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The Family Dog on The Great Highway, at 660 Great Highway, ca. 1969
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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
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The Edgewater Ballroom, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CAAs
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)
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The Family Dog On The Great HighwayThe
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 Wild West Festival
In 1969, San Francisco was
one of the capitals of rock music, along with London, New York and Los
Angeles. The Fillmore and the Avalon had transformed the live music
business, and FM rock radio had done the same for the airwaves. With
rock live and on the radio, and a huge audience of baby boomers, rock
music was profitable like never before, and with entirely new paradigms.
The whole rock music world paid attention to what happened in San
Francisco, and how it happened as well, since it was where new things
came from.
San Francisco had more or less invented the "free concert in the park" model (
for more on that, see Gina Arnold's excellent 2018 book Half A Million Strong: Crowds and Power from Woodstock to Coachella).
By 1969, the outdoor free concert idea had expanded into the "Rock
Festival," a vast multi-day outdoor exercise with dozens of bands and
tens of thousands of fans. The Summer of '69 was rock festival summer:
there were big outdoor events in Atlanta, Texas, Seattle, Atlantic City
and of course, Woodstock, just to name the most prominent. If rock
festivals were the thing, then San Francisco had to be the City That
Knows How, and throw the biggest and best of them.
The Wild
West Festival was conceived as a three-day event in Golden Gate Park, in
the center of San Francisco. Kezar Stadium, home of the San Francisco
49ers, was in the park, and there would be three days of high profile
shows with the cream of the Fillmores: the Grateful Dead, Janis Joplin,
Quicksilver, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and The Fish, Santana and
Sly and The Family Stone. Other cities should have been so lucky. On the
grounds of the park, surrounding Kezar, there would be dozens of lesser
bands playing for free. The concept was to merge the best of a free and
a paid festival in one setting.
The
actual subject of the Wild West Festival, and its ultimate
cancellation, is too long a story to tell here. Fortunately, the story
has been told very well and in great detail by Michael J Kramer and his
excellent book
The Republic Of Rock: Music and Citizenship in The Sixties Counterculture (2013 Oxford Press). Suffice to say, everybody wanted something different from the Wild West, and no one got anything. To summarize:
- San
Francisco, always ahead of its time, showed the rock world that the
expectations of fans, bands, promoters and cities could not be met, and
the festival was not a lasting model. It took the rest of the country
another 18 months to figure that out
- Thanks partially to the
cancellation of the Wild West, the Rolling Stones ended up playing a
concert at Altamont in December, and the whole rock world found out how
badly an outdoor rock festival could really go (once again, SF ahead of
its time)
Per the poster, the main acts for the nighttime shows at Kezar Stadium would have been:
- Friday, August 22: Janis Joplin/Grateful Dead/Quicksilver Messenger Service/Turk Murphy
- Saturday, August 23: Jefferson Airplane/Mike Bloomfield & Nick Gravenites/Edwin Hawkins Singers/Sons of Champlin/Fourth Way
- Sunday, August 24: Sly and The Family Stone/Santana/Country Joe and The Fish/Steve Miller Band/The Youngbloods
The week of August 10, the Wild West Festival was canceled. Everyone was ultimately better off for it, although it didn't seem that way at the time. San Francisco being San Francisco, it was somehow agreed that instead of the Wild West, there would be a weekend of "Benefit" concerts at the Fillmore West and Family Dog. The idea was to pay for the costs already incurred for the canceled festival. A lot of bands were available, of course, because not only was the Wild West canceled, but there had been no other gigs in town either, since every walking rock fan was expected to be at Golden Gate Park.
There were eight concerts scheduled, three nights at Fillmore West and three nights and two afternoons at the Family Dog. The final press release listed the scheduled bands, although it remains murky what actually transpired. It's also notable which bands did not play any of the "Wild West Benefits."
The Grateful Dead had been booked for Kezar on Friday night. In fact, the Dead were going to play Seattle Wednesday (August 20), return for a Kezar show Friday, and then headline a rock festival outside of Portland on Saturday (August 23). In the end, the Dead stayed in the Pacific Northwest, playing a rained out date in Seattle on Thursday (August 21) and then having the New Riders play the Portland rock festival on Friday night (August 22). The band probably saved a bunch of money on travel, in any case.
