May 29-June 27, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Various shows [FDGH '70 XVII]

 

The Family Dog on The Great Highway, at 660 Great Highway, ca. 1969

The Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA
The Family Dog was a foundation stone in the rise of San Francisco rock, and it was in operation in various forms from Fall 1965 through the Summer of 1970. For sound historical reasons, most of the focus on the Family Dog has been on the original 4-person collective who organized the first San Francisco Dance Concerts in late 1965, and on their successor Chet Helms. Helms took over the Family Dog in early 1966, and after a brief partnership with Bill Graham at the Fillmore, promoted memorable concerts at the Avalon Ballroom from Spring 1966 through December 1968. The posters, music and foggy memories of the Avalon are what made the Family Dog a legendary 60s rock icon.

In the Summer of 1969, however, with San Francisco as one of the fulcrums of the rock music explosion, Chet Helms opened another venue. The Family Dog on The Great Highway, at 660 Great Highway, on the Western edge of San Francisco, was only open for 14 months and was not a success. Yet numerous interesting bands played there, and remarkable events took place, and they are only documented in a scattered form. This series of posts will undertake a systematic review of every musical event at the Family Dog on The Great Highway. In general, each post will represent a week of musical events at the venue, although that may vary slightly depending on the bookings.

If anyone has memories, reflections, insights, corrections or flashbacks about shows at the Family Dog on the Great Highway, please post them in the Comments.

660 Great Highway in San Francisco in 1967, when it was the ModelCar Raceway, a slot car track

The Edgewater Ballroom, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA
As early as 1913, there were rides and concessions at Ocean Beach in San Francisco, near the Richmond District. By 1926, they had been consolidated as Playland-At-The-Beach. The Ocean Beach area included attractions such as the Sutro Baths and the Cliff House. The San Francisco Zoo was just south of Playland, having opened in the 1930s. One of the attractions at Playland was a restaurant called Topsy's Roost. The restaurant had closed in 1930, and the room became the Edgewater Ballroom. The Ballroom eventually closed, and Playland went into decline when its owner died in 1958. By the 1960s, the former Edgewater was a slot car raceway. In early 1969, Chet Helms took over the lease of the old Edgewater.

One of the only photos of the interior of the Family Dog on The Great Highway (from a Stephen Gaskin "Monday Night Class" ca. October 1969)

The Family Dog On The Great Highway
The Great Highway was a four-lane road that ran along the Western edge of San Francisco, right next to Ocean Beach. Downtown San Francisco faced the Bay, but beyond Golden Gate Park was the Pacific Ocean. The aptly named Ocean Beach is dramatic and beautiful, but it is mostly windy and foggy. Much of the West Coast of San Francisco is not even a beach, but rocky cliffs. There are no roads in San Francisco West of the Great Highway, so "660 Great Highway" was ample for directions (for reference, it is near the intersection of Balboa Street and 48th Avenue). The tag-line "Edge Of The Western World" was not an exaggeration, at least in American terms.

The Family Dog on The Great Highway was smaller than the Bill Graham's old Fillmore Auditorium. It could hold up to 1500, but the official capacity was probably closer to 1000. Unlike the comparatively centrally located Fillmore West, the FDGH was far from downtown, far from the Peninsula suburbs, and not particularly easy to get to from the freeway. For East Bay or Marin residents, the Great Highway was a formidable trip. The little ballroom was very appealing, but if you didn't live way out in the Avenues, you had to drive. As a result, FDGH didn't get a huge number of casual drop-ins, and that didn't help its fortunes. Most of the locals referred to the venue as "Playland."

The Family Dog In 1969
Chet Helms had opened the Family Dog at 660 Great Highway to much fanfare on June 13, 1969, with a packed house seeing the Jefferson Airplane and The Charlatans. One of the goals was that the Dog would feature mostly San Francisco bands and a variety of smaller community events and groups. Since so many San Francisco bands were successful, and had record contracts, this didn't confine the venue to obscurity. A lot of great bands played the Family Dog in 1969, but the distant location and the gravitational pull of major rock events hosted elsewhere in the Bay Area kept the Family Dog isolated. We know only the most fragmentary bits about music played, events and audiences throughout the year.  Despite the half-year of struggle, Helms had kept the Family Dog on The Great Highway afloat. He had entered the new year of 1970 with a new plan.

