November 7-9, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Velvet Underground/Danny Cox/Maximum Speed Limit [FDGH '69 XXVI]

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 (November 1-2, 1969 Grateful Dead) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

November 7-9, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Velvet Underground/Danny Cox/John Adams (Sat-Sun only)/Maximum Speed Limit (Friday-Sunday)
On one hand, the story of the Family Dog on The Great Highway is a tale of disappointment, a San Francisco hippie ideal pushed literally to the outskirts of town, and struggling to remain viable. At the same time, the venue provided a space for some great musical performances, a sign of the musical vibrancy of the era. The most famous example would be the Grateful Dead, of course, who headlined the Family Dog more than any other major band. But just one week after the Dead had played a great weekend at the Dog, another legendary 60s band was the headliner--the Velvet Underground.

The Velvet Underground were not a particularly popular band in the 60s. If more people had heard them, the Velvets would probably not have been any more popular. But as someone famously remarked, not many people bought their album, but all of those who did formed a band. The Velvet Underground, with nary a hit, very little FM airplay and paltry record sales, were still a profoundly influential group. As a result, the history of the Velvet Underground has been the subject of scholarly research befitting 60s legends like the Dead or Led Zeppelin. The pinnacle of this scholarship is Richie Unterberger's book White Light, White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day (Jawbone Press, 2009). Even if your interest in VU scholarship is limited, his excellent book is a great survey of different underground rock venues throughout the US in the era, and I highly recommend it to any 60s rock fan. For our purposes, however, thanks to Unterberger, we get a far more detailed analysis of the VU's weekend at the Family Dog than we do for most bands.

The Velvet Underground were so influential that once we get past the raw 60s recording techniques, the Velvets sound pretty contemporary to us. But that wasn't how they sounded in the 60s. For all the arty cred that came from the Velvets association with Andy Warhol and the "downtown art scene" of New York city, and the dark imagery of Lou Reed's lyrics, that wasn't what stood out in the end. Unlike almost every other band in the 60s, the Velvet Underground carefully flattened out any musical references to R&B, blues or jazz. The pulse of a Velvet song was completely at odds with the pulse of every other 60s band. The individual members liked black music well enough (it certainly turned up later in Lou Reed's music), but they purposely tailored the Velvet Underground away from that. Thus, on their 1967 debut album The Velvet Underground and Nico, Lou Reed's lyrics about buying drugs ("Waiting For The Man"), taking drugs ("Heroin"), strange practices ("Venus In Furs") and odd characters ("Femme Fatale") were filtered through a musical aesthetic opposite to the entire decade. They made sense to few people. But those that liked the Velvet Underground found it transformational.

The Velvet Underground's 3rd album, on MGM Records, released in 1969

By late 1969, the Velvet Underground had released three albums on MGM Records. Their current album was their third, Velvet Underground. There were still three members remaining from the band's famous debut album: Lou Reed (guitar and vocals), Sterling Morrison (lead guitar) and Maureen Tucker (drums). Original bassist (and electric violist) John Cale had been replaced by Doug Yule (bass, organ and some vocals). While we generally accept the idea that the Velvets were unpopular prophets without honor, Unterberger reports that the Velvet shows at the Family Dog were decently attended (although exact numbers remain obscure). Unterberger regularly reports that the Velvets drew decent crowds in the oddest places, one of the reasons the band was able to continue to tour. Despite the lack of radio play, somehow people found out about them. In the case of the Family Dog, the inconvenience of the venue didn't matter. Just like the Grateful Dead, those fans who had discovered the Velvets were going to seek them out. 

While the version of the Velvet Underground from their debut album, with the infamous John Cale on bass and viola (and Nico on vocals) is considered the "classic" lineup, Doug Yule was an excellent musician. Combined with the increased experience of the other three members, the '69 live configuration of the band is highly regarded by rock critics and the band's fans (which includes a fair amount of crossover).

A young guitarist named Robert Quine had met the Velvet Underground in St. Louis earlier in the year, and had since moved to San Francisco. As the Velvets were playing a weekend at the Family Dog and a few weeks at the Matrix, Quine resolved to tape them from the audience, a largely unknown practice in the 1960s. Quine recorded all three nights at the Family Dog. In 2001, highlights from the Family Dog were released by Polydor as The Velvet Underground Bootleg Series, Volume 1: The Quine Tapes (sadly, there never was a volume 2). Disc one gives a pretty good representation of the Velvets set, including some true classics (all songs from Saturday, November 8 except as noted): 

I'm Waiting For The Man
It's Just Too Much
What Goes On
I Can't Stand It
Some Kinda Love    
Foggy Notion
Femme Fatale [November 7]
After Hours
I'm Sticking With You
Sunday Morning [November 9]
Sister Ray [November 7: this tracks clocks in at 24:30]

Unterberger comments on the scene at the Family Dog, quoting Quine's liner notes from the box set:

"They started out with three nights at the Family Dog, a large Fillmore-type space," he [Quine] writes in his liner notes to [the record]. "The audience was large but fairly indifferent. A number of hippies brought tambourines and harmonicas to "do their thing" with the group. But the sound was great for recording--the band was able to play really loud." No tambourine or harmonica is audible on the two Bootleg series songs that Quine captures on November 7. [2009 edition, p.254]

Since the Velvet Underground were not hugely popular, the eyewitness account that there was a large, indifferent crowd suggests that the Family Dog had managed to carve out a hippie audience that saw whoever was playing each weekend. Certainly no one who had heard (much less liked) the Velvet Underground would have thought that bringing along a tambourine was the right idea. The fact that some sort of regular audience had built up would explain why Chet Helms kept looking for ways to refloat the Family Dog, which he would do in earnest at the beginning of 1970.

