• https://www.dead.net/features/blog/documenting-dead-remembering-dead-part-1-press-series-grateful-dead-archive
    Documenting The Dead: "Remembering The Dead, Part 1: The Press Series of the Grateful Dead Archive"

    By Nicholas Meriwether

    Remembering the Dead, Part 1: The Press Series of the Grateful Dead Archive

    In the world of rock music, fifty years is not just a milestone, it is an era, one far longer than most performers or bands ever survive. As we celebrate the Grateful Dead’s fiftieth anniversary over the course of this year, this blog will explore one of the hidden sides of the band’s story: the archive that the Dead built over a half-century, now housed in Special Collections at UC Santa Cruz’s McHenry Library. It is an archive that reflects the band’s history and career in unstinting and often colorful detail, at times surprising but always compelling, from the earliest newspaper clippings and handbills to band meeting minutes and gig contracts. Every two weeks I’ll post a short article about the Archive, from individual items to entire sections to supporting materials. As one of the largest archival collections devoted to a single band, the Grateful Dead Archive not only represents one of the premier scholarly popular music collections in the country, it also provides a window into a host of subjects and issues that are increasingly being studied by scholars, students, and fans.

    That idea seemed like the most improbable of fantasies in the 1950s. In a 1993 interview, Jerry Garcia still remembered how he felt as an anxious, rebellious teenager with his first electric guitar: “I used to have these fantasies about ‘I want rock & roll to be like respectable music.’ I wanted it to be like art,” he commented. “Back then they didn’t even talk about popular culture—I mean, rock & roll was so not legit, you know.” When he was asked to sing the national anthem before a Giants game in 1993, a reporter asked him whether he was surprised at the request, prompting one of his typically self-effacing replies: “We’re like bad architecture—or an old whore. If you stick around long enough, everyone gets respect eventually.” Garcia’s modesty was legendary, but his self-deprecating remark masked a sophisticated understanding of how the media worked, and what translated well. What he didn’t say was that the Grateful Dead had indeed accomplished what he so desperately wanted as a teen: making rock respectable. Of course they should sing the national anthem to open a ballgame.

    Garcia’s media savvy informs one of the most important sections—what archivists call series—of the Grateful Dead Archive. The earliest clipping in the press series dates to October 1966, but perhaps the most remarkable aspect of that part of the Archive is its extent and longevity: Even now, every two weeks the Archive receives another packet of clippings, from the same clipping service—Allen’s, still based in San Francisco—that the band subscribed to in the fall of 1966.

    That fall witnessed one of the earliest extended interviews published with the band, in the mimeographed rock newsletter Mojo Navigator. It ran for two issues, and it is significant for what it reveals about the young band. At one point, Garcia cautioned a bandmate about repeating hearsay—making it clear that he understands, this is on the record. But the bigger point is what it shows of their sense of how their media footprint may one day appear: as a kind of extended archive, an image of the reality of working musicians, but one that could be shaped—hence Garcia’s admonition, advising his colleague not to traffic in rumor. That sophistication shaped how they approached reporters, and it makes the press devoted to the band a remarkable resource, not just because of its extent and detail but because of its democratic inclusiveness. Band members treated every encounter with seriousness, and it meant that even small-town newspapers could emerge with remarkable quotations and details that significantly add to our understanding of the Dead. And it meant that even hostile encounters could produce gems—and sometimes change minds, as documented by Garcia’s celebrated interview in 1981 with Paul Morley, an angry punk music aficionado and critic for England’s New Musical Express.

    It’s all part of what makes the press series of the Archive such an important part of the band’s history. Scholars understand that: author Peter Richardson’s recent book, No Simple Highway, reflects the weeks of work he put in at the Archive; he quickly appreciated how central the press coverage is to any understanding of the band’s work and its cultural trajectory. That process is complex: for every insightful and ethical journalist there are the inevitable cranks, hacks, and ideologues, bent on dismissal or worse. Yet those accounts have a place as well, for they document the challenges the band and their fans faced for thirty years, and that those who study the phenomenon still confront today.

    Archives are about accountability, though, and what emerges from any sustained time with the press series is the achievement of the Dead. Other insights are more nuanced: Garcia’s use of the press emerges as among the most sophisticated of any media figure. He tried to vary responses while sticking to the facts as best he knew them; when he repeated stories, he prefaced them by saying that he had told them before. It makes his press encounters read like installments in an extended oral history, making even minor encounters matter. Nor was this a self-serving attitude: the band had no real love of the media, as their early experiences had taught. Much of that early media was critical and uncomprehending, from the stories surrounding the UCLA Acid Test in early 1966 to the notoriety that Kesey and even their own Bobby Petersen, both arrested for marijuana, had endured. That was a harbinger of their own experience the following year, when the police kicked in the front door of their house at 710 Ashbury with a gaggle of reporters in tow, who produced front-page coverage of the bust.

