DB- Relative to fans purchasing shows that they already having in their collections, that reminds me of the Grateful Dead world where I still believe that people would buy 5/8/77 if they put it out. I know I would…

HM- Sometimes I’ll look out into a room with 10,000 people and wonder to myself, “How many of these people are really tapped in to the taping thing?” I’ll look at the mic stands and assume that each of those guys is reaching so many people but there have to be plenty of people in there who don’t understand where to get it or how to get it.

Then you have to think to yourself, what is the true function of the archive process? Is it to fill in gaps in people’s collections or is it to capture the band at different points in time that collectively show what this band is all about. I’m trying to balance those two things. And I think if you’re trying to capture the history of the band over time, there are by definition going to be those shows that people have in their collections, like a Cornell 77.

What I found with Huntsville is that a number of people were extremely excited to see that show because it gave them a validation. The best way I can put it is in Grateful Dead terms from my own personal experience in that when those guys would put out an archival release from a show I had in my tape collection that I thought was top notch and did it for me, I thought it was awesome. To your point, I was out there buying it no matter what because I knew the sound quality would be better and it allowed me to fit my experiences into ones that they thought were important relative to their overall career.

Huntsville is an iconic show and a lot of people use it to introduce the band to people who haven’t heard them before. Even today I listen to certain sections and I get chill bumps and I’ve been listening to it for almost 15 years or so. It just had a lot in it.

When you’re dealing with a band that allows taping and you get to the level of audience recordings that have been made over the past decade plus, that’s something you have to think about. But you have to get back to, “Is this a great show? Is it worthy of an archival release in terms of how it’s going to fit into the whole collection?” You can’t find yourself worrying about the specifics too much in that regard, which is easy for me to do because my background is as a CPA in accounting and I’m all anal retentive about that stuff. I do tend to overthink.

A great example of that is one of my stumbling blocks for Huntsville was the encore, “Can’t Find My Way Home,” which just happened to be the same encore from the Valdosta show in ‘89 which we put out as number two. And I just looked at the whole thing and I said, “Am I really going to stumble over the encore being the same at a show that was seven years earlier? No, I can’t do it.” But I’m sure somebody in Panicland will go, “Why did they do that? It’s the same encore, that doesn’t make sense.”

DB- Speaking of which, you’ve been soliciting people’s opinions via email on the Panic site. Can you talk a bit about the feedback you’ve received?

HM- By and large, every email I’ve gotten has been very supportive of what the band has been doing to get things out there and start the process. A lot of people are really stoked and I get tons of emails from well wishers that are two, three or four lines. But the ones that just absolutely blow me away are the people who will write paragraphs describing what this band has meant to them over the years, certain sections of shows they feel ought to be represented in the archive series and really expanding on it. My reaction to reading all that is I don’t deserve to be the one reading it. I didn’t do anything to produce the music on stage that gave people these feelings. So it’s been a good source of positive feelings for me, that I’m the one that gets to read these and create these dialogues with the fans and see what it is they’re looking for.

Obviously we can’t take every suggestion and make it happen in stores within a couple of weeks but a lot of the suggestions they’ve given me have opened up my eyes to several shows that have since very much gotten on my radar. So it’s been a nice little handshake if you will that I’ve gotten from everyone. But one thing about this project that we don’t want to forget is it’s for the fans. So over time let’s figure out what they want and make sure we’re able to give it to them.

DB- Have you expanded the dialogue to include some of the other archivists out there, such as David Lemieux or Kevin Shapiro or have you kept it within the band circle?

HM- For the most part it’s stayed within the band circle for right now. But Dave Schools used to be my neighbor and he moved out to California a little over a year ago. One thing I talked with him about over the last year or so was my desire to take a trip out to meet some of the David Lemieuxs of the world and gain some understanding of how they decided on shows and some of the roadblocks that came up in their process. I have not done that yet but it’s certainly on my radar to improve our product and gain some friends and insight along the way.

DB- Jumping back to your early friendship with Dave, during what timeframe did you see Dead shows together?

HM- We went to our first shows together in ‘83 and the spring of ‘84 and then we did the whole summer tour in the summer of 84. It was about four weeks and 8,000 miles in my little Datsun 200 SX with four people in it. We met a ton of people we’re still in touch with today.

We had a great time and it really opened our eyes because Dave and I had both been into music for a long time but neither of us had taken that kind of adventure yet. I can remember at the Saratoga show in New York, Dave saying, “That’s what I want to do.” I mean how many 18, 19 year olds say that? Tons of them but how many of them are actually able to come through with it? So it’s been an interesting friendship to watch Dave graduate if you will from concertgoer to one of the reasons people are coming to the concert.

DB- Did you ever have the experience of returning to see Widespread at some of those same venues where you had seen the Dead with Dave?

HM- A few times. For example I saw the Dead at the Starlight Amphitheater in ‘84 and ‘85 and then in 2002 there I was at the Starlight Amphitheatre, there’s Dave on stage and it was like, “Whoa, this weird…” I can remember the chill bumps and I’ve got them right now, just standing there thinking, “We used to travel around and see that band and we saw them in this venue right here and there’s Dave on stage.” It blew me away because also at the 2002 show, I had my wife, my two kids and my mother with me. We’d all taken a Winnebago and driven out there. It was just a special time to look around and go, “Man, in less than 20 years I’m married, I’ve got kids, here’s my mom with us and here’s my buddy on stage doing his thing.”

The Fox Theater is another great example. I can remember seeing the Dead at the Fox for two dates back in the fall of ‘85 and we all had to camp out for our tickets. Dave was with us and all. And then, boom! I think it was the early 90s, maybe ‘91 or ‘92, Panic opened for Blues Traveler there one night. I can recall standing there in the Fox Theater looking up at those guys saying, “Wow, this is strange.”

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