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So
how does it feel to have the greatest job in the world? David
Lemieux - Well,
you know, it feels terrific. It feels great. It’s still pretty
thrilling coming to work here every day—no doubt about that.
It’s funny, the perception of the job is sitting around
listening to Grateful Dead music ten or twelve hours a day, which
a lot people do anyway, but they don’t get paid for it. But then
there’s all the unglamorous stuff which people don’t think
about. Luckily it’s easy to balance that out with the good parts
of the job, which is pretty much 99% of it. So I can’t imagine
being in a better place as a job. It’s a lot of fun. It’s
an enviable position as I’m sure you know. David
Lemieux - I
can imagine. But hopefully we’re getting enough music out there
that it doesn’t seem like we’re hording it. We’re trying to
get as much out as we can. The
release rate has really accelerated since you came on board. David
Lemieux - Well,
we’re trying. I come here as a Deadhead. It’s tough sometimes
to get things through—as Dick well knew—about ideas for
releases, specific shows, or even ideas for the content of a
specific release. But when one does get accepted and it proceeds,
it’s pretty exciting. Today from about 8:00 this morning till
about 4:30, I’ve been working on proofing the masters for an
upcoming album called Nightfall of Diamonds.
We just FedExed those about 20 minutes ago, so as far as my part
of the job goes, that album is done which is pretty thrilling. You
and I both started seeing the Grateful Dead in the 1980s. Do you
have a favorite era? David
Lemieux - I
have a few. I’ll give you some examples. Working on this recent
box set, there were some live ’66 recordings. I’d always been
kind of a casual fan of ’66, but then when you really listen to
it during the mastering you realize how good it is. When we did
this recent Dick’s Picks Volume Twenty-Two from ’68, I
really became enamored of ’68. And then of course ’69-’70
kind of goes with out saying, as does ’72-’74. ’71 I was
never particularly enamored with until a year and a half ago
working on Ladies and Gentlemen… The Grateful Dead. I
knew the material really well, but it never really jumped out at
me until we combined twenty hours of it into the five hours on Ladies
and Gentlemen… And then ’72-’74 for the obvious reasons:
I love Playing in the Band from ’72, ’73, and ’74,
but particularly ’72 for that song. I love where they were
taking Dark Star in ’73, I love Eyes of the World
in ’73 and ’74. I could put out every Eyes of the World.
’76, I like the laid back feel. ’77 kind of goes without
saying—I love the funkiness of Dancin’ in the Streets,
I love the tightness of ’77 Dead. ’78 when it’s good it’s
unbelievable—Dick’s Picks Eighteen
for example is
really awesome. Early Brent I really enjoy, I thought he was
really funky, I thought the band had good energy. Mid-’80s is
tougher, but when I do find something like Dick’s Picks
Twenty-One or Dick’s Picks Thirteen it just blows me
away. By ’87 to Summer ’90 there was some pretty great
consistent playing in that chunk. ’91 I like a heck of a lot.
’92-’95 is really hit and miss. Now when it’s really good,
it can be transcendent but otherwise I have the same opinion as a
lot of people about the ’92-’95 period, which is that it’s a
little less consistent, but there are some pretty terrific shows.
’93 had some amazing shows, late ’94 had some astounding
performances, and then Spring ’95 had some incredible shows too.
So this isn’t me sitting on the fence, it’s me realizing that
there is some really amazing playing from every era. You know
these people who refuse to listen to the ’80s or refuse to
listen to ’72-’74—I can’t box myself in that way. I
couldn’t do my job doing that, but having gone to school for a
long time you get as objective as possible. When you sit back
objectively and take your own emotions out of it you can really
find that there’s some pretty good stuff, and you can definitely
say there’s some pretty bad stuff in a lot of places too. I
totally agree with you 100%. I love every era and I have every
vault release. We’ve had some raging arguments on the DeadBase
Dick’s Picks Forum (http://www.deadbase.com/dbbb/dickspicks/index.pl)
about this, and some people say, “I don’t know why they bother
releasing anything but ’70s.” So it’s really gratifying to
hear that the person who is in charge of all this feels the way
you do. David
Lemieux - Well
if you look what’s been released in the last year we’ve had a
couple ’91 shows, a ’90, an ’89 vault release coming up,
some ’68, some ’73, some ’78, some ’76, and some ’85.
We’re trying to hit as much as we can and we know that as far as
consistency’s sake goes, there are a lot of really good shows
from ’72-’74. We could continue just doing that, but the
Dead’s history and the legacy of what they left behind is too
important to just focus on four years or ten years or whatever
without revealing the fact that this band was unbelievably dynamic
and diverse. I’m
really grateful to hear that. Dick had a justifiably famous ear,
but I always felt that he wore his biases on his sleeve. David
Lemieux - He
did. I definitely have some things that I love more than others,
and if the Dick’s Picks series was just for myself I
don’t know if the same choices would be made. I love every
single album I’ve worked on. I absolutely love everything. I
find myself listening to certain eras a lot more than others, but
it isn’t about me, it’s about the good of the band and the
good of the historical legacy. People
have been clamoring for another 1972 release. Hundred Year Hall
and Dick’s Picks Volume Eleven are the only vault
releases from that year. Can we look forward to something in the
near future? David
Lemieux - Unfortunately,
some of the best shows from ’72 we just don’t have. A bunch of
the real famous ones that we all know of—some of the November
shows, we just don’t have or we don’t have in
soundboards—there was a technical glitch going on with the
recording process in October ’72 so we’re missing some of
that, but we do have some really good ones too. There’s the
8-27-72 Veneta show of course, we have got multi-tracks of that,
so that’s a possibility sometime. You know with the big vault
releases we can’t do more than one per year so this year’s is
obviously Nightfall of Diamonds. And that was a conscious
choice. We did 1971 last year with Ladies and Gentlemen…
and to have done ’72 this year wouldn’t really be representing
the band all that well so we wanted to do something that hadn’t
been done in four or five years, which was Dozin’ at the
Knick, so we figured let’s look around that 1989 period, and
went with Nightfall of Diamonds. Why
did you choose that over the October 8th and 9th
“Formerly the Warlocks” shows? David
Lemieux - “Formerly
the Warlocks” I will say—and you can put this on the
record—I’m sure will be released some day. Why we didn’t do
it is we wanted to do a complete show. With the two Hampton shows,
it would have been impossible to do a six-CD set right now as a
vault release. We did five CDs with So Many Roads and we
did four CDs with Ladies and Gentlemen… we’ve got 12
CDs coming out with The Golden Road. We said, “Okay
let’s do a nice tight two-CD set” and to do Hampton, I guess
we could have done either the 8th or the 9th—probably
the 9th obviously—but then it would have left off all
that great music from the 8th. I think as far as the
full show goes, 10-16-89 really stands up as the better all-around
show of those three. If you listen to Nightfall of Diamonds
start to finish—and it’s a short show, it’s only two and a
half hours—it really does stand up as a good solid show
representing an awesome era. And
even though it isn’t the return performances of some of those
songs it does feature the newly revived Dark Star and Attics
of My Life. David
Lemieux - True,
but we didn’t pick it based on set list. I guess we seldom do.
