Finding the words... the rhyme & reason of the Dave Matthews Band

This is the version that was given the A+. I got an a+ on the entire project as well. Final version for a while.

Project presented May 5, 1998.

“A band is not merely a collection of individuals. Its essential character must be for the whole to exceed the sum of the parts. When the right people get together, be it in music or sports or business or marriage or sex or whatever, a kind of spiritual fusion takes place. This fusion cannot be bought or forced or manufactured.... No one knows how this magic happens. But when it does, we feel the presence of something divine and everyone who’s there knows it. Cherish the chemistry of great bands wherever you find it. You’re onto something big. (Delancey, introduction)”

Music has always been present in my life. I still remember my parents saying, “How do you know the words to all those songs?”

“I guess it’s just a gift.” I remember singing with Sesame Street and Care Bears on my brown Fisher-Price tape recorder when I was little.

I love singing along to songs, and I’ve always tried to figure out lyrics when I found a song I liked.

So last year, I started getting heavily interested in lyrics and songwriting. I found some sites on the Internet that dealt with lyrics. There is even a webring called the Lyrics Ring, which I joined when I made a webpage this summer.

I really didn’t know a lot about lyrics, from writing them to transcribing them. I knew it was fun to be able to sing any song I wanted to correctly. Since one of my favorite groups is the Dave Matthews Band, I decided to find out more about their songs.

My friend Ryan Underbrink sent me an email one day in November with a song in it. The song was an alternate version of Say Goodbye (a song that was on Crash, one of 6 CD’s released by the Dave Matthews Band) entitled “10.26.93” and that made me think that maybe Dave Matthews had enough alternate lyrics to make a project.

A few days later, after finding a Dave Matthews Band Webring, I stumbled upon a site entitled “Another Glass of Wine: The Dave Matthews Band Alternate Lyrics Archive” headed by Christine Baginski. It was all about lyrics, especially different and unreleased songs, by the Dave Matthews Band. That got me to thinking that this could be a good project, because I do enjoy listening to music and figuring out lyrics. Also I didn’t know much about the Dave Matthews Band yet, except I liked a few of their songs off of 2 of their CD’s, and I thought that it would be fun, which is probably the main factor I chose.

I soon found that lyric sites and sites dedicated to the Dave Matthews Band are all over the Internet. I started copying lyrics and found that there are many different versions of songs, especially that song called “Say Goodbye”, which was the same one that Ryan had sent me--the same song, but not the same lyrics all the time. I started wondering, “Why are there all these alternate lyrics?” That’s why I decided to research, because I wanted to learn more about the lyrics and the reasoning behind them.

To define, alternate lyrics are lyrics that aren’t the usual, “natural” or released lyrics. They may differ as little as changing a place in the song like Dave does at concerts in a song called “Dancing Nancies”. The released lyrics read “Could I have been lost somewhere in Paris? (http://www.dmband.com) but Dave changes the lyrics to “Could I have been lost somewhere at Red Rocks (Live at Red Rocks 8.15.95)” or various other places depending on where he is performing the concert.

The lyrics may change as much to completely changing an entire song until he settles on certain lyrics. That’s what happened with Say Goodbye. Dave loved to change the lyrics so “fans couldn’t sing along (Geil, interview)”. In Morgan Delancey book, Step Into The Light, Dave himself said “Interpret as you wish. That’s the fun (Delancey, 102).”

I started chatting on IRC in the #dmb chat room--it’s a room “dedicated to the Dave Matthews Band and everything related to them (may-may, IRC)”. I started talking with people who have seen concerts, met Dave and know the ins and outs of the band.

The FAQ on the Dave Matthews Band (revised by John Athayde in late December, but has many contributing authors) was one of the first emails I received from Nancies. At the time that I joined, the list was just getting about 800 new subscribers in a click of a button, so John posted it for all Nancies to see. In it are a couple of the best ways to describe the Dave Matthews Band.

Dave himself speaks out for the FAQ by saying that the band’s vitality comes from the association of five strong individuals. Nancies on the list can say anything they want about Dave Matthews--as long as it is “nice and friendly like (Pace, interview).”

