• https://www.dead.net/features/blair-jackson/blair-s-golden-road-blog-gd-mtv-world
    Blair’s Golden Road Blog - GD in an MTV World

    All the excitement around here about the veritable tsunami of videos submitted for the Dead Covers Project got me thinking about the Grateful Dead’s rather slight contributions to the MTV Age. This was a not a band made for that medium, especially in MTV’s early days, when videos were all about fast cuts, tight pants, smoke bombs and scantily clad women. Has there ever been a band that cared less about its onstage presentation than the Grateful Dead?

    MTV went on the air for the first time on Jerry’s 39th birthday, August 1, 1981, around the time the Dead were releasing their excellent long-form live music video, Dead Ahead, shot at Radio City Music Hall the previous October. That’s how the Dead were meant to be seen! During MTV’s early years, the Dead didn’t have an album, much less a single, that warranted making a video—you’ll recall, the group didn’t release a new studio album between 1980 (Go to Heaven) and 1987 (In the Dark).

    Garcia’s near death in the summer of ’86 and his and the band’s subsequent resurrection the following winter and spring was such a captivating storyline in both the music world and the mainstream media, it was no surprise that when the group completed In the Dark in the spring of 1987, MTV was panting outside their door, practically begging for a video. As fate would have it, the group had a song with actual commercial potential, ripe for video treatment: “Touch of Grey.”

    Skeletoid Jerry and drummers
    in “Touch of Grey” video.

    And in their first attempt at a video, they knocked it out of the park! Directed by Gary Gutierrez, the genius behind the animated opening of The Grateful Dead Movie (which came out in 1977), the “Touch of Grey” video famously combined footage of life-size skeleton marionettes of the band members (with Jerry in a black T-shirt, Bob in a polo, Phil in a tie-dye, etc.) playing the song before an ecstatic Dead Head crowd. Toward the end of the tune, the skeletons magically transform into the living, breathing (and smiling) Grateful Dead! The video was shot a few hours after the group’s show at the Laguna Seca Recreation Area near Monterey on May 9, 1987. I and several friends were at the show but elected not to come back after nightfall to be part of the video. We partied at our hotel instead, so we missed our shot at video immortality. Despite this disturbing lack of me, the result was way cool. I love it when a dog runs across the stage carrying the Mickey skeleton’s lower leg (complete with high-top sneaker) between his teeth! The folks at MTV loved the video and played it a lot during that summer of 1987, no doubt spurring interest in the single (which became the Dead’s only Top Ten hit) and the album (ditto). Justin Kreutzmann directed a 30-minute VHS video called Dead Ringers: The Making of “Touch of Grey,” which, alas, has never been released on DVD.

    Two other songs from In the Dark also got the full-blown video treatment, too.

    Bob may be going to “Hell in a Bucket,”
    but at least he’s enjoying the duck!

    “Hell in Bucket” was never released as a single, but it made it all the way to No. 3 on Billboard’s “Mainstream Rock Tracks” chart, and it seemed like a natural choice for a video—after all, it’s about as hard rock as the Dead get, and it has some very colorful imagery. For better or worse, the Dead and director Len Dell’Amico (who had earlier helmed Dead Ahead and in 1987 completed, with Garcia, the 55-minute conceptual video So Far) decided to plant tongue firmly-in-cheek and create a nearly literal depiction of John Barlow’s lyrics—from the biker “charging his chopper up and down your carpeted hall” to “sipping champagne from your boot” and a leather-clad dominatrix’s “chair and her whips and her pets” (which in this case are pigs, goats and a tiger).

    Bob is the affable star of this one. Dressed in full Don Johnson Miami Vice-wear (pink pastel jacket, yellow sleeveless shirt, gold chain, etc.) he mugs his way through a series of ridiculous scenes with a black-corseted femme fatale and his fellow band members: Jerry appears at the beginning and end sitting on a bar stool and looking coolly nonchalant as he plays his axe, while the others must suffer more serious indignities—Mickey and Billy, laughing all the way, are dressed as devils driving a big-finned old Cadillac (down the streets of San Rafael) to hell; Brent is an old-time saloon pianist; and poor Phil looks uncomfortable in his cameo as a circus ringmaster. The wild bar scenes are populated by Grateful Dead family—look closely and you’ll spot Dick Latvala, Billy Grillo, Sue Stephens, Jon McIntire, Harry Popick and others. All in all, it’s cute but a little bush league. MTV didn’t play it much. And a duck steals the show!

