Features

Widespread Panic: The 1997 Relix Report

The diversity of WSP’s sound is not surprising. Individual band members claim influences that run the gamut from the Grateful Dead and Santana to The Who and Black Sabbath. The band chooses to dismiss any similarities, however, between itself and the Grateful Dead and its touring family, including the coining of the term “Spreadheads.” “We have a small fan base that follows us on tour,” said Schools, an admitted Deadhead. “With the decision by the Dead to stop touring, older Heads are checking us out, people who might not have.”

Like the Dead, WSP prefers live albums. “When I got turned on to a new band,” says Schools, “and I went to the record store and saw that they had five or six records, if they had a live one, I’d opt for it ‘cause it’s a more of a greatest hits kind of thing. I may have heard a few songs on the radio, but they’re all scattered over different albums. Here, they are all on a live record—being done live. That’s always what I was attracted to. Plus they always jam on a live record. Double CDs.”

The band says that the recording of live music is becoming more economically feasible with the advent of digital machines that give a clean signal. “We knew there was a market for it,” says Schools, “‘cause I walk into a record store anywhere and see those ‘import’ bootleg CDs and obviously, if people didn’t want to hear that, they wouldn’t pay the exorbitant price for a poor quality recording.”

Like the Grateful Dead, the Black Crowes and other bands, WSP allows taping at its shows, but encourages fans not to purchase bootleg discs. “There’s three reasons not to buy these bootlegs,” says Schools. “First of all, we’re getting ripped off. Secondly, the people who buy them are getting ripped off because they’re paying bucks. They’re paying like $50 for a double CD, which if it was a legit release, would be $19 or $20 and thirdly, the quality’s poor.”

Often, the information contained with the bootleg discs is incorrect. “They don’t even have the right names for the songs,” adds Ortiz. The band says that the people making the money aren’t even fans; they’re not the people in the parking lot. “It’s the same feeling I get when you see a scalper outside the show with two signs,” continues Schools. “One says ‘I need tickets’ and the other says ‘I want tickets’ and they’re firing those bad boys off for more than we intended the show to be worth. The setup wasn’t intended for people to be spending food money to buy a ticket. That kind of irks us.”

Keeping ticket prices down is important to WSP. Like Blues Traveler and several other bands, it has tried to lower costs. Although tickets can still be purchased through Ticketmaster, they can also be obtained at the box office or through mail-order, which cuts out the middle man and extra fees involved.

WSP stresses it is not against tapers or kids who collect taped music, just people who try to make a profit from it and are not really interested in the band or its fans. “They hear that recording is a sort of golden ticket for them,” says Schools. “Like that guy in the Village who’s got that big old tray of bootleg tapes of any artist or band you’d ever want. He takes his little Xerox labels, and he sells them. Luckily, the network is so good that people are always willing to spin tapes for free. [That kind of interest] makes you realize that people want to hear live music. People go to concerts to hear live music. People tape concerts to hear live music. If we could mix them an incredible sounding tape or hopefully, someday, we could do vault releases and Jo-Jo’s Pick’s or whatever.” (Laughter)

The band does not allow soundboard taping because it feels that audience tapes sound better than board tapes. “[Soundboards] don’t capture the show,” continues Schools. “My favorite one is where Weir forgets the words to ‘Sugar Magnolia’ and the crowd at Nassau Coliseum finishes the verse and then gives themselves a hand for doing it. Ten thousand people singing ‘Waits backstage while I sing to you.’ Yeah! Hey, we all sang! You don’t really get that on the board tape. What you’re gonna get is Weir botching the words.”