Thoughtful post by Jesse Jarnow on the Live Music Blog…
Over the summer, I interviewed Dead lyricist, Electronic Frontier Foundation co-founder, and professional righteous dude John Perry Barlow for a Rolling Stone blurblet about archive.org. He mentioned that he and Grateful Dead Productions president Cameron Sears had recently spoken about the situation, with Sears none-too-happy that the DeadÕs vault was basically available for free.
ÒIt made a lot of sense to have things out there for free in digital format, as long as you were selling an experience in physicality,Ó Barlow said. ÒBut, when youÕre not, when youÕve got digital-for-money versus digital-for-free, then youÕve got a problem. This is a painful truth for me,Ó he sighed. ÒThe main thing is that I want it to be possible for my grandchildren to hear the music the Grateful Dead did, and I think itÕll be a hell of a lot more possible if itÕs on archive.org than if it isnÕt.Ó
And…
The reason the shit really hit the fan(s) this week, though, is because the Dead didnÕt have anything to offer, just to reclaim. ItÕs great that theyÕre rethinking their business model, but this just seems like a poorly thought-through means of doing it, especially without an alternative distribution system to roll out (remember Round RecordsÕ proposed ice cream trucks?).
I like Jesse’s conclusion:
It was once a hallmark of the DeadÕs brand of misfit power to make the world bend to make special exceptions for their weirdness. If they can somehow muster the energy to do that again, I think the course of the spheres might be righted.
I think we can all agree on that.
And now that the GD are backing down from almost all of this – restricting soundboard recordings to streaming-only but allowing audience recordings to be downloaded as before (I mean, Duh! those recordings were MADE BY THE HEADS, fergawdsakes), we’re left with a lot of adrenalin on all sides – and some questions.
For starters, what’s the point of preventing the download of soundboard recordings from archive.org when they can (and will) still be distributed widely via torrent sites and good old-fashioned trees and vines?
I have maintained since the start of this controversy that it’s reasonable for the GD to shut off the big fat free pipe that competes directly with their own service. I don’t know how that will affect the sales of their CDs and the monthly download series – which many feel are overpriced when compared with other bands’ download offerings – but I don’t think it’s an outrageously self-serving move on their part.
As I’ve probably already said on this site, some folks seemed quite proud to step up and self-identify as members of the “entitlement crowd.” They went after the band hammer and tong, and because I spoke up with what I thought was a moderate, on-the-other-hand statement… you’d be amazed at some of the vicious emails and public attacks I’ve endured since I suggested the possibility that there was some greed on the fan side of this argument.
I’ve been playing unreleased Grateful Dead music (along with the now-rising tide of commercial offerings) on the radio for anyone who wants to hear it for twenty years now. I’ve written a couple of very well-respected books on the subject, and I’ve had the privilege of producing several CDs and boxed sets. It seems bizarre to be called a “leech” by a handful of screamers, and although I’m nowhere near as insecure as I used to be about my place in all this, it still stings when I see this kind of shit. Someone opened a topic on rec.music.gdead last week, titled “David Gans is a Douchbag” [sic]. That one actually turned into a reasonable discussion of my songwriting, of all things. Someone posted the lyrics to my song “Who Killed Uncle John?” (listen to it), which led to a pretty interesting discussion of the meaning of the song (If you like what you hear, you can buy a copy of the CD Solo Acoustic from CDBaby).
The Deadheads were among the first communities to find a home in cyberspace; as Barlow told me in our first interview, in Jamaica almost exactly 23 years ago, this is a community defined not by physical location but by common interest. The net was a perfect place for this scattered tribe to gather. Mary Eisenhart, Bennett Falk, and I started the Grateful Dead conference in the WELL nearly 20 years ago, when you needed a modem and a phone line to call in and it cost a lot of money in both phone bills and connect time – but our community thrived, and so did quite a few others. There are mailing lists, chat boards, newsgroups – a thousand ways for us to meet, and to trade tapes.
It seems clear that the money coming to GDP from CDs, songbooks, coffee mugs, golf-club covers, etc. is declining of late. The problem is not unique to the Grateful Dead scene, but the relationship between the band and fans is a good deal more complex than that of the typical CD consumer and the recording industry. It’s distressing to hear some of these music lovers denouncing our heroes for “corporatism,” “greed,” “selling out,” etc. when they attempt to change the terms of the largely-unspoken compact that we’ve had for 30+ years.