• For a complete list of Family Dog shows (including FDGH), see here
• For the previous entry (May 1-24, 1970 various) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

May 29-31, 1970 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Indian Music Festival featuring Ali Akbar Khan, Indranil Bhattacharya, Zakir Hussain (Friday-Sunday)
Indian classical music had been known in the West since Ravi Shankar's album Three Ragas, released on World Pacific Records in 1956. By the mid-60s, jazz musicians like John Coltrane and rock musicians such as Eric Clapton had discovered the music. George Harrison had helped introduce the sitar, Ravi Shankar, and Indian music to the wider pop music audience. Indian music was important in both rock and jazz because it influenced players like Coltrane and Clapton, even when the wider public was only vaguely aware of it. In the Bay Area, the Ali Akbar Khan School of Music in Oakland had been an important locus for teaching and learning since the 1960s. As it happened, Family Dog soundman Owsley Stanley was not only a huge admirer of Indian music, he was intimately connected to the Ali Akbar Khan School as well. The School had been based in a big house on Ascot Drive in the Oakland hills.

In her recent book Owsley And Me: My LSD Family, Rhoney Gissen described the house in Ascot Drive in some detail. Originally it had been rented by Ali Akbar Khan school of music. 

Indian music gave me clarity, so I drove to the Ali Akbar Khan School Of Music, situated in a beautiful Spanish-style multilevel house with arts-and-crafts detailing in the secluded hills of Oakland, southeast of Berkeley. While I was listening to a morning raga played by Khansahib with Vince Delgado on tabla, it occurred to me that this place would be perfect for Bear. With all the rooms and levels, he could live here with any member of the Grateful Dead family. Ramrod had already agreed to live with Bear when he moved [p166]

Since the School was moving at month's end, Owsley was intrigued enough to visit:

We walked around the house and there was a swimming pool and a separate entrance in the back. Stately trees reached beyond the third floor. We went back inside which was atop a long stairway from the front door.
"Look, Bear, I can stand at the top of the stair and see who's coming."
"Yes, but you can't see the front door from any of the windows." [p.167]

Bear eventually agrees, and Rhoney gets Bear to let Ali Akhbar Khan and his students to open for the Grateful Dead in Berkeley (at the Berkeley Community Theater on September 20, 1968) in return for letting Owsley take over the lease.

At the end of the Summer of 1968, when the Indian musicians moved out of the house in the Oakland hills, Bear moved in. Betty and Bob Matthews took the downstairs apartment, and Ramrod moved into the bedroom next to Bear's. Weir camped out in the living room. [p168]

Owsley lived in the Ascot Drive house until his incarceration in July of 1970. The Ali Akbar Khan School of Music moved to San Rafael, and seems to be still going strong today.

 

I'm not sure who booked the Indian music weekend at the Family Dog, or to put it another way, I'm not sure who took the risk and whether it was profitable. The program featured Ali Akbar Khan (sarod), Indraril Bhatticharva (sitar) and Zakir Hussain (tabla). Nonetheless, Owsley was still Owsley, and not only did he act as soundman, but he taped it as well. In 2020, the Owsley Stanley Foundation released some performances from the first night (May 29, 1970).

 

June 7, 1970 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: The One Festival (Sunday)
Our only trace of this weekend's events was an ad in the SF Good Times for a Sunday afternoon lecture called "The One Festival." With no Friday or Saturday night rock show (that I am aware of), it seems pretty likely that the Family Dog on The Great Highway was effectively just another hall for rent.

The names on the poster are all Indian or South Asian "gurus," save for "Sufi Dancers," and Indradril Bhattacharva, noted as a member of the Ali Akbar Khan college of music, and Stephen Gaskin. Gaskin, a popular literature instructor at San Francisco State who had held "Monday Night Class" events at the Family Dog in the Fall, presented a variety of Indian and Asian philosophies, so he actually fit in with the rest of the bill. In modern terms, this would be seen as a "Self-Help" or "Human Potential" seminar. Hippies were inclined to think India was a purer source for spiritual enlightenment than the West.

[update 20241016] For some color footage showing the interior of the Family Dog, see this clip from a film on Swami Satchidananda.

June 13, 1970 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: First Anniversary at the Beach Party (Saturday)
June 13, 1970 was indeed the first anniversary of the opening of the Family Dog on The Great Highway. On June 13, 1969, the Dog had opened at the beach with the Jefferson Airplane and a jam-packed house. By 1970, there was only the vaguest mention of an event, with no bands listed. It was probably an open house of some sort. The Family Dog on The Great Highway had fallen far in the preceding year, and I'm sure no one thought there would be a second anniversary.

June 17, 1970 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Michael Bloomfield & Marin Music Band/Charles Musselwhite Blues Band/Sandy Bull  St Jacques Benefit for the Porcupine Family Inc drug treatment program (Wednesday)
Mike Bloomfield had been America's first genuine guitar hero, and he was a truly great musician. He had moved to San Francisco in 1967 to form the Electric Flag. When Bloomfield had left the Flag in 1968, he had a brief flash of solo stardom with Al Kooper and Super Session, but he largely limited himself to playing small local gigs. He had a rotating lineup of fine players in support, but he never rehearsed. So while Bay Area rock fans all agreed, in principle, that Bloomfield was a legend, his appearances were hardly events. Presumably, he was backed at this show by the likes of Nick Gravenites, Mark Naftalin, John Kahn and Bob Jones (his "first-call" team), but we don't know that for certain. Bloomfield had headlined a weekend at the Dog back on August 15-16, 1969.

