August 27 - September 2, 2007
I undertook the Taper's Section last November with a pretty simple vision: to have fun providing folks a regular opportunity to hear vault material that kept their interest in Grateful Dead music fresh.
Recently, I and others that work on dead.net became aware that certain fans had been regularly downloading the tracks offered in the Taper Section. From the very beginning, this program has always been intended to be a "for streaming only" service. Downloading was never announced, described or promoted in any manner. The situation that developed over the past months is very different than my original plan.
Where we’re at today requires us to step back, gather some information, do some thinking and get back to you. In the meantime, we ask that you all realize that dead.net's and GDP's commitment to the Dead Head community is unchanged. We’re very excited to be hard at work with Rhino on a number of very cool releases and programs that you’ll be hearing about soon. Please bear with us until then.
See you next week,
David
This week, we’re going to explore some cool moments from the Family Dog in 1969, as well as some great material from 1980 and a taste of 1972.
Although most shows in the Bay Area in the late 1960s were BGP-produced concerts, there was a very hip alternative promoter, namely Chet Helms and his Family Dog at the Great Highway. At the end of the summer of ’69 (no Bryan Adams jokes, please), the Grateful Dead played a few shows at Chet’s cool venue, and from those shows we have some interesting material. From 8/29/69, we have a nice Easy Wind, Me and My Uncle>High Time, as well as the show-closing Lovelight, and from the next night, 8/30/69, we have a very good Morning Dew from early in the show. Be sure to check back next week for another rare track from the Family Dog in 1969.
One thing we always get excited about is a great tour with consistently great performances, with highlights too numerous to list. The mid-August to early-September 1980 tour is one such stretch of shows, and we have a few examples of great material from this tour this week. Unfortunately, two of the best shows from the tour are not in the vault (9/6 at Lewiston and 9/2/80 at Rochester), but what does live in the vault is exceptional. From 8/27/80 at Pine Knob in Michigan, the second set opening trio of China Cat Sunflower>I Know You Rider>C.C. Rider (or China>Rider>Rider, if you will) is as high energy as they come. From three nights later in Philadelphia we have the ending sequence of the show on 8/30/80, featuring Space>Not Fade Away>Black Peter>Sugar Magnolia, One More Saturday Night. A classic 1980 sequence if there ever was one. Unfortunately, the first set of this show is not in the vault. Finally from this tour, we have the show opener on 8/31/80 at the Capital Center in Landover, MD, with a rocking duo of Alabama Getaway>Promised Land. As the flipside to the Philly show above, the second set from this Cap Center show is not in the vault.
Lastly this week, we have a couple of tracks from the first night of the Europe 72 tour, the first two songs played on the tour, in fact. Both of these songs from 4/7/72 in London have a little extra something, as the band was clearly happy to be playing in Europe, a feeling that would evidently continue through the final show on 5/26/72 in London. Oh, yes, the songs: Greatest Story Ever Told and Sugaree. Enjoy.
Be sure to check back in next week when we’ll have some music from 1969, 1972, 1973 and 1985. It’s going to be a busy week. Feel free to write anytime with questions or comments.
David Lemieux
vault [at] dead.net
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Spinster Lemieux...
I don't think this is the type of "spinning" that was originally intended for US ALL... David, perhaps, you are trying out for a job in the next Presidential administration, eh? How doofus do we appear? You have of course done many wonderful things for us, but don't minimalize it with this Rhinoplastic jive. Admit what's what. Is this the season of WHAT NOW?
Peace~
Karl workin' there now?
>>From the very beginning, this program has always been intended to be a "for streaming only" service. Downloading was never announced, described or promoted in any manner.<<
Nor was streaming.
Just did a quick text search for the word "stream" in all the previous TS posts.
Instances: 0
C'mon folks, my *kids* know what to do with .mp3s.
I love the music, I'll get it however you let me, I'll buy it, I promise.
I'll pay for a subscription, I'll buy it clip buy clip, on CD whatever.
But you tell me that when you posted all those .mp3s and you didn't think
people would download them?
that there sounds like a Turd Blossom Special!
The Dead don't owe us downloads, but...