The 1970 Sunflower Records release Danny Cox Live At The Family Dog, most likely recorded in 1969

Folksinger Danny Cox opened all three shows. Cox, from Cincinnati, had moved to Kansas City in 1967. He shared management with Brewer And Shipley (who were also based in the Midwest). Cox's 3rd album Birth Announcement, a double-lp on Together Records, produced in LA by Gary Usher, had been released earlier in the year. In 1970, Sunflower Records released an album of Cox playing live at the Family Dog in 1969 (possibly recorded this weekend, and/or the weekend before, when had opened for the Grateful Dead). In 1971, Cox would release an album on ABC/Dunhill that was produced by Nick Gravenites at Wally Heider Studios in San Francisco [I discussed Cox's career and recording history in detail in a previous blog post].

Maximum Speed Limit was a Berkeley band, but I don't know anything else about them. Opener John Adams is unknown to me. 

November 11, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Mellowtime Review (Tuesday)
Your guess is as good as mine for the Mellowtime Review.

November 12, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Anonymous Artists of America "own axe night" (Wednesday)
The Anonymous Artists of America lived in a commune in Novato, and played weeknights regularly at the Dog during October and November of 1969. "Own axe night" sounds like a jam session, but it's also possible that the AAA was encouraging audience members to bring instruments and joined in. The rather Avant-Garde band (formed at Stanford University in 1966) had advanced--some might say absurd--ideas that everyone was an artist, so the request to the audience to bring their own "axe" may have been entirely sincere.

for the next entry in the series (November 19, 1969 Fillmore West benefit), see here

 

November 1-2, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/Danny Cox/Golden Toad [FDGH '69 XXV]

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 (October 17-30, 1969) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

October 31, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Danny Cox/Alan Watts/Golden Toad/Hells Angels Own Band (Friday)
The Family Dog had lurched through October with little to show for it. The venue had been open almost every night of the month, mostly with a variety of community-oriented events that only charged $1.00 admission on weeknights. While in retrospect we can see that some of the weekend acts would have been playing some good music (Kaleidoscope or Brewer And Shipley, for example), they weren't really good draws. Yet Jerry Garcia had played there with the New Riders of The Purple Sage, and while the Riders were too new to really have a following, at least Garcia himself was a genuine star. Indeed, the scanty evidence available to us suggests that the Grateful Dead were the one consistent draw at the Family Dog on the Great Highway. They played there more than any other band at their level (i.e. Fillmore West headliner), so things must have gone well. The Dead would be back at the Family Dog on Saturday and Sunday (November 1 and 2). Why, then were the Grateful Dead skipping a Friday night Halloween  at the Great Highway? Wasn't it some sort of Federal or Natural law that the Grateful Dead have to play on Halloween? 

On Halloween, 1969, the Grateful Dead and the New Riders were booked at the newly opened Student Union Ballroom at San Jose State College. The room--later known as the Loma Prieta Ballroom, for any old Spartans out there--held about 700 in concert configuration. Now, granted, a big school like San Jose State had some kind of entertainment budget, so the Dead's fee would have been greater than playing a regular show for 700 patrons. The poster tells us that SJSC students were charged $2.00, and the public $3.00. Assuming a sellout and 50% students, that's a $1500 gate. Add some from the entertainment budget subvention, but it still isn't a huge number. The Dead were willing to pass on a potentially wild Halloween at the Great Highway for a tiny gate. It doesn't speak well of the band's confidence at drawing a good crowd at the Dog (for a more Grateful Dead-oriented discussion of this weekend, see my blog post here).

When the Dead played the Family Dog on Saturday and Sunday, I'm certain they weren't getting an advance, but rather taking a big slice of the gate. There's some risk associated with that. Now, Garcia didn't mind risk, and Grateful Dead manager Lenny Hart was not an honorable businessman in any case. The attraction of the San Jose State booking, however, must have been that the Dead were guaranteed their money. San Jose State wasn't getting hit with an IRS lien, and wouldn't go out of business the night before. Whatever number the Dead were promised for Friday night in San Jose, that would go to their account. They could take a chance at the Family Dog for the rest of the weekend. 

There was another hangup, however, that increased the risk for the weekend: the Family Dog wouldn't be able to advertise the Dead show until that very week. Bill Graham Presents had booked the Dead with Jefferson Airplane for the prior weekend, and the contract would have required that the Dead could not advertise a show within 50 miles until their booking was complete. Now, it wasn't that Dead fans wouldn't want to see the band again--that was never a problem. It's just that concert attendance takes planning, and if you don't know there's a Dead concert on Halloween weekend, what if you've got something else going on? What if your sister already got the family car and you've got no way to get there?

Also, on any given night, anything could happen--rainstorm, earthquake, fire in the venue, riots in the neighborhood--that would lead to a financial debacle at the Dog. This risk was magnified by the prohibition on advertising until the prior Monday. Also, although San Francisco has always loved Halloween, the band may have felt that the Great Highway was too far away, and that there would be considerably less competition on the balance of the weekend. So the Dead played Halloween Friday at San Jose State for 700 students instead of at the Family Dog, a politely damning indictment of Chet Helms' sincere but failing enterprise.

