1505 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, CA: New Orleans Performers List, October-December 1967 ('67 Berkeley X)

 

 

A poster for the Youngbloods and Paul Arnoldi at Berkeley's New Orleans House, November 27-29, 1967

In early 1966 the live rock concert market exploded in San Francisco, thanks to Bill Graham at the Fillmore Auditorium and Chet Helms at the nearby Avalon Ballroom. The city of Berkeley, and the University of California there, provided a significant number of the fans for the San Francisco ballrooms. It was no surprise that Berkeley rapidly had a live rock scene of its own. Throughout 1966 there had been various efforts to establish live rock venues in Berkeley, largely unsuccessful. In January of 1967, however, Berkeley had its first nightclub primarily devoted to live rock bands playing original music. 

[This is the last in a series of 1967 Berkeley posts originally presented on Ross Hannan's Berkeley In The Sixties blog. Ross, a friend, co-conspirator and inspirational scholar, died on November 9, 2024, mourned by all who knew him and many who did not. Since the fate of Ross' blog cannot be predicted, I am publishing the final post in my own blog. Hoist a pint or light one up for Ross]

1505 San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley, the site of New Orleans House, as it appeared in 2009. I do not know of any photos of the exterior, interior or stage of New Orleans House from when the club was open.

The New Orleans House, in North Berkeley at 1505 San Pablo Avenue, between Jones and Hopkins Streets, only held about 200 patrons. But it served beer and wine, there was a dance floor and sometimes even a light show. So it was kind of like a miniature Avalon, if the Avalon had offered beer and dinner. There weren't yet that many rock bands in Berkeley, but there weren't really many places to play, either. As part of my survey of 1967 rock music in Berkeley, I am looking at every performer at the New Orleans House during that year (see below for links). My prior post reviewed New Orleans House performers from July to September 1967. This post will look at New Orleans House performers from October through December 1967. If anyone has additional information, corrections, photos, insights or recovered memories, please include them in the Comments. Flashbacks encouraged. 

Berkeley Barb ad for New Orleans House, September 29, 1967

September 29-30, October 1, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Morning Glory (Friday-Sunday)
New Orleans House was on San Pablo Avenue, near the Berkeley border and the Alameda County line. It was North of campus--"Northside" in local parlance--which was more sedate than the more raucous Southside. Telegraph Avenue, the riots and the undergraduates were all Southside.  Southside was for undergraduates. Northside was more oriented towards assistant professors and graduate students, with no riots. The Gilman Street neighborhood where the club was located was accessible both to campus and to San Francisco via Transbay buses, and just below (West) of the "Northside" neighborhood of the UC Campus.

Music generally began at New Orleans House at 9:30, even on weeknights, which seems late. But in fact the club served dinner from 5:00-9:00pm, and happy hour was from 8:00-9:00, where beer was just 75 cents a pitcher. So the club was also a restaurant and hangout for the neighborhood, separate from being just an entertainment venue. It was mostly open six nights a week, closed on Thursdays. Owner Kitty Griffin had run a restaurant on College Avenue (Kitty's) for a while, so she knew the Berkeley market. She also taught handicapped children during the day for the Contra Costa School district, and New Orleans House was her night gig.

Two Suns Worth, by Morning Glory, released on Fontana Records 1968

Morning Glory was a Mill Valley band with a sort of Jefferson Airplane sound. Since the Airplane were huge in 1967, those sort of groups got signed, and Morning Glory would put out the album Two Suns Worth on Fontana in 1968   The back cover was photographed on a cable car, just to ensure that no one missed the San Francisco connection.  The album isn’t bad, but its not that memorable.  Bassist Bob Bohanna wrote most of the songs, and shared the vocals with Gini Graybeal.

October 2-4, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Steve Miller Band (Monday-Wednesday)
It was commonplace at folk clubs to have a Hoot Night (short for "Hootenanny") early in the week. The general format was that a "host" would perform a few songs, and aspiring locals could get up and sing a few songs. It was a way for amateurs to have some fun, and for aspiring professionals to get heard. The likes of Bob Dylan and Linda Ronstadt were first heard (in Greenwich Village and West Hollywood, respectively) at a Hoot. Berkeley folkies had attended the regular Hoot at the Jabberwock until it had closed in July of 1967.

Later in the Summer, the New Orleans House added "Guest Night" on Monday nights, hosted by folksinger Larry Hanks, who had also hosted the Jabberwock hoot. New Orleans House pointedly called it "Guest Night." The ad said "Folk Music, Poetry, Variety" to distinguish it from an exclusively folk music event. Berkeley hippies weren't against folk music--they mostly liked it--but they didn't want to see themselves as square, aging "Folkies," so Guest Night broadened the options. I have no idea who actually may have performed.

New Orleans House "Guest Night" also included a late night set by a rock band. "Dancing to Rock Bands 11:30-1:30" was also code for "not just folk music." Usually a regular band played the late set, but this week featured the Steve Miller Band. The Steve Miller Band had been playing New Orleans House since early in 1967, and by this time they were major attractions at the Fillmore and Avalon, with record companies hovering around. But the Miller Band worked hard, gigging every night if they could, so they were always willing to play New Orleans House on weeknights. Steve Miller and Boz Scaggs were out in front of the band, singing and playing guitars. Jim Peterman was on organ, with Tim Davis on drums and vocals, both old pals of Miller from Madison, WI. Berkeley's Lonnie Turner played bass.

Berkeley Barb ad for New Orleans House, October 6, 1967

October 6-8, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Flamin’ Groovies (Friday-Sunday)
The Flamin’ Groovies were a few years younger than the first wave of Fillmore and Avalon musicians, but had still been connected to the scene from the beginning.  The Groovies had continued to play in the British Invasion style that preceded the acid-tinged jamming that characterized the Fillmore scene. The Groovies short rock songs and snotty attitude were not popular in San Francisco, and opinions remain divided about them.  The group intermittently broke up and reformed over the next few decades. When punk hit a decade later, the Groovies were seen as precursors, but despite popularity in England and elsewhere they remained (and remain) small beer in San Francisco and the Bay Area. The Groovies had already played a few weekends at New Orleans House earlier in 1967, so the fact that they were still getting booked meant they must have built an audience there.

October 9, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Guest Night/Short Yellow (Monday)
The Barb ad just listed "Guest Night" as "Hoot," perhaps giving in to the inevitable. The late night band was Short Yellow. Short Yellow had recorded some demos at Golden State Recorders in 1967 ("Highway Highway" and "Start Seeing"). The group featured singer Sandy Gurley, and the two tracks were released on the Big Beat compilation What A Way To Come Down. Sandy Gurley would later release a solo album on Tower in 1968.

October 10-11, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Quicksilver Messenger Service/Congress of Wonders (Tuesday-Wednesday)
Quicksilver Messenger Service were already headliners at both the Avalon and the Fillmore, and had little need to play the New Orleans House. After this date, however, numerous lesser groups that shared management with Quicksilver started to play the New Orleans House, so I believe that this show was a quid pro quo, since Quicksilver surely packed the place even on a weeknight. Capitol Records was on the verge of signing Quicksilver, although there debut album would not come out until May 1968.

Quicksilver Messenger Service’s manager was a shrewd Chicagoan named Ron Polte.  Polte was friends with Nick Gravenites and Paul Butterfield and was primarily responsible for the many connections between Chicago and San Francisco musicians.  Polte also had a booking agency called West-Pole. Polte's partner in West-Pole was former Big Brother manager Julius Karpen, who had been supplanted by Albert Grossman (Bob Dylan's manager). West-Pole booked numerous act, including Quicksilver, Congress of Wonders, Freedom Highway, The Sons of Champlin, The Ace of Cups and Phoenix. They also seem to have handled West Coast booking for Albert Grossman's acts, including Big Brother and Electric Flag. 

Congress Of Wonders released their debut album Revolting on Fantasy Records in 1970

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

Ultimately a duo, Karl Truckload (Howard Kerr) and Winslow Thrill (Richard Rollins) created two Congress of Wonders albums on Fantasy, Revolting (1970) and Sophomoric ('72). Their pieces “Pigeon Park” and “Star Trip”, although charmingly dated now, were staples of San Francisco underground radio at the time. Earl Pillow (Wesley Hind) was the original third member.