For decades there seemed to be a massive reserve of good faith in our community. It kept us coming to the shows even when the music was declining in those last few years. That good faith has been burning off, slowly at times, rapidly at times, ever since Jerry left us ten years ago. It shouldn’t be a fucking crime for the band to try to continue to earn money from their brilliant work (the Fillmore West ’69 boxed set being the most recent evidence of the value of their recorded legacy, which is vast), but I do wish they were more communicative about what they’re doing and why. And I do wish the entitlement crowd – however small a percentage of the Deadhead community they may represent – would give the band a little slack.
As I said at the outset of this debacle, however ill-advisedly, I think there’s been unfortunate behavior on all sides of the struggle.
I’ll close this explosion of wind with a lyric of Robert Hunter’s that I was privileged to set to music (also on Solo Acoustic):
Shut Up and Listen
Lyrics by Robert Hunter; Music by David Gans
Copyright 2000 Ice Nine Publishing Company
You’re so busy talkin’
You never find out
What ev’ryone else
Is keepin’ quiet about
You’re so busy knockin’
You don’t understand
The door’s wide open
Don’t go breakin’ your hand
CHORUS:
Shut up & listen
A minute or two
Shut up & listen
You could pick up a clue
Shut up & listen
Doot’ n doo doo
Shut up & listen
I’m talkin’ to you
Shut up and listen
Or you may never learn
Why pigs don’t fly
And why water don’t burn
Why you can’t find a cop
When it’s a cop you need
Why you can’t grow gators
From crocodile seed
CHORUS
Walking in the storm
With an ear to the blast
Thinkin’ each moment
Could be my last
A small still voice
Seemed to beckon within
So quiet in there
You’d hear the drop of a pin
I asked what it wanted,
Said what do you crave?
It said: nothin’ but the first dance
On your grave
I reached for the faucet
And I turned off the storm
Crawled under the bed
To consider reform
CHORUS
You don’t pay attention
You don’t analyze
An ounce of comprehension’s
Worth a ton of surmise
Shut up and listen
And it may come clear
Why the key to your hope’s
The very thing that you fear
David,
Amen….no more rants from me…I could not agree more that the Band has blown it by not having music out, ultimately that is what everybody wants. Hey at least I am reading your blog now.
All the best,
RBM
David,
According to me you are right on target on every point including the “Shutup and Listen” lyric.
Well said Amigo!
One of these days I will remember to send you my cover of that tune… or maybe you can get it from the archive!
🙂 anddave
Thanks for sharing that quote from Jesse, David. What a great thought – correcting the course of the spheres indeed.
It’s been a weird weird week in GD land for everyone, I’m sure, and I don’t think anyone went into this viciously. That’s never been the Dead’s style, and things like that don’t get added to one’s personality overnight. But I think that some very learnable moments have occurred for folks on both sides. As fans, we need to realize what we’ve been blessed with by the band and that yes, those geezers still need to make some coin. And I hope that the band has learned that decisions like this can’t happen without explanation. Yep, some of us clammored and got vicious, but regarding the people yelling at the band, it wasn’t exactly an unprovoked response. The shows disappeared, and there was utter silence.
Thanks for all you do with your Radio Show! Still enjoying it after all these years. That music just never ever gets old.
“Learnable moments” – great phrase!
And yes, I agree: that music never gets old. I still love my job!
David-i’m sorry.but i feel betrayed.in what amounted to a squabble over mostly second and third generation sbds rife with crackles,pops,cuts,diginoise(i mean no disrespect,just stating the facts),we have now reached an agreement.hooray.i just can’t help but feel like we have all been played.was it their plan all along to allow streaming only sbbs as a tease to buy their “just exactly perfect” copies?and offer the aud downloads to stop the outcry?i don’t know anymore.it’s just that after mcnally started shooting his mouth off,i got so PISSED.i feel so disrespected.i know it’s their music and they should be allowed to profit from it.i just have a bad taste in my mouth over the way this was handled.to me, the true message of the music has been falling farther away ever since the hordes of dreadlocked,pierced,runaway teenager,rave culture expatriate,conform to our subculture folks turned Grateful Dead tour into a hedonistic parking lot party.i assume i will be mocked for my position,but i’m just calling it as i see it.