Notably, however, the acts that sold the most records were not playing the Benefits: Janis Joplin and Sly and The Family Stone. Joplin, though pals with all the Fillmore bands, was far more ambitious than them, and was managed by the shrewd Albert Grossman. Janis had played for free many times, when there was good reason to, but the Wild West was a failed business venture that--presumably--neither Janis nor Albert saw as requiring their bailout. As for Sly, he didn't play for free--that wasn't how he rolled.
Steve Miller, while still a sort of middle-level Fillmore act at the time, was a lot more like Janis. Miller had played for free many times in the 60s, but when it was in his interests, and usually when it was fun. The '70s would show what a level-headed operator Miller could be, and this time his level head seems to have suggested not getting involved.
The absence of Santana is significant here as well. The first Santana album had just been released, and was getting major airplay on KSAN. Santana had been a popular act in the Bay Area for some time, even before the release of the album. And Carlos, of course, loved to jam, loved to hang out, and would be seen (and very welcome) at many a benefit in the future. But the Santana band was effectively managed by Bill Graham, and Bill seemed to be keeping his own band from these Wild West shows. It's hard not to draw the conclusion that the most career-minded San Francisco bands were not going to help the organizers of the Wild West make back their expenses.
August 22-24, 1969 Wild West Benefits
When we compare the bookings of the Fillmore West and The Family Dog for the Wild West Benefit weekend, it's hard not to draw the conclusion that Graham made sure that the headliners were playing the Fillmore West. Jefferson Airplane was undeniably the biggest act, and they were headlining the Fillmore on Saturday night (August 23).
Quicksilver Messenger Service was a substantial band, too, and while they had a new hit album (Happy Trails, released in May), they had hardly played live in 1969. Quicksilver was playing both venues, but they were playing Fillmore West first, on Friday night. The Youngbloods had a hit, too, with "Get Together," and they were booked with the Quick on Friday night, before they played the Dog on Sunday. So Graham got first bite of both those apples. Country Joe and The Fish had recently played both Fillmore West (July 18-20) and the Family Dog (August 8-10), but they were a major band with a new album (Here We Are Again, released in July). They were headlining Fillmore West on Sunday night.
The Family Dog got some interesting bands this weekend--It's A Beautiful Day, Buddy Miles Express (the reconstituted Electric Flag) and the Sons, for example--but Fillmore West had the spotlight. Graham was Graham--the whole enterprise was shaky, and Bill was going to make sure that he made back his expenses. Also, it's worth noting that, "Benefit" or not, the bands had expenses too, just for playing a gig. They probably figured they could get those expenses covered by Graham, rather than take their chances with the Family Dog. Remember that all the major bands were out a payday to start with, so requesting a few hundred dollars to cover their costs was probably a minimum.
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Berkeley's Congress Of Wonders would release their Fantasy Records debut Revoling in 1970
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August 22, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Freedom Highway/Seatrain/Congress of Wonders/Flamin Groovies/Phoenix/Rubber Duck Co (Friday) 7pm The Friday night show at the Dog was up against Quicksilver at Fillmore West. I know nothing about this show. It was probably thinly attended. All of the bands playing this night at the Dog would have been part of the free concerts in the Park, not likely the paid gigs at Kezar.
- Freedom Highway was a Marin band, booked by Quicksilver manager Ron Polte's West-Pole agency
- Seatrain was the new name of the re-formed Blues Project. They had just released an album on A&M, and played a sort of baroque progressive rock, featuring Richard Greene on electric violin. At this time, the balance of the lineup was probably John Gregory on guitar, Don Kretmar on saxophone, and former Blues Projecters Andy Kulberg (bass) and Roy Blumenfield (drums).
- Congress Of Wonders was a popular Berkeley comedy duo, who had played the Dog before
- The Flamin' Groovies were a San Francisco band who played in a British Invasion style (like The Who) rather than jamming the blues Fillmore style, so although local they hadn't really found a niche yet
- Phoenix had a long, complicated history that is hard to summarize. They went all the way back to the Acid Tests in 1965 and '66, but the band had evolved (see the Phoenix Family Tree here).
- Rubber Duck featured mime Joe McCord, backed by musicians who improvised behind him. McCord's backing band fluctuated, and on occasion even included Jerry Garcia and Tom Constanten, but since the Dead were out of town we know they weren't involved.
From what we know, these groups were pretty interesting, but there wasn't anyone on the bill with a following that would draw a crowd.