Berkeley Barb ad for New Orleans House, October 13, 1967

October l3-14, 1967: New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA Freedom Highway/Congress of Wonders (Friday-Saturday)
Congress Of Wonders, as Berkeley locals, seemed to have enough heft to headline the weekend. They were joined by another West-Pole affiliated band. I believe this was the implicit deal for Ron Polte: Quicksilver packing the house on two weeknights in return for his up-and-coming groups getting booked for the weekend.

Freedom Highway had formed in the Haight Ashbury in 1965, and may have opened for the Buffalo Springfield at the Fillmore in November 1966 (local bands often opened shows yet did not appear on the poster).  By 1967, the group had moved to Marin, and contrary to almost every other San Francisco group, became a power trio influenced by English groups like The Who.  Richie Ray Harris was the guitarist, Scott Inglis played bass and Bruce Brymer played drums. Freedom Highway was under the West Pole management umbrella and lasted until 1970.  In 2002 Switzerland’s RD Records released a CD of Freedom Highway demos called Made In 68.

October 15, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: The Black Messengers (Afro Jazz 5-9pm)/Rock & Blues Jam Session (Musicians Invited 9:30-2 am) (Sunday)
Another informal tradition was started at New Orleans House, namely Sunday jazz shows. Berkeley had no jazz club, and the sort of assistant professor/grad student types who liked jazz probably lived Northside anyway (and they probably still do, but that's another issue). I don't know who was in The Black Messengers, nor exactly what may have constituted "Afro-Jazz." My suspicion was that there was a conga drummer in the band.

The Black Messengers were followed by a jam session. Some musicians must have hosted the jam, but I don't know who. The Sunday jams the next few weeks were hosted by the band Short Yellow.

October 16, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Short Yellow/The Time Being (Monday)
The "Hoot" or "Guest Night" seems to have disappeared. Within a year, the Freight & Salvage would open a few blocks away, and Hoot Night would reappear on San Pablo Avenue.

The Time Being is unknown to me. Good name, though.

October 17-18, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Strawberry Jam (Tuesday-Wednesday)
Strawberry Jam is unknown to me. There had been an Oakland band called Strawberry Window that had played New Orleans House earlier in the year. Strawberry Window would change their name to Dandelion Wine, so perhaps this was an intermediate name.

October 20-21, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: The Zuckerman Clavichord/Paul Arnoldi (Friday-Saturday)  
The Zuckerman Clavichord was a local group that local guitarist Bob Zuckerman (in both Motor and later Deacon And The Suprelles) was not a member. They were a trio featuring Jeff Baker on electric clavichord, Geoff Ohlsonn on electric bass and Peter Joseph on drums. They played original songs with vocals, but I don't know what they actually sounded like (they did appear once on KPFA on May 16 1968).

Paul Arnoldi had been a folksinger/bluegrass musician in Cambridge, MA, but he had come to UC Berkeley to get a graduate degree in architecture. He was a songwriter by this time, and he wrote and played in what he called a "Prairie style." 

There were almost no clubs in the Bay Area that booked original rock music, really just New Orleans House, the Matrix in San Francisco and The Poppycock in Palo Alto. But the concert business was booming, so almost every band was booked somewhere during the weekend, making it hard for New Orleans House to get established bands on Friday and Saturday.

There are no Barb listings, nor an ad for the week of October 21-28. I don't read anything into that. Any temporary closure would likely have been announced. I think an advertising deadline was missed, and some regulars played the weekend.

Berkeley Barb ad, October 27, 1967

October 27-28, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: The Zuckerman Clavichord/Paul Arnoldi (Friday-Saturday)
The previous weekend's headliners were booked again.

October 29, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: The Black Messengers (5-9 pm)/Short Yellow and Jam Session (9:30-2:00 am) (Sunday)

October 31-November 1, 1967: New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA Miller Blues Band (Tuesday-Wednesday)
The Steve Miller Band returned to New Orleans House for a final time, playing on Halloween and the night after. They were incorrectly billed under their early '67 name "Miller Blues Band." Steve had dropped the "Blues" part of his name a few months earlier, as the band had broadened their sound. Yet it was appropriate that the last booking at New Orleans House for the Steve Miller Band was under the same umbrella as the first one, as they traveled on to bigger and better things.

The Steve Miller Band had been signed to Capitol, who would send them to London to record their debut album. The classic Children Of The Future would be released in April 1968. The Sailor album followed at the end of '68, after which Boz Scaggs had left the group. Both Boz and the Miller Band went on to staggering success in the 1970s, a long climb from the corner of San Pablo Avenue and Hopkins Street.

Tuesday night was a Halloween Costume Party. The Bay Area loves, loves, loves Halloween, always has, always will. Some locals must have dressed up that night as zombies, or "Ronnie Raygun," and gone out to New Orleans House for Halloween . A decade later, when some of those couples, now married, may have been driving in their Volvo station wagon, hearing "Fly Like An Eagle" or "Lido Shuffle" on the radio, did they recall dancing to Steve and Boz doing "Junior Saw It Happen" and "Baby's Calling Me Home"?

November 2, 1967: New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA Graham Leath Productions (Thursday)
From here on, New Orleans House was once again open on Thursday nights, but closed on Mondays. The "Hoots" were probably passe, and not a draw for a rock club. Interestingly, however, New Orleans House booked a dance troupe on Thursday nights. 

A unique feature of Berkeley rock clubs in the 1960s was how regularly they booked theater and dance troupes. Now, it was common for rock clubs everywhere to book a little jazz, folk and blues on off nights. There weren't always enough rock bands to go around, particularly in the '60s, and rock fans usually had some residual interest in other music, so it made sense to have other genres on weeknights. But theater and dance was something different entirely. Yet New Orleans House, along with The Steppenwolf and later Mandrake's (both several blocks South on San Pablo Avenue) regularly booked theater and dance. These troupes were usually "progressive," and sometimes political, not just performing old musicals, but it wasn't rock nor even music.

In 1967, New Orleans House regularly booked a troupe called the Graham Leath dancers. The Graham Leath company was a collaboration between John Graham and A.A. Leath. I won't try and go into a dance rabbit hole, but Leath was apparently a unique and independent creative force, just like the rock bands carving out their own musical futures. A.A. Leath had been part of Anna Halprin's dance school, who had her own deep ties to the Haight-Ashbury arts community.  His dance company partnership with John Graham seems to have been formally presented here as Graham Leath Productions. New Orleans House had booked the dance company regularly on Thursday nights throughout the Spring. After a hiatus, Graham Leath Productions returned to perform many Thursdays in the Fall of 1967.

Berkeley Barb ad for New Orleans House, November 3, 1967

November 3-4, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA:Charlie Musselwhite Band (Friday-Saturday)
Harmonica player Charlie Musselwhite had led a blues band in Chicago, sharing the front line with guitarist Harvey Mandel. Both were white, but they had a black rhythm section, similar to their friends in The Butterfield Blues Band. Musselwhite had been born in Mississippi and had then moved to Memphis, and ultimately Chicago.  He was one of a small number of white musicians in Chicago (including Nick Gravenites, Paul Butterfield, Mike Bloomfield, Elvin Bishop and a few others) who stumbled onto the blues scene by themselves.

Musselwhite eventually recorded an album for Vanguard in 1967 called Stand Back, which had started to receive airplay on San Francisco’s new underground FM station, KMPX-fm. As a result of his friendship with the Chicago crowd who had moved to San Francisco, Musselwhite's band was offered a month of work in San Francisco. Musselwhite took a month’s leave from his day job and stayed for a couple of decades.

By the end of 1967, Harvey Mandel had moved on to his own thriving musical career, but Musselwhite had become a regular performer in the Bay Area. I believe Musselwhite's guitarist at this time was young Tim Kaihatsu, who would go on to have an excellent career as a blues musician in the Bay Area.

November 5, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: The Black Messengers (5-9pm)/Short Yellow & Guest Musicians (9:30-2am) (Sunday)

November 7-8, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Hair (Tuesday-Wednesday)
The Barb ad says “The Darby Slick Band,” to distinguish this from the then-current Broadway musical. Hair was a short-lived San Francisco band featuring singer Jean Piersol and guitarist Darby Slick.  Slick had been in The Great Society (his brother had married the former Grace Wing) and had co-written “Somebody To Love.” Also in the band were saxophonist Terry Clements, bassist Bing Nathan and drummer John Oxendine (there was apparently another member named Henry Salas, too).