Correct me if I’m wrong but software like Audio Hijack will let people capture streamed boards anyway, won’t it?
Shhhh, don’t tell GDM 😛
“was it their plan all along to allow streaming only sbbs as a tease”?
Trust me on this: they aren’t clever enough to have planned this. Nor are they that devious.
Hey David, nice to see a voice of reason here. I’ve been too busy in the rest of my life to spend much time contemplating this, but here’s my take (not original, but whatever).
I buy a lot of stuff from the GD store. I buy downloads of great shows, Dicks Picks, and I’ve been loving the 1969 boxed set which showed up on Friday (I immediately ripped it to 256k mp3, and have been listening to it on my iPod as I travelled back and forth between SF and NY this week).
I don’t like audience tapes, although I’ve recoreded my fair share. I have downloaded sbd shows from archive.org, and listened to them on my portable music player — BUT, the Dead’s versions were always better, higher quality. So I would always opt for higher quality versions.
Here’s an idea. Why don’t they allow SBD recordings, but ONLY encoded at 96k MP3 and below (or maybe 128k) If the Dead have an upgraded version, insist that a link on the download page connect to the Dead site to let listeners buy a high quality version.
Give low-fi SBDs away. clearly link to hi-fi versions. That would make everyone (except the “entitled”) happy.
I’m not inclined, at this point, to spend more money on Dead music because of this. I was about to pick up the new ’81 shows (because I was at them and remember them fondly — if only Lewiston was among them), but now I won’t. I’ll just enjoy what I already have and vote with my wallet on this one.
Anyway, still great listening to you after these years. Hope life is good!
Jim
David,
Never posted here before–thanks for your book on the Dead that came out in ’84 or so, I learned so much from it. But I can’t say I agree with your perspective on the downloads. By allowing taping and openly endorsing sharing of their live music, the Grateful Dead made their music folk music. They were well aware that doing so probably hurt their album sales. But it was an act of good faith that played no small part in creating the band’s fame and legacy. When I found their shows gathered on archive, I was thankful, and now I see naive, thinking that for as long as the internet was alive, generations would have all their great music. When they asked archive to pull the SBD’s, they were undeniably changing the way they relate to their audience. We were the “folk” that they gave their music too, just as traditional folk musicians passed songs along to their friends and family. But not any more.
David-i do not mean to make any moral judgements against anyone.but business is business and they have to protect what’s theirs.forty years in the game…they’re defintitely not stupid.
Well said David…Personally am getting tired reading all the nasty comments being leveled at both sides on this issue by the vocal minority.
On a more positive note tho just got back from seeing Phil in Boston where there were good vibes all around.There’s still alot of community left amongst us which is a good thing indeed.
Requarding the above post about ripping the sondboard streams…please don’t,sure it can be done,but you’re getting a very lossy qualiy.There are other ways to get these… No need to spread around inferior quality.
David,
Any thought on the new dead.net? Hats off to the effort good place to start.I feel kind of weird busting their balls for not doing anything regarding the net. All I can say is that I am listening to a steam of a show I was too lazy to download when I had the chance and the music never sounded so good. I feel like I just had a fight with my brother and now I have too much pride to say I am sorry.
RBM
I too will be scaling back on my purchases from GDM and still continue to boycott JerryGarcia.com because of issues I have with the Koons family. My decision has absolutely nothing to do with entitlement, which I think represents only a very small minority. ItÕs ironic that some of the same folks who would search for Òmiracle ticketsÓ are now the ones whining over the so-called entitlement claims (not referring to you, DG). ItÕs not about the money either. Much of the success of the Grateful Dead is due to the Dead community. It has always been a two-way street where both sides benefited from each other — so reading the viewpoints of certain members in the band that I have always respected (Bob, Mickey and Bill) left a little bad taste in my mouth. Fortunately, Phil and John Barlow truly have the hearts of the Deadhead community in their minds.