So for Halloween at the Family Dog, the putative headliner was the Golden Toad and folksinger Danny Cox, both of whom would be opening for the Dead on the subsequent nights. The unexplained billing was "Hells Angels Own Band." Who were they? What did it mean? We know it wasn't the Dead, since they were playing in San Jose. I guess you could claim they were going to show up late, but geography doesn't favor that, and in any case, why invoke the Hells Angels? I wouldn't go to any public event today that advertised anything to do with the Hells Angels, and this was Halloween in 1969. Also, the Hells Angels never took kindly to anyone using their name satirically, so the usage must have had some kind of informal approval. 

Was this a biker party? Apparently--but why advertise it to the public? Also, bikers are bikers--were they going to look forward to a Renaissance Fair quintet playing 15th century melodies on hand-built replicas of medieval pipes (which is what Golden Toad did)? Sure, Golden Toad founder Bob Thomas was a personal friend (and sometime roommate) of Owsley, but would a bunch of cranked-up bikers care? Danny Cox was an enjoyable folksinger, but he was a big African-American guy, and the Hells Angels were never an advertisement for diverse inclusion. 

Nothing about the Friday night booking made any sense. I have one tiny clue: I had a clever, but inaccurate, theory that Owsley Stanley had made a tape of Danny Cox that would become the album Danny Cox Live At The Family Dog. The Owsley Stanley Foundation looked into it, and it turned out that Cox's manager would not let Owsley tape his act. Family Dog soundman Lee Brenkman thinks that Cox was recorded on Halloween. Brenkman referred to the event as the "Hell's Angels Halloween party", and added that "it was the last calm thing that occurred that night." Intriguing. Anyone with insight, rumors or clever speculation, please post in the Comments.

November 1-2, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/Danny Cox/Golden Toad (Saturday-Sunday)
The Grateful Dead headlined the Family Dog on The Great Highway on Saturday and Sunday night. Thanks to Owsley Stanley, we have tapes of both nights. The playing on both nights is magical. The existing tapes are both two hours, and seem to be complete shows with a few minor snips. So Golden Toad and Danny Cox must have each done sets, capped by a two-hour blast by the Grateful Dead in their early prime. David Browne, in his great Dead survey So Many Roads, reviews the November 2 (Sunday) tape, with its 30-minute "Dark Star" in its larger context, and it is well worth reading (as is the rest of the book). Whatever the commercial flaws of the Family Dog on The Great Highway, and they seemed to be many, the Dead played fabulously there. In early 1970, manager Lenny Hart would make plans to merge the Grateful Dead's operations with Chet Helms and the Dog, and it had to be at least in part because the band played so well there.

The Golden Toad had nothing to do with rock, of course. But they resolutely followed their own musical course, in a manner clearly aligned with the Grateful Dead's own single-minded mission. The Toad mostly played outdoors in at Renaissance Fairs (in Los Angeles and Marin) or in Berkeley, and usually only played indoors at Berkeley's Freight and Salvage or with the Grateful Dead. The Golden Toad were known to have a rather flexible membership, so they may have had numerous people on stage augmenting the root quintet (supposedly they had performed with up to 23 members) [I discussed the Golden Toad in detail in the previous entry].

Danny Cox's 3rd album was Birth Announcement, a double-LP released on Together Records in 1969 and produced by Gary Usher

Danny Cox was from Cincinnati, but he had relocated to Kansas City in 1967. Cox, a large African-American man, defied rather primitive 60s expectations by singing folk music instead of blues. His current album was his 3rd, Birth Announcement, a double-lp on Together Records produced by Gary Usher. Cox sang folk classics along with Beatles and Dylan songs, lightly backed.

Cox shared management with Brewer And Shipley, and like them he would record an album for ABC/Dunhill in San Francisco with producer Nick Gravenites. Recorded at Wally Heider Studios, it was released in 1971. Both John Kahn and Merl Saunders played on that album. During demos sessions for the record in 1970, Kahn introduced Merl Saunders to Jerry Garcia, who was recording in another room. Some weeks later, when Howard Wales didn't want to come jam at the Matrix, Kahn recommended Merl and the Garcia/Saunders partnership began.

In between 1969 Birth Announcement and his 1971 ABC/Dunhill albums, Sunflower Records released a 1970 Danny Cox album called Live At The Family Dog. Sunflower, associated with MGM, was a fringe label that had released the legal-but-unauthorized Vintage Dead and Historic Dead albums in 1971. Danny Cox only played the Family Dog this weekend and the next weekend in 1969, so assuming that the material was really recorded at the Family Dog--that's no sure thing--they could very well have been recorded this weekend. House soundman Lee Brenkman, as noted above, suggested that Cox may have been recorded Halloween night.

(Scholarly readers will be interested to know that on the Family Dog lp, Cox records "Me And My Uncle," and it is credited to "Trad.--arranged Danny Cox.")

November 4, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Workshop with Family Circus/Rainbow Jam Sky/music by children of Mu (Tuesday)
Circus ephemera is beyond the scope of this blog, but it's possible that "Family Circus" evolved into "Pickle Family Circus," a local circus act without animals. The others are unknown to me. 


November 5, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Family of Man-Family of God (Wednesday)
There were plenty of evangelical groups trying to recruit drifting young hippies. Such groups were referred to as "Jesus Freaks." A few were sincere, but many were just exploiters. 


November 6, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Acoustic Strings Night/Pup Fisher/All God's Children (Thursday)
This repeated event seems like the equivalent of Hoot Night at a local folk club.