November 9, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Graham Leath Productions (Thursday)

Berkeley Barb ad for New Orleans House, November 10, 1967

November 10-11, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA Morning Glory/Short Yellow (Friday-Saturday)

November 12, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: The Black Messengers (5-9pm)/Short Yellow & Guest Musicians (9:30-2am) (Sunday)

November 14-15, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Liberty Street (Tuesday-Wednesday)
Liberty Street was so named because the group lived on Liberty Street in San Francisco.  One member (bassist Mike Friedman) had been in a Berkeley High School group called The Answer.

November 16, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Graham Leath Productions (Thursday)

Berkeley Barb ad for New Orleans House, November 17, 1967

November 17-18, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Gale Garnett & The Gentle Reign/The Black Messengers (Friday-Saturday)
Gale Garnett was born in New Zealand, and after a variety of family difficulties her family re-settled in Canada at age 11.   She moved to New York and became an actress, and then moved to California.  While Garnett guest starred in numerous TV shows, she also had a folk-singing career. She had a 1964 hit called “We'll Sing In The Sunshine,’ for which she won a Grammy.  She mostly focused on her singing career in the 60s and was primarily located in the Bay Area. Garnett was talented at both singing and acting, but of course, the fact that she was a knockout helped a lot.

An Audience with The King Of Wands, by Gale Garnett & Gentle Reign. Their debut folk-rock album would be released by Columbia in 1968.

In late 1967, Garnett moved from folk music to "folk-rock," leading the group Gentle Reign. Their initial 1968 album on Columbia would be called An Audience With The King Of Wands. The 1969 followup was Sausalito Heliport. The Sausalito Heliport was a failed business venture--private helicopters turned out not to be a thing, sadly--but many Fillmore bands rehearsed there, including the Grateful Dead. In a heliport, no one cares if you are a loud rock band.  

In the 1970s Garnett returned to Canada and focused on acting. She remains a professional actress with a wide variety of credits (she appeared in the movie My Big Fat Greek Wedding, to name just one).

November 19, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: The Black Messengers (5-9pm)/Short Yellow & Jam (9:30-2am) (Sunday)

November 21-22, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Charles Musselwhite Band/Congress of Wonders (Tuesday-Wednesday)

November 23-25, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Hair/Congress of Wonders (Thursday-Saturday)
The band Hair did not last song. Darby Slick and singer Jean Piersol would go to Chicago, where Darby would produce two Piersol singles for Cadet Concept Records. Note that the bands are booked for Thursday night, which was Thanksgiving. Berkeley in the 60s had a lot of people far from home, so going out on Thanksgiving was well within the norm.

November 27-29, 1967: New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Youngbloods/Paul Arnoldi (Tuesday-Thursday)
The Youngbloods were a Boston and New York folk-rock band in the mode of the Lovin' Spoonful.  Lead singer and bassist Jesse Colin Young (nee Perry Miller from Queens) had released two solo albums by 1966, one of which had been called Young Blood.  The band had now been signed to RCA, and they had released their first album as a band for RCA in early 1967. In June 1967, Young and the rest of the band (singer-guitarist Jerry Corbitt, pianist/dobro player Lowell "Banana" Levenger and drummer Joe Bauer) were booked for six weeks on the West Coast. It went so well that the Youngbloods moved to Marin County in September 1967. Around that time, RCA released Earth Music, the Youngbloods' second album.

The early Youngbloods were much more bluesy than their lighter, better known work a few years later would suggest. It is a little-noticed fact that the Youngbloods' famous recording of Dino Valenti’s “Get Together” had actually appeared on the first RCA album in late 1966.  It was a modest hit single, but did not attract much attention until 1969. Valenti was well known around the scene, and both The We Five and The Jefferson Airplane (among others) had already recorded the song. While they were booked for many weekend concerts up and down the Coast, the Youngbloods often found time to play weeknight gigs at clubs like New Orleans House and the Poppycock.

Berkeley Barb ad for New Orleans House, December 1, 1967

December 1, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Ace of Cups,/”Xmas Carol” by Congress of Wonders (Friday)
The Ace Of Cups had formed in San Francisco in the Summer of 1967.   While they played fine original music and had well-crafted songs with excellent harmonies, they are mainly remembered for being the only all-woman group on the Fillmore scene.  By late 1967, Ace Of Cups were managed by Ron Polte and booked by West Pole. The band lived in Tam Valley in Marin.  Denise Kaufman, the primary songwriter in the group, had gone to Berkeley High with the son of New Orleans House owner Kitty Griffin.

Kaufman, however, despite only being in her early 20s, had already had a remarkable history. Soon after high school, she had joined up with Ken Kesey’s gang of Merry Pranksters (she appears in Tom Wolfe’s Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test as ‘Mary Microgram’).  After breaking up with boyfriend Jann Wenner (future Rolling Stone publisher), she moved to the San Bruno Mountains and joined the remains of a group called The Frantics.  

The Frantics changed their name to Luminous Marsh Gas and played some obscure joints on the El Camino Real in the South Bay.  Kaufman sang for the group, as well as playing some guitar and harmonica. The other members were all from Seattle:  guitarist Jerry Miller, drummer Don Stevenson and organist Chuck Schoening.  Schoening subsequently joined a different commune in the Mountains and became part of the group Anonymous Artists of America.  Miller and Stevenson went on to form the legendary Moby Grape  (the entire story is detailed in Patrick Lundborg’s fine article in Shindig #7).

It's Bad For You But Buy It, the 2003 cd on Big Beat of demos and live tracks recorded by Ace Of Cups in the 1960s

West-Pole booked Ace Of Cups all over the Bay Area in the 1960s, usually paired with other West-Pole bands (as they were this night in Berkeley). Polte was too coy with record companies, however, and Ace of Cups was never signed. Despite their local popularity and substantial talent, the Ace of Cups never recorded while they were still an active band.  Good taste won out, however, and a scant 36 years after their formation, Big Beat released a fine CD of the group’s demos and live recordings in 2003. Just 15 years later, Ace Of Cups released their first studio album and commenced a world tour (if your world is Marin County). 

December 2, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Ace of Cups/Savage Resurrection (Saturday)
Savage Resurrection were a mostly teenage band from nearby Richmond.  They would release an album on Mercury in 1968 (subsequently re-released as a CD on Mod Lang in 1998).

December 3, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: The Black Messengers (5-9pm)/Short Yellow (9:30) (Sunday)

December 5-6, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Clover/The Natural 7 (Tuesday-Wednesday)
The New Orleans House was becoming not only a regular gig for East Bay bands, but for Marin County groups as well.  While this was partially a result of the profusion of West-Pole groups (while West-Pole offices were on Martha Street in San Francisco, most of their bands lived in Marin), it was also a function of the fact that bucolic Marin had very few paying gigs.  A Mill Valley band like Clover could easily exhaust what few gigs there were in Marin County, but they were not yet established enough to be San Francisco regulars.

Clover was a rarity in 1967, a Marin band that whose members were actually from Marin County. In early 1967, the Mill Valley band Tiny Hearing Aid Company had featured John McFee on lead guitar, Alex Call on guitar and lead vocals, Bob McFee on bass and Mitch Howie on drums. In mid-67, Bob McFee had moved over to become lead guitarist in Flying Circus, another Mill Valley band. John Ciambotti, formerly of The Outfit, had joined, Tiny Hearing Aid became Clover. The Outfit weren't well-known, but they had rehearsed at the Straight Theater, so they were well hooked into the SF rock underground. Clover's debut was apparently July 4, 1967. 

Clover had a long, complicated career. Its members were mostly successful, but not while they were in Clover. Throughout the band's 10 years of existence, they played Berkeley as much as anywhere, but they started at New Orleans House.

The Natural 7 is unknown to me.

December 7, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Graham Leath Productions (Thursday)

December 8-9, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: The Loading Zone/Robert Baker (Friday-Saturday)
The Loading Zone had been Oakland's first export to the Fillmore scene. The band had formed out of the ashes of a Berkeley band called The Marbles. In 1966, The Marbles had fallen apart, so they had merged with the remnants of the jazzy Tom Paul Trio. Guitarists Steve Dowler and Pete Shapiro shared the front line with organist and singer Paul Fauerso. Loading Zone was the first of the  ballroom bands to merge psychedelic rock with R&B, with long feedback-drenched solos on top of a funky beat. Ballroom crowds loved it, and Loading Zone showed promoters and musicians that the sound would work. The Zone kicked open the door that was walked through by Sly And The Family Stone and then Tower Of Power. Loading Zone's unheralded history is complex, but we have looked at it at great length.

