1974 PERFORMING SEASTONES AND THE GENESIS OF
THE GRATEFUL DEAD "MIDDLE SET"

In the Spring and Summer of 1970 I started the composition of Seastones. My work continued in Massachusetts and in California during 1971 and 1972, playing and doing Seastones 16 track recordings with Jerry, Phil, David Crosby, Grace Slick, David Freiberg, Spencer Dryden, and Mickey. In the Summer of 1971 the plan developed with Jerry and Phil to find a record company to release Seastones as a first album and play as a group live. The preliminary, mostly acoustic, mix of a part of Seastones was completed in quad (discrete 4 track) and submitted as a two track reduction mix (dated 09-13-72) by Jerry, Phil, and me to the head of CBS Records Clive Davis. In a subsequent meeting we attended at Davis's Columbia Records office in New York City, Davis rejected the album on the review and advice of other synthesizer recording artists at Columbia. At the time CBS was riding high on the success of its Top-10 electronic-classical album, Switched on Bach, and further crossover albums involving electronic sounds were a welcome possibility to the label. Davis’ answer was negative because the myopic electronic music specialists at CBS did not even consider Seastones to be music.

We all were disappointed, but as we were riding down in the elevator from Davis’ office Jerry said to me and Phil “we’re going to find another way to do it” (release a Seastones album and play live). Phil, Jerry, and me (as well as David) were all well aware of the history and first (usually negative) responses to new art, music, and literature (we remembered, for example, that the responses to the first performances of Ravel’s Bolero and Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring caused audience riots, and also the late recognition of Charles Ives and his music, and the very critical response to Joyce’s Finnegan’s Wake). Rejection of Seastones by the corporate music business culture for us was an early artistic “badge of honor”. The Grateful Dead were still under contract with Warner Brothers Records, but Jerry’s attitude had become do-it-yourself, and that was a future developing factor in the band’s decision to not re-sign with a major label but to instead start their own record company for the artistic freedom and control it promised. Later, with the creation of Grateful Dead Records and Round Records, Jerry and Ron Rakow hoped to be completely independent of the major labels in terms of manufacturing, publicity and distribution. My composition of Seastones, ideas of biomusic, independent improvisatory “moment forms”, and use of electronics and early computer technology was developing at the same time as the Grateful Dead’s Wall of Sound and their evolving philosophy and aesthetics facilitating new forms of interaction among musicians and audiences through performance and technological means.

After the rejection of Seastones by Columbia Records in late 1972 I was urged by Jerry and Phil to move to California in order to finish and release Seastones, and to play with Jerry, Phil, Mickey, and with David (Crosby) when he was available. And maybe sometimes sit-in with the Grateful Dead as I had already done in 1970, 1971, and 1972. We thought we would perform Seastones and my other electronic music works live with the other musicians who were appearing on the recording, and a possible album release by the developing ideas of Grateful Dead and Round Records. Just before moving to California I got an Arp Odyssey and a Fender Rhodes electric piano, one of the first four produced. We played and recorded together In various configurations all through the Summer and Fall of 1973.

In November 1973 Jerry and Mickey unfortunately side-stepped the plan. They committed to performing a benefit concert in the Palace of Fine Arts in San Francisco, and publicized it (on a poster and in newspapers) as "An Experiment in Quadraphonic Sound with Jerry Garcia and Mickey Hart”. Phil and I both felt angry and somewhat betrayed. It felt like a betrayal of brothers. Jerry was very sorry and sincerely apologized, and wanted to add me and Phil to the performance, and said so; Mickey resisted our onstage presence. I had been thankful for Mickey’s help and support on Seastones, and respected his musicianship, but was very disappointed with his behavior at the time.

Only Phil and I had quad instruments and had been playing and recording directly in quad, alone and with Jerry (his monophonic guitar routed to different amps/recording channels). Mickey played a large set of percussion that could be mic’ed and routed in the performance space but because of leakage and feedback he did not record live together with us in quad. At the time the only quad recording and playing project was Seastones. Neither Jerry nor Mickey had been recording anything in quad except on my Seastones recordings. And I was the only one who was fully following and interacting with John Chowning’s and Andy Moorer”s work at Stanford AI and familiar with their quad joystick. At the time Jerry, Phil, David, Spencer, and Grace had already been recorded and partially mixed by me on 16-track tape recordings using four tracks each for quad mix placement (and mix down to four track tape). Extra speakers in Mickey’s studio had been set up by Dan Healey for the recording and rough mixing of Seastones. Neither Jerry nor Mickey had recorded or mixed anything in quad, and neither were composing in quad in their current solo album projects.

