Grateful Dead

You've been hearing American Beauty in the background for the past couple weeks. It's one of our favorite LPs at 168. (Did you know, if you really study the album cover, you'll see that besides saying "Beauty," the Kelley-Mouse design alternately spells out "Reality." Cool, right. (That's called an "ambigam," by the way.

Anyway, it was on in the shop and then we came across our copy of Anthem of the Sun and got hooked on a Dead standard.

"That's It For The Other One" was for many years a key part of The Grateful Dead experience (after 1971, only the jam/instrumental sections were performed with regularity and referred to instead as "The Other One"). Each new iteration of the song reflected stages in the band's musical development, a proving ground for the band's dynamic musical exploration and experimentation. By 1973, this role was shifting to other songs, most notably "Playin' in the Band," "Eyes of the World," and most notably in the impromptu "Drumz" and Space segments that centered dead shows from as early as 1967, but most notably from the late 70s. "The Other One" began to settle into a more predictable format, exhibiting an ebb and flow of intensity and concentration that more or less matched the creative and dynamic energies of the band. "That's it for the One" in all its formulations was the catalyst for a Dead spirit that lasted into the 90s. It was the song that made The Dead The Dead.

The original suite of tunes, "Cryptical Envelopment," "Quodlibet for Tenderfeet," "Cryptical Reprise") arrived on the scene in a standout performance at the Shrine Auditorium in L.A. on November 10, 1967, though abbreviated versions of the tune appeared even earlier. These early variants and the studio cut itself open with ambiguous, though heartfelt, storytelling; indeed a powerful intro to 1968's Anthem of the Sun:

The other day they waited

their breath was cold and bated

solemnly they stated

he had to die

he had to die...

And all the children learning

from books that they were burning

every leaf was turning

to watch him die

well, you know he had to die...

The summer sun looked down on him

his mother could but frown on him

and all the others sound on him

but it doesn't seem to matter...

And when the day had ended

the rainbow colors blended

his mind remained unbended

he had to die

well, you know he had to die

Then the band delved go into a brief version of "Quodlibet for Tender Feet," which in later versions is expanded into a movement of its own. It's pure psychedelic madness. In the midst of the "Quodlibet" jam, and on the LP all you want is more, comes a first-person account of a classically mind-unbending experience:

Spanish lady come to me

she lays on me this rose

it rainbow spirals round and round

trembles and explodes

left a smoking crater of my mind

I like to blown away

the heat came round

and busted me for smilin'

on a cloudy day."

"comin', comin', comin' around

comin' around...."

"Escaping through the lily fields

when I came across an empty space

it trembled and exploded

left a bus stop in its place

the bus came by and I got on

that's when it all began

Cowboy Neal at the wheel

of the bus to never ever land"

"comin', comin', comin' around, comin' around

comin' around, comin' around....

The storyteller seamlessly hems in the dramatic energy of this first person narrative account:

and when the day was ending

with rainbow colors bendin'

his mind remained unbending

he had to die, he had to die....

The first part, "Cryptical Environment," is an engaging Jerry Garcia piece where verses are sung over a background of Pigpen's mellow organ, Jerry's complimentary guitar and drum fills that frequently mirror the rhythm of the lyrics. The piece temporarily shifts to a heavily processed vocal passage with a pretty psychedelic pop melody that serves as a bridge before returning to a final verse. (Though The Dead were more or less a communal operation, this tiny passage makes it clear that their most promising path to broader recognition would be Garcia’s voice and guitar, a truth that would emerge later on American Beauty.) 

Quickly we move to a brief second passage, "Quadibet for Tenderfeet," an instrumental passage recorded at one of their live performances. The shift is timed to the descending notes of "Cryptical Environment," with the expected final note replaced by the first drum beat of "Quadibet." The timing of that beat is a just teensy bit rushed — much more noticeable than the barely indistinguishable cut that gave George Martin and crew grief on "Strawberry Fields Forever." The shift from one reality to another is surprising at first, as we move from the manufactured stillness of the studio to the acoustically-variable dynamics of a live performance and are vaulted from a gentle tempo into a rocking bash. 

Garcia, Circa 1957

"Quadibet" fades pretty quickly and "The Faster We Go, The Rounder We Get," comes barreling in. The syncopated rhythms and rhythmic shifts are particularly well-executed and the weaving of the vocals during the chorus is terribly exciting. "The Faster We Go" then fades somewhat awkwardly (it was 1968 after all, and this wasn't a Beatles' budget) into a live fragment from the "Cryptical Environment." 

The fourth part is only for true Dead Heads or LSD peakers, "We Leave the Castle," a concoction of beeps, bells, growls, squeaks, noises, creaks and chimes courtesy of Tom Constanten, a friend of Phil Lesh who joined the party to provide piano and this barrage of effects. Again, it's 1968, and all is forgiven. "That's It For The Other One" is one of those Dead songs with a little bit of everything, Cassady, jamming, Jerry's timid vocals, storytelling, musicianship and experimentation. Want more? Better find an acid test.