BTW, if they are complaining about money, why the hell didnÕt they produce more box sets of the Fillmore 69 shows? Whose idiotic decision was it to only make 10K sets? I got shutout and would have loved to get a copy Ð of course, this blunder will only contribute more to piracy of their officially released music (something none of us wants).
It is funny to read all the latest news articles saying that everything is back to normal, however, for me and many others that is not the case. I have only downloaded soundboards the past few years and really have no interest in audience tapes so this is a major change for me (and I have supported the band by buying their releases). Sure, we can go back to the dark ages of trading, but we donÕt even know if that is allowed anymore for soundboards. The sad thing about all of this is that to date, the band has still not come out with an official statement or updated trading policy. If you read the message on Archive.org, it merely states how someone goofed up and what actions are now being taken. These days, it seems that some members of the band are more than willing to take our money but not willing communicate directly with us.
I’m eerily reminded of the events depicted in Festival Express. There’s always been contigents of people with entitlement issues. That said, its clear that a lot of bad karma could have been avoided if they had come to the now current policy (SBoards stream only) directly instead of pissing everyone off first.
David, your comments seem to be the most lucid of all I’ve read so far. The name of the game, at least in regards to this issue, and I know I’m gonna get slammed for saying this, is lazy greed on the part of the vast majority of fans. Forget entitlement. The Dead still allow for avenues for the fans to get what is out there. However, for years the community was on a 1 for 1 basis. The tapes that we got usually needed a favor in return, you give me a show I don’t have, and I’ll give you a show you don’t have. That was the way the shows spread. And, in order to get started, you needed to find a “kind soul”.
A month ago, I was downloading off of the Archive.org site and reminiscing to myself about the ole’ days. I was moving around in cyberspace, collecting a few songs from a few different shows (I was on a mission to retrieve all the versions of “Standing on the Moon” I could find) when it hit me. This task that I found myself involved in is so easy now, it might have taken me the rest of my days through the old way.
I have a friend of mine who is a music fiend, he loves to download music. And he is doing it, en masse, and is not really taking the time to listen to what he has acquired. He’s just gathering it because it’s there, and swears he’ll “Get around to doing something with it eventually.” My thought is, it’s so sad that there’s so much music in his collection that he spent a few hours downloading that he will never really get around to experiencing. But, that is the way this new medium works, grab it when you see it, cause there’s no guarantee it’ll be there next week.
The internet is a fluid medium, where ideas come in, float around a bit, and are jettisoned to make room for the next idea. Archive.org represented an effort to stabilize that, and provide a means for semi-permanence. Once that illusion of permanence was destroyed, by whatever forces were behind these moves (it doesn’t really matter), the community became entangled in a “fight for their rights”. The real problem is that most people today are so hell-bent on looking out for #1, they fail to realize who is getting the shaft.
One of the first disillusionments that I encountered when I embarked on entering this cultural circle back years ago was that everyone got along. I was not a hippie. I grew up outside of the culture. I sought out this community for the music, first and foremost, and this idealistic view of how “everyone gets along”. Unfortunately, as with every community, that is not the case. Most everyone is looking out for #1, and bickering and fighting with someone else. Hey, it was just like every other circle in the world!
The fundamental ideal behind the sharing of the music as it was for 30+ years, was to share the experience as well. Sit in a room together, power down the electric lights, fire up a few candles, burn some incense, spark up a bowl together, and chill. Let the music take you where you want to go. People now are not doing that. People are alone. Whether it’s listening to their car stereo’s, plugging into their I-Pods, running their Shoutcasts, firing up their digital Cable, the fundamental core of sharing the music has somehow been lost, and with it, the sense of community. People are now more self-absorbed than ever before.
Now, this is not from someone without those faults myself. Although I find myself seeking out others with a musical kinship, I usually end up experiencing most of those new shows alone, or with a partner. That communal aspect of sharing the music is definitely gone.
I spent the $600.00+ on purchasing the Dead’s 2004 tour. Why? Because I wanted to support the Dead. I wanted to vote, with my dollars, on the fact that I enjoyed what they brought, and wanted to see more of it. However, when the music is freely available, it makes it hard for people to understand that their money, ultimately, is what enables what they enjoy to be perpetuated. How many times were Dick’s Picks CD’s passed on recently because “I already have the soundboard of that show?”