The Loading Zone often had a horn section that played with them, although in smaller clubs there was often no room for them on stage.  The players were probably Todd Anderson on tenor sax and Pat O’Hara on trombone.  Their roadie, high school student Steve Kupka, played baritone sax when there was room on the stage, and if he was allowed into the venue. Todd Anderson shared vocals with organist Paul Fauerso. At one point in late '67 (the exact chronology is unclear, even to us) they had a female vocalist (possibly named Suzanne Lewis), but she did not last.

Robert Baker was a comedian.

December 10, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: The Black Messengers (5-9pm)/Short Yellow (9:30) (Sunday)

December 12-13, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Ball-Point Banana (Tuesday-Wednesday)
Ball-Point Banana is unknown to me.

December 14, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Graham Leath Productions (Thursday)

December 15-16, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Morning Glory/T&A Rhythm & Blues Band (Friday-Saturday)
Supporting the Morning Glory this weekend were the oddly-named T&A Rhythm & Blues Band. The T&A Rhythm and Blues Band featured bassist John Kahn, saxophonist Ron Stallings, guitarist Bob Jones and drummer John Chambers. Stallings and Jones sang. Bob Jones had been in the folk-rock group the We Five ("You Were On My Mind"), and Chambers had been their drummer. Stallings was also an actor, and had been a leading player in the San Francisco Mime Troupe.  Kahn had come to the San Francisco Conservatory in Fall '66 to receive formal training in the bass. A roommate, however (probably Chuck Schoning), persuaded him to rent an electric and play soul music in Top 40 clubs. Somewhere--probably a jam--Kahn had met Jones.

The silly name was just a goof on absurd psychedelic band names. The group mostly played soul music, like Sam & Dave songs. The band later evolved into the more bluesy Memory Pain. The band lived together, and sometimes when Kahn would go to jam sessions, he would encourage Jones to bring John Chambers' drums, even though he had no training as a drummer. Ultimately, Bob Jones was hired by Mike Bloomfield as a drummer, so in effect Jones was, in his words "Kahned into drumming."

December 17, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: The Black Messengers (5-9pm)/Short Yellow (9:30) (Sunday)

December 19-20, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Celestial Hysteria (Tuesday-Wednesday)
Celestial Hysteria was a Berkeley band, and they had played the Straight Theater and the North Beach club DinoCarlo's, among other venues.  The organist was John Barsotti, later a Professor of Broadcast Arts and Communications at San Francisco State University. No doubt Professor Barsotti is a relative of the many Berkeley Barsotti’s who played a critical role in the Bill Graham Presents organization.

According to Professor Barsotti (in an email to Gray Newell):

Celestial Hysteria had a male lead singer named Greg Renfro who later left the band and was replaced with a female singer named Mary Lou Hazelwood.  The band also consisted of Buddy Greer on traps, Mark Buvelot on Bass, John Formosa and Jim Logue on Guitar (later a guy named John Allen also on guitar), and I played Hammond organ.  We recorded and played shows from 1967-69…  I believe I am the only member of the band that stayed in the music Industry.

There was apparently some record company interest in 1968, and the band recorded some demos, but the band members were minors and their parents refused to sign a contract, so the deal went no further. 

December 21, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Flamin' Groovies (Thursday)
December 22-23, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Flamin' Groovies/Country Weather (Friday-Saturday)
Country Weather was a Walnut Creek (Contra Costa County) group, from just over the Berkeley Hills. They had originally been called The Virtues, but soon after lead guitarist Greg Douglass joined, they changed their name to Country Weather. This was probably one of their earlier gigs as Country Weather.

Country Weather never released a record when they were together from 1967-73   Since the group was familiar from many posters from 1968 onward, Country Weather became one of the great "lost" San Francisco groups of the 1960s.  Ultimately, the group reformed in the 21st century and still performs occasionally.  RD Records released a vinyl edition of some of their 60s demos and live performances.

Greg Douglass became a successful guitarist in the Bay Area, best known for co-writing “Jungle Love” for Steve Miller, with whom he played for many years. Douglass was also a member of Hot Tuna for one brief, sensational tour in Spring 1975.

Berkeley Barb ad for New Orleans House, December 29, 1967

December 29-31, 1967 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA Charlie Musselwhite Blues Band/Congress of Wonders (Friday-Sunday)
New Orleans House first year as a rock club ended with some regular performers, as Charlie Musselwhite and Congress Of Wonders had been booked there many times. The live rock market was booming, in Berkeley as well as everywhere else, and opportunities looked promising for 1968.

[In the future, since these posts were on Ross' blog, they may only be accessible on a Wayback Machine]

For the previous post in the '67 Berkeley series (Berkeley concerts, July-December 1967), see here

1505 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, CA: Performers List January-March 1967 ('67 Berkeley I)

1505 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, CA: Performers List April-June 1967 ('67 Berkeley IV)

1505 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, CA: Performers List July-September 1967 ('67 Berkeley VII)

For the Berkeley, Oakland and East Bay Rock History Navigation Tracker, see here

Chicken On A Unicycle

 

 

 

 

 

November 12, 1966 Campus Hall, UC Irvine, Irvine, CA: Oxford Circle/Magnficent VII (Lost Family Dog)

 

An ad from the UC Irvine Anthill newspaper (Nov 11 '67) for the Family Dog presentation of the Oxford Circle in Campus Hall at UC Irvine on Friday, November 12, 1966

Chet Helms and The Family Dog are cornerstones of San Francisco rock history, and thus the history of live rock concerts throughout the world. In late 1965, some proto-hippies who lived in an old house on Pine Street in San Francisco known as "The Dog House" put on some rock concerts. They used the name Family Dog, after one of the adopted strays at home. At the same time, in a rooming house at 1090 Page Street, Chet Helms was organizing jam sessions in the basement, featuring some residents playing weird, loud music. Chet helped them pick the name Big Brother and The Holding Company. By early 1966, Chet Helms had taken over the Family Dog, and Big Brother was playing around town. 

Some local characters called The Merry Pranksters found a way to commercialize their "Acid Tests," billing it as The Trips Festival. The Trips Festival immersed the crowd in loud music and a light show, and everyone was free to dance. Trips Festival stage manager Bill Graham teamed up with Chet Helms to start producing concerts at the nearby Fillmore Auditorium. They were hugely successful, but Bill and Chet had different visions. Graham stayed at the Fillmore, and Helms moved over to the Avalon Ballroom. The Fillmore became the beacon that lit the way for the modern rock concert, while the Avalon was always more underground. Over the decades, rock historians have labored to uncover the intricate history of the Fillmore and the Family Dog, so much so that even the posters for the shows have legendary status on their own terms. 

Chet Helms' Family Dog was a San Francisco phenomenon. After a few shows in '65 and '66, the Dog set up shop at the Avalon from April 1966 through November 1968. In late '67, there were abortive efforts to set up Family Dog affiliates in Denver, London and Portland, but they never took root. When the Avalon closed, Helms had a difficult stretch, but he reopened at the Family Dog on The Great Highway. The beautiful, cleverly conceived operation was either too late or too soon, and undercapitalized, and it was only open from June 1969 through August 1970. Afterwards, the Family Dog receded into memory, the famous logo only brought out on occasion for nostalgia.

Yet one thread of the Family Dog story turns out not to be unraveled. Way back in 1966, before Denver, before the record companies got involved, Chet Helms and the Family Dog put on a show in Southern California. It seems to have been at least a modest success. Yet it has dropped from the sight of any Family Dog scholars. This post will rectify that oversight, and review what is known about the Family Dog presenting the Oxford Circle and The Magnificent VII at Campus Hall in UC Irvine on Saturday, November 12, 1966.

This display ad appeared in the UC Irvine Anthill student newspaper on November 11, 1966. It appears to be a best-efforts attempt at an Avalon-style poster

University of California at Irvine
In the 1950s, the University of California system correctly anticipated an explosion in college enrollment stemming from the "Baby Boom" and the GI Bill. The system expanded their existing campuses, and planned three new campuses in San Diego, Santa Cruz and Orange County. The site of the Orange County campus was the former Irvine Ranch. UC Irvine's first classes began in October, 1965. In that first semester, there were just 1,589 students enrolled (there are currently around 35,000). Campus Hall, the multi-purpose auditorium and gym, was one of the nine original buildings present when the campus was opened. Campus Hall included a 1400 seat arena, used for sports, concerts and student assemblies.