A man named Ron Diaz, who I found out later is “the BEST” taper (Underbrink, interview), pointed me into the direction of Nancies, an email discussion list for DMB. I joined, and from there, found thousands of lyric sites and learned about a big fan base that the Dave Matthews Band has. I also learned about bootlegs and taping and all that’s involved in taping.

Tapes are a key part in alternate lyrics. Tapes or shows are tapes of concerts. Mostly identified by date (such as 10.26.93 or 12.31.94) or venue (like Red Rocks, Morrison, CO or Sandstone Amphitheater, Bonner Springs, KS), “tapes are the lifeblood of the ‘non-radio’ fans” (Hinson, interview). People such as Ron Diaz, who is known by most Nancies as the “Taping God”, or any fan with the right equipment can go into a DMB concert and set up recording equipment and record a concert. Those tapers then transfer the concert (usually from DAT, a great recording tool) to tapes or now CD’s, and then offer up tape trees or trades.

The equipment that you have to have is : Tape deck or portable DAT; RCA cables/patch cables; flashlight; extension cord; pen and paper for setlists and trading addresses, phone numbers, etc.; something to carry all the stuff in; blank tapes; a good microphone with a tall stand to pick up the sound (Athayde, FAQ).

As I’ve been saying, the best taper known to Dave fans is a man by the name of Ron Diaz. He owns possibly the best and most tapes of the Dave Matthews Band and other bands than anyone else. He also records other bands that have either opened for Dave, or guested with him in concert, or that are from the Charlottesville, VA area (where DMB got its first start). A few of these bands include: Guster, Soul Coughing, Rusted Root, Béla Fleck and the Flecktones and Agents of Good Roots. Right now Agents is on a very large tour because they released their first CD One By One in March. Ron Diaz is taping them at all their concerts from April 9 to sometime in May. He agreed to be interviewed but he was contacted to tape because the Agents’ main taper was unable to attend, so he was unable to be interviewed. In an informal previous interview, he did give me some basics of taping, like how to reduce hiss and crowd noise and how to set up the stand and actually tape a concert. He also provided me with some other lyrics that I didn’t have from some obscure concert tapes that he had.

Trading tapes is fun--but dangerous, if you run into a bad trader. A bad trader is someone who rips you off and doesn’t send tapes back to you, or sends you really bad quality tapes. Lately on Nancies, an entire group has been exposed from Commack, New York. They all used America Online for Internet access, and therefore could have different email addresses. They all were friends or henchmen in this case, and what they did was just set up trades but never fulfill their end of the deal, which meant they received tapes and never sent out ones for the people they were trading with. They were exposed and are currently under very close watch by some list owners for scamming us. Some Nancies are exploring the possibilities of mail fraud; however, the Commackers’ latest expedition is trying to get free tickets to concerts this year.

If you don’t have any tapes, you are considered a “newbie” and just have to usually send blanks and postage (known as B+P). Eventually, when you get enough tapes, you can start taping and/or trading for other people.

I am no longer considered a newbie because I have 13 shows, for about 35 hours worth. Newbies have normally 5 shows or less, or 20 hours or less, depending on who you talk to. I am starting to trade (only for B+P) but I have set up 2 real tape trades. The only problem is finding time to do the tapes, but if you think they are going to be late, you email the person and they usually understand.

Tape trees are different than a trade. In a tree, one person administrates the tree. They set the whole thing up. There are branches: people who are willing to tape for other people. Then there are leaves. Leaves are people who get the tapes from branches. The reason there are tape trees is because a tree increases the number of good concert tapes out there.

There is also a cost involved in taping. Right now, my main costs come from buying bubble envelopes to send the tapes, postage and the tapes themselves. There is one type of tape a taper can use: Maxell XL-II. They run from 7-9 dollars for 5 tapes. Later on, if I start trading, the price for a cassette to cassette deck is expensive, or if you start recording shows at concerts, the price is astronomical, but if you enjoy running around the country, taping is for you.

Bootlegs and tapes are two totally different things. The Dave Matthews Band endorses taping. Their official take on taping, as of 04.29.96, says this.