It was picked because a lot of people wanted this particular
concert and it’s a heck of a strong show. I know people are
going to say, “Well it should have been Hampton because of the
historical significance.” Which is not to say Hampton weren’t
great shows, they really were, but the solidity of 10-16-89 is why
we went with it. I’m
surprised that you don’t choose things based on song selection. David
Lemieux - No.
Never. I don’t think we’ve ever said, “Hey, maybe it’s
time we put out a song with this,” and then search for a show
with that song in it. It’s never happened that way. I
want to read you some statistics. David
Lemieux - I
know the statistics. Trust me we do not go and look for Tennessee
Jed or Me and My Uncle. It just happens that way. But
certainly something like Dick’s Picks Twenty-One—it
couldn’t have been an accident that Spoonful, Gimme
Some Lovin’, She Belongs to Me, and Gloria,
none of which had been officially released before… David
Lemieux - That
was a happy accident. That was great show. And again ’85 is a
year that there are a lot of tape problems. The master tapes we
have on cassette. And then we’ve got the PCMs, the Beta tapes,
starting with the New Year’s run of ’82 up until about New
Year’s ’87 we’ve got these digital tapes, that are Betamax
videotapes with no video on them, just an audio-only track. It’s
the earliest digital audio we have from ’85. Early digital had
real bass issues. It’s really bass shy. We looked at quite a bit
of the from that era. For instance the bonus material on Dick’s
Picks Twenty-One from Rochester 9-2-80 with the tremendous Iko
Iko—we thought about putting on the Space>Werewolves
of London>The Music Never Stopped medley that opened the
night before, and a lot of people said, “Why didn’t they do
that, they had forty minutes?” The reason is the tape really
lacked bass. It literally had no bass in the mix. It’s those
sorts of issues that rendered that specific tape unusable. So with
’85 there were a few shows that I won’t say we rated higher
than Richmond 11-1-85, but that we equally valued, and they just
didn’t hold up as far as the sound quality goes. And the
performance at that Richmond show is pretty amazing energy, and I
think the energy that the band brought that night is what caused
such an incredible set list. I don’t think it was the set list
that caused the energy. I think it was the band playing so
incredibly tightly on that whole tour—that whole year
really—that something magic happened that night and they
probably walked on stage and said, “Let’s mess it up a bit
tonight.” Hence we got two Jerry ballads before Drums,
and then the post-Space is stellar. So to get back to your
question, no we didn’t say, “This is a cool set list.” We
don’t go through DeadBase looking for unusual set lists.
I know the set lists as well as anyone does. I know what shows are
the sought after ones. We’ve done polls. I’m a tape trader
myself so I know what’s going on and there are quite a few
people involved in the process who put their input in. Dick’s
Picks Twenty-One specifically was both a really good show,
highly sought after, it happened to be a really good sounding
tape, and it was very popular. With so much circulating now
there’s not really much left in the way of surprises. You know
the criteria used to be: performance, then sound quality, then
sound mix, and then the song selection. The fact is at number Twenty-Two
in the Dick’s Picks series we’re not going to really
find much in the way of songs that haven’t been put out. I
would disagree there. David
Lemieux - There’s
My Brother Esau and Might as Well. There are some,
but there aren’t forty or fifty songs that we have in great
shows where it’s going to be worth putting out the whole show
for that song. One
that’s really conspicuous in its absence right now is The
Women Are Smarter. David
Lemieux - Yeah,
and Brother Esau. I’d like to see those. We’ve almost
had a couple versions of The Women Are Smarter. We had a
’91 show in mind when we did Dick’s Picks Seventeen,
that had a great Women Are Smarter, but there was a weird
kick drum problem in the mix. I’m sure you’ve heard tapes that
have really loud kick drums, and it gets to the point where you
can’t digitally remove them. So we’ll get around to it.
We’ll get around to all those songs, but I don’t think we’ll
ever pick a show for that reason. Well,
I believe you, but I’ve got to admit this is kind of shocking. I
was going to go through how there was a brand new—meaning
previously unreleased officially—song on virtually every release
since the So Many Roads box set. For instance, Foolish
Heart hadn’t come out until View From the Vault II. David
Lemieux - With
the CD release on that one, we said let’s put the Dark Star
on as a bonus on the CD. And then Jeffrey Norman, who’s got the
stop watch, says we could also fit Victim or the Crime and Foolish
Heart, so we get the entire Victim>Foolish>Dark
Star, plus Box of Rain on the DVD. By
the time people read this, we’ll probably have Nightfall of
Diamonds and Dick’s Picks Volume Twenty-Three out,
but at the time you and I are talking the current vault releases
are Dick’s Picks Twenty-Two and View From the Vault II.
