Grateful Dead SBD's removed from Archive

[MarcO]

Damnit, I love Phil Lesh.

I wonder how he was left out of the "decision making process"?

He played every Grateful Dead show they ever did, unlike Mickey fucking Hart.

[Booche]

My guess is that it has to do with this, since it is all part of the same package (little history lesson for some of you people):

The Grateful Dead are debating if they should digitize their over three decades of live and studio recordings. This debate is by the band's surviving members, reports online news service SonicNet. Bassist Phil Lesh is reportedly at in disagreements with former band mates Bob Weir, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann over an offer from an unnamed venture capital firm. The band has refused similar offers from the likes of Microsoft in the past.

The Grateful Dead is still putting its own archive out. Besides standard CD releases, the Dead is finalizing a deal with Apple's I-Tunes to make every live note they've ever recorded available for download.

"Everything, sooner or later, will end up being released on the Web," Weir says. "What we wanna do is digitize our entire catalog, our entire collection of tapes … and make that stuff available. I think I-Tunes is up to that."

And compared to most music at I-Tunes, the Dead's jams are a bargain, he says with a laugh. "At 99 cents a tune, it's a pretty decent price, because most of our tunes are pretty long."

"Everything, sooner or later, will end up being released on the Web," Weir says. "What we wanna do is digitize our entire catalog, our entire collection of tapes … and make that stuff available. I think iTunes is up to that."

[Davey Boy 2.0]

Phil's the fuckin man!

[Davey Boy 2.0]

sounds like a nice little retirement package for them

[Esau]

Booche beat me to with the Phil statement, so I deleted my post. But I'd still like to comment.

I'd like to clear up a thing or two, since I got enough slack over my 'sense of entitlement' comment. First off, I didn't come up with that, I only agreed that it was an accurate description going by some of the comments I have read online, but I guess I should have made clear the comments I read were not from here. It appears someone has taken my saying that very personally. Nothing personal meant or implied.

As mentioned before in thread, I'm disappointed this has occured, trust me, I listened to alot of GD from archive & am regretting not grabbing more while I had a chance, but in all honesty, I still fail to see why people are going off so crazy over this. But thats me.

Although, I now understand one of the possible reasons why Phish opted out of archive from get go.

Hey Booche, were you able to grab this two shows I posted about earlier in this thread? If not I'll see if my buddy can grab em. Thanks.

[Booche]

"Hey Booche, were you able to grab this two shows I posted about earlier in this thread? "

You know it. Sorry I havent got back to you about it, but the folders are named in this format:

Dead - Esau - xx-xx-xx

[jon.]

good ol' phil -

I must say this move continues to leave a bad taste in my mouth...

I guess there will be no more dead shows for "any kind of motherfucking day".....I guess its a get em while you can kind of situation.

Jon

[Esau]

Sweet, thanks man. I gotta get to a buddys to burn a few DVDs, would you be interested in a copy of July 7 1987 DVDs in exchange for grabbing those for me?

[Booche]

Sounds good Greg. If not, dont worry about it. I'm guessing you will be here on NYE, so I can bring the cd's that night. If not, good ole snail mail also works.

[boogieknight]

here's another intersting article on the matter.

Something is over, and that thing is the Grateful Dead....

apparently, there was an article in the new york times about the archive yesterday as well.

[Esau]

Heres the Rolling Stone article. (excuse this if its already been posted)

http://www.rollingstone.com/news/story/_/id/8898045/thegratefuldead?pageid=rs.News&pageregion=double1&rnd=1133365074555&has-player=false

I imagine archive is getting record hits since this hit mainstream media.

[secondtube]

i'm glad people are treating this as a big deal....

for those who think it isn't...

well...

most think it is.

[Esau]

Oh I understand that Steve, I read about it on numerous sites, obviously its big deal to many, it is to me also. But, its just not a big enough deal to me to boycott or write off purchasing GD products over this, thats where its lost on me.

Way I see it is, the trading community just got a good kick in getting closer to each other again. All the shows are out there already & it was shakey from get go when GD went to archive, all with no promises it would remain. I read on another site about a couple HDD vines that may get started, basically the complete archive collection, might be somthing for folks to think about.

No question it sucks this occured though, just not a huge deal to me since I can still get whatever show I want, I just have to apply 10 minutes of my day into searching & then interact with another human being to do so.

[M.O.B.E]

He played every Grateful Dead show they ever did, unlike Mickey fucking Hart.

Its like I told ya

What I said

Steal your face right off your head.

Guess it runs in the Hart family??

[ollie]

Phil Lesh -- the living heart and soul of the Grateful Dead. Thanks for your support Phil.

[AdamH]

No question it sucks this occured though, just not a huge deal to me since I can still get whatever show I want, I just have to apply 10 minutes of my day into searching & then interact with another human being to do so.

