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| The Family Dog on The Great Highway, at 660 Great Highway, ca. 1969 |
The Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA
The
Family Dog was a foundation stone in the rise of San Francisco rock,
and it was in operation in various forms from Fall 1965 through the
Summer of 1970. For sound historical reasons, most of the focus on the
Family Dog has been on the original 4-person collective who organized
the first San Francisco Dance Concerts in late 1965, and on their
successor Chet Helms. Helms took over the Family Dog in early 1966, and
after a brief partnership with Bill Graham at the Fillmore, promoted
memorable concerts at the Avalon Ballroom from Spring 1966 through
December 1968. The posters, music and foggy memories of the Avalon are
what made the Family Dog a legendary 60s rock icon.
In the Summer of 1969, however, with San Francisco as one of the fulcrums of the rock music explosion, Chet Helms opened another venue. The Family Dog on The Great Highway, at 660 Great Highway, on the Western edge of San Francisco, was only open for 14 months and was not a success. Yet numerous interesting bands played there, and remarkable events took place, and they are only documented in a scattered form. This series of posts will undertake a systematic review of every musical event at the Family Dog on The Great Highway. In general, each post will represent a week of musical events at the venue, although that may vary slightly depending on the bookings.
If anyone has memories, reflections, insights, corrections or flashbacks about shows at the Family Dog on the Great Highway, please post them in the Comments.
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| 660 Great Highway in San Francisco in 1967, when it was the ModelCar Raceway, a slot car track |
The Edgewater Ballroom, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA
As early as 1913, there were rides and concessions at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, near the Richmond District. By 1926, they had been consolidated as Playland-At-The-Beach. The Ocean Beach area included attractions such as the Sutro Baths and the Cliff House. The San Francisco Zoo was just south of Playland, having opened in the 1930s. One of the attractions at Playland was a restaurant called Topsy's Roost. The restaurant had closed in 1930, and the room became the Edgewater Ballroom. The Ballroom eventually closed, and Playland went into decline when its owner died in 1958. By the 1960s, the former Edgewater was a slot car raceway. In early 1969, Chet Helms took over the lease of the old Edgewater.
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| One
of the only photos of the interior of the Family Dog on The Great
Highway (from a Stephen Gaskin "Monday Night Class" ca. October 1969) |
The Family Dog On The Great Highway
The
Great Highway was a four-lane road that ran along the Western edge of
San Francisco, right next to Ocean Beach. Downtown San Francisco faced
the Bay, but beyond Golden Gate Park was the Pacific Ocean. The aptly
named Ocean Beach is dramatic and beautiful, but it is mostly windy and
foggy. Much of the West Coast of San Francisco is not even a beach, but
rocky cliffs. There are no roads in San Francisco West of the Great
Highway, so "660 Great Highway" was ample for directions (for reference,
it is near the intersection of Balboa Street and 48th Avenue). The
tag-line "Edge Of The Western World" was not an exaggeration, at least
in American terms.
The Family Dog on The Great Highway was
smaller than the Bill Graham's old Fillmore Auditorium. It could hold up
to 1500, but the official capacity was probably closer to 1000. Unlike
the comparatively centrally located Fillmore West, the FDGH was far from
downtown, far from the Peninsula suburbs, and not particularly easy to
get to from the freeway. For East Bay or Marin residents, the Great
Highway was a formidable trip. The little ballroom was very appealing,
but if you didn't live way out in the Avenues, you had to drive. As a
result, FDGH didn't get a huge number of casual drop-ins, and that
didn't help its fortunes. Most of the locals referred to the venue as
"Playland."
Chet Helms had opened the Family Dog at 660 Great Highway to much fanfare on June 13, 1969, with a packed house seeing the Jefferson Airplane and The Charlatans. One of the goals was that the Dog would feature mostly San Francisco bands and a variety of smaller community events and groups. Since so many San Francisco bands were successful, and had record contracts, this didn't confine the venue to obscurity. A lot of great bands played the Family Dog in 1969, but the distant location and the gravitational pull of major rock events hosted elsewhere in the Bay Area kept the Family Dog isolated. We know only the most fragmentary bits about music played, events and audiences throughout the year. Despite the half-year of struggle, Helms had kept the Family Dog on The Great Highway afloat. He had entered the new year of 1970 with a new plan.
- For a complete list of Family Dog shows (including FDGH), see here
- For the previous entry (February 4, 1970 "A Night At The Family Dog") see here
- For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here
The Jefferson Airplane had played a stealth event to re-open the Family Dog on the Great Highway on the last weekend of January, and the three biggest bands in San Francisco--Santana, the Airplane and The Grateful Dead--had filmed a PBS television special in the middle of the week (Tuesday and Wednesday February 3-4). For the first properly advertised show of the new Family Dog, Chet Helms presented the return of Quicksilver Messenger Service. The band had not exactly broken up, but just as the band's popularity had been peaking at the end of 1968, with a popular debut album and a live one coming, the band had disintegrated. Quicksilver Messenger Service had spent 1969 as a pale shadow of itself. Now, as far as fans were concerned, they were back.