Strange as it may seem today, colleges and universities all had budgets in those days for arts and entertainment. The school was meant to enrich the local culture as well as provide some fun. Intercollegiate athletics, for example, had originally been encouraged as local entertainment, although it had strayed far from that goal after World War 2. Nonetheless, in its initial years, with only a few thousand students, UC Irvine had substantial performers every month. Clearly the fees were subsidized, since the arts were considered a public good. A review of the student paper for the 1966-67 year (The Anthill) reveals performances by Duke Ellington, the Martha Graham Dance company, symphony orchestras and rock bands with hit records.

Preview
The Family Dog show was previewed in the weekly student paper, The Anthill, the day before the show.

SF Family Dog To Present "Freak Out"
"The Family Dog," a professional company from San Francisco, is presenting what is commonly known as a "Happening," an "Op-Dance," or a "Freak-Out" this coming Saturday night, November 12, in UCI's Campus Hall. The show and dance, which begins at 8:30 p.m. and lasts five hours, features two bands, a fantastic array of colored projections, cartoons and abstract images on the wall, and flashing "strobe" lights which make the dancers appear to be moving in fast or slow motion.

According to the Family Dog, because of the rising popularity, hardly a dance is produced in the San Francisco area without this type of show. 

The prices of admission range in San Francisco from $2.50 to $3.50, but because the event is being sponsored by the ASUCI, the price to UCI students and their guests is only $1.00.

The Oxford Circle, a band from the San Francisco area with specializes in Family-Dog type music will be featured in the show. Their performance will be supplemented by a local band, the Magnificent VII. 

The Family Dog has been putting on shows in the Avalon Ballroom and other auditoriums in San Francisco for the past year. Their UCI appearance is the first of what they hope to be a series of performances on college campuses.

A picture in the UC Irvine Anthill promoted the Campus Hall concert by The Association on October 28, 1966. At the time, the band had a hit with "Along Comes Mary."

Universities typically had a student group, usually called the "Entertainment Committee" or something, that made suggestions and recommendations, while a professional booking agency handled the actual arrangement. There must have been some real hipsters on this Committee, however. Just two weeks earlier The Association had appeared at Campus Hall. Now, the Association had a hit single with "Along Comes Mary, " but they weren't really hip. Someone knew something, however, about what was going on San Francisco. At this exact time in Los Angeles, Fillmore/Avalon type events were being held at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles, billed as a "Freak-Out," which the Anthill article references. The eagerness with which the preview article assures the students that it's really cool in San Francisco was probably to make up for the fact that the Oxford Circle had no album, just a single on an obscure label ("Foolish Woman"/"Mind Destruction" on World United, released back in January 1966).

The Oxford Circle
The Oxford Circle were from Davis, CA, near Sacramento. UC Davis had become another branch of the University of California in 1959, so the market for Davis rock bands boomed throughout the 1960s. They were originally a surf band called The Hideaways, but changed their name to the Oxford Circle when the British Invasion became popular. They were influenced by the louder groups like the Yardbirds and Them. When Oxford Circle started getting booked at the Avalon, the band got louder and the guitar solos got longer. By the end of 1966, Oxford Circle's lineup was:

Dehner Patten-lead guitar
Gary Yoder-guitar, vocals
Jim Keylor-bass
Paul Whaley-drums

Paul Whaley would go on to become a founding member of Blue Cheer in 1967, and Gary Yoder would join Blue Cheer in 1969. For a great snapshot of the Oxford Circle live, find the 1997 Big Beat cd Oxford Circle Live At The Avalon 1966, recorded some time that year (likely June 17-18, opening for Captain Beefheart).

The Magnificent VII
The Magnificent VII were an Orange County band with an arc similar to that of Oxford Circle. Per their website, the band had formed in Anaheim as the Vi Counts in 1961, and changed their name to the Nocturnes in 1963. They had a fair amount of regional success, playing places like the Rendezvous Ballroom in Balboa and the Revalaire Club in Redondo Beach (where they beat the Crossfires--later The Turtles--in a Battle Of The Bands). In 1965, in the face of the British Invasion, the Nocturnes changed their name to the Magnificent VII. They were regular performers at Disneyland during this period, one of the premier paying gigs in Orange County at this time. The Magnificent VII had released a few singles on independent labels. 

The Light Show
For a light show, Chet Helms hired The Outfit, the light show associated with the New Delhi River Band. The New Delhi River Band was Palo Alto's second psychedelic blues band, and included future New Riders David Nelson and Dave Torbert (I have written up their entire history elsewhere). The New Delhi River Band and The Outfit were regular performers at a psychedelic outpost called The Barn, in Scotts Valley. The tiny venue was in a rural part of Santa Cruz County, just over Highway 17 from San Jose (I have written up the history of The Barn as well). 

The initial idea had been that some Palo Alto bohemians, organized (sort of) by a guy named Carl Moore, would open up a club called The Outfit, but the strange little venture folded after one night. The projected "house band" of The Outfit became The New Delhi River Band, while the light show became The Outfit. Over time, the light show evolved into using the name Magic Theater, and they would sometimes appear separately from the New Delhi River Band. 

I first heard about the Family Dog's Irvine adventure over a decade ago from one of the old Palo Alto crew (hi Chris), a teenager who had often assisted The Outfit's light show at The Barn or elsewhere. He was invited to go down to Southern California but passed on the episode. In this case, the "traveling" light show seems to have been the remnants of The Outfit, rather than the Magic Theater, although that is just a derived assumption. Until recently, while I had a grainy copy of the ad, I did not know whether the event had actually taken place. The other person I knew who probably went had passed on (the late Rusty Towle), so I had no way to confirm what happened. As more and more universities digitize their archives however, various lost events have surfaced, and I can finally confirm that the Family Dog did put on a full psychedelic dance concert with the Oxford Circle at UC Irvine.

November 12, 1966
The Anthill was only a weekly paper, and only previewed campus events, rather than reviewing them. So the Anthill had no immediate description of the Family Dog event. In January, 1967 however, Big Brother and The Holding Company were booked at Campus Hall (see below), and the preview describes that forthcoming event as "similar to the one presented by the San Francisco Family Dog last November." So it happened, and it must have gone well enough. 

Chet Helms himself almost certainly wasn't at UC Irvine. The 13th Floor Elevators and Moby Grape were tearing it up at the Avalon, so he probably sent one of his lieutenants to manage the Irvine show. The Oxford Circle had a gig the night before at Freeborn Hall in UC Davis. The band probably drove from Davis to Irvine (remember, they would have to take CA-99 through Fresno and Bakersfield, as I-5 was not complete). Over at The Barn, Ken Kesey and his Pranksters were having their own event, so the Outfit (nor the Magic Theater) wouldn't have been booked either, thus freeing them for Irvine duty.

It was a big weekend in Southern California, too. The Sunset Strip Riots, as they were known, peaked on the weekend of November 12, as teenagers with protest signs objected to the crackdown by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. As Stephen Stills put it in his famous hit song "For What It's Worth": "What a field day for The Heat/There must have been a thousand people in the street/Singing songs and carrying signs/Mostly saying hooray for our side." Of course, Stills was at the Fillmore that weekend with the Buffalo Springfield, but he surely saw it on TV. 

Although the UC Irvine event was the only Southern California foray by the Family Dog, it hinted at another path for Chet Helms. Since Helms is always compared with Bill Graham, he often seemed like a weak businessman, which was only true when he was compared to Bill--a comparison most people would fall short of anyway. The last line of the Anthill preview says that the "UCI appearance is the first of what [the Family Dog] hope to be a series of performances on college campuses." Honestly, Chet could have had all the Avalon bands playing every college on the West Coast, for good, reliable money, but it wasn't the path he chose to take. Sic transit Gloria Psychedelia.

January 14, 1967 Campus Hall, UC Irvine, Irvine, CA: Big Brother and The Holding Company/Magnificent VII (Saturday)
The Anthill was only published on Thursdays, and did not generally include reviews of past events. In the January 13, 1967 edition, however, I found confirmation that the Family Dog show in November took place. Remarkably, this comment came as part of a description of a Saturday night (January 14) show by no less than Big Brother and The Holding Company. Big Brother had initially been managed by Chet Helms, but they had since split off. Amicably, of course--it was San Francisco--and Big Brother regularly played at the Avalon. There was some underground buzz about Big Brother even though at this time they had no records. 

GRAPE JELLY PLOTS DANCE & LIGHT SHOW [Anthill, UC Irvine, January 12, 1967]
The Grape Jelly Plot, a newly-formed student organization, is presenting a dance concert and light show this Saturday night, January 14, at 8:30 p.m., in UCI's Campus Hall.
The show will be similar to the one presented by the San Francisco Family Dog last November.

