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| The Berkeley Barb of October 23, 1970 lists Patrick Simmons playing at the Shelter Inn at Miramar Beach in Half Moon Bay. Simmons had probably just joined the Doobie Brothers at this time. |
Recently I have been focusing my research on rock shows in the Bay Area in the early 1970s, focusing particularly on the lower tiers. With patience, I have done good research on the Matrix, the Keystone Berkeley, the Long Branch and a few other clubs. Yet I consistently come across tantalizing details of other venues, different untold stories and an insight into the unexplained. Without further information, I am often stuck with just the hint, not anything like the actual story.
My research method focuses on finding dates and venues where bands have performed, and constructing a narrative based on available sources. It sounds simple, but it reaps many benefits. Rather than assume what the motives and goals of different bands or promoters might be, I can let the evidence of actual performances tell me what is desired and what has resulted. The limits of this method, ultimately, are constrained by the limits of my available sources. From the 1960s and '70s, we don't always have that much evidence, so it can be hard to figure out the story. Not all old sources have been digitized, and in many cases a lot of shows were not advertised in any paper. If no local flyers were preserved, or there aren't other sources we can be left with very little.
Lost Horizons, 1970
The Lost Horizons posts are a series of posts that I can't complete. In
some cases I wish someone else would write the post, in other cases I'm
hoping someone else has already written it, and in some others I am
hoping for more information so I can try and take them on. There's no
real connection between any of these topics, save for the device that
there was a live performance in 1970 that intrigued my interest. My
blogs have an explicitly rock and roll orientation, but my
methodological approach veers off in different directions. Fernand Braudel, Reynar Banham, Marcy (emptywheel) Wheeler--it's
still rock and
roll to me. I'm hoping that the magic of the Internet and eternal
Comment Threads will yield up information hitherto unknown to me. If you
have any insights, corrections or entertaining speculation, please
Comment.
The Berkeley Barb
The Berkeley Barb had been founded by Max Scherr in 1965. The weekly paper made a point of documenting the local counterculture. The readership was distinct from anyone subscribing to the local daily papers (the San Fransisco Chronicle or Examiner, the Oakland Tribune or the Berkeley Gazette). The Barb reported on protests, pot busts, sexual freedom and local rock shows. The ads were for organic foods, head shops or local crafts. The Barb was an alternative paper for an alternative audience. It was sold by hippies to other hippies for a dime or a quarter. I don't know if the Berkeley Barb was the first such "underground" paper, but it was one of them, and it was a model for such papers all over the country.
By 1970, the Barb was being read well beyond Berkeley. I don't know the exact details, but I believe that even outside of Berkeley the paper was available in Head Shops, espresso joints and other hip places throughout the Bay Area. At the back of every issue of the Barb was "Scenedrome," a summary of upcoming and ongoing events in the next week that might be of interest to its readers. While that would always include shows at Fillmore West, for example, it also included performers at Telegraph Avenue coffee shops, foreign movies, political meetings, self-help groups and all sorts of other gatherings. Getting listed in Scenedrome any week was free--someone just had to call the Barb by Tuesday at noon. So for hippie events that were on a shoestring, or just free, calling the Scenedrome was the cheapest way to get publicity.
While Berkeley events had always been posted in Scenedrome every week since 1965, by 1970 it was plain that the rest of the Bay Area was paying attention as well. The Friday and Saturday listings in Scenedrome went well beyond Berkeley, a clear indicator that the Barb had a broader readership beyond central Berkeley. So we get tantalizing hints of what was going on around the Bay Area, without really knowing exactly what it might have been. Most of my notices below come from little more than the barest of listings in the appropriate issue of the Berkeley Barb, with occasional supplements from other sources.
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| The Ocean Beach Motel, at 131 Mirada Road in Half Moon Bay. This infamous roadhouse was probably the site of the The Shelter Inn in 1970 |
October 23, 1970 Shelter Inn, Miramar Beach, Half Moon Bay, CA: Patrick Simmons (Friday)
October 25, 1970 Shelter Inn, Miramar Beach, Half Moon Bay, CA: Bill Middlejohn (Sunday)
October 28, 1970 Shelter Inn, Miramar Beach, Half Moon Bay, CA: Patrick Simmons (Wednesday)
October 30, 1970 Shelter Inn, Miramar Beach, Half Moon Bay, Patrick Simmons (Friday)
October 31, 1970 Shelter Inn, Miramar Beach, Half Moon Bay, CA Paul Ziegler and Bill Andrus (Saturday)
November 1, 1970 Shelter Inn, Miramar Beach, Half Moon Bay, CA: Bill Middlejohn (Sunday)
November 4, 1970 Shelter Inn, Miramar Beach, Half Moon Bay, CA Patrick Simmons (Wednesday)
For a few weeks during October 1970, the Barb regularly listed shows at some place called the Shelter Inn. The only address listed was "Miramar Beach." Now, Miramar Beach is in Half Moon Bay, and even now the direction "Miramar Beach" would be sufficient. Back then, it definitely would have been all you needed. I'm not certain what building the Shelter Inn was in. I hope it was the former Ocean Beach Hotel (pictured above, at 131 Mirada Road). In any case, it was some old roadhouse. It turns out that something may really have been going on in Half Moon Bay during the 1960s.
