Life After the Dead:
Merchandising Becomes New
Face of Legendary Band
Wednesday,
August 23,
2000
sltrib.com:80/08232000/wednesda/14868.htm
BY JOHN
JURGENSEN
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
NOVATO, Calif. -- 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 is healthy, not
to mention lucrative, for the still-close supporting
cast members like Swanson.
They remain part of the Dead's afterlife, active in
merchandise sales, CD releases and Internet projects.
The devoted following helped make the Dead one of
the longest-lived and most successful touring bands
of all time, playing an average of 80 concerts a year
and 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's role, for example, evolved 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.
"Most decisions were made over a cup of coffee
and a joint," McNally said.
That management style served the band well. By
1986, they were selling out stadiums consistently,
followed around the country by loyal fans known as
deadheads. The Dead soon became a fixture on
Forbes magazine's annual list of the 40 wealthiest
entertainers, typically selling $50 million worth of
tickets a year.
In the late 1960s, the band had cut weekly $25
checks to everyone living communally in their
residence at 710 Ashbury in San Francisco. When the
band's income skyrocketed, everybody benefited. The
Dead was the first band to extend benefits such as
profit sharing and health coverage to employees.
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 were
absorbed into merchandising, filling orders for
legions of mournful fans.
"What happens when a rock icon, any icon, dies?"
said Swanson, who went back to work the day after
Garcia died. "Everybody wants a T-shirt with their
picture on it. It sounds mercenary, but it's not. It's
what it was."
"The great gift for me personally was that I was so
busy, I could take the grieving in pieces when I had
time."
Company headquarters is an old Coca-Cola
bottling plant north of San Francisco where, to the
beat of Bob Marley echoing through the warehouse,
a handful of workers moves through a maze of metal
shelving packed with goods.
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. Much of it bears the Dead's most recognizable
emblem: a circular skull emblazoned with a lightning
bolt. With music sales and concerts by various band
members, McNally estimates that Dead-related items
bring in about $70 million annually.
Fans have been fed a steady diet of CDs from the
Dead's vast archive of live concert recordings: 18
volumes and counting.
Tapes of virtually every Dead concert and
recording are stored in the Vault, which is kept at a
cool 68 degrees and is rigged with oxygen-gobbling
Inergen gas in case of fires. David Lemieux, one of
the archivists who took over from the late Dick
Latvala, picks and prepares live recordings for
commercial release.
"I could listen to this music 14 hours a day. In fact,
I often do," says Lemieux, 29, who attended his first
concert at 16. Without any suggestion of
exaggeration, he says he would sacrifice his life to
preserve the tapes.
Grateful Dead Productions has been exploring
ways to make the Vault's contents electronically
accessible; with unnamed Silicon Valley heavies, it
plans to start an outside company that would create a
Web-based archive. Fans have always been permitted
to trade concert recordings on condition that no
money change hands, but the Dead plans to charge a
download fee for a digital, CD-quality recording.
The plan, however, 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."
As for the band's live music, it hasn't stopped.
There's the Furthur Festival, started by band
members in 1996. And beyond their various solo
ventures, some perform in the Other Ones, which
rehearses in a space adjacent to the Vault and is
planning a tour this summer. |
