From disney.src.umd.edu!mojo.eng.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!wupost!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!cleveland.Freenet.Edu!bg193 Mon Mar 23 15:47:13 EST 1992 Article: 58899 of rec.music.gdead: Newsgroups: rec.music.gdead Path: disney.src.umd.edu!mojo.eng.umd.edu!darwin.sura.net!wupost!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.acs.ohio-state.edu!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!cleveland.Freenet.Edu!bg193 From: bg193@cleveland.Freenet.Edu (Brad Speierman) Subject: Interview w/Dennis McNally Message-ID: <1992Mar23.201339.24593@usenet.ins.cwru.edu> Sender: news@usenet.ins.cwru.edu Nntp-Posting-Host: cwns9.ins.cwru.edu Organization: Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland, Ohio, (USA) Date: Mon, 23 Mar 92 20:13:39 GMT Lines: 334 Here is an interview with Dennis McNally, the publicist for the Grateful Dead. It is in the latest issue of Unbroken Chain and has been copied without permission of course! Keep in mind that this interview was done before the Hampton Dead shows when you read the part about Hampton. I felt that it was an interesting interview and it also touched on the band and McNally's feelings on the ticketless people that show up at the venues the band plays. I hope you enjoy it. Any typo's are my fault! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- AN INTERVIEW WITH DENNIS MCNALLY: THE PUBLICIST SPEAKS Interview was conducted by Tim Ashbridge immediately prior to the JGB show at the Capitol Centre 11/07/91. UC: Tell us a little bit about your history with the Grateful Dead; how long have you known them, how did you get your job, and what does a publicist do anyway? DM: I graduated from college in 1971, and then I went to graduate school at the University of Massachusetts. I was hanging out with this guy who was a huge Deadhead even then. I had listened to the Dead in college and as a DJ had played the first album a lot. At the time I was looking for a book to write. This guy turned me on to the Dead, took me to my first real show. I went with sufficiently altered consciousness. It was Springfield in October of '72, and I was immediately hooked. Earlier that year, my friend had suggested to me that the book I should write was a biography of Jack Kerouac. Here I was, this child of the 60's, going to graduate school, which was a really numbing experience. I wanted to research my roots as a bohemian, a early 70's freak, and researching a biography of Jack Kerouac was a great way to do that. I went to a bunch of Dead concerts and simultaneously wrote the book about Jack Kerouac called "Desolate Angel" which is now in paperback with Dell. UC: Published in 1979... DM: When it was published I sent a copy to Jerry and sort of waited. What I really wanted to do was write a two-volume history of bohemia or whatever you want to call it, the counterculture or something, in America, through biography...picking one person to illuminate a time or one group of people. So Volume One would be the 50's, bohemia, beatniks, Kerouac; Volume Two was the 60's, Grateful Dead. I was intuitive enough to know that I couldn't march up to the Grateful Dead and say, "Hi, I'm here to write your biography" and that I would have to wait for them to ask me. I wrote a piece about the Grateful Dead which appeared in the Sunday Magazine of the S.F. Chronicle during the 1980 15-night run at the Warfield. I had Met Eileen Law, the queen of Deadheads and one of the best people on the planet, through Jan Simmons who was then Bill Graham's secretary and is now the Grateful Dead's tour secretary. Franken and Davis did a skit between sets and they were picking out a Deadhead to be the Deadhead for the skit. The whole spoof was on Jerry's kids, and I was invited by Eileen to audition to be a Jerry's kid. I was already too old and too straight and all that, but of course I seized the opportunity to meet Jerry and say to him, "Did you read my book?", to which I had the wonderful experience of having him literally jump out of his chair and say, "You wrote that book? It's the best biography I ever read!", to which I said, "Aw, shucks." That was in September, and in December, Jerry sent some people to me and said, "Why don't you do us?" To which I replied, "Fuck Yes!" So I spent'81, '82 and '83 researching it, during which I started the research part of what later became DeadBase. I'm proud to say I kind of assembled that team. Then, the Dead went through it's changes and in June of '84 they had a band meeting and Mary Jo Mienoll, who was then the receptionist and now works in the accounting department, raised her hand and said, "Look, what do we do with the press?" And Garcia said, "Get