For the next post in this series (Velvet Underground, Nov 7-9 '69, see here)

October 17-30, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: various bookings [FDGH '69 XXIV]

 

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 (October 7-9, 1969 Holy Man Jam) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

The Family Dog ad from the October 16, 1969 edition of San Francisco Good Times

October 17-30, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA
In late October 1969, the Family Dog on The Great Highway was not in a good way. Of all the old Avalon Ballroom stalwarts who had played the Dog, only the Grateful Dead seemed able to draw a profitable crowd. The other bands had largely given up playing there. The venue functioned more like a community center. Local bands played, or acoustic acts. The weekend "headliners" tended to be acoustic groups that had a lower overhead, since they had less equipment and could afford the risk of getting little return for their efforts. Throughout the balance of October 1969, the acts playing the Family Dog did not draw a crowd beyond some local hippies, and in retrospect were only of interest to the sort of blog that traffics in the the rabbit holes of San Francisco psychedelia (like this one).

A photo from the Floating Lotus Magic Opera show "Bliss Apocalypse" ca 1969

October 17-19, 1969 Family Dog at The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Malachi/Floating Lotus Opera Company/Golden Toad (Friday-Sunday) Saturday (October 18) only plus Alan Watts
The weekend booking included two legendary Berkeley outfits, ensembles that can't be imagined outside of late 60s Berkeley, both of whom disappeared almost without a trace save for me. Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company and The Golden Toad have no known audio recordings (save for some fragments), no video and only the thinnest of descriptions of their unique presentations. So time travel back to this weekend would be illuminating and unique, but Time Sheath technology is not widely available enough for this yet. Malachi--he's pretty interesting too. These shows were probably thinly attended. More's the pity

 

A Floating Lotus Magic Opera flyer from Berkeley ca April 27, 1968

The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company is one of those only-in-Berkeley stories, all but unbelievable to to people who never lived in Berkeley, yet hardly even a standard deviation for those who have. Berkeley was some place in the late 60s: demonstrations on campus, riots on Telegraph Avenue, psychedelic rock bands for free in Provo Park or at night at the New Orleans House, blues at Mandrake's, Serious Folk at the Freight And Salvage. Oh yeah--and every Saturday, at John Hinkel Park, at 41 Somerset Place, near Arlington Circle, The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company performing a really-hard-to-explain theater show with ritual chanting, costumes and music.

Though we have no video (that I know of), unlike some lost events, there are plenty of descriptions of the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company, from inside and from the outside. There's a script of one of the "Operas" (called Walls Of Blood). Around late '68, Floating Lotus even got a good write-up in Rolling Stone magazine. 

At least here in late 1969, the Opera also performed at the Family Dog on The Great Highway, so they were definitely associating themselves with the hippie rock scene, even if the Opera itself had nothing musically to do with rock. At the very end in early 1970, they switched to the larger Live Oak Park, further down the hill and closer to campus, at 1301 Shattuck (between Shattuck Avenue and Oxford Street).

I do know that the Floating Lotus Opera Company was not without resonance. Among other things, there were numerous people involved, and costumes and stage sets. I know that around 1970, many of the sets and costumes made their way over to San Francisco and became part of The Cockettes stage show. Now, even I know that the Cockettes were important, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to say how, really, much less whether the Floating Lotus was influential or just a source of stage gear. In any case, the Floating Lotus appearances at the Family Dog were among their few indoor appearances, and may have been their only San Francisco presentations. It's also possible that so many people were involved with Floating Lotus that a certain number of West Bay friends and family showed up at the Dog just to see it, similar to--dare I compare it--a High School musical.

Bob Thomas iconic Grateful Dead logo, originally designed as a stencil so that Owsley Stanley could distinguish the Dead's equipment backstage from that of other bands

Robert Thomas was an old friend of Owsley Stanley. Besides being one of Owsley's housemates at his mountaintop aerie on Ascot Drive in Oakland (above Highway 13 and Park Boulevard), he played a number of other parts in Grateful Dead history. Most famously, it was Thomas who devised the "Skull-and-Lightning-Bolt" logo for the Dead, originally designed as a stencil so that Owsley and the crew could distinguish the band's equipment from others backstage at a rock festival. Thomas also did the cover art for Live/Dead.

Bob Thomas was an accomplished piper, playing a variety of traditional and largely obscure pipes from Europe.  As a result, Thomas put together a small band of players who performed at the Los Angeles and Marin Renaissance Fairs in the 1960s. They apparently played 15th to 18th century Mediteranean tunes on replicas of older instruments, including pipes and various stringed instruments. It couldn't be called authentic--it's not like there were tapes--but it represented a sincere effort to provide a whiff to fairgoers as to what European music from a few hundred years earlier might have sounded like. Thomas's 'Fair Band' varied in size and instrumentation, depending on who was available, but they were apparently the house band for the original Marin County Renaissance Pleasure Faires.

Bob Thomas playing one of his pipes

The Golden Toad
The original Golden Toad was an outgrowth of the Faire band. Originally a quartet, the group played a few local dates in mostly atypical venues. The Faire was only open at certain times, such as several weekends in the Summer, so the Golden Toad provided Thomas and his bandmates a chance to continue playing their music outside of the confines of the Faires. The earliest record I can find of a public performance by The Golden Toad outside of the Renaissance Fair was the 35th Annual Berkeley Old-Time Fiddlers Convention on June 8, 1968, in Provo Park (really the first time it was held, but it's a long story). The Toad also played a few times at the Freight And Salvage, Berkeley's traditional folk club.