    Strangely enough, “Throwing Stones” (b/w “When Push Comes to Shove”) was released as a single. It did not make the Billboard “Hot 100,” but it, too, was a popular FM radio song, topping out at No. 15 on the “Mainstream Rock Tracks” chart. Len dell’Amico was again in the director’s chair for this video, which was shot on the grounds of an abandoned school in Oakland in November ’87. The setting appears to be some sort of bleak, post-apocalyptic future like that depicted in the Australian Mad Max films; indeed, the band is decked out in what are known as Australian oil coats and various hats—Jerry wears a top hat, Mickey a turban. (Bill was not present for the location shoot in Oakland, so crew member Robbie Taylor filled in for him wearing a mask.)

    As Bob earnestly lip synchs to the recorded track, director dell’Amico fills much of the video with a montage of disturbing footage of World War II, the Ku Klux Klan, cities in flames and other dark images to illustrate some of the lyrics in the song. That negativity is contrasted with scenes of grade school children (“full of hope, full of grace”) playing together and painting a colorful mural, and lovely, inviting shots of the sky and our blue and green planet. Jerry looks as if he’d rather be doing anything other than wearing a costume, but otherwise the group seems to be into it. The song’s message comes across strongly, which was the point.

    Two years after In the Dark, the Dead put out what would be their final album, Built to Last (released on Halloween 1989). That CD didn’t have an obvious single like “Touch of Grey,” but the most commercial of the lot was clearly “Foolish Heart,” and Gary Gutierrez’s imaginative video supported the song beautifully. When Gutierrez was given the lyrics to work with, the song was still called “Unto a Foolish Heart” and, as he told me in an interview for The Golden Road at the time, “The title and some of imagery reminded me of fairy tales, and had a certain Victorian melodramatic quality about it. The basic message of the song, as I saw it, was you can do this foolish thing or that crazy thing, but whatever you do, don’t give your heart to someone who will abuse it. Hunter agreed that is what the song is basically about, and everything else was an embellishment of that and his own visual imagery, and he encouraged me to develop a second level of imagery that would complement that.”

    Scene from George Méliès’
    Kingdom of the Fairies (1903)

    Gutierrez took a few different tacks. After a skeleton arm (from the “Touch of Grey” video) cranks up a Victrola and puts the needle down on a 78, the song begins and we see a miniature theater proscenium with red velvet curtain—and a rock ’n’ roll P.A. on the sides! Once the curtains open, the stage space is used for footage of the band in Victorian threads (except for Jerry, of course, dapper in a dark sport coat, a red rose on his lapel) playing the song; various ingenious stop-animation collages of hearts and flowers; and a little playlet featuring two gloved hands demonstrating different stages of romance (love the “nude” scene!). Also running through the video are bits of a 1903 French silent film called Kingdom of the Fairies directed by George Méliès (who is a central character in the Oscar-nominated Martin Scorsese film, Hugo) “that were almost archetypal, having to do with love and foolish quests and things like that,” Gutierrez said. There are also some nifty moments of the band looking as though they are in a Méliès film. Neither the single nor the video caught on, but “Foolish Heart” made it No. 8 on “Mainstream Rock Tracks” and it remains a fine piece of work.

    The final song video the Dead created was also directed by Gutierrez—Brent’s “Just a Little Light.” This time the approach was simple and straightforward. It’s essentially a performance video, albeit with some very interesting and unusual lighting, playing off darkness and light, shadows and glaring brightness. It’s a moody and effective rendering of what I feel is Brent’s best song and, following his death a few months after the video came out, it became a poignant memorial to him. It was also just a bit eerie—toward the end of the song, we see him surrounded by candles as he sings, and the last image in the video is a candle being blown out.