Nobility is lost. Instead of supporting the band by purchasing the music they produce, the vast majority of people are taking what they want, and leaving the rest. And that is leaving those who make the music out in the cold.
On the otherhand, the music has been around for years and years, free of charge to anyone willing to share it. But this new medium, while it distributes the music, it really doesn’t share much. Sure, there is a place to write your 50 words or less about the show, but is there really anything communal about it? I’d much rather have a friend who sets me up, and says, drop at 6:00 and start the show at 7:00, it’ll blow your mind. That is lost when all we need to do is click and go. We’ve lost the journey, and expect the destination to be just as satisfying.
I know, some people are saying that I’m missing the point, that the music itself should be allowed to continue to be distributed, and that all this represents is greed on the part of the Dead. Jesus, The Dead have given everyone access to this stuff for over 30 years now, in some cases stolen (quite literally) from the Dead themselves, they’ve been through hell and back again, multiple times, and recently they’ve had to watch as their core around them begins to crumble because they’re unable to make the bare minimum to be able to keep the Ship of Fools afloat. The bottle is empty, and there’s little coming in to fill it.
Is it so much to ask from the Dead themselves that they get their piece back? Or that what they’ve given out be given back, even a little piece? It’s not like they’re saying “Don’t trade,” but rather, they’re saying, “Don’t trade THAT way. Don’t take away the opportunity to develop that community.”
The taping community was developed to foster relationships. The way the distribution is now, those relationships are no longer being fostered. It’s no longer a community, it’s fractionalizing.
Besides, it’s not like these guys are living in the lap of luxury. People think that they’ve set themselves up to have all this money for all this time. But anyone that has a modicum of knowledge about these guys know that what they lived for, first and foremost, is the music. The money came, but it was always about the music. And, as a result, many dumb business moves were made, not because they made sense monetarily at the time, but because they made sense musically, or spiritually.
So now they are not asking for it back. They are not taking anything away, other than the on-line distribution method. This is a reasonable request, I believe. The tapes are still out there, and we can still get them. The only difference is, now, as before, we need to foster relationships to do so. And I’m all in favor of that.
Philip may have ‘apologized’, but there is a main point that he and others like him seem to be missing. Completely independently of what the organization has done, and why they have done it, exactly where does his feeling “disrespected” or “betrayed” come from? Aside from an ability to click on a cursor or type in a credit card number, what has he contributed to the 40 years of this scene that makes him think that he has the right to insult, accuse, or make demands? There was a time when it was evolved behavior that was associated with the GD world, but the recent temper tantrums of Philip and others make the Ashlee Simpson crowd seem mature by comparison. I’m glad that the files will be back up, but not that embarassing infantility is being rewarded.
“the true message of the music has been falling farther away ever since the hordes of dreadlocked,pierced,runaway teenager,rave culture expatriate,conform to our subculture folks turned Grateful Dead tour into a hedonistic parking lot party.”
Too true, too true. By ’95 the Dead were dying, at least the Dead that I originally was turned onto. This “vibe” was the largest reason I started seeing Phish in ’92, it reminded me of the vibe I used to experience at GD shows… I think GD should have avoided MTV like the plague. Such is life.
Don-i apologize for nothing.i think the whole organization can go to hell.that’s my personal opinion.not a rant or a tantrum,just my two cents.
the whole point of the Grateful Dead experience is that we were all in this together…and can say how we feel.but i won’t throw around insults or personal attacks,know what i mean?
These guys grossed 50 million dollars a year for how many years and now they don’t have enough money for retirement? Whatever.
If this was Bill O’Reily or some other Right-Wing millionaire (not that they could create anything as sacred or soulful as Grateful Dead music) deciding to charge for something that was given away free for 30 or 40 years, you’d be calling him a Greedhead, Gans.
And rightfully so.
Its their music, yes. They can do whatever the hell they want to. All I can do is never spend another dime on anything having to do with Dead Inc. Besides, as Barlow observed, the horse had left the barn on this one. The precious soundboards are out there in digital form and ain’t “nothin gonna bring ’em back”