    What the press series really documents, however, is the band’s determination to deal with the machinery of publicity, to accept the media-driven nature of popular music and master the skills necessary to deal with it. When Dennis McNally was hired as publicist in 1984, Garcia told him, “Don’t suck up to the press. Be nice, of course, but we don’t suck up.” They didn’t ignore the press, and they acknowledged its power.

    For good and ill, the Dead remain a lightning rod for commentary, both polemical and admiring, as the press clippings in the Archive reiterate, again and again. With one simple gesture, however—subscribing to a clipping service, at a time when that represented a major expense—they made plain the seriousness of their commitment to their craft. And that is writ large in their archive, and especially in the press series, making it that much more difficult to dismiss the Dead and their project—and why the Archive, like the band’s career, is helping to fulfill Garcia’s teenaged dream of making rock respectable.

    As we reflect on the band’s fiftieth anniversary, we look back on not just a half-century of hard work, great art, and community, but also a struggle over identity, place, and memory. It is a struggle that can be mapped in the media coverage the Dead engendered. It forms the core of a broader narrative about the band’s path from counterculture avatars to mainstream success; and that is only one of many perspectives and stories in the Archive. I look forward to telling you more of those this year.

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  • rainbow_trout
    7 years 10 months ago
    Grateful Dead at Red Rocks Amphitheatre Morrison, Colorado on
    Grateful Dead at Red Rocks Amphitheatre Morrison, Colorado 8-11-1987 https://www.flickr.com/photos_user.gne?rb=1&path=salmo_gairdneri&nsid=&…
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    Roczilla
    8 years ago
    Garcia's in Port Chester,New York
    The Capitol Theater in Port Chester,N.Y. , considered an historic landmark was fully renovated fairly recently. I would say it was in 2011 and a full calendar of events started in the Fall of 2012,with a Grand Opening concert of Bob Dylan.Since then and addition right next door and actually fully accessed via the Capitol Theater is Garcia's. This is a premier establishment and enshrined to Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, I recommend one and all to pay a visit if possible.I believe this was done as the Capitol Theater, happened to be one of Jerry's favorite venues to perform in. As a matter of fact my childhood neighbor once played a bootleg cassette of a show the Dead played at the Capitol circa 1970 or so. I know it was authentic as You could hear people eating popcorn in the background.As a native of that quant village in which the Capitol is located,I am proud of my heritage and memories growing up there!If only the walls of the Capitol could speak!Anyway Phil Lesh will take the reigns this month and it will be a happening once again!So Don,t You Let That Deal Go Down!Put On Your Poker Face and go to some Shows!
  • mayormarionbarry
    8 years 9 months ago
    good job
    right on!
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By Nicholas Meriwether

Remembering the Dead, Part 1: The Press Series of the Grateful Dead Archive

In the world of rock music, fifty years is not just a milestone, it is an era, one far longer than most performers or bands ever survive. As we celebrate the Grateful Dead’s fiftieth anniversary over the course of this year, this blog will explore one of the hidden sides of the band’s story: the archive that the Dead built over a half-century, now housed in Special Collections at UC Santa Cruz’s McHenry Library. It is an archive that reflects the band’s history and career in unstinting and often colorful detail, at times surprising but always compelling, from the earliest newspaper clippings and handbills to band meeting minutes and gig contracts. Every two weeks I’ll post a short article about the Archive, from individual items to entire sections to supporting materials. As one of the largest archival collections devoted to a single band, the Grateful Dead Archive not only represents one of the premier scholarly popular music collections in the country, it also provides a window into a host of subjects and issues that are increasingly being studied by scholars, students, and fans.

That idea seemed like the most improbable of fantasies in the 1950s. In a 1993 interview, Jerry Garcia still remembered how he felt as an anxious, rebellious teenager with his first electric guitar: “I used to have these fantasies about ‘I want rock & roll to be like respectable music.’ I wanted it to be like art,” he commented. “Back then they didn’t even talk about popular culture—I mean, rock & roll was so not legit, you know.” When he was asked to sing the national anthem before a Giants game in 1993, a reporter asked him whether he was surprised at the request, prompting one of his typically self-effacing replies: “We’re like bad architecture—or an old whore. If you stick around long enough, everyone gets respect eventually.” Garcia’s modesty was legendary, but his self-deprecating remark masked a sophisticated understanding of how the media worked, and what translated well. What he didn’t say was that the Grateful Dead had indeed accomplished what he so desperately wanted as a teen: making rock respectable. Of course they should sing the national anthem to open a ballgame.

