March 27-29, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Youngbloods/Jeffrey Cain/Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen [FDGH '70 XII]

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."

The Family Dog In 1969
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 (March 20-22, 1970 Big Brother) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

 

March 27-29, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Youngbloods/Jeffrey Cain/Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen (Friday-Sunday)
The Youngbloods had played the Family Dog soon after it opened (July 11-13 '69). The Youngbloods had formed on the East Coast in 1967, and RCA had released their debut album mid-year. In September 1967, the band had moved out to San Francisco, recognizing a better place for their music. By 1969, the Youngbloods had released their third album for RCA, Elephant Mountain, and had become well-entrenched in Marin and the Bay Area Fillmore scene.

Unexpectedly, a song from the Youngbloods' 1967 debut was used in 1969 as background music for a Public Service Announcement for the National Conference of Christians and Jews. "Get Together" had been a modest hit in 1967, but when it was re-released in Summer '69, it went all the way to #5 on Billboard. The Youngbloods, hitherto a fine band with only modest success, were suddenly a high-profile rock group. They had the sense to get a new contract while they were hot. By 1970, the Youngbloods had signed to Warner Brothers, who gave them their own Imprint, Raccoon Records.

The Youngbloods were a trio. Lead singer Jesse Colin Young played bass or guitar, Banana (Lowell Levenger) played piano, banjo, steel guitar and anything else, anchored by Joe Bauer on drums. Sometimes they were joined by a harmonica player (Richard "Earthquake" Anderson, who may have also been their road manager). At this time, the Youngbloods were recording shows that would make up much of their next album. Rock Festival, released on Raccoon in July 1970, was a mixture of live and studio recordings (including at least one track from the Family Dog, recorded on March 29, although I don't know which one), it would be produced by Bob Matthews and Betty Cantor, who had also produced Live/Dead and Workingman's Dead. Owsley was apparently mixing the sound, so his old partners Bob and Betty were recording sound produced by Owsley, a Hall Of Fame taping lineup.

Singer/Songwriter Jeffrey Cain had been signed to the Youngbloods' Raccoon label. The Raccoon imprint allowed the band to sign anyone they wanted, while Warner Brothers would manufacture and distribute the record. The profits and losses were assigned to the Youngbloods (the Airplane had a similar deal with RCA, where their Imprint was called Grunt Records), but the band had artistic control. Cain's album For You would be released in mid-1970, and members of the Youngbloods backed him on the album. 

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen had relocated to Berkeley from Ann Arbor, MI in the Summer of 1969. They had played some early gigs at the Family Dog, and were soon booked with some regularity. Only a few weekends after they had arrived in town, Cody and the Airmen were booked to open for the Grateful Dead on the weekend of August 28-30, 1969. They must have hit it off, since they would open for the Dead and the New Riders many times over the next several years. George (Commander) Frayne ended up playing piano on the NRPS album, and eventually became Jerry Garcia's neighbor in Stinson Beach. In 1973, when the Riders split off from Grateful Dead management, they shared management with Cody (manager Joe Kerr had been a college classmate of Frayne), accounting for the close working relationship between the bands. 

Some of the earliest Lost Planet Airmen performances were recorded by Grateful Dead soundman Owsley Stanley, and released in 2020 on the Owsley Stanley's Found In The Ozone double-cd. The first cd consisted of the Airmen's set on Saturday, March 28. Also included were additional tracks from Friday (March 27) and Sunday (March 29), as well as some tracks from when the Airmen had opened for the Dead at the Family Dog in February.

Legend has it that the unassuming Emeryville house on the left was Lost Planet Airmen HQ back in the early 1970s

Owsley Stanley had been the Dead's soundman since July 1968, but he was no longer able to travel with the Grateful Dead after they had been busted in New Orleans in February 1970. Owsley had a prior arrest and a pending case, and the bust affected his bail conditions. No longer able to travel with the Dead, Owsley became the soundman at the Family Dog on The Great Highway, at least some of the time. Youngbloods producer Bob Matthews had been Owsley's friend and apprentice when both had worked for the Grateful Dead, around 1968--Matthews had even lived in Owsley's house on Ascot Drive in Oakland. Now Matthews was recording the Youngbloods for Warner Brothers. Presumably, Owsley recorded the Cody shows where he was mixing the sound, and moved aside for the Youngbloods. My understanding is that Owsley mixed the sound for the Youngbloods while Bob and Betty were recording at the Family Dog. It makes the (unknown) track on Rock Festival a rare contemporary instance of music mixed live by Owsley but not recorded by him.

In March 1970, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen were

Billy C Farlow-vocals, harmonica
Bill Kirchen-lead guitar, vocals
West Virginia Creeper (Steve Davis)-pedal steel guitar
Andy Stein-fiddle, tenor sax
Commander Cody (George Frayne)-piano, vocals
Buffalo Bruce Barlow-bass
Lance Dickerson-drums

Guitarist John Tichy had been in the band in the Summer, but he had returned to Ann Arbor to finish his PhD in Physics at the University of Michigan.

Appendix: Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, Saturday March 28, 1970, Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA Setlist
Cajun Fiddle      Written-By – B. Owens*, D. Rich*
Good Rockin’ Tonight      Written-By – R. Brown*
Jambalaya (On The Bayou)    Written-By – H. Williams*
My Girl Josephine    Written-By – A. Domino*, D. Bartholomew*
What’s The Matter Now?    Written-By – B. Farlow*
Bon Ton Roulet    Written-By – C. Garlow*
Matchbox    Written-By – C. Perkins*
Long Black Limousine    Written-By – B. George*, V. Stovall*
Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line    Written-By – I.J. Bryant*
Truck Drivin’ Man    Written-By – T. Fell*
Back To Tennessee    Written-By – B. Farlow*, G. Frayne*
Sleepwalk    Written-By – J. Farina*, S. Farina*
Midnight Shift    Written-By – E. Lee*, J. Ainsworth*
Blue Suede Shoes    Written-By – C. Perkins*
Lost in the Ozone    Written-By – B. Farlow*

Additional Songs
Sunday, March 29, 1970    
Sugar Bee    Written-By – C. Crochet*
Mama Tried    Written-By – M. Haggard*
Boppin’ The Blues    Written-By – C. Perkins*, H. Griffin*
Hot Rod Lincoln    Written-By – C. Ryan*, W.S. Stevenson
Riot In Cell Block #9    Written-By – Leiber & Stoller
Rip It Up    Written-By – J. Marascalco*, R. Blackwell*

Friday, March 27, 1970
Flip, Flop, And Fly    Written-By – J. Vernon Turner, Jr.*, C. Calhoun*
Seeds & Stems (Again)    Written-By – B. Farlow*, G. Frayne*
I Took Three Bennies (And My Semi-Truck Won’t Start) Written-By – W. Kirchen*, B. Farlow* 

For the next post in the series (April 3-5, 1970 Eric Burdon), see here