As far as records went, Bloomfield's most recent album was It's Not Killing Me, released on Columbia in 1969. It wasn't bad, but it wasn't really memorable, either. Bloomfield was backed by the crew who made up his rotating stage band, and they were all good, but the material was weak. 

Charlie Musselwhite, from Memphis via Chicago, had been the top white harmonica player in the mid-60s in Chicago, when Bloomfield had been part of the Butterfield Blues Band. Musselwhite, too, had moved to San Francisco in '67 and had played the Avalon and other ballrooms regularly. His current album would have been Memphis, Tennessee, on Paramount, featuring the unique steel guitarist Freddie Roulette. I don't know if Roulette was still in Musselwhite's band. By the end of 1970, his group would be fronted by a teenage guitarist from Ukiah, CA named Robben Ford, who would go on to a brilliant career himself. 

Sandy Bull was a solo guitarist, a unique and remarkable performer whose elaborate fingerpicking was enhanced by various electronic looping effects. Although appealing to a rock audience, more or less, Bull was the type of performer whose audience remained seated. He had played the Bay Area many times over the years, usually at The Matrix. He had played the Family Dog a month earlier (May 15-16). At this time, his most recent album would have been E Puribus Unum, released on Vanguard the  previous year. Bull had played all the instruments himself, and the music was hardly rock.

June 19-21, 1970 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Flying Burrito Brothers/Cat Mother & the All Night Newsboys/Rhythm Dukes with Bill Champlin and Jerry Miller  (Friday-Sunday)
This June weekend was the last time that the Family Dog presented a multiple bill featuring a touring act and some local bands for a weekend. There were a few more rock concerts in July and August, but none of those suggested that there was anything ongoing, just concert opportunities. This booking was the last sign of the Family Dog as an ongoing concern.

The Flying Burrito Brothers had released their second A&M album in May 1970, Burrito Deluxe. The band's 1969 debut had gotten extraordinarily good reviews, but the Burritos had been a sloppy and indifferent live band. Gram Parsons, in particular, refused to tour much, as he was determined to hang out in Los Angeles with the Rolling Stones. Parsons was a Burrito for the Burrito Deluxe album, but he was fired by Chris Hillman before touring had started in June. Parsons was increasingly erratic, and in any case wasn't up for the promotional effort. The Burritos had never played the Fillmore West, but they had played the Family Dog, so that may account for why they were booked at the Dog instead.

During this brief period, the Flying Burrito Brothers were just a quartet. Chris Hillman was the primary vocalist and bassist, with Bernie Leadon on lead guitar and harmonies. The legendary Sneaky Pete Kleinow remained on pedal steel guitar, and ex-Byrd Michael Clarke remained the drummer. The Burritos knew they needed a fifth member, and toyed with adding ex-Byrd Gene Clark, who actually played a few gigs. It's not impossible Gene Clark was at one or all of the Family Dog gigs. Clark, too, was an erratic character, and ultimately Rick Roberts would join the Burritos later in 1970.

The Rhythm Dukes at The Family Dog on The Great Highway, sometime in 1970. (L-R) Bill Champlin, John Oxendine, Jerry Miller.

The Rhythm Dukes had formed in the Santa Cruz mountains in 1969, and had played the Family Dog on The Great Highway on December 12-14, 1969. Originally the band had featured two former members of Moby Grape, lead guitarist Jerry Miller and ex-drummer Don Stevenson (who switched to guitar). They were supported by bassist John Barrett and drummer Fuzzy Oxendine, formerly of the 60s group Boogie. The band was often billed as Moby Grape, and Stevenson had left by the end of Summer '69. The Rhythm Dukes carried on as a trio, finally adding two more members by December (saxophonist Rick Garcia and keyboardist Ned Torney).

By January, however, the two extra members had left, to be replaced by Bill Champlin from the Sons. By early 1970, despite a loyal Bay Area following and two excellent Capitol albums, the Sons of Champlin were frustrated and broke and they decided to go "on hiatus." Effectively that meant they were breaking up, although they continued to finish an album they owed Capitol (released in 1971 as Follow Your Heart). The Sons had concert obligations through February of 1970, so while Bill Champlin played a few gigs with the Rhythm Dukes, he was also finishing up with the Sons. By March, the Sons had stopped performing--that didn't last long, but it's another story--and Bill was full time with the Rhythm Dukes and Jerry Miller. 