    Of course we’ll never know what kinds of videos the Dead might have made for “Liberty” or “So Many Roads” or any of the other songs that would have been on the uncompleted follow-up to Built to Last. Their legacy of “official” videos—just these five songs—is uneven, but I still wish they were available on DVD.

    * * *

    Speaking of videos, here are five more submitted to the Dead Covers Project that I think are worth checking out:

    Modusmongo: “Crazy Fingers.” A wonderful acoustic guitar-and-vocal performance by Peter McConnel. There’s nothing revolutionary about his approach or arrangement, but his performance is so committed and his guitar work so confident he really “sells” the song, which is one of my all-time favorites. I also like his exciting little instrumental flight after the main song.

    Mike Massé and Jeff Hall: “Black Peter.” Another relatively straight cover, this one captured at Pie Pizzeria in Salt Lake City back in 2008. Massé plays acoustic guitar and sings lead, Hall the electric bass. The performance has a really nice vibe to it, and I love the vocals on the bridge. However, I cannot forgive them for also posting a video of them doing “Dust in the Wind.”

    Packy Lundholm: “Bertha.” I see that this one has also been chosen by the Rhino/Dead.net Grand Poobahs for their daily list. It’s definitely one of the most interesting we’ve received. Using a five-way split screen, it shows Lundholm playing all lead and rhythm guitar parts, bass, drums and keyboards completely live through a very hot version of “Bertha.” (In other words, he recorded a guitar-and-vocal track first, then overdubbbed each additional part, filming each as a complete take.) The guy has chops on all five instruments and both the audio and video quality is superb. A must-see!

    Terrain: “Friend of the Devil.” This is different and a lot of fun! It starts off as a black- and-white performance video, with the band easing into a festive reggae groove for the song, but it quickly becomes something else—it humorously depicts the story in the song through simply manipulated cut-out images, various three-dimensional objects (like a joint), magic marker scrawls and childlike watercolor backgrounds. Works for me! And I dig the musical arrangement, too!

    Anne Marie Calhoun: “Ripple.” Calhoun is one helluva violinist; here she’s supported by a lone acoustic guitar (her brother Joe) in this compelling instrumental version. At its simplest, it has the vibe of some of the music for Ken Burns’ Civil War series. But then Calhoun launches into one intriguing and ambitious extrapolation on the melody and rhythm after another, with fascinating results. There are a couple of points where she seems to sort of go off the rails and get lost, but who cares when the playing is this good!

    *        *       *

    Lastly, this week marks the one-year anniversary (and 49th posting) of “Blair’s Golden Road Blog.” What a long, fun trip it’s been!

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  • SPACEBROTHER
    12 years 1 month ago
    Who remembers...
    ...when MTV did the Day of the Dead broadcast in '87 during the Summer Tour where the VJ's interviewed Dead Heads outside of a concert at Giants Stadium? I would love to see that released, along with the '89 Shorline Summer Solstace Pay Per View broadcast.
  • Default Avatar
    Zuckfun
    12 years 1 month ago
    Milestone
    ...And many more fun years to come! Any (or all!) of these videos would be a welcome bonus addition to a Concert DVD release, if we're lucky enough to be offered another installment.
  • Default Avatar
    blairj
    12 years 1 month ago
    Swelldance...
    Those are all active links in the article; just click on the colored song titles. The quality isn't A+ but at least you can get a good idea of what they're like...
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14 years 11 months

All the excitement around here about the veritable tsunami of videos submitted for the Dead Covers Project got me thinking about the Grateful Dead’s rather slight contributions to the MTV Age. This was a not a band made for that medium, especially in MTV’s early days, when videos were all about fast cuts, tight pants, smoke bombs and scantily clad women. Has there ever been a band that cared less about its onstage presentation than the Grateful Dead?

MTV went on the air for the first time on Jerry’s 39th birthday, August 1, 1981, around the time the Dead were releasing their excellent long-form live music video, Dead Ahead, shot at Radio City Music Hall the previous October. That’s how the Dead were meant to be seen! During MTV’s early years, the Dead didn’t have an album, much less a single, that warranted making a video—you’ll recall, the group didn’t release a new studio album between 1980 (Go to Heaven) and 1987 (In the Dark).

