playing it
• 16:59
  Speaker 1: more with that driving backbeat with the snare drums on
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: beats two and four, And once they start incorporating that,
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: that's really when the tempo starts to pick up at
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: that point, and yeah, it becomes, you know, just kind
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: of this barn burner type of song on many occasions.
• 17:18
  Speaker 1: But by the end of nineteen eighty two, until you know,
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: really the end of their career, the arrangement stayed essentially
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the same, you know, in terms of the forms with
• 17:31
  Speaker 1: this section, what comes next, the lyrics, et cetera, and
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: all that. The instrumentation, though, is going to change a
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: little bit once they go into the recording studio in
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven and start kind of experimenting with some
• 17:45
  Speaker 1: of the arrangement at that point.
• 17:50
  Speaker 2: Was it Phil Lesh that inspired that coda ending because
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: he thought that the original ending sounded clumsy?
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, if you listen to that early recording, that didn't
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: quite no, So you know, how to end it? And
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: Jerry's the one who says, yeah, I've got to figure
• 18:03
  Speaker 1: out some way to end it. It's an interesting what
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: you can hear Lesh saying, and this is on the
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: expanded edition of in the Dark that was originally included
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: on the Beyond Description box that came out. You can
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: hear Phil Lesh at the very end saying that it
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: sounds like a song that we can get excited about,
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: you know, which is you know, somewhat prophetic, you know,
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: and it's very interesting. You listen to the recording and
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: it kind of fades out right at that moment, you know,
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: it's a very kind of dramatic thing. And so, yeah,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: it's a song they're working on. They were expanding the
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: repertoire at that time. West La Fadeaway was entering the
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: repertoire at that time. Keep Your Day Job was another
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: one too, So at the time, really it was just
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: one of a bunch of tunes that they were, you know,
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: adding to the live repertoire beginning in nineteen eighty two.
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: Before we get into the recording of it, we mentioned
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: Jerry's coleman in nineteen eighty six that forced the Dead
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: to cancel their faults at a time when the organization
• 19:08
  Speaker 2: depended heavily on concert revenue. The operating expenses around two
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: hundred and thirty five thousand dollars a month. How bad
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: was the band's financial state at that point, and why
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: did recording a new album become part of this solution.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: There is a breakdown, financial breakdown from July of nineteen
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: eighty six, and it kind of shows the you know,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: the overhead, you know that they're paying the two hundred
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: and thirty five thousand. Then it shows expected income, you know,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: and what they might expect to make from live shows.
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: And you would see these financial breakdowns, you know, throughout
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: the band's career. But what's interesting about this one is
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: that it says, you know, at the very bottom of
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: it the details, you know, what happens if Jerry doesn't
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: get any better, you know, by the time that they
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: can get on the road. And so so there are
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: two very different figures, you know, on the sheets, you know,
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: just depending upon how things go. And so they very
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: much knew that they kind of had to change. You know,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: they'd been living on the road for a long time
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: getting money by touring again. It was going to take
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: a while, you know, they needed they would it's in
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: terms of when they would get paid from these gigs
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: and even not knowing when they would get back up
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: on the road making a record. However, it's the possibility
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: of making some money up front through advances, especially through
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: the label, would be one way, finding a way to
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: tide themselves over in the meantime until they could return
• 20:45
  Speaker 1: to the road and until the record would come out.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: And so, you know, studio albums, you know, within the
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: Dead kind of history are always not always, but the
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: Dead's always perceived as a live band, sure, right, the
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: records we always hear never really were able to capture
• 21:09
  Speaker 1: what the Dead were all about. You know, we've heard
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: that story. I talk about that a lot in a
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: previous book I did on the Dead called Live Dead.
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: So the idea of a studio album was interesting because
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: most fans would not look upon the studio albums. It's like,
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: all right, this is what we're looking for, this is
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: what we're anticipating. But we weren't sure if the Dead
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: were going to be back on the road again to
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: record a live album, studio album was going to be
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: the way to do it in the meantime. Yeah, So
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: in January of nineteen eighty seven, shortly after those shows
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: in Oakland where Jerry returned, the band convened and started
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: laying down basic tracks in marine vettes for about two
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: two and a half weeks, and then through the spring
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: worked on overdubs for the record.
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Yeah, they recorded the basic tracks live on stage at
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: the Marren Vettman's Memori Laudatorium that setting. Why was that
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: so effective in capturing the studio performance?
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: John Cutler, the producer for that record, probably recommended that
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: this would be a really good way to kind of
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: get that type of energy in these recorded performances. And
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: they knew the hall very well, and they had recorded
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: in the hall and had gotten some really good recordings
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: there a couple of years earlier, and so they were,
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: you know, based upon the experience of some recordings they
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: did in nineteen eighty five, they decided to return there.
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: They brought along Gheech, Charbonneau and Lmobile, one of the
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: kind of premiere mobile recording studios at the time, set
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: up outside and Yeah, had them set up on stage
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: in morin vets empty playing through tunes. They had a
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: very you know, established set list a cent the songs
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: that you see on in the dark were the songs
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: that they recorded and that they worked on. You know,
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: they didn't really have time to fool around and try
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: out different stuff and set up on stage as they
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: normally would, played through the tracks. Oftentimes Jerry would then
• 23:18
  Speaker 1: run out to the truck and listen to the performances,
• 23:23
  Speaker 1: and ultimately it was Jerry who would decide, you know,
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: which of the kind of recorded performances of the BA
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: would be used as the basic tracks for the tunes.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he's the one that called it a largely unsuccessful
• 23:37
  Speaker 2: song looking for its right approach. So he's the one
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: that thought it needed to be slowed down.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting. In an interview with Blair Jackson in
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: The Golden Road, he talks about that, Yeah, and the
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: quote you just said, yeah, that you know, for years
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: he just didn't feel right, you know, and that we
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: just needed to slow it down. Well, he says that,
• 23:56
  Speaker 1: but it's really not that much slower than you know,
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: performances that you know were happening, you know live. It
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: was slower than some of the more recent live performances.
