October 3-5, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Kaleidoscope/Clover/Charlie Musselwhite [FDGH '69 XXII]

 

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.

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.

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 (September 15-26, 1969) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

By October of 1969, the Family Dog on The Great Highway appears to have been surviving week to week. While they had begun in June with regular weekend bookings featuring headline acts, with albums and status, the ranking of the performers had declined. While the Family Dog was a nexus for interesting creative types, the lack of money meant that working bands only played the Dog as a last resort. For much of September, the venue had been more like a community center, with different artistic groups using it for their own events. The community focus was admirable, but financially unsustainable.

September 30, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen/Clover/Deluxe/Flying Circus Tom Mix Memorial Ball presented by the 13th Tribe (Tuesday)
On Tuesday, the Family Dog presented "The Tom Mix Memorial Ball," which was promoted as a country and western show. The 13th Tribe were a local organization that I recognize from contemporary posters, but I don't know anything about them. Based on their name, they sound like some sort of commune that promoted local rock events, but that is just my own speculation.

Today we think of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen as an established Bay Area band, and of course they would go on to release several albums on a variety of labels. In September of 1969, however, the band was newly-arrived in Berkeley from Ann Arbor, MI. The band's knowing mixture of honky-tonk country, Western Swing and songs about weed would find a comfortable home in the Bay Area, but their first album was still two years in the future. The Airmen, in fact, had played the Family Dog at least three times already in August, including opening for the Grateful Dead, but they had hardly played anywhere else save for weeknights at a tiny Berkeley club on University and San Pablo called Mandrake's. 

Clover's debut album was released on Fantasy Records in 1970

Clover and Flying Circus were Mill Valley bands, sharing a rehearsal hall and equipment. Clover, a country rock quartet with an R&B edge, would get signed by Fantasy Records, and would release their debut album on Fantasy Records in 1970. Clover had a complicated, up-and-down career, releasing four excellent but hardly-noticed albums. Fortunately, however, they were noticed by Nick Lowe, so they ended up backing Elvis Costello on My Aim Is True. Lead (and pedal steel) guitarist John McFee would end up in the Doobie Brothers--he's still in the band--and the various members of Clover mostly went on to musical successes in the later 70s. But in the late 60s, they were just a struggling quartet, with McFee on lead and pedal steel, Alex Call on vocals and guitar, John Ciambotti on bass and Mitch Howie on drums.

Flying Circus had existed in some form since 1966, and had released a few singles, but they had undergone numerous personnel changes. By '69, Flying Circus' lead guitarist was Bob McFee, brother of John. Flying Circus developed a following around the North Bay, but they never got as far even as Clover. Still, by all accounts they were a pretty good band.

Deluxe is unknown to me.

October 1, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Maximum Speed Limit/Alligator/Old Davis/Straight Phunk (Wednesday)
Wednesday was listed as "New Band Night." The Fillmore West had a similar long-running program on Tuesday nights. Maximum Speed Limit was a Berkeley band, but I don't know anything else about them. Alligator is unknown to me, as is Straight Phunk. Old Davis was a Redwood City band. By 1970, teenage San Mateo guitarist Neal Schon was a member of Old Davis, but I don't think he was in the group yet.

October 3-5, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Kaleidoscope/Charlie Musselwhite/Congress Of Wonders (Friday-Sunday)
After some clearly sub-par weeks, the Family Dog had some relatively established draws on the first weekend of October. All three bands were not only established Avalon acts, they had played the Family Dog on The Great Highway before as well. Headliners Kaleidoscope had played back in June, Charlie Musselwhite had played in July, and Congress of Wonders had played in June, July and August.

The Kaleidoscope were from Los Angeles, and they were decades ahead of their time. They had pretty much invented World Music, and pretty much no one was ready for it. In June 1969, the band had released their third album on Epic, Incredible! Kaleidoscope. It lived up to its name. While the band was still fronted by guitarist/multi-instrumentalist David Lindley, multi-instrumentalist Solomon Feldthouse and organist/multi-instrumentalist Chester Crill, they had a new rhythm section. Paul Lagos was the drummer and Stuart Brotman played bass. Anyone who ever got to see the band live was lucky.

The Avalon had had a reputation for finding cool bands before anyone else. If Helms had booked a band at the Avalon, and they got good notices, Bill Graham wasn't far behind, offering them more money and a higher profile. Kaleidoscope had played the Avalon various times since early '67, and while they were too far ahead of their time for most listeners, other musicians just about lost their minds. When Kaleidoscope had played the Avalon on May 24-26, 1968 (booked between the Youngbloods and the Hour Glass, with Duane and Gregg Allman), for example, the Yardbirds were booked at the Fillmore West the same weekend. Jimmy Page has told the story of taking time out between sets to walk the 12 blocks over to the Avalon just to catch the Kaleidoscope, and then walking the 12 blocks back to play his late night set with the Yardbirds.

Charlie Musselwhite had been born in Mississippi and moved to Memphis, and then ultimately to Chicago.  He was one of a small number of white musicians in Chicago (including Nick Gravenites, Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop and a few others) who had stumbled onto the blues scene by themselves.  A Chicago club regular, Musselwhite eventually recorded an album for Vanguard in 1967 called Stand Back, which started to receive airplay on San Francisco’s new underground FM station, KMPX-fm. Friendly with the Chicago crowd who had moved to San Francisco, his band was offered a month of work in San Francisco in mid-1967, so Musselwhite took a month’s leave from his Chicago day job and stayed for a couple of decades.