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Guitarist Joe Tate had been in the group Salvation, who had released their debut album on ABC in 1968
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August 23, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Tree Of Life/Phananganang/Marble Farm/Joe Tate's Desperate Skuffle Band/Lazarus/Flying Circus/Sebastian Moon/Bicycle (Saturday) noonThis noon Saturday event seems to feature bands who would have played the free concert part of the Wild West, outside of Kezar. Most of them are pretty obscure.
- Tree Of Life were a San Jose band, but I don't know much else about them.
- Phananganang was a band that was managed by former Moby Grape manager Matthew Katz. Katz was very entrepreneurial, but his former clients never had good relations with him afterwards. The peculiarly named Phananganang was led by Ross Winetsky and included keyboardist Leila Kells. The band was playing around the Bay Area at this time.
- Marble Farm is a familiar name from old 60s flyers, but I don't know anything about them.
- Joe Tate's Desperate Skuffle Band: Guitarist/singer Joe Tate had led the band Salvation, previously the Salvation Army Banned (until the actual Salvation Army objected). They had released two albums on ABC in 1968, and played Fillmores on both coasts, but never got over the hump.
- Lazarus was a Berkeley band, formed out of the remains of a Berkeley High band called Haymarket Riot. In the 1970s, Guitarist Dave Carpender would end up in the Greg Kihn Band, drummer Steve Nelson would be in Earth Quake, and the Barsotti Brothers (Pete-vocals, Steve-bass) were key operations people for Bill Graham Presents.
- Flying Circus had formed in June 1966 in Marin County. They had won a Battle of the Bands at Mount Tamalpais and a recording contract with Golden State Recorders, and recorded two singles. Since that time, Flying Circus had gone through many personnel changes. By 1969, they were sharing rehearsal space with the Marin band Clover. It wasn't surprising: Flying Circus lead guitarist Bob McFee was the brother of Clover lead guitarist John McFee.
- Sebastian Moon, like Marble Farm, is familiar to me from various concert listings, but I know nothing about them.
- Bicycle was actually Bycycle, but the name was perpetually spelled wrong. Previously, they had been Hofmann's Bicycle, a wink to LSD that local hippies would have gotten, but the band shortened their name. The intriguing historical thing about Bycyle was bassist Dan Healy, who was also a freelance engineer and producer for Mercury, Capitol and other labels. He had been the primary engineer for such albums as the Grateful Dead's Anthem Of The Sun and the Sir Douglas Quintet hit Mendocino. From the 70s onward, Healy was the principal soundman and engineer for the Grateful Dead, a position he would retain well into the 1990s. At this time, however, Healy was wearing two hats, a freelance engineer who also played bass in a band. For decades, Healy never mentioned Bycycle, but in recent years at the prodding of Jake Feinberg and others he has shared some details.
- At this time, Healy was the engineer for Quicksilver Messenger Service, helping them record Shady Grove at Pacific High Recorders. Quicksilver was very popular, as Happy Trails was getting massive play on FM radio. Unfortunately for the band, however, guitarist Gary Duncan had quit the group and that lineup of the band no longer existed. Duncan had been replaced by, of all people, English pianist Nicky Hopkins, a brilliant musician who didn't sing or write.
- The other members of Bycycle were singer Stephen Fiske, guitarist Richard Treece and organist Al Rose. I'm not certain who was the drummer at this point. Bycyle came on last probably because Healy was going to play with Quicksilver.
For the Saturday night show, Quicksilver headlined the Family Dog.
Commander Cody and his Lost Planet Airmen had only recently arrived in Berkeley from Ann Arbor, MI. Their participation in this event (they are not on the press release) comes from an interview somewhat later. According to members of the Commander Cody band "two people showed up," at least when the Airmen were playing. Although the Airmen are notorious for exaggerating for comic effect, it's a good indicator that it was hardly a packed house.
Ralph Gleason of the Chronicle went to both the Family Dog and Fillmore West on Saturday night, and described the events in his Monday column (on August 25, excerpted here). Quicksilver Messenger Service had headlined at the Friday night show at the Fillmore West. Teenage diarist Faren Miller, beloved of rock prosopographers everywhere, provided a detailed description of the show. At the time, Quicksilver was recording what would become the Shady Grove album with Dan Healy at Pacific High Recorders. Nicky Hopkins had joined the band, but the group had never been much for songwriting anyway, and without Gary Duncan they didn't even have a front man. Per Faren Miller, Dan Healy had joined Quicksilver for a few numbers on bass and guitar. David Freiberg was the regular bassist, but he was also the lead singer, so when Healy played bass it would free Freiberg up for some singing duties. Given that Bycycle was on the bill earlier, it would have been convenient for Healy to sit in. Gleason (below) confirmed Healy's presence at the Dog.