McNally to do it, he knows that shit." So I became the publicist. That was June of '84, and I've been the publicist ever since. UC: Tell me a little about what a publicist does. DM: I answer the telephone - in most cases what people want from me I direct them to the right person. With the press, most of the time I say "no" nicely to interviews because most of the time we don't have time or there's no desire. And then we have a project - something like Planet Drum or whatever, that we want to sell, I make phone calls. Basically, my job at a show is to give the media some kind of reasonable access to photography or TV. For instance, there's part of the Grateful Dead that say's we shouldn't even let TV in. Then there's me saying "Well, here's the story guys...the Grateful Dead is no a phenomenon and it's a story. Either the TV can shoot the trash that accrues in the parking lot, and that's what they're going to put on the local news, or they can get the first two songs of the band making music with pretty lights and stuff. Most TV stations would rather run that. They'd rather be positive if they get a chance. But somebody has to keep media people, who are frequently very aggressive and very intrusive, out of sight. So, I have this job, which is kind of funny because when I'm at my best it looks like I'm not doing anything. Of course at some point someone will think, "So what is McNally doing around here anyway?" and I would say, "Well, we just had 14 news crews here, and you never saw them. I think I worked." So that's what I do on tour. I've gone to all of the shows in the last 8 years. UC: But at the same time, I remember at RFK this summer, when the people breached the security, you took it upon yourself to go over and try and get that under control. It had nothing to do with the press - that was security. DM: Well you know, you do what you have to do. We had a situation where a number of the people who were working for security were not experienced and they needed some help. A classic example of that was the first night we played Albany. The brand new building had been open for less than a month. Kids come in, and all the security, we'd been talking to them for months, coaching them and they'd done a couple of shows, and they took one look at the Deadheads and, metaphorically speaking, turned green - and they just quit! And they stood there and they panicked. They couldn't open their mouths. I was looking at the supervisors saying, "What do you think you're doing?" And they said "Everything's ok." And I said, "Everything's not ok, there isn't an aisle in the building." And that first night we found out what it was like to do a Dead concert without security, because there was no security. If the fire marshall had been there, we would have been screwed because they have absolute law. They can shut down a show like that (Snap). Pull the plug. And there wasn't a corridor or aisle in the building. Deadheads took over every square inch of the building. Now, it was benign, but it wasn't safe. There's a reason why we do all of this nonsense. By the second night, our security head, Ken Viola, said, "Look, all you have to do is tell them to move, and they will move. Now you may have to say it five times, but they're not going to hit you, they're not going to bite you, you have to keep at it." And by the third night, it was a real smooth running environment, and it was ok the last time. UC: In your capacity as publicist, do you participate at the infamous "band board meetings"? DM: Absolutely not. UC: How often does the band hold these meetings? DM: I varies tremendously. More often than once a quarter, but that's band business anyway and I don't really discuss band business. UC: From your perspective, what are the band's top two or three accomplishments in the last five years? DM: (Laughs) I don't know...enduring...Absorbing the excessive popularity of post-In The Dark and coping with it. At least from my point of view as an organization, enduring the loss of Brent and moving on, those are the hard ones. I'm real pleased overall with the scene. But I can't understand the rationalization of every Deadhead who doesn't have a ticket who says, "Oh, the band doesn't mean me." Yes, it does mean you. If you don't have a ticket, you shouldn't be out there. You shouldn't! You're causing harm to the band. Fortunately, it's reached a point where the number of those people is sufficiently small that we seem to be able to function ok. I really did think for a while there that the Dead was going to come to an end, touring-wise, and it was going to be because of the dumbest of reasons, not the fact that the band couldn't play anymore, but because the audience wasn't