Latest / Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann / #136 Dave Davies / Economic History of Grateful Dead / A Decade of Shows / Entertainment Finance

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#136 Dave Davies / Economic History of Grateful Dead / A Decade of Shows / Entertainment Finance · Come Together with Ephraim Herschmann

0:01
Welcome to another episode of Come Together
0:15
and we're Live. Dave Davis.
0:17
Davis, welcome. How are you?
0:20
I'm great Efren, how are you? I'm doing great.
0:23
I am excited to talk to you and I really appreciate the quick
0:26
turn around time. I reached out to you on Sunday,
0:28
today's Wednesday, and I already started the book and and I, you
0:33
know, I reached out to you because I saw that you wrote
0:36
this great book called Economic History of the Grateful Dead.
0:41
And this was the day after I found I discovered your book the
0:44
day after Bob Weir died, unfortunately, and I had to just
0:49
reach out and I wanted to kind of have a laid back podcast talk
0:52
to you about some of your dead memories, writing the book, what
0:56
you learned about writing the book and the, you know, the
0:57
perspective that you had. And, and then and then the bonus
1:01
feature is that your entire professional career, other than
1:04
this great work of, of information has been an industry
1:08
that I'm particularly fascinated and that's the entertainment
1:11
finance. So I'm excited to talk with you.
1:13
Well. Let's do it.
1:17
OK, beautiful. So take which, where, where do
1:20
you want to start? You want to start talking about
1:23
your, I guess your introduction to the dead and their music and
1:26
some of your experiences. You want to start with writing
1:28
the book. How do you want to start this?
1:29
Yeah, I I'll just do it chronologically.
1:31
So when, when I was 16 in 1975 was the first time I saw Jerry
1:39
Garcia play. And where?
1:41
Were you? Where were you living?
1:43
I was living in in Andover, MA, right outside Boston and in the
1:49
starting in 1976, I, I saw the Grateful Dead over over mostly a
1:56
10 year period. I saw them 82 times.
2:00
I I kind of stopped in the mid 80s because it wasn't as fun,
2:07
but times over over 10 years. I bet, I bet, I bet.
2:13
I've heard that from a lot of people.
2:14
I heard that from the mid 80s especially because it got so, so
2:18
packed and, and, and the venues got so enormous that it became
2:21
harder to maintain that kind of feel.
2:24
From for their last ten years, the dead were like almost every
2:28
year they were the top the top box office attraction in the
2:32
United States, so. Yeah, yeah.
2:35
Well, I mean, nothing really gets more authentic, especially
2:38
like as you get these hints and whispers and leftovers from the
2:43
60s and 70s. You know, like I think that that
2:46
kind of became romanticized and became this whole little culture
2:48
that people wanted to partake in, whether it was, you know,
2:51
quote UN quote authentic or not. But you know, people were want
2:54
to participate in it. Well, Jerry was still there.
2:57
So I think it's authentic that whole period, the last just that
3:02
they they were so tremendous when I was younger in in the
3:06
late 70s and the early 80s. It's just they were so
3:11
tremendous. I didn't even want to see them
3:13
so much after they got huge. And plus I saw, I saw the
3:19
Grateful Dead play in places of 2004 thousand people you know,
3:24
instead of 50,000 and 70,000. Yeah, it's those those those
3:31
those smaller shows are always better.
3:33
I went to, I mean, I went, I, I, I prefer to go to, I live in
3:38
Hollywood, FL, South Florida and there's a Hard Rock venue here
3:41
with about 5 to 7000 seats maybe.
3:44
And the acts there are top tier acts that typically would go
3:49
around to stadiums. But it's a real privilege to get
3:51
to see whoever that, whoever it is play there.
3:54
You know, I've seen, I took my wife to see John Fogerty there.
3:58
We, I, I know that that Springsteen was playing there,
4:01
but his tickets were like 1200 bucks apiece just to walk in the
4:04
door. And that's the that's the
4:05
problem with having these limited venues with such a big
4:08
act. Yeah, but a lot of big acts like
4:10
to play at a small venue if they can, and especially back to
4:15
that. Yeah, it was.
4:18
There's, there were all kinds of interesting ideas like the, the,
4:22
the dead between when they started in 65 and then by the
4:27
time 71 rolled around, which is pretty early, they're, they were
4:32
getting 5000 bucks a night and playing places like the Felmore
4:36
East and that kind of thing. And so already they were making
4:41
was what they thought at the time was a really good amount of
4:44
money. I mean, you can't even compare
4:47
what bands make now, you know, like Taylor Swift tour or Bruno
4:54
Mars tour or whatever. You can't even compare that to
4:57
how the world was back in the 70s and 80s.
5:01
Yeah, because we found we, we have never ending ways, excuse
5:05
me, of sucking value out of consumers.
5:08
So, and, and we became much more creative with our ability to, to
5:13
really, I guess, merchandise. And you make that point in the
5:16
book about how the dead really, you know, the whole, the whole
5:19
entertainment industry was really at his infancy.
5:22
And the dead were Trail Blazers and so many different ways of,
5:26
you know, T-shirts and merch and mailing lists and, and all this.
5:31
And people would camp out by the concerts and, and have these
5:35
booths with it sell their stick and, and all this cute stuff.
5:38
That was all really to encourage.
5:40
And you know, actually something I meant to, I meant to ask that
5:43
I've always and curious about, you know, I go to I go to Dead
5:46
Cover band or I go see Dark Star or J Rad or something like that.
5:50
And they sell their concert posters for, you know, 50 bucks
5:54
apiece or their T-shirts for 45 bucks.
5:58
Now I know I sound like I'm complaining, but that almost
6:03
sounds convoluted almost to the spirit of what the Dead were
6:08
with so much free stuff and so much family.
6:11
Or I almost felt like a family more than a business.
6:14
But I then I think back to, well, if the concert tickets
6:18
were, I don't know, $20 a ticket pre inflation in the 1960s and
6:22
1970s, that's not very cheap to go to a concert, right?