Gleason wrote:
The Quicksilver Messenger Service, absent from public performance (except for a couple of brief unannounced shots in the park) turned everybody on Friday night at the Fillmore and repeated it at Saturday night at the Family Dog. David Freiberg, certainly the most improved singer in the city, was in magnificent voice and led the group through a whole program of new material, when I heard them at the Dog, which was exciting and fascinating.
Once again the Quicksilver, quiet almost deferential in the face of other bands, turned out to be a leader itself. Nicky Hopkins' piano, in a series of syncopated exchanges with the guitars in one number, created a sizzling excitement of a level and nature previously done here only by the Dead and the Airplane. The songs are very good, one ballad by Denise Jewkes is a moving song, and the whole band (occasionally joined by Dan Healy on bass) was inventive and cohesive, with Greg Elmore's drumming and John Cippolina's lead guitar working together better than I have ever heard them.
Gleason makes some interesting points in passing: apparently Quicksilver played a few hitherto unknown stealth gigs in Golden Gate Park. Gleason also observes that Dan Healy plays occasional bass, presumably to free up Freiberg to sing . The "Denise Jewkes" referred to is the married name of Ace Of Cups member Denise Kaufman, who wrote some songs used on the Shady Grove album. One of the new songs he describes was almost certainly Hopkins' classic "Edward (The Mad Shirt Grinder)."
Jimmy Witherspoon, an Oakland-based blues singer, seems to have been backed by the
Sons Of Champlin.
The comparatively unheralded Sons were among the very best musicians on the Fillmore scene, and could play authoritatively in any style. The Anonymous Artists of America, by contrast, originally a Santa Cruz Mountains band, had a reputation for being fun yet sloppy, so when Gleason says they "surprised me by the way they swung," it is because they had not done so in the past. From what I know, they had moved to San Francisco and got a hot young drummer from Texas (Richard something), so that probably improved matters.
Mount Rushmore was another band booked by Quicksilver manager Ron Polte's agency, West-Pole (as were the Sons). They had two albums on Dot.
Devil's Kitchen were a recently arrived quartet from Carbondale, IL, and acted as a kind of "house band" at the Family Dog.
The Hindu Folk Band was an intriguing booking. I have no idea who that might have been.
August 24, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA:
Faun/Cold Turkey/Nazgul/Alice Stuart and Minx/Mendelbaum/Mother
Bear/Transatlantic Railroad (Sunday) noonThe Sunday afternoon
booking at the Dog featured bands generally even less well known than
the ones who had played the noon Saturday show.
Faun had released an obscure album on Gre Gar Records around 1968 or 69. I'm not aware of the band playing live very much. The album included guitarist George Tickner, who would go on to play with Jerry Garcia and Journey, and bassist Ross Valory, who would play with the Steve Miller Band and then Journey.
Cold Turkey is unknown to me.
I recognize Nazgul from various listings, but I know nothing about them.
Alice Stuart and Minx was a bluesy Berkeley quartet, featuring Stuart and John Shine on guitars and vocals. Audie DeLonge (later better known as Austin DeLone) played piano and Jack O'Hara played bass. I don't know of a drummer, but maybe there was one. Due to a complicated series of unexpected events, DeLone and O'Hara ended up in a band called Eggs Over Easy, migrated to England and popularized "Pub Rock" at the Tally Ho in Kentish Town.
Mendelbaum were newly arrived from Wisconsin. They featured lead guitarist Chris Michie, who went on to play with Van Morrison and others, and drummer Keith Knudsen (who played with Lee Michaels and then the Doobie Brothers).
Mother Bear had originally featured singers Roger Saloom and Robin Sinclair, and the band had released an album on Cadet Concept called Saloom Sinclair and Mother Bear in 1968. Saloom and Sinclair had split off, but Mother Bear had continued under the leadership of guitarist Tom Davis. Mother Bear had played the Family Dog back on the weekend of July 11-13.
Transatlantic Railroad was a Marin band.