The Golden Toad had begun as a quartet, but they added and subtracted members as time went on. Reputedly, they were known to have performed with up to 23 members, although how often they did that remains unknown. They also had some association with the Floating Lotus Opera. Some of the better known members of the Golden Toad included fiddler Will Spires and Deborah and Ernie Fischbach. Those with too many albums will recall that the Fischbachs had recorded a legendarily obscure album in 1967 called A Cid Symphony. Most or all of the members of The Golden Toad played other kinds of music in various ensembles, so the band was inherently part time, but perhaps by virtue of being a labor of love the Golden Toad seemed to have no need to make concessions to anything resembling conventional business practices.

The Golden Toad and Floating Lotus Magic Opera regularly appeared together in Berkeley. There was a particularly legendary event, or series of events, in which the ensembles appeared early on a Sunday morning, and baked bread. The bread was consumed after the performances. Although the full membership of both the Toad and the Lotus is unknown, it's likely they shared a lot of players. It may also be that the sheer volume of performers helped improve the gate.

Malachi (born John Morgan Newbern, in Baltimore), was a Buddhist guitarist. He had put out the album Holy Music on Verve in 1966. Malachi (1944-2020) lived in Santa Rosa, and had a full life as a musician and luthier.

English-born Alan Watts (1915-73) was a well-known popularizer of Zen teachings, and was well-known from KPFA radio in Berkeley and numerous books. Watts had appeared at the "Holy Man Jam" a few weeks earlier. These kinds of lectures were popular at the Family Dog, but the audiences they drew didn't seem to translate to increased gates for the rock and roll shows.

October 20, 1969 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Monday Night Class with Stephen Gaskin
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 think it was every Monday night but just some, and it was the most popular regular booking at the Dog, save perhaps for the Grateful Dead (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.

October 21, 1969 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: A Night of Guitar and Dance, Classical Flamenco, Folk and Rock (Tuesday)
I have no clue about this night's event. 

October 22, 1969 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA New Riders of the Purple Sage/Lazarus  (Wednesday) Ecological Ball
In the midst of a couple of weeks of desultory bookings, and weeknights with some unknown locals, a genuine rock star was playing on Wednesday night. True, the Grateful Dead were not the juggernaut they would become a few decades later, but even in 1969 San Francisco Jerry Garcia was a rock star if anyone was. His picture had been in the Chronicle and Examiner since 1966, he was regularly quoted and the Dead were far more famous or infamous than their poorly-selling albums might suggest. The New Riders of The Purple Sage had played around enough that the local hippies knew Garcia was in the band.

Of course we have no idea how may people this show drew. But note that it is the only weeknight event with a light show and a named opening act (the Berkeley band Lazarus, featuring the Barsotti brothers). So Chet and Jerry must have figured they would draw enough to pay out a little bit. Since the New Riders had played a Tuesday or Wednesday almost every week that Garcia had been in town, the gigs must have made some financial sense. At this time, there were almost no nightclubs in the Bay Area playing original rock music, so there would have been no competition for the bookings, and any profitable return would have been more than the Riders would have made rehearsing at home. Whatever you think about the New Riders, particularly the early, sloppy New Riders: would you pay a buck to see Jerry Garcia? Sure, there's been inflation, but it was still just a dollar. A few quarters, some dimes and the odd nickel--seems worth it for Garcia, yeah?

As for the tag "Ecological Ball," I have no idea.

October 23, 1969 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Acoustic Stringed Instrument Night (Thursday)
Pretty much this must have been like hoot night at any folk club, some local players without any following. Not necessarily bad, in fact, but was it worth a buck?

 

October 24-26, 1969 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA Osceola/Barry McGuire & the Doctor/Shag/Clover [Sat only replaces Shag] (Friday-Sunday)
The headlining duo of Barry McGuire and Eric "The Doctor" Hord was probably pretty good in concert. But from the point of view of young hippies in the Sunset district, it wouldn't have been much of an attraction. McGuire, formerly a member of the New Christy Minstrels, had scored a huge hit in 1965 with "Eve Of Destruction." The song was written by producer PF Sloan, and it was almost a parody of a Bob Dylan folk-rock protest song (Sloan, a huge Dylan fan, would probably accept this characterization). McGuire, however, was marked as a one-hit wonder and a Dylan imitator. He had a few more records, but hadn't had a real hit since "Eve," so by 1969 any teenager would think he was trivial and over the hill.

The 1971 A&M Records album by Barry McGuire and The Doctor (Eric Hord)

Eric Hord had been the lead guitarist for The Mamas And The Papas. Hord was an excellent player, but his name wasn't known the way the singers were, and he wasn't a "guitar hero" like Mike Bloomfield or Jeff Beck. The Mamas And The Papas were seen as mid-60s AM pop, not at all hip in 1969. So to the extent that any fans knew who "The Doctor" was--itself not that likely--Hord's credentials didn't measure up to having been in the Butterfield Blues Band or the Yardbirds. So there wasn't much reason to come see the headliners. McGuire himself has admitted that he had serious drug problems in this era, so it can't have helped his live show. McGuire and Hord would go on to make an album in 1971 (Barry McGuire and The Doctor), backed by most of the Flying Burrito Brothers, but it would quickly disappear.

The opening acts were all regular performers at the Family Dog. Osceola, led by guitarist Bill Ande, had formed in San Francisco, but was made up of expatriate Florida musicians. I don't know anything about Shag, but I recognize their name from bookings. On Saturday night, Shag was replaced by the Mill Valley quartet Clover. They would be signed to Fantasy Records, and would release their first (of two) albums for the label in 1970. Lead guitarist John McFee would go on to play with Elvis Costello, The Doobie Brothers and Southern Pacific, among many others. 