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: There's a performance from rich Stadium in nineteen eighty six
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: that is just blistering. It's on fire, it is so fast.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: So it's definitely slower than that. But by the time
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: they get back out onto the road in the spring
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty seven and start playing it again, the
• 24:28
  Speaker 1: tempo creeps back up again.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: So well, I think the temple's perfect because of the
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: lyric when you think I will get by, I will
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: survive and it's all right part because it's it's very
• 24:39
  Speaker 2: laid back, It's like it's okay, we'll get by. It
• 24:43
  Speaker 2: kind of fits the vibe of the lyrics, right, I.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: Think so without a doubt. Yeah, yeah, it has an
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: easy feel to it. You know, it has a quicker tempo,
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: but you know, it just has this kind of easy
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: kind of pace and feel to it that it doesn't
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: sound and rushed, you know. And the way that the
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: arrangement of the song works too, it's not very full either,
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: and so there's a lot of space within the tune.
• 25:09
  Speaker 1: And while it has this underlying kind of you know,
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: propulsive current to it, the surface, just like so many
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: other Dead tunes, just is kind of going along at
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: a much kind of you know, more you know, slow tempo.
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: John Brackett, the author of Touch of Gray or How
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: the Grateful Dead Became Pop Stars. So Jerry credited Brent
• 25:29
  Speaker 2: Midland as the father of the new arrangement. What did
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: he bring to Touch of Gray that transformed its identity
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: and helped unlock its commercial potential.
• 25:38
  Speaker 1: That main musical motive that you hear at the very
• 25:41
  Speaker 1: beginning of the tune on the keyboard. You know, I'm
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: the synthesizer. This was a musical idea. If you go
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: back and listen to the tune, it's one of the
• 25:50
  Speaker 1: first things you're going to hear is that motive starts
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: off with that long sustained note at the beginning, and
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: then this kind of nice cascading figure down that he
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: played on the organ. I think it was within the
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: basic tracks recording the basic tracks at marin Vents, and
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: when they started doing overdubs, seemed like the band kind
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: of picked up on this new idea, this new musical
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: you know, motive, and started kind of playing around with it.
• 26:19
  Speaker 1: And while he originally played it on the on the Hammond,
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: by the time they get into the studio owner are
• 26:26
  Speaker 1: doing overdubs. Brand is going to be working with some synthesizers,
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: and he's also working with a guy named Bob bray Love.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: You know, bray Love is an incredibly you know, important
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: figure in this story because basically he's the one who programmed.
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: That sound, who was Bob Brailove.
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: His background, bray Love, I'm not going to talk about
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: his you know, his full background. I'll start off by
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: saying I was lucky enough to play with him a
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: couple of years ago at a show that I did
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: in a book event that I did in San Francisco.
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: Got a chance to play with him and David Gans
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: as well, and you know, spoke with them a little bit.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: It's just it was really great because, as most people know,
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: he becomes an integral part of the band beginning in
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: the late eighties, but leading up to that he was
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: working with Stevie Wonder. He was programming since for Stevie
• 27:22
  Speaker 1: Wonder Live and in the studio. He helped to program
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: and organize this wonderful Synthesizer summit that was done at
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: the Grammy Awards in nineteen eighty five. People who are
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: watching please find that online because it's super cool. It
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: features I know, I'm gonna forget somebody here, but I
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: know it features Howard Jones, Herbie Hancock, and I forget
• 27:50
  Speaker 1: totally spacing on some of well. I think Steeah Stevie
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: Wonder is there as well, and bray Love helped to
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: get all the instruments to talk. Bray Love was an
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: early ex bert in MIDI technology, and he was able
• 28:03
  Speaker 1: to introduce a lot of these new digital technologies into
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: Stevie Wonders live in studios rigs.
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: And he introduces a distinctive synthesizer sound to Touch of Gray.
• 28:15
  Speaker 1: That's right, Yeah. The sound that eventually we end uppearing
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: on the record was created by a version of the
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: Yamaha d X seven synthesizer, which for people who kind
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: of grew up around at the time that Eric and
• 28:28
  Speaker 1: I did, probably will recognize this as one of the
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: most ubiquitous synthesizer tambers of the early eighties. You know,
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: so many top ten pop hits of that era utilized
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: these distinctive sounds that could be created on the Yamaha synthesizer.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: The DX seven was different than a lot of the
• 28:49
  Speaker 1: other commercial synthesizers at the time. It was digital, but
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: it created sounds through frequency modulation, which results in these
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: very unique kind of crystalline, you know, bell like sounds.
• 29:07
  Speaker 1: And as soon as you hear you know it on
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: you know, AHA's take on me or you know this,
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: what's love got to do with it? I mean, take
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: your pick of whatever eighties hit it was. I mean
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: the d X seven appeared on it, and that was
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: the tambre that bray Love synthesized and that Midland played,
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: And so you get this new motive added to the song.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: But then you get this tambre, this synthesizer sound that
• 29:36
  Speaker 1: would have been so familiar to listeners at that time
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: as being recognizable from this song and this other song.
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: And so that you know, through that new arrangement, and this,
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: I think is what Jerry was talking about as Brent
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: being the father of this new arrangement was really introducing
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: this more kind of a modern synthesizer sound. I think
• 29:56
  Speaker 1: I mentioned in the book. Yeah, it's the song transformed
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: from being kind of this guitar based rock tune to
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: being kind of a synth tune, you know, once it
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: got recorded for in the Dark.