“Dave Matthews Band allows taping at almost every live performance. There are no soundboard feeds given, and it is therefore the responsibility of the taper to bring their own equipment. We sincerely appreciate all of our fans, including those not taping, so we ask that you please be considerate of those around you. Please do not obstruct anyone else's view of the performance.

At this time we do not sell taper tickets. [note: for the first time at a couple of venues this year, the tickets have been sold, at a reduced price. This has greatly affected all fans by giving them a chance to get decent tapes.]

Tapes should be used for personal use or trading only. Selling any recording is illegal and will jeopardize everyone else's taping privileges. Thank you for your loyalty and cooperation (http://www.dmband.com/news/news.html).”

Soundboard feeds were given until the early concerts of 1995, but now have not been allowed due to the increased number of tapers and bootleggers that have been obtaining these tapes and then burning them on CD and selling them. Taper tickets are tickets sold in a certain section especially and only for tapers of concerts.

However, a bootleg is illegal, and Dave Matthews has also spoken out against bootlegs in “A Notice to our fans about Bootleg CD's, Television and Radio Broadcasts” from DMB’s official site:

“We would like to thank those of you who have been helping us with the bootleg CD problem. For those of you who are unaware of what's been going on we would like to let you know that the Dave Matthews Band has always encouraged the taping of our performances, but only for personal use, including trading, as outlined in the Taping Policy Statement. We feel that each show is unique and want to offer our fans the opportunity to recreate the live experience through the audio reproduction of our shows. Lately, however, the proliferation of bootleg CD recordings of our concerts has become a concern to us. Bootleg CD's are not only excessively priced and of inferior quality, but primarily, they are an illegal use of Dave Matthews Band material and a rip-off of our fans and the band. Due to the efforts of a few unscrupulous tapers the privilege of recording live performances has been jeopardized. Those of you who have passed along information about bootleg CD's have been very instrumental in our fight against these bootleggers.

The latest chapter in the commercial exploitation of the band is now occurring on television and radio broadcasts. Without our knowledge or permission, our songs have been used on soap operas, sports promotions, and even as the introduction to the Rush Limbaugh show. Once again we turn to you to assist us with putting a stop to this use of our music. If you see Dave Matthews Band music being used in what you feel may be an uncomfortable situation for the band, we ask you to notify us ...Please provide the date, time, station, program name, and song used. And don't forget, the battle against bootleggers is an ongoing one. We still encourage you to email or fax us the name and locations of any retailers or distributors of bootleg CD's along with the titles and quantities in stock. With your help we can stop the flood of illegal recordings and preserve the privilege of our fans to record our performances. In return for your assistance in helping us with this information on illegal bootlegs and radio and television broadcasts we would like to give a special thanks to the first people who contact us. We will be in touch...so please include this information when you contact us... Thanks. (http://www.dmband.com/news/news.html)”

The main difference between a tape and a bootleg is that tapes are traded exclusively (Underbrink, interview) while bootlegs are sold for a profit. Lenny Kay, a performer, said this about bootlegs.

“...To me it [taping] enhances an artist because you can see creation taking place before your eyes and that’s the most exciting thing of all. Sometimes I’d much rather listen to the reach and the desire than the completed formal effort. As a record producer I enjoy being in the studio and [participating] in that moment much more than getting a copy of the finished record. It’s always somehow less...it’s gone...You gotta document it. You gotta have it preserved. So if you want to go back to it at some future date, it’s there. It’s a small price to pay for a record company losing a couple sales here and there (Heylin, 408-409).”

I found out all about this before I started asking for tapes. I didn’t want to end up getting into something illegal during my Isearch! There is a lot of red tape by the government’s laws, most saying “don’t tape”, but there are a few places where the law has a loophole which allows you to say, “You can’t tape unless the band says you can. Then it’s okay--just don’t sell the recordings. (Miller, interview)” But the tapes are completely legal according to the federal law and because of the taping statement, so I started to receive tapes.

I only wanted certain shows, like ones that have songs that aren’t available on the CD’s that aren’t available anywhere else except on concert tapes. Some of those songs include Granny, Get In Line, Little Thing, Crazy, Deed Is Done, and various cover songs such as Stairway to Heaven (originally done by Led Zeppelin), Sweet Home Alabama (originally done by Lynnard Skynnard) or the most famous of their covers, All Along The Watchtower, originally by Bob Dylan. This led to me transcribing many different versions of lyrics, new songs and songs that are the same, yet different lyrically.