6:24
No. No, no, they weren't 20.
6:26
They were. They were.
6:27
They weren't $20 till the 90s. Wow, OK but but Even so, let's
6:33
say in the 60s and 70s or selling tickets for three 4-5
6:36
bucks. Yeah, for sure.
6:38
In the 60s and when I first saw the dead in 7677, I like $6,
6:45
seven dollars. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
6:48
And So what do you think that would be to people today post
6:53
inflate, you know, to to kind of match with match with inflation?
6:56
You think that'd be like paying 40-50 bucks?
6:59
You know, even if there were four or five times as much, I
7:02
mean, that's what I mean. It's just that tickets are just
7:04
so expensive to see any band nowadays.
7:08
And then on that, we didn't have things like, you know, service
7:13
fees, yadda, yadda, yadda fees. Yeah, I have a friend that's in
7:18
the ticket industry and he says that he goes, you want, you want
7:22
to open up a world of corruption, You want to open up
7:24
a can of worms, slide down, slide into the ticket, the
7:27
ticket business. He says that he knows of some
7:31
big companies that personally buy tickets to concerts as the
7:34
brokers and resell them as ticket sellers.
7:40
And I mean, that's like the S&P holding stocks and then deciding
7:43
who, you know, inside any kind of trade, you know?
7:47
That's well, the music business has always been known as like
7:50
somewhat shady finances and all kinds of issues.
7:55
Like, I mean, there's a, there's a good, there's a good story in
7:59
my book about there was a concert up in Maine in 1980 in
8:03
Lewiston, ME. It was the biggest concert of
8:06
the year. And the Dead got paid $100,000,
8:10
which was the most they got paid at any show that year.
8:13
And I think it drew 25,000 at 10 bucks or something 25,000.
8:18
But it was there were two promoters of this.
8:24
One was the local Maine promoter who was just a normal guy.
8:28
And the other promoter was this guy that it turned out later was
8:33
a huge marijuana supplier in Maine who would fly in in
8:39
private airplanes from the Caribbean in Britain.
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And that's what finances that concert.
8:46
And the the promoters lost like $75,000 on that concert.
8:52
And later on, they reported that they had lost $100,000 when they
8:58
were when they were arrested. Oh, yeah.
9:00
We, we, we've laundered the money into rock concerts like
9:04
the Grateful Dead and Lewis that made.
9:07
And it's like it's fascinating that that the, the kind of
9:11
people that were involved in the music business even back then.
9:16
So. Yeah.
9:17
Yeah, there was. I mean, that's the entire
9:19
entertainment world was really filled with financial
9:22
corruption. I've read a couple of books
9:24
about that, about Hollywood's studio heads taking creative
9:27
liberties with with budgets and such like and such.
9:31
But yeah, I what's so funny is it feels to me that even though
9:40
the dead by almost unanimous accounts, you know, really were
9:45
not manipulative, especially with money in any way, shape or
9:49
form, and they prefer to lose money or get ripped off rather
9:53
than participate in that. Then, you know, even though they
9:58
themselves could kind of keep their hands clean or say that
10:01
they never did anything wrong. I'm sure there's a lot of weird
10:04
stuff going on, going on all around them, right?
10:06
There was, but I mean, they were smart as early as they could to
10:13
partner with people that they've been working with for like a
10:16
long time. So jump here was the East Coast,
10:21
northeast New England New Jersey promoter.
10:24
What was his name? John Shear.
10:27
John Shear got you. Yeah.
10:30
Still around a little bit, but Sean did, they did the, they,
10:38
they, they, they promoted all the shows outside of the Bay
10:42
Area starting in 7576 for like a 20 year period.
10:48
And they, I looked at, when I was able to look at documents
10:53
for like the Grateful Dead's concert economics, individual
10:57
shows and all this stuff like that.
10:59
They were so good at being precise and so fair and honest.
11:07
So like it was unusual in the music business because Scheer
11:11
and, and Monarch Entertainment, they, they, they were, they were
11:14
honest. And so the Dead did business
11:17
with them for 20 years. And it was like it was, it was
11:20
basically the split of the revenue that shows between the
11:24
Dead and the promoters. And they were their promoters
11:28
outside of the area. So, so that, that that was a
11:33
great experience for them. And I, and I give them a lot of
11:36
in my, in my book, I talk about them a lot about how how Monarch
11:40
was just so good at being fair and came up with creative ideas
11:45
and booked him in the right size venues and all this.
11:48
And then there was a known famed promoter in the Bay Area named
11:53
Bill Graham. The.
11:55
Legendary The legendary Bill Graham.
11:57
Legendary guy. And there's a lot of evidence
12:03
that Bill kind of ripped off the bed a little bit.
12:07
Yeah, well, he he would justify it, but he did OK.
12:11
So, but Bill also was so good at promoting them that they get to
12:17
play in bigger venues. They would make more money.
12:20
So I think he would. And you know, I'm getting these
12:22
guys a lot of money. I'm going to take my piece.
12:24
So I mean, they would have a little dispute every once in a
12:28
while, the debt management and, and, and Bill Graham.
12:32
But it's hard for me to call him like unethical or compared to
12:40
other people in the business or, you know, or ripping them off,
12:45
even things like that, because he also made them a lot of money
12:51
by the way he promoted them and marketed them in the Bay Area.
12:56
Like I moved to Berkeley in 1980.
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And so by first, you know, 40 times I saw the Grateful Dead
13:06
was on the East Coast prior to that between 76 and 80 and 80.
13:10
And then all the shows I saw after that were in, in either in
13:17
San Francisco, Oakland or Berkeley for the my last, you
13:22
know, 44 shows or whatever. They would play so often.
13:29
And he knew exactly how many times they could play and where
13:32
they'd sell out. And like, so, I mean, I can't
13:36
really give him any grief, even though he, you know, he might
13:42
have fudged some creative. Liberties.