So I want to talk about those two a little. Apart from a handful
of tracks on So Many Roads and Fallout From the Phil
Zone, Dick’s Picks Volume Twenty-Two is the earliest
music to escape from the vault. More from the ’60s is always
welcome. How did this release come about? David
Lemieux - We
got lucky as far as it not being a circulated show. There was a
little area of the vault that had somehow been overlooked. I
don’t think Dick ever listened to it. Usually when he’d
listen, he’d label the song list right on the box, and this one
didn’t have a label. I think what happened was, because it was
part of the Anthem of the Sun sessions it might have been
put aside for that reason. Jeffrey and I found it. Jeffrey was
mastering Dick’s Picks Volume Twenty-One,
and
I pulled up the machine. I wanted to do it in the studio because I
wanted use the good HDCD converter because the first time you play
a reel could be the last time if there are problems with it, and
you want to make a really good copy. So I set up the HDCD system,
24-bit backup, and a DAT. So I sat there with headphones and
Jeffrey thought, “Okay, David’s going to go off in the corner
and listen to some 1968, while I work on the task at hand.” And
all I wanted was a reference copy, I wasn’t looking for a Dick’s
Picks. We had something lined up for Dick’s Picks
Twenty-Two anyway.
So I start listening, and the first tune I put on is that Viola
Lee Blues and the sound quality is terrific considering how
old the tape is, it even had left and right drum separation, it
had pretty decent vocals—a little low at times. So anyhow, Viola
Lee Blues starts and I look back at Jeffrey, “Jeffrey
you’re not going to believe this.” And he just moans. Ten
minutes later into Viola we’re still going hard. I turned
around and said “Jeffrey I got to turn this up.” So I take the
headphones off and turn it up and Jeff says, “Oh man, this is
really good.” And this was with no EQ, this was straight
transfer, so I kept listening, and I spent three or four hours
transferring it. Unfortunately on the 22nd—people
might want to know—there were no vocals recorded to tape. There
was a tape labeled “Tape One” and it had some of the same
songs as tape three and four so we’re kind of assuming that
it’s the 22nd. It definitely was three nights,
February 22-24, and there were no vocals at all recorded to tape
on the first night. It was a really useless tape. But I listened
to it anyway to get the song list. There was a Morning Dew,
a Beat It on Down the Line, things like that. So I kept
listening and I got further, then I get to another reel and start
listening, and I thought, “Oh terrific there’s an Alligator
on here. Great! I’ve been looking for an Alligator for
ages.” Then Alligator just—BOOM—cuts and goes right
into China Cat Sunflower, and I’d already listened to the
reel that had the Dark Star>China Cat Sunflower>The
Eleven. And I was thinking, “I wonder what they’ll do.
Maybe they did it twice in a row…”—BOOM—The Eleven.
“This is great. What are they going to do next?” And then they
go back into Alligator! And then all the little songs, the Morning
Dew and the Hurts Me Too, and then there was The
Other One which Billy’s not even playing on. I talked to
Billy about it, Billy was skiing all day, and he was so tired he
sat out for a couple minutes, so on The Other One there’s
no Billy. He
remembered that?! David
Lemieux - He
remembers being so tired from skiing all day, getting to the show
and just saying, “Oh man I’m exhausted, I don’t know if I
can play.” When I explained, he said that must have been what
happened. I saw him the day it came out and he was telling me
about how much fun it was. Mickey raved about how much fun these
shows were—a bowling alley with ten-foot ceilings packed with
all these Tahoe hippies. So I put it on a tape and there were
probably about three and a half hours total. Some of it was
unusable due to cuts. There were a couple repeated songs, and I
don’t mean the China Cat>Eleven which are
within jams, so they don’t count as repeated songs. I mean
another Morning Dew. So what we did is we put it together
the very best we could going primarily by reel number and even
that was kind of dicey where it said Reel One, Two, Three, Four,
Five, Six, maybe Seven. It was ten-inch reels at fifteen inches
per second—which is pretty much as good as you can get from that
era—two-track quarter-inch tape. We looked at it and we did it
chronologically. Reel One and Two were pretty useless—that was
the first show I guess—and then the second and third shows were
what Dick’s Picks Twenty-Two
comes
from—the 23rd and 24th. We’re pretty
sure that CD One is the first night and CD Two is the second
night. And people say, “Well the poster says 8:30-2:00.” But
when you really think about it, the opening band probably didn’t
come on until 9:00 or 9:30. They play until 10:30 or 11:00. The
Dead come on at midnight and play for two hours, so it does make
sense. We’re not holding a whole bunch of jams, needless to say.
This would have been a three CD set if it warranted it, but the
fact is I don’t think we even had three CDs worth of material,
and what we did have was a couple repeats, another Morning Dew
and another Hurts Me Too and a Beat It on Down the Line—all
without vocals. So we did the best we could. What you get might be
a compilation, it might not be, we don’t know. It could be CD
One is the entire show from the second night and CD Two could be
the entire show from the third night. Maybe. That’s the best we
could do. I
kind of like that it was a two-CD release. David
Lemieux - So
do I! It felt good, and that’s why Nightfall of Diamonds
is feeling so good too. Is
that two CDs also? David
Lemieux - It’s
two perfect, 68-minute CD One and 77-minute CD Two. And
just a straight whole show, nothing more, nothing less? David
Lemieux - Nothing
more, nothing less. My
dream release! David
Lemieux - And
all the space between songs is there, even between Memphis
Blues Again and Let It Grow when the crowd sings Happy
Birthday to Bobby and Jerry plays it for two minutes, it’s
there. For you Eric, you’ll like it. Well
thank you! One thing that really impressed me on Dick’s Picks
Twenty-Two was Bobby’s playing. He was much more than simply
a rhythm guitarist. David
Lemieux - Oh
yeah! You hear those little notes underneath Viola Lee Blues
and on Good Morning Little Schoolgirl and The Other One
and Caution that really stand out to me. That’s what
Jeffrey said too, “Man, he could play!” This is just
two-and-a-half years into the band and he’s playing that well.