The band’s first live release (their latest release Before These Crowded Streets came out in record stores April 28) was a 2 CD set entitled “Live at Red Rocks 08.15.95.” It is an EXCELLENT recording of the show that was put on. There is a 6 CD set of concerts set for release within the next 2 years. The next is tentatively titled “Live at the Floodzone- 01.28.93” and is an early show before the first album, Remember Two Things, came out, which came out the 11th of November in 1993. It has the 6th band member in it--Peter Griesar, who played keyboards and harmonicas. Some tapes I have have songs that are fillers (to give you more song per tape, because tapes don’t always fill up the whole side of the tape) with Peter Griesar in them, and he adds something to the band that is different, yet without him they are good too. There is always a debate on to what sound the band would have now had Peter not left. Peter Griesar never talks about leaving. Delancey quotes a David Wellbeloved talking about “Peter Griesar was so, so key to the development of the band. His contributions are as important as anybody’s. Peter solidified their sound in a way you can still hear in their songs.” Peter rehearsed, helped write songs, including “So Much To Say”, which was written in 1991 and won a Grammy Award in 1996, and performed about 35 songs before his exit (Delancey 104, 105, 196).

From the beginning, Red Light Communications, the managers of The Dave Matthews Band, have recognized that the Internet is where most of the fans reside. There has been a movement entitled “Proudest Monkeys” (after one of the band’s songs) that is petitioning for an official DMB fan club. There is currently no fan club which could give members chances at meeting the band backstage, ticket discounts or reduced rates, and other various things. Unfortunately, the Proudest Monkeys movement has only been on the Internet.

The Nancies newsgroup is on a server that is hosted by Red Light. There is another Usenet group that is similar to Nancies, but is not as big as Nancies.

But fans take their love to different levels. Many make webpages. Names for webpages can come from song lyrics, and often from the names of albums or songs. From “Dangerous Hours” to “Crash” to “Screaming From The Minarets” to “Dancing Nancies” to “My Shrine to the Dave Matthews Band”, fans are many on the World Wide Web.

The reason I have many Internet sites in my sources is because at each of these sites, I either found new lyrics, information, pictures or gained knowledge I didn’t have before I had visited. I am sure I missed some, but I tried to find them all. The band is acutely aware of their fan base on the Internet, and has mentioned this in various concerts or emails. Other sources of media have picked up on it too.

Rolling Stone did an article on the Dave Matthews Band in their December 12, 1996 issue entitled “The Raging Optimism and Multiple Personalities of Dave Matthews”. This article really got me interested in the DMB, and encouraged me to go and pick up a copy of Under The Table and Dreaming. It was a basic interview of Dave.

Reading it now, I notice many things that I didn’t before. In a sample of “Happy Songs” there are two that are not on one of the major RCA albums (Under the Table, Crash, L@RR 08.15.95 and Before These Crowded Streets), and are both major fan favorites: “I’ll Back You Up”, written by Dave about a girlfriend he had that he asked to marry him 3 times. Sadly they broke up, and “then he wrote the song “Halloween” (Hinson, interview)” which is on the new album. Also mentioned in the article is “One Sweet World”, which is on the band’s first release, Remember Two Things, which couldn’t be purchased in stores until this Christmas, when Red Light and Bama Rags (producers) released them to the general public. R2T and Recently were only available from Red Light directly, and the order forms are found in RCA released albums and on the Dave Matthews Band webpage (http://www.dmband.com).