We have a photo of Bill Champlin with the Rhythm Dukes from the Family Dog, although the exact date is unknown. Champlin played organ and rhythm guitar with the Dukes, and was the principal lead singer, although Jerry Miller was also a fine vocalist. Our only tape of this era of the Rhythm Dukes was privately released 2005 cd of some demo tapes from April 1970, (called Flash Back) but they were plainly an excellent live band. This was the third weekend that the Rhythm Dukes with Champlin would play the Family Dog on The Great Highway, but this seems to be the last booked show I can find by the band. Both Miller and Champlin would return to their natural homes (Moby Grape and The Sons) later in 1970.

Greenwich Village band Cat Mother and The All-Night Newsboys had formed in 1967. By 1969, they had been signed by Michael Jeffery, the manager of Jimi Hendrix. Hendrix had even produced the band's debut album on Polydor, The Street Giveth and The Street Taketh Away. Thanks to the Jeffery connection, Cat Mother got to open for Hendrix and a number of other high profile events. Cat Mother even had a minor hit in late '69, with medley of oldies called "Old Time Rock And Roll." In fact, the band's sound was more country-folk oriented, but they were versatile musicians.

By 1970, however, Cat Mother was anxious to separate themselves from Jeffery's questionable management practices. Their second album, Albion Doo-Wah, would be recorded at Pacific High Recorders in San Francisco. In February, the band had played the Family Dog, probably because they had just arrived in San Francisco to start recording. By June, they had probably completed the album.

After they finished their second album, Cat Mother relocated permanently to San Francisco. San Francisco had a unique status for rock bands in the late 1960s and '70s. While the record industry was centered, as it always had been, in Manhattan and Hollywood, San Francisco was an enticing opportunity for rock groups. For one thing, the concert industry was thriving, so a good band could make a living whether they had an album or not. Plus, there were studios and plenty of A&R guys, so SF wasn't the wildnerness. And, it was California--no snow, pretty girls, open minds--so it wasn't hard to persuade fellow band members to make the move. A large number of bands from elsewhere moved to San Francisco.

 

The three founding members of the band, Roy Michaels (bass, vocals), Bob Smith (keyboards, vocals) and Michael Equine (drums), would all relocate permanently to California. At the time of this show, the band still had lead guitarist Paul Johnson and probably violinist Larry Packer. Both of them would ultimately return to New York. Michaels, Smith and Equine would move to Mendocino County and continue on as Cat Mother until 1977.

June 23-25, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: 12 bands (Tuesday-Thursday)
A note in the June 22 San Francisco Examiner mentioned that "12 bands" would play the Family Dog from Tuesday through Thursday. I have no other information, nor any real indication that any of these events were held. The shows may have featured some local bands, possibly high school kids or a battle of the bands or other such events. [update 1 July 2023: stellar researcher David Kramer-Smyth found the newspaper ad with the twelve bands, although there is no evidence which band played which night]. 

Osceola, Cleveland Wrecking Co, Mendelbaum, Sawbucks (w/Ronnie Montrose) and Cat Mother have been mentioned elsewhere in the FDGH saga. 

Brown Rice, Bay Break, Cantrel Justantine, Orion, Chambray and Backwater Rising are unknown to me. 

The Aliens were perhaps San Francisco's first Latin rock group, dating back to 1965. Then Mission HS teenager Carlos Santana occasionally sat in with him, and Chepito Areas was a member of The Aliens around 1967-68.

Loose Gravel was led by ex-Charlatan guitarist Michael Wilhelm. 

The most interesting name on the bill is Children Of Mu, who very well may be the legendary psychedelic surf pioneer band featuring Merrell Fankhauser and Jeff Cotten.

June 27, 1970 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Krishna festival dinner (Sunday)
The only indication of an event on the weekend of June 25-27 was that the Hare Krishna was going to have a big public dinner at the Family Dog on The Great Highway on Sunday, June 27. The Krishna were having a big "happening" in Golden Gate Park over the weekend, and it would culminate with a big dinner. Whether the Hare Krishnas had other, private events at the Dog during the weekend is not mentioned.

The Family Dog on The Great Highway was just a venue for rent, with no viable economic program. It was only a matter of time before it would shut down.

For the next post in the series (The Kinks, June 30-July 1, 1970) see here

Rhythm Dukes Performance List: January-July 1970 (with Jerry Miller and Bill Champlin)

(a scan of a poster for Lee Michaels,  The Rhythm Dukes and Robert M. Savage at The Family Dog On The Great Highway, March 6-8, 1970)

I did extensive research into the performance history of The Sons Of Champlin from 1966 through mid-1970, and as a result I became familiar with the history of The Rhythm Dukes. The Rhythm Dukes were a Santa Cruz Mountains band from 1969 to about 1972, with various members, but they were founded by Jerry Miller and Don Stevenson of Moby Grape, so the Dukes have always been historically associated with The Grape. However, after a variety of somewhat mysterious personnel changes in late 1969, The Rhythm Dukes were revitalized in 1970 when Bill Champlin joined Miller and the rhythm section to make a somewhat serious attempt at success. Some recorded evidence suggests that this configuration was a terrific band, if short-lived, and I felt I should document what I have been able to find out about their performing history.