The program features two bands, colored lights, movies, slides and cartoons projected on the walls, along with flashing strobe lights which make dancers appear to moving in fast or slow motion.

Supplying music this time will be one of the most popular bands in the San Francisco area, Big Brother and The Holding Company. Completing the show will be a local band, the Magnificent VII.  

Although the price of admission to the show is $2.50, UCI students have the opportunity to buy tickets in advance at $1.50. Advance tickets are on sale at the Activities Office.

I assume that Big Brother played the Irvine show, since there was no news in the next few editions of the Anthill that the show was canceled. For those who are archeologically focused, the Big Brother show at UC Irvine has never appeared on a Big Brother concert list.

It is true that Big Brother and The Holding Company were at San Francisco's Human Be-In on the morning of Sunday, January 15. It is crucial to remember, however, that intra-state air travel in California was both jet-powered and unregulated. Big Brother could have flown from SFO to LAX on Pacific Southwest Airlines for no more than $20 per ticket. Their guitars would have been carry-on luggage and drums and amps would have been checked baggage. If students picked them up at the airport, they could have flown back to SFO on a 6am flight and gone straight to Golden Gate Park. So the economics of an SF band playing a one-nighter in Los Angeles were very plausible (as a regional footnote, Air California would be based at Orange County Airport, and had $10 flights to Northern California, but they did not start until January 16 '67).

The Anthill, UC Irvine, Thursday March 30, 1967

Aftermath
Orange County would become an important place in Southern California rock concert history, but that turned out to surround larger venues like the Anaheim Convention Center. UC Irvine was an attractive booking for an off-night, but the 1400-seat Campus Hall rapidly became awfully small even by college gym standards.  There were still a few random 60s events, however, probably booked when touring bands needed to fill an off night. The most prominent I could find were:

March 31, 1967 Campus Hall, UC Irvine, Irvine, CA: Buffalo Springfield/Cobblestone Garden (Friday)

September 27, 1968 Campus Hall, UC Irvine, Irvine, CA: Big Brother and The Holding Company (Friday)

May 1, 1969 Crawford Hall, UC Irvine, Irvine, CA: Led Zeppelin/Lee Michaels/Hard Luck Boy (Thursday)
Campus Hall had changed names by this time. The Zeppelin show seems to have been one for the ages, exactly the kind of event that ensures rock concerts aren't held in a venue for decades. Zep manager Peter Grant recalled (on the Led Zeppelin site)

"It was a great night when they appeared at the University of California. They did five encores that night and although the hall was filled to capacity with over 3,000 people in the audience, there were over 700 people outside who couldn’t get in. Fights broke out outside because people couldn’t get tickets and when Jimmy heard about it he asked everyone to squeeze up, had the side doors opened and managed to squeeze the waiting people in the hall.”  (May 1969)

There were occasional concerts at Crawford Hall after this, but not many.  There could hardly have been more memorable ones.

700 West 32nd Avenue, Los Angeles, CA Shrine Exposition Hall: Rock Concerts 1966-69 (Vintage LA)

 

The Shrine Auditorium and Exposition Hall was built in 1925 by the Al Malikah Temple of the Masonic Order.  The building is in a Spanish Colonial Style with a Moorish flair.  The main entrance to the Auditorium was at 665 West Jefferson Street.  The stage is huge (186 by 72 feet) and it is a popular home for the Academy Awards.  The Auditorium has 6,489 seats on three levels.  The Exposition Hall, part of the same complex but around the corner at 700 West 32nd (at Figueroa) is a 56,000 square foot open area that was (and is) used for trade shows and conventions as well as rock concerts.  The Expo Hall had a capacity of about 5,000. In the late 1960s, most rock concert listings that say “Shrine” are typically at the Exposition Hall rather than the Auditorium. From the 1970s onward, however, almost all rock concerts listed as "The Shrine" were at the Auditorium. 

Los Angeles, more than any other American city, traffics in the glorification of its own history, particularly when it comes to entertainment. LA always celebrates old theaters or nightclubs from brighter days, so often historical sites are better known now than they were back in the day. Looking at the best retro-LA sites, like VintageLA, is like reading about American popular culture history from the inside, and 60s rock history has its place in that world. VintageLA, for example--which I can't recommend enough--has features on the Aquarius Theater and The Whisky-A-Go-Go. Yet it has nothing about the Shrine Exposition Hall, which tried to be the Fillmore scene for Los Angeles. 

In another post, I discussed how the rise and decline of the Shrine Expo Hall was linked to the role of the Grateful Dead, as it was in so many cities. In the sixties, at least, Los Angeles didn't really warm up to the Dead, and whether cause or corollary, the Shrine Expo Hall was far less important than comparable venues in other city. 

In writing my post on the Grateful Dead at the Shrine Expo Hall, I discovered that there was no accessible on-line repository of 60s rock shows at Shrine Expo Hall. This post acts as a companion piece to the other post, mainly just listing of Fillmore-type rock concerts at the Shrine Exposition Hall in the late 60s.
 

FREAK OUT Hot Spots! Insert to the first Mothers of Invention album, with a map of underground sites in 1966 Los Angeles (Freak Out album released June 1966) 

August 13, 1966 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA:  Mothers of Invention/others
Los Angeles is an Entertainment industry town, and proud of it. Thus any cultural progression--new, contrarian, regressive, progressive, even revolutionary--gets assimilated into modern entertainment. Any performer who can be accused of "selling out" is also buying in, because it's the nature of the beast. In the Summer of '66, with the Vietnam War expanding, the Watts Riots still haunting the city and hair getting longer everywhere, Los Angeles had an underground rock scene, just like the Fillmore and Avalon. We like to think of Frank Zappa as an iconcoclast, or should I say, Frank wanted us to think that, but the very first Mothers Of Invention album included a map to LA's nascent 1966 underground.

One of the founding events of the Los Angeles underground was a show at the Shrine Exposition Hall on August 13, 1966, featuring the Mothers of Invention and several other (then unknown) acts. Just like the Family Dog events in San Francisco, Southern California "Freaks" suddenly realized there were a lot more people like them than they realized. The Shrine was apparently simply rented, probably because it was centrally located and available.

September 17, 1966 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Mothers of Invention/Little Gary Ferguson/Factory/Count 5/West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
October 15, 1966 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Little Gary Ferguson/Davie Allan & The Arrows/Kenny Dino/The Mugwumps/Dolores Johnson/The Way Out/The Fabs/Vito “Freak-In” Presented By Pat Morgan

In September and October there were sequels at The Shrine Expo Hall. The Mothers headlined in September, with some other undergroundish bands, and there was a light show as well. The October event didn't advertise the Mothers, and there were none after that. I have no idea what happened at the third one--was it a financial debacle, or did the cops hassle everyone? In any case, there were no more Freak Outs, but the Shrine Expo Hall had been proven as a possible venue for Fillmore style "Dance Concerts."

December 18, 1966  Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Big Brother and The Holding Company/Quicksilver  Messenger Service/Loving Impulse (possibly canceled)
Big Brother and Quicksilver booked a show at Shrine Expo Hall, and some ads circulate. I'm not convinced the concert actually took place. The importance of the ads, however, was that it meant that word had gotten around that the Shrine Expo Hall might make a Southern California Fillmore stand-in.

November 10-11, 1967 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Buffalo Springfield/Grateful Dead/Blue Cheer Pinnacle Concerts Presents
By the fall of 1967, almost every psychedelic rock band had played Los Angeles, at a wide variety of venues, but there was no venue that played the role of the Fillmore. At the Fillmore, the mere fact of playing there meant you were a hip band, and fans came just to see what was hip. All over the West Coast, there were comparable places--the Crystal Ballroom in Portland, Eagles Auditorium in Seattle and The Retinal Circus in Vancouver, for example--but none in Southern California. The Kaleidoscope had been conceived to fill the void, but the City Council (and perhaps the cops) had throttled it pre-birth. There may have been a few hip little nightclubs, like the Magic Mushroom (at 11345 Ventura Blvd, formerly the Cinnamon Cinder), but no venue where the rising underground bands played profitably on a regular basis.

The first regular promoter of rock shows at the Shrine was Pinnacle Dance Concerts, the partnership of Sepp Donahower, Marc Chase and John Van Hamersveld. Supposedly some of the money was supplied by the heir to a cereal fortune, but that may be apocryphal. Pinnacle promoted concerts at the Shrine, both the Expo Hall and the Auditorium, on many weekends between November 1967 and August 1968. As far as I know, during the week the Shrine presented the usual run of corporate or civic events, but I don't know that for certain.

