October 21, 1972: Alumni Lawn, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN The Grateful Dead (Last Free Concert)

The crowd at the Grateful Dead concert at Alumni Lawn, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN, October 21, 1972 (from the VU Hustler newspaper)

When Deadbase first  became available, it was the fruit of many years labor by a wide variety of people. Deadbase I was published in Spring 1987, and it was a multi-year, multi-person effort to create a list of every Grateful Dead performance and an accurate setlist to go with it. The arrival of the internet heralded Deadlists, and that was soon linked to the Archive, so Deadheads who used to check their mailboxes every day hoping a box of Maxells had arrived could now simply click on a few links and turn the volume up. From that point of view, all the things that Deadheads had desired were now manifest: no more strange meetings with some weird dude in the hopes of persuading him to make you a copy of a show where the Dead played with a horn section. Now, you just clicked, and it was off to the races.

A peculiar feature of 21st century Deadheads, however, has been a sophisticated knowledge of extant tape recordings that has drowned out the initial historical enterprise. "Shows" now tends to mean "tapes," and those are expressed as music rather than event. Now, the members of the Grateful Dead are probably good with that--wherever they are--since music is ultimately what the enterprise was about in the first place. Yet shows without tapes, or tapes taken in isolation, often lose all reference to the remarkable events that created them in the first place.

There is a six-song fragment of the end of a show at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN on October 21, 1972. There is some interesting, if poorly recorded, playing, but it's hardly a major tape. Yet a closer look at the event itself calls up something remarkable, a final glorious burst of the 60s at a private University in Tennessee, of all places. The October 21, 1972 concert in Nashville was a free concert, and it was the very last free concert by the Grateful Dead outside of San Francisco.

The Grateful Dead, to the extent they had a plan, had generally tried to invade a new town and play for free, with the confidence that enough people would be made fans for life that it would pay off in the future. They worked that mojo time and again, in Vancouver, San Francisco, Manhattan, Toronto, Montreal, Denver, Atlanta and other places, all places that they thoroughly own even to this day. The last stab was Nashville in '72, yet outside of Nashville, no one seems to remember. This post will attempt to frame the October 21, 1972 free concert by the Grateful Dead at Vanderbilt in its proper context.

Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN
Vanderbilt University is a private University founded in 1873 with a $1 million grant from Cornelius "Commodore" Vanderbilt, who had never actually set foot in the South.Vanderbilt was attempting to help heal the wounds caused by the Civil War. Today Vanderbilt has 12,000 students from around the United States and the world, and numerous distinguished alumni. To many Americans, Vanderbilt is known as an academically accomplished school in a major football conference. Vanderbilt is in the football-mad SEC, and as such it bears comparison to Stanford in the Pac-12, Northwestern in the Big 10 or Duke in the ACC. I think most Vandy alums would feel comfortable being compared to those three schools.

On one hand, Vanderbilt is clearly the superior academic school in its conference, but on the other hand it has a history of being outmatched in football. While Stanford has to compare itself to UC Berkeley academically--don't get me started--and Northwestern to Michigan, and Duke plays in an indifferent football conference, Vandy is the clear academic star of the SEC but has to play all those powerhouses every year. Thus a year like 2012 when Vandy was 9-4 (and 5-3 in the SEC) is memorable indeed. Back in Fall '72, Vanderbilt was 3-8, and 1-5 in the conference, so students had to take solace in the fact that they were at a far better school than the ones beating them on the field.

Another thing hanging over college students in 1972 was the Vietnam War. Male students had to worry about being drafted, and going to college was one way to get a deferment. That meant, however, that flunking out of college didn't mean skulking back to mom and dad with a hangdog look--it meant getting a very, very short haircut and giving up two years of your life for a very dangerous obligation. So idyllic as the 70s may seem from this distant remove, the world of those students was not so carefree as it may seem today.

The State Of The Grateful Dead, Fall 1972
In the Fall of 1972, the Grateful Dead were perceived as rock and roll veterans, rather than outlaws. They still did things their own way, but they were only one standard deviation removed from the rock mainstream. The Dead had helped create the national rock touring circuit, where good live bands could find an audience by making new fans in every city, and numerous English and American rock groups were crisscrossing the country, following the Dead's footsteps, often almost literally, from previous years.

By 1972, the Dead had had three hit albums in a row (Workingman's Dead, American Beauty and 'Skull & Roses'). They had never had a true AM radio hit, but they were regularly played on FM radio throughout the country. Their concerts were more and more successful, as well. In all the cities that they had been playing regularly, they would return to play either larger places or more nights, as Deadheads got on the bus at each stop, and almost never stepped off.

However, since the Grateful Dead's success was predicated on live concerts, the band tended to be a hit in the places where they had toured for years. The heart of the rock circuit, pioneered by the Dead in the 60s, was I-80 and I-95. There were some secondary routes, on I-70, I-5 and I-10, but the heart of the action was on I-80 and I-95. Relatively small cities like Des Moines (I-80), Portland, ME (I-95) and Portland, OR (I-5) were Dead strongholds because they were between major stops on the circuit, and near the main Interstates, so the Dead played them regularly. Other cities, particularly in the South and Southeast, had rarely seen a Dead concert anywhere near them, and so the band had few followers there. Since other rock bands did not play those cities so regularly, either, so there wouldn't have been as many venues or promoters seeking the Dead.

1972 was the last year when the Grateful Dead still set out to conquer new lands, like Alexander The Great. The most famous of those expeditions was the legendary European tour that begat the Europe 72 triple album. But even afterwards,  the group was still sending expeditions into unconquered territory. The Dead's 70s innovation was broadcasting entire concerts on FM radio. This reached a much wider audience than the old free concerts of the 60s, and those FM broadcasts had a huge effect in cementing the Dead's audience in cities where they had played for many years, like Chicago and New York.

Still, the Dead's touring was somewhat limited to certain cities, so they seem to have decided to fall back and their old tactic of the 60s, and played a few free concerts. The free concerts at American University in Washington, DC on September 30, 1972 and at the Alumni Lawn at Vanderbilt University would be the last free concerts by the Grateful Dead outside of San Francisco.

An article from the VU Hustler in October 1972. Inset: they never suspect "good acid."

More from the VU Hustler

An article in the VU newspaper, The Hustler, from few days before the concert, explained the back story:

The Alumni Lawn location was selected by special arrangement with the Grateful Dead. The concerts committee had tried to bring the group to Vanderbilt "for at least three years now," and had finally persuaded them that "appearances in the South are worth while." They "refused to play in the [Memorial] gym for acoustic reasons, and preferred Alumni Lawn" to all other suggested sites.

These details tell us a few interesting things. First of all, if the Dead had refused to play the gym, then they were being paid to play at Vanderbilt--this was no hippie guerrilla strike.

The Dead were mostly playing smaller theaters on this tour, older places that probably sounded pretty good. The tour had opened in St. Louis at the Fox Theater from October 17-19 (Tuesday through Thursday), and would go on to The Performing Arts Center in Milwaukee (Monday and Tuesday October 23-24) and then Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus and Detroit. So the band had an open weekend on Friday and Saturday (October 20-21).  I think tour manager Sam Cutler probably used the following logic: if they played indoors, the students and local hippies would show up, but those people liked the Dead anyway. If they could play a free concert, it became a regional event, and it would have a much greater impact. Clearly, Cutler was able to persuade Vanderbilt to use their entertainment budget on a free concert, probably an unprecedented request that I suspect was never repeated.

Alumni Lawn, Vanderbilt University, Nashville, TN October 21, 1972
Apparently, the day started out foggy with a threat of rain, but the sky cleared by the one o'clock showtime. 15,000 fans came from hundreds of miles. Vanderbilt let people camp out on the lawn the night before--no word if veggie burritos were available for purchase--as long as people were willing to "brave the elements" (it probably got down to 50 degrees). As for the day of the show, the crowd was handled differently than at Golden Gate Park. According to The Hustler, the plan was that

Student marshals will "attempt to secure the area immediately in front of the stage with ropes until 11:30 am," in order "to assure Vanderbilt students a good seat." Entrance to the special area will be by VU ID only beginning around 9 am.

[Concert Committee member] Kahn commented that there will be sufficient area for non-Vanderbilt students to view the concert but admitted that "we will have to rely on the good faith of Vanderbilt students" to hold the student section.

I saw the Grateful Dead many times at the Greek Theatre, and let me tell you the school never did anything like this for us. OK, I admit I would have let "townies" into the student section, but it would still would have been cool to flash your student ID and get into the front. No wonder the memories of the Dead concert on the class of 1973 website are so fond.

The balance of the article is full of reminders about camping (sleeping bags only, no camp fires) and warnings about not engaging in illegal drug traffic, but on the whole, the message from the University is fairly positive. The article ends "Rain or shine, the Concerts Committee expects the Grateful Dead and their music 'to infect our campus with good time spirit.'" That they apparently did.

The show was scheduled to start at 1:00pm,  possibly to accommodate students who had just finished taking their LSATs on Saturday morning. The band started a little late--just like they were at home!--but the 15,000 or so lucky fans present got themselves a full dose of the Grateful Dead.

One	Bertha ; Me And My Uncle ; Deal ; Beat It On Down The Line ; Sugaree ; El Paso ; China Cat Sunflower > I Know You Rider ; Black Throated Wind ; Tennessee Jed ; Jack Straw ; Loser ; Playing In The Band
Two	The Promised Land ; Brown Eyed Women ; Big River ; He's Gone ; Greatest Story Ever Told ; Bird Song ; Truckin' > The Other One > Morning Dew ; Sugar Magnolia
Encore	Johnny B. Goode

There is a surviving soundboard of the back of the second set, 77 minutes or so, from "He's Gone" through "Morning Dew". The quality isn't great, but there's no doubt that the Dead showed Nashville what they were all about, and "Truckin'">"The Other One">"Morning Dew" must have been a mighty fine way to follow a morning when you took your LSAT exam. People indeed came from all over to see the Vanderbilt show, and they remember it decades later.

From Dead.net

I was too young to drive, so a friend and I took the Grayhound bus to Nashville ... walked down Broadway to VU. It was a beautiful Fall afternoon...the show was outdoors on a hillside. What a magical afternoon that was....Great show.

As a teen living at home, I used to get fried, come home and put on headphones in bed to listen to the Midnight album hour on the radio. When Europe '72 came out, the DJ played two sides of it. I had never even heard of the Dead, but I got on the bus that very night! Wow, for a kid growing up in Nashville listening to the ABB, The Beatles, Jethro Tull, and the like, the Dead blew my mind that fateful night. Soon thereafter, I learned that the Dead were doing a free show at Vandy. I remember marveling at all the knobs on Phil's bass and at how cool Donna's hair was. I also remember meeting heads who'd come down from NY and had pitched a tent on the quad at Vandy. I couldn't believe anyone would come down from NY for a concert! After the show, I understood why! 

From the Archive

I moved from southern California to Nashville to attend college at Vanderbilt and started hearing a lot of good bluegrass. My sophomore year and the Dead were scheduled to play, right on campus where I lived! Amazing. Total party carnival extravaganza. I've seen them at UCLA Pauley Pavilion and outdoors also at UC Santa Barbara, but this was like seeing them at home. Fantastic

and more from the Archive

Thanks for posting this. I was there at this show in Nashville. Brings back some awesome memories of the Dead.This was my first Dead show and will always be one of my favorites. 