• 30:08
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and just that sound alone, it sounds at home
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: on pop radio in nineteen eighty seven, just enough, but
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: it's still the dead, but it's enough for like you say,
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: people will recognize it, they feel comfortable with it, they
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: know it, and that's a huge difference maker there, I think.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: So in terms of it being your hit top ten single, Yeah.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: It sounds familiar, right, I mean, you know for audiences
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven, you know, you you know you
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: maybe you remember the Dead from the sixties, maybe you
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: never even heard of the Dead, you know at that time,
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: and so all of a sudden this comes on the radio,
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: and you know, the one thing that you can latch onto.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: You know, if you haven't heard the Dead in years,
• 30:52
  Speaker 1: or if you've never heard them, is that sound, you know,
• 30:57
  Speaker 1: And really so much about the record itself. It's a
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: very clear recording. You know, there's not a lot of
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: noise on that record. You know, you can very clearly
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: hear all of the instrumental parts and spaces. It just
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: fits very well into the field. And that's a real
• 31:14
  Speaker 1: credit to Cutler and some of the other kind of
• 31:19
  Speaker 1: technological things that they were doing with that record.
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: So the nearly six minute recording still needed to be
• 31:28
  Speaker 2: edited for radio, packaged across several formats, and supported by
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: a video. When did Touch of Gray stop being another
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: track on an album and become an obvious vehicle for
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: taking the Dead into the mainstream.
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: That's a really good question, because you know, you have,
• 31:44
  Speaker 1: on the one hand, the Dead playing live. You know,
• 31:47
  Speaker 1: once they return to the road in eighty seven alongside
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: this building momentum that's going on with the single. So
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: on the one hand, you have this incredible momentum going
• 31:59
  Speaker 1: on with touch of both on rock radio at first,
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: it soon crosses over into top forty radio, goes onto
• 32:08
  Speaker 1: adult contemporary, you know, it goes on to college rock radio. Meanwhile,
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: the video is also taking off throughout the summer. But
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: then you have the band playing live and often they
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: wouldn't even play the song, you know, and this was
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: part of their what they do. You know, they very
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: much kind of treated kind of what they did live.
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: They did not feel like they had to play that
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: song live. Yeah, that's com built the audience is right.
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: And that's where I'm going too, is at what point
• 32:41
  Speaker 2: does Arista hear the song. Do they have a fan
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: at the label who's watching them, seeing them perform live
• 32:49
  Speaker 2: and say, boy, that's a song that's going to be hit.
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: Or is it once they start forming the song that
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: somebody now realizes like, who, I think we're onto something here.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, actually it's it's I think if I'm getting.
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: Bringing God Bray Love in, you know, bringing him in
• 33:06
  Speaker 2: would tell you that at some point before recording it,
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: maybe they thought we could do something with this.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, no, he was brought in, you know. Also he
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: did with Midland, also worked with the percussionists as well,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: and he had worked with The Dead a little bit before,
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: a couple of years earlier. When yeah, that's important, So
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: he wasn't just brought it so no, no, no, he
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: was familiar to them. He had helped them work on
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: with the reboot of The Twilight Zone. Yeah, yes, nineteen
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: eighty five. Yeah, Nicky Hart and some of the other
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: folks in the band were making sounds and noises and
• 33:44
  Speaker 1: you know stuff for that and he had been brought
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: in to kind of assist with that. So if anything,
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: by nineteen eighty six, eighty seven, you know, he was
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: brought in because they were familiar, they knew what he
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: could do. And at that time, yeah, it was getting
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: the drummers, you know, doing some Midi stuff with them,
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: and then really getting Brailev up to speed because I'm sorry,
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: getting Midland up to speed because he was accumulating a
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: lot of the you know, new synthesizers at the time,
• 34:13
  Speaker 1: and bray Love was you know, helping him learn you
• 34:15
  Speaker 1: know what some of these would do. But to go
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: back to your question, your your point about like when
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: did this song become kind of when did people start recognizing, oh,
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: this is something maybe bigger. You know, it took place
• 34:30
  Speaker 1: much later, I think, And it actually happened when they
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: were getting ready to make the video, and by February
• 34:40
  Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty seven, Garcia had reached out to Gary
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: Gutierrez to direct the video. For people who don't know
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: Gary Gutierrez was at that time, he was a co
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: founder of a production company called Colossal Pictures, but he
• 35:00
  Speaker 1: had worked with Jerry earlier in nineteen seventy six and
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: seventy seven. He is and his production team had worked
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: on the animation sequence that opens up the Grateful Dead
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: movie and if you haven't seen that, please go and
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: see that. Jerry reaches out to him a decade later
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: because he knows that Gary is very familiar with the
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: iconography of the band, the band's relationship to the fans
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: and things like that. So yeah, he sends a cassette.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Jerry sends a cassette to Gary Gutierrez in February of
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven with like five songs on it, three
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: or five songs. He says, these are the songs that
• 35:39
  Speaker 1: we're considering for the next single. So by February of
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven, the band and Arista had still not
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: decided yet on what was going to be the first
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: single for this new record. They had already done the
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: basic tracks, they were in the midst of doing overdubs
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: at the time, but they still had no idea. A
• 36:02
  Speaker 1: couple of weeks later, by early March, there's a document
• 36:07
  Speaker 1: in the Grateful Dead archive that you see Santa Cruz
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: of the facts or a letter that was sent from
• 36:14
  Speaker 1: Colossal Pictures to representatives at Arista, and it includes an
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: early outline for the video, and in the accompanying letter
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: it says, you know, while Gary you know, wrote this
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: two Touch of Gray, we feel like, you know, this
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: idea of the skeleton marionettes would work well for any
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: of the songs that we have heard. They still didn't know.
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: They still hadn't decided yet, you know, But Gary Gutierrez
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: had you know, done the outline for Touch of Gray
• 36:50
  Speaker 1: with the lyrics and had some notes for it, and
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: that's what he sent us the outline. So probably in
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: many ways, Gary Gutierrez, the director of the videos the
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: person who probably steered the s yep towards Touch of
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Gray as being the first single from in the Dark
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: more than anybody else.
• 37:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the guy. That's the moment where the song
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: now takes a different direction and we see it go
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: up the charts. Up was it seven or eight on
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: the charts?