going to let them. All I can say is, Thank God "Built to Last" was mediocre, because if it had been a hit, it was over, it was freakin' over, and that's pretty strange. UC: Do you think the no-camping, no-vending rules have had a lot to do with the improvement of the scene in general? DM: Oh absolutely, without question. We would not have venues if we allowed vending and camping. The venues didn't bargain for the kind of problems you have when you allow vending and camping. If people want a traveling countercultural roadshow, they've got to do that themselves. They created it in the first place. The band's job is to make music. The band's job is not to be responsible for the lives of a traveling group of 10,000 to 20,000 people. Folks have to take care of themselves. We have to do our best to make it safe and to make it decent, but Jerry can't be mayor. He never bargained for that. What he does is play the guitar. That's his job. A lot of the rap a couple of years ago from the fans was, "Oh, you're turning your back on the hard core fans." The expectations of those people were completely unfair to the band. The band has said throughout that the Dead didn't create Deadheads, Deadheads did, you know? That all just happened, it's not like the band planned on it. It's neat, but you have to recognize the responsibility, the intrinsic responsibility of being a Deadhead is to think for yourself, and not to bring yourself, your family (the greater Deadhead family) into disrepute, which means - don't go piss on somebody's lawn, don't be doing any business, legal or otherwise, in the parking lot. We asked the City of Albany not to permit camping. The City of Albany demands camping, and then 70 or 80 people per night get busted. Is there a pattern emerging here? And yet, all these people think it's so neat that they can go camp, and then they run around and do things, and half the damn narcs in upstate New York were in that park. Let's be fair - there are some real dumb people out there in the parking lot, and they pay for their dumbness, and I feel bad for that, but jeez, what are you going to do? We ask, we put it on the radio, we hand you a note saying "Don't be Dumb." There is a reasonable point where our responsibility is clearly over, and that's what happens. UC: Tell us a little bit about the concept of the home stadium where the Dead might play permanently. Is it more than just a concept at this point? DM: It's always been a running joke. Again, Jerry Garcia is neither a mayor nor is he a stadium manager. The band has to deal with a fair amount of business with running a multi- million dollar corporation. They don't want to be in a position of having to run something. First, they don't have the money. I mean, we're talking tens of millions of dollars to build such a building. Secondly, we can play Shoreline anytime we want to. That's really about the right size for us, and it's our home venue. That's propounded on the notion that we could make a living and have all the Deadheads travel to us. We'll let you in on a little secret. 70-80% of all of the tickets sold at any given Grateful Dead show are local. You can talk about all the traveling Deadheads all you want, and it is an unusual phenomenon, it's more than any other band surely, but the fact is, if we try to only play at New York and Chicago, we'd lose 2/3rds of our business. Most of those people in wherever, are from within 100 miles. That's a fact. It's just not economically realistic. UC: Well that's good news to us! We don't want you to do that any time soon, believe me. DM: As long as the band intends to play in public, it's going to have to tour. UC: Jerry Garcia Band is playing in Hampton this weekend. Virginia Deadheads are really excited about that because the Grateful Dead has not appeared here in over two years, since the Warlocks' shows. Tell us a little about the status of the Dead playing at Hampton...how does the band feel about Hampton? Deadheads view it as kind of a special place - does the band feel that way? And how does Hampton feel about the band? DM: I have no idea how Hampton feels about the band. People imagine that because those two Warlocks shows were so special, as they were, that the band feels something special about it, which is not true. There are three places the Dead play...they play at home, they play New York (you know when you're in New York City, it's inescapable), and then there's the road. There's no distinction. The only distinction, I should say, is your ears. They like Albany because it's got great sound for a big building. They won't play in the World Music Center outside Chicago for the same reason - terrible sound. Hampton's funky and small, and