September 12-14, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: It's A Beautiful Day/Sons Of Champlin/Fourth Way [FDGH '69 XX]

 

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."

• For a complete list of Family Dog shows (including FDGH), see here
• For the previous entry (September 6, 1969 Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

 

A

The Sunday (Sep 14) SF Chronicle had a photo of The Fourth Way, noting their gig opening at the Family Dog on The Great Highway

The Family Dog on The Great Highway had opened in June of 1969, and it had never gotten on to firm financial footing. It was losing money each week, apparently, and proprietor Chet Helms had a huge tax bill from the IRS, left over from 1967, when the Avalon had been successful. Nonetheless, the Family Dog had some great bands throughout the month of August, and likely pretty good attendance. The Grateful Dead had played the first and last weekends (August 2-3 and August 29-30), Country Joe and The Fish (August 8-10) and Mike Bloomfield (August 15-16), had both played weekends, there had been a Wild West "makeup" extravaganza, and on the first weekend of September, the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead had played a stealth gig on Saturday, September 6. Still, the Dog was on the precipice, and they were on the verge of falling off.

The Tuesday, September 9, 1969 Examiner listed "Rock, Etc" at the Family Dog

September 9, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Sufi Dervish Dancing, Pakistani Fashion Show, Phoenix (rock) (Tuesday)
The Family Dog was regularly rented for promotions by outside groups. A Pakistani Fashion Show and Sufi Dervish Dancing sounds like a unique night out. Phoenix was a good local rock band that played pretty danceable music, and deep, complicated roots in the 60s Bay Area rock scene.

September 10, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA:  "Latin Rock" Kwane and The Kwanditos/Los Flamencos de la Santa Lucia (Wednesday)
Latin Jazz had gotten its start on San Francisco's Broadway back in the 1950s, and of course Santana had invented Latin Rock, so popular Latin music roots went pretty deep in the Bay Area. The previous Wednesday, the Dog had also held a Latin Music night. I have no idea if these consecutive weeks were tied together but it seems likely. 

Kwane And The Kwanditos played some sort of Latin jazz-rock, as far as I can tell. Their pianist was Todd Barkan, who would go on to take over San Francisco's Keystone Korner jazz club in 1972.

Los Flamencos de la Santa Lucia were a flamenco troupe that were regularly booked at rock venues.

 

September 11, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Purple Earthquake/Johnny Mars Band/Wisdom Finger/Osceola (Thursday)
This Thursday night booking of obscure local bands is intriguing for the possibility that the Grateful Dead may have made a guest appearance. As is typical with the Dead and the Dog, we have a tape fragment  but no other evidence.

The Bay Area rock market was booming, for both live performance and recording. The Fillmore West had regular audition nights on Tuesdays. Bill Graham had just re-started them for the Fall (in the Summer, the Fillmore West was open six nights a week with touring bands, but in the Fall and Winter it was just Thursday through Sunday). A few local or out-of-town bands would play the Fillmore West on Tuesdays, and sometimes there would be a jam afterwards, including some local heavyweights. It looks like Chet Helms had the same idea, but opted for a Thursday.

Purple Earthquake was a power trio out of Berkeley High School. They would evolve into the band Earth Quake, who had a fair amount of local success with their albums in the 1970s.

I recognize the name Johnny Mars Blues Band from listings around this time, but don't know anything else about them. 

As for Wisdom Fingers, we know a little about them from the miracle of the Comment Thread (in my Fillmore West Audition post)

Wisdom Fingers was a band lead by singer-songwriter Rip Masters on keys and vocals. Given name: Martin Masters. The band featured Lenny Giachello on drums and Geoff Pierce on guitar with Larry Brown on bass. Some gigs were as a trio with organ bass. The band also played at The Family Dog on the Great Highway with Purple Earthquake, and at the wrap party for the cult film "Glenn and Randa" [sic] among other appearances around the Bay Area. The band was based in Haight Ashbury with ties to Mill Valley and Santa Cruz. Music was mostly original. East Coast native and leader Masters went on to become a well known rockabilly artist and session player starting in the mid 70s through the present.

Guitarist Alan Yott of Osceola at the Family Dog on The Great Highway, probably 1970

 We know a fair amount about the band Osceola. This show at the Family Dog was probably one of their very first gigs. They would go on to play the Dog many times, and played around the Bay Area regularly until at least 1972. Osceola lead guitarist Bill Ande was a transplant from Florida. He had played and recorded with some modestly successful bands, like the R-Dells, the American Beetles (really), who had then changed their name to The Razor's Edge and had even played American Bandstand. Come '69, Ande had relocated to San Francisco to play some psychedelic blues. The musicians he linked up with were all Florida transplants as well, so even though they were a San Francisco band, they chose the name Osceola as an homage to their roots.

