In addition to receiving the VFTV DVD of the Closing of Winterland, Scotto and I also now receive "San Francisco" magazine which I guess is put out by KQED- hard to believe as it is quite a glossy upscale periodical. Today. the March issue arrived....I started glancing through it- noting that it contains a nice long article on our most recent toy- the ipod...adjacent to the ipod article I spied a nice lil photo (page 44) of Mr Bob Weir! (why is he always following me around?) I hate typing but for you, I shall transcribe:

The Artists Sound Off
What 2 SF artists - one old Lion, one young buck-Think of downloading songs for free.
(photos)<-The Grateful Dead's Bob Weir 56, happy owner of an ipod.
Bob Weir:
It's a moral issue with me. I believe in honoring what I love. So, I'm not going to rip off artists that provide me inspiration. If a guy can't make a decent living making music, he's going to have to go back bagging groceries orworking on that MBA. What does that say for the future of music? If people won't buy it today, it won't be here for tomorrow.

Question: Isnt file sharing a new twist on the Dead's famous practice of allowing fans to tape live shows and swap them?

Bobby: It's way different. To do a show, we don't go into a studio for three months, spend a couple of million bucks, and carefully make an hour's worth of music. Live, it's casually performed for the audience. As Jerry said, once we're done with it, it's theirs.

Question: Would you give away your songs online if you were a young band again?

Bobby: I still think it's shortsighted. If you choose not to make records because you need to make a living and hone your musical expressions, and that living's not available to you because of file sharing, then I don't think [making records] is going to be worth it to anyone.