13:44
So yeah, yeah, I want to hear, I want to hear a couple of things
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go back a little bit first. So first of all, how do your
13:55
parents feel or your family feel about your newfound fascination
14:00
with this, with this band? And I know that not everyone
14:04
probably was thrilled that their kids hopping off to, especially
14:08
with the reputation that preceded the Grateful Dead.
14:11
What were you like? What, what was the reactions
14:14
like? What were these concerts like,
14:16
especially in the East Coast in the in the mid 70s?
14:18
Because I know that you started showing up, right?
14:22
The band took a quote UN quote break for 75 pretty much.
14:25
Yeah. And and then as soon as they got
14:29
back on, and I think that was those were, I believe, according
14:33
to Dennis McNally, the coke years, that's when everyone is
14:37
really getting fond of coke on the scene as opposed to
14:39
psychedelics. Did that have a difference in
14:42
the in the concerts and the performances?
14:44
Did you get that it was a tangible different feel of the
14:47
crowd? What was that?
14:48
What was all that like at the time?
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OK, so #175 I went away to prep school outside Boston my parents
14:57
would be and starting the next 77, I started going to College
15:04
in Maine. So I wasn't anywhere near my
15:06
parents. They were like at the house.
15:10
I used to hitchhike back then to concert.
15:13
I could go through the concerts I went to and see which ones I
15:16
hitchhiked with or I'd get a ride.
15:19
But I, I would go in the late 70s after the break the the
15:24
Grateful Dead took, I would go to all the shows in New England.
15:29
And then starting in 77, I went to New York City and English
15:35
town New Jersey, he states. In upstate New York.
15:39
I did all that and I continued to, I would I would find more
15:43
friends with cars and stuff like that.
15:45
So I would go to as many shows as I could and they typically
15:49
were on the weekends because of school.
15:52
I would try not to to to take too much.
16:01
There was a lot of cocaine, but that didn't really wasn't really
16:04
around more in where I was in Maine or in the Grateful Dead
16:09
scene maybe till 79 or 80 and probably in the early 80s too
16:14
when I moved to Berkeley. So I guess you can go back and
16:21
listen to some of the shows and you can tell when they're like
16:25
when the dead are like doing coke.
16:27
No, for sure you can and you can tell.
16:30
I think it was that Binghamton show that you and I were talking
16:32
about that that has a really dreamy, Spacey first set that
16:38
China cat into like this Spacey jam for like, you know, in
16:42
between. I know China Cat, I know you
16:44
rider and and you can just see the psychedelic state.
16:51
But I've also noticed on my own trips, like, you know, I've
16:53
tripped and and listened to a couple.
16:55
Yeah, I've listened to a show or two and I mean the format of the
16:59
shows follow the format of a trip almost, almost, almost
17:04
exactly In Sync. And in the sense that the the
17:08
shows start at a very happy light mode, you know, throwing a
17:12
couple of the Bob Weir Westerns that that everyone loves and you
17:16
know, China Cat and a couple of Berthos and fast moving songs.
17:20
And then and then, you know, you kind of get as the quote UN
17:24
quote ego loss happens. Or as you know, the trip kind of
17:26
comes to a climax. You get dark star or Franklin's
17:30
or space or drums and you kind of end up all far out and all
17:34
weird. And then they kind of pull it
17:35
all together and sing you back home and and the whole and that
17:40
follows like the step of every of any psychedelic I've ever
17:43
done. And almost like AT and so it's
17:46
really cool that they've kind of fashioned the whole the whole
17:49
set as as one strange trip. That's an interesting take you
17:55
have. I'm not going to argue with it
17:59
because I've experienced the same thing and you just think
18:04
that, wow, this is like done for me.
18:08
You know, the, the, the, the, the shows, especially in the
18:14
late 70s were like so phenomenal and they were always like, all
18:24
the songs were different from all this other shows around
18:27
then. And they would bring songs back.
18:30
And it's like, that was that was the key era for me as a concert
18:37
co-owner. You know, it's so interesting
18:40
because like, OK, so the Dead, I'm just going to tell you,
18:47
nobody has ever written about this other than me.
18:50
But the Dead were the top concert act as early as 1973.
18:55
And a lot of that has to do with those big shows they did with
18:58
The Allman Brothers and the band Watkins Glen Park, a stadium.
19:04
And when they took a break the next year, when they did the big
19:09
the big Wallace Sound shows, they couldn't play that many
19:13
shows. So they weren't even in the top
19:15
10 of, of, of artists. But so by the time they came
19:20
back starting in 76, it took them a few years to become
19:24
really popular again. And so by 78 and 79, they were
19:28
in the top five. And then later in the 80s and
19:32
the 90s, they were often #1 and #2 and what's interesting to me
19:39
is that over the entire, you know, 2530 year history of the
19:44
Dead, they were the top grossing concert act in the United
19:50
States. And of course, I mean, just like
19:56
sheer number of concerts, times tickets sold because someone
20:00
like The Rolling Stones would come in every three or four
20:03
years. And you know, and their average
20:06
buildings were three or four times as big as the Dead were
20:09
playing Dead might be 10,000 and they would be paying playing 30
20:13
or 40,000 a night. But it's interesting to me that
20:21
people didn't really don't realize how big of a deal the
20:25
dead were. So.
20:28
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's really cool.
20:29
Do you want to take me through the wall of sound, especially
20:33
from an economic standpoint, because that thing was like
20:37
glorious and a headache and magical and probably a fortune
20:42
to deal with. And as you mentioned, they
20:44
probably they couldn't tour as effectively because of how much
20:47
a headache. I'm sure that's part of the part
20:50
of the context, part of the equation.
20:53
But you want to tell, you want to tell me at least from what
20:56
you can kind of figure out financially about the wall of
20:59
sound and what was about? Yeah, I don't have all the
21:01
information on the Wall of Sound, but no, they spent, they
21:05
spent a lot of money creating the Wall of Sound.
21:08
And one of the biggest issues were in 73, like I said, they
21:12
were the top grossing actor in the country.