Garcia’s near death in the summer of ’86 and his and the band’s subsequent resurrection the following winter and spring was such a captivating storyline in both the music world and the mainstream media, it was no surprise that when the group completed In the Dark in the spring of 1987, MTV was panting outside their door, practically begging for a video. As fate would have it, the group had a song with actual commercial potential, ripe for video treatment: “Touch of Grey.”

Skeletoid Jerry and drummers
in “Touch of Grey” video.

And in their first attempt at a video, they knocked it out of the park! Directed by Gary Gutierrez, the genius behind the animated opening of The Grateful Dead Movie (which came out in 1977), the “Touch of Grey” video famously combined footage of life-size skeleton marionettes of the band members (with Jerry in a black T-shirt, Bob in a polo, Phil in a tie-dye, etc.) playing the song before an ecstatic Dead Head crowd. Toward the end of the tune, the skeletons magically transform into the living, breathing (and smiling) Grateful Dead! The video was shot a few hours after the group’s show at the Laguna Seca Recreation Area near Monterey on May 9, 1987. I and several friends were at the show but elected not to come back after nightfall to be part of the video. We partied at our hotel instead, so we missed our shot at video immortality. Despite this disturbing lack of me, the result was way cool. I love it when a dog runs across the stage carrying the Mickey skeleton’s lower leg (complete with high-top sneaker) between his teeth! The folks at MTV loved the video and played it a lot during that summer of 1987, no doubt spurring interest in the single (which became the Dead’s only Top Ten hit) and the album (ditto). Justin Kreutzmann directed a 30-minute VHS video called Dead Ringers: The Making of “Touch of Grey,” which, alas, has never been released on DVD.

Two other songs from In the Dark also got the full-blown video treatment, too.

Bob may be going to “Hell in a Bucket,”
but at least he’s enjoying the duck!

“Hell in Bucket” was never released as a single, but it made it all the way to No. 3 on Billboard’s “Mainstream Rock Tracks” chart, and it seemed like a natural choice for a video—after all, it’s about as hard rock as the Dead get, and it has some very colorful imagery. For better or worse, the Dead and director Len Dell’Amico (who had earlier helmed Dead Ahead and in 1987 completed, with Garcia, the 55-minute conceptual video So Far) decided to plant tongue firmly-in-cheek and create a nearly literal depiction of John Barlow’s lyrics—from the biker “charging his chopper up and down your carpeted hall” to “sipping champagne from your boot” and a leather-clad dominatrix’s “chair and her whips and her pets” (which in this case are pigs, goats and a tiger).

Bob is the affable star of this one. Dressed in full Don Johnson Miami Vice-wear (pink pastel jacket, yellow sleeveless shirt, gold chain, etc.) he mugs his way through a series of ridiculous scenes with a black-corseted femme fatale and his fellow band members: Jerry appears at the beginning and end sitting on a bar stool and looking coolly nonchalant as he plays his axe, while the others must suffer more serious indignities—Mickey and Billy, laughing all the way, are dressed as devils driving a big-finned old Cadillac (down the streets of San Rafael) to hell; Brent is an old-time saloon pianist; and poor Phil looks uncomfortable in his cameo as a circus ringmaster. The wild bar scenes are populated by Grateful Dead family—look closely and you’ll spot Dick Latvala, Billy Grillo, Sue Stephens, Jon McIntire, Harry Popick and others. All in all, it’s cute but a little bush league. MTV didn’t play it much. And a duck steals the show!

Strangely enough, “Throwing Stones” (b/w “When Push Comes to Shove”) was released as a single. It did not make the Billboard “Hot 100,” but it, too, was a popular FM radio song, topping out at No. 15 on the “Mainstream Rock Tracks” chart. Len dell’Amico was again in the director’s chair for this video, which was shot on the grounds of an abandoned school in Oakland in November ’87. The setting appears to be some sort of bleak, post-apocalyptic future like that depicted in the Australian Mad Max films; indeed, the band is decked out in what are known as Australian oil coats and various hats—Jerry wears a top hat, Mickey a turban. (Bill was not present for the location shoot in Oakland, so crew member Robbie Taylor filled in for him wearing a mask.)