That's how I feel. It's been years since I've downloaded a show but back in the day I made my first trade with a guy from upstate new york and got 4 tapes of 5/2/70 delivered to my dorm in a bubble mailer. Later came Further and all that but the actual trading part was fun, especially getting surprises from people.

The first show I ever got was due to a posting on rec.music.gdead where I basically said I was totally new to the band. Next thing I know there's a set of tapes on its way from someone in Toronto.

This isn't the end of the world.

[MoMack]

That article hits the nail on the head. Great read.

here's another intersting article on the matter.

Something is over, and that thing is the Grateful Dead....

apparently, there was an article in the new york times about the archive yesterday as well.

[Booche]

Finally, a little sensibility. Looks like a few heads were slapped. Having the auds gone really got under my skin:

Complete recordings of Grateful Dead concerts should once again be available at the online Internet Archive (archive.org)—perhaps as early as tonight.

According to Grateful Dead spokesman Dennis McNally, the removal on November 22 of all downloadable Dead recordings from archive.org was the result of “a great communication snafu.â€

“It is my understanding that by the end of the day, the audience tapes will be restored to archive.org,†McNally said by phone.

Since 2003, the Internet Archive’s Grateful Dead page allowed fans to upload entire shows, which were then universally available for free download. Well-connected Deadheads have been using the Archive to bolster their collections of live Dead music ever since.

But on November 22, fans were shocked to find that access to the 1,172 recordings of Dead shows (and occasional rarities like rehearsal sessions) that had been previously available had been blocked. That included access to the “audience tapesâ€â€”recordings made the old-fashioned way, with two microphones and a tape deck in the special “taper section†at Dead concerts.

The Grateful Dead have long been known for their policy of allowing fans to record their concerts—even allowing Deadhead tapers to plug directly into the band’s mixing console (resulting in the high-quality “soundboard†recordings)—then disseminate the recordings freely. The band’s freewheeling taping policy has been widely credited for maintaining the band’s success, even during decades of lukewarm attention from critics and the mainstream commercial music industry.

So, the reaction to the move from Deadheads accustomed to unlimited access in both the virtual and real worlds has ranged from disappointed to furious to—well, grateful that the material had been available online for so long at all.

Online petitions have quickly appeared in the last week, asking the band to reconsider the policy, along with vibrant chatroom discourses at fan sites across the Internet.

Many fans decried the move as a betrayal of the Dead’s core values, some even announcing the end of the Grateful Dead—a band that has continued in spirit, and in modified touring versions, even after the 1995 death of guitarist Jerry Garcia.

After all, it was Garcia who famously said, “once we’re done with [the music], you can have it.â€

Bassist Phil Lesh echoed that sentiment—quoting Garcia in an interview with Charlie Rose on CBS’s 60 Minutes in 2004: “Jerry put it the best, as he frequently did, ‘Let ‘em have it. When we play it, we’re done with it.â€

But it turns out that the Grateful Dead, whose business model has been shifting in recent years from selling concert tickets to selling concert recordings—and increasingly to selling digital downloads of concert recordings—may not be done with it quite yet.

[Booche]

Barlow has been getting his hands dirty in all of this. I wonder which relations he is straining right now. Here are his latest comments, from the NY Times:

"Mr. Barlow said the blanket request to the Live Music Archive was driven by Mr. Weir and the band's drummers, Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann. "It was almost as if they had just discovered it was happening, even though it's been online for at least three years," he said.

Mr. Barlow said the band's other primary lyricist, Robert Hunter, did not wish to get involved in the public debate but supported his position. But the lyricists are not full voting members of the band, and given the apparent 3-1 split among the four surviving performing members in favor of disallowing the downloads, Mr. Barlow said he was not sure how the issue would play out."

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

the lyricists are not full voting members of the band

?!

wtf?

[Booche]

Makes sense to me. I am sure if they were, Deb Koons would want to represent Jerry's voice, even though she would be the antithesis of it.

[Dr_Evil_Mouse]

You think? Even Yoko had more involvement in music than her. Hunter and Barlow's words have certainly been as cherished as the instrumentation.

[Booche]

Fuuuuuuuuuuuck yeah.

[bradm]

I wonder if we could amass/coordinate the GD cover/tribute bands (DSO, Caution Jam, TMNS, etc.) to do every show GD ever did, chronlogically, record the soundboards, and then just upload them...

Aloha,

Brad

[MoMack]

(I posted this in a few threads)

Here's a question for anyone with a critical legal mind:

If the Dead allowed tapers to tape, and allowed them to patch into the SBD, then do they really own what comes out of it? ie. shouldn't that person, who recorded with permission, be able to do as he pleases with the recording? Of course, this is subject to the restriction on making a profit, which formed part of the initial consent to taping access in the first part.

The fact that the technologies have changed shouldn't really impact the fact that the original contract allowed tapers to freely distribute as long as they didn't make money. This contract had consideration going both ways, to the taper the music, to the band the publicity etc.

Anyone? Stonemtn?