The Rhythm Dukes
I wrote about a 1969 version of The Rhythm Dukes elsewhere, specifically about a surviving tape from December 1969 at The Family Dog, so I will not repeat all of it here. Suffice to say, the original formulation of The Rhythm Dukes featured both Miller and fellow Graper Don Stevenson, along with bassist John Barrett and drummer Fuzzy Oxendine, all of whom shared a house in the Santa Cruz Mountains. Although Stevenson had been the drummer in Moby Grape, he played guitar and shared vocals in the Dukes. The original Rhythm Dukes did one tour in the Summer of 1969, but they were often billed as Moby Grape, much to their dismay. Sometime in the Fall, Stevenson left the group.

The Rhythm Dukes played a number of Bay Area shows in Fall 1969, but the exact lineup or lineups remains a mystery. The surviving tape features a five piece band, with Jerry Miller as the sole lead vocalist, and a saxophonist as well as a pianist/rhythm guitarist joining Oxendine and Barrett. The material is also obscure, although they sound pretty good for an opening act at The Family Dog.

The Sons Of Champlin
I have written an extensive performance history of The Sons, so I needn't recap it. However, by early 1970, despite a loyal Bay Area following and two excellent Capitol albums, the Sons were frustrated and broke and they decided to go "on hiatus." Effectively that meant they were breaking up, although they continued to finish an album they owed Capitol (released in 1971 as Follow Your Heart). How the plan for Champlin to join The Rhythm Dukes came about remains unknown, and since band members are usually cagey about their future plans (so as not to offend their current bandmates), I'm not aware of how long the idea was afoot. Nonetheless, Moby Grape and The Sons Of Champlin went way back together, and I suspect that Miller and Champlin knew each other from their predecessor bands as well (The Frantics and Opposite Six, respectively). More importantly, bassist Barrett and drummer Oxendine had been in a band called Boogie that rehearsed at the Sausalito Heliport along with The Sons. Oxendine had even been in The Sons briefly in mid-69, when the band experimented with having two drummers. So there were plenty of connections between Bill Champlin and the other members of the Rhythm Dukes.

Bill Champlin played his first show with The Rhythm Dukes in January, 1970. After The Sons gave their "Farewell" performance on February 21, 1970, Champlin moved to the Santa Cruz Mountains and made The Rhythm Dukes his primary musical endeavor. What follows is my chronicle of the known performances of The Rhythm Dukes with Bill Champlin. Anyone with additional information, updates, insights or corrections is encouraged to email me or put them in the Comments.

Rhythm Dukes Performance History January-June 1970

January 7, 1970: The Matrix, San Francisco, CA: Rhythm Dukes w/Jerry Miller and Bill Champlin
The Sons were still actively touring at this juncture, but Bill Champlin joined the Rhythm Dukes for this Wednesday night show at The Matrix. The show was mentioned in Ralph J. Gleason's SF Chronicle column that day (above).

>February 20-21, 1970: Family Dog At the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Big Brother and The Holding Company with Nick Gravenites/Rhythm Dukes with Jerry Miller and Bill Champlin
Because the poster for this shows circulates comparatively widely (for a Family Dog On The Great Highway event), it often represents one of the few ways in which the Miller/Champlin collaboration was known. However, the dates on this poster conflicts with the heavily publicized shows the Sons played as their "farewell" shows (Berkeley on Friday February 20, and Contra Costa Fairgrounds on February 21). However, a close look at the SF Chronicle listings for the weekend show that Cat Mother and The All Night Newsboys had replaced The Rhythm Dukes at The Family Dog.

March 4, 1970: High Street Local, (Santa Cruz), CA: Rhythm Dukes
This show is known from a J.Freiermuth poster on the Rhythm Dukes website, although I don't know the exact address of the venue. There's every reason to assume that the Rhythm Dukes played a fair number of shows in the Santa Cruz/Monterey area, particularly on weeknights. However, the Santa Cruz area was much less populated than it is now, and while the shows were probably very fun, the club scene would not have been that lucrative. 

March 6-8, 1970: Family Dog at The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Lee Michaels/Rhythm Dukes/Robert M Savage
An eyewitness reported that Lee Michaels was “impossibly loud.” This would probably have been the effective debut of the Champlin/Miller version of The Rhythm Dukes in the Bay Area (poster up top).

