Skull Fuck Marketing

Artifacts of the Week: Skull Fuck Marketing Plan, Photos and Reel to Reel Tape

Tape of the Week: 2/20/71

Skull Fuck.  What a title!!  It still gets a head-shake almost 40 years later.  Who in their right mind would call their new, hopefully-a-hit, album "Skull Fuck"?  Phil Lesh, that's who!!  Ah, those wild and crazy urban hippie cowboys knew how to spice up the punch.  Have you see the interview with Warner Bros. President, Joe Smith, on the VH1 DVD "From Anthem to Beauty" when he describes the scene at corporate headquarters when the Grateful Dead roll into the conference room with about 60 of their extended family members to announce that the title of their new record will be called Skull Fuck?

Wait, maybe that was the Anthem scene about "thick air".... oh well, point is, it freaked the hell out of Warner Bros.  So much so, that they opted to just call the record "Grateful Dead".  But wasn't their first record called "Grateful Dead"? Ah well, no hippie will care about that or even notice....  classic!  Instead of following along with this lame corporate naming-scheme, Deadheads opted to un-officially call this record "Skull and Roses" based on the amazing cover art (new blog post on this to come soon).  And once word got out that the Dead intended for the record to be called Skull Fuck...well, only the hard core deadheads opted to go with that name.  But count me in as one of them! Long live Skull Fuck.

So, this week's Artifact(s) of the Week is going to center around Skull Fuck and the Warner Bros. marketing campaign on the release of this live, double-LP, beauty.  To start with, we have the original "release-day" Warner Bros. marketing memo on how they were planning to market this bad-boy record.  We'll look at each page of this doc and pair it with photographs from the Warner-sponsored, home-town San Francisco, launch of the LP at the recently deceased Tower Records in North Beach.  Finally, as an added artifact, we'll post some shots of an original 3 and 3/4 ips (inches per second) reel to reel copy of Skull Fuck that resides at the Palace.

Let me start by saying what a LAME marketing plan we have here. Seriously!  When Dark Star Palace first obtained this marketing doc, it just didn't seem like a great use of marketing dollars. They must have been just itching for places to spend the Dead's album advance!! In fact, that is even spelled out on page one of the doc....we have "mucho" money to throw at this thing! Does it surprise me that corporate marketing guys from LA would think that having a graveyard window display and a coffin in the store to sell LPs would be cool?  Not really, though I would have thought this sort of play on "Grateful Dead" would have stopped around 1967.

The marketing doc is dated September 28, 1971....the day they say that Skull Fuck is being released.  The memo is from Ed Rosenblatt, who was Warner Bros. Records Vice President of Sales and Promotion at the time. The first page of the doc talks about "Grateful Dead Month" and how they plan to maximize sales of the album by doing a few key promotions, including:

• Posters
• Order forms for the entire catalog of Warner Bros. artists Jimi Hendrix and the Grateful Dead
• Patches - "sewn circles, using skull art"
• Radio Spot Scripts that Warner was writing up
• Radio Advertising spots in various US markets from October 6-17
• Full page ad in the 10/12/71 issue of Rolling Stone
• Dealer ads in LA Times, SF Chronicle, New York Times, Boston Globe, etc
• etc.

Some other items to note from this marketing document:

• "Dead Is Here" was to be painted on the entire Tower Records wall for a month
• "15" x 15" billboards to be put on the Tower roofs in SF and Sacramento" (NOTE: this is very Spinal Tap as I don't believe they meant to put inches...but should have marked feet.  I can just imagine them paying full price for the 15 inch image painted on the billboard....LOL) 
• The Rolling Stone Ad was to become a poster and a giveaway at the store
• All the clerks were to wear Dead shirts all month ("they should smell great by the end of the campaign" ho ho ho)
• Decals and iron-on patch giveaways
• The initial orders from Tower were 2300 Pcs. in SF and 1000 in Sacramento.

