DB- Like many bands, Widespread Panic’s early shows often focused on covers. Looking back though, can you recall the first original tune that led you to think, “Wow this could be something…”

HM- I would say “Space Wrangler” is one they started playing real early as well as “Sleepy Monkey,” “Driving Song,” “Pigeons.” I can remember specifically “Space Wrangler” back in the Uptown days in Athens where they played like every Monday night for what seemed like forever. There was a pinball machine in the back of the room and I would always stand back from the stage and check it all out. I can remember the whole up and down, revving up and breaking down during “Space Wrangler.” Just being back by the bar near that pinball machine, going with the groove and checking it out. And I can specifically remember “Pigeons” hitting a chord with me, how they entered the song, all the things that happened during it and how they ended it. It was all just very powerful in that small room. And later when they’d play “Barstool” and talk about that iron going in the pinball machine, well there I was, standing back there by the pinball machine.

One of my most visual memories of the Uptown, was watching the guys who would come to the front of the stage and it wasn’t a stage that was even five feet off the ground, it was a foot and half or so. Mikey would be sitting down in his chair playing guitar right there at the corner of the stage and these guys would literally put their faces about 10, 12 inches from his guitar and just turn their heads like, “How are you doing that?” It just always amazed me that it didn’t bother Mikey and then I realized he had his eyes closed.

DB- You mentioned earlier that you worked as a CPA for many years. Can you talk about the move from accountant to archivist?

HM- I still am an accountant, I do accounting consulting work and this stuff I’m doing with Panic on the archive side is a labor of love. The way it came to be is that there has just been this general feeling over the past couple of years that it’s time to start delving back into the past and the multi-track tapes. During those years I would have conversations with different band members and share emails about different projects. They’d ask me to look at some shows from a certain period and give my ideas as to what would be appropriate to put out there.

Those things kind of stopped and started. But then a little over a year ago, I was at a show in Savannah and Dave and JB came up to me with the Carbondale CD, which was the first release in the archive series. It hadn’t been completely done yet but they had the artwork of the CD case dummied up with pieces of paper taped to a case to show how it would look. I wasn’t aware they were that serious about it and I was kind of blown away.

I had been loosely involved with being an unofficial archivist over the years. I had all the old DAT tapes and cassette tapes as part of my collection, along with specific instructions as to what I could let out and what I couldn’t. I’ve always had that trust of the band and the ability to understand what they were interested in.

So when I realized that no one was necessarily in charge, it just seemed to me that to keep a full blown archive release series going, they needed a person who understood both the band perspective and the fan perspective. So last summer over a series of conversations, I just approached them and said that I’d be willing to be that liaison. Give me an email address, I’ll correspond with the fans and find out what it is they want, we’ll give it a name, give it a face. I’ll be happy to get involved and let’s see where it takes us. And it’s kind of evolved from there.

DB- You mention that you were the unofficial archivist for many years. The story I’d heard is that one day you walked out of Dave Schools’ house with a big garbage bag full of tapes over your shoulder. Is that true?

HM- It’s absolutely true. I graduated in 1987 and then in the beginning of ‘88 I decided to back to school to get my management degree. I was in school and it was hard to manage all that with wanting to see the guys play. Then in ‘89 I finally moved over to Atlanta to do the real work thing. Dave and I talked all the time but I found that every time I needed to send him something in the mail he had a different address.

So with me always having tapes on my mind, I asked him, “What’s going on with all those cassette tapes that are basically the band’s collection that are at your house?” He goes, “Well I move them around with me.” And I said, “Man, that’s not good, you’re going to leave some of them behind, you’re never in town…I need to come get those, don’t I?” And he said, “Yeah, you probably do.” So we came up with a time and I drove over to Athens and walked out of his house with a black Hefty garbage bag slung over my shoulder like Santa Claus and drove back to Atlanta popping tape after tape into my tape player going, “I can’t believe this…” It was awesome.”

And that’s how it kind of got started. I found some really cool things that reminded me of the early days at King Avenue sitting around and I made a collection of a few tunes and gave it to the band. And in doing so, I think they understood that here was somebody that they could trust. After a couple of years I got a call from JB who said, “There’s a package for you at the office. Swing by and get it when you can.” And I went over there and I had a ton of tapes from him that I think he had found in a move.

After a few year period where I was getting all these tapes, I considered myself the unofficial official archivist because I had all these soundboards I kept getting and I was concerned, “Do I let these out?” I had a lot of things I could let out and I made a lot of those tapes part of other people’s collections. I also had quite a few that I really had to sit on because they had been mixed down from some of the multi-track stuff to put out things like Light Fuse Get Away, where they would mix the whole show down to a two track. That was a hard thing to do coming from my early days of trading tapes but I certainly realized the rope that had been given me and I didn’t want to hang myself with it. So I was able to maintain that confidence with the band in terms of being somebody they could trust with their music. So they gave it to me for safekeeping until the organization graduated to a different level and they got their own room to store a lot of stuff in.

DB- To what extent are there holes in that collection and have you discovered many missing nuggets?

HM- It’s very well documented from the end of ‘94 to the present. A lot of the efforts from the past have resulted in a very good documentation from the 85/86 timeframe all the way through ‘88. On the other hand, ‘89,’90,’91 seem to be really thin. The band was really finding themselves on the road a ton compared to what they had been used to. I don’t think a whole lot of tapes got made. That’s not to say there aren’t any but you get back to those two tracks representative of the rooms they were recorded in and there’s not a lot you can do to make them sound better.

Little nooks and crannies have surfaced though. I have found a couple of shows from the late 80s that aren’t even in the Everyday Companion. Ted Rockwell and Will Duckworth just did a fantastic job with that stuff, so that’s been a resource. Whenever I find something I’m not quite sure about, I’ll put it against that and I’ve found a few shows from the early days that don’t seem to be listed.

There’s also a few shows from the 90s that aren’t traded because there were no tapers and the soundboards never got out. And I’m happy to say we’re going to be doing a good intersection on some of those because we have them.

DB- One final question. Given your perspective, can you talk about the state of the band today.

HM- I love it. My favorite show is always the next one. With all the changes that have happened over the course of the past few years, I couldn’t be happier with Jimmy Herring on stage and seeing what he has to offer the musical experience and also in terms of fitting in as one of the guys. The camaraderie that has come with him has been exceptional. I’ve really enjoyed seeing them redefine their sound with him, watching him change their sound a little bit and them changing his sound a little bit, so it’s really become a fluid conversation. Going back to the Savannah show I saw last year I walked out saying, “That’s one of the best concerts I’ve ever seen, period. Panic, Dead or anyone in between.” This is a band where the sky’s the limit in terms of the magic and the potential for where they can go musically. I think they’re really enjoying each other, seeing what they can do on stage and moving into the future.

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