It was pretty incredible. The
vocals seem a little low here and there on the first disc like the
beginning of Turn on Your Lovelight, Jerry’s vocals on The
Eleven and on Born Cross-Eyed. Was that due to the
equipment they were using at the time? David
Lemieux - Yeah.
I don’t think this was a PA tape, I think this was a mix tape,
straight to two-track. And I guess they just mixed it low, which
is exactly why on the first night the vocals and drums are
missing. I think it’s Billy’s drums that are missing, and all
the vocals, and obviously that didn’t come through in the PA or
people would have strangled the soundman. It’s a function of the
taping going down that way. Maybe it was on purpose, maybe they
didn’t need the vocals because it was specifically for Anthem
of the Sun and they had the studio vocals they wanted. I have
no idea, this is just speculation. So the vocals are a little low.
We would have preferred them a little higher, and if we’d had
multi-tracks obviously we would have brought them up a bit. It
doesn’t take away from it. David
Lemieux - No
it doesn’t, and that was an issue. Jeffrey and I sat down with
our checklist. Performance: I don’t think there’s any doubt
that it’s worthy. Sound quality: Jeffrey’s been here since the
beginning of the Dick’s Picks series—he was here for
the first one, and he said this was to him what Dick’s Picks
was always supposed to be, the occasional raw rare gem that’s
just really stunning. “Warts
and all.” David
Lemieux - Exactly.
So I think we nailed it with this one—the two CD set is really
slick. I’ve got one in my car right now. It’s nice to have
that kind of Dick’s Picks Three feeling, you know,
two-and-a-half hours of perfect music. Not to say we’re veering
away from the whole-show releases, even if there is a weak version
of a certain song or a blown lyric. I’m
glad to hear that! David
Lemieux - Oh
no. I think the next Dick’s
Picks will
be a full show, I think you can count on that. Nightfall of
Diamonds is a full show, and that was intentional. We really
enjoy full shows—Don’t Let Go was a full show. That was
a pretty strong era for the Jerry Garcia Band. We could have done
a mix and match and just put out a bunch of songs that had never
been released, but the Don’t Let Go show itself just
stood up too well, even if there were a couple songs that had
already been released, it was too important to put it out as a
full show to mess with that. And
then you have that incredible Mighty High bonus track that
had never been released. David
Lemieux - Right.
You know Mighty High was only played for those six months,
July through November of ’76. With the Jerry material coming out
so preciously—we’ve had so little of it—that with Don’t
Let Go coming out followed up by Shining Star, who
knows when the next one will be? I can pretty much guarantee it
wouldn’t be in that six months of ’76. We’d probably aim for
something else, maybe a different line-up. It was too good a song
not to put out. I’d been archiving the collection, and I’ve
heard every Mighty High. I’ve always loved that song, but
when I heard this version in particular, especially Donna’s
singing, it’s just so powerful, it’s so emotional, she’s so
into it, I said, “We’ve got to do it.” I pitched it, and
sure enough anybody who heard the song said, “Yeah, why not.”
It doesn’t detract from Don’t Let Go being a great
show, if anything it adds to the release. Back
to Dick’s Picks Twenty-Two: I love the Bid You
Goodnight Jam during Alligator. David
Lemieux - That
was another thing. I said, “Jeffrey, hear this!” and I hit the
button. And this was about a week and a half before they first
played We Bid You Goodnight. And
two years before Jerry put the jam in Goin’ Down the Road! David
Lemieux - Exactly.
It was very cool to find that. And I think it was sometime in
early March, two weeks later, when he actually started singing the
song, so that was very cool to find. That whole 35-minute chunk is
just outstanding. Dick’s Picks Twenty-Two is one of my
favorite Picks so far. Mine
too. Two From the Vault has always been one of my
favorites, so to hear more from ’68 is such a thrill. David
Lemieux - When
we were listening to this, we kept putting on Two From the
Vault, which sounds significantly better, but aside from the
astounding New Potato Caboose, I find that Dick’s
Picks Twenty-Two really holds up to Two From the Vault
performance-wise. That Viola Lee Blues, although it
doesn’t hit some of the crescendos later versions have, is
astounding. There are these licks in it that you never hear
anywhere else and then there’s that little drum break. Some
people think it was a cut on our part, that we actually fucked
with it, put a cut in. Some people think it’s a power outage,
but you know, the band was tight and they just did a little drum
break. I’ve heard people say, “I’ve heard every Viola Lee
Blues ever performed and I’ve never heard one with a drum
break, so therefore there’s no drum break on this. It’s
false.” If that’s what people want to believe then that’s
fine, but it’s not true, and it’s a great Viola Lee Blues. Another
added bonus to this particular release is you get to play the
did-it-end-up-on-Anthem-of-the-Sun game. David
Lemieux - The
big one in particular is the weird siren sound during Feedback. At
3:17? David
Lemieux - Yeah. So
I’m not the only one hearing that. David
Lemieux - The
minute I heard that—Jeffrey was in the room, I first listened
off the master reel directly, and I know Anthem like the
back of my hand, and I said, “Hey Anthem of the Sun!”
And there’s a couple bits during The Other One that I’m
sure were used, but I took a look at the master reels of Anthem
before the mix and it actually says, “Use King’s Beach Feedback,
13 seconds worth,” so they planned it. They knew what they were
doing. It’s
such fun putting the pieces of Anthem together. David
Lemieux - Totally. Speaking
of which, was 2-14-68 considered? David
Lemieux - No.