But, the real doozy is the final page, which consist of ideas and plans that Dick Hughes had for the San Francisco launch of Skull Fuck.  It is hard to believe they went through with this, but we have got some original photos of this event to prove that they did.  Here we have Tower Records main window display with a "AWAKENING OF THE GRATEFUL DEAD" banner that is surround by a hippie in a coffin wearing a skull and roses shirt, various LPs, skulls, tombstones with "Grateful Dead 1971" and the skull and roses cover art on them, and a hand coming out of the dirt holding AoxomoxoA. And are those pot leaves draping down over this Grateful Graveyard, or an over-sized hula skirt?  Hmmmmm.

Even better is this juicy tidbit: The Warner Bros Sales team "will meet the truck before it hits the store and will load a quantity of the LP's in a casket and, dressed as pallbearers, will deliver it to the store in a hearse where the LP will be sold during the month, out of the casket, which will remain in the store. All the other LP's will be displayed around it. (We will have TV coverage of the event)."  Seriously?  What hippies are standing around in the lot waiting for this exciting moment?  Wait, maybe there were hippies camped out waiting for this... I shouldn't be such a crank.

Needless to say, I'm not very impressed with this uninspired campaign.  Then again, it's one of those things that is SO bad that it is kind of good (at least 40 years later).  Anyway, to take that bitter taste out of your mouths, we'll now take a look at another Artifact of the Week.... a rare version of Skull Fuck/Grateful Dead/Skull and Roses...it's round and is on reel to reel analog tape!  Yes-sir-e, we've got the full live LP running at 3 and 3/4 inches per second. Unlike some of the GD 8-tracks we have in our collection, this reel to reel was not manufactured by Ampex, but by a company called Audio Magnetics Corporation.  We haven't fired up this reel yet, but it will be interesting to see how the quality compares with the LP, the 8-track, and the cassettes that were manufactured in this time frame....let alone how it sounds against the original and remastered CDs.  If I were a betting man, I'd still put my money on the vinyl for the best analog reproduction (now, if this was a 10.5 inch reel of Ampex 456 tape running at 15ips, then I'd be changing my bet).

One of the exciting bits of news for this 1971 release for Deadheads was the fact that the Dead busted out the "Dead Freaks Unite" campaign on the back cover of this reel.  By listing the PO box for the Dead office in San Rafael and by starting to ask heads to send in their contact info, the band made a major move towards running their soon-to-be-revised organization to start to support the community more with quarterly newsletters, a ticket service, etc.

• Tape of the Week: 2/20/1971

This week's Tape of the Week is the 3rd night of the historic February run at the Capitol Theater in Port Chester. Dark Star Palace featured the first night of the run in the ESP and the Dead blog post from a few months back.  The 2nd night was recently put out as an official "From the Vault" release.  For this 3rd night, which was also taped for potential inclusion on Skull Fuck and also part of the ESP experiments, the band really hits their stride. The Betty-board sounds amazing (as usual... We Love Betty!), and this transfer is wonderful.  The highlights of the show for many heads are the Ripple and the Turn on Your Lovelight....both versions are up there in the "top 5" circles.  So fire up that old tube amp, get this show streaming, and get your boogie ON!

Set 1
Casey Jones
Me And My Uncle
Hard To Handle
Bertha
Playing In The Band
Bird Song
Big Boss Man
Cryptical Envelopment ->
Drums ->
The Other One ->
Wharf Rat
Sugar Magnolia

Set 2
Truckin'
Loser
Next Time You See Me
Greatest Story Ever Told ->
Johnny B. Goode
Ripple
Not Fade Away ->
Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad ->
Jam ->
Not Fade Away ->
Turn On Your Lovelight

For more info on the Skull Fuck / Skull and Roses / Grateful Dead LP, here is some info from Dead Disc:

Grateful Dead

Initial release : September 1971Warner Bros. 2WS-1935
The seventh Grateful Dead album is a two LP set of live recordings.
Tracks
LP 1 - side 1