I had just turned 18 and I was pretty darned impressed. Another time when it rained right up to showtime, then became a beautiful sunny fall day in TN. This was the day I got on the bus.

And some guy put some great photos online from Vanderbilt, and they give a pretty good feel for the relatively low-key event. Vanderbilt had students from everywhere, so while the Dead may or may not have cemented their standing in Nashville, numerous Commodores left Vanderbilt as fully signed up Deadheads.

"Tennessee Jed"
The rock concert industry was still young in 1972. Outside of California, New York and a few big cities, it was even younger. Although the music industry had been well entrenched in Nashville for decades, rock music meant something different to young people, particularly young people who faced the threat of themselves or their friends being drafted to fight a pointless foreign war. Rock concerts made people feel that there were lots of other people like them--maybe they still do--and some of the now-typical rituals were still new and exciting. It's unfortunate that there is no audience tape of the Vanderbilt show, because I would still like to hear the audience's roar of approval when the Dead sang the first chorus of "Tennessee Jed."

At Dead concerts, and indeed at most concerts, people like to cheer when their city or state are mentioned in a song. It was a famous ritual at Grateful Dead New Year's, with numerous people from out-of-town, for people to cheer for the different cities named in "Truckin'." Cities like San Francisco, New York and New Orleans were often mentioned in rock songs, but other cities had to take their pleasures where they could find them. While Europe '72 was apparently being played on the radio in October '72, the overwhelming majority of the audience would have had no idea about "Tennessee Jed." In a place like Nashville, hearing a San Francisco band sing "Tennessee, Tennessee/Ain't no place I'd rather be," tongue in cheek or not, had to have lit up the entire campus.

Aftermath
The Dead only played Nashville two more times, both in 1978. I think the reason for this was prosaic. Nashville is on I-40, and it wasn't really between any two cities that the Dead played regularly. The Dead regularly played North Carolina, because it was between Washington, DC and Atlanta, but Nashville just wasn't on the way to anywhere else that the Dead typically played. So the Dead conquered Nashville, for a day, but then they retreated. By the time they could have played Nashville successfully, they could make even more money in Chicago or New York, so there wasn't really any need.

More significantly, after the Vanderbilt show, the Grateful Dead never played a free show in unconquered territory again, and indeed they only played two more such shows in Golden Gate Park. Some of that was economic: University entertainment budgets shrunk in the 70s, and schools no longer had the cash to pay a major rock band to play without some compensation from ticket sales. The other was practical: after '72, if there was a free Dead concert anywhere, with any kind of fair warning, people were going to come from everywhere, by any means necessary, and complete madness would ensue. Now, that sounds like fun to me, but University or city administrators did not want to have a mini-Woodstock, much less an Altamont, on an open field. No amount of student marshals could have controlled that.

So the lucky Commodores, Nashville residents and out-of-towners who saw the Grateful Dead at Alumni Lawn on October 21, 1972 not only saw a great '72 Dead show on a nice Fall afternoon, they saw the end of an era. The Dead never again played a free concert in a new town, just to get everyone to hear their music. But for one last time, they showed they could do it, rolling in like psychedelic cavalry to rule the campus all of Saturday, and rolling out the next day leaving unforgettable memories, if only anyone could recall them.

Summer 1972: Pierce Street Annex, San Francisco: Vince Guaraldi/Jerry Garcia/Mike Clark

The cover to the 1969 Warners lp The Eclectic Vince Guaraldi

After Jerry Garcia's death, scholarship on his musical career only increased from its already high level. This was magnified by increased access to the internet, which allowed the entire Grateful Dead community to contribute their pieces of knowledge to Jerry Garcia's history. One of the conventional yet still remarkable things about Jerry Garcia's music was its astonishing breadth. While carrying on a full-time career in the Grateful Dead, Garcia played in a wide variety of groups: country rock with the New Riders Of The Purple Sage, R&B with Merl Saunders, bluegrass with Old And In The Way, honky tonk rock and roll with the Jerry Garcia Band and a slew of famous guest appearances with CSNY and others. There are various blogs focused on continual research in Garcia's career (see here and here), and TheJerrySite acts as an anchor, with an encyclopedic overview of Garcia's performing career.

Thus it seems remarkable that an entire band featuring Jerry Garcia has been missed entirely by historians. Now, I grant, this 'band' only played two or three shows in the Summer of 1972 at a San Francisco fern bar. Yet Garcia was already a bona fide legend by that time, and yet no trace of the performances surfaced until 2012. It is a remarkable testament to Garcia's relentless commitment to expanding his horizons that we are still finding an undiscovered Garcia country 40 years on.

So here it is: in the Summer of 1972, Jerry Garcia played unbilled at a San Francisco fern bar called The Pierce Street Annex, in the Marina District. The other members of the band were pianist Vince Guaraldi, of "Peanuts" fame, drummer Mike Clark, later of the Headhunters, bassist Seward McCain, and tenor saxophonist Vince Denham. The sources for this remarkable bit of missing history are two members of the band, McCain and Clark. Both were regular members of Guaraldi's quartet, and they recalled this part-time excursion. Clark specifically recalls that they only played two or three times, and that they played music in the style of Miles Davis' Bitches Brew album, just unstructured electric jazz jamming.

Sources
2012 saw the publication of the definitive biography of pianist Vince Guaraldi, Vince Guaraldi At The Piano, by Derrick Bang (McFarland and Company) , a fine book that is a must-read for anyone interested in West Coast jazz from the 50s through the 70s. Guaraldi had first become popular with the recording of own "Cast Your Fate To The Wind" in 1962, but he became nationally known when he did the soundtrack for the Peanuts television specials. The Peanuts income put Guaraldi in a position that was fairly unique for a jazz musician--he was financially secure. Guaraldi loved to play live, but he didn't like heavy touring, so from the mid-60s onward he mostly just played in and around the Bay Area. In that respect, Guaraldi had some parallels to Garcia, with Peanuts and the Grateful Dead providing the financial anchors (each with their own Pigpen, of course).

Guaraldi was a fine, versatile musician who had already had a successful career prior to Peanuts, but the TV specials took the pressure off. Guaraldi became friendly with Garcia and the Grateful Dead through his girlfriend Gretchen Katamay, who worked on the management side of Bill Graham Presents. Guaraldi had jammed with the Dead, although nobody remembers when (I think it was during the December 31, 1968 show, at about 3am). Guaraldi had also sat in for Howard Wales one night at the Matrix, on June 22, 1970, so there had been plenty of contact. By the early 70s, however, Guaraldi's records didn't sell that much, and while he was a popular club attraction, his ubiquity created a tendency for music fans to take him for granted. Nonetheless, Bang has done remarkable research in pursuing the different musical paths that Guaraldi too in the 70s, from soundtrack work to traditional jazz to electric fusion excursions.

However, when Bang gets to the Summer of '72, we find out about the hitherto unknown band from bassist Seward McCain, who recalled it in a 2010 interview with Bang (p.268)

The warm summer months also bought a hot--and rather unusual--collaboration.

"Jerry Garcia had apparently taken a hiatus from the Grateful Dead, and was available for the summer, so we played together at The Matrix," McCain recalled.  "It was the Vince Guaraldi/Jerry Garcia Band, so it was a quartet, once a week. There are no recordings, but wow, it was an interesting experience. Jerry played guitar, Mike Clark was on drums, and Vince was into jamming on one and two chord things, which was perfect for Jerry, so he just jammed with us, in his own way.

"We had good crowds; Vince and Jerry together really were a draw. And it was the loudest band I've ever played in. Vince straddled his Fender Rhodes across the tops of two 5-foot 300 watt amplifiers, which faced out diagonally to the audience, on their sides. So he had 600 watts of power blasting out toward the front. Jerry came with an arsenal of amps, and Mike played as strong as any drummer ever did; he was as loud and powerful as Billy Cobham.

"I was there with an electric bass and one bass amp, it was bare survival for me, to keep up with that volume level. It was unbelievably loud."

The weekly sessions continued throughout the summer, and then both Guaraldi and Garcia returned to their separate lives.

When I first read this, I was quite startled, and indeed thrilled, but a few details troubled me. Obviously McCain didn't know that playing outside of the Dead was common practice for Jerry Garcia, and the summer of '72 was exactly when Garcia was most likely to be looking for new ventures. The biggest hangup, however, was McCain's recollection of playing The Matrix, since The Matrix had closed in May 1971. Author Derrick Bang also pointed out that McCain hadn't been in Guaraldi's band when he had played the Matrix, so he couldn't have been recalling a show a few years earlier.

However, this conundrum was solved by drummer Mike Clark. Clark was interviewed by radio journalist and scholar Jake Feinberg in 2011. In the wide-ranging interview Clark recalled (the quote was transcribed by Bang in his concurrent blog post)

At one point, Vince said, I'm gonna to try some electric stuff, so bring a bigger drum set. I said okay. We went to a place on Fillmore Street called the Pierce Street Annex. It was a place where people tried new, experimental stuff. It was Seward McCain on bass, Guaraldi on piano, a tenor player named Vince Denham, myself on drums, and Jerry Garcia played with us a couple of times.
We played music that sort of sounded like Bitches Brew; I don't think he meant it to go in that direction, that's just how it came out. We didn't have any tunes; we just jammed on different grooves.

Obviously there are some differences in the memories of McCain and Clark, as it had been 38 and 39 years, respectively: Clark remembers just a few shows, McCain a whole summer, and Clark recalls a saxophone player that McCain forgot. That vagueness is easily explained away, as the truth is probably in the middle somewhere. For one thing, Denham was a regular member of Guaraldi's band, whether or not he played with them every time. The key point, however, is Clark's recollection of playing The Pierce Street Annex. The Pierce Street Annex was the new name for the old Matrix, so Seward McCain's memory was correct. As far as I am concerned, whatever the precise details, I am confident that the Guaraldi/McCain/Clark/McCain ensemble played Pierce Street Annex more than once, probably both with and without saxophonist Vince Denham.

The Pierce Street Annex
The Pierce Street Annex was a bar near the Matrix. When the Matrix closed, in May '71, the Pierce Street Annex leased the space and renamed it The Pierce Street Annex. I do not know what the street address of the original Pierce Street Annex was, but it seems to have shared a wall with 3138 Fillmore, where the Matrix was located.

The Pierce Street Annex was part of an early wave of San Francisco bars that were known as "Fern Bars," a polite term for upscale watering holes where young professional single men and women could meet and, well, y'know. Of course, men and women had been making new friends at bars since at least World War II, but San Francisco fern bars like the Annex or The Balboa Cafe (just across the street at 3199 Fillmore) were light enough to grow plants, rather than dark and forbidding, and it lent a different air to the proceedings, even if the results might have ultimately been the same. At the same time, gay bars were serving a similar purpose for other people, so San Francisco was a pretty fun place to be in the early 70s.

The Pierce Street Annex was not a music bar, per se. They weren't regularly in the music listings, and music fans did not regular check out the Annex to see who was playing. Thus historians have assumed that no music was played there, because none was advertised in the SF Chronicle. However, they did have music, probably mostly jazz. Since the Matrix was equipped for music, and more importantly, would have had a license for performers, it would have been surprising if the Pierce Street Annex had not taken advantage of it. Even though jazz was not particularly popular in the early 70s, the idea of it implied sophistication, so jazz at an upscale pickup joint made a lot of sense.