As Bob earnestly lip synchs to the recorded track, director dell’Amico fills much of the video with a montage of disturbing footage of World War II, the Ku Klux Klan, cities in flames and other dark images to illustrate some of the lyrics in the song. That negativity is contrasted with scenes of grade school children (“full of hope, full of grace”) playing together and painting a colorful mural, and lovely, inviting shots of the sky and our blue and green planet. Jerry looks as if he’d rather be doing anything other than wearing a costume, but otherwise the group seems to be into it. The song’s message comes across strongly, which was the point.

Two years after In the Dark, the Dead put out what would be their final album, Built to Last (released on Halloween 1989). That CD didn’t have an obvious single like “Touch of Grey,” but the most commercial of the lot was clearly “Foolish Heart,” and Gary Gutierrez’s imaginative video supported the song beautifully. When Gutierrez was given the lyrics to work with, the song was still called “Unto a Foolish Heart” and, as he told me in an interview for The Golden Road at the time, “The title and some of imagery reminded me of fairy tales, and had a certain Victorian melodramatic quality about it. The basic message of the song, as I saw it, was you can do this foolish thing or that crazy thing, but whatever you do, don’t give your heart to someone who will abuse it. Hunter agreed that is what the song is basically about, and everything else was an embellishment of that and his own visual imagery, and he encouraged me to develop a second level of imagery that would complement that.”

Scene from George Méliès’
Kingdom of the Fairies (1903)

Gutierrez took a few different tacks. After a skeleton arm (from the “Touch of Grey” video) cranks up a Victrola and puts the needle down on a 78, the song begins and we see a miniature theater proscenium with red velvet curtain—and a rock ’n’ roll P.A. on the sides! Once the curtains open, the stage space is used for footage of the band in Victorian threads (except for Jerry, of course, dapper in a dark sport coat, a red rose on his lapel) playing the song; various ingenious stop-animation collages of hearts and flowers; and a little playlet featuring two gloved hands demonstrating different stages of romance (love the “nude” scene!). Also running through the video are bits of a 1903 French silent film called Kingdom of the Fairies directed by George Méliès (who is a central character in the Oscar-nominated Martin Scorsese film, Hugo) “that were almost archetypal, having to do with love and foolish quests and things like that,” Gutierrez said. There are also some nifty moments of the band looking as though they are in a Méliès film. Neither the single nor the video caught on, but “Foolish Heart” made it No. 8 on “Mainstream Rock Tracks” and it remains a fine piece of work.

The final song video the Dead created was also directed by Gutierrez—Brent’s “Just a Little Light.” This time the approach was simple and straightforward. It’s essentially a performance video, albeit with some very interesting and unusual lighting, playing off darkness and light, shadows and glaring brightness. It’s a moody and effective rendering of what I feel is Brent’s best song and, following his death a few months after the video came out, it became a poignant memorial to him. It was also just a bit eerie—toward the end of the song, we see him surrounded by candles as he sings, and the last image in the video is a candle being blown out.

Of course we’ll never know what kinds of videos the Dead might have made for “Liberty” or “So Many Roads” or any of the other songs that would have been on the uncompleted follow-up to Built to Last. Their legacy of “official” videos—just these five songs—is uneven, but I still wish they were available on DVD.

* * *

Speaking of videos, here are five more submitted to the Dead Covers Project that I think are worth checking out:

Modusmongo: “Crazy Fingers.” A wonderful acoustic guitar-and-vocal performance by Peter McConnel. There’s nothing revolutionary about his approach or arrangement, but his performance is so committed and his guitar work so confident he really “sells” the song, which is one of my all-time favorites. I also like his exciting little instrumental flight after the main song.

Mike Massé and Jeff Hall: “Black Peter.” Another relatively straight cover, this one captured at Pie Pizzeria in Salt Lake City back in 2008. Massé plays acoustic guitar and sings lead, Hall the electric bass. The performance has a really nice vibe to it, and I love the vocals on the bridge. However, I cannot forgive them for also posting a video of them doing “Dust in the Wind.”