The Family Dog on The Great Highway had returned to business at the end of January with a seemingly new plan. They had acquired capital from somewhere--probably hippie entrepreneurs who sold "certain products"--and the venue was focused on high profile weekend bookings rather than financially draining community events. The Dog's focus was on San Francisco's own bands. Since San Francisco was one of the worldwide centers of rock music, all the "locals" not only had albums, many of them were nationally successful. Although the Fillmore West was still better paying and higher profile, it also emphasized national touring acts, which the new Dog largely ignored. From that point of view, the return of Quicksilver was perfect.
By any calculation, Quicksilver Messenger Service was an original San Francisco psychedelic ballroom band, whose limited output from Back In The Day has paradoxically made them more popular rather than less. For most of us who weren't there, the band's first two Capitol albums, Quicksilver Messenger Service (released May 1968) and Happy Trails (released March 1969) are true San Francisco rock classics, lysergically etched in the brains of past, present and future hippies. What few live tapes survive of the band from 1967 and '68 are plenty impressive, as well.
The roots of Quicksilver go back to late 1965 and the very beginning of San Francisco rock. A few long-haired musicians had been rehearsing at the Matrix, and their band did not even have a name. Jefferson Airplane had poached their guitarist, Skip Spence, and turned him into their drummer. The unnamed-band's bassist (David Freiberg) then spent 60 days in jail on a parole violation for weed. Two guys in the band (guitarists John Cippolina and Jim Murray) went to the very first Family Dog event at Longshoreman's Hall on October 16, 1965 (pre-Chet Helms), and met two musicians from Stockton, CA, whose band (The Brogues) had just fallen apart. Once guitarist Gary Duncan and drummer Greg Elmore joined Cippolina, Murray and Freiberg, the band was back on its feet. The Quicksilver Messenger Service had even put on their own show at the Fillmore (February 12, 1966), before Bill Graham had fully established his operation. So Quicksilver went back to the very beginning.
Quicksilver Messenger Service was an essential part of every major San Francisco venue and rock event from 1966 through 1968, worthy of a book in its own right (actually, I know someone who wrote one, and it's very good, but I don't think it will ever see the light of day). Old tapes show us that the initial Quicksilver quintet had a broad palate and an interesting mixture of driving rhythms and folk-rock harmonies. By the time their debut album was released in May, 1968, however, Jim Murray had departed. There were fewer harmonies and more guitar, right in line with the explosion of psychedelia. Quicksilver toured the country, and the quartet killed it everywhere they went, less sloppy than the Airplane yet more direct than the Grateful Dead. Stardom beckoned for the band.
Unfortunately, guitarist Gary Duncan left Quicksilver Messenger Service at the end of 1968, feeling the band had stagnated. Duncan felt they had been playing the same set live for months, one of the things that made them powerful on the road. It's also why most '68 QMS tapes are pretty much the same, if uniformly enjoyable. Duncan's guitar was essential to the band's sound, and he shared lead vocals with Freiberg. Quicksilver existed in 1969, but only as a ghost. Duncan had gone off to form a group with former folk singer Dino Valenti (whose story is too long to tell here).
In March, 1969, Capitol had released the band's second album, Happy Trails. Happy Trails, mostly recorded live, remains a psychedelic classic to this day. "Who Do You Love," taking up most of side two, showed the rest of the music world how psychedelia was done just right in San Francisco. The album got major airplay on the new FM rock stations all over the country. The band was a hit. But they weren't really a band without Duncan.
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| Quicksilver Messenger Service 3rd album, Shady Grove, released by Capitol in December 1969. Nicky Hopkins was a member of the band, and Dan Healy was the engineer. |
Quicksilver Messenger Service muddled through 1969, trying to record a follow-up to Happy Trails. Lead guitarist John Cippolina wasn't a writer, however, nor was Freiberg, even though he was a good singer. Pianist Nicky Hopkins, a friend of Cippolina's, joined the band, but he wasn't a writer or singer either. Producer Nick Gravenites contributed some songs, a few friends contributed some songs and the band released the messy album Shady Grove in December of 1969. Throughout the year, the band played perhaps a half-dozen gigs, mostly unsatisfactory ones. A band with great promise had been stopped in its tracks.
In 1969, however, Duncan and Valenti had achieved nothing together, so they rejoined Quicksilver Messenger Service at Winterland on New Year's Eve 1969. I'm not really sure what went down on stage that night (the tape circulating with the New Year's date does not seem to be from that show). Still, all their fans were happy to have Duncan back on the train. The new Quicksilver had the core quartet (Cippolina, Duncan, Freiberg, Elmore), along with Hopkins on piano and Valenti as another vocalist. It seemed like a winning combination. This weekend at the Family Dog was the public return of Quicksilver Messenger Service. Shady Grove had been a flop of an album, but everything looked promising.
