Jerry Garcia talks about allowing Deadheads to record Grateful Dead concerts 

Yep I'm surprised Jerry didn't say something like "they ensured the music will live on, for themselves and for those who never heard it. If not for them, there would be no record of the soundwaves that went through the atmosphere all those nights. Those vibrations were important, man, we were trying to do something with those, and what we were doing for our live audience THEN can now be done for a countless number of people, as long as there are people around who listen to this kind of music."

We have hours upon hours upon hours of live dead recordings thanks to them. Wothout them, we'd only have a few of the professional recordings, and the studio stuff. Their live performances are way better than their studio work

In Portland every Saturday is a show called "Grateful Dead and Friends" and they play shows, compare shows, analyze every lick from every direction... Think if we only had the studio albums! My gawd this world would be bereft of so much amazing music.

​@@kerrimccabe3883 do you so sniff each others farts and see who's smell best as well?

Once they got a miracle ticket it was time to give it back💝

That’s one of the reasons Jerry and the rest of the dead are legends. They truly cared about their audience and knew that even tho it’s the music business, treat your fans with respect and everyone wins

this guy waas awesoome!

@johnwilkes... I know! How freaking cool is that? I bet he treats people just like he wants to be treated and that's just the way this guy is, no matter what!!

​@@mattryan6886yeah, heroin for breakfast yummmm

Jerry was a saint in my opinion. He seems like he had a kind heart.

I met his daughter told her he was the dad I never had...

That’s different from today. Now everyone does, and it hurts your ability to view the performances, and becomes a problem. The invention of phones… I just watched and listened to my first song from them, and the audience was high off acid, and enjoying the music. No one had their tech out, it was pure happiness for them.

​@MunchTheRabbit the taper section was set up initially and then moved so there weren't microphone stands everywhere with angry tapers popping balloons and hushing people or giving mean looks. Sometimes patch cords were run out and people could plug in, atleast when digital taping began. Sometimes Dan Healy experimented with short range/low power FM broadcasts at venues so people could record the broadcast there. I think the FCC had issues with that. Sometimes the SBD recordings were given to some people and they made copies at home and sent copies to others but even within a few generations the sound would suffer on the analog recordings. If people made some copies from the original and then sent the original/1st or 2nd Gen from original to the next person and they repeated, so many more recordings circulated that didn't sound so bad. The highest generation tape of SBD that I ever got was 5th or 6th generation and they were far from pristine. Audience tapes circulated to probably more but the microphones and all other equipment varied in quality and so the tapes varied in quality and if someone was using cheap little mics that were discreetly worn attached to eyeglasses or whatever and taped from a rather noisy section or area without a good mix, the tapes were only tolerable if you had been there and it was more of a memory than quality listening experience. People recorded GD shows before it was permitted but things were never absurd like all these modern shows where 5,000 bad bozos have phones in the air. The tapers sure would do a triple back flip to block balloons and quietly deflate them. When a Ballon hit a mic, sounded like someone falling down the staircase at home, most everyone else had a blast except for filthy undercover types and maybe someone who is at their first show and not getting it yet or someone who never will understand or someone on dumbing down drugs like alcohol. Ok, I forgot where I was going with this. Way past my bedtime.

@@davidr1676 Wow thank you for that comment. It’s been a while since I’ve read a long comment that was actually interesting. Do you still have any of those 6th gen tapes. And was the video recordings just people filming a tv for 4 layers? I could imagine a tunnel effect that moved a lot in those last gen tapes. Also, how did the mics pop the balloons? Were they the ones attached to the ear or were they boom or attached to the camera itself? Thank you, how young are you btw?

To be fair tho those "10 versions" will be very similar to the average person. Unless your spanning years.

​@@MunchTheRabbit i beg to differ. Especially having everyone high on acid

Bootlegging music is completely legal in Germany. We always got A+ quality from any band from over there. Proper release quality gigs.

I did too! Until a few days ago when I heard his take on rap ‘music’ And I could not more strongly disagree with him at all But, he said all that a long time ago and Id like to imagine if he were here today he’d have a much different opinion

​@@JoeSourBauer both are poetry. The GD are real music, not just a beat and a base line.

​@@JoeSourBaueryou are right about the time he said that about rap, Jerry was an amazing and awesome musician, I went to 30 Grateful Dead shows from 1983-1994 they were the best times of my life, however Jerry never got to see what an amazing lyricist someone like 2Pac was and became, well he does now because they are both legends and jamming in their own way in Heaven.

For real. The Betty Boards alone hit like a bomb when they surfaced. It made everyone who heard them wanna see for themselves.