Musselwhite had released his second album on Vanguard, Stone Blues, in 1968. Sometime in 1969, Vanguard released Tennessee Woman. Musselwhite was a regular on the Bay Area club scene, and had played the Fillmore and Avalon as well. In Chicago, Musselwhite had been just one of many fine blues acts, but in the Bay Area he stood out. Musselwhite had been a regular at the Avalon Ballroom, but he had never graduated to the Fillmore or Fillmore West. He was excellent live, but a Musselwhite show was still not going to be a must-see event for local rock fans.

Congress of Wonders were a comedy trio from Berkeley, initially from the UC Berkeley drama department and later part of Berkeley’s Open Theater on College Avenue, a prime spot for what were called “Happenings” (now ‘Performance Art’).  The group had performed at the Avalon and other rock venues.

Ultimately a duo, Karl Truckload (Howard Kerr) and Winslow Thrill (Richard Rollins) created two Congress of Wonders albums on Fantasy Records (Revolting and Sophomoric). Their pieces “Pigeon Park” and “Star Trip”, although charmingly dated now, were staples of San Francisco underground radio at the time ("Pigeon Park" is from their 1970 debut album Revolting). The duo was one of a number of comedy troupes to take advantage of the recording studio, overdubbing voices and sound effects in stereo, to enhance the comedy.

What Happened?
We actually know a little bit about this weekend. In an interview with music scholar Jake Feinberg, David Lindley described sitting upstairs at the Family Dog and listening to Charlie Musselwhite's band. Lindley and his fellow band members thought that Musselwhite had an innovative saxophonist, somewhat out of character. They went down to the stage to discover that Musselwhite's band featured the unique steel guitarist Freddie Roulette. Roulette (b. 1939) was from New Orleans, but had moved to Evanston, IL (a Chicago suburb, and had learned to jam the blues on a lap steel guitar. Lindley was completely fascinated with Roulette's approach to the instrument. Roulette had played with blues guitarist Earl Hooker since 1965, and he would move to San Francisco to play with Musselwhite. Roulette had played on the Tennessee Woman album. Lindley's innovative steel guitar playing with Jackson Browne and others is world famous, and it seems that Roulette was a foundational building block for him.

While just a fragmentary memory, Lindley's recollection is actually more than we usually hear about Family Dog on The Great Highway shows.

For the next post in this series (October 7-16, 1969, various bands), see here

 

September 15-26, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA [FDGH '69 XXI]

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.

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.

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 (September 12-14, 1969 It's A Beautiful Day) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

SF Good Times ad for The Family Dog on The Great Highway from September 18, 1969

The Family Dog on The Great Highway had been teetering on the edge of solvency since it had opened in June, 1969. In the second half of September, all the signs pointed to falling off the cliff. The Dog had usually managed to find a steady supply of old Avalon stalwarts to headline each weekend, but even those bands had stopped playing the venue. Publicity for the Dog was almost non-existent. There was a weekly ad in the San Francisco Good Times, an underground paper, but that is just about our only source of information about performances at the Family Dog during this period. Writers in the local mainstream and underground papers stopped writing about any events there. Very few events were even in the listings of the papers, too, meaning the Dog staff--if there was one--wasn't even doing the basic work of issuing press releases and phoning newspapers.

At this point, the Family Dog on The Great Highway was more like a Community Center. Various local groups used the venues to put on shows of various kinds. Sometimes the shows were probably pretty interesting, but there wasn't anything coherent about the bookings. It's true that the ethos of the Family Dog, represented by the Tuesday group meeting of "The Commons," favored a sort of Community Center. The problem was that such a model wasn't sustainable without some profitable bookings. The last two weeks of September are a random--if interesting--catalog of different hippie cultures in San Francisco at the time.

Stephen Gaskin's 1980 book, Amazing Dope Tales and Haight Ashbury Flashbacks

September 15, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Monday Night class
Popular San Francisco State College professor Stephen Gaskin held his "Monday Night Class" regularly. It's not clear whether this was every Monday night, or only some Monday nights. SF State was just down the road a bit, at 19th Avenue and Holloway. Gaskin (1935-2014), a Literature instructor, talked on Monday Nights about what we would now call "Consciousness Expansion" or "Human Potential," but at the time he was called a "Hip Guru." This isn't my topic, but I will say that Gaskin was not a hustler or a charlatan, whatever you think of Self-Help.  

Gaskin's Monday class was free, and apparently he regularly filled the Family Dog. The picture of the Dog interior at the top of the post was taken at a Gaskin lecture, for example. Still, while apparently Gaskin took some donations to cover his own expenses, in itself the class wasn't a profit-maker, and apparently the Family Dog must not have been able to convert Gaskin's "students" into weekend customers.

September 16, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: In Search of America (Tuesday)
I have no idea what "In Search Of America" might have been.

September 17, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Film and Light Spectacular (Wednesday)
The Light Show operators were trying to make their Art into a viable economic commodity. Since we have no eyewitnesses, we can only guess about this event. Presumably there were old silent movies, or nature films, or something, and probably records, and the light shows performed to those. This had been tried a few weeks before at the Dog, but apparently with only minimal success.

About a decade later, Planetarium-type light shows, like "Laserium" became popular, doing laser light shows to Pink Floyd records and the like, so the idea wasn't as far-fetched as it sounds.

September 18, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Richmond Symphony (Thursday)
The Richmond District was the San Francisco neighborhood just to the East of the Family Dog, running all the way along Golden Gate Park. The Richmond Symphony was likely some sort of neighborhood orchestra, although it could just as well have been a jazz ensemble or something. "Richmond Symphony" is hard to Google, so any insight is welcome in the Comments.