August 24, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Its A Beautiful Day/South Bay Experimental Flash/Youngbloods/Shag/Cleanliness and Godliness Skiffle Band/Buddy Miles Express (Sunday) 7pmSome pretty good bands played the Family Dog on Sunday night, and some of them were well-known. Already a popular local band,
It's A Beautiful Day had released their debut album on Columbia in June 1969. Unlike the first albums of many groups, the music was fully formed. LaFlamme had been in an odd group called Orkustra in 1967 that played around the Haight, so he had learned some lessons from that. It's A Beautiful Day had originally been sent to Seattle by their manager, Matthew Katz, so they had "gotten it together" before they reappeared in San Francisco. The debut album had some great songs, and they got heavily played on FM radio. The most popular was "White Bird," which would go on to become a huge AM hit as well, and a sort of 60s classic.
It's A Beautiful Day had played one of the fundraisers for the Wild West, back on July 7.
The South Bay Experimental Flash were a jazz-rock band that had been founded in the San Jose area. Sometime in 1969, they had moved to Richmond, in the East Bay. The main soloist was sax and flute player David Ladd, who was a South Bay presence for many years. As an oddity, when the South Bay Experimental Flash first moved to Richmond, a teenager who lived across the street helped them unload their gear. The teenager turned out to be harmonica wizard Norton Buffalo, so Ladd and the Flash were big influences on Buffalo's unique style.
The Youngbloods were regarded as an "Avalon band," for good reason. As it happened, in July 1969 the Youngbloods ship had finally came in. Their third album, Elephant Mountain had just been
released in April, and songs like "Darkness, Darkness" were getting good
airplay on FM radio. More importantly, in Spring, 1969 the National
Council of Christians and Jews created a Public Service Announcement
that used the Youngbloods' version of “Get Together.” The band had
recorded the old Dino Valenti song on their February 1967 debut album,
when it was already somewhat of a chestnut, having been recorded by the
Jefferson Airplane and others. Yet the PSA had caused RCA to release the
song as a single, and by August it would enter the Top 40 chart on
Billboard.
The Youngbloods had headlined the Family Dog on the weekend of July 11-13. This weekend, however, the Youngbloods had already played Friday night at Fillmore West. So the Dog was getting a great group, but on the less advantageous night.
Shag was a local band, but I don't really know anything about them.
The Cleanliness and Godliness Skiffle Band had formed out of the same community of musicians that had given rise to Country Joe and The Fish.
Initially, the CGSB did actually play skiffle music, which was a sort
of New Orleans Jug Band style. By 1969, they were playing a sort of
swinging country rock, no longer acoustic but not fully electrified
either. They released one album in 1968 on Vanguard, The Cleanliness And
Godliness Skiffle Band's Greatest Hits (back when such a title for a
debut album was still clever). The
CGSB had been playing around Berkeley since 1966, but they hadn't
gotten beyond local success. The band had already played the Family Dog a few times (July 4-6 and July 22). They would fade away in early 1970.
The Buddy Miles Express had arisen out of the ashes of the Electric Flag. When Mike Bloomfield had left the Flag in Summer '68, followed by Nick Gravenites, Buddy Miles became the frontman. Miles had released the oddly influential Expressway To Your Skull in late '68, on Mercury, complete with liner notes by Jimi Hendrix. Most of the players had been in the Electric Flag, with the exception of guitarist Jim McCarty (ex-Mitch Ryder, future Cactus). Miles Davis, among others, found Miles' mix of rhythm and soul promising, even if the songs weren't great.In July 1969, the Express's second album Electric Church had entered the charts. The band was stripped down a little bit, with Duane Hitchings replacing Herbie Rich on organ, and fewer horns, but the basic soul-rock configuration remained intact. Miles was booked by Ron Polte's West-Pole agency, and Polte had played a big part in the planning of the Wild West Festival.
Fillmore West Wild West Makeup Shows, August 22-24, 1969For those who consume 60s rock history, the Fillmore West is one of the most revered and minutely studied venues of the era.
As far as I can tell, there are no direct references to this weekend's Fillmore West shows anywhere on the web save for my blogs. Anyone with more information, please share it in the Comments.
August 22, 1969 Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA: Quicksilver Messenger Service/Youngbloods/The Committee/Ace Of Cups/West (Friday)
This show was described in some detail by then-teenage diarist Faren Miller (accessible to determined googlers). Quicksilver, largely invisible in concert in 1969, made the public debut of their new lineup, with pianist Nicky Hopkins effectively in place of Gary Duncan. The description by Ralph Gleason above, of the Saturday night Quicksilver show at the Dog, was confirmed in detail by Miller's observations about Friday night at the Fillmore West.