It’s a multi-track. We’ve got an eight-track of that in the
vault. A
possible release someday? David
Lemieux - Yeah,
I’m totally sure. That’s a great show, and that’s something
we’ve all had forever because of the FM tape that was done
originally. It’s a very similar show to Dick’s Picks
Twenty-Two. In places the energy is a lot better. I like the
set list for Dick’s Picks Twenty-Two
better, but I agree
2-14-68 is just incredible. Another nice thing about the King’s
Beach show, I’ve got to say, it will probably be one of the last
Dick’s Picks to consist of something that doesn’t
circulate. It’s sad to say, but it’s true, so I hope people
recognize that. We’re not going to find another cache of tapes.
This was a rare situation, but I’m glad it happened. I love the
album. The material that’s been released from the vault over the
years is of course the best stuff. The people who had access to
the vault wouldn’t give their friends any weak shows. It’s all
good. So everything that’s really good by nature of it’s being
good gets released in unofficial ways. It’s out there for the
traders, so the best we can do is to try and look for the best
shows and provide really terrific upgrades. I hope there are some
more surprises, but I know every square inch of this room right
now. I
think what you’re talking about is really important. Like about
the upcoming Nightfall of Diamonds, some people are saying,
“Why release that? Everyone has the tape.” And Dick himself
even said that in the earlier years. David
Lemieux - Well,
in the early years of course. I’ve heard Dick’s interviews
about Cornell where he says, “Why would we release that,
everyone’s got it.” And
Veneta! David
Lemieux - But
look at Dick’s Picks Four and Dick’s Picks Eight. Not
to mention One From the Vault. David
Lemieux - Exactly,
everyone had that. The fact is, we could have intentionally gone
for something else from that ’89 to early ’90 multi-track
period, but I don’t think it would have been as strong a show. I
think that the good concerts are out there because they’re good. And
there have to be a lot of people out there buying these things
that are not tape traders. David Lemieux - This is true. Ladies and Gentlemen… is a good example of that too. These are shows that are not only in circulation, but they’ve been in circulation since 1972 in pretty good quality. So the fact is, with the multi-tracks, Nightfall sounds incredible and is an upgrade for those who had the tapes, but I think a lot of people just aren’t tape traders, and with the amount that we’re releasing now, this is their tape collection. With Twenty-Two Dick’s Picks, and seven or eight vault releases and a box set, and these videos, you could amass two hundred terrific-quality hours without having to be a tape trader. I think for a lot of people, the official releases are their source of music. So we do what we can. We try to get the best shows out there despite the fact that they might already circulate. It was kind of the philosophy from the beginning of the Dick’s Picks series, as much as it’s good to put out the rare stuff, if it happens that something like Dick’s Picks Four or Dick’s Picks Eight or Dick’s Picks Fifteen happens to be the best it gets released. Well,
on to View From the Vault II.
I love that you put a complete live Rubin and Cherise over
the main menu. That was an inspired touch. David
Lemieux - Thank
you. I rented a movie on DVD and the menu had music over it and I
started thinking. My idea was to take the version from the Buckeye
show from June 9 the week before the actual View From the Vault
II show and use that Rubin and Cherise as video bonus
footage. We have that on video, but unfortunately the mix isn’t
that great, and it’s not as good a version as I would have
liked, so there were three other audio-only versions to choose
from, Cap Center, Orlando, and Nassau. Nassau didn’t have Bruce
on it, so that was out. So I called up the video distributor and
suggested putting the entire song over the menu, and they said,
“People don’t want to hear a song over the menu, they just
want to go straight to the movie.” I said, “Come on, you
don’t know Deadheads, they want this, trust me.” So they said,
“How long is it?” And I said “Six minutes.” They said
“Six minutes! How about thirty seconds at the most?” And I
said, “No, it’s six minutes or nothing, and I’m not taking
nothing for an answer.” I dug my heels in, and Jeffrey was all
for it. So we got in this good-natured discussion with the
distributor about it and the song prevailed. So we got Rubin
and Cherise on there. I would have rather had an actual video
performance of it from Buckeye, but it wasn’t as good, so we
went with this one and now the world has a really good quality Rubin
and Cherise from the Orlando show on 4-7-91. Justin
Kreutzmann’s Liberty video is a nice bonus. David
Lemieux - Yeah,
that was interesting. What happened with that is when So Many
Roads came about—and that’s around the time I started
working here—Justin was hired to do the Liberty video,
and he did a great job. When I saw it I thought, “Wow this is a
really great video, it’s a nice touching piece.” He really put
his heart into it, and he used a lot of stuff from Eileen Law’s
photo archives and a couple bits and pieces from our archives here
in the vault. The extent of the video’s distribution was online,
where you could watch it on a three-inch by three-inch little box
on your computer screen all jerky with bad sound, and I said, well
that’s no good. So when it came to doing View From the Vault
II we wanted to make it a great DVD, and we wanted to put on
some little bonuses, aside from our hour from RFK ’90. So I
called Justin and he was all for it, he said, “Yeah that’d be
great.” And it’s turned into a real hit, people really like
it, people are talking about it, and that’s exactly what I
wanted. It deserves to be seen, and barring putting out some other
kind of music video compilation, this was the place for it. I
think future View From the Vaults will also include little
videos, or if we have a twenty-minute chunk from a certain show
we’ll use it. Do
you know what show that Liberty is from? David
Lemieux - The
audio is the same as on the So Many Roads box set, 3-30-94,
but the video is from three different shows—you can tell because
they’re all wearing different shirts. But
it looked like the vocals were synched up. David
Lemieux - That’s
Justin. He did a great job. He does a lot of that. It’s a
perfect synch. In fact Mickey came in and looked at it when Justin
finished, and he said, “Oh man, he nailed it.” So I figured
this was the place for it. I’m glad we did it. With Rubin and
Cherise and Liberty and then an hour from RFK ’90, I
think this is a pretty successful DVD. It’s something we’re
all really proud of and I hope other Deadheads dig it. The first View
From the Vault did really well. Critically it did well. People
seemed to like it. I think commercially it did okay. I kind of
hope this one equals that—I like it better. This video would
have been View From the Vault I had we not done Boston,
9-25-91 as a Dick’s Picks last year. We didn’t want two
’91s coming out three months apart, that’s why we went with
Pittsburgh ’90. Also
watching the DVD you really get the sense that Bruce was pretty
excited to be playing with his heroes. David
Lemieux - Man
was he ever. With a Dick’s Picks it doesn’t matter what
the band looked like that night, but with video you really have to
take that into account. It becomes not only performance, but how
did the band look. And we do have other video—I won’t say
they’re better, I really think this RFK show is tremendous—but
there are some equally strong shows where the band just doesn’t
have… Okay, you know how this RFK video looks like seven guys
just having fun as one unit? There are other videos from the same
era where it looks like seven guys in bubbles doing it for
themselves. And they’re playing tremendously—don’t get me
wrong—the playing is just as good. But with View From the
Vault II, all those shots of Mickey looking over at Vince and
Bruce and Jerry and just laughing—this band was having so much
fun that night, and that’s a huge part of why this one was
chosen, as well as being a tremendous show and sounding great and
all that. And it did have a pretty darn cool set list. Which
isn’t to say that was why it was chosen, but again a cool set
list will often indicate a really great show. This
is the first official Maggie’s Farm to be released. David
Lemieux - Yep,
the first Maggie’s Farm and it’s a really good
one—you get to hear all five of them sing. There’s some good
stuff—two different versions of Dark Star on video!
