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| The Family Dog on The Great Highway, at 660 Great Highway, ca. 1969 |
The Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA
The
Family Dog was a foundation stone in the rise of San Francisco rock,
and it was in operation in various forms from Fall 1965 through the
Summer of 1970. For sound historical reasons, most of the focus on the
Family Dog has been on the original 4-person collective who organized
the first San Francisco Dance Concerts in late 1965, and on their
successor Chet Helms. Helms took over the Family Dog in early 1966, and
after a brief partnership with Bill Graham at the Fillmore, promoted
memorable concerts at the Avalon Ballroom from Spring 1966 through
December 1968. The posters, music and foggy memories of the Avalon are
what made the Family Dog a legendary 60s rock icon.
In the Summer of 1969, however, with San Francisco as one of the fulcrums of the rock music explosion, Chet Helms opened another venue. The Family Dog on The Great Highway, at 660 Great Highway, on the Western edge of San Francisco, was only open for 14 months and was not a success. Yet numerous interesting bands played there, and remarkable events took place, and they are only documented in a scattered form. This series of posts will undertake a systematic review of every musical event at the Family Dog on The Great Highway. In general, each post will represent a week of musical events at the venue, although that may vary slightly depending on the bookings.
If anyone has memories, reflections, insights, corrections or flashbacks about shows at the Family Dog on the Great Highway, please post them in the Comments.
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| 660 Great Highway in San Francisco in 1967, when it was the ModelCar Raceway, a slot car track |
The Edgewater Ballroom, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA
As early as 1913, there were rides and concessions at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, near the Richmond District. By 1926, they had been consolidated as Playland-At-The-Beach. The Ocean Beach area included attractions such as the Sutro Baths and the Cliff House. The San Francisco Zoo was just south of Playland, having opened in the 1930s. One of the attractions at Playland was a restaurant called Topsy's Roost. The restaurant had closed in 1930, and the room became the Edgewater Ballroom. The Ballroom eventually closed, and Playland went into decline when its owner died in 1958. By the 1960s, the former Edgewater was a slot car raceway. In early 1969, Chet Helms took over the lease of the old Edgewater.
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| One
of the only photos of the interior of the Family Dog on The Great
Highway (from a Stephen Gaskin "Monday Night Class" ca. October 1969) |
The Family Dog On The Great Highway
The Great Highway was a four-lane road that ran along the Western edge of San Francisco, right next to Ocean Beach. Downtown San Francisco faced the Bay, but beyond Golden Gate Park was the Pacific Ocean. The aptly named Ocean Beach is dramatic and beautiful, but it is mostly windy and foggy. Much of the West Coast of San Francisco is not even a beach, but rocky cliffs. There are no roads in San Francisco West of the Great Highway, so "660 Great Highway" was ample for directions (for reference, it is near the intersection of Balboa Street and 48th Avenue). The tag-line "Edge Of The Western World" was not an exaggeration, at least in American terms.
The Family Dog on The Great Highway was smaller than the Bill Graham's old Fillmore Auditorium. It could hold up to 1500, but the official capacity was probably closer to 1000. Unlike the comparatively centrally located Fillmore West, the FDGH was far from downtown, far from the Peninsula suburbs, and not particularly easy to get to from the freeway. For East Bay or Marin residents, the Great Highway was a formidable trip. The little ballroom was very appealing, but if you didn't live way out in the Avenues, you had to drive. As a result, FDGH didn't get a huge number of casual drop-ins, and that didn't help its fortunes. Most of the locals referred to the venue as "Playland."
- For a complete list of Family Dog shows (including FDGH), see here
- For the previous entry (August 1, 1969 Light Show Strike) see here
- For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here
- For a detailed discussion of the Grateful Dead concert at Family Dog on August 3, 1969 see here
The Grateful Dead had been booked to headline three weekend nights at the beginning of August. On Friday night, however, the newly-formed Light Show Guild had held a protest outside of the Family Dog--somewhat accommodated by a frustrated Chet Helms. Jerry Garcia had refused to cross the picket line, and while the night ended with a jam session, it was a financial bust for the Dog. It was also a bust for the Light Show Guild. However unfair the music industry was to those who were not stars--and it was unfair--no one really cared about Light Shows or the people who worked for them. Little was ever heard again from the Light Show Guild, and Light Shows would fade away by the end of 1971.
Meanwhile, the Grateful Dead returned to headline Saturday and Sunday nights at the Family Dog. In the peculiar manner of retrospective Grateful Dead history, most Deadheads would say that the two shows are "fairly well-known." What this means is that the Grateful Dead tapes were well-preserved for both nights, and the recordings are easily accessible on the web. Fine as that is, pretty much nothing else is known about the shows. Were they crowded? How were the opening acts received? Was there any aftermath from the Light Show strike? We actually have no eyewitness accounts, and no reviews that I am aware of. It is a peculiarity of Grateful Dead scholarship that shows may be very familiar musically, from tapes, without the slightest idea of the scene on the ground. The Grateful Dead went all the way back to 1966 with Chet Helms, and their debut for him had been spoiled by a strike. Yet we basically know nothing about these shows.
Ballet Afro-Haiti, for example, is completely unknown to me. Now, granted, I know nothing about dance, so that's not surprising. Still, who were they? They opened an Airplane show at Fillmore West in October 1968, so they must have had some connection to the scene. It is a marker of what a giant blank we have about the Family Dog that we can discern nothing. I will note that there seems to be a subtext that the Family Dog regularly featured dance troupes of different types, an indication of an effort to have a broader artistic sensibility beyond music.
