Artifact of the Week: Grateful Dead Office Pix
and Office-Owned 1985 Tour Lithograph
Tape of the Week: 4/28/85
This week, thanks to a variety of requests to do another "then and now" post like we did with Front Street last month, Dark Star Palace is going to visit the Grateful Dead's San Rafael home office of over 25 years!
We'll check out a variety of photographs of the band and business crew at the office and show you what the office looks like today. We will match this up with a 1985 tour poster that hung at the Dead's office for 11 years before they closed up shop, and link to a stream of a wonderful Charlie Miller soundboard remaster of a kickin', double-encore, Palo Alto home-town show down at Stanford at the Frost.
As many a rock and roll fan knows, a solid home office can make or break a band. Look at the Beatles. Their Saville Row Apple office headquarters in London started as an ideal home base to run a label and a band. It turned out to be a significant nail in the Fabs coffin (check out The Longest Cocktail Party if you would like an interesting read on this subject). The Grateful Dead had already made an early business mistake by trying to run their own ballroom, the Carousel Ballroom...which became the Fillmore West after Bill Graham snagged the property lease right from Dead (due to, perhaps, some unprofitable financial business sense). The short of it was that the Dead ran the Carousel like any bunch of hippie musicians would...they were "experimenting" with a new style of business which would pay off years later...but which didn't do well in the short term. So, after the Carousel letdown, they moved their office up to Marin and decided to open a real-deal, official, almost straight, office!
Sometime around 1970, the band decided to get a classic old Victorian house in the heart of funky San Rafael to set up their new shop. Located at 1016 Lincoln Street (also known as 5th and Lincoln), the Dead's new office was in an ideal location. It was basically at the center of where the band and crew would live over the years...Mill Valley, San Rafael, Fairfax, Novato, etc. When not on the road, the band spent the bulk of their time jamming away and tweaking their Neve console's faders over at Front Street Studios (see Club Front blog post!). Club Front was only a short few minutes under the freeway and around the corner drive from the office. The office was situated just a few blocks from the 101 North/South on/off ramps. It was also just a one block walk to food, coffee, cigarettes, etc., all located on San Rafael's 4th Street (which was where my wife and I hooked up with Owsley for a cup of coffee).
Over the years, the Dead's office housed all sorts of various Grateful Dead plots, schemes, businesses, charities, archives, and so on. There is some nice "writings in cement" out by the entrance...no doubt a late addition, but it's a tribute to the fallen and writes out members of the band who had passed away. More likely a deadhead strolled by like the du-dah man and wrote it, but there it is all the same.
In 1970 and 1971 when the office was just getting set-up and employees growing in number, the house had a bit more room for hanging out, meeting up, and various meetings. As the old Victorian added new personnel and projects that would be run from 5th and Lincoln, the band navigated a bit more of their hanging time over to Club Front...which made the office more and more like a "regular" office.
Inside, the office was broken up into various departments and areas. The band had a large old oak table that they set up in the conference room for the monthly band meetings with roadies and other key family members (the table is now with Santa Cruz's Grateful Dead Archive). The Dead's office had an area for press activities, interviews, Grateful Dead Ticket Sales, hotline, Rex Foundation, publishing company, merchandising, travel bureau, tour bookings, etc.... Jerry even had his own office! They crammed that house good!!
1016 Lincoln housed all this various activity until 2006 when the band finally dissolved the good portion of their businesses, real estate, operations and bickering. Nearly all the goods that were stored by office chief, Eileen Law, at 1016 formed the bulk of what the Grateful Dead donated a few years back to Santa Cruz's Grateful Dead Archive. But, when the office personal were given their final pay stubs as the Dead closed shop, the employees all got to take a some memorabilia home with themselves as part of their parting package (exactly like how the Dead's rehearsal/storage hall was shut down). Thanks to a new Palace pal up in Mill Valley in Marin who was given a few severance items from his neighbor who worked at the Dead's office from 1989 to until it closed, Dark Star Palace can show you one of the pieces of art that hung in the main Grateful Dead office for 21 years.
This week's Artifact of the Week is just that item...a tour lithograph that the Hampshire Grateful Dead Historical Society sent to the office in 1985. The office took the litho and had it adhered to poster board, made a homemade hook with tape and string, and slapped a very cool Grateful Dead sticker on the back that looks like it came directly out of the original folk tale. The litho has a Steal Your Face image in various sizes placed over every city the Dead had played in (up until 1985). We hope to do a post on the Hampshire Grateful Dead Historical Society in the future, but know that it was one of the student hippie centers of GD study and knowledge from the 1970's until today, and had such eminent Dead scholars like John Dwork, who put together the so-very-perfectly-over-the-top book series The Deadhead's Taping Compendiums, vol 1-3. 
We'll pair this great 1985 touring artifact, with this week's Tape of the Week. Culled from a fully Jerry'ized show from the very tiny Frost Amphitheater down at Stanford. 4/28/85 is a special show, not just for the tight and rockin' playing by the band that night, but for the double encore as well. Fire it up and and enjoy! Until next week....
I: Gimme Some Lovin'-> Mississippi Half Step-> Minglewood Blues, Bird Song, Tons Of Steel-> China Cat Sunflower-> I Know You Rider
II: Hell In A Bucket-> Crazy Fingers-> Playin' In The Band-> China Doll-> Playin' In The Band-> Drums-> Playin' In The Band-> Wharf Rat-> Throwing Stones-> Not Fade Away
E: U.S. Blues
E: She Belongs To Me
Posts