Stepping back three or four years, I couldn’t imagine getting a
DVD official release that’s this kind of quality with more than
one Dark Star on it. I
love how on View From the Vault II Bruce plays the piano
with his foot, Jerry Lee Lewis-style at the end of Lovelight. David
Lemieux - You
know when we were considering releasing this video, we were
watching incredibly critically, then there are these little
moments that indicate, “Oh this is cool.” Bruce leans over and
starts playing piano with his foot and you can hear those high
keys “Ding ding ding.” Jeffrey and I looked at each other and
knew, “This is the stuff. This is what the other show we were
looking at doesn’t have.” It’s all those little moments,
like during Dark Star when Bruce is standing up and playing
his little Casio and getting those electronic sounds, those are
the indications that put certain shows over the top. During Estimated
Prophet on View From the Vault I, Jerry does this
little knee-bend as Weir is doing his front of the stage
theatrics. Jerry cracks a little smile as he’s strumming the jam
during Estimated, and he’s so into it he starts bending
his knees and strumming harder. It’s those little visual
indications that tell us, “Hey this is pretty interesting.” A
funny thing about the bonus footage on View From the Vault II,
Phil’s wearing the same shirt. David
Lemieux - I
know, pretty wild eh? It must have been his RFK shirt. Actually I
watched RFK ’92 and he’s not wearing that shirt. Could
you say more about how the criteria for choosing a View From
the Vault differ from an audio-only release. Obviously you
have a lot less to choose from. David
Lemieux - We
do have less to choose from. It’s performance first of all, and
second of all it really is how they look. How are they
interacting? When they screw up do they yell at each other?
We’ve got to look out for that. Sound quality is a big
issue—some of the videos don’t sound great. Fortunately the
last couple sound pretty good. It’s pretty much the same
criteria, but remember we’re not dealing with the 1972-1978 era.
We’re dealing with ’87 and ’88 a little bit, and then really
’89 to ’95. What
format was the video portion preserved on? David
Lemieux - From
’87 to ’95 about five different master formats. There’s a
lot of three-quarter-inch video, but I don’t know if we’d ever
use it as a master format. Downhill From Here from Alpine
Valley ’89 is one-inch analog video, and there’s some Beta SP
from ’89 and ’90. ’90 to ’91 is D2 which is digital. The
last two videos have been digital masters, so that’s part of the
reason they look so good. I’m
always very impressed with Len Dell’Amico’s direction. How did
the direction take place during a concert? Did Len tell each
camera operator what to do? David
Lemieux - Yeah.
They had headphones on and there would be five or six cameras. So
would he say, “Cut to Vince now” for instance? David
Lemieux - Oh
no, he would be doing the cutting. Len would be in a truck with
six TV monitors in front of him—one for each camera. So he’s
watching what each of those six cameramen are doing, and if none
of them are doing what he wants—and generally they would be
covering their guy, the “Bobby guy,” or the “Jerry
guy”—Len would say, “Okay, I need a tight shot of Vince, I
want to cut to him in a minute.” So the guy who was in that area
would zoom in on Vince. So Len would be watching the six TV angles
at once, and he would have a switcher—one through six—and
he’d say, “Okay this is what we’re going to do.” So the
video feed that he would be switching manually—in real time
obviously—would go to the screens and would also be split and go
to the video machine and recorded. Each of the six camera angles
were not recorded which is why if the camera starts shaking for
example, we can’t cut away and go to something else. We don’t
have that extra footage. So
we’re seeing exactly what was on the screens at the show. David
Lemieux - One
hundred percent—graphics and all. There’s nothing we can
change. Well, we can change the graphics a little, but we can’t
get rid of them. In fact we have put different graphics in at
times. Not always, but there have been a couple times,
particularly with View From the Vault II where the graphics
were not so interesting, so we put in something else, just a
couple instances. This is another issue. I get a lot of flack:
“How can you cover Jerry’s solo with graphics?” And it’s
not my choice. I didn’t put that in. But we can’t get rid of
it, we don’t have alternate, or isolation footage as it’s
called. We don’t have that to insert unfortunately. I
love the roller coaster imagery during Franklin’s Tower. David
Lemieux - That
was my choice. We had something else over that, it was a really,
um, quaint animated graphic, that really made a lot of people
cringe, and it was very dated, it didn’t hold up. We had another
tape with a couple graphic elements, and I argued it out with
Jeff, and he says, “Oh no not the roller coaster.” But we
tried it in the video-editing suite and it worked! Jeffrey said,
“This is great.” So whenever I watch it now I get a big kick
out of it. On
the final tour, Summer ’95, two sets of screens were used, one
showing the band playing, the other with the usual trippy
graphics. Are both in that vault, and if you release any of those
could you edit from one screen to the other? David
Lemieux - If
we had both, but I don’t think we do. I think we just have the
band part of it, but we do also have other tapes called graphical
element tapes. Those are the raw footage that was used during the
concert. So there may not be specific footage of a particular
show’s graphics, but we do have four or five hours of graphics
from that tour and we could do that, but if we had a clean feed of
the band like we did at Alpine Valley I very much doubt that
we’d put any graphics over the band. Was
it the same camera operators at each venue on a tour? David
Lemieux - I
think they’d bring four on the road and if it was a six-camera
shoot they’d hire two locals. Because when we did the credit
lists I remember looking through the old tour files to see who was
on the road at the time. We saw that they’d bring three or four
of their own guys then hire a couple of locals. Are
concerts that were shown on pay-per-view eligible for the View
From the Vault series? David
Lemieux - Yeah,
I think so. This goes back to putting out shows that people
don’t already have. The pay-per-view of the Shoreline Summer
Solstice show on 6-21-89 circulates in such terrific quality. With
audio it’s one thing, because there’s so much audio out there,
but with video there’s relatively little available in good
quality that isn’t official. So to put out an official release
of a show that’s already circulating in tremendous quality is
something we’d shy away from. There’s hardly any video out
there, so I think we could definitely pick some other really good
concert from that era. Is
all the old film and video footage of the band, like old
television appearances in the vault? David
Lemieux - Unfortunately
not. We’ve got very little of any of it. Like the Playboy
After Dark we’ve got a reference copy someone sent us, but
as far as Calibration and all that, we’ve got none of it. Is
releasing all of the previously available videos on DVD part of
the long-term plan? David
Lemieux - Absolutely.
