{"id":23848,"date":"2022-10-21T05:30:50","date_gmt":"2022-10-21T09:30:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=23848"},"modified":"2025-12-03T13:21:18","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T18:21:18","slug":"taping-the-grateful-dead-part-3-of-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2022\/10\/21\/taping-the-grateful-dead-part-3-of-3\/","title":{"rendered":"Taping the Grateful Dead (Part 3 of 3)"},"content":{"rendered":"

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

\"\"Complete as Can Be<\/b>
\nIt\u2019s not as if Rodriguez is any kind of a newcomer to the Grateful Dead and their work. \u201cI’ve been researching the Grateful Dead in whatever capacity I could since I was 14,\u201d he says. (He\u2019s 40.) And while images provide much of After All is Said and Done<\/i>\u2019s appeal, it\u2019s much more than a picture book for the Deadhead\u2019s coffee table. The book is filled with informative essays that round out the taper experience\/phenomenon from most every angle.<\/p>\n

And that was part of Rodriguez\u2019s goal as well. \u201cI wanted to add information that either wasn’t compiled in a succinct kind of way, or provide information that maybe didn’t exist before,\u201d he says, noting that doing so posed a challenge. \u201cThat\u2019s kind of a hard thing to do with the Grateful Dead,\u201d he admits, \u201cbecause so much information is out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, there are holes in the larger narrative, especially when it comes to the band\u2019s live onstage legacy. \u201cThe \u201860s portion of their career is not as heavily documented,\u201d Rodriguez explains. \u201cThere\u2019s not nearly as much Pigpen-era material out there.\u201d The Grateful Dead\u2019s original keyboardist, Ron \u201cPigpen\u201d McKernan was a founding member who was with the group through mid-1972.<\/p>\n

Even the official Grateful Dead vault is ostensibly complete only from 1971 onward, Rodriguez says. Still, he holds out hope that there remain gems yet to be discovered. \u201cThere\u2019s probably reel-to-reel tape that\u2019s mislabeled or that can’t be identified,\u201d he suggests. But nearly as quickly, he tamps down expectations. \u201cThose are [probably] partial recordings, and the quality of tape is probably terrible.\u201d<\/p>\n

And for all of his extensive efforts, even Rodriguez has yet to compile an exhaustive archive of Grateful Dead recordings. \u201cI’m still 160 or so tapes away from completing the whole collection of recordings between 1965 and 1995 that are on tape,\u201d he admits.<\/p>\n

The live tapes documenting points on the Grateful Dead\u2019s arc can be enjoyed and appreciated on multiple levels; Mark Rodriguez\u2019s After All is Said in Done<\/i> is evidence of that. The music, the homemade physical packaging that accompanies the tapes: those are substantial parts of the experience. Unsurprisingly, Rodriguez takes things beyond all that. These days he tends to focus on the quality of the recordings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate the music,\u201d he emphasizes. \u201cBut I appreciate the method of recording, and the existence of the actual tape that I’m listening to at any particular time.\u201d He feels there\u2019s often something special captured on audience tapes, a quality that more polished and professionally-created recordings can lack.<\/p>\n

\u201cSometimes, if it’s a soundboard, I’m like, \u2018Eh, this is boring,\u2019\u201d he admits. \u201cBecause the sound<\/i> is so boring.\u201d He believes that a tape made by an audience member can provide \u201can image of the concert [itself].\u201d One can hear ambient noises \u2013 talking, applause \u2013 \u201cbut you’re still not being taken away from the sound generated from the band,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Taken as a whole \u2013 and in sequence \u2013 Rodriguez says that Grateful Dead live tapes are also a kind of history of the evolution of recording technology. He points specifically to early \u201870s FOB (\u201cfront of board\u201d) tapes as \u201camazing feats of strength\u201d by those who made them. \u201cThey made quality recordings with limited technology,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

By the Dead\u2019s later years, there was a \u201ctaper\u2019s section\u201d at concerts. Rodriguez explains that the designated area arose not so much to accommodate tapers, but to move them away from other concertgoers who were there simply to enjoy the experience. \u201cThe tapers\u2019 section steered the annoyance that was the tapers into their own area so [the Dead\u2019s crew] didn’t have to worry about them anymore,\u201d Rodriguez says.<\/p>\n

\"\"Even a hardcore Grateful Dead tape collector like Rodriguez has his limits. Collectors of Pink Floyd concert recordings, for example, obsess over the provenance of the tapes (or, these days, lossless digital files). There\u2019s a seemingly never-ending quest to source the lowest-generation copy of any given recording. The argument is that until the advent of digital audio, each successive analog copy added a layer of hiss, and removed a degree of sonic quality. The n<\/i>th generation copy one might have of the January 20, 1972 premiere of \u201cEclipse: A Piece for Assorted Lunatics\u201d (soon to be re-titled The Dark Side of the Moon<\/i>) likely boasts significantly compromised fidelity compared to the original tape.<\/p>\n

But Rodriguez draws the line at such obsessions. \u201cI understand that to participate in that particular bit of nitpicking would drive me absolutely insane,\u201d he says, sidestepping the unasked question about the sanity of collecting thousands of Grateful Dead tapes in the first place.<\/p>\n

Many bands have engendered a level of fandom that extends to tape collecting. The Beatles, Pink Floyd and many others have extensive \u201cunofficial\u201d catalogs filled with non- (or semi-) sanctioned audio. But the Grateful Dead taping aesthetic is a world apart. Rodriguez attempts to explain what he thinks makes it different. \u201cYou have such fervent energy about trying to make the best recording possible given the circumstances,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

And the Dead\u2019s laissez-faire attitude about the whole taping phenomenon set the group in sharp contrast with an artist like King Crimson\u2019s Robert Fripp, a vigorous opponent of audience recording. With the Dead, Rodriguez says admiringly, \u201cIt was permissible [for tapers] to experiment within the concert setting.\u201d And the result is the massive, often high-quality archive that exists today.<\/p>\n

The tape collecting community that grew up around the band is arguably a tangible example of the Grateful Dead\u2019s fundamental aesthetic. Rodriguez certainly thinks so. \u201cOne goal of this particular band was to change culture, for people to relate to each other in idealistic or \u2018utopic\u2019 fashion,\u201d he says. The tape-trading tradition had its start among people who could afford to buy mobile recording gear. But immersed as it was in the Dead\u2019s milieu, the practice soon became a \u201cfree distribution thing,\u201d Rodriguez says. And that fit well into the group’s egalitarian ideals.<\/p>\n

Mark Rodriguez doesn\u2019t think that we\u2019ll see another audience recording and collecting scene the likes of what exists around the Grateful Dead. \u201cI think it stands as a phenomenon of that block of time, from 1965 to 1995,\u201d he says. \u201cI don’t have any expectations of that form of energy existing again.\u201d<\/p>\n

Edited versions of this feature were published previously in Good Times<\/em> and Metro Silicon Valley<\/em>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part Two… Complete as Can Be It\u2019s not as if Rodriguez is any kind of a newcomer to the Grateful Dead and their work. \u201cI’ve been researching the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23856,"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-23848","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\/23848","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=23848"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23848\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30508,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23848\/revisions\/30508"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/23856"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}