21:15
But by creating the Wall of Sound, they were only able to
21:18
play, instead of playing like 80 shows a year, they're all of a
21:22
sudden they're playing 40. And a lot of that had to do with
21:27
the fact that that they had to haul that stuff around and they
21:35
couldn't play Friday and Saturday in two different
21:37
cities. So they had they could only they
21:41
had to take extra day off. And so there was that the dead
21:46
didn't the dead in 73 because of those giant shows they, they
21:51
were sell, they sold 13,000 tickets a night.
21:55
And in 74 with the Wall of Sound, they only sold 10 because
21:59
a lot of those wall of sound shows were in small venues like
22:04
Winterland. Some of the college gigs they
22:07
played early in the year. Remember, I looked at this about
22:15
I looked at this that they, it cost them something like 30 or
22:24
40% more to set up the wall of sound and play in any individual
22:30
they like Springfield Civic Center.
22:33
So it just it just like they weren't making any more money.
22:37
They were going to sell out these venues anyways.
22:40
So in my, in my book, there's some, there's some analysis, all
22:44
the, all, the, all the data that I could find on the wall of the
22:49
sound, but just there was economically a good decision for
22:53
them. Yeah, but they did it.
22:55
They did it for the same reason to do anything else, which is
22:57
because it's fun or because they felt like it.
22:59
That was the end of it. You know, I think.
23:03
I mean, I tried. I tried a little like that.
23:04
It's really difficult to. But, you know, I think that I
23:09
think the more you practice it, the better, the easier it is.
23:11
Yeah. You also noted that the college
23:13
campuses tended to make more money for the dead as opposed to
23:17
these other places. Can you explain kind of why that
23:20
would be? And and they were pretty
23:23
prolific as far as visiting campuses.
23:26
Oh yeah well, number one, they had a lot of fans that were
23:29
college students, especially starting in 1970 when they made
23:34
American Beauty Working man was like totally.
23:40
The fans were interested in playing, having them come to the
23:44
campuses. And if you're making a deal at
23:50
the Fulmore East or the Winterland or like Bill Graham,
23:53
like these people, I'm telling, like I was telling you before,
23:56
they're going to pay the debt what they pay them always, you
23:59
know, 5 grand early on, you know, those kind of things like
24:03
that. But when you plan at college
24:05
campuses, you're negotiating with students.
24:08
And so the students don't know how much to charge.
24:11
And so instead of you getting like 5000 a night, they make
24:14
sure you might be able to get 10,000 and that.
24:17
And you see that, you, you see that.
24:20
And it was pretty normal. Just because they're, they're
24:24
just not sophisticated and they don't know and they wouldn't get
24:28
them completely. Most great Grateful Dead
24:31
managers wouldn't gouge them. But I mean, they're going to
24:34
make more money playing there. Also, because there was some of
24:39
their early shows at college campuses in 1971 at Cortland
24:45
State and then at Yale University in New Haven then
24:50
those were the biggest shows the Dead ever played up to that
24:53
point. So it wasn't it was it was in
24:57
the earlier days. Those were some of the best
25:01
venues for the band to play out. Were you at?
25:05
Did you get, Did you get to go to the Cornell show, the famous
25:08
77 Cornell Show in Ithaca? No, I went to the Boston show
25:13
the night before. Yeah.
25:16
And then I've been trying to find people that go that, that
25:19
that have been there because that was that, that is that
25:26
might be other than 72. Like the quintessential Dead
25:29
album is the Cornell one at least the live 1A.
25:33
Lot of people like it, so yeah. In Boston the day before.
25:39
So in in 77, because I saw three shows in upstate New York in
25:45
November at Colgate in Hamilton and Rochester and Binghamton,
25:53
and among my friends, we thought those shows were better.
26:00
Than Cornell 77. But you know that there's an
26:03
amazing recording of Col. Cornell.
26:07
What's also interesting about Cornell is that the debt had a
26:11
real big dispute with them over over payment.
26:17
Real big meaning like, I don't know, $100 or something.
26:20
They went on for a really long time.
26:24
Really the university didn't want to give it to them or do
26:26
they claim that? I know that a lot of times
26:29
people, more people show up at the gate or whatever then, you
26:32
know, had tickets. It's a famous.
26:35
On the documents I've seen that it's like there was some dispute
26:40
over like the cost of some item or you know, whatever.
26:44
But I mean again, nowadays it's like rounding error, but back
26:48
then. That's the deal.
26:51
Yeah. Definitely, definitely.
26:53
And what about what about the Festival Express?
26:55
Because, and I don't know if you wrote about that or not, but I
26:59
watched that movie and I remember reading about that book
27:01
and thinking to myself, Oh my God, like that sounds so cool.
27:05
How come that doesn't happen more often?
27:06
And the answer must have been that it was a logistics
27:08
nightmare or it made no money like everything else that they
27:12
did. But I mean, something stuck.
27:15
So I mean that. And I know that that was one of
27:17
the most, that was one of the most well known trip.
27:21
You know, it's tours that they took other than, you know, the
27:23
Europe tour, that tour but and maybe Egypt or whatever.
27:26
But I thought that was crazy. Yeah.
27:29
Yeah, it, you know, it wasn't really a Dead Dead organized
27:33
event. It was like a lot of other bands
27:35
were playing. It's almost like a festival, but
27:37
they're on a train show in Winnipeg and they played a big
27:42
show in Toronto like that. And.
27:46
And they didn't get paid that much because, you know, it's,
27:51
it's the 60s. Yeah.
27:54
Like tracking that stuff. There's a few good articles in
27:57
Canadian newspapers about that torto.
27:59
Oh really? I bet.
28:00
I bet they probably don't look at it in the most positive
28:03
light, right? Whatever, you know, like these
28:06
hippies came on 30,000 hippies came on to the field and you
28:13
know. They know what to do with it.
28:15
They know to do with that information what?
28:17
There's some cool footage of the dead plane acoustic like.
28:20
Yeah, yeah. Those those early tours, they'd
28:24
open with that acoustic set and then close the electric one.