March 11, 1970: High Street Local, (Santa Cruz), CA: Rhythm Dukes

March 20-21, 1970: New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Rhythm Dukes
The New Orleans House was Berkeley's home for original rock music, giving groups that were lower on the bill at the Fillmore West or Family Dog a chance to headline. 

April 3, 1970:  Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz, CA: Rhythm Dukes/Snail/Joint Possession
This show is known from a Richard Moore poster on the Rhythm Dukes site. It is interesting for a number of reasons. Opening act Snail had evolved out of two local bands, Talon Wedge and The Bubble, and they would go on to be local heroes for the next several years, even putting out two albums. Snail never made much headway outside of Santa Cruz County, but they remain a headline act in Santa Cruz clubs even today (they have a reunion every decade or so).

Equally interesting is the use of Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium. The Civic, at 307 Church, would have been the perfect 60s rock venue, in a hip college town not far from San Francisco, but for a variety of reasons the City of Santa Cruz refused to sanction that. Their refusal opened the door for the temporary success of The Barn, a much wilder venue a few miles Northeast, in Scotts Valley, and I have discussed the history of The Barn elsewhere. This show headlined by The Rhythm Dukes seems to be the first to use the Civic for a rock show since 1967, and that is an interesting piece of Santa Cruz rock history in its own right.

April 10-12, 1970: Family Dog at The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA:  Albert Collins/Rhythm Dukes/A.B. Skhy

On April 16, 1970, old friend Bruce Walford recorded a demo tape of The Rhythm Dukes at The Sons’ rehearsal facility (The Church in San Anselmo).  The 10 tracks appear to be recorded live in the studio, with some modest piano and harmony vocal overdubs from Bill Champlin.  Bill sings lead on 8 of the 10 tracks, all but one of which turned up in some form in the Sons repertoire in the next few years (the exception was a cover of “Kansas City”).  The Rhythm Dukes, however, had a more laid-back bluesy feel than the Sons uptempo, swinging sound.  The material was officially but privately released (a mere 34 years later) on a cd entitled Flash Back. The accompanying Rhythm Dukes website has some nice photos of the band and posters.

April 23-25, 1970: The Matrix, San Francisco, CA: The Rhythm Dukes w/Jerry Miller and Bill Champlin

May 1, 1970: Gym, Monterey Peninsula College, Monterey, CA: Rhythm Dukes/Potter’s Wheel
For about a year, thanks to the Millard Agency (Bill Graham's booking agents) and some local promoters, there were regular rock shows in the Monterey area, mostly at the gym at the local Junior College. This little scene did not quite have the momentum to sustain itself, but many San Francisco-area bands played there for that year.

This show is known from the Richard Moore poster on the Dukes website. Potter's Wheel was the Santa Cruz incarnation of a Bay Area band called Phoenix.

May 22-23, 1970: New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Rhythm Dukes w/Bill Champlin/Nargul

June ?, 1970:  The Matrix Rhythm, San Francisco, CA: Dukes w/Jerry Miller and Bill Champlin
A poorly reproduced May/June 1970 Matrix calendar makes the exact date difficult to read.

June 19-21, 1970:  Family Dog at The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Flying Burrito Brothers/Cat Mother and The All Night Newsboys/Rhythm Dukes with Bill Champlin, Jerry Miller

June 27, 1970: Gym, Cabrillo College, Aptos, CA: Elvin Bishop/Rhythm Dukes/Snail
Cabrillo College was a Junior College in Aptos, not far from the UC Santa Cruz campus. It's not clear when Bill Champlin left the Rhythm Dukes, but since he was booked at the Family Dog the week before, I have to think that he played this show as well.

July 3, 1970: The Matrix, San Francisco, CA: Bill Champlin and Friends
It's not at all clear if this was a Rhythm Dukes show or Bill playing with other musicians. I am more likely that to believe the latter. The exact date of Champlin’s departure from the Rhythm Dukes is unknown.

At some point in the Summer, Bill Champlin moved back to Marin County. He may have finished a few shows with the Rhythm Dukes, but he left the band and they continued on without him. Champlin started to hang out at The Lion's Share in San Anselmo, playing impromptu gigs with various musicians, including former members of The Sons. One thing led to another, and by September, 1970 The Sons Of Champlin were back in business under the improbable name of Yogi Phlegm. They rapidly returned to their original name, however, and went on to long career--with some significant interruptions--that is still lively today.

The Rhythm Dukes continued on until about 1972, weathering not only Bill Champlin's departure in 1970 but Jerry Miller's departure in 1971, when Moby Grape reformed once again. What little recorded evidence remains of The Rhythm Dukes suggested they were an excellent live band, although an actual live tape of the Dukes with Champlin remains elusive. The Rhythm Dukes have even been known to reform on occasion, including once in 1992 at the Crow's Nest in Santa Cruz, when Bill Champlin joined in once again.