Doug McKechnie and his Moog Synthesizer, ca 1968

September 19-21, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Circus Of The Absurd Costume Ball: Carlos Carvajal/Moog Synthesizer of the SF Radical Laboratories/Shag/Devil's Kitchen (Friday-Sunday)
What was this event? Carlos Carvajal was ballet master and associate choreographer for the San Francisco Ballet at the time. In Spring 1970, Carvajal put on a dance performance that was very well-reviewed by staff critic Robert Commanday, and also got Carvajal fired. He went on to become an important figure in modern dance. The ad says that his presentation includes performers from the San Francisco Ballet and Opera.

As for the Doug McKechnie's SF Radical Laboratories, people were only just becoming aware of Moog Synthesizers. Walter Carlos had released his popular Switched On Bach album, and George Harrison had released Electronic Sounds. It's safe to say that almost no one had heard a live performance with a Moog Synthesizer.

Doug McKechnie's history was unique in so many ways. Around about 1968, McKechnie had lived in a warehouse type building on 759 Harrison (between 3rd and 4th Streets-for reference, 759 Harrison is now across from Whole Foods). Avalon Ballroom soundman and partner Bob Cohen lived in the building, and Blue Cheer (and Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks) practiced upstairs. One day, McKechnie's roommate Bruce Hatch acquired a Moog Synthesizer, and the instrument arrived in boxes, awaiting assembly. At the time, a synthesizer was like a musical unicorn, only slightly more real than a myth. Hatch had the technical ability to assemble the machinery, but he was basically tone-deaf. So McKechnie focused on actually making music on the Moog. 

McKechnie and Hatch referred to their enterprise as Radical Sound Labs. Word got around--McKechnie helped the Grateful Dead record the strange outtake "What's Become Of The Baby" on the 1969 Aoxomoxoa sessions in San Mateo (his memories are, uh, fuzzy). Thanks to the Dead, McKechnie and his Moog--the size of a VW Bus--can be seen in the Gimme Shelter movie, providing peculiar music on a gigantic sound system for the anxious masses. When McKechnie opened for rock shows at the Family Dog, he used the name "SF Rad Labs." McKechnie had just played the Family Dog a few weeks earlier, on Sunday, August 31.

Unlike the very few other synthesizer artists, McKechnie was not associated with an academic endeavor, he wasn't trying to sell an instrument, and he didn't have any record company affiliation. None of those things were bad, by the way--it's just that the thoroughly hippie underground McKechnie could do what we wanted. Now, probably, what he played at the Family Dog wouldn't have held up that well over time, if there was a tape. But at the time, a Moog was a Unicorn. If you saw at a Unicorn at a farm, you wouldn't say "it's not a good plow horse, though." So this must have been pretty far out to listeners at the time, even if it would sound less so to us now.

Devil's Kitchen were a bluesy quartet from Carbondale, IL, who had relocated to San Francisco and were sort of a house band at the Family Dog. I recognize Shag from listings, but I don't know anything about them.

The weekend sounds interesting--progressive dance, a cutting edge performance by an electronic musician, and some local rock bands. But was anyone going to go? 

September 22, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Monday Night class

September 23, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Unbirthday Party (Tuesday)
September 24, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Games Night (Wednesday)
The Tuesday and Wednesday listings suggest that the Family Dog was open, but not much else. Not a sign of a robust business. There wasn't a bar at the Family Dog, so walk-in business didn't really net the venue anything.

Ralph Gleason wrote about the Thursday Light Show at the Dog in his Chronicle column of Wednesday, September 24 1969

September 25, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Light Show Jam (Thursday)
In August, the Family Dog had held a Light Show event on a Tuesday night. Gleason wrote:

Tomorrow night at the Family Dog there's the second "San Francisco Light Show Jam and Preserves" with Crimson Madness, Optic Illusion, Sweet Misery, Clear Light Drive, Jerry Abrams Head Lights, Dr. Zarkov, Extraordinary Light Productions, Lightest Show on Earth, Albatross, Abercrombie Images, Missionary Light and Garden of Delights. Music is from unissued tapes of S.F. groups plus classical and electronic tapes.

A variety of light show operators performed their shows to vintage tapes from the Avalon. There had been a similar show on August 26, so I looked into the trail of breadcrumbs, and it seems that the Avalon tapes were destroyed (by owner/taper Bob Cohen) to avoid a crooked record deal. While a few tracks were released as Vintage Dead and Historic Dead on MGM/Sunflower Records in 1971, the balance of the tapes were destroyed by Cohen. Thus it means that in August, and probably in September, what few fans there were heard some 1966 shows by the Grateful Dead and others that were never heard again.

The SF Good Times ad for The Family Dog on The Great Highway from September 25, 1969

September 26-28 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA:Rhythm Dukes w/Jerry Miller/Floating Bridge/surprise group (Friday-Sunday)
The weekend headliner at the Family Dog was the Rhythm Dukes, a Santa Cruz band featuring Jerry Miller of Moby Grape. The original version of the band had another member of Moby Grape, former drummer Don Stevenson, who played rhythm guitar. Bassist John Barrett and drummer John "Fuzzy" Oxendine, both previously in a Santa Cruz band called Boogie, filled out the group. After one show, however, Stevenson had dropped out of the band. The Rhythm Dukes then toured the Midwest as a trio, often billed (against their wishes) as "Moby Grape" (Italian historian Bruno Ceriotti has a detailed history of the band).

Floating Bridge were from Seattle. They were a “heavy” band featuring the twin guitar leads of Rich Dangel and Joe Johansen. They had been an established band in Seattle and the Pacific Northwest since about early 1968, but were probably touring California in support of their album on Vault Records. Dangel had been the lead guitarist for Northwest legends The Wailers (today mostly known as The Fabulous Wailers, to distinguish them from Bob Marley) and Dangel was widely regarded as one of the best guitarists in Seattle (not least by his former roommate, Larry Coryell). At various junctures, Floating Bridge also featured an electric cellist (who doubled on saxophone), setting them apart from most contemporaries.

