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Pastimes : Deadheads -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: SIer formerly known as Joe B. who wrote (22382)	8/9/2000 2:48:34 PM
From: AugustWest	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 49843

Greatful Dead Family Surviving By JOHN JURGENSEN, Associated Press Writer NOVATO, Calif. (AP) - Sue Swanson was more than a fan of the Grateful Dead. She was an old friend and employee, and Jerry Garcia's death five years ago hit her like a death in the family. ``My daughter, Rose, called me with the news,'' says Swanson, who had recently lost her mother, too. ``I sat in my car and wept from my soul. My life rug had been pulled out from under me.'' The core of friends and staff members who made up the Grateful Dead organization felt orphaned by Garcia's death on Aug. 9, 1995. The band officially dissolved four months later. But five years on, the Dead's legacy has proved healthy, not to mention lucrative, for the still close-knit supporting cast members like Swanson. They remain part of the Dead's afterlife, active in merchandise sales, CD releases and Internet projects. The Dead's devoted staff members helped make them one of the longest-lived and most successful touring bands of all time, earning millions despite the fact that they never had a No. 1 hit. ``No one ever quit the Dead. They never wanted to,'' said Dennis McNally, the band's biographer and publicist since 1984. Swanson, for example, moved from first fan to bill and payroll handler to - after Garcia's death - tech maven, responsible for everything from the Dead's Web page to the health of office computers. She has helped transform Grateful Dead Productions' merchandising department into the band's new face. The intense loyalty between band members and crew developed during the years of touring, when the Dead deployed a legendary sound system that could take more than 12 hours to assemble. ``Members of the crew were members of the band,'' said McNally. ``Some crew members had more input into decisions about things such as, do we go to England or not, than some of the band members themselves. That may have been because said members were a bit more rowdy and outspoken.'' Formalities were as scarce as crewcuts. ``Most decisions were made over a cup of coffee and a joint,'' McNally said. ``We had people with what I'd call a limited education working on the crew making six-figure salaries,'' says McNally, who estimates that at the height of their popularity, the Dead employed up to 60 people. Now there are about 30. When Garcia died at 53, his health destroyed by years of heroin use, the company laid off some employees. Others went into semi-retirement. But many began filling orders for legions of mournful fans. ``What happens when a rock icon, any icon, dies?'' said Swanson. ``Everybody wants a T-shirt with their picture on it. It sounds mercenary, but it's not. It's what it was.'' Now at company headquarters, an old Coca-Cola bottling plant north of San Francisco, a handful of workers moves through a maze of metal shelving lined with goods while the beat of Bob Marley echoes through the warehouse. From sports bras to bath salts, dog bowls to the ubiquitous tie-dyes, Grateful Dead Productions earned almost $15 million in merchandise sales in 1998. With music sales and concerts by various band members, McNally estimates that Dead-related items bring in about $70 million annually. Grateful Dead Productions has been exploring ways to make the Vault's contents electronically accessible; with unnamed Silicon Valley heavies, it plans to start a Web-based archive from which fans could download recordings for a fee. That plan has caused an uncharacteristic falling out in the family. Bassist Phil Lesh objects to what he sees as a buyout by outsiders. In a recent letter to fans, he wrote, ``I have come to the very sad conclusion that the Grateful Dead is no longer a band but a corporation whose board members no longer have a common vision.'' Despite the riff, the underlying foundation of the Dead empire - the music - remains popular. A steady diet of CDs - 18 volumes and counting - has been issued from the Dead's vast archive of live concert recordings. ``I could listen to this music 14 hours a day. In fact, I often do,'' says David Lemieux, 29, one of the archivists who took over from the late Dick Latvala to pick and prepare live recordings for commercial release. -