October 27, 1969 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Osceola/Occultist/Phoenix/Beefy Red (Monday) Cusp Party of Libra and Scorpio
I have no idea who promoted the "Cusp Party of Libra and Scorpio." Astrology wasn't really taken that seriously in the '60s, but you could ask someone what their sign was without being openly laughed at. A light show was booked (Heavy Water), so obviously some crowd was expected. I don't know anything about (the) Occultist, but they have a name befitting a light show. Since there were two stages at the Family Dog, booking two light shows was plausible.

As to the bands, Osceola returned, as they acted as sort of a "house band" at the Family Dog at this time. Phoenix was a San Francisco band with Acid Test roots and an extraordinarily complicated history, but their moment was passing. Beefy Red was a 10-piece Marin band with a horn section, somewhat on the model of the The Sons Of Champlin. Members included guitarist Barry Finnerty (later with the Crusaders), trumpeter Mark Isham (now a jazzman well known for film soundtracks) and drummer Jim Preston (later with the Sons).

Note that Stephen Gaskin was not presenting his Monday night class this week.

October 29, 1969 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA Johnny Mars Blues Band/The Womb "American Indian Well Baby Clinic" [Celebration of the Mended Spirit] (Wednesday)
Wednesday's benefit for the American Indian Well Baby Clinic included Berkeley's Johnny Mars Blues Band and the appropriately named Womb (who were formerly called Birth--really).

The original trio of Dr. Humbead's New Tranquility String Band and Medicine Show, ca. 1968. (L-R) Jim Banford (guitar), Mac Benford (banjo), Sue Draheim (fiddle).

October 30, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: "Minstrel Night" Golden Toad/Dr. Humbead's New Tranquility String Band (Thursday)
The Golden Toad returned Thursday night, and they would play throughout the weekend, including opening for the Grateful Dead on Saturday and Sunday (November 1-2). Since Toad leader Bob Thomas was an old friend of Owsley's, indeed Thomas was mostly resident in Owsley's Ascot Drive house in Oakland, the Golden Toad connections to the Grateful Dead were deep. 

Opening the show was Berkeley's Dr Humbead’s New Tranquility String Band. The Humbeads played old-timey music (pre-bluegrass, essentially) and featured fiddler Sue Draheim (1949-2013) banjoist Mac Benford (1940-2020) and guitarist Jim Bamford (1939-73). Oakland native Draheim had lived at 6018 Colby Street, a large home where many musicians who performed at Berekeley's Freight and Salvage had resided at one time or another. "Dr. Humbead" was their soundman, Earl Crabb. Shortly after the band began performing, another Colby Street resident, mandolinist Will Spires who also performed with The Golden Toad, joined the group. Spires was also a member of The Golden Toad (Spires would go on to become an important folklore scholar, but that was still in the future).

In their early 60s, folk music had been somewhat in apposition to rock music, which was seen as "kids music." After the Beatles changed the world, folk music became considerably less popular. Over in Berkeley, however, some hippies had started up the Freight And Salvage coffee house. While they were extraordinarily serious about all kinds of folk music--not just bluegrass, but Irish music, California Western (pre-country) and other indigenous forms--they weren't retro. The Freight denizens had long hair, smoked weed, were opposed to the Vietnam War and liked the Beatles. In many cases, the musicians playing folk music at the Freight had been or were currently in rock bands, so there was nothing forbidden about electric music.

So despite their predilection for old-timey music, long hair was still a defining characteristic, and Dr. Humbead’s New Tranquility String Band played a number of rock gigs as well as more typical folk venues, including the legendary (and notorious) Sky River Rock Festival, the first outdoor rock festival, at Betty Nelson's Organic Raspberry Farm in Sultan, WA  (on August 29, 1968). By late 1969. the quartet had played both Berkeley folk coffee houses and rock gigs. For a taste of Dr. Humbead's New Tranquility String Band, you can hear a few tracks on a sort of folk sampler on Folkways Records (compiled by Mike Seeger) called Berkeley Farms.

Dr Humbead's Map Of The World, ca 1968, with a list of population. Note Pigpen holding a Trident in the lower right Ocean

As for the famous (or infamous) Dr. Humbead, Earl Crabb was the co-creator of Dr. Humbead's Map Of The World, along with artist Rick Shubb. Humbead's map puts Berkeley right next to Greenwich Village and Cambridge, skipping all the unimportant parts in between. It also lists all the important people in the world at the time. Whimsical as it is, Dr. Humbead's Map Of The World was a profound statement about insular Berkeley hippie culture at the time. It's worthy of a book, but fortunately, fellow scholar Jesse Jarnow's 2016 opus Heads: A Biography Of Psychedelic America places the Map Of The World in its appropriate critical context.

For the next post in the series (Halloween/Nov 1-2, 1969 Grateful Dead) see here

October 7-9, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Holy Man Jam [FDGH '69 XXIII]

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 (October 3-5 1969 Kaleidoscope) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

October 7-9, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Holy Man Jam (Tuesday-Thursday)
Tuesday, October 7: Stephen Gaskin
Wednesday, October 8: Malachi, Alan Watts, Michael Larimer, Rev. Hensley, Alan Noonan
Thursday, October 9: Timothy Leary
With the following groups during the three nights:

Jerry Abrams Headlights, Dr. Zarkov, Holy See, Rainbow Jam, Sweet Misery, Sebastian Moon, Mayflower, Lazarus, Phoenix, Master Choy, Shlomo Carlabach, Golden Toad, Chirhanjeez, Osceola, It's A Beautiful Day, Garden Of Delights

By early October, the Family Dog on The Great Highway was in a terrible financial situation, compounded by a large personal tax bill from the IRS for proprietor Chet Helms, stemming from 1967. The one genuine success at the Family Dog had been something called "Monday Night Class," where popular San Francisco State literature professor Stephen Gaskin would lecture to large audiences. Gaskin, a kind of "hip guru" (in the parlance of the time), would draw crowds of 1000 or more, filling the hall (the interior picture above is from a Monday Night Class). Admission was free, but Monday Nights were the one attraction at the Dog that had its own audience.

