When the Grateful Dead needed a quality sound system to deliver our sonic payload, I learned electronics and speaker design.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I think the biggest part of being on a sound system is wanting to always be the best.
I did sound for a number of years, so I know the pain of the sound mixer on a set where everybody was talking.
I had been building electronic musical instruments since I was a kid.
The Grateful Dead were very kind. It was Santa Claus. It did good things. It allowed other people to benefit. The benefits that we played were enormous, and we played free. So you've got a band that loves to play free, and that was a wonderful thing.
Sound comes out of a life experience.
My main goal was to have something for everyone and not just one sound.
The late '70's and early '80s is the zenith of a certain craftsmanship in sound recording.
I was very much fascinated with the technology we had that we could edit in the computer our compositions, but all the sounds that were available on the market were crap.
I knew when I was a kid that I had a Broadway voice. I wanted to be a rocker, because I grew up in that era of transistor radios at the beach.
I came from an era when we didn't use electronic instruments. The bass wasn't even amplified. The sound was the sound you got.