Of course, I have to assume that the managers of Pierce Street Annex hired Vince Guaraldi thinking he would play the "Peanuts" theme and that sort of thing. According to McCain--with reference to Vince Guaraldi's concert history--Vince and his band apparently did just that at least a few times.   On these other occasions in question here, however, Annex management were probably thrilled when Jerry Garcia showed up. Of course, when the ensemble launched into some unstructured Bitches Brew jamming, that must have gone on for hours, they probably had second thoughts. Now, according to McCain, they packed the place, although supposedly it was usually packed anyway. Still, I have to wonder--it would be a strange night indeed if you went to Pierce Street Annex hoping to find the San Francisco version of Mary Tyler Moore, and found yourself listening to an earsplitting fusion jazz jam. Oh, well: if Garcia and Mike Clark were jamming, you were already getting really lucky.

(For more about the Pierce Street Annex, see Derrick Bang's post here)

Dates?
The little recognized fact that makes the Garcia/Guaraldi collaboration so likely is that it took place in the Summer of '72. Of course, Deadheads knew that Garcia had not taken a hiatus from the Grateful Dead, as he always had at least one side band throughout the 70s. What was significant about 1972 was that Garcia had no side band at all. John Kahn had gone to Woodstock, NY and joined the Butterfield Blues Band, and he had invited Merl Saunders to join him. As I have detailed at length, there were almost no Garcia/Saunders shows in 1972, save for a two-week window in late June/early July, when Kahn and Saunders seem to have been back in town.

My assumption is that the Vince Guaraldi ensemble would have played on a weeknight. On a weekend, a bar like Pierce Street Annex would be packed, so music would be superflous. On a Wednesday night, say, a little high-end jazz might be an inducement for young urban professionals (the term "yuppie" didn't yet exist) to stop in. So I have been looking at possible Wednesday nights that both Garcia and Guaraldi would be available. However, you can substitute any weeknight and get the same result.

Garcia and Guaraldi Summer 1972  Timeline:
Friday, May 26, 1972: Last Europe '72 Grateful Dead show (Strand Lyceum, London)
Wednesday, May 31, 1972: open
Wednesday, June 7, 1972: Mark Teel's Club Francisco (Vince Guaraldi dropped in to jam)
Wednesday, June 14, 1972: open
Saturday, June 17, 1972 Hollywood Bowl,  Los Angeles (Grateful Dead)
Wednesday, June 21, 1972: open
Wednesday, June 28, 1972: open
Friday, June 30, 1972: Keystone Korner, SF (Garcia/Saunders)
Saturday, July 1, 1972: San Jose Civic Auditorium (Garcia/Saunders)
Wednesday, July 5-Friday, July 14-New Twin Flames, Tucson, AZ (Vince Guaraldi)
Friday-Saturday, July 7-8, 1972, Keystone Korner, SF (Garcia/Saunders)
Sunday, July 16, 1972: Dillon Stadium, Hartford, CT (Grateful Dead)
Monday, July 17, 1972: Gaelic Park, Bronx, NYC (Allman Brothers w/JG as guest)
Tuesday, July 18, 1972: Roosevelt Stadium, Jersey City, NJ (Grateful Dead)
Friday-Saturday, July 21-22: Paramount Northwest Theater, Seattle, WA (Grateful Dead)
Tuesday-Wednesday, July 25-26: Paramount Theater, Portland, OR (Grateful Dead)

It doesn't require a Statistics degree to see that Garcia and Guaraldi barely had any shows to play between the end of Europe '72 and the mid-July tour. I have arbitrarily used Wednesday as a marker, but every other weeknight was empty as well, except for those mentioned in bold above. Garcia's only recording during this period was probably with Merl Saunders at Fantasy, for Tom Fogerty's Excalibur album.

Vince Guaraldi's performance history hasn't been as thoroughly researched as Garcia's, but biographer Derrick Bang has done a fine job, and Vince would have been more or less as free as Jerry.  His big booking in the Summer was a two week run in Tucaon, but it still leaves room for gigging with Jerry.

So I think the Garcia/Guaraldi quartet or quintet played a few Wednesdays in June of 1972, or perhaps some other weekday, and perhaps even into early July. Anyone with insights, rumors or foggy memories should Comment or email me. Mike Clark says there is no tape, and although it would have easy to smuggle a tape deck into the Pierce Street Annex, what if you met Her, and she had wrinkled her nose and said "why do you have that little tape recorder?" So we'll just have to dream about it. But what a good dream it will be.

Notes On The Players
Vince Guaraldi would have been a critically important figure in San Francisco jazz without Peanuts, as Bang's book so aptly demonstrates. As a result of the TV specials, however, Guaraldi's name has spread far beyond the usual confines of popular 60's jazz artists, which is a worthy fate for a fine musician. Yet the other players in his band at the time are worthy of a few eighth notes, as well.

The cover of Herbie Hancock's 1974 Columbia album Thrust, featuring Mike Clark on drums

Mike Clark-drums
One characteristic of Jerry Garcia's electric side bands was that the drum chair was usually anchored by players of the highest quality. The best known was probably Ronnie Tutt, who drummed for Elvis Presley as well as the Garcia Band, but players like Bill Vitt, Paul Humphrey, Gregg Errico, Gaylord Birch and David Kemper were well known in professional circles. Indeed, when I tried to make a list of the Top 10 singles that Garcia's drummers had played on, I had to leave off Van Morrison's "Domino" (with 1981 drummer Dauod Shaw).

Mike Clark is no household name, but he is a true drumming titan, like Tutt, Humphrey or the rest of them. Mike Clark initially made his name as a jazz drummer in the Bay Area in the 1960s, based in Oakland. Although he saw himself as a jazz drummer, he would take funk gigs when they came his way, like any true Oakland player. The local Oakland scene had some very low-down funk, that would filter into popular consciousness in the 70s through Tower Of Power and The Pointer Sisters (who had Gaylord Birch as their bandleader).

Clark lived over on East 14th Street, and his roommate was the great bassist Paul Jackson. By 1973, Jackson had been hired by Herbie Hancock, whose music was heading in a more electric direction. Hancock recorded the album Headhunters in '73, with Jackon on bass and drummer Harvey Mason. Headhunters offered a new direction in jazz. Miles Davis had played funked-out, electric jazz on Bitches Brew back in '69, but it was challenging music to listen to. Headhunters was more accessible, yet still serious music, and it would herald an era of funky jazz that was both serious and fun at the same time.

Hancock used to call Jackson at home--it's not like he could call his cell phone--and when he wasn't home, Herbie ended up talking a lot to Mike Clark. Although Hancock was a bona fide jazz legend by 1972, he couldn't pay his band nearly as much as they could make in the studio. As a result, Harvey Mason was not willing to go on tour for the Headhunters album. Fatefully, Hancock asked Jackson if he knew any drummers who could play funk and still jazz it up. When Jackson suggested his roommate, it was the first time Hancock connected the dots and realized Clark's professional pedigree. Clark was on board.

Clark was a killer on stage, of course. He was a great jazz drummer with an Oakland funk beat, and he took the feel of 3rd and Broadway to the jazz world, just as Dave Garibaldi (Tower Of Power) and Gaylord Birch (Pointer Sisters) had done for soul music. Hancock's next album, Thrust, released in 1974, and featuring a Clark tour-de-force on the song "Actual Proof" made Clark's name in jazz circles, far beyond the confines of Bay Area jazz professionals. Hancock's band toured and recorded successfully without him as The Headhunters, and Mike Clark is rightly seen as having helped export funk into jazz. Clark has continued to have a successful career that is still in full swing. The list of players he has worked with is stunning, but now we can add Jerry Garcia to the list.

Vince Denham-saxophones
Vince Denham was a multi-talented reed player who mostly played soprano and tenor saxophone, as far as I know. He was generally based in the Bay Area up until the early 70s, but then seems to have shifted to Southern California. Denham had actually played with Garcia and Vince Guaraldi when Vince had substituted for Howard Wales at the Matrix on June 22, 1970. Denham had also served time with the legendary Don Ellis Orchestra, which was a remarkable ensemble in its own right.

Like many Los Angeles area jazz musicians, Denham seems to have mostly made his living playing rock and pop gigs. Denham was in one of the later lineups of the Loggins and Messina touring band in the mid-70s. Since then, Denham has played key roles in the touring bands of both Kenny Loggins and Michael McDonald. Most LA jazz musicians make their living in the studios doing fairly conventional music, thus freeing them to play whatever jazz they like in nightclubs, so I'm sure Denham has played a lot of fine live music, but most of that was probably for comparatively small audiences. Whether Denham played just one or a few nights with Garcia and Guaraldi, he's definitely a peer, even though his name is not widely known.

Seward McCain-bass
Seward McCain had grown up in San Francisco, and had seen and heard Vince Guaraldi many times before he was asked to join Guaraldi's regular group in 1972. McCain had joined Guaraldi during his fusion period and played electric bass, but when Vince went back to a more acoustic style, McCain switched to upright bass. McCain was a regular member of Guaraldi's band up until his death in 1976. McCain played on most or all the Peanuts soundtrack work from 1972 onwards as well.

Vince Guaraldi-piano
Vince Guaraldi had had a great jazz career prior to Peanuts, but Peanuts put him in a unique category. Jazz went through a fallow period in the 1970s, and although Vince was financially insulated, like many 50s and 60s jazzers he was no longer a major attraction, and record companies were not interested in releasing his recordings. His time would have surely come around again, as it did for so many seminal jazz figures, but sadly Vince Guaraldi died of an unexpected heart attack during a break from a gig in Menlo Park, CA, on February 6, 1976. He was 47 years old. As one friend put it, "he loved playing for people. So he was playing at a club, and he took a break...and he died. It may not be the worst way to go" (Bang, p.298). Jerry would have said the same.

Coda: San Francisco, 1972
The 60s in San Francisco were rightly legendary, but the 70s were memorable there as well. As a result of the previous decade, San Francisco's preference for being open and progressive had gone nationwide. Young adults flocked to San Francisco, not to join a band, but to have a nice life. The gay bars and fern bars that seem quaint now were progressive institutions in their time, and they are remembered fondly by people of a certain age. If any of those greying folks have warm memories of the Pierce Street Annex in the early 70s, we have to remember to ask them who was playing music in the bar while they were scoping out the evening's prospects, because there was more than one way to get lucky.

Album Economics: Round Records 1974-76

Robert Hunter's Tales Of The Great Rum Runners, the first album released on Round Records (RX-101) in June 1974

Round Records was the record company formed by Jerry Garcia and Ron Rakow to release solo albums and other material by Garcia, other members of the Dead and other musicians. The venture was an adjunct to Grateful Dead Records, which had been born once the Dead became free of their Warner Brothers contract in March, 1973. Per the legend, certain members of the Grateful Dead were uncomfortable with the risk associated with expanding the record company, so Garcia took on that risk himself. The label released ten fascinating albums in its two year existence, finally folding in early 1976.

Since Ron Rakow was a partner in Round Records, and Rakow ultimately absconded with a few hundred thousand dollars of the Grateful Dead's money in 1976, no one wanted to talk about Round afterwards. What has made the historical record confusing, however, was that no one had really wanted to talk about Round Records even while it existed. Back in '75, many rock artists had their own record labels, and although Round was a very different animal, it didn't seem that way at the time.