The "Holy Man Jam" week was an attempt by Chet Helms to make the Monday Night Class audience into a revenue proposition. Gaskin was booked for a Tuesday, with five speakers in a similar vein on Wednesday, and the infamous Timothy Leary on Thursday. According to the ad, there would be light shows and bands sprinkled throughout each evening. Unlike Monday Night Class, $1.00 admission would be charged, but that was far less than the typical $2.50-$3.00 charge on weekends. A similar run of lecturers was booked for the next week (see below), with a typical rock band weekend booked in between.

Chet Helms has often been criticized for being less successful as a businessman than Bill Graham--criticism that can be leveled at everybody, basically--when in fact he was quite innovative. Gaskin's class represented an interest in young people for what would become the "Human Potential' movement--people speaking some meaning beyond work or play, some way to process their fears and concerns in the modern world, outside of the confines of current religions. This is far outside the interests of this blog, so I won't dwell on it, except to say that it represented a genuine interest of young Americans in their 20s at the time. Helms was looking to create a paying audience for something that had been free, something the Haight-Ashbury bands had pulled off by playing free in the park, and now a common marketing approach on the Web.

There wasn't a review, or anything, like most events at the Family Dog--but we have to think it failed. There were two weeks of mid-week "lectures" and they weren't repeated, so it had to be a bust. It's not hard to deduce the reason. Those that want to hear someone lecture about self-improvement aren't looking to dance and hang out, and vice-versa. That doesn't mean there weren't people who liked both, as I'm sure there were, but when you're in the mood to hear something you consider serious, it isn't the same vibe as a dance party. So the lectures were inherently in conflict with the bands and the light shows.

• Notes on the booked performers

Tuesday, October 7: Stephen Gaskin

Gaskin's "Monday Night Class" has often been alluded to, but there is very little around to describe the experience itself. Stephen Gaskin (1935-20140 was an SF State literature instructor, author and "founder" of a Tennessee commune called The Farm. He was an important counterculture figure in the 60s, and whatever you may think of his ideals, he was neither corrupt nor merely seeking publicity, like so many others. I did find an eyewitness description from a 60s memoir by one Ilene English, who described attending a (presumably) Fall 1969 Monday Night Class in her memoir Hippie Chick: Coming Of Age In The 60s (She Writes Press: 2019). It's an interesting tale, although (fair warning to blog readers) music history plays only a small part in the story.

As we approached The Family Dog, there were groups of people standing around smoking and laughing. There were several far-out looking buses parked up and down the street. One converted school bus had an entire Volkswagen bus attached to the top of it. Another had a giant plastic bubble on top. Some of the buses were hand-painted with bright colors and designs, and several looked like people were living in them. The unconventionality of the scene delighted me.

Inside the hall, people were sitting on the floor, hanging out and talking. I had never seen so many free spirits in one room at the same time. 

"There's Stephen," David [the author's boyfriend] whispered, pointing out this tall, skinny dude with wispy long hair, wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and bell-bottom pants. David led the way as we snaked over to a small group gathered around him. Up close, I saw that Stephen was staring into someone's eyes who was staring back at him. He looked different close up. A little older than most of the people in the room, his eyes looked kind and full of love. People were just standing around watching...

We found a place to sit on the floor as the hall began to fill up. The smell of grass filled the air, and I hoped some would come my way. Before too long, this long-haired cat sitting in front of us passed me a big fat joint. ...

Stephen went onto the stage, sat down on a pillow, crossed his legs and waited for everyone to settle in. After a few minutes the got really quiet. Everyone focused on Stephen. With microphone in hand, he started talking about how it was feeling in the room right then. He said "notice how stoned it feels in here?" My sentiments exactly.  And then he was silent for a while. The room did feel psychedelic.

"The way it feels in here tonight," he said, "it's like we're a group head." 

English's description of the event (some of which I have elided) does not suggest a crowd, at that moment, that was looking to dance to a band, even when they might have under other circumstances

Wednesday, October 8: Malachi, Alan Watts, Michael Larimer, Rev. Hensley, Alan Noonan
All of these speakers had various roles as thinkers or writers, which you can google, with various degrees of intellectual rigor. Malachi put out a few albums, and may have been a sort of folk singer.

Thursday, October 9: Timothy Leary
Timothy Leary was infamous for the phrase "Tune In, Turn On, Drop Out," but his star had dimmed considerably by 1969. In fact, by this time Leary had a considerable number of legal and financial troubles, but most hippies wouldn't have known that. Leary had never been that popular in San Francisco, however, seemingly too much like an East Coast professor (which he had been). In any case, for those paying attention, Leary was more about making a buck out of his notoriety, which most hippies had figured out, even if they didn't know the details. Leary was a big name, but he wouldn't have been much of an actual draw.

The Groups
Several of the listed groups were Light Shows. I think this was an attempt to establish the Light Shows as artistic ensembles on par with the bands. These was a reasonable position intellectually, but just about no rock fans really felt that way. The light shows were Jerry Abrams Headlights, Dr. Zarkov, Holy See, Rainbow Jam and Garden Of Delights.