28:29
Yeah, I only, I only saw the dead do that once, so.
28:33
What the acoustic one? Acoustic set and then two
28:36
electric sets. When do they do that?
28:38
Well, it was 80, so it was the IT was the when they did the
28:42
shows in Warfield and Radio City, and then I did the New
28:47
Year's Eve show in Oakland. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
28:52
And so the other thing that I want to talk to you from the
28:55
business perspective, at least as far as debt goes, because you
28:59
said that in the late 60s when the dead really started
29:03
exploding, I think was 69 was the was 68 or 69 was the.
29:06
Are they really as far as finances and tickets sold really
29:10
exploded. And one thing that you said that
29:12
was really relevant or a big first for them was their first
29:16
major debt to a record label. And I don't think people quite
29:20
understand how that works, the dynamics and interactions.
29:25
So if you could explain that, I'd really appreciate it.
29:27
Yeah, yeah. I mean, a bunch of San Francisco
29:31
bands started getting record deals.
29:34
I think it's like 67 or 68, like the first.
29:37
I think 67 is when the first Grateful Dead record came off
29:42
and they didn't get paid very much.
29:45
And I actually have in my book, I actually have all the stuff
29:50
from the contract, but I, I just don't remember off the top of my
29:54
head, it's something like $20,000 or not very much.
30:00
And then what, what happened was they recorded the, the record
30:08
over a period of time. And like every other artist back
30:11
then, you, you would the, the record label would like make,
30:16
you have like a make good. So like, OK, you owe us 60,000
30:21
now because you spent that much on studio time and you only made
30:26
and including the 25,000 or whatever.
30:30
And so it's like nobody would ever make any money off those
30:37
unless you were Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young or Led Zeppelin
30:42
who would make a fuck load of money.
30:46
These other artists didn't. And so the Dead didn't really
30:49
start making money till about till American Beauty and and
30:53
working man Deads came out and then Europe 72.
30:57
They figured out ways to start making money.
30:59
And then in the late 80s when they made that, that album in
31:05
the 80's, the album A Touch of Grey on it, that's when they
31:09
really started like getting advances and making a lot of
31:12
money. But a lot of that that I have
31:15
information on everything that I have is in my book.
31:18
So when you base so so now if I'm the dead in the in the late
31:22
60s and I owe the record company, I owe them 60 grand.
31:28
I pay them back by touring, I pay them back by making another
31:32
album. How do I how do I pay?
31:33
How do I pay this back? Only paying back by selling more
31:37
albums, making more albums and then when the contract's done in
31:41
three or four years, it basically gets written off, goes
31:45
away. So then if.
31:48
You were in that it doesn't stay forever.
31:50
So it's, it's a little bit complicated and it wasn't like
31:55
they owed them the money. It's just that we're not going
31:58
to pay you any more money until, until you sell more albums.
32:06
So that way they get like they they can latch on to the next
32:10
345 albums or something. Gotcha.
32:14
So record deal is not all. The is not is not the end all be
32:17
all as far as financial freedom goes.
32:20
No, but I mean, because there's just so few artists that made
32:24
money off records even even today it's like that.
32:29
They make it off touring and the Dead, that's why the Dead
32:35
toured, you know, 80 * a year for 30 years.
32:39
So. Well, I mean, I'm sure it was
32:42
because. Yeah.
32:43
And I and I, and I wonder at what percentage of that time was
32:46
because they had to and what percent of the time because they
32:48
wanted to, you know, but. Percent because they wanted to
32:54
maybe and when they're having issues with Garcia and his
32:59
substance abuse problems, maybe they didn't want it to.
33:01
He didn't want to tour as much, but.
33:04
Yeah, yeah. I think he was sick and tired of
33:06
being the the Jerry Garcia that we know him as today and wanted
33:09
to be the little bluegrass Jerry Garcia that that he was in the
33:14
early days. But you know, we can't.
33:17
You can't put the genie back in the bottle, unfortunately.
33:19
What do you what do you think of John Mayer and Deneco?
33:23
I saw I've seen Deneco maybe like 6 or 7 times starting in
33:30
2015 when they started and the last two shows I saw were at the
33:37
Spear in 2024. What do you think?
33:41
I think John is an excellent guitar player.
33:46
And I just kind of like, I'm an old guy.
33:52
I like listening to my old Dead shows, you know, as more.
33:57
But I mean, it was fun to take a bunch of people who had never
34:01
seen members of the Grateful Dead like my wife so.
34:07
Yeah, what do you think of the Sphere as a venue?
34:10
Oh, it's very fun. I thought it was great.
34:12
I saw two shows there so I was lucky.
34:15
I would love to part of the sphere, so sorry.
34:19
From two different parts of the sphere.
34:21
I saw one show from like near the stage and one in the second
34:25
level. Would you like more?
34:30
I don't know, I like them both. You're like, well, that's a good
34:32
answer. I would love to go see.
34:34
I would love to go see those shows and and I think you're
34:37
right, yeah. I don't spend a ton of time
34:40
listening to dad and Co. They're a different pace for me
34:43
than I think I would. I would like in general, and,
34:49
but I think John Mayer, whenever it's funny, it's hard.
34:53
It's harder for me to listen to him jam than it's much easier
34:55
for me to watch him jam. I, you know, I picked up the
34:58
guitar a couple of years ago from becoming a Deadhead,
35:01
obviously. And, and it's, and, and to watch
35:05
him really is a source of inspiration.
35:08
I know that. And there are thousands of
35:09
stories of, of bad trips that have been rescued as a result of
35:13
just sitting there and watching Jerry, Jerry playing on his, on
35:17
his guitar. So I think that, you know,
35:18
regardless of the tempo or the pace of your preference, he
35:21
carries that that spirit of this, this magician that's just
35:26
talking with, it's just talking to you for and laughing, you
35:30
know, then the guitars have different sounds.
35:32
I feel like Jerry's guitar always had like a little laughed
35:35
here, a little sense of humor, like a little.