The public face of Round was of course Jerry Garcia, but in those days, journalists were still busily asking Garcia about LSD and Woodstock. There might have been a few generic questions about Round, but the ever-engaging Garcia simply answered the questions he was asked, and the conversation would spin far away from his own record company (Rakow did give an interview about Round to Record World, accessible on the indispensable Grateful Dead Sources blog, but it was more about the mechanics of distribution).

What happened with and to Round Records? More importantly, what was supposed to happen? To the extent we know what happened to the label, it was sunk with the financial morass that finally squeezed out Grateful Dead Records. In the end, Round released ten albums, but many of them were released quite some time after they were recorded. This post will attempt to unravel some of the financial underpinnings of Round Records. Once the cobwebs have been removed and the framework becomes visible, we will get some picture of what Garcia may have had in mind for Round. As in many other ventures, Garcia and the Grateful Dead had very imaginative ideas, but once again seem to have fired up the locomotive before the railroad tracks were finished.

Looking backwards, however, the timeline for Round Records releases makes no sense at all, and bears little relationship to Garcia's musical efforts at the time. One reason for that may be that Round was poorly run, by a partner who was neither organized nor reliable. Of more interest to me than Ron Rakow's business practices, however, is an analysis of what music Jerry Garcia was interested in making outside the Grateful Dead from 1973 to 1975, and how Garcia may have seen Round as fulfilling those ends. Without suggesting a narrative for Garcia' side projects, the history of Round Records would make no sense whatsoever.

A Round Approach
The evidence of Round Records' birth and passing is maddeningly non-specific. Given the lack of direct evidence, I have tried to analyze Round Records as an institution, rather than focusing too much on the particular actions of individuals, which may remain forever unknown. My institutional analysis points towards some interesting conclusions:

• Round Records was conceived as an independent record company that would release a wide variety of material, much of it not likely to be popular
• Round would be a platform for experimental  or unheard music
• Most of Round's projects were to be recorded in-house, at either Mickey Hart's ranch studio (The Barn), or Bob Weir's garage studio (Ace's).
• Inept business practices insured that the Round venture floundered, and almost everything released on the label was well out of date by the time it came out
• Almost everybody involved with Round was unhappy with the music and the finances, and thus only talks about Round in an indirect way

To explain my conclusions, I will present the following:

• A brief overview of the beginning of Round Records
• An institutional analysis of the likely explanation for Jerry Garcia Round album Garcia inexplicably having the same name as the previous Garcia solo album on Warners
• A timeline of the Grateful Dead finances in conjunction with Round releases

The Birth Of Round Records
The Grateful Dead informed Warner Brothers that they would not be renewing their contract, nor signing with anyone else, in the Fall of 1972. This was unprecedented for a rock band. Because of contractual obligations, they would not be free of Warners until March 1973 and the release of Bear's Choice. Perhaps Warners or another company thought they could talk the Dead out of independence--the record companies certainly tried--but the Dead stuck to their quixotic plan. The resulting entity was called Grateful Dead Records, financed by a large loan from the First National Bank Of Boston, organized by the always ambiguous Ron Rakow, who had been in and out of the Grateful Dead's finances since about 1966.

The first public corporate mark of Grateful Dead Records was in fact a notation on the liner notes for the Garcia/Saunders album Live At Keystone. That album was released in January 1974, some months after Wake Of The Flood, the initial GDR release. However, the Keystone album was recorded before Wake, in July, 1973, so when Garcia was listed as "Courtesy Of Grateful Dead Records," it was a corporate indicator of Garcia's primary affiliation. The album was released on Saunders' label, Fantasy Records. There is reason to assume that Fantasy may have hoped that even if the Dead were going it alone, Garcia might have been available to record as a solo artist. Fantasy was used to working with jazz artists on a project by project basis, so there might have been some synergy there, but this is only speculation. In any case, Garcia seems to have had bigger plans.

Wake Of The Flood was recorded in August, 1973 and released in October. Despite some difficulties getting paid by distributors and some counterfeit pressings that cut into sales, the album was pretty successful. McNally said that it sold about 400,000 copies, a healthy number for those days. Since the Dead weren't sharing profits with a parent record company, the money for Wake was still pretty good. The band's concert receipts had improved as well. By Grateful Dead standards, the group was fairly flush with money at the beginning of 1974.

McNally describes the formation of Round Records as fraught with conflicts of interest (p.452). The Dead's lawyer, Hal Kant, objected that Grateful Dead finances shouldn't have been co-mingled with a solo project, and Garcia blew up, so Kant was replaced as Round's lawyer by Rakow's personal attorney. McNally does not put a precise timeline on the formation of Round, but it seems to be sometime after the formation of Grateful Dead Records. By the beginning of 1974, despite or perhaps because of their success, the Grateful Dead's self-contained empire was full of strife. Booking agent Sam Cutler was let go, and McNally describes a period of conflict and confusion (p.468-469).

Yet the first Round Records project, Jerry Garcia's second solo album, got under way in February 1974, with John Kahn producing. Presumably, Kahn and Garcia had already been working on the concept for some time. The solo album, mysteriously titled Garcia, just like the first one, was released in June, 1974. Even so, it was not the first Round release. That honor went to the first solo album by the hitherto ghost-like Robert Hunter, Tales Of The Great Rum Runners. Both albums were released somewhat simultaneously in June, 1974. Yet, then as now, no one can give a plausible explanation for why Garcia's solo album used the same name as his 1972 release for Warners. Garcia II would have made some marketing sense--but just calling it Garcia, like the first one? The silence accompanying this choice shouts dysfunction, and that dysfunction appears to be at the center of the Round universe.

Seastones, by Ned Lagin, credited to Ned Lagin and Phil Lesh (Round RX-106), released March 1975

What Might Have Been The Plan?
Round Records was formed in late 1973, as a vehicle encouraged by Garcia for releasing projects outside of the Grateful Dead proper. Garcia and the other members of the Grateful Dead had a wide variety of projects underway: live R&B with Merl Saunders, electronic music, bluegrass, new songs from Robert Hunter and perhaps more. They also had access to their own studio, namely Mickey Hart's own facility in his barn at his Novato ranch. Thus the more esoteric projects could be recorded at a more realistic price than the high rates of professional studios like The Record Plant in Sausalito.

I think Garcia wanted to run an independent record label that released his own music and the music of his friends, whatever it happened to be. Some of it might be somewhat commercial, like the Jerry Garcia Band or Kingfish, but some of it might be outmoded country subgenres or unfathomable experiments. At the time, major record companies were good at making money on music, but they were hit machines that depended on artists who toured heavily behind popular music. Warners or Columbia had too much overhead for bluegrass or something equally obscure. A low-overhead independent label would have been a different matter.

In theory, while the Grateful Dead rode the big horse, Round Records could have made creative music cheaply at Mickey's Barn in Novato and sold a modest amount of records to Deadheads and people of discriminating taste. Without much overhead, the players would get a little money, and there would be enough left over to make the next album. All sorts of friends and allies could get a chance to make the music they wanted to, not the mandated 10-songs-per-lp-of-rockin'-hits that the industry demanded.

The idea of Round Records as a self-sustaining, independent label, run by artists for artists, would have been a great idea--if it were 1990. David Grisman's Acoustic Disc was built on that model, and it has generally been very successful. While some of Grisman's albums, particularly those with Garcia, have sold quite well, some of the releases are specialist projects recorded for a modest, discriminating audience. No matter: they were usually recorded in Grisman's (high-tech) garage, and they are sold in limited runs to those who want them, via mail-order and the internet. None of this was plausible in 1974.

Many rock artists in the early 70s had "private labels," called "imprints" by record companies: the Jefferson Airplane had Grunt (for RCA), Frank Zappa had Bizarre/Straight (Warners), ELP had Manticore (Island), and so on. Certainly, those artists got to release albums by their friends: Zappa released albums by his best friend in high school and his daughter's nanny, for example. However, the big record companies still exerted a lot of control on the imprints. Their real interest was in using the artists to find new hitmakers. All of Warners' investment in Zappa paid off when he signed and civilized some crazies from Phoenix, AZ called Alice Cooper. When Zappa left Warners, they dropped all the acts on Bizarre/Straight except Alice, and they made millions on the band. That was what they had really wanted. Warners could not have channeled Alice Cooper as they were in 1969, but Zappa could, and the payoff for Warners a few years later was huge.

I don't doubt Warners or Columbia would have (and probably did) offer Garcia his own imprint if the Dead would sign. However, Garcia was dismissive of Grunt, the Airplane's label, so I don't think he had any interest in having a corporate entity under his control. In typical fashion, Garcia seems to have chosen to go it alone, but he chose it at a time when an independent label had no way of getting distributed or paid, and any unique music they made would never be heard on the radio, rendering it permanently obscure.

A careful look backwards shows a plethora of album projects by members of the Grateful Dead, most of them recorded at Mickey Hart's Barn studio: albums by Hart himself, Old And In The Way, Roadhog, Barry Melton and Jim McPherson were all recorded there, none of which saw the light of day (some of the McPherson material was released in 2009). There were ongoing experiments with electronic music (that would become Seastones) and radio plays (the mysterious radio play "Insect Invasion"), and numerous live ensembles like Garcia/Saunders, the Great American String Band and The Good Old Boys. Yet none of this came to light during the brief tenure of Round Records, and only bits and pieces surfaced in succeeding years. It stands to reason that all the recording going on was intended, ultimately, for release, and I think that Round Records was intended to be that vehicle. 

Jerry Garcia's second solo album (RX-102), inexplicably entitled Garcia, just like his first album two years earlier

Why Call The Album "Garcia"?
Although Garcia's 1974 solo album bore the number RX-102, ceding RX-101 to Hunter's album, the Round Records enterprise would not have gotten underway without the promise of an album that would actually sell. Jerry Garcia's first solo album had been released by Warners in January, 1972. The album was titled Garcia. More so than many people, Jerry Garcia was someone often addressed by his last name, even by old friends, so it was almost like a nickname.

It was common in the 1960s and 70s for record companies to title the first solo album after the artist: Neil Young, Stephen Stills and Jackson Browne's first albums were named after themselves, for example. The naming of Garcia's first album was particularly appropriate, since he played most of the instruments (all save the drums), and sang and wrote all the songs, save of course for Hunter's lyrics. In that sense, Garcia was very much a solo album. The Grateful Dead were rising in popularity in 1972, and Garcia was quite successful (I think it went gold). Radio friendly songs like "Deal" and "Sugaree" certainly helped.

There was no fathomable motivation to name Garcia's second album the same name as his first. The naming was so unfathomable that Grateful Dead Records themselves dropped it. Promotional copies of Garcia were imprinted with a stamp that said "Compliments Of", and people started to informally call the album Compliments Of Garcia, partially just to distinguish it from the first album. Informally, the album has been called Compliments Of Garcia ever since. The Dead.net Store now lists it as Compliments. It's not a bad title--but why couldn't they have thought of it before? Some artists with long, complex recording histories sometimes end up with the same or similarly titled albums, but usually they are a result of two different Live In Concert albums a decade apart. In 1974, Garcia had had only released two solo albums, but they both had the same name.