As noted, The Youngbloods were riding a wave of popularity at the time because of the hit re-release of their single "Get Together."
The Committee was a popular counterculture Improv troupe, founded in San Francisco in 1963. The founders were alumni of Chicago's famous Second City troupe. The Committee had their own theater, but stepped out to perform at Fillmore West this weekend.
Ace Of Cups were an all-female psychedelic rock band that wrote and performed their own material. The band was a unique ensemble worthy of their own history, which conveniently I have already written. Ace Of Cups were also managed and booked by Ron Polte's West-Pole outfit, but he overplayed his hand and they never recorded or released an album in the 60s.
Thanks
to the ever-reliable Faren Miller's diary entry, we have a detailed
report about the Ace of Cups performance at Fillmore West. Guitarist Mary Simpson had left
the group by this time. Miller attended and wrote down her usual
detailed
observations:
“The
Cups evoked strange thoughts in me, because the group has gone through a situation paralleling the early Quicksilver. Mary
Simpson (who always reminded us of
folksy Jimmy Murray) has left, just as Jimmy left. The result is the same too: a revitalized group. The Cups
have improved remarkably, however,
while the Quick mainly recouped. At last the Cups’ cycle of good-show-then-bad-show has been broken. Their set
was glorious! The theme of the
benefit [as I should have mentioned above] was “Let’s Get It Together”, and that’s just what the girls have done.
Their set opened with
a driving song worthy of any top S.F. group. Mary Gannon seems to have a new Fender bass with a great tone,
and it boomed while Denise rasped
out lead guitar and Marla played some fine organ. Diane is less tentative on the drums. By their sound, the
Cups could have been a seasoned male
group, though their appearance seemed really incongruous. [Oops ... even a female diarist could make such
casually sexist remarks in the
days before Women’s Lib! Sorry gals.] Mary G. had along red dress tied at the
waist with a dangling sash -- she was barefoot, and the
dress kept slipping off one shoulder as she jerked wildly with the bass. Diane’s long hair (lighter at the
edges now) hung over the drums,
unlike any shaggy-haired male drummer‘s. Tiny bespectacled Denise hopped about, also barefoot, wearing
jeans and a red velvet tunic, her
frizzy hair flying. Marla leaned over her electric organ, a long ribbon in her hair. Between songs, the Cups
were the picture of
disorganization: -- retuning, saying “I forget the chords” or “What’ll we do now?” -- but once they began to play they
were excellent. The music was strong,
the lyrics feminine (if a bit one-track-minded). On “I’m Looking for a Path”, Mary sang with Denise chiming in
on choruses. Next they did a song
about looking for a man (a great screamer blues by Denise). Then a song about hoping for a man to return --
with fresh-baked bread, candles, and
love waiting for him. (A real house-and-hearth number.) Then the lovely
“Welcome, Jolina” about birth, followed by “Gypsy Boy” (“I wanta
have your baby”).
A
few songs later, the set closed with a spoof(?) about
having an empty bed. See the thread here? The “Jolina” song was in two parts,
moving from fast and rocking (about the pregnancy --
“your daddy’s here and your mother’s waitin’ on you”) to sweet and choral, while the lyrics nicely linked the
seasons, birth and death, and renewal.
It got a very good reception, as did all the set. Besides that marvelous screamer by Denise, they had some
great shouters. On one number, Marla
used a wailing voice, creaking with emotion, that was really effective. The instrumental breaks were “all
fine” (as Ralph Gleason would say).
For “Gypsy Boy”, a big, Barry-Meltonish fellow called “Earthquake” was called upon to blow harp, and he did it
quite well. During the upbeat
numbers, good old Frank Polte was jogging about at the far left of the stage, a big grin on his face. Meanwhile,
Denise was dancing all over the
place banging on a tambourine -- she got over to the right of the stage where a crazy guy had been dancing in a
freaked-out manner all through
the set.; a wispy blonde occasionally danced there too, though she and the guy never seemed to be aware of each
other.