Yeah now they're making an utter fortune by releasing box sets of shows that are only desired because of the bootleg culture. They release like 4 vinyl sets a year, and even more cds. They're making an utter killing since big fans are buying the same songs dozens of times. Also it creates an amazing historical record where the dead is by far the most documented band. The tapes is why they have the massive fanbase they do. Every Dave picks cd sells out at 25,000 copies and 4 releases a year. That would never happen if it wasn't for allowing taping.

Absolutely. Just one of hundreds of reasons the Dead are America's greatest band of all time.

​@@simonemurray1345Well the real reason is the music speaks for itself. 💀💜

​@@simonemurray1345well after Jerry died the money vultures moved... Never realized how many items have grateful dead licenses almost as bad as Kiss. They lost me with the merchandise when they started partnering with major fashion houses like Amiri

Amen 🙌

Yes great show I was there ⚡✌️

❤️

i was there man! such a great show. traffic played rainmaker and it rained!

Glad you saw a show with your bro !

Rip to your brother. I've been to Buckeye Lake for DSO and that place is special. And I'd like to think the dead have a part in making it magical

Probably one of the best things he, his bandmates, and all the other musicians who allow taping, to come from that music scene they created/insires, especially the social aspect of it. It helped that Jerry made his own bootlegs, taping some of the bluegrass bands he would go see, probably to commemorate the show, and also to help him learn how to play the music. I love having current shows at the click of a mouse, but I got to meet several interesting people (fellow music lovers), and also got turned on to great music (new to me), from trading, hoarding, and passing around different performances. Even today, just seeing the gold wrapper from a new, blank set of 90min Maxell XL2’s takes me back to good times had with friends. Oh, and if you’re a taper, simply, thanks!😊

Yup 🌹🌹🌹

@@cleech74 Wow that's crazy cause I hooked up a CD player the other day and all the burns on CD Maxell played perfectly after not being played for years. Gold disc - the best and they're all live JGB and Grateful Dead 🌹🌹🌹

Well... aside from the drug addictions, that is. "But other than THAT, Mrs Lincoln, how did u like the play?

@@smartalek180 I fail to see how addiction has anything to do with their business model. If you take a cross section of any amount of typical people in any high pressure industry you'll find an increased incidence of addiction. Take a look at the stats for addiction in the medical or law profession and you'll find them quite comparable.

"without any of the headaches that come from mainstream success" lmao not quite.

@@methyod as I said "sustained themselves for years." Post In the Dark doesn't count.

Damn. That just hit me hard. You're old. Lol. I kid, my first show was 95, thank God I got to see Jerry. Dancing in the rain at 3 rivers. That day changed the entire course of my life. No way to overstate how heavy it changed my life. My wife and I went out for dinner a couple weekends ago, rented a hotel in the city. We parked in the hotel parking lot and it dawned on me that we were sitting in the exact parking lot that we parked in when I went to my first show. Hotel we rented was across from the new pirate stadium, across from the old 3 River stadium which is long gone now. It BLEW ME AWAY. I've thought back on that night so many times over the years, really blew my mind to randomly ended up standing in the same spot almost 30 years later, happily married, all grown up....still a raging deadhead lol.

"Who cares if you have Winterland '74 Estimated Prophet?" I do. The song didn't come out until 77 so it would be interesting to hear a version that doesn't exist

@@sinane.y HAHA! I had Terrapin Station, I should've known that.

@@sinane.ywait til you hear this ‘77 Throwing Stones I got

Wait, did they actually do that? Or do you just mean conceptually?

@@TheJackOfFools literally. The area behind the soundboard was for people to record. They had an entire community that would tape shows and then trade each other's recordings all across the country.

@@mattwingo89 And you know with how big camcorders were back then, thats a huge deal. Being able to set up like a tripod and not have to lug them things the whole time? And power? Thats super cool. And you know, I think that could work even today. Everyone has a pretty decent recording device in their pockets, but if you were cool about it like these guys? I bet the vast majority of people would keep it off social media and like RU-vid and stuff. I mean honestly I think most people wouldn't bother recording, they'd still just want to enjoy the show. Of course I also think that any musician or performer who wanted people to be reasonable about the recording thing would need to be reasonable in return. If it costs a grand just to get in, and you go around canceling stops on a whim or just generally being entitled or a jerk to the fans? Well I dont know if those folks need to worry about people spreading the videos, cuz they already got paid. :D

Jerry was very careful with language and did not speak sloppily.

Media mail ❤

Exactly. When money isn't your motivator things like this don't even occur to you. We can (and have) all learn a lot from Jerry.