1310 Old Bayshore Highway, Burlingame, CA: The Syndrome June 1966-July 1967

The Syndrome in Burlingame was another effort to try and accommodate the burgeoning rock underground flowering in San Francisco into the South Bay Area Peninsula. This obscure club has only been noted historically because it was a regular venue for a Moby Grape predecessor called Luminous Marsh Gas. A Tacoma, WA band called The Frantics had moved to San Bruno (of all places), but by 1966 the "Northwest Sound" was migrating towards a spacier, bluesier sound. The members of The Frantics, guitarist Jerry Miller, organist Chuck Schoening (aka Chuck Steaks) and drummer Don Stevenson, added singer/harmonica player Denise Kaufman, well before she was in The Ace Of Cups. They took their name from a peculiar news articles that suggested that UFO sightings were really Luminous Marsh Gas. By the end of 1966, Miller and Stevenson would be playing the Fillmore and The Avalon as members of Moby Grape, but in the middle of the year they were still playing The Syndrome.

In 1966, there was a club attempting to attract the hip rock audience every several miles in the South Bay. In South Palo Alto there was The Big Beat, in Redwood City there was The Spectrum (previously The Nu Beat), in San Mateo there was The Trip and in Burlingame there was The Syndrome. Articles in the San Mateo Times (such as the ones above from June 10 and December 16, 1966) make it clear that the club emphasized "psychedelic" lighting to create an "experience." The December, 1966 article says that "With the mass discharge of college hippies from school, you can bet that Bill Hotmans Syndrome in Burlingame will be junpin during the holidays." The Syndrome clearly recognized that they were aiming at the "hippie" market, but they seemed to missed the target. The original proprietor, Joe Gannon, had been the road manager of The Kingston Trio, so he was not a fuddy-duddy old man, but he still seems to have overestimated the reach of the underground. I do not know if Bill Hotman was a new owner or simply a manager.

For one thing, many hippies did not have much money, not enough to afford to hang out in bars. For another, the location of The Syndrome on the South Bay's main drag, El Camino Real, required a car, and if you had a car, why not see the Dead or Big Brother at the Avalon or The Fillmore, just a few miles up the road? Furthermore, many of the hippest rock fans were under 21, in many cases well under 21, and not able to get into a bar. Finally, the Fillmore and Avalon had bands that were perceived as cool, that made people want to go out and see them. The primary act that was advertised at The Syndrome was Mr. Clean (the above is from November 25), a soul combo headed by former NFL player and saxophonist/vocalist Ollie McClay. While no doubt McClay was a fine musician (lounge musicians usually are), he didn't have the underground cachet that the Fillmore bands did.

It is ironic that Luminous Marsh Gas, with two future members of various Fillmore bands, who apparently played the club regularly but were not advertised in the paper, probably had the talent and underground cred to make The Syndrome into a happening place, but the proprietors were unable to capitalize on it. According to Kaufman, the band was already playing some nascent Moby Grape material, including the great song "Murder In My Heart For The Judge."

The Syndrome was only open from June 1966 until July 1967. It was replaced in August of 1967 by a Greek restaurant called Zorba's.

November 12, 1965: Tiger A Go Go, San Francisco Airport Hilton, Burlingame

From the early 1960s until the mid-1960s adults who liked rock music and wanted to dance--almost exclusively in their 20s--patronized "Go Go" clubs. These were basically discoteques, with live bands playing danceable rock, surf and R&B music, and people did dances with "names" like The Twist or The Frug. Since patrons worked up a sweat, clubs sold a lot of drinks, so it wasn't a bad business model. Of course, the principal fans of this sort of music were too young to get in, but a 22-year old who wanted to dance to covers of Smokey Robinson or Dick Dale didn't want to go to a lounge, so there was ample patronage until Fillmore type venues came into being. Just about every aspiring rock musician in the mid-60s who wasn't a folkie played these venues at one time or another, because it was a paying gig.

The Joel Scott Hill Trio featured Joel Scott Hill on guitar, Lee Michaels on organ and John Barbata on drums. Lee Michaels, after stints with The Sentinels and The Family Tree (under the name Mike Olsen), went on to solo stardom. John Barbata joined The Turtles, Crosby Stills Nash and Young (for Four Way Street) and Jefferson Starship (in their mid-70s prime) as well as being an accomplished session musician. Joel Scott Hill, the least known of the trio because he spent the late 60s in Mendocino County, was in Canned Heat in 1971 and later in The Flying Burrito Brothers when the band revived in 1975-76. But here they were, much younger, playing several sets a night, probably almost every night of the week, at The Tiger A Go Go near the San Francisco Airport. Contemporary ads suggest they played Tiger A Go Go all of November, and were replaced by The Standells in December.