35:37
And again, that might be just me anthropomorphizing, but that's
35:41
what it always feels like to me at least.
35:43
You know, it's interesting. I, I respect John for everything
35:49
he did to the dead scene, but I also got to see John play with
35:54
Bobby. Rest in peace, Bobby.
35:59
Where? Yeah, rest in peace, man.
36:02
Cheers to him man. Here in at the Greek, which is
36:06
5000 people at the Greek LA in the park and he, John Mayer sat
36:13
in for the second set of one of those Wolf Brothers shows with
36:17
Bobby. I think it's 22.
36:20
So those were the last three shows I saw two at the Spear and
36:24
this one that one so. Yeah, we need a Bob.
36:28
Bobby Weir is always, always weird, Always, always, always.
36:34
It's funny. And like if you take his this
36:37
style music that you would play and write, it didn't always
36:41
necessarily fit in the way that you would imagine.
36:44
And I love that little story that you did reference about how
36:46
he and Pigpen shortly got fired from the band in the in the late
36:51
60s, early 70s. And it's just so funny to think
36:54
about because looking back, like what would have happened and how
36:58
they even came to that conclusion, you know, But they
37:01
like it's everyone, you know, they're basically myths at this
37:06
point. They're basically legends at
37:07
this point. And they're not.
37:08
People talk about them like they all know them at the time.
37:11
They're a 20 year old just playing music together and just
37:14
figured like, hey, man, like, you know, like we're not, you
37:16
know, we're not, we're not digging this right now.
37:17
And you know, we'll try to get in the future maybe.
37:19
But they're just people at the end of the day.
37:23
You know, I think Bobby, if that if they would have got, you
37:26
know, 1968, whatever it was, they wouldn't have been a member
37:29
of the Grateful Dead. After that, Bob Weir would have
37:32
played some bunch of other bands like he did.
37:36
That's. Right.
37:37
I've seen so many bands. Rat Dog, the Bob Weir Band, he
37:42
wrote some. He wrote some great songs on
37:45
those other albums that aren't Dead albums.
37:49
I love it. Oh yeah, I didn't even know
37:50
though. I don't know his songs from the
37:52
Not Dead ones. I have to check them out if you
37:56
if you want to let me know a few.
37:58
My estimated profit might be my favorite for that.
38:00
My favorite. My favorite that he wrote.
38:02
I love estimated profit. Yeah, I remember when the
38:07
estimated profit, when I first saw it, it's like they would
38:10
just play it in like the middle of the first set or whatever,
38:13
just a little 5 minutes. So they did a good job with that
38:18
song. Yeah.
38:21
It's fun to see and actually I was talking about this to
38:24
another guy I was talking to recently.
38:25
I don't even remember who it was because I talked to too many
38:27
people, but I but I was talking about how when I listen to when
38:31
you, especially when you're following a band, you could
38:34
listen to the Dead or Springsteen or Dylan or anyone
38:37
that has a lot of bootleg recordings and you could see
38:40
snippets of their future songs in the in the years leading up
38:44
to it and where the songs are coming from and the bare bones
38:47
and, and what the influences were.
38:49
And one thing I did notice was with so much fun and what makes
38:52
what made the the experience is probably so much fun too, was
38:55
that the dead were always playing with different genres in
38:58
the same night. There, you know, there often
39:00
would be 234 bands playing and they would mix up the genres
39:05
like crazy. I mean, you'd have some Blues,
39:06
you'd have some rock, you'd have some, some other San Francisco
39:09
bands, you'd have some pop rock, a Fleetwood Mac.
39:12
So you know, I mean, there's some really cool.
39:15
So I, so you you pick up a lot of other musical influences
39:18
while you're there. Before I wrote this book, I I I
39:26
wrote my blog on the Dead called Grateful Seconds Blogs.
39:32
It's up. I have over 500 pieces up there
39:35
over a year period. And just like I was like, here
39:39
are the cool shows that with Bobby doing something, or here
39:43
are here are here are my favorite shows from 1977 or
39:47
whatever. And so I really, I really
39:51
studied, I really studied the, the, the well, I've been, I've
39:58
been studying them for 40 years, so 50 years now. 50 years is
40:03
crazy, 50 years is amazing. And it's going to, it's going to
40:06
keep on going. I'm excited to see what what
40:08
happens. But the music never stops as far
40:10
as, as far as, as far as they're concerned.
40:13
And and that's, that's what's awesome.
40:15
They created a real world that just, they created a little
40:19
Organism that just continues. And it's this little spirit that
40:22
just keeps on going and it influences everyone in all sorts
40:25
of crazy ways. It's really, really cool.
40:27
I want to actually, so at the end of your so late 80s, you
40:32
stop going to these shows, you decide to start growing up a
40:35
little bit and, you know, growing old going up and you
40:39
decide and, and, and you, you have a career in the
40:43
entertainment finance industry. How did that happen?
40:47
And how did you even go about finding that, especially because
40:51
I imagine that that kind of job is for someone from LA, you
40:55
know, that that was in the entertainment scene their whole
40:57
lives. And then they say, you know
40:58
what, I'm more of a money guy than a creative guy.
41:01
And so I want to do this. How do you guy from from from
41:05
Massachusetts end up doing this? Well, in 87 I had been living in
41:12
the Bay Area and, and after the Dylan Dead show at the, at the
41:16
Oakland Coliseum and one show at in, in, at Palo Alto in at
41:24
Stanford, I'm I, I moved to LA and went to UCLA Business School
41:32
and I studied entertainment management And in 89 I started
41:38
working at one entertainment company.
41:41
And then in 95 I started working for investment bank and then the
41:47
last 10 years of my career I worked for a private equity
41:51
company all having to do pretty much with what the value of
41:56
films and film assets. So like here, like if you're
42:00
looking at the value of Grateful Deads catalog of shows, how many
42:06
do they out a year? How many do they sell?
42:09
If they were to sell those, what would they worth?