What had to happen for Garcia's first album on Round to have the same name as his only other solo album? There have to have been three culprits--poor planning, a failure to communicate and arrogance. On a business basis, Round Records was run by Jerry Garcia and Ron Rakow. Garcia was busy making music, however, so that meant that Rakow effectively ran the label. McNally quotes Dead attorney Hal Kant on Rakow's supposed professional credentials: "Rakow is supposed to be a serious businessman? He doesn't have a clue." Events seemed to have borne out Kant's assessment.

I have to assume that as Kahn and Garcia worked on the album, the name on the tape box or studio sheets was 'Garcia Project' or just 'Garcia.' In effect, I assume this was the working title for the album. A very fine Byrds album, Untitled, was called that because it was the name on the tape box, and when it came time for the release, the Byrds liked Untitled better than their planned name Phoenix. However, Untitled was a clever, ironic title, attracting attention to an excellent album.  So it's not hard to see how the solo album had a working title of Garcia, but still hard to see how it really got released with that name.

Garcia himself was never someone who liked to name things. Indeed, for all his eloquence, Garcia didn't even write lyrics. One of Robert Hunter's lesser duties, apart from lyrics, was as the designated Namer Of Things. If Garcia had had a little foresight, he would have asked Hunter to come up with a name. Hunter would have listened to the tape, and thought of something appropriate--perhaps even Compliments Of Garcia. Once Garcia had accepted Hunter's title, that would have carried the day. But what with recording Mars Hotel, touring, playing with Merl Saunders and numerous other things, Garcia seems never to have asked Hunter, nor made any other plans to name the album.

What commentary there is about Ron Rakow mostly concerns his alleged dubious business practices. Those alleged practices aside, Rakow seems to have kept his own counsel (literally, with respect to the Round attorney) and not let anyone outside of Garcia know what was planned. It would be conventional even in a small record company to ask what the title of a forthcoming album might be, but I don't think Rakow had those conversations with people. I suspect he wasn't very direct with anyone about it, actually, but at the very least if the subject had come up, almost anyone in Grateful Dead circles would have mentioned that the first album was called Garcia.However,  I don't think anyone had those kinds of conversations with Rakow, even casually.

Finally, however, the most likely explanation for the Garcia title was Ron Rakow's arrogance. Rakow, for all his big talk, probably didn't know or didn't remember that the first album was also called Garcia. Rakow had probably taken steps that committed Round to an album title of Garcia, such as printing the cover. Rakow took great pride in saying how he had found a way to print extra copies of the Wake Of The Flood album cover cheaply (and then sold the records as cut-outs, another tangential subject), so it's not far-fetched to think that Rakow had a "deal' on the covers. Rakow does not seem to be a person who would admit a mistake or listen to reason, nor would he have had any interest in spending extra money to change the album title. If you've ever worked in a place where the boss doesn't listen, all sorts of stupid decisions are confirmed merely to insure that the boss never has to admit that he has wrong.

The strange history of the Garcia album title suggests that Rakow ran Round Records as a sloppy, private kingdom where he listened to no one save Garcia. Since Garcia wasn't interested in details, that left Rakow to manage Round Records unchecked. It looks like Garcia was working on numerous projects, with the idea that Round would be the vehicle for releasing them. Yet Round only intermittently released anything, often long after the musicians had moved on.

Old And In The Way, Round Records greatest legacy, recorded in October 1973 and released in February 1975 (RX-103)

Round Records Timeline 1973-1974
A detailed look at the chronology of Round Records shows how the label was dependent on money borrowed against the Grateful Dead. When Rakow found a source of cash, a few albums popped out out of the pipeline. However, each cash infusion obligated the Dead to more pressure from either their creditors or the record company, and the cycle repeated itself. What I believe to be Garcia's inspired vision for an independent record label turned into a tool for Ron Rakow to use Garcia as a fulcrum to leverage the Grateful Dead for cash. The Wall Of Sound and the Grateful Dead movie were also a huge cash drain on the band, leaving Round begging for scraps. The history of Round releases is intimately tied to cash infusions to the Dead, each time indebting the band further. No one seems to have gotten paid for a Round release, because the label was a financial house of cards in the first place.

• March 1973: Warner Brothers releases Bear's Choice: Grateful Dead become independent.
• April 1973: Grateful Dead Records launched, funded by a loan from the First National Bank Of Boston and an overseas distribution deal with Atlantic Records (for $300,000).
• April 1973: Old And In The Way (founded in March) records at Mickey Hart's Barn studio in Novato. The tapes have never surfaced
• May 1973: Ned Lagin moves to California, and begins working on what will become Seastones at The Barn with Garcia, Hart, Phil Lesh and others
• July 1973: Jerry Garcia records at Keystone Berkeley with Merl Saunders, for Fantasy Records
• August 1973: Grateful Dead record Wake Of The Flood at the Record Plant
• October 1973: Wake Of The Flood released on Grateful Dead Records
• Summer or Fall 1973: Round Records established
• January 1974: Live At Keystone, by Garcia/Saunder/Kahn, Vitt, released on Fantasy
• January 1974: The Dead start making plans for The Wall Of Sound, which will ultimately eat up all their increased concert revenue
• February 1974: John Kahn begins producing the Garcia album in Southern California
• April 1974: The Grateful Dead begin recording Mars Hotel at CBS Studios in San Francicso
• Spring 1974: Robert Hunter records Tales Of The Great Rum Runners at The Barn. It's possible that a Roadhog album of Hunter songs was recorded just before this
• June 1974: Round Records releases Rum Runners and Garcia
• June 1974: Grateful Dead Records releases Mars Hotel
• Late 1974: Garcia pays David Grisman $1000 to make an album out of Owsley's Old And In The Way live recordings. Neither Grisman nor any other band member receive another cent from the record, and Grisman and Garcia do not speak for the next 14 years.
• October 1974: Rakow and Garcia impulsively decide to make a movie out of the band's stand at Winterland (McNally p.478)
• Late 1974: Grateful Dead Records is effectively bankrupt, and Rakow arranges a distribution deal with United Artists Records

Whatever the grand plans of the Dead at the beginning of the year, they collapsed under the weight of the Wall Of Sound and poor financial management. Round Records had only released two albums in June 1974, and had been silent since that time. The Dead were rescued by the UA deal, but UA in turn demanded product from the Dead. However, early 1975 saw a flurry of releases from Round. UA probably didn't care, one way or the another, but accepted the releases as a condition of signing the Dead. The implication, however, seems to have been that any Round releases after the first two were throttled by a lack of cash.

The Old And In The Way album was released 16 months after it was recorded because there was no money to release it earlier. The fact that Grisman, nor any other band member, was not paid for the record is another implicit sign of poor fiscal management by Rakow.  Lagin has complained as well that the released Seastones was just a small piece of what they were trying to accomplish musically, and he has alluded to pressure from the record company. Whether that was directly from Round or indirectly from UA, it's another clue that despite attempting to provide musical freedom, Round's artists ended up unhappy.

Keith & Donna (RX-014), released February 1975 (RX-104)

Round Records Timeline 1975-1976

• January 1975: Jerry Garcia and Dan Healy record The Good Old Boys, with David Nelson, Frank Wakefield, Chubby Wise and Don Reno, at Mickey Hart's Barn. The Pistol Packin' Mama album will not be released for another 13 months.
• January 1975: Work is completed on a studio above Bob Weir's garage in Mill Valley. The studio is called Ace's. Per McNally, the band Heroes are the first to record there (McNally p.482). Garcia actually played on some sessions, which were released decades later on the Bill Cutler album Crossing The Line, but I have to think that a Round release was at least contemplated.
• February 1975: Round releases the Old And In The Way album (RX-103). With financing from the UA distribution contract, Round could release a flurry of albums
• February 1975: The  Grateful Dead, with Mickey Hart back on board, began playing at Ace's
• March 1975: Round releases the Keith And Donna album (RX-104)
• March 1975: Round releases Tiger Rose, the second Hunter album (RX-105)
• April 1975: Round releases Seastones, the Ned Lagin project (RX-106). A sticker on the album credited to Lagin and Phil Lesh, because UA wanted a member of the Grateful Dead's name on the record.
• June 1975: Under pressure from UA to deliver product, the Dead record Blues For Allah in two weeks at Ace's
• August-September 1975: Jerry Garcia begins recording Reflections at Ace's. There is a distinct whiff that Garcia needs to produce a salable album for UA, both to finance the Dead's operations and also the Grateful Dead movie.
• September 1975: Blues For Allah is released on Grateful Dead Records, but with a United Artists record number. 
• October-November 1975: Jerry Garcia records the other half of Reflections at His Masters Wheels in San Francisco, formerly Pacific High Recorders (and then Alembic Studios). He records with John Kahn, Ron Tutt and Nicky Hopkins, although Larry Knechtel is brought in to help on keyboards.

There were no Round releases between April 1975 and February 1976, when Reflections was released. The spurt of releases in early 1975 came via a cash infusion from UA. When that dried up, Round was dormant. What cash there was seems to have been absorbed by the movie, but once again Rakow's cash management can hardly be respected. Rakow made another deal with United Artists in early 1976, which provided another spurt of releases on Round. However, once Rakow wrote himself a check for  $225,000 in Spring 1976, the Dead found themselves broke and owing United Artists a Grateful Dead album. The regrettable Steal Your Face was the result.

Diga, by the Diga Rhythm Band, produced and led by Mickey Hart, the final release on Round (RX-110)

Round Records Timeline 1976
February 1976: Round/UA releases Reflections (RX-107)
March 1976: Round/UA releases Kingfish (RX-108). Weir was a member of Kingfish at the time, and the album was recorded at Ace's. Reflections and Kingfish were the sort of albums that UA would have hoped for when they financed the Grateful Dead.
March 1976: Round/UA releases Pistol Packin' Mama by The Good Old Boys (RX-109). UA cannot have been interested in this record, and it sank quickly. UA probably saw it as a rock star indulgence, like letting Frank Zappa release an album by a group that included his daughter's nanny.
May 1976: McNally details how Rakow had allowed the Dead's finances to become disastrous (pp.488-492). Rakow writes himself a huge check that bankrupts Grateful Dead Records, but Garcia refuses to insist on prosecution.
June 1976: Round/UA releases Diga, by the Diga Rhythm Band. This too was probably seen by UA as a rock star indulgence.
June 1976: Grateful Dead/UA release Steal Your Face. The whole record company experiment comes to an end. With few other options, and a movie to finance, the Grateful Dead have already returned to the road.

Looking Backwards
I will admit that I have drawn some very specific conclusions from scattered, fragmentary evidence. Nonetheless, any serious consideration of Jerry Garcia and the Grateful Dead's musical goals have to account for Round Records. There are so many things that are hard to explain: the title of Garcia's solo album, the strange, intermittent pattern of releases and the numerous unheard projects demand an explanation that hangs together as a plausible narrative. If someone can come up with a better explanation for the strange history of Round Records, I would be more than willing to try it on for size. For now, I'll have to stick with my own explanation of events.

In the early 1970s, Jerry Garcia, other members of the Grateful Dead and their fellow Marin musicians found themselves working on a wide variety of music, only some of which had any commercial potential. With Mickey Hart's studio, and then Bob Weir's, it seemed like all this music could be recorded and produced. Jerry Garcia and Ron Rakow hatched a plan to start a self-funded, independent record company to put out those albums. Garcia himself was the star attraction, but the door was open to bluegrass, electronic music, songwriters, drummers and many other kinds of weirdness. A record company not run for some corporate suits, but one run by and for the musicians themselves. It was a great idea, and some very good music got recorded.

