gdead.berkeley.edu/gdead.berkeley.edu.tar/gdead.berkeley.edu/pub/gdead/miscellaneous/DICKS-PICKS

Internet Message Format | 1993-11-25 | 12KB

From: [e-mail] (mark kraitchman)
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Dick's Picks
Sender: [e-mail]
Status: RO

Since so many people have asked me what is Dick's
Picks and who is Dick, I thought I would forward
the following info (which should answer the above questions)...

*********************************************************************
 Here is the official press release from Grateful Dead Records!

 FromEven  Deeper  InTheVaultComes...Dick'sPicks!

 Famous in song and story are the world's great repositories of hidden
 riches; There's Fort Knox, King Tut's Tomb, The Wreck of the Titanic...and,
 of course, the Grateful Dead Tape Vault.  Happily, in recent years, some of
 the latter's treasures have begun to see the light of day, in the form of
 Grateful Dead Records' highly successful "From The Vault" series.  The first
 two releases were the answer to a Deadhead's prayers: a pair of the very
 best shows from the band's stash of multitrack masters, impeccably mixed and
 mastered for optimum sound quality.  Ever since then, music-starved
 tapeheads have been clamoring for Vault #3, wondering what show would yield
 a worthy successor to 1 and 2...

 ...aye, there's the rub: given the Grateful Dead's famously fanatical
 perfectionism about such things, the broad diversity of ideas and opinions
 among band members, and the incredibly high standards set by those first two
 releases, it's pretty hard to settle on said worthy successor.  A few strong
 candidates were proposed, but none that everyone agreed was as sonically
 pristine as Vaults 1 and 2.  So Vault 3 might be a little while coming,
 kids.  But fear not, sound-hounds -- for out of the void, into the breach,
 leaps...DICK'S PICKS!

 So who's Dick? And just what has he picked?

 "Dick's Picks" is a new series of releases on the way from Grateful Dead
 Records.  And Dick is Dick Latvala, one of the original Dead tapers.  Among
 those notorious "picky Deadheads", Dick is one of the pickiest -- by his own
 admission, he's spent an alarming portion of his life wired to a tape deck,
 compulsively sifting through countless hours of Grateful Dead music,
 searching for those golden moments when the band unties the Gordian Knot,
 finds the Holy Grail, strums the Lost Chord.  Luckily, like many of us in
 Grateful Dead Land, Dick was able to turn his obsession into a job -- since
 1985, he's been the official keeper of the Dead's tape archive, performing
 the heroic task of organizing nearly three decades of recorded music -- a
 job which requires the combined skills of a curator, archaeologist and
 detective.  And Dick has a special affinity for a certain kind of tape: not
 the relatively high-tech multi-track items, you've heard on the first two
 Vault releases.  No, these come from somewhere deeper, darker -- down in the
 cobwebbed catacombs, across the alligator-infested moat -- that's where
 you'll find "Dick's Picks".

 This is the real, raw stuff.  Recorded direct to two-track, with no chance
 to "fix it in the mix".  You hear it just like they played it -- to borrow
 Phil Lesh's pet phrase, this is the Grateful Dead "warts and all".  There
 are also good old-fashioned glitches, splices and gaps due to reel changes.
 In other words, you won't get the complete show -- some editorial surgery
 has been necessary.  But combine Dick's keen ear for a hot tape, the
 excellent quality of the source recording and the fact that mastering and
 editing has been placed in the hands of the Grateful Dead's studio
 alchemists, and we've got a "live" one here!

 The first "Dick's Picks" is from the Dead's final show of 1973, on December
 19, at Curtis Hixon Convention Center in Tampa, FL.  This is a period that
 Latvala describes as "chock full of killer shows".  During this time various
 members of the Dead family took turns taping shows, and stalwart crew member
 Bill "Kidd" Candelario turned out a particularly impressive batch, of which
 this is among the best.  We won't try to describe just what gets played
 here, but believe us, it gets PLAYED!

 "Dick's Picks #1" is a must-have item for any serious Deadhead (like you,
 we'll wager) and will be available by mail order only on a soon-to-be
 announced date.  Stay tuned to the Grateful Dead hotline for further
 developments.

*****************cd track listing*********************************************
 Dick's Picks, Volume 1 - 12/19/73 Tampa, Florida

 Here Comes Sunshine
 Big River
 Mississippi Halfstep
 Weather Report Suite
 Big Railroad Blues
 Playing in the Band

 He's Gone->
 Truckin'->
 Nobody's Fault But Mine->
 jam->
 The Other One->
 jam->
 Stella Blue
 Around and Around

****************************************************************************

**************excerpt from David Gan's interview with Dick posted on
the Well Thu 7 Oct 93 11:46*******************************************

 DL:  When these shows were recorded, they weren't recorded for the
 purpose of someday releasing them live, as live shows.  They were
 recorded so the band could hear them afterward and see, and hear how
 they performed.  Kidd's job was to not only mix that the recording, but
 take care of Keith's equipment, so we have lots of responsibility on
 him to do both jobs and in that time see--you know, he'd be busy with
 Keith, a reel would run out, and you'd miss ten minutes of something or
 a couple songs, [and] there's millions of technical problems in that
 era.  It's important just to understand that these tapes weren't made
 with the purpose of releasing them.  So editing them becomes a
 necessity ... sorry, folks, but that's the way it's going to be.
 They're not going to release material that has got glitches in it or
 doesn't have one of the mics turned up high enough or something.  So
 we're going to have some shows that have a lot of really good things in
 them, but the recording might have been screwed up so we can't release
 them.