As a sort of non-publicized compromise I performed the entire concert, not on stage but instead seated at the mix board centered in the audience, with Phil next to me doing the live quad mix. I played my Arp Odyssey. Included as part of this show was the first Seastones live/tape performance in quad. This was a partial one, using some pre-recorded Seastones tape tracks (from the 09-13-72 mix and newer tracks from 1973), played alone and mixed with the three live musicians' playing (Jerry, Mickey, me) with the those existing Seastones tracks.

The booking and publicity had started before me and Phil had been included and committed to the concert - this explains why there has been some confusion afterwards as to who played and how this concert related to Seastones.

After the Palace of Fine Arts concert Jerry felt that because of the schedule for 1974, as well as the Round Record’s Seastones schedule and performance plans, there would be no way for us to play together outside the Grateful Dead schedule. So at the end of 1973 we started discussions about me going out on the road with the Grateful Dead, as either doing a between sets or middle set performance. We were certainly not an opening act, but something internal to the gig. A “middle set" and therefore un-announced during the supposed usual intermission time. We all liked the idea of appearing in mostly lowered lighting as a group of two or three, and at times flowing into Grateful Dead music as other band members joined us on stage.

The 1974 touring proposal was initiated and brought to band business meetings, some of which I attended, by Jerry and Ron Rakow, both for the Grateful Dead and for Round Records, as well as by Phil. The various multiple Grateful Dead entities - band members, Grateful Dead "family" members, business office management, road crew, road management, record company management, and booking people all had their own opinions and feelings, and different interests. And they all kept their own separate and differing minutes or notes for those meetings.

Round Records (Jerry and Ron) thought at the time it would be a good way to market the developing Seastones recording composition and our group’s performances, and Jerry and Phil wanted us to play - Jerry for sure, with Phil's only hesitation being the development schedule his new bass synthesizer add-on (a tracking frequency-to-voltage convertor) and it being ready before starting out playing on the road.

In March 1974, at a band meeting which I attended, in discussion about when we would go out on tour, the cost was brought up by a few of Grateful Dead business management (expenses hugely inflated and distorted) who were unsupportive, but cost was only a part of the decision-making process. Important to some were the band’s and “family” opinions and views about the band’s popularity and reception - what would be the receptivity to electronic music by the various audiences in the cities the Grateful Dead were scheduled to play through 1974. We thought about not playing some places where we believed there might be less intolerance for new music, and if we did go on tour, when and where it would be good to play (unfortunately displaying some of our own intellectual geographical biases). At the conclusion of the band meeting, after it had been "officially" decided not to go to the particular cities for the May scheduled concerts, it was decided by executive mandate (by Jerry) to go out starting in June, with me and Phil as the core, plus Jerry joining us maybe half the time, and flowing into the full Grateful Dead second set if and when Jerry and the other band members wanted to sit-in (thought to happen maybe 50% of the time).

It turned out that on the tours, much more often than not, we played alone as a self-contained duo or trio, sometimes Jerry sitting back in the instrument racks and playing through my modular synthesizer - a ghost performer. Our playing that continued into the Grateful Dead second set occurred about 25% of the time. Some of the Seastones electronic “middle sets” with Jerry and other band members joining in were very long, becoming full Grateful Dead sets on their own. The “middle set” process was also scheduled by Jerry for inclusion each day of the October 1974 Winterland Grateful Dead concert (and movie) performances.

The co-association of me and Phil as a duo, and in particular with the composition and release of Seastones, was Ron Rakow’s idea for the coming 1975 planned retirement of the band, and each member’s future solo plans. To mitigate my concerns as Seastones composer and leader, and yet promote Seastones with a name that appeared on the front of the package, Ron created a green sticker on top of the shrink-wrap covering of the LP - “Ned Lagin and Phil Lesh”. This the source for some Deadheads later (re-)naming the 1974 tour sets either “Seastones” or “Ned and Phil.”