Going out to dance is about boys meeting girls, and from this distant remove it may seem odd that 20-something young men would drive to the San Francisco Airport (in Burlingame some miles south of the city itself) to meet girls. There is a simple, one-word answer, however: stewardesses. In the 1960s, at the rise of the Jet Age, stewardesses were picked for their looks. It was also one of the few career options available for pretty girls who were unable to get a college degree and become a teacher or nurse. Since stewardesses were fired if they gained weight, got married or got old (no, I'm not making this up), they had a short period of time to have some fun, so stewardesses were widely renowned as the best of the mid-60s party girls. Whether this is true or not is beside the point--every young man in San Mateo County would be driving over to the Tiger A Go Go in the hopes of meeting a pretty, exotic stewardess, only in town for a few days and ready to live it up.

1836 El Camino Real, Redwood City, CA-The Nu Beat (later The Spectrum)

The Nu Beat club in Redwood City was only open for about four months in 1966, and its successor, The Spectrum, was only open for a few months later in 1966. While not an important venue in its own right, The Nu Beat is an interesting snapshot of the different ways in which entrepreneurs tried to capture rock music's entertainment dollars. While Bill Graham and Chet Helms, just up Highway 101, were figuring out the Fillmore/Avalon model that would define live rock until the present day, numerous other participants had their own plans.

The article and ad above are from the San Mateo Times of January 7, 1966. As a comparison, remember that The Beatles Rubber Soul album had been released the month before (December 1965), LSD was still legal, and while Bill Graham had put on his first benefit at the Fillmore (December 10, 1965), The Trips Festival had not yet been held (Jan 21-22-23) and the underground rock scene that would lead to the Fillmore and Avalon was still quite nascent. Bobby Mitchell and his partner Tom Donahue were djs on KYA-am, the #2 music station in the San Francisco market (KFRC was #1), and they also promoted concerts, owned racehorses and had their own record label. Autumn Records had hit with The Beau Brummels, among others, and their house producer was Sly Stone.

Donahue and Mitchell had had a topless club in North Beach called Mother's (at 430 Broadway, alluded to in the article), but it had closed. The Nu Beat seems to have been an attempt to move North Beach's "glamor" to the staid suburb of Redwood City. I know almost nothing about the club save for this article and some ads, but here's what I can discern:

• 'Leslie, Our Go Go Girl' means that pretty girls in skimpy outfits danced on elevated stages or platforms to excite the crowd, on the model of Hollywood's Whisky A-Go-Go
• Beau Brummels and The Mojo Men were both Autumn acts, as were The Vejtables from the previous week
• The club was previously "The Pink Panther," which was very 1962, and ripe for change

The tricky part of this business model was that rock mostly appealed to teenagers, and they couldn't attend a club where drinks were sold. Conversely, in 1966, no one over the age of 29 listened to rock music.

The Frantics, listed in the article as one of the initial acts, probably playing New Year's Eve, were a Tacoma band that moved to San Bruno (improbably enough). Band members at this time included guitarist Jerry Miller and drummer Don Stevenson, both of whom would be in Moby Grape and playing the Avalon by the end of the year. Its not impossible that the Frantics bassist was Bob Mosley, also a future Grape, but his timeline isn't so certain.

In subsequent ads I have seen for the Nu Beat (all in the San Mateo Times), the acts were Autumn Records acts, except in the first two weeks of March when the featured act was The Justice League of America. Justice League of America was led by guitarist Ron Cornelius, later a vastly successful bandleader and Nashville producer. The ads abruptly cease in early April.

I am pretty certain that the ads for the Nu Beat ceased in April because Mitchell and Donahue's empire was shut down by creditors--apparently their penchant for racehorses was one of the problems. Autumn Records artists like The Vejtables and The Mojo Men were surprised to find the Autumn Records offices padlocked in early April. I have to assume the rest of their empire, including Mitchell's Nu Beat, went with it.

Sometime later in 1966, the club reopened under the name The Spectrum. I know almost nothing about it, but as a mark of the times, future Moby Grapers Miller and Stevenson played the club regularly, but this time under the name Luminous Marsh Gas. Miller, Stevenson and organist Chuck Schoening dropped the Frantics name and added singer Denise Kaufman and immediately started playing spacier blues. They mainly played two places on El Camino, The Spectrum and The Syndrome in Burlingame. I only know the location of The Spectrum because an eyewitness recalls seeing them there, and recalls the location.

1836 El Camino Real in Redwood City is near a place known as "Five Points," mentioned in the ad, where Woodside Road, El Camino Real and Main Street intersect. The site is now a Holiday Inn Express.