42:11
It's the same kind of thing where like for various reasons,
42:16
I would look at a bunch of Warner Brothers movies from a
42:18
certain year that are going to be in a transaction between one
42:23
company and another. And and I would value what
42:27
they're worth because I became an expert at that.
42:30
And then when I was started working in private equity, we
42:33
started acquiring rights. So we would, we'd like somebody
42:38
might own a 10% interest in Stallone, might own a bunch of
42:44
interest in his movies. And he's decided he wants to
42:47
sell that off because he's going to stop being making any movies
42:51
and move to Florida. So I mean, that's the ample and
42:57
it's like there are many examples like that.
42:59
So that was my, my expertise was knowing what, what film rights
43:07
are worth. You know, we, you made $10
43:09
million last year, maybe you'll make 5 billion this year.
43:13
And I guess it's simple. Simple.
43:16
A similar mindset to how I analyze the Grateful Dead.
43:21
Yeah, yeah, totally. I mean, you could tell, you
43:23
could definitely see it. I, I, I happen to love the film
43:26
world. And so I would love to
43:29
understand a little bit more about this, because I know, for
43:31
example, that sequels always, almost always make more than the
43:35
originals, even though they're almost never as good.
43:38
So if you're going to be a private equity company or, or
43:43
you're a bank that's going to finance a movie and a studio
43:45
comes to you and says, hey, we did put Toy Story 1 grossed XY
43:49
and Z 500 million some whatever it was, you know, and now we
43:53
want to make a Toy Story 2. You take you, I'm sure you take
43:56
into account the, the history of the audience.
44:00
And do you assume that it's going to make more money based
44:03
on, based on the fact that this is a trend or how much of this
44:05
is guesswork based on trends? Or you know what?
44:09
What? How do you how do you determine
44:10
a movie's value? Well, I have the economics of
44:16
movies, millions of them, because I've looked at them, so
44:21
I know how much money they make, Make in theaters.
44:24
Used to be on DVDs and then it was like.
44:28
That was a huge market, right? And like that, right?
44:32
And when we got into buying our own movies, we would never buy
44:38
them before they're released because that's too variable.
44:44
You don't know if they're going to do 50 million or 100 million
44:47
or whatever. So we would always buy them
44:50
after. So that was it just because.
44:54
And it was really interesting because it was just really a
44:57
bunch of smart guys that I've known my entire career.
45:01
And they came up with this concept that we could we could
45:08
buy these movies or pieces of movies.
45:11
Usually it was pieces, usually like a director or an actor or
45:16
something and and that kind of thing.
45:18
So, but you would never be able to buy a piece of Toy Story 2
45:24
because Disney knows 100. Percent.
45:27
Big money. So they don't need anyone to
45:30
finance that. They don't want to share
45:32
profits. So a lot of times early on it
45:36
would be companies that are trying to like pull some
45:39
bullshit or you know, or so it's just it's interesting to find
45:46
the right people to buy movies off of and that kind of.
45:50
Thing well, I imagine like I knew you mentioned briefly, but
45:54
that the DVD sales were were real, real money makers.
45:58
So, so I'm sure that there were hedge funds, I guess investment
46:01
banks, Oregon hedge funds that would buy just for the, just for
46:06
the after DVD market, you know, so the movie opens in theaters
46:09
or it's a romantic. And the other thing I also am
46:12
curious, do you keep in mind how, how exactly if a movie,
46:19
let's say a movie cost $20 million to make and opens to
46:23
8,000,000 for the opening weekend, how do you know if that
46:25
movie is going to make money or not?
46:29
Oh, there's, there's kind of formulas that you can tell if
46:32
it's a certain kind of movie, it's going to either decline by
46:36
so much or so much more. It's all it's all mathematical
46:40
like that. But we like I said, it's hard to
46:44
it's hard to value those movies when they're only been out for
46:49
one week too. So it's value them six months
46:53
later. It depends what you're trying to
46:55
do exactly. But like right now, because I, I
47:03
kind of retired around COVID, I don't think there's even any
47:11
DVD. No, but now it's streaming
47:14
rights. Yeah, so that's that's that's
47:16
actually good and bad. But the good part is that, OK,
47:20
so like some movie comes out centers and now it's on HBO Max,
47:27
It's be streaming there for like two or three years.
47:30
So you can kind of get it. You can.
47:32
That's the that's the predominant domestic revenue
47:35
over the next few years. It's really big stuff.
47:39
But I mean, I'm retired now, so I don't, I'm not, I'm not like
47:47
up to speed on the most. Yeah, yeah.
47:50
No, I'm, I'm just, I'm, I'm curious because I think it's a
47:53
really, really cool. I think it's, I don't think a
47:55
lot of people think about the fact that there are banks that
47:58
finance movies. I know, for example, I believe
48:00
that James Cameron is famous for taking out a lot of loans
48:04
outside of the studio to develop the technologies that he wants
48:07
for his, for his movies. And so, you know, that's when he
48:11
goes to the studio and says, OK, I need as much of a budget as
48:14
you're willing to give me. And they say, OK, I'll give you
48:15
$250 million. Then he goes to a hedge fund or
48:18
he goes to investment bank. It says, hey, I got $250 million
48:21
from the studio. I need double that.
48:26
You know, I need double that for the next couple of years to make
48:29
a movie that. He might get it, he might get
48:33
it, he might get it that because he's so has been so successful.
48:38
Yeah, yeah. That's that's the point.
48:40
But it seems like such a like that it's just someone like just
48:45
just saying, hey, watch like some of your great movies.
48:47
And I see the numbers are great. And so you know what, yeah,
48:49
here's $500 million. Good luck.
48:50
Have a good, you know, hire, go, go hire a city for five years
48:54
and, and make something happen. And, and he does.
48:56
That's, that's the cool part. I mean, I, I think that all
48:58
those movies have at least the Avatar movies.
49:01
I think this third one opened over a billion.