the band's fond of that, but it's very small, and the odds of us playing there again are pretty slim because it's too small. There's real good people there, the people we work with are wonderful, Bill Reid (w/ Cellar Door in Virginia) is he's excellent, and the production manager, Bobby Melatti is among our favorite people. But the fact is, Hampton is just too small for a Grateful Dead concert. It only seats 12,000. UC: So there's no chance the Dead will play there on Spring Tour? DM: I wouldn't hold my breath, no. We've got to do what's safe, and not overrun the town of Hampton. UC: What about Richmond? DM: Our last experience with Richmond was not pleasant. The Commonwealth's Attorney saw an opportunity to win a lot of votes with a lot of bogus arrests, and I wouldn't hold my breath about coming back to Richmond either. Again, we're talking about protecting you. The same thing goes for Vetura. UC: What do you think is the biggest obstacle the band needs to overcome right now? DM: New material. How many songs has Jerry written in the last five years? How many songs has Bobby written in the last five years? They're both impossibly slow with new material, and for it to continue to be fun onstage, they have to be challenged. That's why Jerry got off so much on Hornsby in particular. Vince is more of a supporting player. Bruce is a guy who challenges Jerry...plays at him. In his head, Bruce is a soloist, a lead, a front man. Well, that's fine. Jerry has never been intimidated or said, "Hey! This is my stage, and you just back me up," --it's just the reverse. I once saw Jerry, 10 years ago now, I think it was, or almost. We had Etta James for New Year's and Etta was literally leaning on Jerry. She kept giving him the hip and leaning on him as he was playing. And he was grinning, and I said to him a couple of days later, "You look like you were a side man in the Mission Street R & B Band that night!" He said, "Man, I could have done that all my life and have been just as happy." Jerry Garcia's whole point of view about playing is like...what's the word I'm looking for? UC: ..Spontaneity, rapport... DM: Back and forth, communicative. That kind of playing. Not a lead backed by five musicians...but a group of back and forth, give and take, that's what, in particular, Bruce has brought. It's also what Branford brings. And it's new, despite the fact that Bobby and Phil's work can surprise him, after 26 years. The single biggest illusion the Deadheads frequently get into is this notion that the band knows where it is. Their ears tell them, "this is a good room, this is a bad room," and they know when they're in New York. It is impossible to be in Manhattan or Nassau or Jersey without knowing it, because you know you are going t go back to the hotel and will be in New York City. UC: Tell me about that, is that energy? DM: Oh yea, being in Manhattan is like shooting speed. UC: The whole band gets off on that? DM: Everybody gets that way, you know. Remember when Phil used to do his "I Hate New York Spaces?" You know, it's anxiety, it's tense, sometimes it's negative, but it's energy. And anybody who has ever listened to, for instance, the three "St. Stephen's" of late 1983, when it was brilliant at the Garden, mediocre at Hartford three days later, and then we made them play it in Marin and they didn't want to, and it was awful. Well, that's the difference of energy. It was right that night, and after that they should have put it away. It was a great one shot. That's New York. The rest of the time on the road, there are places you like and places you don't like. We live in an era where we are a lot more interested in whether or not the hotel has a health club than closing the bar. Orlando was a lot of fun last Spring. Everybody was out at the theme parks and the what not. It was a great way to tour...it really took the edge off the end of the tour where otherwise you'd be getting cranky. Hey, this is a job, I'm here to work and worry. You're here to have fun, keep that in mind. The job of the band and the crew on the tour is to make it work for you guys. UC: You talked about Bruce earlier, and how Bruce challenges Jerry. If you watch the two on stage, it's pretty obvious, they do get off on each other, and they have fun together. Is he viewed as a member of the band now or is there any plan to permanently integrate him? DM: The deal is he's welcome to come as long as he wants to, and he's welcome to not come when he can't show up. He's a permanent floating member. UC: I'd like to talk a little about this Rolling Stone article and Jerry's comments about taking a break. DM: I'm the publicist, I'm not the band's spokesperson in that sense. I think most of the