Thanks, David, for your efforts in mining great nuggets from the Vault. I realize the decision to switch the Tapers Section audio format probably wasn't yours, but since your name appears on the "explanation" for the change, I'll address my response to you:
The contents of the Vault clearly belong to the band and GDP, and we as fans have no right to expect free access to digital music files. However, those of us who are longtime supporters of and participants in the Dead's artistic and financial success shouldn't be asked to pretend that the switch to streaming-only audio isn't the withdrawal of a gift -- a gift we never asked for but that had been freely offered.
Likewise, the Dead don't owe us any explanations as to why it has withdrawn its gift of free music, but the organization should be courteous enough not to insult our intelligence.
"We didn't know files were being downloaded" is disingenuous nonsense (on the part of Dead Inc., at least, if not you directly). The Dead and Deadheads have always been technically advanced and adventurous. Feigning ignorance of how mp3 files work and how music lovers use them is ridiculous.
The band can and should do what it wants with its music archives, but it shouldn't try to bullshit its fans. Nor should it use you as the conduit for its bullshit. We all deserve better than that.
Peace,
August Midwest
Once in awhile you get shown the light in the strangest of places if you look at it right.
New Taper Section
WHY,WHY,WHY would you give us music, and then take it away? Bob Wier once quoted that "What we provide for people is music, and whatever they want to do with it, they are certainly free to do so". Whatever happened to that??? Who cares what people do with the music? They are fans, and I thought that through the years thats what the Grateful Dead was about-The fans.
Give us the old Taper Section Back and act like you care about the fans. What would Jerry say about this???
Bad business
Respectfully to all, this is plain and simple, a bad business decision. The taper's section reinvigorated a community. It did so by delivering interesting content weekly with even more interesting commentary by David L. The comments the last few weeks prove this out.
The tapers section was, in short, a wonderful product. One that spread by word of mouth, that got people excited about Monday's, and built a community that was effusive in its praise about this new type of product. Rhino/Dead.net achieved something few organizations could: loyalty, repeat visits, engagement, community, excitement. And to do so with content that was in some cases 40 years old! It's a marketer's dream. There were dozens of ways that they, as a business, could then delivery further services and products and make money. After all, they had the right ingredients sitting there waiting to eat (and buy) it up.
Instead, they have decided to give these loyal, engaged consumers an inferior product. After almost a year. It's 2007 and these fans are now delivered a "streaming" product? Makes no sense.
What's the result? Perhaps nothing, perhaps people will still buy whatever you release. However, I suggest the result may be something more profound, for Rhino/Dead.net as a company: a loss of trust, loss of engagement, loss of community. I surely as not the use case, but those are some of the things I am feeling right now, and they will affect now I react in the future to your offerings, if I stick around at all.
thanks again
thanks one more time, david, for all your work. you're right that the tapers section provided me with a fresh interest in the Grateful Dead. and the controversy brought back some varied memories, too. i think playing ignorant about people downloading mp3's is probably what i would've done, too, it got us this far!!! (i knew i was getting away with something)
thanks, it was great while it lasted. make sure they don't forget that "cool" new stuff. strike while the iron is hot, and all. peace!!
Stream is a bad dream
So this was like such a fun happy little Monday mornin' dream of just hittin that 'DownThemAll' firefox addon deal and loadin these nuggets on the iPod for the road, work and all that. Plus yakin about them with all the old show buddies and such.
Now it is stinky with nasty posts and such and like you sortof sayin like we some sort of criminalities or somethin.
Dang and here I am 15 minutes after clickin your 'stream' icon of Mornin Dew so I could get some goodness and am still lookin at a blank flippin black box of nothin in Forefox and IE too. And yes I got all those new-fangled plugins and such.
THE STREAM DON'T EVEN Flippin WORK!!
Please unstinkify this whole deal and just lay those mp3s back on us. We will always be layin loads of cash on the straights for good stuff they put out officially as well.
GottaPokeAround (now more than ever for the goodness)
No Downloads
Totally lame ... the bus doesn't stop here anymore for me.
Streaming
Not working here. Changed to WMA, and that didn't work. Back to QT and the Windows Media player still presented, rather than the Quicktime player.
Sigh ...
jp
We are all you got!
Cmon Dave they are only MP3's...not even the format that traders for the most part want to take part in. It was a nice place to go pick up a gem or two...but streaming only..bogus
Here is an idea put some more official releases out both audio and video in a nice steady manner....I for one am not getting any younger so what are you/Rhino waiting for?