Packy Lundholm: “Bertha.” I see that this one has also been chosen by the Rhino/Dead.net Grand Poobahs for their daily list. It’s definitely one of the most interesting we’ve received. Using a five-way split screen, it shows Lundholm playing all lead and rhythm guitar parts, bass, drums and keyboards completely live through a very hot version of “Bertha.” (In other words, he recorded a guitar-and-vocal track first, then overdubbbed each additional part, filming each as a complete take.) The guy has chops on all five instruments and both the audio and video quality is superb. A must-see!

Terrain: “Friend of the Devil.” This is different and a lot of fun! It starts off as a black- and-white performance video, with the band easing into a festive reggae groove for the song, but it quickly becomes something else—it humorously depicts the story in the song through simply manipulated cut-out images, various three-dimensional objects (like a joint), magic marker scrawls and childlike watercolor backgrounds. Works for me! And I dig the musical arrangement, too!

Anne Marie Calhoun: “Ripple.” Calhoun is one helluva violinist; here she’s supported by a lone acoustic guitar (her brother Joe) in this compelling instrumental version. At its simplest, it has the vibe of some of the music for Ken Burns’ Civil War series. But then Calhoun launches into one intriguing and ambitious extrapolation on the melody and rhythm after another, with fascinating results. There are a couple of points where she seems to sort of go off the rails and get lost, but who cares when the playing is this good!

*        *       *

Lastly, this week marks the one-year anniversary (and 49th posting) of “Blair’s Golden Road Blog.” What a long, fun trip it’s been!

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All the excitement around here about the veritable tsunami of videos submitted for the Dead Covers Project got me thinking about the Grateful Dead’s rather slight contributions to the MTV Age. This was a not a band made for that medium, especially in MTV’s early days, when videos were all about fast cuts, tight pants, smoke bombs and scantily clad women. Has there ever been a band that cared less about its onstage presentation than the Grateful Dead?