• 37:19
  Speaker 1: Nine? Nine?
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: It was peaked, ye, peaked at nine. So yeah, the
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: polished Touch of Gray video. Also the informal Dead Ringers
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: documentary and Len Delamico's Experimental So Far presented three very
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: different versions of the band. Talk about those films. What
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: did they communicate about who the Dead had been, who
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: they were becoming, and how they wanted new audiences to
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: perceive them.
• 37:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot there, because, as you point out,
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: there were a lot of films and videos in nineteen
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: eighty seven, and this is an important point because the
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: Dead were not strangers, were no strangers to combining film,
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: moving images, and music, you know, going back to the
• 38:07
  Speaker 1: Dead movie. A bunch of projects around in nineteen eighty,
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: you know, with their fifteenth anniversary. So by nineteen eighty four,
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: Jerry was head of a committee that was in charge
• 38:22
  Speaker 1: of preserving and organizing the Dead's video faults as well.
• 38:29
  Speaker 1: They're thinking about video throughout the eighties. However, what they're
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: not thinking about is MTV. They never were really interested
• 38:38
  Speaker 1: in MTV. In fact, they actively resisted any exposure on MTV.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: There's from meeting minutes from a meeting in nineteen eighty four,
• 38:51
  Speaker 1: there's some threat from one of the Dead's legal representatives
• 38:55
  Speaker 1: to MTV. Right if you show any clips author clips
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: of the Dead on MTV, you know, there will be
• 39:02
  Speaker 1: serious trouble, you know. But this all changes, obviously once
• 39:07
  Speaker 1: we get into you know, nineteen eighty seven. They know
• 39:11
  Speaker 1: they have to make a video. They also are very
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: much aware that their fans are going to be a
• 39:20
  Speaker 1: little bit nervous, maybe a bit skeptical, uh, and definitely trepidacious,
• 39:28
  Speaker 1: little trepidation in there about the Dead now appearing on MTV.
• 39:34
  Speaker 1: You know, for a group like the Dead, you know this,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: you know, existing outside of the mainstream, you know, was
• 39:42
  Speaker 1: a very very important thing, and this was very much
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: true for the dead Heads as well. You know that
• 39:47
  Speaker 1: there was this community, this thriving community that existed outside
• 39:51
  Speaker 1: of the musical mainstream. MTV, for many people represented the
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: mainstream of the mainstream, and so on. You know, it
• 40:02
  Speaker 1: came time for the Dead to make a video, they
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: were very careful. You know, they kept it in house.
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: You know Gary Gutierrez that you know, with somebody that
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: people knew and they were familiar with, so okay, they
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: could expect something that was kind of approved by the band,
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: but they still had to convince them a little bit.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: And I think that's where the Dead ringers the making
• 40:23
  Speaker 1: of video kind of comes into play. And whereas you know,
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: the video is you know in heavy rotation on MTV
• 40:33
  Speaker 1: and Friday Night videos and things like that. The Dead
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: also produced a standalone making a video and it was
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: directed by Justin Kreutzman, the son of Bill Kreutzman, and
• 40:48
  Speaker 1: in it you get about a half an hour of
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: you know, behind the scenes footage and interviews with the band,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: behind the scenes kind of scenes of making the marionette.
• 41:00
  Speaker 1: The production of the videos, well, I mean it's very
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: much in line with so many of the other making
• 41:05
  Speaker 1: of videos from that era.
• 41:08
  Speaker 2: They brought in real fans, right Oh yeah, that's the
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: thing that you could pick up on that it's a
• 41:14
  Speaker 2: genuine part of that video. It's which in that area
• 41:18
  Speaker 2: you could very easily there are a lot of videos
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: like that where you just see people in the audience.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Like these are these brilliant fans, but they were No, definitely, yeah,
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: And that was the other when they produced the video,
• 41:29
  Speaker 1: they were originally going to use cutaway footage of the
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: audience from the Grateful Dead movie. Now that was filmed
• 41:38
  Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy four, and so.
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: Wouldn't well, of course, you know, I believe they call
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: that a continuity error. Maybe is that what they called?
• 41:49
  Speaker 1: I think so? And so, you know, quite quickly somebody
• 41:54
  Speaker 1: was like, we cannot do that, and so by the
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: middle of March, end of March, they had decided that
• 41:58
  Speaker 1: they were going to film significant portions of the video
• 42:04
  Speaker 1: in front of a live audience in between two shows.
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: Two concerts at Laguna Seca in Monterey, and on May ninth,
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven, the Rycooter Bruce Hornsby in the Range
• 42:21
  Speaker 1: and the Dead played a show in the afternoon. By
• 42:24
  Speaker 1: the early evening the show was done, fans started heading
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: back to the campgrounds. Meanwhile, they started setting up the
• 42:31
  Speaker 1: stage for the producing the video. A little bit later,
• 42:35
  Speaker 1: they go over to the campground people who are working
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: on the video. At some of the deads. People start
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: bringing fans back to the stage area asking them to
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: if they, you know, want to be part of the video.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: So yeah, when you watch the video, they cutaway shots
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: were filmed overnight at lagun Seka and those were the
• 42:55
  Speaker 1: people who were at the show. And it's great. I
• 42:59
  Speaker 1: was had an interview with Monterey Paper, going to be
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: doing an event in Monterey in a few weeks, and
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: the person who was interviewing me, remember that, and he
• 43:11
  Speaker 1: was had, you know, one thing I remember about the
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: video that really stands out is that, you know, some
• 43:15
  Speaker 1: people were actually singing along to the song and I
• 43:20
  Speaker 1: was like, but but this is a new song, how
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: could you possibly know the words to this?
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: You know?