I’m sure Backstage Pass and So Far are going to
come out, and there’s a ton of bonus footage for So Far. Would
Len be interested in doing audio commentary? David
Lemieux - Well,
we haven’t gotten that far into it, but I’m sure he would be.
What Justin would like to do with Backstage Pass is…
Remember the video’s only 34 minutes. He’s got a whole bunch
of stuff that he shot backstage himself—that actually is
backstage footage of Jerry rehearsing and other little bits that
are really incredible. So maybe an hour of that, then maybe an
hour of little songs that we’d never use as a complete-show
video release because it might be a terrific version of a song
that falls within a weak show. So I think that’s what you’ll
end up seeing. He’s coming by tomorrow and we’re working on
that. Dead
Ahead
combined with the Showtime special would make a fabulous DVD,
especially since the Showtime Special has never been released. David
Lemieux - Yeah.
Plus all the footage from 10-29-80 that no one’s ever seen. Somewhere
down the road maybe? David
Lemieux - I
definitely think so. I don’t know about the Showtime special
because then you get into dealing with two different companies,
whereas if it was just one or the other it would be a lot easier
to do. I think if it had to be either one, it would be Dead
Ahead. It’s
great that the recent videotapes are being released in the
European PAL format, are the DVDs multi-region? David
Lemieux - Yes.
That’s something I insisted on, that they be printed as Region
0—no regional encoding. I think that the first couple DVDs, Ticket
to New Years and Downhill From Here, have regional
encoding, only because a lot of DVD authoring houses default to
Region 1. After that we had to make specific instructions saying
no regional encoding, because it is an actual active process to
encode DVDs, so we demanded that, and now you can play those
anywhere. Like
I mentioned, I loved Justin’s Liberty video. Any chance
of collecting all of the Dead’s MTV-style music videos for
official release? David
Lemieux - I
think so. I’ll probably talk to Justin about that tomorrow for Backstage
Pass. I think there are about seven of them. A
perfect place for those would be on The Making of Touch of Grey
Video. David
Lemieux - True.
I’d love to see that come out. And again, that’s short, it’s
only thirty minutes so there’s definitely some room in there for
extension. What
about The Grateful Dead Movie? You want to get that really
perfect. David
Lemieux - Yeah.
It will be done right. And there’s so much bonus material to
sift through and to mix it and make it perfect and make it
surround sound 5.1 that it will really be a big task. In
an old interview with Donna, she said there was actually interview
footage with her and Keith that got edited out at the end. David
Lemieux - That’s
what we’d look at. We’d definitely focus on music. I went
through the entire collection of outtakes and there is quite a bit
of interview footage with roadies and deadheads, but I think the
focus of any bonus material would be music and if an interview was
particularly interesting or insightful we’d include it. I think
everyone would like to hear Keith talk, so I think for that reason
we’d definitely try to find some little bits and pieces like
that. I remember watching a Big River from one of the
shows. Do you remember that guy in front of the stage who mouths
the words “Back to back/Chicken shack”? During Big River
there’s one camera angle only on him, it’s really quite funny. One
quick point that always confused me. The laser disc of The
Grateful Dead Movie looked really good. The entire film was
letterboxed except for the animated opening. Was that shot in a
different aspect ratio? David
Lemieux - I
don’t know about that. I’ve seen it theatrically and the whole
film is definitely 1.66:1 including the animation. And to answer
the question of why it looks so much better, the video has been
out almost fifteen years and the transfer that was done for the
VHS copy is a different transfer than the laser disc, which was
transferred in ’93 and looks significantly better, not only
because it’s a laser disc but primarily because it’s a new
transfer. When we get around to doing the DVD, we’ll take the
original negative and transfer it from that with 21st
Century technology and it will look spectacular. And of course
we’ll do it in the original 1.66:1 aspect ratio as opposed to
the more square 1.33:1. We also have a thirty-second animated
television commercial for Mars Hotel that we’ll
definitely put in there too. When the Dead had their own record
company they said, “Hey this will sell records.” So they made
this really nice little animated film shot on 35mm. So we’ll put
that in, some extra songs—big plans. I’d ideally like to see
two discs: one of the movie and one of bonus material. Alright,
can we talk about the new box set? David
Lemieux - Absolutely. The
Golden Road (1965-1973).