More on the Tapers

Tapers are a different breed of music fan. They show up at concerts with a suitcase and claim their spot, usually FOH (Front of House). Up goes a microphone with a tiny umbrella. The Taper section looks like Area 51. Tapers are the first to arrive, and the last to leave and they're passionate about sound, particular about their recording equipment.  Today it's digital, but back in the day it was Maxell Vs. TDK. Cassettes vs. DAT. Taper philosophy and etiquette was never to charge for copies (covering postage is acceptable); profiting from the recordings was and is strictly taboo. The practice of allowing taping and utilizing the tapers as a promotional strategy is known in the business world as Inbound Marketing, with companies like Dell and Pepsi only now catching on.

And it all goes back to The Dead in 1967. So how did a group of musicians from San Francisco transform marketing and become social media pioneers? Essentially, The Dead made a series of important choices to separate themselves from everyone in their industry, making difficult and unpopular decisions along the way, such as allowing fans to tape concerts or creating special tickets and access for fans.  

The concept of the freemium model is to give away valuable information to attract a larger base of prospective customers with a percentage of them willing to pay for a premium product or service. This approach is at the core of inbound marketing and describes the evolving marketing funnel for many businesses today. It’s a bastardization of the Dead ideal, but remains a pretty sophisticated approach from a collection of misfits and miscreants.

The Dead, one of the most iconic and successful rock bands of its era, achieved elite success with only one top 10 song (which didn't come until we got our MTV). Instead they succeeded by building a word-of-mouth network of fans powered by free music. The Dead understood that it was about the experience that the music provided, which in itself served as a role model for living a creative life.  The Dead model was so successful, it’s taught in business schools and codified in books like Marketing Lessons from the Grateful Dead.

Those internal, seemingly instinctual tenets of business created a multi-million-dollar industry without industry in mind. According to the Dead Model: 1) The most important thing is playing and creating. Everything else is secondary. 2) Work is a family affair. It’s important to shelter, support and share with a larger community. 3) Money plays second fiddle to living the kind of life one wants to live. According to Jerry, “You can build your own economy.” 4) Accept the hazards and finger-pointing as a small hindrance of living differently. 5) Push the envelope whenever possible. 6) Build a scene. These beliefs added up to a worldview that aligned with the values of the hippies and flower children of the ‘60s who intended to reshape the country and the world in their image. Pretty powerful stuff. It certainly didn’t hurt that the world was ready to think differently the moment the Dead first administered the acid test.

The Grateful Dead pioneered community-building in a lot of ways but mostly by thinking of their fans as part of the band, not separate from it. The Dead’s fans wanted to record each show, so the band let them by creating special “taper’s sections” in the audience. They encouraged peer-to-peer tape exchange by their fans, which attracted an even larger base of paying attendees, essentially pioneering the “freemium” content model.

Everything the Dead did was to assure that the band lived the life they wanted to lead, making them beholden only to their creativity and fans — not a bad template for the rest of us.

The Tapers

Rick Fichter: So a canvas walks in and I ask him, what’s the story behind your idea?  He gets nervous and takes off.  I mean, I work one day, one tattoo, you don’t want to lose business, but a tattoo’s more than a splatter of ink on skin.  A great tattoo holds meaning, tells a story, has a voice. So I went pickin’.  Old junk holds meaning, tells a story, has a voice. 

I found a box of cassettes. The girl had spent a lot of time decorating the boxes. I'd say it was a girl, young in the 80s; just a guess. One was from a Taper, or maybe just a Deadhead with a recorder. I remember those days. It was Karma at a Dead Show, the interplay of intertwining fates, the spiritual law of cause and effect. I was a taper, this subculture of Deadheads who recorded shows and traded them. Story goes, Jerry was at Phil's and opened a big dictionary. He saw “Grateful Dead” in big, black letters staring up at him.  “That’s it,” he said.  The name is from a folktale about a wanderer who hears that a pauper died but can’t be buried till his debts are settled, so the traveler pays the debts and continues on his journey.  That night on the highway he’s threatened by thieves when out of nowhere a stranger appears to frighten them off.  It’s the pauper’s ghost, of course, the grateful dead. 

The stories make everything cool.

It’s that kind of spirit that kept us coming back, the tapers, the Church of Unlimited Devotion, spinning like Sufis to Gerry’s twangy guitar, the dragon chasers. I saw them at the Cow Palace and Winterland and JFK, anywhere, everywhere.  I haven’t been able to pin it down, 188 times, maybe. 

I met a guy.  His name was Bran. He heard one of my tapes and said, “That sounds like shit.” It didn’t, not to me. I was there, it takes me there, I can go back again when I want.

There are no bands like that anymore. Can’t break new ground when the grounds already broke.