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I haven't seen a couple of these videos - do I need to troll or is there somewhere specific?
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Those are all active links in the article; just click on the colored song titles. The quality isn't A+ but at least you can get a good idea of what they're like...
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...And many more fun years to come! Any (or all!) of these videos would be a welcome bonus addition to a Concert DVD release, if we're lucky enough to be offered another installment.
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...when MTV did the Day of the Dead broadcast in '87 during the Summer Tour where the VJ's interviewed Dead Heads outside of a concert at Giants Stadium? I would love to see that released, along with the '89 Shorline Summer Solstace Pay Per View broadcast.
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The "five" official videos would make a great "bonus" section on the next DVD release. HINT HINT :)
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Former GD ticket czar Steve Marcus (who pops by here with some regularity) often cited that '87 MTV "Day of the Dead" as one of the key factors in attracting so many new fans to Dead shows that summer and overpopulating the scene outside shows. As he put it in an interview I did with him for The Golden Road in 1993, "All day [MTV] did cut-ins from the Medowlands [NJ] parking lot showing 'what a great scene it is out here in the parking lots!' From that point on, the number of people in the parking lots tripled, and it was like: party time! Instead of going to Fort Lauderdale on spring break, you go on tour with the Dead, but you don't even go inside!"
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an embarassment to say the least. I foolishly tried to explain to my mother in law... I have gotten over it since then, but at the time, I despised it. I think that's when I first realized the GD were regular human beings, and that the GD of 65-85 was no longer around. I guess that's when I got a life. :) 2/13/70 sure sounds GRATE (get it?) today.
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Thanks Blairj! I was still relatively young and was only just starting to understand what the scene was about in '87 as I had only started attending shows beginning in '84 at Pine Knob near Detroit. At the time I was a mere 16 year old and besides having limited familiarity with the Deads music, the scene in '84 was unlike anything I could have imagined at the time. My next exposure to seeing the Dead was 2 shows at Alpine Valley in '86 then again the 3 shows at Alpine in '87. By that time in '87, I finally sort of had understood the tribal, close knit family that those who traveled acrossed the country and created "the scene". In the case of Alpine Valley, overnight camping and parking was allowed, so it was definitely a party. In relation to the Day of the Dead broadcast, and the release of In the Dark for that matter, the shows at Alpine that I had attended in '87, which fell days before, the "scene" was still relatively mellow, though in hindsight, it was more like the calm before the storm. There were already early signs of a gathering rowdiness that wasn't present at Alpine in '86 nor Pine Knob in '84. A week or so after Alpine '87, when In The Dark finally came out, The Dead in full on Dylan & the Dead tour mode and MTV's sudden barrage of publicity, it all felt pretty cool. The next time I went to see a Grateful Dead concert was at Buckeye Lake in '88 and the size of the crowd was enormous. There were easily as many or more people outside of the show as there were inside. Massive was an understatement. We arrived in the lot early enough to get blocked into a ten car deep clusterfudge, that ended up being the main corridor for the parking lot "Shakedown Streets" to end all "Shakedown Street's". It was a pretty exciting thing to do for a 20 year old at the time. It seemed like a total fluke that a media outlet like MTV, who embraced and promoted pure cheese, would actually give a band like The Grateful Dead the time of day, for better or worse. Whether anybody loved or hated the sudden burst of popularity the band recieved as a result of the sudden influx of "Touch Heads", at least the Dead were finally given their long overdue paid dues, in spite of the hairdo bands, Michael Jackson, Madonna, . Now if only MTV had invented the fountain of youth
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There was a offical Liberty video on the tail end of View from the Vault #2 made by Billy's son Justin.
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...a live performance video, not a specially produced clip...
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I'm surprised that this isn't getting any press around here: http://www.jambase.com/Articles/57783/Grateful-Dead-14-DVD-Box-Set This is especially the case given the fact that David mentioned it during the live webcast preceding the Dave's Picks Vol 1 release. Pre-ordering it saves about $40, so it's a pretty good deal. Sell off your old copy of closing of Winterland and it's even less expensive!
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Hey Blair, Thanks for all your work, always. I do enjoy your writing and am constantly keeping up with your new blogs. However... I am so frustrated by one very thing and today I am inspired to ask you if this one thing (for me) might be changed. Could you please put the date that you wrote or published each piece by your name or in the upper corner OR somewhere? I would be ever grateful, indeed. Thank you for your time and perhaps your diligent attention to my request. I think of us like a knife and a steel, we sharpen one another...kinda. Have a sensational day... Best wishes to the Mrs. and Buffet love to each of you. 2/20/2012 - Sherry