Van Hamersveld was a poster artist, at the time most famous for the promotional poster for the legendary surf film Endless Summer. By 1967, he was the the head of design for Capitol Records. Over the course of his career, Van Hamersheld did the covers for over 300 albums. Among his many, many classic album covers were the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour, the Rolling Stones' Exile On Main Street and the Grateful Dead's Skeletons From The Closet. Van Hamesveld did the posters for Pinnacle Productions, and many of the posters were so good that we remain familiar with them today.

After Pinnacle's debut with Buffalo Springfield and The Dead, they put on a series of shows at Shrine Exposition Hall. Pinnacle only used the Shrine on weekends, and not even all of them, and the Exposition Hall seems to have had the usual trade events and the like throughout the whole period. There weren't as many rock concerts at the Shrine as at the Fillmore, but Van Hammersveld's posters are fairly recognizable today. Pinnacle must have made at least some money, since they kept putting on shows.

December 15-16, 1967 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Moby Grape/Country Joe and The Fish/Blue Cheer Pinnacle Concerts Presents
The poster is very obscure

December 22-23, 1967 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: The Doors/Tim Buckley/Sweetwater
I am only indicating the Promoter when I can see it on a poster or read about it. The promoter for this weekend very likely was Pinnacle, but I don't know that yet.  Pinnacle seems to be on a plan to present shows two weekends a month at The Shrine Expo Hall, although that doesn't precisely work out on the calendar.

December 31, 1967 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Wolfman Jack's New Year's Eve Party
Wolfman Jack was, of course, the legendary dj who worked out of XERB in Rosarito Beach, Mexico, bringing R&B to teenagers across the West with 50,000 watts of power.. The bands at this event were probably a lot of fun--The Olympics, The Soul Survivors ("Expressway To Your Heart"), Sam & Dave and so on. But it wasn't the Fillmore crowd. I don't really know anything else about this show. Still, it was a sign that Shrine Expo Hall was just for rent, and it wasn't just rented to hippies.

January 12-13, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA:  Big Brother & The Holding Company/Blue Cheer/Mint Tattoo Pinnacle Presents

A handbill for the Jimi Hendrix Experience show at the Shrine Auditorium on February 10, 1968

February 10, 1968  Shrine Auditorium, Los Angeles, CA:  Jimi Hendrix Experience/Soft Machine/Electric Flag/Blue Cheer Pinnacle Concerts Presents
The most famous Pinnacle production at the Shrine has, ironically, had the effect of painting a misleading picture of Shrine concerts in the 1960s. Jimi Hendrix was not only huge, but a sensation. So, appropriately, the Jimi Hendrix Experience played the Shrine Auditorium. There were 6000 seats, instead of about 5000 for the Expo Hall, and reserved seats meant not only higher prices, but guaranteed places for important people. 

Since Hendrix was so rightfully famous, the poster and the event have had far more reach than any event at Shrine Expo Hall. So there has been an implicit, somewhat unstated assumption that "Shrine" rock concerts in the 60s were at the Auditorium. I believe there were more Shrine Auditorium concerts in the 1970s, as the rock market got bigger, and that lent weight to the assumption that 60s concerts were in the seated Auditorium.

February 23-24, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Jefferson Airplane/Charlie Musselwhite/The Ceyleib People/Clear Light

March 15-16, 1968  Shrine Exposition Hall  Los Angeles  Cream/Buffalo Springfield/James Cotton/Mint Tattoo Pinnacle Dance Concert
Buffalo Springfield was unbilled.

March 29-30, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Traffic/Quicksilver Messenger Service/Crumbs Pinnacle Presents

April 12-13, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Electric Flag/Quicksilver Messenger Service/Charley Musselwhite  High Torr Dance Concert
I have never understood who High Torr represented, and why they put on shows on a couple of weekends, instead of Pinnacle.

May 2-3-4, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Big Brother and The Holding Company/Albert King/PG&E  Pinnacle Presents

May 10-11, 1968  Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Mothers of Invention/Charley Musselwhite Blues Band/Sweetwater High Torr Presents

May 17, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Grateful Dead/Steve Miller Band/Taj Mahal
May 18, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Grateful Dead/Steve Miller Band/Taj Mahal/[with Jefferson Airplane as unbilled guests] Pinnacle Presents
By May of '68, Pinnacle had put on a steady run of hip shows at the Shrine Expo Hall. For the weekend of May 18-19, the Grateful Dead returned, along with another rising San Francisco group, the Steve Miller Band. The Miller Band had just released their debut album on Capitol, the great Children Of The Future. Taj Mahal was a well-known local act, whose debut album had just been (or was about to be) released on Columbia. 

In line with being cool, the Airplane "showed up" at the Grateful Dead concert on Saturday night. This was probably announced on FM radio. Pinnacle would not have had the Airplane drop in if ticket sales had been more robust. It's worth noting that the Dead, Airplane and Steve Miller were all playing the Northern California Folk-Rock Festival in Santa Clara this weekend. The Dead would have played the Shrine on Friday night, flown up to San Jose, played the Fairgrounds on Saturday afternoon, and then returned to the Shrine for the Saturday night show.

llumaniti Alert: in an interview, poster artist and Pinnacle partner John Van Hammerseld, interviewed in Paul Grushkin's Art Of Rock book (p.255), says that George Lucas was part of the light show crew at some point in 67-68. So for those of you who feel that there was a secret connection between the Grateful Dead and Star Wars...

May 24-25, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Chambers Brothers/Dr. John The Night Tripper/Velvet Underground/Salvation  Pinnacle Presents
Velvet Underground did not appear, and were replaced by Electric Flag. There is some intimation that Blues Project played, but that group only barely existed at the time and were based in the Bay Area.

May 31-June 1, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA:  The Yardbirds/B.B. King/Sons of Champlin  Pinnacle Presents

June 14-15, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Chambers Brothers/Chuck Berry/Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac Pinnacle Presents
This date is only known from the well-known Who poster for the end of June (below). I do not know if the show actually happened. I do know that Fleetwood Mac did not debut in North America until June 28. The Chambers Brothers had a big hit with "Time Has Come Today," so the show very well may have come off.

June 28-29, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: The Who/Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac/Crazy World of Arthur Brown Pinnacle Presents
This was Fleetwood Mac’s American live debut. They had been scheduled for a few shows earlier in the month in San Francisco, but the band was delayed by visa problems. The Mac was still the original 4-piece lineup (Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, John McVie and Mick Fleetwood) as Danny Kirwan would not join until August.

The second night (June 29) Steve Miller Band replaced Crazy World of Arthur Brown, due to an injury in the band.

July 11, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Grateful Dead/Blue Cheer
July 12-13, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Butterfield Blues Band/Velvet Underground/Sly and The Family Stone/The Rockets Pinnacle Presents
The Grateful Dead returned in 1968 to headline a rare Thursday show at Shrine Expo Hall. It's hard to read the poster (done by Neon Park), but I'm not sure if it was a Pinnacle show. Certainly Pinnacle produced the weekend show, with a triple bill of Butterfield Blues Band, Sly and The Family Stone and the Velvet Underground. Presumably, the fact the Dead could play on a Thursday suggested they had an audience, but they weren't a big enough draw for a weekend show. 

The Rockets would go on to become Crazy Horse, and work with Neil Young.

July 19-20, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Love/Rhinoceros
Another poster has Iron Butterfly/Barry Goldberg Reunion/The Collectors. I don't have any more information.

July 26-27, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Pink Floyd/Jeff Beck/Blue Cheer Pinnacle Presents

August 2, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Electric Flag/Ornette Coleman/Jeff Beck Group/Charles Lloyd/Rockets
August 3, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Jeff Beck Group/Blue Cheer/Steve Miller Band/Big Mama Thornton and the original Hound Dog Band/Charles LloydAugust 4, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA:  Butterfield Blues Band/Ike & Tina Turner/Electric Flag/Magic Sam/Steve Miller Band/Kaleidoscope Pinnacle Presents
A poster shows Pinnacle presenting all this weekend's shows. Mike Bloomfield had left Electric Flag by this time. If the group played on Friday (Aug 2) and Sunday (Aug 4), it would have been among their last gigs.