Overrreach and a cash squeeze got the better of Round Records. Some ill-advised management decisions, possibly connected to some very dubious business practices, required that Round was beholden to the vagaries of the Grateful Dead's own very-difficult finances. The Round recording artists found themselves unhappy with both the released material and the lack of money forthcoming, making Round very similar to a regular record company. When Grateful Dead Records evaporated under the weight of its obligations to United Artists and Ron Rakow's self-dealing, Round Records disappeared with it. Such grand plans were not undertaken again, and rarely spoken of.

Grateful Dead Rehearsal Spaces, 1965-1995

A poster for an October 15, 1966 concert at the Sausalito Heliport on Bolinas St. Nothing is known of the concert, but the Dead ended up using the Heliport as a rehearsal hall for sevaral months in late '66-early '67.

The Grateful Dead were famous as a band who eschewed rehearsal, and yet in the early days at least their rehearsals were a critical source of discovery and innovation. I could find no comprehensive list of the band's rehearsal spaces over the years, so I made a list myself. There are some peculiar gaps, and the gaps may tell us a number of interesting things about the Grateful Dead's intentions and plans. The goal here is to create a list of spaces that were used primarily as the band's rehearsal space, where equipment was set up more or less permanently, at least if the band was not on the road.

This little project has been more slippery than it appears. No one writes the history of rehearsal halls, and there are no posters, ads or reviews to provide context or confirmation. There are the occasional tapes, of course, but even they offer almost nothing about the space itself. With no audience to talk to, any between song chatter says nothing about location, so any identifying details remain invisible. Thus this list is mostly sparse, lacking in color, and probably both incomplete and inaccurate. Anyone with further details, corrections, insights or useful speculation is encouraged to add them in the Comments or email me (note: thanks to some amazing Commenters, this post has been substantially updated since its original publication).

The back of what was Dana Morgan's music store on Ramona Street, as it appeared in 2009

Back Room, Dana Morgan's Music Shop, 536 Ramona St, Palo Alto, CA
According to McNally, members of Mother McRee's Uptown Jug Champions started fooling around on electric instruments as early as the Summer of 1964. Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and Pigpen  all worked at Dana Morgan's music store on Ramona Street, and they would play instruments in the back room, facing the alley. Per McNally, one of Garcia's folkie banjo students was dismayed to see Garcia playing electric back there as early as December 1964. Once Kreutzmann came on board as drummer, and the store owner's son was added on bass, the Warlocks were born.

Various suburban houses, Palo Alto and Menlo Park, CA
After a month of unsatisfactory performances by bassist Dana Morgan Jr, he was replaced by Phil Lesh. Owner Dana Morgan, who didn't like the band's sound anyway, reclaimed the instruments and shooed all his instructors away. Garcia and Weir, at least, found new students and access to equipment at Guitars Unlimited in Menlo Park, but the fledgling group had nowhere to practice. According to McNally, they rehearsed anywhere they could: at Sue Swanson's parent's house in Menlo Park, at Phil's apartment in Palo Alto and presumably other places.

2504 San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley, site of the Questing Beast, where the Dead almost rehearsed in 1966. Don't google the site at work.

The Questing Beast, 2504 San Pablo Ave, Berkeley, CA
According to legend, the Warlocks new patron Owsley Stanley intended to move the band to Berkeley, where they were to rehearse at a place called The Questing Beast. The Questing Beast was a sort of psychedelic folk club, with suitably far out painting on the walls, and Owsley was reputed to have been at least a regular customer, if nothing else. 2504 San Pablo had formerly been the site of the Cabale, the folk club where Garcia and others had seen the influential Jim Kweskin Jug Band in March 1964, so it wasn't without history. And the history of The Questing Beast is indeed interesting, but whether or not Owsley truly intended to move the band there or that was just a fable, he led them to Los Angeles instead, and the Grateful Dead had no connection to the Questing Beast.

"Pink House" Los Angeles, CA
While in Los Angeles, the band presumably rehearsed in the large, pink house where they stayed. According to McNally, it was located just off Western Boulevard, in the North Adams District at 2511 3rd Avenue.

The Straight Theater, 1702 Haight St, San Francisco, CA
After several weeks in Los Angeles, the Grateful Dead and their friends moved to a crumbling mansion in Marin known as Rancho Olompali. McNally has them rehearsing at Olompali, and then moving rehearsals to the Straight Theater after that, but further research has revealed that to be out-of-sequence. Ace Commenter Yellow Shark sorts it out:

I think the proposed timeline for the Straight Theatre is a little out. I was always pretty certain that by the time of the May 19, 1966 Straight benefit the Grateful Dead were already using the Straight as a rehearsal hall and that the benefit (held at the Avalon Ballroom) featured those acts that were using the Straight to rehearse (The Grateful Dead, The Wildflower, Michael McClure (at that time working with the Wildflower as a lyricist) and The Outfit). So my view was always that The Straight rehearsals were much earlier than suggested here.

Anyway, after reading what is a great post I thought I would check with Reggie to see if he could help with the timeline, and if he could shed any light on way the Grateful Dead stopped using the facility to rehearse. This was his reply:

"When we got into the Straight in early April 66 the Dead began rehearsing almost immediately. They rehearsed as I ripped out the first 26 rows of seating. Soon due to a combination of things like building the floor during the day rehearsals were scheduled at night. Then the QMS, the Outfit, and others rehearsed at night. The Dead moved on due to other factors like scheduling freedom and certain members of the Dead moving out of the Haight to Marin." 

The Straight Theater, at 1702 Haight at Cole, was an old movie theater in the Haight Ashbury district that many of the local hippies wanted to turn into a Fillmore-style ballroom. The city was against it, for the usual variety of reasons. The Grateful Dead had played a benefit for the Straight at The Avalon on May 19, 1966--strange that the Avalon was putting on a benefit for a future competitor, but such was hippie paradise. 

I do not know why the Dead left the Straight, nor precisely how long they rehearsed there, but McNally just says the situation "fell apart" (p.152).  The locals considered the Straight a community resource, and probably were more than happy to hang out watching the Grateful Dead rehearse. That was probably not what the Dead wanted, however, and the security for their equipment was probably poor. Since Quicksilver and The Outfit were rehearsing there as well, it probably meant that equipment had to be moved around as well. Bands don't like to have to pack up their equipment each night at a rehearsal hall, as it cuts into time that could be spent rehearsing, which would have already been constrained by the shared rehearsal space. However, the fact that the Dead and Quicksilver shared rehearsal space so early in their career accounts for the extraordinary closeness of some of the members and crew over the years.

Rancho Olompali, CA
Yellow Shark: 

 I think it was the commute from Rancho Olompali that led the Grateful Dead to drop the Straight Theatre for rehearsals sometime in the summer. The well documented “party” on May 22 followed soon after the benefit and I suspect that by early June the rehearsals were shifted up to Rancho Olompali. The rental lease on Rancho Olompali ran out sometime over the summer and there was a move up to Camp Lagunitas – perhaps in July. I do not know how well it lent itself to rehearsals. Perhaps this is the time slot for 895 O'Farrell? 

In any case, by June 1966 the Grateful Dead were able to leave their equipment set up where they lived, on the grounds of the Rancho Olompali mansion. "Rehearsal" may have been an inaccurate description of the Summer's events, but the band could play without interruption, when they desired to do that.

895 O'Farrell St, San Francisco, CA
After the end of their idyllic stay in Olompali, the Dead migrated over to an unused Girl Scout camp on Arroyo Road in the town of Lagunitas. At the time, while towns in Eastern Marin, like San Rafael, were prosperous suburbs full of San Francisco commuters, Western Marin was still an empty, largely agricultural area, and there were plenty of underused spaces. However, while the camp could house the band and their friends, they were not allowed to rehearse there for noise reasons. McNally said that was the trigger for rehearsing in the Straight Theater, but they must have rehearsed somewhere else.

Over the years, a building at 895 O'Farrell Street (at Polk) has been identified as a former Grateful Dead rehearsal hall. The building was the former site of a Pontiac dealership, among other things. It is two doors down from the Great American Music Hall. I had never been able to figure out when the band would have used it, but Yellow Shark's unraveling of the timeline for the Straight Theater seems to sort it out. The Dead rehearsed at the Straight in April and May 1966, then Rancho Olompali in June, and sometime in July they had to find a new place. I think the bands rehearsal hall in July and August 1966 was at 895 O'Farrell.

Some time after the Dead rehearsed there, 895 O'Farrell had a brief and peculiar history as a competitor to the Fillmore. In July 1967, the original four members of the Family Dog re-established themselves as the Psychedelic Cattleman's Association. They put on a weekend of shows and ran into trouble with the police. The venue re-opened in September 1967, but it was only open for about six weeks. The venue is mostly only known to poster collectors (for a good look at the posters, see our write-up here).

The final promoters of rock shows at 895 O'Farrell were two brothers from Antioch, CA, Jim and Artie Mitchell. They discovered another, more profitable enterprise for the theater, however, and the venue has had a lucrative, sordid and sad history ever since. Don't google it at work.

Gale Garnett's second Columbia album Sausalito Heliport. The cover photo was probably not taken at the Heliport, however.

The Heliport, Bolinas St, Sausalito, CA
According to McNally, when the rehearsal space at the Straight Theater was no longer viable, roadie Laird Grant managed to get the Grateful Dead rehearsal space at the Sausalito Heliport. In the 1967-68 period, many San Francisco bands rehearsed at the Heliport. The noise caused by the helicopters insured no complaints from any neighbors about mere rock bands. Sausalito is right off the Golden Gate Bridge, so it wasn't inconvenient for San Francisco bands (or even Berkeley's County Joe And The Fish). Enough bands rehearsed at the Heliport that it was a sort of musicians hangout, with jam sessions occurring regularly. Singer Gale Garnett even entitled her second Columbia album Sausalito Heliport.

In late 1966, a very small number of concerts seemed to have been held at the Heliport, including one with the Grateful Dead on October 15, 1966 (the poster is up top). I think the Heliport was too hard to get to for 1966 hippies, as Marin was largely unpopulated in those days, and I don't think the Heliport was an appealing venue. My suspicion has always been that someone tried to put on a few concerts, which didn't succeed, but in so doing the bands figured out that they might have found a good rehearsal space instead, and the Heliport owners were happy to have paying clients. Based on what little information I have, the Grateful Dead seem to have been among the first bands to rehearse at the Heliport. Yellow Shark has some intriguing suggestions:

I believe that the band were already rehearsing at Sausalito Heliport by the time of the October 15, 1966 performance with the Transatlantic Railroad (I have never found out what the "TJ" stands for on the poster). The band had moved back to the City in early October and was living in 710 and the commute to the heliport was an easy one. Sausalito had by October 1966 a scene of its own growing with the Ark hosting regular performances, the No Name Bar which remains to this day and The Kingston Trio’s Trident – latter Horizons but now renamed to the Trident.

As far as I can tell, the Heliport is currently called The Commodore Center Heliport, and it is located on Bolinas Street, off Richardson Bay. about a mile Northwest of Gate 6, where the ferry boat Charles Van Damme was permanently docked (aka The Ark). Helicopters were supposed to be a big thing in the 60s--I firmly believed as a child that I would grow up to commute in a helicopter, and I'm still disappointed not to do so--so I think that when the Heliport was constructed in 1963 they anticipated considerably more traffic than they actually had, leaving numerous hangars free for other forms of aerial transport.