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: And so it's it's very interesting because one of the
• 43:28
  Speaker 1: the important components of that video was to show that
• 43:32
  Speaker 1: connection between the band and the audience, you know, and
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: to have the audience there, you know, singing along, whether
• 43:40
  Speaker 1: it was the band lip syncing or it was the
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: marionette's on the stage, you know, that's what you hear.
• 43:48
  Speaker 1: You know, if you watch the video, there are moments
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: where you can hear the audience. Soundtrack kind of blended
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: in to the performance as well, and Yeah, Like I said,
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: this was a kind of a key component of you know,
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: getting the fans involved. But that Dead Ringers video, I
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: think a significant part of that was kind of to
• 44:09
  Speaker 1: kind of make sure that fans knew that, you know,
• 44:12
  Speaker 1: this was, you know, just a one off thing, you know,
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: that what was going on with a touch of gray video.
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: I think Phil Lesh and the Dead Ringers video said
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: you know, we'll do one and then we're done with it.
• 44:25
  Speaker 1: But they did Hell in a Bucket right, well, they
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: did Hell in a Bucket. Yeah, they also did Throwing
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: Stones as well.
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I've ever seen that one.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: Yep, check that one. Both of those latter two were
• 44:38
  Speaker 1: directed by Len Delamico and yeah, the same person who
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: also did the so Far video. Now that's so Far
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: video that dates back to nineteen eighty five that includes
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: footage of the band playing on stage at Marin Vets
• 44:54
  Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty five, those same sessions that Cutler remembered
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: and thought, okay, these were very well before, let's do
• 45:01
  Speaker 1: them again. So that footage, along with some live footage
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: from later in eighty five, is what kind of makes
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: up the bulk of the so Far video. It's kind
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: of repurposed quickly, you know, following you know, a touch
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: of gray and in the dark, but tied in to,
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: you know, things that were going on at the label.
• 45:27
  Speaker 1: That's where this is all going at this point. You know,
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: the Dead Ringers making of and then so far we're
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: the first two videos of Arista's video division West six,
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: and so there's this close connection, you know, between what
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: the Dead are doing and you know, the ability to
• 45:48
  Speaker 1: continue to make videos but also market those videos in
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: different ways as well, but still closely connected with what
• 45:58
  Speaker 1: was going on at the label too.
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: Find the bookdown Rock website at booked on rock dot com.
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: There you can find all the back episodes of the show,
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: the latest episode in video and audio, links to all
• 46:10
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• 46:13
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• 46:18
  Speaker 2: and x. Also check out the booked on Rock blog.
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: Find your local independent bookstore, find out all the latest
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: hot rockbook releases, and before you go, check out the
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: booked on Rock online store. Pick up some Booked on
• 46:30
  Speaker 2: Rock merch. It's all at booked on rock dot com.
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: There's this myth that all of this is an accidental
• 46:38
  Speaker 2: success story like Jerry's, the one that insisted that the
• 46:42
  Speaker 2: success wasn't planned and just worked out that way. Why
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: has that mythology of accidental success remained so powerful? Do
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: we Dead fans not want to think of the Dead
• 46:54
  Speaker 2: in a way where you've got this coordinated campaign. It's
• 46:57
  Speaker 2: got the radio, the MTV, the tell television, to print media,
• 47:01
  Speaker 2: the summer tour, it's all packaged.
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I do believe that. I do believe there's you
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: know that we don't want to believe it, you know
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: that we want to believe that this just was serendipitous
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: and then it just kind of happened, and it's you know,
• 47:17
  Speaker 1: Jerry may have said that, but you know it's Dennis.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: You know McNally writes in the you know, the Biography
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: of the Dead, that big thick one. You know, John
• 47:26
  Speaker 1: Cutler supposedly at that time was walking around wearing shirts
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: that said think Platinum. So you know, there's some conflicting,
• 47:35
  Speaker 1: you know, kind of reports about what's going on there,
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: and you know this is not new in the Dead.
• 47:40
  Speaker 1: There's lots of conflicting reports and so yeah, it's it's
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: interesting to think about because, yeah, there is a lot
• 47:47
  Speaker 1: of coordination. You know, there's a lot of savvy planning.
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: You know, when the they started testing the song, it
• 47:55
  Speaker 1: didn't really test well with younger listeners team magors or
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: adult women. Quite quickly, you see Arista start. You know,
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: they're putting something on the Dead in Spin magazine. You know,
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: this is something that is designed specifically to get younger listeners.
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: You know, this is a magazine that's not rolling Stone,
• 48:19
  Speaker 1: this is covering new stuff. Even MTV. They'd been planned.
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: You know, there was a Day of the Dead special
• 48:29
  Speaker 1: on MTV in August, and that had been planned in May.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: You know, they had been coordinating that in May. And
• 48:36
  Speaker 1: so if you do start looking at the documents, you
• 48:40
  Speaker 1: do see that, yes, this is a very coordinated, methodical rollout.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: And you know, this is how hits are made. You know,
• 48:50
  Speaker 1: one of the one of the executives at Aristis said,
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: you know, basically, we're doing what we're doing with the
• 48:56
  Speaker 1: Dead is what we did with Whitney Houston. Wow.
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: I mean, it's dim impressed that they made a band
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: that existed for more than twenty years feel suddenly current,
• 49:06
  Speaker 2: you know, I mean that's not an easy thing to
• 49:08
  Speaker 2: do and let's not forget.
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: I mean, you know, okay, maybe all of this happened,
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: you know, and that there was this coordination, but in
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: many ways, you know, the deads were able to kind
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: of continue to maintain that integrity, you know, in a
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: certain way. You know, they were still able to kind
• 49:32
  Speaker 1: of do it their own way. And although they reached
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: this kind of commercial potential and it had this you know,
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: very methodical and planned distribution and promotion, the Dead did
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: it in such a way that it never really felt slimy,
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: if you know what I mean. You know, it did
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: feel organic, and much of it probably, you know, there
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: was a significant amount of organic. But at the same time,
• 50:00
  Speaker 1: you know, there was some resentment among you know, older
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: fans towards what was going on. The scene was changing.