Many mentions are made by the article to their fans’ love and the critics’ hate. On the first page, the article says “Music critics, for the most part, hate it [DMB’s music]. But audiences have embraced the band with a fervor that the group’s multiplatinum sales only hint at [at the end of 1997, the band has sold 7 million albums and counting (Delancey); from April 28-May 5, the first week Before These Crowded Streets was out, it sold 420,000 copies, knocking the Titanic soundtrack off of the number one seat (www.mtv.com)]. Following the group from venue to venue, compiling notes on the ever-changing set lists, making band-sanctioned bootlegs that are traded with fellow Daveheads via the Internet, the group’s fan base- mostly well scrubbed college kids and tie-dyed latter-day hippies- have appointed DMB as torchbearers for the Grateful Dead. It’s a legacy the Dave Matthews Band is living up to, thanks to the strength of its live show.... (Colapinto, p. 52)”

He speaks out about his family, which has been through many trials, including the death of his sister Anne, which the CD Under The Table and Dreaming, the first major RCA release, is dedicated to. He grew up in South Africa and became a US citizen when he was 13. He does not have a high school diploma (FAQ), yet the book Step Into the Light says that he did graduate. Nevertheless, he is successful in what he does. He worked in a bar in Charlottesville, VA called Miller’s, and that’s where he met the rest of the band: Leroi Moore, reedman; Carter Beauford “on the drums (Davespeak, 12.31.96)!!!”; Stefan Lessard, bass; Boyd Tinsley, violinist, and Dave Matthews: acoustic guitar and vocals. These 5 members of the DMB are also joined on all studio produced albums by Tim Reynolds, an amazing electric guitar player (Athayde, FAQ). When the band isn’t touring, Dave and Tim do tours across the US. Dave and Stefan are the only “white guys” in the Dave Matthews Band.

There are so many different ways to explain the Dave Matthews Band. Some include: “The BEST band in the universe (Campbell, personal interview)” to describing them by saying, “The Dave Matthews Band draws on the widely varied interests of five musicians to create a uniquely compelling pop sound that combines the influences of folk, jazz, rock, world beat and reggae (FAQ).” The FAQ also lists classical as a main influence later on.

Dave himself has spoken out about his music. He says (as chief songwriter), “Our music is written to be clean and simple. It’s pop music with a pretty positive message. I hope it’s accessible to everyone (Athayde, FAQ).”

Leroi Moore, reedman for the band, says, “We take a lot of different influences and make something new out of them by playing each song the best that we play it (Athayde, FAQ).”

Rolling Stone’s article made you feel like you could understand the man behind the music. Toward the end of the article, he talks about writing songs. He says about a certain song, #41 (Matthews admits he isn’t any good at writing songs, so if he can’t think of a name it has a number that corresponds to the time it was written--#36 is the 36th song he wrote, #41- the 41st, etc.), “I was thinking about where I come from, and why I wrote songs and what was my inspiration... and how I was now in this situation where those things that I’d done, I so loved, had now suddenly become a source of incredible pain for me. Suddenly there’s all this money and people pulling, asking, ‘Where’s mine?’ The wild dogs come out. The innocence of just wanting to make music was kinda overshadowed by the dark things that come along with money and success...So it’s a song about looking back, but at the same time, a song that’s still adamantly looking forward and going, ‘But I’m still going to carry on, regardless.’ ” (Flume, Internet) (Colapinto, p. 57)

Lyric writing is definitely one of the hardest things I have ever done. I wrote a song for one of my friends for his birthday, and haven’t yet set the music for it. I spent 4 hours--and it’s just a short song! I had to find out if it sounded even remotely to what I wanted, and it didn’t rhyme--all the time. I tried to have a rhythm to it, and the meter ended up better than I expected. But the true part comes with the meanings and sounds that it makes. The song without music is like a song in itself...that’s how I knew when I should stop. When it sounded complete.

The beauty of Dave Matthews and the band is that whichever mood you’re in, there’s a song to fit it. All of his songs are expressive, whether it’s the music or the lyrics. I just hope that when I start writing more lyrics, I can make them sound like Dave does. He is a great songwriter, and one day I hope to be able to meet him and say so.

This project has made me realize that being a fan involved is very time consuming, but definitely worth its while. As long as there are more shows and more songs, I’ll be listening. I am even attending a concert May 27 at Sandstone Amphitheater, my first. I hope someone will tape it, because “that’s the best way to remember your first concert (Miller, interview).” This quote I use to end sums my thoughts up about Dave Matthews, his band and their music.

“One good thing about music is that you feel no pain. So hit me with music...hit me with music...” -Bob Marley