• Bertha (Garcia / Hunter)
• Mama Tried (Merle Haggard)
• Big Railroad Blues (Noah Lewis arr. Grateful Dead)
• Playing In The Band (Weir / Hunter)

LP 1 - side 2

• The Other One (Kreutzmann / Weir)

LP 2 - side 1

• Me and My Uncle (Phillips)
• Big Boss Man (Smith / Dixon)
• Me and Bobby McGee (Kristofferson / Foster)
• Johnny B. Goode (Chuck Berry)

LP 2 - side 2

• Wharf Rat (Garcia / Hunter)
• Not Fade Away (Petty / Hardin)
• Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad (Traditional arr. Grateful Dead)

Bonus tracks on 2003 expanded CD release;

• Oh Boy! (Live)
• I'm A Hog For You (Live) (Leiber / Stoller)
  Hidden track
• 1 min radio spot

Musicians

• Jerry Garcia - guitar, vocals
• Bill Kreutzmann - drums
• Phil Lesh - bass, vocals
• Pigpen (Ron McKernan) - organ, harmonica, vocals
• Bob Weir - guitar, vocals
• Merl Saunders - organ on Bertha, Playing In The Band, Wharf Rat (overdubbed in studio)

Credits

• Producer - Grateful Dead
• Engineer - Bob and Betty (Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor)
• Live recording for Alembic by Bob and Betty (Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor)
• Artwork - Kelly
• Photography - Bob Seidman
• Selections taken from recordings made live at Winterland, San Francisco; Manhattan Center, New York City; Bill Graham's Fabled Fillmore East, New York City

Notes The album that carried the now famous invitation:





DEAD FREAKS UNITE
Who are you? Where are you?
How are you?
Send us your name and address
and we'll keep you informed
Dead Heads
P.O. Box 1065
San Rafael, California
94901
The official title of this album is Grateful Dead or possibly Grateful Dead Live. It is more commonly referred to as Skull and Roses (after the cover art) or Skull Fuck. The band originally wanted this latter title to be used but, not surprisingly, Warner Brothers objected. Faced with the probability of the album not being stocked by many retailers and therefore low sales the band gave way. The album became the groups highest selling album at that time and the first for which they received gold discs.
The music makes the argument over the title irrelevant, in an interview for Rolling Stone Garcia commented;

It's the prototype Grateful Dead. Basic unit. Each of those tracks is the total picture, a good example of what the Grateful Dead really is, musically.

The striking skull and roses cover image originates from a black and white illustration by Edmund Sullivan taken from a nineteenth century edition of The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam. Kelly added coloring and lettering to produce a poster for a Dead show at the Avalon in 1966. The songs on this album are thought to be from the following shows;

• Johnny B Goode - March 24, 1971
• Big Railroad Blues, Not Fade Away and Goin' Down The Road Feeling Bad - April 5, 1971
• Mama Tried, Big Boss Man and Wharf Rat - April 26, 1971
• Bertha and Me And Bobby McGee - April 27, 1971
• The Other One - April 28, 1971
• Me And My Uncle - April 29, 1971
• Playing In The Band - uncertain

Related releases Issued on CD in 1987 by Warner Brothers 2-1935.
Expanded CD release in 2003.
Johnny B. Goode was included on a single;

• Johnny B. Goode / Truckin', Grateful Dead, 1972, Warner Brothers 7653

Me And My Uncle and Playing In The Band were included on the Grateful Dead compilation;

• What A Long Strange Trip It's Been - The Best Of The Grateful Dead, Grateful Dead, 1977, Warner Bros. 2W-3091

An expanded CD release of this album with bonus tracks was included in the box set;

• The Golden Road (1965-1973), Grateful Dead, 2001

The expanded CD release that formed part of the Golden Road box set was released as an individual item in February 2003. This CD release was remastered in HDCD and included extra tracks, an expanded booklet, rare photos, and new liner notes. Johnny B Goode was included on the compilation;

• "Warner Brothers" Heavy Metal, Various Artists, 1974

Big Railroad Blues was included on the compilation;

• Fruity, Various Artists, 1972