The last number was
one that they evidently hadn’t done in ages. Marla protested that she couldn’t remember it at all. Denise just
had everybody crowd together, so
Marla came out from behind her organ. (She’s amazingly tall, maybe even taller
than Mary, and both girls dwarf little Denise.) This last
song was a slow, ‘50s-style ballad with silly lyrics: “It’s just no fun (da da da da) when you sleep alone (da da
da da)” and “What use are two
pillows/ When I’ve only got one head?” Mary delivered a brief monolog in the middle, in true antediluvian rock
fashion. Marla kept breaking up,
when not chiming in on the choruses. It seemed like a burlesque version of the earlier “please come home” song. So
the Ace’s set ended without a
single bad number. Maybe losing a member forced them to come of age.”
Womb was a local band, previously known as Birth.
August 23, 1969 Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA: Jefferson Airplane/AUM/Los Flamencos de la Santa Lucia/Sanpaku/Marvin and The Uptights (Saturday)After catching Quicksilver at the Dog on Saturday night, Gleason headed across town to the Fillmore West on Saturday night to catch the
Jefferson Airplane. At the Fillmore, the Airplane was on when I arrived (later I heard AUM had done a terrific set which I missed) and Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Casady were doing their acoustical guitar and electric bass duet which now provides a very effective interlude in the Airplane's program. They did several new songs, including their upcoming single "Revolution" and a long instrumental jam which blew everybody's minds by its intensity.
The audience, packed against the lip of the stage at the feet of the musicians, didn't want to go home. They screamed for more just as the audience at the Family Dog had done for Quicksilver earlier in the evening. And the Quicksilver itself had rushed on down to the Fillmore to stand on stage listening to the Airplane until the last notes died away in the hall and everybody moved slowly towards the exits, the spell still working.
Just a few weeks later, Jack and Jorma would record their first album as a duo at Berkeley's New Orleans House, dubbing their band Hot Tuna, but at this time it did not yet have a name. Jorma and Jack had played around The Matrix and elsewhere in 1969, but the name Hot Tuna was invented for the record.
Gleason describes Quicksilver, having finished their set at Family Dog, stopping by the Fillmore West to hear the Airplane. While its a fact that the Fillmore West was on the way home to Marin, the band still had no obligation to stop and hang out. Yet it was a sign of the vitality of the scene that the bands were still friends and enjoyed socializing, a fact of life that would slowly fade away over the next few years.
The Saturday night booking at Fillmore West tells us that the Airplane didn't need any help to sell tickets. AUM was a hard rocking trio led by guitarist Wayne Ceballos, and booked by Bill Graham's Millard Agency. They had released an album called Bluesvibes, on Sire, earlier in 1969.
Sanpaku, a seven-piece band with horns, was another Millard act. Graham made sure that his own acts got the high profile opening gigs.
Los Flamencos de la Santa Lucia were a dance troupe.
I believe Marvin and the Uptights were an R&B act.
August 24, 1969 Fillmore West, San Francisco, CA: Country Joe and The Fish/Sons Of Champlin/Elvin Bishop/Freedom Highway/Fast Buck (Sunday)Country Joe and The Fish had just released their third album on Vanguard,
Here We Are Again. They had also recently headlined the Fillmore West (July 18-20) and the
Family Dog (August 8-10). This lineup of the band was the Woodstock lineup, with Mark Kapner on keyboards, Doug Metzner on bass and Greg Dewey on drums.
The Sons of Champlin and Freedom Highway were booked by Ron Polte's West-Pole agency, and Elvin Bishop and Fast Buck were booked by the Millard Agency. It is little realized that even by 1969, booking agencies played a big part in what bands got booked to open for popular acts. Elvin Bishop had moved to San Francisco in 1968, after leaving the Butterfield Blues Band, and had formed his own group. The lead guitarist of Fast Buck was one Ronnie Montrose, who would go on to play with Boz Scaggs, Van Morrison ("Tupelo Honey"), the Edgar Winter Group ("Frankenstein") and finally his own group with Sammy Hagar.
And so the weekend of Wild West "Benefits" receded quietly into history. Only Ralph Gleason wrote about it, as far as I know, re-upped by me somewhat in an old blog post. But since the Wild West left a bad taste in everyone's mouth, no bands ever talked about it. Since there were no posters, the shows were never included in any histories of the Avalon or Fillmore West (which is telling).
The Family Dog had been central to the whole Wild West enterprise, and when the Festival collapsed it was yet another tolling bell for the struggling venue.
For the next entry in the series (August 26, 1969-Light Show Jam), see here
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