Garcia’s media savvy informs one of the most important sections—what archivists call series—of the Grateful Dead Archive. The earliest clipping in the press series dates to October 1966, but perhaps the most remarkable aspect of that part of the Archive is its extent and longevity: Even now, every two weeks the Archive receives another packet of clippings, from the same clipping service—Allen’s, still based in San Francisco—that the band subscribed to in the fall of 1966.

That fall witnessed one of the earliest extended interviews published with the band, in the mimeographed rock newsletter Mojo Navigator. It ran for two issues, and it is significant for what it reveals about the young band. At one point, Garcia cautioned a bandmate about repeating hearsay—making it clear that he understands, this is on the record. But the bigger point is what it shows of their sense of how their media footprint may one day appear: as a kind of extended archive, an image of the reality of working musicians, but one that could be shaped—hence Garcia’s admonition, advising his colleague not to traffic in rumor. That sophistication shaped how they approached reporters, and it makes the press devoted to the band a remarkable resource, not just because of its extent and detail but because of its democratic inclusiveness. Band members treated every encounter with seriousness, and it meant that even small-town newspapers could emerge with remarkable quotations and details that significantly add to our understanding of the Dead. And it meant that even hostile encounters could produce gems—and sometimes change minds, as documented by Garcia’s celebrated interview in 1981 with Paul Morley, an angry punk music aficionado and critic for England’s New Musical Express.

It’s all part of what makes the press series of the Archive such an important part of the band’s history. Scholars understand that: author Peter Richardson’s recent book, No Simple Highway, reflects the weeks of work he put in at the Archive; he quickly appreciated how central the press coverage is to any understanding of the band’s work and its cultural trajectory. That process is complex: for every insightful and ethical journalist there are the inevitable cranks, hacks, and ideologues, bent on dismissal or worse. Yet those accounts have a place as well, for they document the challenges the band and their fans faced for thirty years, and that those who study the phenomenon still confront today.

Archives are about accountability, though, and what emerges from any sustained time with the press series is the achievement of the Dead. Other insights are more nuanced: Garcia’s use of the press emerges as among the most sophisticated of any media figure. He tried to vary responses while sticking to the facts as best he knew them; when he repeated stories, he prefaced them by saying that he had told them before. It makes his press encounters read like installments in an extended oral history, making even minor encounters matter. Nor was this a self-serving attitude: the band had no real love of the media, as their early experiences had taught. Much of that early media was critical and uncomprehending, from the stories surrounding the UCLA Acid Test in early 1966 to the notoriety that Kesey and even their own Bobby Petersen, both arrested for marijuana, had endured. That was a harbinger of their own experience the following year, when the police kicked in the front door of their house at 710 Ashbury with a gaggle of reporters in tow, who produced front-page coverage of the bust.

What the press series really documents, however, is the band’s determination to deal with the machinery of publicity, to accept the media-driven nature of popular music and master the skills necessary to deal with it. When Dennis McNally was hired as publicist in 1984, Garcia told him, “Don’t suck up to the press. Be nice, of course, but we don’t suck up.” They didn’t ignore the press, and they acknowledged its power.

For good and ill, the Dead remain a lightning rod for commentary, both polemical and admiring, as the press clippings in the Archive reiterate, again and again. With one simple gesture, however—subscribing to a clipping service, at a time when that represented a major expense—they made plain the seriousness of their commitment to their craft. And that is writ large in their archive, and especially in the press series, making it that much more difficult to dismiss the Dead and their project—and why the Archive, like the band’s career, is helping to fulfill Garcia’s teenaged dream of making rock respectable.

As we reflect on the band’s fiftieth anniversary, we look back on not just a half-century of hard work, great art, and community, but also a struggle over identity, place, and memory. It is a struggle that can be mapped in the media coverage the Dead engendered. It forms the core of a broader narrative about the band’s path from counterculture avatars to mainstream success; and that is only one of many perspectives and stories in the Archive. I look forward to telling you more of those this year.

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In the world of rock music, fifty years is not just a milestone, it is an era, one far longer than most performers or bands ever survive. As we celebrate the Grateful Dead’s fiftieth anniversary over the course of this year, this blog will explore one of the hidden sides of the band’s story...
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Documenting The Dead: "Remembering The Dead, Part 1: The Press Series of the Grateful Dead Archive"
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In the world of rock music, fifty years is not just a milestone, it is an era, one far longer than most performers or bands ever survive. As we celebrate the Grateful Dead’s fiftieth anniversary over the course of this year, this blog will explore one of the hidden sides of the band’s story: the archive that the Dead built over a half-century, now housed in Special Collections at UC Santa Cruz’s McHenry Library.
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In the world of rock music, fifty years is not just a milestone, it is an era, one far longer than most performers or bands ever survive. As we celebrate the Grateful Dead’s fiftieth anniversary over the course of this year, this blog will explore one of the hidden sides of the band’s story: the archive that the Dead built over a half-century, now housed in Special Collections at UC Santa Cruz’s McHenry Library.

