2850 19th Avenue, San Francisco, CA September 10, 1966 The Mothers/Oxford Circle

The Scottish Rites (Masonic) Temple at 2850 19th Avenue in San Francisco is the least known of all Bill Graham's 1960s San Francisco venues. It was only used once for a rock concert, to my knowledge, and I know nothing about the event itself. Nonetheless this building is always forgotten in chronicles of the 1960s in San Francisco, so I thought I would address what little is known about it.

Bill Graham's famous Fillmore Auditorium on 1805 Geary Blvd (at Fillmore Street) was next door to a Synagogue. I have written about the peculiar place in rock history of Temple Beth Israel (at 1839 Geary Blvd) elsewhere. Suffice to say, Bill Graham faced various political problems with his new underground rock venture, and one of them was a rabbi who was not sympathetic to Graham's desire to have weekly rock concerts. Honoring the concerns of his neighbors, Graham moved two Saturday night concerts in 1966. The April 16, 1966 show with the Jefferson Airplane and Butterfield Blues Band was moved to Harmon Gym at UC Berkeley, while the Friday and Sunday shows remained at the Fillmore. Similarly, on the weekend of September 9 and 10 in 1966, with a bill of The Mothers and Oxford Circle, Graham moved the bill across town on Saturday (September 10) to the Scottish Rites Temple at 2850 19th Avenue, near Sloat Boulevard and Stern Grove.

19th Avenue and Sloat Boulevard is very far from the Fillmore District, almost as far from the Fillmore as one could get and remain in San Francisco. For those familiar with San Francisco geography, it is near Stern Grove and San Francisco State University, between the Sunset District and West Portal. This interesting experiment was not repeated, suggesting that it was not a worthwhile location for a rock performance at the time. While San Francisco State had many rock fans, many of the hippest ones lived in the Haight Ashbury, so they were nearer the Fillmore than the College. No record survives of the show itself, whether as a tape, a review or an eyewitness account.

The Concert
By September of 1966 The Mothers had released their groundbreaking debut album Freak Out. However, it was their nervous record company (MGM) that had added "Of Invention" to their name. The group had been playing the San Francisco Bay Area with some regularity since late 1965, and they were known by their original name, The Mothers, which is how they were billed on the poster (BG27).

It is difficult to determine for certain the membership of the Mothers for these shows, as the band’s personnel was in flux.  The poster shows 7 people, but the poster probably came from a Verve promo photo and some of them aren't even band members, so it doesn't really represent anything about the band's lineup.  I am reliably informed that the Mothers at this time were Zappa and Elliot Ingbar on guitars, Ray Collins on vocals, Roy Estrada on bass and Billy Mundi and Jimmy Carl Black (The Indian of the group) both on drums. While the other members had been on Freak Out, Mundi had recently joined, having recently played as part of a group called Mastin And Brewer (featuring Michael Brewer, later of Brewer and Shipley) and then briefly in Lamp Of Childhood.

The Oxford Circle, the most exciting band in Davis, CA at the time, were a hard rocking quartet styled on the Yardbirds. Although the band released very little during its existence, 1997 saw the release of a great live cd recorded around this time (Live At The Avalon Ballroom 1966, on Big Beat), so we know how they sounded. Members of Oxford Circle went on to join Blue Cheer and Kak, among other groups.

The Venue
It is difficult to find out much about the venue. It does appear that the venue is still there. I suspect it is unlikely that a new building has replace the old one, but it is plain that the auditorium itself has been remodeled in the intervening years. It does appear that the capacity was smaller than the Fillmore Auditorium, though not by that much. The Free Masons have a long history in California, dating back to the mid-19th century, but that is well outside the scope of the blog here.

It does appear that the Scottish Rites Temple at 19th and Sloat was a much more recent building than other Masonic Temples in San Francisco. There were Masonic Temples right next to both the Fillmore and The Avalon--conspiracy theorists take note--but both of them (at 1859 Geary, dating to the 19th century, near the Fillmore, and 1300 Sutter, next to the Avalon) had long since been devoted to other uses by the 1960s. There was also a Masonic Auditorium on Nob Hill (at 1111 California) but that was a large (3200 capacity) and fairly conventional theater.

The building appears to be in active use today, and the auditorium remains available for rental.

1099 E Street, Hayward, CA Bret Harte School Amphitheater: Hayward Folk Song Festival, September 26, 1964

The friendly young woman with the guitar, sensible skirt and straight hair is Alice Stuart, one of the performers in the Hayward Folk Song Jamboree, held at the Bret Harte School Amphiteathre (1099 E Street in Hayward) on Saturday, September 26, 1964. The older woman on the left, pretending to play the autoharp, is the organizer, Mrs. Donald Hovenor. This Folk Festival was organized as a fundraiser by the Family Services Guild, a Southern Alameda County "Society" charity. As a result, this event got excellent promotion in the Hayward, Fremont and Oakland papers in the prior week. The photo and clipping above are from an article in the "Women's" Section of the Hayward Daily Review on September 24, 1964.

In the process of planning her fundraiser (we were breathlessly informed) Mrs. Hovenor was directed to Barry Olivier, organizer of the Berkeley Folk Festival, and he simplified the process of organizing a folk festival in Hayward. The performers were regulars at the Berkeley Folk Festival and on the Bay Area Folk Circuit: Sam Hinton, Jesse Fuller, Slim Critchlow and "for the younger set," The Pine Valley Boys, Alice Stuart, Barry Olivier and Merritt Herring. The Pine Valley Boys were a fine East Bay bluegrass band featuring Butch Waller (later in High Country), Herb Pedersen (Dillards, Desert Rose Band, many others) and David Nelson (New Riders, David Nelson Band, etc).

While this performance was probably a fun, and possibly lucrative, gig for the performers, it does show Folk Music at an interesting crossroads. Most serious young Folk musicians, like Herb Pedersen, Alice Stuart and David Nelson, got interested in bluegrass or blues not only because it was good, but because it was unsanitized and possibly a bit dangerous, unlike simper popular stuff like The Kingston Trio. Yet by late 1964, suburban Society matrons are happy to use an exported version of the Berkeley Folk Festival for a fundraiser, and equally happy for their own kids to be attending the show on a Saturday night. This was no criticism of folk music itself, but it had come a long way from the secret society it had once been.

In late 1964, things were certainly on the verge of change. Folk music did, to its credit, turn out to be threatening, if only because it often lead to rock music. Alice Stuart, for example, less than 18 months after this photo was taken, ended up getting hired by Frank Zappa to play in his band The Mothers for a few months in Los Angeles, and if that isn't threatening to parents, what is? In any case, Alice Stuart is still friendly and still has a guitar, even if its mostly an electric one these days, as she is a veteran of many recordings and performances.