August 4-5, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Buddy Miles Express/Taj Mahal And His Great Plains Boogie Band/The Rockets
A newspaper ad says “Lifeline Presents a New Season At The Shrine.” This conflicts with the August 4 date above, but those dates have always been a bit uncertain. As is typical with the Shrine, it's unclear who "Lifeline" was, why they would book shows on a Sunday and Monday night, and why it might conflict with a pre-existing Pinnacle booking.

To add to the confusion, the disintegrating Electric Flag renamed themselves the Buddy Miles Express, since Miles was leading the band anyway. It makes even less sense that a band would play the same venue a few days after re-naming itself. Possibly the "Lifeline" ads are mis-dated, and replaced the Pinnacle weekend bookings.

August 23-24, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Grateful Dead/Taj Mahal/others Pinnacle Presents
The Grateful Dead released one of their many archival cds (1992's Two From The Vault) from these Shrine shows. While a beautifully restored tape, in the Grateful Dead tradition, the liner notes suggest that the Dead played the Auditorium when they in fact played the Expo Hall. Clearly, everyone seems to have had a memory lapse... 

August 30-31, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Barry Goldberg Reunion/Charlie Musselwhite/The Rockets 
Known from a newspaper ad. The ad says “Fresh Air: Arbor Day Presents Blues”

September 6-7, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: John Mayall/Junior Wells/Taj Mahal Pinnacle Presents
Pinnacle's last stand.  John Mayall's new Blues From Laurel Canyon quartet (with future Rolling Stones guitarist Mick Taylor leading the way, plus bassist Stephen Thompson and drummer Colin Allen) makes their American debut. According to Mayall (in Chris Hjort's indispensable Strange Brew book), Mayall called it "a big hit." This weekend is the last Pinnacle promotion.

An ad for a canceled concert at the Shrine Expo Hall on September 27-28, 1968, presented by "Zenith Sunrise," and featuring the Grateful Dead and Buddy Miles Express

September 27-28, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Grateful Dead/Buddy Miles Express/Black Pearl/Little John Farm  [canceled] Zenith Sunrise presents
The Pinnacle company fell apart after August. An intriguing artifact is this poster for scheduled Grateful Dead concerts at Shrine Expo on the weekend of September 27-28. The poster says the shows will be presented by Zenith Sunrise. The concerts never happened. Presumably, Zenith Sunrise was a reformed version of Pinnacle, but it didn't happen. Much of the Pinnacle team reconvened as Scenic Sounds, and started putting on shows around Southern California. The Dead were very loyal to promoters, so I assume that if they took the September booking, it would have been with the same principals as Pinnacle.

November 2, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Iron Butterfly Scenic Sounds presents
The Pinnacle group reconstituted itself as Scenic Sounds. I know that John Van Hammersveld was the Art Director for Capitol Records by this time, and the cereal heir was gone (if he was ever really there). Scenic Sounds rented Shrine Expo Hall again for a few more shows in the Fall.

November 9, 1968  Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA:   Love

November 29-30, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Jeff Beck/Moody Blues/Ten Years After/Mint Tattoo Scenic Sounds presents
We know for certain from the poster that Scenic Sounds promoted this show.

December 6-7, 1968  Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA:  Mothers of Invention/Easy Chair/GTO’s/Alice Cooper/Wild Man Fischer
Frank Zappa and his manager (Herb Cohen) had two "imprints" (vanity labels) on Warners, Bizarre Records and Straight Records. This weekend was a celebration of all the acts on the label, probably subsidized by Warners. Presumably, the Scenic Sounds team ran the show. 

Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band may have played, unbilled (per fellow scholar Charles Ulrich) Easy Chair featured Jeff Simmons (was he playing Comedy Music?). All of the acts are now infamous or famous.

December 20-21, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA:  Grateful Dead/Country Joe and The Fish/Spirit/Pulse/Sir Douglas Quintet/Mint Tattoo Scenic Sounds presents
It is largely forgotten that outside of San Francisco, Country Joe and The Fish had a higher profile than the Grateful Dead. Since Country Joe and The Fish had no bass player at the time, Mark Andes of Spirit filled the chair for these shows, per eyewitnesses.

There were two stages, apparently, to speed up the set changes. Still, it must have been a long evening.

December 31, 1968 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Canned Heat/Pogo/Lee Micheals/Black Pearl/Love Army/Sweetwater Scenic Sounds presents a New Year’s Eve Extravaganza.
"Pogo" was Poco (Richie Furay, Jim Messina et al) before they changed their name. I know almost nothing else about this show save for the fact that it was advertised.

January 11, 1969 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Vanilla Fudge/Spirit
Vanilla Fudge was the main touring act for Concerts West. In the Pacific Northwest, they had been booked with the newly-arrived Led Zeppelin. By January 11, however, Led Zeppelin was killing it at Fillmore West, and the Fudge were just another band past their prime. Spirit was probably good, though.

January 24-25, 1969 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA:   Mothers of Invention/Sir Douglas Quintet/Fleetwood Mac/Black Pearl (double shows each night)
Fleetwood Mac released a cd in the 1990s, recorded on January 25. Apparently there were double shows each night, probably an effort to turn over the house and make it more profitable. The fact that this approach was only tried once suggests it wasn't a viable idea (I'm not even certain it happened that way). I can't tell from the poster who might have promoted this show.

January 31-February 1, 1969 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA:  Pacific Gas & Electric/Charles Lloyd/James Cotton/Things To Come Scenic Sounds presents
The last Scenic Sounds event couldn't have sold a lot of tickets. In fact, the music would have been pretty good: P,G&E were a funky blues band from San Francisco, James Cotton and Charles Lloyd were always great, and Things To Come was a rising band on the LA club circuit. But who was going to buy tickets and drive over to see it? By definition, there are always million things to do in LA, and all teenagers had access to cars--why would they go see some obscure band from SF, even with some quality blues and jazz acts on the bill?

After this, Scenic Sounds moved their operation to The Rose Palace in Pasadena, and they no longer put on concerts at The Shrine. The Expo Hall and Theater were still rented out occasionally to concert promoters, however.

October 31, 1969 Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles, CA: Delaney & Bonnie & Friends/Geronimo Black/Smoke/Eric Burdon/Southwind/C.K. Strong/Gypsy “LA Rumor Control and Information Center Presents.”
The last gasp of Shrine Expo in the 60s was Halloween '69. I don't know who the promoter really was. The ad just says “The Shrine.”  Eric Burdon would have played with War. Delaney & Bonnie & Friends were mostly playing Topanga Canyon, and would not become well known until Eric Clapton toured with them a few months later. CK Strong featured singer Lynn Carey, who would later be in Mama Lion (the Mama Lion album cover is infamous, but don't google it at work, even though it was a legit album).

Aftermath: Pacific Presentations
The significant impact of Pinnacle concerts at Shrine Expo was the genesis of subsequent concert promotion companies. The Pinnacle team became Scenic Sounds. In early '69, Scenic Sounds started booking regular concerts on weekends at the Rose Palace in Pasadena. Many of the same bands who played The Shrine returned to play The Rose Palace. The ever-loyal Grateful Dead, for example,  played for Scenic twice more at the Rose Palace, on March 21-22, 1969 and then again on May 10.

Scenic Sounds in turn became Pacific Presentations. Pacific put on concerts all over the country, particularly in secondary markets like San Antonio or Rochester, where there weren't major promoters. Band like the Dead and Ten Year After were willing to play the hinterlands, but they wanted to work with promoters they already knew, so Pacific Presentations promoted a lot of shows all over the country.

The Wikipedia entry summarizes the history of Pacific, which itself is a capsule history of concert promotion in the United States:

Pacific grew into one of the largest concert companies in the United States, promoting thousands of concerts all over the US and Canada. The company established and popularized venues such as the Hollywood Palladium, and the Santa Barbara County Bowl. Pacific put together California Jam in 1974, which set the record for paid attendance. The company also promoted entire tours of Rod Stewart & The Faces all through the 1970s, helping make the artist one of the biggest attractions in the world. In the late 1970s, Gary Perkins, Brian Murphy, and Bob Bogdanovich split from Pacific and formed Avalon Attractions. Danny Kresky was also with Pacific. After around four years, Danny left to start his own company, DKE in Pittsburgh. Donahower stayed with Pacific and promoted tours with Bob Marley & The Wailers and other attractions. 

 

Sepp Donahower is currently the sole owner of Pacific Presentations. After Perkins left Avalon a few years later, Irving Azoff and Bob Getties bought into Avalon and it was sold to SFX a few years later. SFX was then sold to Clear Channel, and Clear Channel spun off their concert company into Live Nation, which now has merged with Ticketmaster.