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Hi Nicholas et al, If you have not been to the Archive, it is an absolute must see. See you all in Chicago, and yes we accept the Mollom policy.
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Cool idea, STAY DEAD & BE WELL, DEADLAND!!!!
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I notice that the Examiner article was written by a member of the Examiner Sports Staff. It seems very likely, then that the article was in the Sports section, not where the Grateful Dead were usually found. The next time the Dead were in the sports section was probably when they helped the Lithuanian basketball team go to the 1992 Olympics, a scant 16 years later. For contrast, the Examiner's cross-town rival, the Chronicle, covered the North Face Ski Shop opening in the Society Pages.
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Not a perspective I had given much thought to. I look forward to following your series.
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Great article, Nick! I look forward to the rest of the series.
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Can't wait to read more.
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Nice piece. Good read. Thanks. But...every two weeks? We'll see how long that schedule lasts. This is, after all, a GD production...
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Looks like a fascinating read. No matter how early, or how recent you got on the bus...the archives in music, in the news, in the stories, in the reflections, in the photos,in the tapes, in the sharing, will never fade away. It is in the collective history that we all reflect on, learn from, celebrate and love; that is what keeps us together as a family. Alexander Pope said it well..." A little knowledge is a dangerous thing, drink deep or taste not the Pierian Spring". So drink deep, my friends, from this well, this source, this small corner of the cyberspace universe, and share and love and dance and sing...for the music never stops... peace... g
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We are coming up to the month of March I don't think the Grateful Dead is doing enough to celebrate. I would have anticipated lots of release visual and musical. So I sit and wait idly.
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Truly a fair and wise guy, er, policy to be guided by!
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Nick, nice to hear you'll add your seasoned and critical (in the best sense of the word) perspective here. I've got to get out and see the Archives again; it's been a while. Have large fun, Tom Bentley
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sounds great; can't wait
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With thought jewels polished and gleaming. Thanks Nicholas. For overseas fans like me this is just great - a great chance to sample The Archives that we may not be in a position to visit. Thanks again.
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Interesting that Allen's was started by Mark Twain.I'd like to read the Morley interview but can only find it through a paid subscription site. Maybe you could post it Nicholas at some point. Thanx
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...sure takes me back. Little did I understand (or care to) what we were all involved in there in Marin in the early days. The Navigator lent a respectability, a conscience, to the scene. Certainly created a provincial culture that took responsibility for being the home of the heads. Look forward to reading the book and blog.Wonder what Dave's younger brother, Rich is up to. He had a real cool band, Freedom Highway we used to look out for. Peace out, DE
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Classic Dead memoMany times the band was saddled with rumors started by uninformed media sources, I love the articles included with the Dick's and Dave's Picks series where songs are miss identified or listed as played when they have not. Recently our local Dead band C U B E N S I S was playing a new venue LIDO LIVE in Newport Beach California and the entry was staffed with a photographer and video with an interviewer who was catching Heads as they entered the venue, asking about Grateful Dead and the family that follows them. Exciting venue and Excellent music that night. Plus the crowd was it's usual congenial self. So many memories, so little time. Thanks for sharing the archive for this wonderful year of celebration. When In Doubt, TWIRL
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right on!
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The Capitol Theater in Port Chester,N.Y. , considered an historic landmark was fully renovated fairly recently. I would say it was in 2011 and a full calendar of events started in the Fall of 2012,with a Grand Opening concert of Bob Dylan.Since then and addition right next door and actually fully accessed via the Capitol Theater is Garcia's. This is a premier establishment and enshrined to Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead, I recommend one and all to pay a visit if possible.I believe this was done as the Capitol Theater, happened to be one of Jerry's favorite venues to perform in. As a matter of fact my childhood neighbor once played a bootleg cassette of a show the Dead played at the Capitol circa 1970 or so. I know it was authentic as You could hear people eating popcorn in the background.As a native of that quant village in which the Capitol is located,I am proud of my heritage and memories growing up there!If only the walls of the Capitol could speak!Anyway Phil Lesh will take the reigns this month and it will be a happening once again!So Don,t You Let That Deal Go Down!Put On Your Poker Face and go to some Shows!