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| Mike Seeger at the U. of Montana in 1972 |
Legendary folk artist Mike Seeger (1933-2009) was added to the bill for Saturday night. Seeger seemed to be touring around, and he was so seminal that he could play rock or folk gigs with ease. Seeger (half-brother of Pete) had played the Family Dog with his legendary band The New Lost City Ramblers back in August. By early 1970, the Ramblers had broken up. While Seeger might have performed as a solo, he had a lot of friends on the Berkeley folk scene, so some fellow musicians probably joined him.
The New Lost City Ramblers had been formed in Greenwich Village in 1958. At the time, string band and “old-timey” music was inaccessible to all but the most determined of record collectors. By performing and recording this music, the New Lost City Ramblers were the essential actors in introducing early American music to serious folk musicians, from Bob Dylan and Jerry Garcia to everyone else. The original trio had been John Cohen, Mike Seeger and Tom Paley. Tracy Schwarz had replaced Paley in the early 1960s. By 1969, the Ramblers had released over 15 albums. They would stop performing regularly after 1969, but continued to play occasional reunions for decades. Their last album had been Modern Times, which had been released in 1968 on Folkways. Seeger continued to tour as a mostly solo performer from 1970 onwards, although he worked with a variety of other musicians as well.
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| Freedom Highway, as a trio, circa 1968 |
Freedom Highway was a band of young Marin players, under the aegis of Quicksilver manager Ron Polte. The band had been around in some form since 1966. By this time, they were probably a trio, with Richie Ray Harris on guitar, Scott Inglis on bass and Bruce Brymer on drums. They did not have a record, although some demo tapes from the previous year were released as Freedom Highway Made In '68 in 2002 (guitarist Gary Phillipet had also been in the band in 1968, as was bassist Dave Schallock).
What Happened?
Like most shows at the Family Dog on The Great Highway, we don't really know what happened. In this instance, however, we do have a tape of Quicksilver Messenger Service's performances. The Quick aren't the Dead, however, so tape scholarship isn't nearly so advanced. There are two sets of music that may be from one night or two. Based on the setlists, I think these are from Friday and Saturday nights--note the encore is the same both nights. Quicksilver, unlike the Dead, never really had that much material, so they weren't really inclined to play a lengthy two-set show.
It would be interesting to know how the new-edition Quicksilver went over with the crowd. In early 1970, the band was known from Happy Trails for the contrast of Duncan's driving guitar against Cippolina's unique electronic shiver. The brilliant Hopkins would fit in easily with that. Dino Valenti, however, was rather an acquired taste. Valenti did contribute the song "Fresh Air," a kind of hit that would help temporarily revitalize the band's fortunes, but not everyone liked Valenti. More importantly, Dino was the kind of singer who dominated every song he sang, moaning wordlessly when he wasn't singing. Not everyone liked it, particularly if they just wanted to hear Duncan and Cippo going at it.
Such were the criticisms of the Valenti-era Quicksilver by the end of the 1970. But we don't know whether people's expectations were met or disappointed by what actually went down in February. My guess is that fans were happy to hear the two guitarists back together, and figured they would adjust to the rest of it over time.
February 9, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Monday Night Class with Stephen GaskinOn February 9, Stephen Gaskin held his final "Monday Night Class" at the Family Dog. These events had been regularly held on Mondays--though not quite every Monday--since at least August of 1969. Gaskin spoke about what would now be called "Human Potential," but at the time was considered a "hip guru." After this Monday night, Gaskin moved his presentations to Sunday afternoons at the nearby Cliff House. Sometime in 1970, Gaskin and his fellow travelers rented a fleet of school buses and journeyed around America, ultimately moving to a large piece of property in Tennessee called The Farm. Although Gaskin died in 2014, the Farm is still functioning today.
The final Monday night class was one of the last vestiges of the Family Dog on The Great Highway as a "Hip Community Center." For the next several months, the Dog focused on being a working rock venue.
Appendix: Quicksilver Messenger Service Setlists, Family Dog on The Great Highway, February 1970
Friday, February 6, 1970
1. Intro > Fresh Air
2. Shady Grove
3. Tabla Jam
4. Don't Let it Happen to You
5. Mona
6. The Truth
7. Joseph's Coat >
8. Edward the Mad Shirt Grinder
Encore :
9. Poor Boy
Saturday February 7, 1970John Cipollina, Dino Valenti, Greg Elmore, David Freiberg, Nicky Hopkins & Gary Duncan.
1. Intro > Jam > Pride Of Man
2. Subway
3. Gold & Silver
4. Fresh Air
5. Too Far
6. Mojo
7. Who Do You Love?
Encore:
8. Poor Boy
1st generation reel to reel > revox > amplifiers > tascam audio cdrw750 > cd > computer > plex tool professional XL > wav > flac.
For the next post in this series (February 13-14, 1970 Steve Miller Band), see here
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