Reader Phil sent in this photo from the entrance to the Heliport, taken in June 2015

Another Commenter writes

The Heliport is just where you described it, clearly visible from 101 as you go north towards San Rafael. Although it no longer hosts band rehearsals to my knowledge, it seems to be much the same building as it was back when the Dead rehearsed there.

I believe the Dead rehearsed at the Heliport from the end of 1966 through about May 1967. There are a few famous Spring '67 Gene Anthony photos of Garcia, Mountain Girl and others at the Heliport. 

Warnecke Family Ranch, Healdsburg, CA
According to McNally, the Dead spent the month of May 1967 in Sonoma County: "Late in May, the band fled the city to John Warnecke's family ranch on the Russian River north of San Francisco near Healdsburg" (McNally p. 195). John Carl Warnecke Jr was a friend of the band, and he seems to be one of a number of people who worked with the band in trying to promote shows.  Canyon filmmaker Robert Nelson made a short film of the band in 1967, and parts of it were filmed at the Warnecke ranch.

That isn't even the interesting part. It seems that family patriarch John Carl Warnecke (1919-2010) became friends with John Kennedy at Stanford in the 1940s. Warnecke Senior trained as an architect, and did various commissions, including the 'Eternal Flame' at John F. Kennedy's gravesite. However, it also seems that Warnecke was the architect for the McHenry Library at UCSC, which was built in 1968. So that means while the Dead were at the Warnecke Ranch, the architect was working on the McHenry Library where the band's Archive ended up. Hey--Stanford, never head a chance, it was already implicit that UCSC would get the Archive.

In any case, as we know from the short film, the Dead built a platform on the Russian River where they could jam and rehearse, writing the song "Alligator" in the process. However, if the Dead had their equipment at the Warnecke ranch in May 1967, then it wasn't at the Sausalito Heliport. Thus I am fairly confident, though not absolutely certain, that the Dead gave up the Heliport as a rehearsal space in May 1967. Since they would spend much of the Summer of '67 on tour, this was probably a financial decision as much as anything else.

Members of the Dead hanging out at the New Ptrero, circa 1968 (via @Tripsntunes)

Potrero Theater, 312 Connecticut St, San Francisco, CA
In late 1967, the Grateful Dead got a  new rehearsal space, at the long-disused Potrero Theater, near 312 Connecticut St (at 18th St) in the Potrero Hill district. The theater had been constructed in 1913 as the Altair, but when it got sound equipment in the 1930s, it was renamed the New Potrero. It had closed in 1963, and had long fallen into disuse. The Potrero Hill neighborhood district was neither nor hip nor prosperous at the time, so it too was kind of forgotten (assuredly not the case today). Apparently, the theater was in terrible shape--according to Joel Selvin, Mountain Girl visited once, saw all the rats and never returned again. Nevertheless, the Grateful Dead rehearsed at the Potrero for about a year, and the rehearsals were in many ways the truest rehearsals that the band ever held.

Like all these things, it is difficult to parse out the timing, but it appears that the Dead moved into the Potrero shortly before Mickey Hart joined the band. Hart's arrival triggered an interest in actually working with difficult rhythms. Stories abound of the Dead rehearsing difficult numbers like "The Eleven" over and over, in order to get the feel for playing something that complex. In that sense, the work at the Potrero were true rehearsals, rather than just jamming or working on songs. The band was trying to get better as a band, and playing the same difficult parts over and over was a rare form of band discipline.

It was during the Potrero Theater period that the Grateful Dead went from Pretty Cool to Something Special. The psychedelic powerhouse shows of 1969 would not have been possible without endless rehearsal at the Potrero. After the Potrero, when they stretched out and jammed, the Grateful Dead were doing so from a foundation rather than a mere willingness to take a risk. Yet after the Dead left the Potrero, they never rehearsed that much again, and never in a disciplined fashion where they worked on developing as an ensemble. Once seems to have been enough.

warehouse, Novato, CA
The Grateful Dead officially moved out of 710 Ashbury in March 1968. Within a few months, every member of the band had moved to various locations in Marin County By the end of the Summer, rehearsing in San Francisco made little sense. Manager Bert Kagenson found them a warehouse near Hamilton Air Force Base in Novato, and that became the Grateful Dead's new base of operations. I do not know the exact location, and in any case it is probably a housing development now.

The principal function of the Novato warehouse was to store and work on the band's ever growing mountain of equipment. Owsley in particular liked to experiment. Fellow traveler Ron Wickersham was critical to these experiments, but Wickersham, unlike Owsley, was not on the Dead's payroll. Wickersham and his wife (then girlfriend) Susan started the Alembic Sound company. Alembic focused on live sound for rock and roll, modifying and creating instruments, amplifiers and other equipment for the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and ultimately many others. Alembic then moved out of the Dead's warehouse into their own facilities and studio.

I do not know how much the Dead rehearsed at the Novato warehouse. Honestly, I am not 100% certain that they rehearsed there at all. The one detailed description of a 1969 jam at their facility, by Fleetwood Mac road manager/soundman Dinky Dawson, actually desribes the location as Sausalito. Since Dawson had never been to California before, its entirely likely that he mistook Sausalito for Novato. However, it's also possible that the Dead had some other temporary facility in 1969--the Heliport?--in Sausalito.

My own feeling is that the Novato warehouse was used as a rehearsal facility at first, and ultimately got turned into a mad scientist workshop for Owsley. I think the Dead could rehearse there when they needed to, but for the most part they didn't. Around September 1968, approximately when they moved their equipment to Novato, the band also started recording at Pacific Recording in San Mateo. The Dead spent five months in the studio recording what was to become Aoxomoxoa. They spent over $100,000 recording in the studio, but the net result was that whatever 'rehearsing' they needed to do seems to have been done in the studio. Thus I believe the Novato warehouse was never really set up as a full-time rehearsal studio.

unknown building, Western Marin County, CA
Thanks to Commenters, it seems that Blair Jackson reported that the Dead abandoned Novato for an unknown place in Western Marin, near Pt. Reyes. Another Commenter makes the alert point that the band's office move to Fifth and Lincoln happens in April 1970, and it coincides with both the move to West Marin and the aftermath of the Lenny Hart debacle.

The Grateful Dead performed at the Santa Venetia Armory on December 29, 1966. By 1971, it appears they were rehearsing there.

warehouse off Francisco Boulevard, San Rafael or Santa Venetia Armory, 155 Madison Avenue, Santa Venetia, CA
When did the Grateful Dead abandon the Novato warehouse? It's unclear (update: see Comments). Where did they rehearse between 1971 and 1974? That too is unclear. Based solely on a Keith Godchaux rehearsal tape from September 1971, I am assuming that they rehearsed in the Santa Venetia Armory, at least at that time. According to Garcia's apocryphal story about meeting Keith and Donna Godchaux at the Keystone Berkeley, he invited Keith to the "rehearsal hall," and Keith was so good that Garcia phoned Bill Kreutzmann to come join them. According to McNally, the Dead's rehearsal studio was in a warehouse off Francisco Boulevard (p.411). This location would not have been far from the future site of Le Club Front on 20 Front Street.

What are we to make of the tape where Keith rehearses labeled "Santa Venetia Armory?" If the Dead rehearsed near Francisco Boulevard, why would they have worked with Keith at the Santa Venetia Armory? I see two possibilities:

1. the tape reference to Santa Venetia Armory is just incorrect. There is almost no way to check corroborating evidence for a rehearsal tape
2. The Dead rehearsed at the Warehouse, but they rented the Santa Venetia Armory to try out a new sound system. Touring with a grand piano was brand new for the Grateful Dead, and they had a substantial tour coming up. So perhaps they rented a genuine, if small, venue and tried out their stage setup

Santa Venetia is about 2 miles North of San Rafael (20 miles North of SF), but is almost a separate district of San Rafael.  The area is not incorporated, but it is a 'Census Designated Place,' a populated community without a government. It was conceived in 1914 of as a sort of luxury water-based community similar to Venice, Italy (hence the name--there is no "Saint Venetia"), but no serious development took place there until after WW2. The idea for canals was abandoned, but Santa Venetia had a seedy 60s bohemian history. Its most famous resident was the great author Philip K. Dick, who lived there from 1967-72.

The Santa Venetia Armory, at 155 Madison Avenue, was the National Guard Armory, and a regular site of “Teen” dances in the mid-60s.  It was used briefly for psychedelic rock concerts in 1966-67, before it was superseded by the Fillmore and the Avalon. The Armory itself may still be active, although it uses the address of 153 Madison.

NRPS Rehearsal Studio, San Rafael, CA
One of the intriguing gaps in this little history of Grateful Dead rehearsal spaces is the early 1970s. Other than the Godchaux tape, which may or may not be representative, I could only find one other reference to a rehearsal space.  It does raise the question as to how much the Grateful Dead actually rehearsed in the early 1970s. Perhaps they toured so much that they could just use soundchecks for rehearsal. In any case, any information about early 70s rehearsal spaces, however fragmented or vague, is of great interest.

The Grateful Dead were still writing a fair amount of material in the early 1970s--where did they learn to play each of those songs? I can imagine that some cover versions could be whipped up with some conversation and a quick run through at a soundcheck, but "Stella Blue" or "Eyes Of The World?" At the Maples Pavilion show on February 9, 1973, the Dead debuted seven new songs, and they must have practiced them somewhere.

Update: scholarly Commenter runonguinness made an important find, from an article by Charles Perry that was originally published in the Rolling Stone edition of November 22, 1973

Of course, any band needs a practice studio. Sometimes the Dead use the New Riders' studio, located in the San Rafael industrial neighborhood. The studio is rented, natch, from an old friend of the Dead's, Don Wrixman. He rents another part of the building to some woodcraftsmen, and yet another is the Dead's sound and lighting equipment warehouse. The original Dead warehouse, which the equipment has long since outgrown, is now a workshop for repairing electronic equipment and building speaker cabinets.
 
As for a practice hall for the Dead themselves, they might build one someday on a piece of land they own known as "Deadpatch". When Weir's home studio is complete,the band could fit there, though Weir built it - with some of the heaviest insulation ever put into a building - so he could practice by himself...

The pieces start to fall into place here. The New Riders were managed by the Dead, and they had a rehearsal studio, so the Dead could use it. However, they couldn't use it all the time, so the Dead periodically had to rent other spaces. At the time, the Dead's offices were on 5th and Lincoln in San Rafael, and Sam Cutler's Out Of Town Tours was at 1333 Lincoln, a few blocks North. I believe the NRPS staff offices were at about 2nd and Lincoln. (update: a Scholarly Correspondent [also the NRPS archivist] reports that the NRPS office was at 1212 Second St, between B and C. The band shared it [and management] with Commander Cody in the mid-70s, and finally gave up the building in 1981. It was an Old Edwardian house that got torn down in 2019).  I presume the rehearsal studio was across Highway 101, in the more industrial area where the Francisco Boulevard warehouse, and later Club Front, were located (update: our Commenter points out that the warehouse on Francisco Boulevard [above] may be the same as the NRPS studio. The Dead may have simply started sharing it with them) [update 2: the NRPS rehearsal space was on Irwin Street. It's not clear if it was the same one as referred to here].