• 50:07
  Speaker 2: Without a doubt, the influx of touchheads.
• 50:10
  Speaker 1: Got that that was the name. Yeah, but you know,
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: the fact the fact that Dead.
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: Fans knew that this song had been around for a
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: long time certainly helped. It wasn't a song that was
• 50:18
  Speaker 2: just manufactured out of nowhere, like we need a hit
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: single precisely, you know, Yeah, let's let's have somebody, let's
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: have an outside song. When to come in and right,
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: it's a hit single. So I think that went a
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: long way.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: No, And I think that's an important point you bring
• 50:30
  Speaker 1: up there, that yeah, this wasn't something that was manufactured. Maybe,
• 50:35
  Speaker 1: you know, all of this stuff with the label is justified,
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: but the fact of the matter was is that, all right,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: this is a song we all know, and this isn't
• 50:43
  Speaker 1: some newly crafted song that's supposed to kind of you know,
• 50:47
  Speaker 1: appeal to the pop audience is necessarily.
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: The influx of touch heads. Okay, so now you've got
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: a whole new new visibility that I guess both validating
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: but unsettling, because you've got these opportunistic vendors, you've got drugs,
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: gate crashers, increased police attention at the concert scene. The
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: culture of the show's changed, particularly in the parking lot,
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: known by Dead fans as the lot. So talk about
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: that change, how it affected Dead culture in a I
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: guess in a positive way, in a negative way, but
• 51:24
  Speaker 2: there was certainly the negative. Yeah, the band had to
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: make adjustments.
• 51:29
  Speaker 1: Now, without a doubt. You know, the lot itself, you know,
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: had existed for a while before that, and you know
• 51:38
  Speaker 1: it was generally pretty calm. You know, there were always issues.
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: You know, John Sheer, when the Dead's promoter was constantly sending,
• 51:48
  Speaker 1: you know, notes to concert venues saying, listen, we know
• 51:51
  Speaker 1: how you know the reputation of the Dead. You know,
• 51:54
  Speaker 1: we need your help and you know, kind of having
• 51:58
  Speaker 1: an orderly concert experiencevarience so venues and operators. By nineteen
• 52:05
  Speaker 1: eighty six, you know, knew what to expect with Dead
• 52:07
  Speaker 1: audiences and the scene around the lot. But by nineteen
• 52:11
  Speaker 1: eighty seven, it really it all changed. As you said,
• 52:15
  Speaker 1: a lot of opportunistic vendors coming in, a lot of
• 52:19
  Speaker 1: trademark infringement, a lot of drugs being sold, a lot
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: of public consumption of drugs and alcohol led to increased
• 52:28
  Speaker 1: undercover agents there. It was often of kind of a
• 52:34
  Speaker 1: very dark scene. It could be a dark scene out there,
• 52:39
  Speaker 1: but it's interesting you looking through the Dead archive, there
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: are plenty of notes too. Members of the organization would
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: often walk through the lot and take notes about what
• 52:53
  Speaker 1: they were seeing at the time, and we're trying to
• 52:56
  Speaker 1: come up with, you know, solutions to how we could
• 52:59
  Speaker 1: make this better. You know, it was all it's all
• 53:01
  Speaker 1: very difficult because the Dead and their organization were always
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: very reluctant to make hard and fast decisions about how
• 53:10
  Speaker 1: they were kind of kind of going to work with
• 53:13
  Speaker 1: their fans. They always kind of wanted to let the
• 53:15
  Speaker 1: scene take care of itself. But by nineteen eighty seven,
• 53:20
  Speaker 1: and definitely by nineteen eighty eight, this was really untenable,
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: you know, with what was going on in a lot.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: But also, you know, the concerts themselves. Gate crashing became
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: pretty common as well, and you start getting that and
• 53:32
  Speaker 1: you you know, you're not going to get booked at places.
• 53:35
  Speaker 1: You know, Towns aren't going to want you in their
• 53:37
  Speaker 1: cities aren't going to watch you. Venues aren't going to
• 53:39
  Speaker 1: want you, and so you know, you're at this spot
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: where you might be at the top of your game,
• 53:44
  Speaker 1: but you can't get gigs, and so it was tough.
• 53:49
  Speaker 1: It was tough for them. There was there's a note
• 53:53
  Speaker 1: when the Dead were getting ready to review their their
• 53:59
  Speaker 1: contract with their looking over the terms of the new contract,
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: and one of the terms was that the Gravel Dad
• 54:05
  Speaker 1: will perform you know, three full length concerts, you know, tours,
• 54:10
  Speaker 1: you know, per year to support these records, you know,
• 54:15
  Speaker 1: And in the margins of the draft of this contract,
• 54:19
  Speaker 1: the band's lawyer, Hal can't says, is this possible or
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: something to that effect. Are we able to do this still?
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: You know, and this was nineteen eighty eight. They were
• 54:29
  Speaker 1: really unsure of what the future was going to hold
• 54:32
  Speaker 1: for these live shows, just given you know, kind of
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: how you know the scene had changed during that time.
• 54:41
  Speaker 2: Thanks so much for checking out the book down Rock podcast.
• 54:44
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• 54:48
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• 54:50
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• 54:52
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• 54:56
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• 54:58
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• 55:08
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• 55:14
  Speaker 2: at Booked on Rock. Thanks again for listening. Now back
• 55:18
  Speaker 2: to the show. It did give the band enormous leverage
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: in its new agreement with Aristas. Let's talk about that,
• 55:24
  Speaker 2: because they got control over commercially releasing recordings from the fault.
• 55:31
  Speaker 2: How else did that agreement help transform The Dead from
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: a touring band into a cultural institution capable of sustaining
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: itself long after Jerry's death, as we obviously can see.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: I mean, they still have a huge following.
• 55:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so, you know, as I talked about earlier, Dead
• 55:49
  Speaker 1: hadn't released full length album, you know, in six years.