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| San Francisco Chronicle August 1, 1969 |
Albert "The Iceman" Collins
The opening act, Texas guitarist Albert "The Iceman" Collins had been recording since the 1950s, even if white rock fans were only just beginning to discover him. In 1964, he had a hit with the song "Frosty,"
and he became somewhat well-known. In 1968, the band Canned Heat was
playing in Houston and attended one of his shows. The Heat offered to
get Collins a record deal and live work, and he accepted. Collins signed
with Imperial Records, moved to Palo Alto, CA (of all places) in
November '68. Collins' first Imperial album was Love Can Be Found Anywhere. By 1969, Collins was a regular at rock venues throughout the West Coast. According to the Chronicle clipping above, Collins lived in Los Angeles by this time.
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| The 1965 album The Cool Sound of Albert Collins, on TCF Hall Records, was re-released by Blue Thumb in 1969 as Truckin' With Albert Collins |
As part of some research into Big Brother history, Peter Albin mentioned
that he had backed Collins for a week at
The Matrix and then a weekend at the Family Dog. Remarkably, the band
was Albin (presumably on guitar), Big Brother drummer Dave Getz, guitarist David
Nelson, and most surprisingly, bassist Dave Torbert. Torbert had been in the New Delhi River Band with Nelson for almost two years (1966-68).
Bookings advertised at The Matrix for the prior week were:
Wednesday July 22 -Lonnie Mack/Marvin Gardens (probably Tues-Thurs July 21-23)Saturday July 25-Southern Comfort/Dementia (theater troupe) (probably Sat July 24 as well)Wednesday July 29-Linn County /Terry Dolan (probably Thurs Jul 30 as well)
More interestingly, Nelson seems to have sat in with the Dead on both Saturday (August 2) and Sunday (August 3). At least it sure sounds like Nelson and his distinctive "B-Bender" (ok, actually a Dave Evand Pull-String) on "Mama Tried" both nights. It makes a lot more sense if Nelson was already at the show, with his guitar and amp. Of course, there is a small chance that Albin is referring to the time Albert Collins headlined the Family Dog in April 1970 (April 10-12), but those dates don't line up particularly well.
Grateful Dead: August 2, 1969
We have only one eyewitness account of the Grateful Dead show at the Family Dog on Saturday night, but we do have a board tape. Berkeley Tribe staff writer Art Johnson (in the August 8 Tribe) said:
Saturday night on the Great Highway was one of the best gigs since opening night, when the Airplane played. With the strike over, the Dead, Albert Collins and the far out Ballet Afro-Haiti played to a full house. The scene there gave off comfortable vibes
There is an 87-minute board tape of the Dead, a pretty good one. It gives us a typical slotted view of a 60s Dead concert. The odds are that the tape is the complete show, but it's important to recall that we don't actually know that. We also don't know how long Ballet Afro-Haiti performed, or much about Albert Collins' performance.
One thing to consider is that there were two stages at the Family Dog, one at either end of the hall. At least some of the time, both stages would be in use on a given night. Most of what we know about the use of stages is reflective--people recalling that there were two stages--with no detailed evidence about how the stages might have been used on a given evening. Nonetheless, it does seem plausible that the difficulties of staging a dance troupe with rock bands could be simplified if the dance troupe had a separate stage from the one with all the amplifiers.
The 87-minute tape of the Grateful Dead's August 2, 1969 Family Dog performance can be heard here. Here's the setlist:
Casey Jones, Hard To Handle, Mama Tried, High Time, Silver Threads And Golden Needles, Slewfoot, King Bee, Cryptical Envelopment> Drums> The Other One> Cryptical Envelopment> Turn On Your LovelightGrateful Dead: August 3, 1969
Similarly, for the Sunday night show, we have no eyewitness accounts, but a tape of the Grateful Dead performance. We also have an intriguing twist. The Grateful Dead are joined by an electric violinist and a tenor sax player for several numbers, and they perform as part of the ensemble. Who were the musicians? We have no idea.
If you look on Grateful Dead archive sites, you will see the guests listed as Charles Lloyd and David LaFlamme. These assertions have no basis in fact. In another lengthy post, I detailed how any time in the 60s that there was a guest flute or saxophone player on a tape with the Dead, Charles Lloyd was always listed. Lloyd was friendly with the band, and sat in with them a few times in 1967, but on numerous other occasions it wasn't him at all. Yet early tape collectors, having little information, simply assumed it was Lloyd, and wrote it on their tape boxes. It has been difficult to dislodge these assertions ever since. As for LaFlamme--another band friend--not only does the playing not sound like him, LaFlamme himself has denied it.
I wrote a lengthy post on the subject of who the guests might have been on August 3. The Comment Thread is even longer. We can't come to any conclusion The essential problem was that the Family Dog was not near downtown or on the way to anything, so musicians would not be dropping by casually. Furthermore, by 1969, the Dead were only going to allow musicians on stage that the band knew could stay with them, not just Some Dude who might show up with a saxophone. I raise up and shoot down a variety of possible candidates, and the Comment Thread goes even further.
It is an irony that Charles Lloyd was originally booked for the weekend, but since Lloyd lived in Los Angeles at the time, I find the idea of him "dropping by" even less likely if his booking was canceled. At this time, my best guesses--always subject to change--is that the saxophonist was former Quicksilver roadie Stephen Schuster (who told David Gans "it was the 60s--of course I don't remember") and the electric violinist was Texan Spencer Perskin (no known comment from him). But even those guesses are tenuous.
Check out the 104-minute tape yourself--guest players are marked with an asterisk here, guesses welcome (read my other post to debunk the obvious ones, however)Hard To Handle, Beat It On Down The Line, Hi Heeled Sneakers, High Time, Mama Tried, Dark Star*> Alligator*> Drums*> The Other One*> Caution (Do Not Stop On Tracks)*> And We Bid You Goodnight* 104 min
For the next entry in the series (August 8-10 '69, Country Joe and The Fish) see here
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