The Wailers, from Tacoma, WA had hit it big nationally with the song “Tall Cool One.” The Wailers and The Sonics had been the anchors of the early 60s Tacoma/Seattle scene, particularly a place called The Spanish Castle (memorialized by Jimi Hendrix in “Spanish Castle Magic”). Dangel had left around 1965 (The Wailers continued on, as they do to this day) and moved to California. After briefly forming a band called The Rooks, he ended up in The Time Machine, in San Diego. When the Time Machine broke up, Dangel and another member (bassist Joe Johnson) moved back to Seattle and formed The Floating Bridge.

The Floating Bridge were fondly remembered by those who saw them live. Their 1969 debut album on Vault Records featured a lengthy jam on a medley of “Eight Miles High” and “Paint It Black.” Dangel continued to be a highly regarded guitarist on the Seattle scene until his death in 2002.

What Happened?
Rather ominously, in his Friday roundup of weekend shows in the SF Chronicle, Ralph Gleason led off by saying "At the Family Dog (F, S&S): I dunno." This was not a good sign. The diligent Gleason had access to all the press releases, and venues would regularly phone the paper (or Gleason directly) with updates. Gleason listed Dog headliners almost every weekend--saying he didn't know was a total failure on the Dog's part. It suggests that maybe the shows were canceled. 

The deadline for the Friday (September 26) Chronicle would have been Thursday at noon, far later than the ad in the SF Good Times. At best--and this isn't saying much--it's a complete failure by the Dog's staff to let the most important music writer in the Bay Area know who was playing this weekend. Note that on the only ad for the venue, the copy spelled the star's name wrong (Terre Miller instead of Jerry Miller). It's not something that inspires confidence.

As to the gallant listing in the Good Times ad that said "Surprise Group," Gleason would have indicated that if he had known. He wouldn't have broken a contract by naming them, but he would have given readers a heads up to pay attention. Instead, he said "I dunno." If the Rhythm Dukes and Floating Bridge played, the music would have been very good, but there's distinct doubt that they played at all.

For the next entry in the series (October 3-5 '69, Kaleidoscope), see here

 

September 12-14, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: It's A Beautiful Day/Sons Of Champlin/Fourth Way [FDGH '69 XX]

 

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.

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.

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 (September 6, 1969 Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

 

A

The Sunday (Sep 14) SF Chronicle had a photo of The Fourth Way, noting their gig opening at the Family Dog on The Great Highway

The Family Dog on The Great Highway had opened in June of 1969, and it had never gotten on to firm financial footing. It was losing money each week, apparently, and proprietor Chet Helms had a huge tax bill from the IRS, left over from 1967, when the Avalon had been successful. Nonetheless, the Family Dog had some great bands throughout the month of August, and likely pretty good attendance. The Grateful Dead had played the first and last weekends (August 2-3 and August 29-30), Country Joe and The Fish (August 8-10) and Mike Bloomfield (August 15-16), had both played weekends, there had been a Wild West "makeup" extravaganza, and on the first weekend of September, the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead had played a stealth gig on Saturday, September 6. Still, the Dog was on the precipice, and they were on the verge of falling off.

The Tuesday, September 9, 1969 Examiner listed "Rock, Etc" at the Family Dog

September 9, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Sufi Dervish Dancing, Pakistani Fashion Show, Phoenix (rock) (Tuesday)
The Family Dog was regularly rented for promotions by outside groups. A Pakistani Fashion Show and Sufi Dervish Dancing sounds like a unique night out. Phoenix was a good local rock band that played pretty danceable music, and deep, complicated roots in the 60s Bay Area rock scene.

September 10, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA:  "Latin Rock" Kwane and The Kwanditos/Los Flamencos de la Santa Lucia (Wednesday)
Latin Jazz had gotten its start on San Francisco's Broadway back in the 1950s, and of course Santana had invented Latin Rock, so popular Latin music roots went pretty deep in the Bay Area. The previous Wednesday, the Dog had also held a Latin Music night. I have no idea if these consecutive weeks were tied together but it seems likely. 

Kwane And The Kwanditos played some sort of Latin jazz-rock, as far as I can tell. Their pianist was Todd Barkan, who would go on to take over San Francisco's Keystone Korner jazz club in 1972.

Los Flamencos de la Santa Lucia were a flamenco troupe that were regularly booked at rock venues.

 

September 11, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Purple Earthquake/Johnny Mars Band/Wisdom Finger/Osceola (Thursday)
This Thursday night booking of obscure local bands is intriguing for the possibility that the Grateful Dead may have made a guest appearance. As is typical with the Dead and the Dog, we have a tape fragment  but no other evidence.

The Bay Area rock market was booming, for both live performance and recording. The Fillmore West had regular audition nights on Tuesdays. Bill Graham had just re-started them for the Fall (in the Summer, the Fillmore West was open six nights a week with touring bands, but in the Fall and Winter it was just Thursday through Sunday). A few local or out-of-town bands would play the Fillmore West on Tuesdays, and sometimes there would be a jam afterwards, including some local heavyweights. It looks like Chet Helms had the same idea, but opted for a Thursday.

Purple Earthquake was a power trio out of Berkeley High School. They would evolve into the band Earth Quake, who had a fair amount of local success with their albums in the 1970s.

I recognize the name Johnny Mars Blues Band from listings around this time, but don't know anything else about them. 