Lazarus was a Berkeley band. Phoenix was a San Francisco band with a complicated history, and had existed in various forms since 1966. Osceola was a newly-formed San Francisco band, made up of musicians relocated from Florida. The Golden Toad were led by Bob Thomas, an old pal of Owsley's. They played Renaissance music on (constructed) period instruments, and mostly played the Renaissance Fair. Rabbi Shlomo Carlbach was a folk singing rabbi, well known around the Bay Area. It's A Beautiful Day, in contrast, while a local band, had just released their hit debut album on Columbia, and "White Bird" was getting radio airplay. Why they weren't specifically named for a specific evening isn't clear, since they would have been the one real draw amongst these bands.

Sebastian Moon, Mayflower, Master Choy and Chirhanjeez are unknown to me.

 

October 10-12, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Sons Of Champlin/A.B. Skhy Blues Band/Brewer and Shipley (Friday-Sunday)
The Family Dog had a regular music booking for the weekend. The bands all had albums, and all were really good. It probably would have been a really good show. Probably almost no one went. Certainly I am not aware of any reviews or eyewitness accounts.

The Sons Of Champlin had released their debut double album on Capitol in May, Loosen Up Naturally. They were a terrific live band, and they had been gigging constantly since they had formed in 1966. The Sons had already played the Family Dog at least twice (June 20-22, August 23 and possibly September 12-14). They were about to set out on an American tour, with a truck financed by Bill Graham. 

There is some doubt that the Sons Of Champlin actually played these shows. Some years ago, I was in touch with then (and still) Sons' road manager Charlie Kelly, and he said that the band only played the Family Dog on two weekends. On some weekends when they were advertised, the Sons did not actually play there, so this weekend may have been one where they didn't actually perform.  

The A.B. Skhy Blues Band had formed when a transplanted Wisconsin trio called The New Blues had teamed up in San Francisco with organist Howard Wales. There was a lucrative rock scene in Wisconsin, particularly around Madison (at the State University), because the drinking age was only 18. Still, while the Madison scene had paid alright, bands didn't get discovered there, so the New Blues had moved West. Wales, meanwhile, had played with Lonnie Mack in the mid-60s, working out of Cincinnati, and then had played in a jazz combo in El Paso, TX with saxophonist Martin Fierro. After a brief time in Seattle, Wales had ended up in the Bay Area and teamed up with the New Blues. 

Besides Wales on organ, Dennis Geyer was on guitar and vocals, Jim Marcotte played bass and Terry Anderson was on the drums. A live FM broadcast of A.B. Skhy circulates from the Avalon (from March 30, 1969) and it's truly inventive. The band's debut album on MGM was released around this time, although I don't know exactly when.

Weeds was the second album by Brewer And Shipley, released in 1969 on Kama Sutra Records. Tom Brewer and Mike Shipley were Midwesterners songwriters who had teamed up in Los Angeles, and they had released their debut on A&M (Down In LA) in 1968. By 1969, the duo had relocated their base to Kansas City, nearer to where they were both from. They started recording in San Francisco, however, produced by Nick Gravenites. On the album, the duo was backed by Gravenites' regular crew, like John Kahn on bass, Bob Jones on drums, Mark Naftalin on piano and Mike Bloomfield and Fred Olson on guitars. In the next year, Gravenites would record "One Toke Over The Line" with the same crew, and Brewer and Shipley would go on to a fair amount of success. For now, they had released a fine album, but no one had really had heard them. They likely performed as an acoustic duo at these shows, even though their session musicians were in town.

October 13, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Stephen Gaskin (Monday)
October 14, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Stephen Gaskin/Chinese People/Jim Kimmel/Canterbury Fair/Cloud (Tuesday)
Gaskin returned for his regular Monday Night class, and was also advertised for Tuesday. I have no idea what any of it meant. I have even less of an idea of the booking of "Chinese People." Jim Kimmel is unknown to me (surely not the late night TV host...). Canterbury Fair was a local band, I think from Palo Alto. Cloud is unknown to me. 

October 15, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA:  Garden Of Delights/Horror Flicks (Wednesday)
Garden Of Delights was a light show. Presumably "Horror Flicks" meant old monster movies. Trivial as this may have been, remember that there was no other way to see old movies, save for when a local station chose to run an old movie.

October 16, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA:Anonymous Artists of America (Thursday)
The poster actually says “The Anonymous Artists of America and The Garden of Delights present Life Music at The Family Dog.” The Anonymous Artists of America had deep psychedelic roots, but they remained an obscure group. They had formed in Stanford in 1966, and ultimately had received all the Merry Pranksters old equipment when they had skipped out to Mexico. Of course, none of the Artists knew how to play any of the instruments. The group did play the infamous Acid Test Graduation on Halloween, 1966, described in Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test.

By late 1969, the Anonymous Artists had been through many personnel changes and included much better musicians. Some original members (like Jerry Garcia's ex-wife Sara) had moved on, but original bassist and former Stanford tennis star Trixie Merkin (surprise--not her real name) was still in the band. Almost all mentions of the AAA refer to Trixie, since she generally played topless. At this time, the AAA had a communal ranch in Novato. Relatively soon after this, they would move en masse to Pueblo, CO. 

I have no idea what "Life Music" might have referred to, but nothing was ever simple with the Anonymous Artists of America. I assume that the AAA had rented the hall and put on the show, and this was only nominally a Family Dog event. Of course, everybody involved probably knew each other, so the distinctions wouldn't have been large.

For the next entry in the series (October 17-30, 1969-various bands), see here