[update 20230626: Jesse Jarnow figured out from interviewing Dead employees for the Deadcast that the "New Riders rehearsal studio and warehouse" was in fact 20 Front Street. Eventually the Jerry Garcia Band took it over and then the Grateful Dead.]

Stinson Beach Community Center, 32 Belvedere Ave, Stinson Beach, CA  
McNally alludes to the Dead having spent January of 1973 rehearsing, but he doesn't say where. He does mention a sad event in March, where Pigpen wants his picture taken with the band, and they refuse, as they are busy rehearsing for a tour. McNally identifies them as rehearsing at the Stinson Beach Community Center. 

Was this a temporary space, just for March? Had the band rented the Community Center earlier in the year, when they rehearsed the Wake Of The Flood material? Information about the Dead's rehearsals and rehearsal spaces in the early 1970s remains surprisingly scarce. I can imagine how the group might rent Stinson Beach Community Center for a few weeks at a time, but they can't have been using it as a permanent space, as it had too many other functions. Did the Dead still rehearse at the warehouse on Francisco Boulevard? The fact that they rented the Stinson Beach Community Center does hint that they did not have a permanent space suggests that the New Riders were busy at home, and that the Dead needed to use another space temporarily.


Stinson Beach is in isolated community in Western Marin. Jerry Garcia and Mountain Girl lived there, and the Rowan Brothers lived nearby, which was responsible for the genesis of Old And In The Way. The Community Center's main assembly hall can accommodate about 200 people. The building seems to have been built in the 1960s. Since Stinson Beach is so small, it had to be be near Garcia's house. Old And In The Way even played a show here, one of their very last (on September 30, 1973), as a kind of warm up gig for their last few dates.

I am reliably informed that the Dead rehearsed the material for Mars Hotel in the studio, presumably as part of the recording process. I guess the unfinished feel to Mars Hotel songs comes from the fact that they learned and recorded the songs in a brief three-week stretch (March 30-April 19, 1974) at CBS Studios in San Francisco. This was a far cry from the ten days it took to record the mostly road-tested material for Wake Of The Flood (August 6-15, 1973 at The Record Plant in Sausalito). 

Ace's Studio, Bob Weir's house, Mill Valley, CA
Once the Grateful Dead gave up touring, any chance to sneak in rehearsals at soundchecks went away. It makes sense that the Dead needed their own space, and the studio above Bob Weir's garage seem to fit the bill. Nick Meriwether has suggested that the band encouraged the studio at Weir's for just this reason--without it they would have had nowhere to play. When the band moved into Ace's, it was as close a situation as they had had to the Potrero Theater. They weren't rehearsing to become a better band, as they had in 1968, but they weren't trying to record an album as quickly as possible, either. The many tapes that survive show a relaxed band exploring in a leisurely manner, another episode in the Grateful Dead's musical history that would not be repeated.

As everyone knows, the Grateful Dead worked up the material on Blues For Allah throughout the first several months of 1975, even if the final versions were recorded rather quickly. The Grateful Dead recorded four songs for the Reflections lp in August 1975 (I have a lot to say about that, but you'll have to wait), and the debut Kingfish album was recorded at Ace's as well, in late 1975. However, by 1976, Ace's studio seemed to retreat back to a personal studio for Weir, with few outside projects, even from within the Grateful Dead family. 

Keith and Donna Godchaux's house, Paradise Dr, Corte Madera, CA
A parallel story to the secret history of Grateful Dead rehearsal spaces is the even more murky history of Jerry Garcia's rehearsal spaces, such as they were. For one thing, I do not believe that the Jerry Garcia-Merl Saunders band, to the extent it was even a "band," ever had a fixed place to rehearse. It is interesting to think that Jerry Garcia's infamous preference to simply working things out at the Keystone Berkeley rather than in rehearsal may have been an economic decision as much as anything else. Since, as near as I can tell, the Grateful Dead had no fixed place to rehearse in the early 70s, Garcia and Saunders didn't either. Has anyone ever heard a Garcia/Saunders rehearsal tape? I don't think there was ever a rehearsal. It was cheaper to just work out the arrangements as they went along, and that fit Jerry's approach to his own band anyway.

There are a very few early Jerry Garcia Band rehearsal tapes in circulation. There is a rehearsal with Nicky Hopkins, dated to September 1975, a rehearsal with James Booker dated January 7, 1976 and then one with Keith and Donna Godchaux dated January 25, 1976. The last two are usually attributed to Club Front, but for reasons that will become clear over the next few paragraphs, that attribution seems unlikely. Rather, I think they were rehearsal tapes that were retroactively assigned to Club Front, since I think the Front Street Warehouse did not become the JGB rehearsal space until the end of 1976.

I think when the Jerry Garcia Band absolutely had to have some kind of rehearsal, they rented a studio. It might have been expensive, but renting a studio for a few hours a year was still probably cheaper than having a permanent rehearsal hall. For example, an otherwise inexplicable recording session at The Record Plant on May 31, 1974, with Michael Omartian and Ron Tutt (and Garcia, Saunders and John Kahn), includes a jam (released as "Cardiac Arrest") and the old standard "Some Enchanted Evening." The mystery of the recording session is partially explained if we look at it as a kind of getting-to-know-you jam for Tutt. It couldn't take place in a rehearsal hall, because neither the Dead nor Garcia/Saunders had such a place.

However, in a Blair Jackson interview in the Winter 1987 Golden Road, John Kahn had some interesting comments about how much the Keith and Donna Garcia Band liked to play together:

Keith used to live over on Paradise Drive [in the Marin town of Corte Madera], so we used to play over there all the time. He had a room set up so we could just go in and play. Tutt was out of town a lot, but that was OK. You could practice without a drummer. Plus, Tutt was so good that there was nothing that we could come up with that he couldn't figure out right away. I lived in Mill Valley, and Jerry lived in Stinson Beach, so it was real easy for us to get together. Anyway, we had this scene where we would get together just about every night and play. We'd do just about everything. We had Dylan songbooks and we'd do stuff like play everything from Blonde On Blonde. Then we'd do all sorts of Beatles songs. It was great. Most of it never got past that room.

Wherever the few recorded rehearsals of the Jerry Garcia Band had been held, most of the rehearsing seems to have been done at the Godchauxs' home. Keep in mind that until the middle of 1976, the Dead had no money from touring, and were hemorrhaging money on the record company and the Grateful Dead movie, so rehearsing at home was their only real option. The only band clubhouse was Ace's studio, but Weir wasn't in this band, so it's not surprising that the rehearsing didn't take place there.

Orpheum Theater, 1192 Market St, San Francisco, CA
The Grateful Dead officially returned to touring on June 3, 1976 in Portland, OR. Some rehearsal tapes exist from the previous week at the Orpheum Theater in San Francisco. On May 21, 1976, the Jerry Garcia Band had played a concert at the Orpheum (it was a great show, immortalized on the archival cd Don't Let Go). While the band could play together at Ace's studio, that wasn't a formal stage configuration. The band had also been off the road for so long they had no road set-up either.

It's my supposition that the Grateful Dead rented the Orpheum for a week not only to rehearse, which they certainly needed, but to try out their equipment and sort out any problems in advance of the road. They purposely rented a theater that was approximately like most of the refurbished old theaters that they would be playing on the forthcoming tour. In order to pay for the rental of the Orpheum, I think the JGB played the concert to foot the bill. It's important to remember that the Dead had no touring income, were working on an expensive movie and were about to lose their record company, so a Garcia concert was about their only choice.

I assume that the Garcia Band played the show on the Dead's prospective sound system, and they simply didn't load out the equipment. Rather, they just left it there for technical tweaking and band rehearsal until they left for Portland. From what I can tell, the show was not promoted by Bill Graham, but the Bill Graham Presents staff were hired to run the show. This would have meant that the Dead (or whoever financed the concert) took any financial risk or reward, but did not have to put together a staff to run the theater.

The Orpheum Theater was 1192 Market Street, near 8th, was built in 1926. It was in a seedy area, but not nearly so seedy and rundown as the Fox-Warfield a few blocks away (at Market and 6th). The Orpheum was typically used for 'legitimate' theater of various kinds, although it had originally been built as a movie theater. It was only rarely used for rock shows, although the Grateful Dead played six famous concerts there in July of 1976.

Sound City Studios, Van Nuys, CA
The Grateful Dead recorded Terrapin Station at Sound City Studios, Keith Olsen's facility in Van Nuys in the early part of 1977. Olsen made the Grateful Dead rehearse the material extensively, including 'section rehearsals.' meaning the vocals were rehearsed separately, the rhythm section was rehearsed separately and so on. Whatever the cost of this, it seems to have obviated any need for the Dead to acquire any kind of rehearsal facility.

With the enforced rehearsal, it was likely no accident that the Spring 1977 tour featured some of the tightest and most pristine Dead performances in many years, and arguably ever. This, too, was not a phenomenon that was repeated.

Le Club Front, 20 Front St, San Rafael, CA
By the end of 1976, with the Grateful Dead back on the road, headlining stadiums, and a new Arista contract, the cash flow situation would improve. In either late 1976 or early 1977, the Garcia Band rented an unused warehouse on Front Street in San Rafael as a rehearsal space. Initially, 'Club Front' was strictly the property of the Garcia Band. The Jerry Garcia Band didn't rehearse there, exactly--it appears they just played. Kahn described in Golden Road (Winter '87) what the band liked to do:

We had this trip where we'd call ourselves the Front Street Sheiks and we'd play dumb piano jazz and stuff like that. We did some recording down at the rehearsal place [what evolved into the Dead's studio] right after they got their 24-track. We'd be down there every night of the week playing these old songs like "All The Things You Are," and "Night In Tunisia, " things like that. Keith and Donna were always together, so Donna sang with us too.

It seems that the musical pallette of the mid-70s JGB was much broader than that which we saw on stage. Yet the Garcia Band used Front Street to explore, rather than to explicitly rehearse difficult music, since it appears that many or most of the songs they played at Front Street never appeared in concert.

In mid-1977, the Jerry Garcia Band were planning to record for Arista. They made some preliminary demos at Front Street, and Ron Tutt liked the drum sound so much, he persuaded Garcia to let Betty Cantor turn Front Street into a recording studio, and Cats Under The Stars was recorded there (as was the unreleased Robert Hunter album Alligator Moon, apparently). However, at some point later in 1978, the Front Street studio was transferred over to the Grateful Dead. Money changed hands on an accounting basis, but I do not believe the Garcia Band received any actual cash.

From late 1978 onwards "Le Club Front" was the Grateful Dead's recording studio, rehearsal hall and hangout. Although the band did a fair amount of recording there over the years, they did not do much rehearsing. Even when Brent Mydland, Vince Welnick and Bruce Hornsby joined the band, they learned far more songs by playing along on stage, rather than formally being rehearsed. The Jerry Garcia Band had even fewer rehearsals. Apparently, band members would receive the music for new songs at sound checks--the likes of Melvin Seals and David Kemper were experienced studio hands--and a quick run through at a soundcheck counted as "rehearsing" a new song.

It was a telling irony that when the Grateful Dead finally had full possession of their own rehearsal and recording facility, they used it only for occasional recording and very rare rehearsals. The development processes that took place at the Potrero Theater, or Ace's, or even at the undisclosed location where the Wake Of The Flood material was first practiced were mostly ghosts by the time Front Street was firmly in the band's hands.