As for Wisdom Fingers, we know a little about them from the miracle of the Comment Thread (in my Fillmore West Audition post)

Wisdom Fingers was a band lead by singer-songwriter Rip Masters on keys and vocals. Given name: Martin Masters. The band featured Lenny Giachello on drums and Geoff Pierce on guitar with Larry Brown on bass. Some gigs were as a trio with organ bass. The band also played at The Family Dog on the Great Highway with Purple Earthquake, and at the wrap party for the cult film "Glenn and Randa" [sic] among other appearances around the Bay Area. The band was based in Haight Ashbury with ties to Mill Valley and Santa Cruz. Music was mostly original. East Coast native and leader Masters went on to become a well known rockabilly artist and session player starting in the mid 70s through the present.

Guitarist Alan Yott of Osceola at the Family Dog on The Great Highway, probably 1970

 We know a fair amount about the band Osceola. This show at the Family Dog was probably one of their very first gigs. They would go on to play the Dog many times, and played around the Bay Area regularly until at least 1972. Osceola lead guitarist Bill Ande was a transplant from Florida. He had played and recorded with some modestly successful bands, like the R-Dells, the American Beetles (really), who had then changed their name to The Razor's Edge and had even played American Bandstand. Come '69, Ande had relocated to San Francisco to play some psychedelic blues. The musicians he linked up with were all Florida transplants as well, so even though they were a San Francisco band, they chose the name Osceola as an homage to their roots.

Osceola was a five piece band with two drummers, and played all the local ballrooms and rock nightclubs. Ande was joined by guitarist Alan Yott, bassist Chuck Nicholis and drummers Donny Fields and Richard Bevis. Osceola was a successful live act, but never recorded. Almost all of the band members would return to the Southeast (mainly Tallahassee and Atlanta) in the mid-70 to have successful music careers.

The Grateful Dead link is more tenuous. There is a fragmentary Dead tape consisting of one song that has circulated since at least the early 80s. It is an audience tape of one song, "Easy Wind," dated September 11, 1969. The provenance of the tape is obscure, as there is not a longer recording. It's also worth noting that there were almost no audience tapers on the West Coast at the time. Who made this tape, and where did it come from?

The "official" listings on the archive suggest that the tape was originally labeled "unknown venue," and the location of The Family Dog on The Great Highway was just a plausible suggestion. It is a plausible suggestion, but no evidence backs it up. The recording persisted as "tape filler" for many years since it's so interesting. It is an early performance of "Easy Wind," with a slide guitar part. For many years, this was assumed to part of some jam with a guest on slide guitar--making the Family Dog seem likely--but I reject that hypothesis now. I'm convinced it's actually Jerry Garcia on slide guitar, with Bob Weir playing lead. 

If the tape really was recorded at the Family Dog, we have to assume the Dead showed up on "new band night" for a blow. They very well could have. They had jammed at the Dog (possibly for no audience) on Thursday August 14, played a practically stealth show on Thursday August 28, and then played at least one stealth show with the Jefferson Airplane on Saturday, September 6. So, it's not far-fetched to imagine them dropping in on September 11.

It does beg the question, however, of why the above commenter, most likely Rip Masters or someone close to him, didn't mention opening for the Dead at the Dog. So the September 11, 1969 performance of "Easy Wind" remains a mystery that may or may not have emanated from the Family Dog.

 

September 12-14, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: It's A Beautiful Day/Sons Of Champlin/Fourth Way (Friday-Sunday)
It's A Beautiful Day had released their debut album on Columbia in June 1969. Unlike the first albums of many groups, the music was fully formed. LaFlamme had been in an odd group called Orkustra in 1967 that played around the Haight, so he had learned some lessons from that. It's A Beautiful Day had originally been sent to Seattle by their manager, Matthew Katz, so they had "gotten it together" before they reappeared in San Francisco. The debut album had some great songs, and they got heavily played on FM radio. The most popular was "White Bird," which would go on to become a huge AM hit as well, and a sort of 60s classic. It's A Beautiful Day had played one of the fundraisers for the Wild West, back on July 7, and then a Wild West makeup show on August 24, but this weekend was the band's first time headlining a paying gig at the Dog.

The Sons of Champlin were a tier lower than It's A Beautiful Day, but they were a Bay Area band on the rise. Capitol Records had released the Sons' debut album, Loosen Up Naturally--a double lp--back in May. The hard-working Sons had played all over the Bay Area for years, and they had played The Family Dog in June and again for a Wild West show in August.

The Fourth Way were an intriguing jazz-rock hybrid band who had just released their debut album on Capitol Records. The quartet played electric jazz, and was one of a number of Bay Area bands experimenting with jazz and rock, but in a less aggressive style than East Coast "Fusion" music inspired by Miles Davis' Bitches Brew band and album. The Fourth Way were led by expatriate New Zealand pianist Mike Nock, whose career is too long and interesting to summarize (although he does a pretty good job of it himself, when interviewed on his 80th birthday in 2019). Chief soloist was electric violinist Michael White, who had toured and recorded with John Handy in the mid-60s. Jazz veterans Eddie Marshall (on drums) and Ron McClure filled out the band. 

The Friday September 12, 1969 Examiner mentions opening act Fourth Way and the light show (Garden Of Delights), with no mention of the previously-booked Sons Of Champlin. They may not have played.

What Happened?
Like many Family Dog bookings, the event seems to have disappeared without a trace. I know of no review or eyewitness account. In fact, the Sons of Champlin may not have even played. The Friday Examiner did not list them, and Sons' road manager did not think the band played many weekends at the Family Dog, and didn't recall this one. Neither of those are proof that the Sons didn't play, but it's not a good sign when a venue either can't pay or the bands who played there can't remember it. There's not a doubt about the quality of music that would have been played, but for how many people?

