The Latvala Files: Hangin' Out in the Vault

"Did I really hear what I thought I heard?"

Listening to "The Latvala Files" is a little like sitting on a stool at a grungy bar in a strange city you're just passing through, while the locals tell a story to each other. Sure, they're friendly enough and include you in the conversation, but they're not really talking to you. They're talking to each other. That's what I get when I listen to this piece. Just like you can't stop the barstool storyteller to fill in with enough backstory, it's really hard for those of us who have not educated ourselves in the lore of the Grateful Dead to follow what's going on here. We know about Jerry, we know there were lots of drugs, and that everybody seemed to have a good time, whether they remember it or not. But that's about where the knowledge of the Dead stops with we layfolk.

Dick Latvala, from what I gather, was a man whose life was devoted to attending Dead concerts and recording them for posterity--perhaps the John Lomax of the Jam Bands, doing anthropological field recordings of legendary concerts. It might have been good to have included more music from the concerts to give it a little more first-hand appeal; as it is, there are a few "you shoulda been there when..." moments in this piece. However, Latvala says something interesting about his original motivation for recording: "I was recording to see if I really heard what I thought I heard." Of course, since this was a Grateful Dead concert after all, we know that one's senses were probably not to be trusted. However, I think that is a good motivation for sound preservation in general. In that respect, Latvala is no different from any of us who work in the sound recording media.