Very exciting. David
Lemieux - It’s
really good. And I’ve got to say that going into this originally
I didn’t know what our involvement was going to be, and it turns
out Rhino has been a great company to work with. They leave things
up to people that they can trust to do the right thing, and I
think with this project they really trusted us and we trusted
them, so it turned into an excellent collaboration. They’re
a fabulous company. David
Lemieux - They
are, and they do certain things incredibly well, and I think
Grateful Dead Productions does certain things incredibly well too,
so collaborating has been awesome. It’s been just incredible.
And it’s a really good box set. It is expensive, I think it’s
going to be around $150, but if anybody spends thirty seconds
thinking about it, you get twelve discs, you get seven and a half
hours of previously unreleased music, you get all the albums
remastered on high definition, and if anyone has HDCD at home they
know what it does to music—it really enhances the sound. And you
get this terrific Rhino-produced booklet in a beautiful box, so
overall it’s a heck of a deal. I’m not trying to market the
thing, I’m not making money off it—I really am excited by it.
The albums themselves are so incredible, and such a peak for the
Dead that all the albums are equally exciting to listen to. It’s
an awesome box set. So
it’s going to be all the Warner Bros. albums each with bonus
tracks, plus a two-disc set of pre-first album unreleased songs. David
Lemieux - Right.
That’s called Birth of the Dead. Dennis McNally and Lou
Tambakos compiled that. There
were a few tracks from that era on the So Many Roads box,
are some songs going to be repeated? David
Lemieux - A
couple: Can’t Come Down and Caution from the
Autumn Records sessions. So
will the complete Warlocks sessions be on there? David
Lemieux - Yes.
It’s actually called the Emergency Crew. It was six songs. We
thought about it for maybe two seconds I think that two of the
songs had already been released, but the Autumn
sessions were too important as a session. They
sure were! I can’t believe that they’re finally getting
released. David
Lemieux - Yeah,
it’s all six songs. How
about the Don’t Ease Me In/Stealin’ single? David
Lemieux - Even
better, we’ve got the entire Scorpio Records sessions. The first
six songs on Birth of the Dead are the complete Autumn
Records sessions and then the next bunch of tracks is: Stealin’,
Don’t Ease Me In, You Don’t Have to Ask, Tastebud,
I Know You Rider, Cold Rain and Snow. All
studio versions? David
Lemieux - All
studio. That’s all from the Scorpio Records sessions. And it’s
both the instrumental take and then the take with vocals. It’s
really cool. Then as an extra track we’ve got Fire in the
City. It’s a terrific first CD, and CD Two is outstanding,
it’s live tracks from July ’66. Are
we finally going to get Alice D. Millionaire? David
Lemieux - Even
better, the studio version of Alice D. Millionaire is a
bonus track on the first album. For that first album, all the
songs that were recorded and mixed but didn’t make the album are
now included. Some people have asked, are they demos? No, it’s a
real mixed song. It was supposed to be on the album, but with a
37-minute limit they wouldn’t fit. So Alice D. Millionaire
is now on the first album, the full vocal version and it’s
awesome. The studio Lindy is on it, another studio Tastebud,
a studio instrumental Death Don’t Have No Mercy, the
three-minute single version of Viola Lee Blues, plus a live
23-minute Viola Lee Blues. And five of the songs on the
first album are extended versions. Cream Puff War is a
whole minute longer. They just went off on this crazy jam on Cream
Puff War and on the original album they faded out at 2:18. And
five of the songs are longer. I’m telling you, this box set is
awesome man. I think you can tell by my enthusiasm. So
are the longer versions where they fell in the regular order, or
are they bonus tracks? David
Lemieux - Where
they fell, so we’ve changed it a little, and that was something
we struggled with a bit, but I think we’ve done the right thing.
Listening to the album over and over the last few weeks, I can
tell you we did the right thing. I’ve
always felt the Dead’s first album was totally underrated and
basically misunderstood, even by the band members. David
Lemieux - Wait
till you hear it now! There’s some pretty incredible stuff going
on in the remastering that is going to blow your mind, it’s a
better album. Then to get back to CD Two of Birth of the Dead,
I won’t go through the entire track list, but it opens with a
really terrific Viola Lee Blues, then Don’t Ease Me In,
He Was a Friend of Mine, Standing on the Corner, Nobody’s
Fault but Mine, One Kind Favor, In the Pines… Finally!
That’s from 7-16-66, right? That’s the only known performance
of In the Pines. David
Lemieux - We
used a couple songs from 7-16 and a couple from 7-17 and then we
had a reel that was labeled “location unknown”. We’re pretty
sure it’s from July. There’s also a Pigpen tune called Keep
Rolling By that’s really nice. There’s a King Bee
on there. You’re going to love Birth of the Dead, it’s
outstanding. Does
anybody know the origin of Tastebud? It seems to be one of
these elusive songs. David
Lemieux - It’s
a Pig tune, we think. He
wrote it? David
Lemieux - Yeah.
And as you’re going to hear, it’s him playing piano on it. I
brought Weir in the vault and I said, “Bobby, who’s playing
this?” He said, “That’s Pig. He could play piano, but he
didn’t like to.” Well
let’s jump into 1968 and ’69. Which mixes of Anthem of the
Sun and Aoxomoxoa are included? David
Lemieux - Well,
we used the original mix of Anthem of the Sun, but we never
could find the original mix of Aoxomoxoa. We looked so
hard. I can’t tell you what we went through to try and find the
original mix of Aoxomoxoa. So
you would have included the original mix if you’d found it. David
Lemieux - Absolutely.
We’ve got tapes of it, and we have it on vinyl, but with this
whole remastering project, the quality had to be good. You
don’t want to master from an LP. David
Lemieux - No.
And the quality of the master tape of the remixed Aoxomoxoa
is outstanding. You’re going to be blown away at how good it is. | |||||||||||||