After this weekend, the bottom fell out of Family Dog weekend bookings. Name bands did not play the Family Dog for the balance of the month, not even the old Avalon stalwarts that had been the regular fare. The skinny evidence suggests that this was a very poorly attended weekend, and the Family Dog couldn't recover for some time. The venue was rented to outside promoters, but that was thin gruel indeed.

For the next entry in the series (September 15-26 '69, various bands), see here

September 6, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead [FDGH '69 XIX]

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.

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.

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 29-30, 1969 Grateful Dead) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

 

 

After a packed opening night with the Jefferson Airplane, back on June 13, the Family Dog had been in difficult financial straits. The venue itself was very appealing. The bands that had played the Family Dog each weekend, by and large, had been really good bands. The groups weren't quite as high profile as the Fillmore West, and Bill Graham always got the first bite of any band on tour. But the quality of music at the Dog was high. The location, far from the center of the city and not near an easy freeway exit, made the venue difficult to find for suburban teens. In the era before MapQuest, simple directions made a big difference. The problem seems to have been that not enough Bay Area rock fans had made it a habit to check out who might be playing at the Family Dog, and consider it as an option. For rock fans, checking to see who was at Fillmore West was automatic, whether or not you ended up going.  But the Family Dog hadn't yet gotten into the minds of Bay Area rock concert fans.

August 1969 had a run of really good bands at the Family Dog, including the Dead on two separate weekends (August 2-3 and 28-30), Country Joe and The Fish (August 8-10), Mike Bloomfield (August 15-16) and a slew of bands on the Wild West "makeup" shows (August 22-24). If there was any time that rock fans were noticing the Dog, it would have been this month. In retrospect, however, we can see August 1969 as a high water mark for the Family Dog. Come September, things would fall apart for the balance of the year. Probably no week in the Family Dog's 14-month history sums up its contrarian history so well as the first week of September.

On Saturday, September 6, 1969 the Family Dog had what must have been its biggest show in its history. It was good, too, because we have the tapes. It was very likely packed. The Jefferson Airplane, one of the biggest drawing acts in rock music, played the Great Highway, supported by no less than their old pals the Grateful Dead. Yet there was only the faintest hint of pre-show publicity, and not a word about it afterwards. If the Airplane and the Dead had played an unscheduled show at the Fillmore West, you can bet that Bill Graham would have made sure everyone heard about it, so every rock fan knew that the Fillmore was Where It Was At. The Family Dog let this event slip by without a trace--if Owsley Stanley had not taped both acts, we would never have any idea that the show had even happened.

Let's review the week of September 1-7, 1969 at the Family Dog on The Great Highway.

[For a more Grateful Dead-centric view of the weekend, see my post here]

September 1, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Monday Night class
Like any venue, the Family Dog was willing to rent the hall out during the week when there wasn't a booking. Bill Graham did the same at Fillmore West. Besides clearing a little cash, and providing workdays for a few staff members, these sort of events could remind patrons that the Family Dog was a happening concern, worth checking out.

Stephen Gaskin was a popular literature instructor at San Francisco State, whose campus was not too far down the road (at 19th Avenue and Holloway). Gaskin spoke about what we would now be called "Human Consciousness" or "Self-Help," but at the time he was called a "Hip Guru." I am no expert in this area, but I will say that Gaskin was neither a con artist nor interested in turning a profit, rare for those sort. His "Monday Night" class had been running since at least July. I don't know whether it was every Monday night or just some, but it was popular (the picture at the top of the post is from one of his Monday night events). Admission was free, and Gaskin just lectured, although I think they took donations. 

You would think that Chet Helms would have found a way to intrigue San Francisco State students that were interested in Self-Actualization on Labor Day Monday to consider checking out rock shows on the weekend. On this weekend, however, the show was a secret, so the crowd would not have seen a poster at the door encouraging them to check out the weekend rock show. An opportunity lost.

September 2, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Theatre of The Absurd Costume Ball (Tuesday)
Other than the listing (above) on the Family Dog flyer, I have no idea about this event. It does seem clear that various theater and dance groups took advantage of the Family Dog space for various events, but I don't have any sense that the Dog was able to capitalize on it in any way.

September 3, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Latin Night (Wednesday)
There had been a substantial Latin Jazz scene in San Francisco in the 1950s and '60s. Indeed, San Mateo's Cal Tjader had been an essential founder in the genre. Once Broadway in North Beach went topless, however, Latin Jazz went into decline in the city. Still, there was an existing scene, probably focused on "older" (although still under 40) fans. I doubt there would have been much synergy between the Latin Jazz crowd and the weekend psychedelic Dog shows, but renting out the venue for a night was still a good thing.

September 4, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Carnival Coronation Ball for Miss Playland 1969 w/Devil's Kitchen/Flying Circus (Thursday)
Playland-At-The-Beach was an amusement park, if an out-of-date one, and the Sunset District in those days was basically a suburb. So it's no surprise to find out that Playland apparently had an annual Beauty Pageant. It had probably run throughout the Summer. It is a telling irony that I am able to discern far more information about a weeknight local Beauty Pageant at Playland than any of the rock concerts by bands who remain popular decades after they were performing.

