{"id":23847,"date":"2022-10-20T05:30:43","date_gmt":"2022-10-20T09:30:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23847"},"modified":"2022-10-21T07:48:10","modified_gmt":"2022-10-21T11:48:10","slug":"taping-the-grateful-dead-part-2-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/10\/20\/taping-the-grateful-dead-part-2-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Taping the Grateful Dead (Part 2 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

Tale of the Tapes<\/b>
\nRodriguez made sure to maintain an open mind while researching for the book, but he admits that he began with at least a vague thesis. \u201cI was trying to figure out if the members of the Grateful Dead intentionally sought to reinforce [the notion] that taping was [a] good [thing],\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And the answer to that question remains a bit vague. Even now Rodriguez wonders: \u201cWas the taping phenomenon [such] a part of myth-making that it became a legacy? Or did [the Dead] not really have any control over it?\u201d<\/p>\n

While the Grateful Dead organization was involved in the project to the extent of allowing reproduction of specific images, no former members of the band were among Rodriguez’s list of interviewees. So he\u2019s left to draw conclusions based on interviews with some of those who were around the band, and fellow expert Deadheads.<\/p>\n

Rodriguez emphasizes that Grateful Dead Productions was cooperative, and he\u2019s appreciative. Because of the multiple levels of red tape and multiple entities who had to sign off), it sometimes took him years to get clearance to include a particular image or document. And cases of flat-out \u201cno\u201d were rare. But there was one.<\/p>\n

After All is Said and Done<\/i> includes photos of the San Rafael tape vault and another in Nevada. And Rodriguez hoped to include a photo showing the Grateful Dead tape vault that exists at Warner Brothers Records, the group\u2019s label from the beginning to 1973. When he asked, the answer was a \u201chard and fast \u2018no.\u2019\u201d So he decided that the next best thing would be to include a reproduction of the \u201cno\u201d email from Warners. \u201cI got shut down on that, too,\u201d Rodriguez says with a wry laugh.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The Next Best Thing to Being There<\/b>
\nRemarkably, Rodriguez never witnessed the Grateful Dead live on stage. \u201cI was in elementary school when they performed last,\u201d he admits. But he has frequently attended shows by the myriad post-Dead mutations \u2013 \u201cPhil Lesh and Friends, RatDog and all that,\u201d he explains \u2013 beginning in the 1990s. So for him, the tapes also serve as a way to reacquire that you-are-there vibe in the present day.<\/p>\n

But for this expansive project, Rodriguez went straight to the source. Days before the pandemic-spawned global shutdown, he visited the official Grateful Dead Archive at the University of California, Santa Cruz. He sought to connect with the archivists and librarians there, hoping to gain access to \u201cthe documents that specifically lent themselves to the start of the official tapers section in 1984.\u201d<\/p>\n

He succeeded on that score, and the visit helped chart the project\u2019s subsequent path. Rodriguez interviewed key figures connected to the Dead\u2019s taped legacy, including Dave Lemieux, the Dead\u2019s current archivist. He also spoke with archivist David Ganz, who was \u201ckind of confused [as to] why I was interviewing him,\u201d says Rodriguez with a chuckle.<\/p>\n

\"\"Each interview and each review of documents felt like a step forward on Rodriguez\u2019s journey of discovery. \u201cI took what I learned from someone \u2013 maybe based off documents I found from the archives \u2013 then found the line that would connect me to the next person,\u201d he says. \u201cIt was an organic process, a weird detective thing. Kind of like forensics, in a way.\u201d And the reader of After All is Said and Done<\/i> experiences the journey in similar fashion: \u201cFor the most part, all the interviews are laid out chronologically as I [conducted] them,\u201d Rodriguez says.<\/p>\n

And while there\u2019s a kind of linear flow to the book, Rodriguez is keenly aware of the spontaneous, free-flow mindset that is often brought to all things Dead. \u201cI wanted the book to be this experience where you could open it to a page, maybe half-complete it, and still come away with some curiosity,\u201d he says. \u201cEven though you might not understand the total context.\u201d<\/p>\n

Some of the documents that Rodriguez uncovered are reproduced in the pages of After All is Said and Done.<\/i> Readers may experience a bit of cognitive dissonance upon reading the typewritten minutes of a meeting (dated July 11, 1984). Attendees included \u201cM. Hart, P. Lesh, B. Weir, R. Hunter, J. Garcia, Ram Rod\u201d and two dozen others. Business meetings aren\u2019t the first things that come to mind when one thinks of the Grateful Dead. But such documents help explain the Dead\u2019s collective attitude toward fan taping, and the ways in which the Dead organization\u2019s perspective on the phenomenon changed over time.<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>\u2026<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… Tale of the Tapes Rodriguez made sure to maintain an open mind while researching for the book, but he admits that he began with at least […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23859,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,41,57],"tags":[940],"class_list":["post-23847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-book","category-interview","category-psych","tag-grateful-dead","cat-10-id","cat-41-id","cat-57-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23847"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24092,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23847\/revisions\/24092"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23859"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}