band would agree that we need new material, and most of the band would probably agree that to really do that, probably knocking off for six months would probably be a good idea. I can only point out, as factually as possible, that Jerry never said "we're gonna take six months off." What Jerry said was that "it would be a good idea, we oughtta," and I have to agree with him, I think the band should come up with new material. There is a very morbid streak amongst Deadheads and media watchers. UC: You talked earlier about Jerry originally attracting you to the band to do a biography on them. Can we expect you to do that, are you still in the research phase? DM: No. You can't be a publicist who defends the band where necessary, who advocates the band, and objective or honest historian at the same time. When the band stops touring I'll write the book. UC: Are you doing any writing beyond your work with the Dead? DM: Yea, I'm working on a detective story. UC: Is there anything else you would like for Deadheads to know about the band or focus for the 1990's? DM: I've gotten a lot of anonymous phone calls lately, really hostile ones. Screaming about Jerry loathing Deadheads because we were playing Brendan Byrne Arena. Obviously, they are a little confused because Jerry is not playing at Brendan Byrne Arena. I am not going to forget Adam Katz nor Patrick Shanahan. I don't think anyone can point a finger at the band. I applauded the Katz's suit in the sense that if it finds out what happened, great. I would like to know. I honestly don't think anybody's ever going to find out, for a lot of reasons, namely that they think it's a cover up, and objectively I think there are real political reasons why two different prosecuting attorneys investigated. They thought they could look good by finding out who did it. There was no reason for a coverup. Don't even imagine for a minute that police are going to cover up for a rent-a-cop. Forget it. Cops hate rent-a-cops. For a lot of reasons, I think it's unsolvable, and I'm very sad about that. The Grateful Dead has two responsibilities, and only two -- to play to the best of their ability and in a reasonably safe environment, but we can't do everything; we have to trust associates. Mutually, the Deadheads have got to take responsibility for themselves. It ain't gonna go on forever, and I know a lot of people whose lives are so wrapped up in the Grateful Dead, I can't imagine what they're gonna do when it stops. UC: One of the most frequently asked questions I get is, "What is going to happen to all of the Deadheads when the band stops playing?" DM: What I suggest is that people have a life that isn't totally dependent on the Grateful Dead. It's nice to run off and join the circus, but unless you're working in the circus, doing something, really giving something to other people, then...an entire life that is exclusively focused on just scraping enough money to amuse yourself by traveling with the Grateful Dead doesn't strike me as very constructive. Now I don't wish to be either patronizing or paternal, and it's your business what you want to do. Live your life. But it just occurs to me that when the band folds, they'll leave a lot of people walking around with blank expressions on their faces. Play hard, work hard, you know, do all of it, a full range, which is on a good night, what the Grateful Dead is all about. Some pain, some joy, exquisite beauty, some real ugly, you know? And that seems to be the whole point of what Jerry's playing is about to me, I mean, to most people. And like I say, I can't imagine what some of the folks I see are gonna do. My God, I wish they'd start thinking about it. Right now, I think there's going t be a lot of turmoil and anguish and it's not going to be very fun for them, whereas we should see it as a graduation instead of a disaster and go on to another level. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I am in no way associated with Unbroken Chain except as a happy subscriber. If you liked this interview and are interested in getting a subscription here is the subscription information. $12.00/6 Issues $6.00/3 Issues $15.00/6 Issues Canadian $20.00/6 Issues Overseas. New subscriptions and renewals receive a free 20-word classified ad. Ad must be submitted at time of subscription order. Your subscription will begin with the next available issue. Unbroken Chain P.O. Box 8726 Richmond, VA 23226 -- ******************************************************************************* Brad Speierman - bg193@po.cwru.edu ** "Shall we go, you and I while we can?" or bg193@cleveland.freenet.edu ** Robert Hunter ******************************************************************************* .