I originally only knew about this show from the website of the band Devil's Kitchen. Devil's Kitchen was a band from Carbondale, IL, who had moved to San Francisco in Spring 1968. They  became the "house band" at The Family Dog, opening many of the shows there, even ones for which they did not appear on the bill. They also played other clubs around the Bay Area. The band members were guitarist Robbie Stokes, keyboardist/vocalist Brett Champlin, bassist Bob Laughton and drummer Steve Sweigart. While Stokes remained in the Bay Area for a dozen years or so, the rest of the band members ultimately returned to the Midwest later in 1970. Ironically, a recording of the group's performance at The Family Dog on March 22, 1970, promulgated by Wolfgang's Vault, roused the band back to life, and that is how I got in touch with them (Brett Champlin responded very kindly to emails, and to answer the obvious question, he is a 4th cousin of Bill Champlin but they had not met prior to the band arriving in SF).

According to Brett Champlin, Devil's Kitchen were just another dance band at this show, providing music after the pageant was complete. The Metropolitan Sound Company was a soul band from Oakland, playing original soul music with a Hendrix touch, and the bands probably alternated. While the ticket rather enticingly says "Dress Optional," I take that to mean that guests were not obligated to dress formally, rather than at all. Based on the Examiner ad (above), it seems that Metropolitan Sound Co was replaced by the Mill Valley band Flying Circus. Flying Circus had existed since 1966, albeit with many personnel changes, and currently featured lead guitarist Bob McFee. He was the brother of Clover lead guitarist John McFee (many years later in the Doobie Brothers and Southern Pacific), and the two bands shared equipment and a rehearsal hall. As far as I can tell, Flying Circus played the kind of funky country rock typical of future Marin County bands. Brett Champlin only vaguely recalls the event, since he still has the complimentary ticket, so it was probably just another night for a working band. 

The SF Chronicle of Friday, September 6, 1969 reported Judith Vacek's election as Miss Playland '69

Given the paucity of information about rock shows at the Family Dog, it's notable that not only was there an ad in the Examiner for the Coronation Ball, we even know who won. The Friday SF Chronicle reported:

Judith Vacek shoots a good game of pool, measures a classic 36-26-36 and is "Playland Girl '69."

The 20-year old Tiburon girl was officially crowned as the Queen Of Playland At The Beach Thursday. The contest was conducted all summer and decided by popular vote of the public.
Miss Vacek, who aspires to be an airline stewardess, received a 1970 Ford Maverick that went along with her new title.

So, Judith Vacek won a Ford Maverick, was a babe, and shot a good game of pool. Wherever she is today, I hope that the Maverick served her well, that she had a nice life, and that she kept her pool game sharp. Yet the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead played the Family Dog over the weekend, and we only know about Judith. 

Let's set our modern hats aside and think about the Miss Playland Coronation Ball from 1969. It was some sort of "election." Apparently the different contestants invited their family and friends to submit votes and then come and cheer and vote for them. Now, let's be real here--what was rock and roll about in 1969 (and probably every other year)? Did all of the Miss Playland contestants get free tickets to the Family Dog? If not, why not? If you were a teenage boy rock and roller in 1969--long haired or not--and knew that beauty pageant contestants might be showing up at the venue on Friday night, wouldn't you be there? More importantly, wouldn't the venue want to shout to the newspapers that all the contestants (and their sisters!) were given free tickets all weekend? Now, maybe they did get free tickets--Judith Vacek could have driven her friends in her new Maverick--but the whole point would have been to publicize it. Yet somehow the Family Dog missed this equation.

September 5, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Malachi/Rubber Duck (mime) and a jam with members of 3 groups we're not allowed to name
We only have the faintest hint of what might have happened on Friday night. The San Francisco Good Times had a cryptical ad (above). Malachi was a sort of moody guitarist, and Rubber Duck was a mime (Joe McCord) working with a rock band playing improvised music. But that wasn't the appealing part (well, unless you thought Beauty Pageant contestants would be there). The ad said, temptingly, "a jam with members of 3 groups that we're not allowed to name." 

Literally, we know nothing else about Friday night--not even if it happened.

September 6, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead (Saturday)
We have two great tapes from Saturday, September 6: one by the Jefferson Airplane, and one by the Grateful Dead. Notwithstanding that they were both recorded by Owsley Stanley himself, famous for (among many other things) accurate dating on tape boxes, internal evidence fits as well. At the end of the Grateful Dead tape, Jerry Garcia says "coming up next, Jefferson Airpane." At the end of the Airplane tape, Garcia jams with the Airplane. So it looks pretty definitive: whatever else happened on the weekend, the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane played the Family Dog on the Great Highway on Saturday night.

So why do we know nothing? It's understandable that contracts or other issues may have prevented some advance publicity. In any case, it wouldn't have affected attendance. Jefferson Airplane were one of the most popular live rock bands in the country, much less in San Francisco. Their most recent album, Bless Its Pointed Little Head, recorded at Fillmores East and West, and released in February 1969, had been a huge hit. The Grateful Dead were a popular local band, by any standard. The place was going to be packed. But why didn't Chet Helms make sure the world knew? Bill Graham would have, and that's why the Fillmores are legendary today,--because Bill constantly reminded us. Chet could have done the same, and yet he didn't.

When I speculated about this show many years later, I did get one tantalizing clue from an unknown Commenter:

Yes, I was there that night, working for the light show company that did the show. Both bands were there and traded sets, then both bands took to the stages at either end of the ballroom and jammed together until 2 a.m.

The syntax is a bit confusing here, but the eyewitness suggests the Dead and the Airplane were on separate stages at opposite ends of the venue. Uniquely, the Family Dog had two stages, and they were known to use both to enable quick set changes. It's fascinating to think of the Dead and the Airplane sharing a venue, but on different stages. Yet we only have the barest of clues, memories almost slipped beyond the horizon.