Half Moon Bay, on a rocky coastline 25 miles south of San Francisco, had a lengthy history for a California city. There was settlement as early as the 1840s, and it was San Mateo County's first real town. Half Moon Bay, however, was on the opposite side of the Santa Cruz Mountains from the San Francisco Bay, so it was the Peninsula side of the county that was connected to the Southern Pacific Railroad. There wasn't even a good road over the mountain until 1914. Half Moon Bay's isolation, however, made it an excellent harbor for Rum Runners during Prohibition. So Half Moon Bay had a rowdy tradition, near to San Francisco but a world away.
The Ocean Beach Hotel, right on Miramar Beach, was run by one Maymie Cowley from 1918 until 1955. It was a haven for rum-runners, as well as a speakeasy and a bordello. Ms. Cowley was apparently notorious for getting into knife fights at other bars, so you can only imagine what a tough joint she ran. Although the town of Half Moon Bay was finally incorporated in 1959, like many beach communities it had a streak of--shall we say--non-conformity. There seem to have been plenty of hippies around in the late 1960s. Would I be surprised to find out that boats landed at Half Moon Bay during the 60s with other sorts of contraband? You decide.
As far as 60s music went, I only know of one rock band from Half Moon Bay. Petrus featured Jorma's brother Peter Kaukonen on guitar and singer/songwriter Ruthann Friedmann (she wrote "Windy" for the Association). Nosing around, there seems to have been one bar/coffee shop that presented music, called The Spouter. The Spouter then changed its name to The Shelter Inn. When I have read about the Spouter/Shelter, all of the locals don't identify the building since everyone knew it. That's why I think it was familiar, established building like the Ocean Beach Hotel.
As for October 1970, the venue had just changed its name to the Shelter Inn,
and was probably putting notices in the Barb to let Coastside hippies know there
was music going on. There wasn't even a hippie rock club on the
Peninsula side of San Mateo County, so there would have been no competition at all on the empty coast. The bookings were fairly repetitive for a
few weeks, with the same names playing residencies each night. But the
names turn out not to have been quite nobody.
Bill Middlejohn, who held down Sunday nights, wasn't a major local music figure. Still, he was a guitarist in various Bay Area bands throughout the 1970s. He would end up in a band with Keith and Donna Godchaux in 1979, right before Keith's tragic death. A Half Moon Bay nostalgia site remembers his playing well.
Patrick Simmons, who held down both Wednesday and Friday nights at the Shelter Inn, went on to massive world-wide success. Right around October 1970, Simmons would join a San Jose rock trio to form the Doobie Brothers. Simmons would remain the only constant in the Doobie Brothers for the next 50 years--he's still leading the band--and sell literally millions of albums, selling out thousands of concerts along the way. The timeline is hard to discern, but by October '70 Simmons was probably already hanging out with the future Doobies. They may have started playing their earliest gigs, at Ricardo's Pizza in San Jose (at 218 Willow Glen) and the Chateau Liberte as well.
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| This building on Big Basin Way in Saratoga housed the Brass Knocker folk club (photo taken in 2010, the address is next door to 14523 Big Basin Way) |
On Saturday, October 31, the bill was Paul Ziegler and Bill Andrus. Ziegler and Billy Dean Andrus had been the two guitarists in the San Jose band Weird Herald. Before that, In the mid-60s, Ziegler had been the Master Of Ceremonies and main performer at a coffee house called the Brass Knocker in Saratoga, just above San Jose. It was Ziegler, in fact, who had given a teenage Pat Simmons his first chance on stage, at the Brass Knocker back in '66. Whatever issues there may have been between Ziegler and Andrus--Weird Herald had fired Andrus during 1970--, Billy Dean was back playing with Paul. Billy Dean Andrus, a huge talent, was just as striking playing as a solo acoustic guitarist as he was playing sizzling electric leads. Whatever, their pasts, Paul and Billy Dean were back together at least one time.
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| Billy Dean Andrus ca 1969 |
The SF Examiner of November 6 reported on the funeral of Billy Dean Andrus, who had died on Monday, November 2. On the night before, the band Mountain Current had played a biker party at the Chateau Liberte. Mountain Current leader Matthew Kelly, later in Kingfish, told me the story. A big blow-out was planned--Kelly's regular drummer (Chris Herold) had a bad feeling and refused to play. Kelly got someone else, but the drummer was right. The party went on all night, with the bikers both encouraging everybody with infinite amounts of crank and discouraging everybody from leaving. Eventually, in the morning, the party died out. Kelly described leaving the event worn to a crisp from too much speed. Billy Dean Andrus, apparently, tried to mellow out with some pretty hard drugs, and overdosed. His friends and family were devastated.
Billy Dean's old pal, Jorma Kaukonen, wrote a song called "Ode To Billy Dean," and Hot Tuna was playing it within a week. They are still playing it today. At least Paul and Billy Dean had played one last gig at the Shelter Inn in Half Moon Bay, the last whiff of the Brass Knocker and Weird Herald, before Billy Dean traveled on. Pat Simmons had one more Sunday night at the Shelter Inn, too, but then he traveled onwards, too, but upwards from Ricardo's Pizza all the way to headlining the Oakland Coliseum Stadium.
The Shelter Inn changed identities again, to the Miramar Beach Inn. They also "went electric," apparently, although it was probably the same musicians plugged in. But--something was happening at Miramar Beach in the Fall of 1970, and everyone has forgotten or just won't say.
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| The November 6, 1970 SF Examiner reported on Billy Dean Andrus' funeral. He was buried in Soquel. |
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