 So you say, why 12/19/73?  It was as good as any.  You name another
 date and, you know, I could tell you why maybe I didn't choose that
 one.  But 12/19 particularly had a lot going for it.

 DG:  Among the missing items from the set list, according to Deadbase,
 is the song Sugar Shack.

 DL:  Yes, that is missing on the master itself.  It is not there. I was
 looking for it.  It's even written on the tape box, but it wasn't
 recorded.

 DG:  That's a shame.

 DL:  I have no idea what happened there.

 DG:  So unless somebody's got an audience tape out there, we'll never
 know.

 DL:  Yes, we'd love to hear what that was like.  I'm sure it was only a
 second or two.

 But anyway, like this first set you were mentioning.  It is edited.
 And it became apparent to me and others--me and John and Cutler and
 Jeffrey Norman, who were working on this--that each CD should have a
 life of its own.  This isn't an attempt to recapture the total picture
 or the whole show.  It's a picture of the show, or the best of the show
 idea, and so it has an entity of its own so we tried to make that disc
 one have the feel of a first set, but you'll notice that Weather Report
 is thrown in there and that is actually from the second set.

 DG:  And so is Mississippi Halfstep, actually.

 DL:  Yes, right.

 DG:  So you rearranged a few things to give it sort of the contour of a
 first set even though it's not, strictly speaking--

 DL:  Right.  Right.  And, yeah, it's not going to ever be literal just
 like it happened on the show itself.  You can check DeadBase or your
 audience tapes for those things.

 DG:  Well, I've maintained all along that it was going to have to be
 edited.  I can't recall ever hearing a Grateful Dead show that was
 perfect from start to finish.  In fact, One from the Vault is one of
 the few shows that every moment really is great.

 DL:  It was.  Yeah, yeah, that's amazing.

 DG:  So it doesn't surprise me and it doesn't particularly annoy me
 that the Grateful Dead have decided to present an edited version of
 this.  I think it's in their own interests, and if I were the musician
 responsible, I would certainly want the right to hold back things that
 I thought weren't excellent and worthwhile.

 DL:  And believe me, there are.  Each musician has those feelings and
 can make decisions about this at any point, which is another one of the
 obstacles I faced in getting this one out.  To me, this is a coup.
 This is a real coup to get this material out of the vault.  We shall
 see what happens but, depending on the response to this, you know, more
 shall follow, I'm sure.  But when it becomes real personal--like
 imagine if you are the one doing this music, how would you feel if you
 have embarrassing pictures out in the world of yourself.  You know, I
 mean, there has to be some editing.


**********More interview excerpts posted by David Gans on the Well
Wed 13 Oct 93    **************************************************


 DG:  Do you have a sense of how often these releases will be coming out?

 DL:  At this point, no.  This is really an experiment, this first one, to
 see how it does, because no one has a clue as to how much interest there is
 out there to get at this material.  This is only mail order, you see.  It's
 not going to be in record stores. So this will be like a little private
 club, so to speak, you know, that is willing to go that extra mile for the
 really good stuff.

 DG:  So if this first one does well, obviously the Grateful Dead will see
 the interest and be willing to put out some more?

 DL:  Absolutely.  That's what I hope.

 DG:  Right.  You know what that means, listeners.


 DG:  Oh, how does this affect Dan Healy's plans for additional "From
 the Vault" releases from multitrack?

 DL:  That doesn't affect it at all as far as I can tell.  At his whim
 he can go in and attack those multitracks any time. There aren't that
 many, though.  That's one of the problems we ran into with it last
 year:  there's only a limited amount of multitracks.  So that's why I
 think the two-tracks are very exciting, you know.  It's just that you
 have to wade through it. Every show isn't a killer.

 DG:  Well, they picked the right guy for the job.

 DL:  Well, thanks, David.  I feel like I'm just the luckiest person on
 earth.  I know there could be any number of you out there doing this
 just as well, but I happen to be here, the one doing it, so that's my
 goal, to get the great stuff out.

 DG:  I feel kind of the same way about my gig, you know, but you've
 been a great associate.  It's been great fun.  You're the guy that I
 work with when I go into the vault to get out tapes and it's always
 been really fun to go in there with you and to compare notes, and I
 think our knowledge and our tastes are complementary enough that we
 always have a good time when we're poking around in there.

 DL:  Yeah, well, we have the same goal--let's get this stuff out to the
 public, to everyone who wants it and needs it.  These rushes are what
 it's about.


From: daniel louis schlapbach <[e-mail]>
Subject: Dick's Picks Available 11/1/93
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: <[e-mail]>
Organization: Indiana University
Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1993 16:50:44 GMT
Status: RO

I just opened up my Utne Reader and low and behold ther was an add for
Dick's Picks Vol. One.  It has a cool logo of a SYF with a tape reel in
its head.  The 2 CD set will be available November 1 by mail order only
for 18.95 dolars.  Call 1-800-323-2300 for credit cards or
send check or money order to:
    Dick's Picks
    Po Box 2139 Dept. B
    Novato, Ca 94948

Enjoy!
Peace,
    Dan Schlapbach