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Years ago I went to a Cure concert with the woman who became my wife. When walking by the concession stand I saw tie-dye T-shirts with a spiral of tin toy bears (an image from the song "The 13th"), and realized I might be the only one in the arena to "get" the reference. I bring up the Cure, as they were a band who nearly always nailed the video for their MTV songs. Quick, recognizable films, by quality filmmakers like Tim Pope. My wife watched a lot of MTV before we met, and she really liked their videos. On the other hand, I never watched TV while following the Dead in the '80's--but I did have a big "In the Dark" promo poster up in my apartment. In reference to stoltzfus's comment, it probably wasn't a drastic change in the Dead, but more likely Arista's marketing of them, in terms of image. Believe it or not, I'd never viewed four of the five videos in the article, before following Blair's internet links. I own a VHS copy of "Making of 'Touch of Grey'"--and have always been impressed by the filmmaker's use of the band's fans and iconography in creating a lasting image with the skeleton puppets! There seems to be degrees of non-involvement on the other four videos. "HIAB" just feels awkward, though it was nice to see Jon McIntire partying in it (especially just after finding out about his passing--RIP). I feel a strong, thought provoking song like "Throwing Stones" could have used less darkness and more Dead image placement, a perhaps a bit more quality editing. "Foolish Heart" is quite quirky, while paying homage to the Dead's anachronistic side, through the use of old film, printed materials, and the Victrola. In my opinion, the "slickest" video, "Just a Little Light" is the most powerful and effective of the four that follow the "Touch" video. Incredible use of light and well-edited. Nothing which feels dated now. I only wish Brent could have used this vehicle to emerge as a songwriter and approached becoming an equal with the band's other frontmen. We still don't have cable--and I certainly don't want my MTV. However, I do wish the Dead's marketing team could have found their footing visually, as the Dead had a strong presence and a bushel load of icons to go with that. I also wish I would've bought on of those Cure tie-dyes!
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13 years 10 months
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I initially thought that Blair had written this MTV Blog because of the soon to be released 14 DVD boxed set of almost all of the available videos, but he didn't mention it! It is available for pre-order at Amazon.com:(http://www.amazon.com/Grateful-Dead-Combine-Collection-14-DVD/dp/B00772…) But I have a few questions about this release and hopeful Blair can get answers... 1) Why isn't this being released in Blue Ray??? 2) Dead Ringers should be included 3) as previously suggested a DVD of all the "MTV" videos should be included, but isn't (including both versions of Touch of Grey, Liberty, Just A Little Light, and JG songs The Thrill Is Gone and Smoke Get's In Your Eyes, as well as Justin's tribute to Brent. 4) The ABC footage from RFK stadium and Giants Stadium in 1991 should be released since those shows were filmed for an ABC special with multi track sound and only a few songs were shown. 5) A DVD with the Bill Graham New Years entrances and the various Chinese New Years and Mardi Gras parades should be included. 6) A DVD of the outtakes from the skits filmed for the Closed Circuit 10/31/80 video broadcast (including the rehearsal skits filmed at The Warfield. 7) A DVD of the "home movies" of Grateful Dead from the 60's (Willie Legate gave me a VHS copy of these about two months after I started working at GDTS along with The Warfield skit outtakes.) Where is Willie??? 8) The DVD of So Far should include some of the video out takes from the multi day shoot...there at least 20 hours of video that was shot and only 50+ minutes were released. I was lucky enough to see some of the unreleased footage at Len Del'amicos house sometime in 1990... 9) A DVD with the known footage from Jamaica (I've seen at least three songs before the cameras tilted down and went black.) 10) SUNSHINE DAYDREAM!!!!! 11) A two DVD set of both 12/30 and 12/31/82 at Oakland Auditorium (now HJK) both featuring Etta James and Tower of Power. I guess I should stop there...But I've actually seen almost all of the above either at the GD office or in the vault when it was at Front Street. A little trivia concerning Hell In A Bucket video. I was sitting next to Phil Lesh at the GD office upstairs when he first saw it and after Bobby sang the line "...and a taste of her elegant pie." Phil looked at me and said, "I can't believe he actually sang that!" That is all for now, and thank you in advance Blair for getting the answers to all of the above ;-) smarcus
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16 years 9 months
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.... Grasshopper! And I'm the wrong guy to ask about ANY of them. I had nothing to do with putting the box together; I just wrote an essay on what's in there. But here are my non-answers: 1. Blue-Ray. I have no idea. The Movie was released recently on Blue-ray, so maybe the others will be, too... 2. "Dead Ringers" should be included. I agree! 3. Everything in the box was released commercially; none of those MTV videos were, except for "Dead Ringers." 4. RFK & Giants '91. I'm still holding out hope that 6/17/91 will be released in its entirety. (6/16 is really good, too!) 5.NYE and Mardi Gras parades. Yeah that would be nice. Make it happen, Steve! 6. 10/31/80 outtakes. You're full of good ideas today, Steve! 7. Home movies. Some of that stuff got used in Justin's "Backstage Pass." 8. Unreleased "So Far" stuff. I've been pushing for a music release from those many sessions. 9. Jamaica. Sounds good to me! 10. "Sunshine Daydream." This will happen within our lifetime, I'm confident. 11. Dead plus Etta. There are many other shows that were video'd that I'd much rather see than those, which weren't that great, except for Etta. Don't forget Copenhagen and Bremen '72. I bet those will happen some day, too...
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16 years 9 months
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http://deaddisc.com/vi/Winterland_100470.htm October 4, 1970 Winterland in San Francisco was broadcast on KQED-TV San Francisco with a quadraphonic simulcast by KQED-FM San Francisco and KSAN-FM San Francisco. What are the chances of this one getting released?