49:03
Granted I think it was a five day weekend, but I mean they all
49:06
is all they they all three avatars have cost a billion
49:09
already. I think it was 25 years ago when
49:13
Titanic came out. I think around that and my firm
49:18
at the time, we we tried to do a deal with Fox to like it was to
49:23
ensure the performance of that movie along with some other
49:26
movies. And it went all the way up the
49:29
chain and the company and they're like, OK, we'll do this
49:33
deal. We'll do this deal.
49:34
We want to ensure it. We want to make sure it does OK.
49:36
They didn't know how well it's going to do and went up to
49:40
Rupert Murdoch, who was the head of May still be the head of Fox.
49:45
I think he is. And he looked at the deal and he
49:47
said, you know what, we're we're in the business to take risks.
49:52
We're going to business to take risks.
49:53
So he didn't do the deal with us.
49:54
So we didn't make several $1,000,000.
49:58
Wow. Amazing, amazing.
50:01
That's crazy. And how did they hire people to
50:04
that that were like in the film world or had the quote UN quote
50:07
artistic perspective or they were just purely about the about
50:10
the bottom line and try to make it about as scientific as
50:13
possible? Well, all the companies I worked
50:17
for over the years, I gained more and more experience, like
50:21
30 years. And like we all, we always use
50:25
the same people and like, we, we, we, we were pretty
50:29
quantitative about it. It was also good that I saw the
50:34
movies. It's the same way with the dead
50:36
with, you know, it helps in my book that I, I saw the dead 82
50:40
times. I saw Garcia 100 times.
50:44
I saw we are 102 times. You know it that it just it
50:48
helps when you have a real interest in a subject for me.
50:53
Yeah, definitely. The initial basis and it was the
50:56
same way in the in the movie business.
50:59
Yeah, I heard that. I heard that horror movies are
51:02
the real money makers of Hollywood, that they're so cheap
51:06
to produce, to create and produce and, and the and and,
51:12
and they're very consistent with the at least with the theatre
51:15
performances. And I know that the theatre
51:18
performance only has, you know, there's only one capat one
51:21
category of ways to make money. As far as as far as films go,
51:26
again, you talk about streaming rights or DVDs or down the road
51:29
or whatever it is. But but I've heard that that the
51:32
horror movies in particular were really are really studios bread
51:36
and butter as far as as reliability and money is
51:39
concerned. That's kind of true because
51:44
horror movies are so inexpensive to make.
51:48
You know, you're filming out in the woods in a cabin, you know,
51:52
whatever, that's your movie and you can movie that way.
51:56
And there are people like Bloomhouse that I think work
52:01
with the Universal and they're just like they're, they're just
52:04
have such a track record up with these inexpensive ideas that
52:10
can, that can perform like any other studio movie.
52:14
Yeah, and they typically do not depend on big star names that
52:20
are big, you know, big director names that you have to that you
52:23
have to really budget for. And it's a shame because I mean,
52:28
you think back to 2000 and seven, 2008, when the superhero
52:30
movies were that genre of movies where they were like, listen, it
52:33
wouldn't cost that much. Robert Downey Junior was a
52:35
gamble, you know, and you didn't know what you're going to get
52:37
with him and and you didn't know what you're going to get with
52:41
what's his name, Jon Favreau. And, and it worked and now you
52:48
now every movie, I mean, I can't even imagine what percentage of
52:51
the budget just goes to, just goes to names, just goes to
52:54
signatures and names and faces on screen that you know, you
52:57
recognize relative to what the what the movie actually could
53:00
be. Yeah, that that concept, it goes
53:02
in and out like star driven movies or or other movies
53:07
without stars, but you have a pretty good sense for a guy down
53:15
Florida. Thank you, thank you very much.
53:19
I try to keep myself updated on this stuff.
53:21
I love this stuff. I mean, because I've always been
53:23
I've always been into music and movies and I've always wanted to
53:25
kind of work in them in some capacity.
53:28
And the truth is that this podcast really gives me the
53:30
opportunity to free to freelance and learn about as much about it
53:34
as I as I as I can and kind of spread that information just
53:37
because I love there's so much fascinating stuff behind the
53:42
scenes. And it's, and again, even just
53:45
in economic history is just such a great way to just take a step
53:49
back and objectively look, forget about the reputation,
53:52
forget about the music, forget about the drugs, forget about
53:54
the crowds. Let's just talk about you can
53:57
take a literal look at the paper trail.
53:58
Although I didn't want to bring up everything was freaking off
54:01
the books then and everything was cash then.
54:03
So like, how much can you really even depend depend on the on the
54:07
books? That's true.
54:11
I don't know how much, especially when it's like cash
54:14
from the from the box office at that show that night.
54:17
I don't know how many you. I think the only thing is like
54:20
they know how much the tickets are and they know me tickets are
54:23
selling and you're selling out it.
54:25
By the time you're selling out every night, you can't really
54:28
like fudge it too much. But early on, if you want to say
54:32
only 3000 people paid, not 5000, you know, that kind of thing.
54:36
Yeah, yeah. But I even put the and I don't,
54:44
I don't know whether they're still flies or not, but their
54:46
girlfriends and wives and everything on payroll and on
54:50
salary. And I mean, I can't even imagine
54:53
what doing their accounting or or any kind of bookkeeping
54:56
looked like. Yeah, well, continue reading
55:01
through my book, You'll you'll come across some like, Grateful
55:05
Dead corporate financial statements.
55:07
They're kind of interesting to me.
55:08
They're fascinating too, because like you said, you don't know
55:12
how much you can rely on, you know?
55:16
Yeah, awesome. Well, I think this is awesome.
55:19
I'm going to put the link to your book up on the site and to
55:23
your blog, I hope. But Dave Davis, thank you so
55:26
much for hopping on last minute, making this really quick but
55:29
quick turn around. This is such a pleasant
55:31
conversation and great Bobby Weirman and keep keep on, keep
55:38
on trucking man. Thanks.
55:40
Thank you Efren, have a nice. Day hopping on.
55:42
All the best man, take care.