• 55:54
  Speaker 1: When in the Dark came out in nineteen eighty seven.
• 55:56
  Speaker 1: It was the last album that they owe to Arista
• 56:01
  Speaker 1: for the terms of the contract that they had originally
• 56:04
  Speaker 1: signed in nineteen seventy six. They had finally fulfilled the
• 56:07
  Speaker 1: terms of that contract, and what a better way to
• 56:10
  Speaker 1: do it than Within the Dark. You know. By October
• 56:13
  Speaker 1: of eighty seven, it was platinum. You know, the band
• 56:16
  Speaker 1: was now playing stadiums regularly, and you know, it was
• 56:20
  Speaker 1: just only going to get bigger and bigger for the
• 56:22
  Speaker 1: next few months. So they really kind of you know,
• 56:25
  Speaker 1: held all the cards, you know, when it came time
• 56:28
  Speaker 1: to negotiate, you know, with Arista in nineteen eighty eight,
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: and yeah, a lot of great rates for CDs and
• 56:37
  Speaker 1: LPs and cassettes. At that time. They were also granted
• 56:42
  Speaker 1: permission to release recordings with Dylan from some of the
• 56:46
  Speaker 1: Dylan and the Dead performances, those would be coming out
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: on CBS. But as you mentioned, yeah, one of the
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: things that Arista agreed to is that the band would
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: be allowed to produce and distribute recording from their vault,
• 57:01
  Speaker 1: live recordings, unreleased recordings from the band's fault. And at
• 57:04
  Speaker 1: this point, by nineteen eighty seven, it's massive, you know,
• 57:07
  Speaker 1: this is has recordings on all variety of formats, you know,
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: dating back really to the late sixties. And as most
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: people know, this is kind of you know, what are
• 57:19
  Speaker 1: the these kind of holy places, you know, the Grateful
• 57:23
  Speaker 1: Dead vaults, you know, with all of these recordings.
• 57:26
  Speaker 2: The Dix picks is that that's not Arista though, is it?
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: No? No, And this is what ends up happening is
• 57:31
  Speaker 1: that with this new agreement with Arista, the Dead now
• 57:35
  Speaker 1: granted permission to produce and distribute their own archival recordings
• 57:40
  Speaker 1: themselves through Grateful Dead Productions. And this was something that
• 57:47
  Speaker 1: the band had been thinking about for more than a decade.
• 57:51
  Speaker 1: Shortly before they signed to Arista, they were thinking about
• 57:54
  Speaker 1: forming an archival label called Ground Records. The time, this
• 58:01
  Speaker 1: was when the band had their own label, Grateful Dead Records.
• 58:04
  Speaker 1: But this was right at the moment when that label
• 58:06
  Speaker 1: was about to fold. So when the Dead signed with
• 58:10
  Speaker 1: Arista in nineteen seventy six, one of the clauses that
• 58:15
  Speaker 1: Arista put into that contract was that the Dead would
• 58:19
  Speaker 1: not be able to release recordings from their vault throughout
• 58:23
  Speaker 1: the term of the contract. Clive Davis, execs Arista wanted
• 58:30
  Speaker 1: the Dead to focus on making studio albums and playing live.
• 58:34
  Speaker 1: They didn't want them kind of doing any sort of
• 58:36
  Speaker 1: side projects at that time. So by the time we
• 58:40
  Speaker 1: get to nineteen eighty seven, this is an idea that's
• 58:42
  Speaker 1: been percolating for a long time because the Dead understand
• 58:47
  Speaker 1: the need, not really the need, but just the value
• 58:53
  Speaker 1: of these recordings, but also just the fans want them, right.
• 58:59
  Speaker 1: I mean these they have access to the audience recordings,
• 59:02
  Speaker 1: but to have access to the Dead soundboards, you know,
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: the demand is the demand for those recordings are great
• 59:08
  Speaker 1: among fans, and so this is one of the major
• 59:11
  Speaker 1: things that Arista agrees to let the band do as
• 59:15
  Speaker 1: part of the new contract. It would take them a
• 59:18
  Speaker 1: few years before they started doing it. Nineteen ninety one
• 59:22
  Speaker 1: would be the first archival release and it was called
• 59:25
  Speaker 1: One from the Vault. It was a show from San
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: Francisco in nineteen seventy five the Great American Music Hall.
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: The Dix Picks series started in the following year, and
• 59:39
  Speaker 1: this is, along with the one from the Vault, is
• 59:42
  Speaker 1: really where we start seeing, you know, these archival releases
• 59:45
  Speaker 1: that are being distributed directly to fans by the Dead,
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: no relationship to any sort of you know, major label
• 59:52
  Speaker 1: Arista is not involved at this point. You know, this
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: is an enterprise that the Dead were pursuing on their own.
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: All the market is and production costs they are doing.
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 1: But as we as many of us know, and if
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 1: you still follow the Dead now, these archival recordings still
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: continue to be, you know, one of the most lucrative
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 1: you know, well maybe not the most lucrative, but one
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 1: of the most important ways that the Dead Rhino records
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: are able to kind of still connect with fans.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: You just put out a new one from ninety one,
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 2: I think, right.
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 1: They're yeah, they're coming out all the time. They're still
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 1: you know, releasing you know, the box sets. I think
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 1: they have a twenty disc set of shows coming out
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: later this year from nineteen eighty five. But yeah, the
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: Dave's Picks series, just what you're talking about yeah, I
• 1:00:47
  Speaker 1: think they're up to number fifty nine now with Bob
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: we are gone.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: Who makes the decision? Wasn't he the one making the
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: decisions with with Mickey Hart and Kreutzman or no.
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: As far as you know, to my knowledge, what is
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: being released as part of these archival series, much of
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: it is up to, if not all of it is
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: probably up to the final decision making of a person
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: named Dave Lemieux. Oh, yes, Yes, who's the Dead's archivist
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 1: and legacy manager.