[update 17 Aug 2023] New information has come to light that tells us that the New Riders of The Purple Sage opened the show on September 6. This fulfills the hint that there "three groups we're not allowed to name."

September 7, 1969 Hyde Park, London, England Crosby, Stills and Nash/Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead/Joni Mitchell (canceled)
As if San Francisco's Wild West Festival fiasco wasn't enough, just a few days later (August 27) Ralph Gleason had announced (above) plans for the Grateful Dead to join Crosby Stills and Nash, The Jefferson Airplane and Joni Mitchell to play a free concert in London for a Granada TV Special. Gleason:

The Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Crosby Stills and Nash (now a Bay Area band: they're moving here) and Joni Mitchell will be presented in a free concert in London's Hyde Park on September 7. 

The groups, with some additions to be announced, will be flying over directly from San Francisco. The show is being put on for filming for a Granada TV program and there's a possibility that there will be other concerts in Europe later.

Of course, none of this happened. Various major bands had played free concerts in Hyde Park during this summer (including Blind Faith and the Rolling Stones), so this idea wasn't as far-fetched as it sounds. Among many other byproducts of this scheme, Grateful Dead manager Rock Scully flew to London and made contact with the Rolling Stones, which indirectly lead to the unfortunate Altamont debacle. Scully describes the whole story in his autobiography. Whatever the reality quotient might have been, the unfulfilled plan left the Airplane and the Dead free on this weekend, so they seem to have chosen to play the Family Dog instead. I assume the show was announced on KSAN. Once the word was out, any Airplane show was going to be packed, much less one shared with the Dead.

September 7, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA:? (Sunday)
Who else performed at the Family Dog this weekend? Honestly, we don't know. Malachi, a sort of troubadour guitarist, and "Rubber Duck" (Joe McCord), a mime backed by improvising musicians, were listed as performing Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Did they? Who knows? Thanks to Mr Owsley, however, we have yet another intriguing detail. It's worth remembering that Owsley was particularly scrupulous about noting the date correctly on the boxes of his tape reels (earning the undying appreciation of rock prosopographers everywhere). 

There is a 28-minute board tape from the Family Dog, dated September 7, 1969. The performers seem to consist of Jerry Garcia, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, drummer Joey Covington and another drummer. They perform some rock and roll oldies (see the setlist below),  and Joey Covington (future drummer for the Jefferson Airplane) sings a few. A crowd member calls for the old surf tune "Wipeout" and the players respond with the drum solo. A note on the box implies that Jerry Garcia may have joined the two drummers, briefly, on some drums. 

So there appears to have been a jam on Sunday. Probably some band equipment was left there from the night before, on purpose. Did Malachi or Rubber Duck play? Did the Dead/Airplane players do any other music? It seems likely that Jorma, Jack and Joey would have done their full electric thing, as that was what they were doing around the Bay Area. But we don't know. There was some kind of crowd--someone called for "Wipe Out"--but no eyewitnesses have surfaced. Once again, with their most famous performers in residence, the Family Dog made sure that no one found out what happened on Sunday night. It was all downhill from here.

Owsley did not like the drum mix on Sep 7 69

[update 17 Aug 2023] The Owsley Stanley Foundation figured out that there is an additional reel from September 7. The Grateful Dead played at least one set on September 7 (setlist below), following a set by Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady and Joey Covington, with Will Scarlett on harmonica and Jerry Garcia on pedal steel guitar.

Appendix: Setlists

Grateful Dead, September 6, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA

Good Morning Little Schoolgirl [11:48];[0:13] ;
Doin' That Rag [6:28];[0:09] ;
He Was A Friend Of Mine [12:24];[0:06]%[0:16] ;
Big Boy Pete [3:09] >
Good Lovin' [3:55];[0:53] ;
It's All Over Now [4:04] [Total Time 47:00]

Jefferson Airplane, September 6, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA

Grace Slick-vocals
Marty Balin-vocals
Jorma Kaukonen-lead guitar, vocals
Paul Kantner-rhythm guitar, vocals
Jack Casady-bass
Spencer Dryden-drums
#plus-Jerry Garcia-guitar, Mickey Hart-drums, {unknown}-congas

[0:10] ; Ballad of You, Me & Pooneil > Starship [15:13] ; [0:20] ;
Good Shepherd [6:30] ; [0:12] ;
We Can Be Together [6:46]
% Somebody To Love [3:55] ; [0:05] ;
The Farm [2:53] ; [0:17] ;
Crown Of Creation [3:05] ; [0:08] ;
Come Back Baby [5:34] ; [0:12] %
Wooden Ships [5:38] > Go Ride The Music [0:35]
% Volunteers [#2:22] >
  Drums [1:54] >
  #Jam [25:27]  [Total time 1:20:12]

Garcia and Hart participate in the Jam following "Volunteers", as well as an unidentified conga player. The Jam includes a "Darkness Darkness" jam.

Grateful Dead, September 7, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA

Me & My Uncle
China Cat Sunflower
High Time
Mama Tried
Big Boy Pete
New Orleans
Not Fade Away
Easy Wind
Sitting On Top Of the World

Jam, September 7, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA

Peggy Sue [3:26] %
That'll Be The Day [3:20] %
Johnny B. Goode [3:44] %
Baby What You Want Me To Do [4:54]%[0:46] ;
Wipe Out Drums [0:16] >
Wipe Out Jam [3:54] >
Big Railroad Blues [1:16] %
Louie Louie [3:02] >
Twist & Shout [1:36] >
Blue Moon [1:29] [Total Time 28:49]

        Jerry Garcia, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, Joey Covington, {additional drummer}

For the next post in the series (September 12-14 '69 Its A Beautiful Day), see here