Zoo Station

Grateful Dead fans are well aware of the Vault, the infamous place from where previously unheard of video and audio keeps trickling out for Deadheads to twirl to (when in doubt, and otherwise). But, I only recently learnt that the Vault was actually as well protected as the gold storage rooms of the New York Fed (ok, I exaggerate), thanks to this NYT story by Seth Schiesel, published on the occasion of the opening of the Jerry Garcia amphitheater in San Francisco. Apparently, only two people have access to the key that opens the Vault. The article also throws some light into the unique business model of the Dead, one that may well become the de facto standard in the music industry as more and more artists use to Internet to bypass the industry to reach out to fans directly.

When I first got into the record business I learned that it wasn't cool to be into the Grateful Dead," said Christopher Sabec, 40, a lawyer who said he saw the band more than 250 times and is now chief executive of the Jerry Garcia Estate L.L.C., controlled by Mr. Garcia's heirs. "But if you look at where the music business has been forced to go by technology, now it's not about selling records. It's about live shows and inspiring a fan base to be absolutely loyal. Hello? Who did that first? The Grateful Dead."

The Jerry Garcia company and Grateful Dead Productions are separate businesses each generating millions of dollars of revenue a year. Just how many millions is not publicly known. But consumers still buy more than a million J. Garcia-brand neckties each year, and Cherry Garcia is often the top-selling brand of Ben & Jerry's ice cream, each pint generating royalties for the Garcia heirs.

The Grateful Dead was the first major band to allow fans to freely make and trade recordings of its live performances in the belief that spreading the music that way would ensure long-term success. That formula was later adopted almost wholesale by other successful bands, including Phish, and fans still avidly trade live Grateful Dead recordings online. Even though there are now high-quality recordings for sale, created using the official sound-mixing boards used at concerts, fans are still free to trade recordings made in the crowd. The band used to offer a special section of seating for amateur tapers. "They wanted to create a space for themselves and their fans to gather and play, and that didn't sit well in the offices of the record business," said Mr. Sabec, who is perhaps best known in the music industry for discovering and managing the 1990's teen-pop group Hanson. "Now I find myself sitting in meetings where other bands are using the Dead as a model."