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: He's on Serious XM channel, the Dead Channel. Yes, several
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: channels now, they have the studio songs Live Dead. I
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: think they have three different channels there.
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's most recently the play Dead app as well,
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: which I think is uh. I haven't checked it out yet,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 1: but it probably will pretty soon.
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 2: But I hear him often on there.
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 1: Yes, and he's the one I would get who probably is,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: you know, choosing it? Probably has the final say at
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 1: this point, you know, I'm not sure how much input
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: you know, Kreutzman or Heart you know would have early
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: on in the process, though Phil Lesh of the band
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 1: Phil Lesh was the one who had been most involved,
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 1: especially with the early Dix Picks series, but in terms
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: of the more recent ones, I'm not sure what the
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: band's involvement is or.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: Was when you consider the financial security and the lasting
• 1:02:22
  Speaker 2: legacy alongside the deterioration of the concert scene. Was the
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: success of Touch of Gray ultimately a gift, a burden
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: or something that the Gravel that could never have received
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: without getting both.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a little bit of both again. I mean,
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: you know, we talked about it at the very beginning.
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: I mean, this is this is a difficult moment for
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: some people. You know, things still change, and I talk
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: about it through the book. You know, what does this
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: moment mean for different generations of listeners? You know, but
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 1: you know, ultimately it's i mean, we're still talking about
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: the Grateful Dead sixty years later. You know, this is remarkable,
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: you know, I mean, the fan base now seems bigger
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 1: than it's ever been and all ages. You know, it's
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 1: just remarkable to see, you know, who is listening to
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: the Dead now at the same time, you know, the Dead,
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: how they're influencing other bands as well, you know, and
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: just kind of listening to what is happening, not even
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: just with the jam band scene, but just how you know,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: people like Gillian Welch and David Rawlings are kind of reimagining,
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 1: you know, some of these Dead tunes as well. I mean,
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: they've really created a body of music that so many
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: different artists and musicians can kind of tap into. And
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 1: I'm wondering about that visibility, you know, I mean, would
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 1: that visibility, you know, be different? You know, would the
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 1: Dead's legacy be different if this song hadn't hit? You
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 1: know what if circumstances had been different in eighty six,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 1: you know what if Jerry didn't get sick and they
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 1: just kind of continued to be you know, kind of
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 1: plot along. They were playing arenas and they had this
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: kind of core, you know, constituency. You know, they could
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 1: have existed, you know, but would we still be talking
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: about them sixty years later? You know, I don't know,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 1: but you can't deny that, you know, a lot changed
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: in this moment, A lot really changed for better for worse.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 1: You know, we don't know. History will tell us.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: The book Down Rock Podcast is part of the Boneless
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: podcasting network. If you're a fan of classic rock and
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: classic film like I am, go to Boneless dot Lovable
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: Dot app to find over twenty great shows there that's Boneless,
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: donlovable dot app or just go to book down rock
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: dot com, the Boneless podcasting network. It is what you
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: want to be Listen with confidence, touch of Gray or
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 2: how the Grateful Dead became pop Stars. It's officially out now.
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 2: I think it came out on the day we're recording
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 2: this August fourteen, right, actually came out just last week.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: Last week. He came out, Okay, yeah, August four And
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: this is a special time in Dead history. Jerry was
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 2: born August first, nineteen forty two. He passed in August ninth,
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: nineteen thirty five. So this is a special It's a
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: bittersweet time for Dead fans. We celebrate all that great
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: music and the community lives on, for sure. I went
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: to a tribute show two three weeks ago here in
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: my hometown and lo and behold me. It's mostly older
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 2: people fifty sixty, seventy, some even maybe older. But get
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: you get a couple twenty some things in there, and
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 2: they're dancing and they're love it. They're having a great time,
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: and I always love seeing that, and I mean, I
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 2: think that's going to continue. I think Bob Weir's his mission,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 2: his vision for what was going to because even Jerry's
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: too back then, it was going to go beyond the
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: members themselves.
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, I mean one of the things that, Yeah,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: when I spoke with David Gans a couple of times
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 1: and when I played with him, you know, he always
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: talks about, you know, that they're playing Grateful Dead music.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: You know, it's almost like a genre in and of itself.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: You know, we're no longer really just talking about the band,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 1: you know, anymore, We're really just talking about a much
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 1: kind of larger phenomenon.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: Yep. Where can people find you online?
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: John? You can check me out at dead scholar dot com.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 1: You can find some links to some of my other
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: writings there, and also some of the events book events
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: that I've got coming up beginning in a couple of
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: weeks through October. And I also have a substack account
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 1: too called Grateful Documents that I will kind of do
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: shorter essays. I'll look at some archival documents that, you know,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: if I've examined, you know, throughout the years, and just
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: talk about them a little bit, why they're significant, what
• 1:06:53
  Speaker 1: they show us, and what they talk about. And so yeah,
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 1: those are kind of the two primary ways of seeing
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: what's going on.
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 2: That's great. This is one of my favorite reads this summer. John,
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 2: thank you so much for writing about this particular song. Again.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 2: The story is fascinating. It's got so many angles to
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 2: it and such a history to it, and there's more.
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: It's much more than just a song that they needed
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 2: to hit and they recorded it. I mean, it goes
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 2: back so far and it continues to this day and
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 2: I can't stop listening to it. I love it. I
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 2: don't care, I don't have I'm not embarrassed to say
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 2: I love that, and I tell you I love and
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: I know it didn't do as well, foolish heart, I
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 2: love it, you know, yeah, you know that's that's it.
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: I'm proud to say that. All right, John, Thanks so much.
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: This was this is great. I'd love I'd love to
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: have you back on again down the line, maybe for
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 2: that previous dead book or whatever you got coming in
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: the future.
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: No, i'd love to. Yeah. I had a great time.
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 1: Thank you so much. That's it. It's in the books.