Osceola was a five piece band with two drummers, and played all the local ballrooms and rock nightclubs. Ande was joined by guitarist Alan Yott, bassist Chuck Nicholis and drummers Donny Fields and Richard Bevis. Osceola was a successful live act, but never recorded. Almost all of the band members would return to the Southeast (mainly Tallahassee and Atlanta) in the mid-70 to have successful music careers.

The Grateful Dead link is more tenuous. There is a fragmentary Dead tape consisting of one song that has circulated since at least the early 80s. It is an audience tape of one song, "Easy Wind," dated September 11, 1969. The provenance of the tape is obscure, as there is not a longer recording. It's also worth noting that there were almost no audience tapers on the West Coast at the time. Who made this tape, and where did it come from?

The "official" listings on the archive suggest that the tape was originally labeled "unknown venue," and the location of The Family Dog on The Great Highway was just a plausible suggestion. It is a plausible suggestion, but no evidence backs it up. The recording persisted as "tape filler" for many years since it's so interesting. It is an early performance of "Easy Wind," with a slide guitar part. For many years, this was assumed to part of some jam with a guest on slide guitar--making the Family Dog seem likely--but I reject that hypothesis now. I'm convinced it's actually Jerry Garcia on slide guitar, with Bob Weir playing lead. 

If the tape really was recorded at the Family Dog, we have to assume the Dead showed up on "new band night" for a blow. They very well could have. They had jammed at the Dog (possibly for no audience) on Thursday August 14, played a practically stealth show on Thursday August 28, and then played at least one stealth show with the Jefferson Airplane on Saturday, September 6. So, it's not far-fetched to imagine them dropping in on September 11.

It does beg the question, however, of why the above commenter, most likely Rip Masters or someone close to him, didn't mention opening for the Dead at the Dog. So the September 11, 1969 performance of "Easy Wind" remains a mystery that may or may not have emanated from the Family Dog.

 

September 12-14, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: It's A Beautiful Day/Sons Of Champlin/Fourth Way (Friday-Sunday)
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, and then a Wild West makeup show on August 24, but this weekend was the band's first time headlining a paying gig at the Dog.

The Sons of Champlin were a tier lower than It's A Beautiful Day, but they were a Bay Area band on the rise. Capitol Records had released the Sons' debut album, Loosen Up Naturally--a double lp--back in May. The hard-working Sons had played all over the Bay Area for years, and they had played The Family Dog in June and again for a Wild West show in August.

The Fourth Way were an intriguing jazz-rock hybrid band who had just released their debut album on Capitol Records. The quartet played electric jazz, and was one of a number of Bay Area bands experimenting with jazz and rock, but in a less aggressive style than East Coast "Fusion" music inspired by Miles Davis' Bitches Brew band and album. The Fourth Way were led by expatriate New Zealand pianist Mike Nock, whose career is too long and interesting to summarize (although he does a pretty good job of it himself, when interviewed on his 80th birthday in 2019). Chief soloist was electric violinist Michael White, who had toured and recorded with John Handy in the mid-60s. Jazz veterans Eddie Marshall (on drums) and Ron McClure filled out the band. 

The Friday September 12, 1969 Examiner mentions opening act Fourth Way and the light show (Garden Of Delights), with no mention of the previously-booked Sons Of Champlin. They may not have played.

What Happened?
Like many Family Dog bookings, the event seems to have disappeared without a trace. I know of no review or eyewitness account. In fact, the Sons of Champlin may not have even played. The Friday Examiner did not list them, and Sons' road manager did not think the band played many weekends at the Family Dog, and didn't recall this one. Neither of those are proof that the Sons didn't play, but it's not a good sign when a venue either can't pay or the bands who played there can't remember it. There's not a doubt about the quality of music that would have been played, but for how many people?

After this weekend, the bottom fell out of Family Dog weekend bookings. Name bands did not play the Family Dog for the balance of the month, not even the old Avalon stalwarts that had been the regular fare. The skinny evidence suggests that this was a very poorly attended weekend, and the Family Dog couldn't recover for some time. The venue was rented to outside promoters, but that was thin gruel indeed.

For the next entry in the series (September 15-26 '69, various bands), see here

September 6, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead [FDGH '69 XIX]

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."

• For a complete list of Family Dog shows (including FDGH), see here
• For the previous entry (August 29-30, 1969 Grateful Dead) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

 

 

After a packed opening night with the Jefferson Airplane, back on June 13, the Family Dog had been in difficult financial straits. The venue itself was very appealing. The bands that had played the Family Dog each weekend, by and large, had been really good bands. The groups weren't quite as high profile as the Fillmore West, and Bill Graham always got the first bite of any band on tour. But the quality of music at the Dog was high. The location, far from the center of the city and not near an easy freeway exit, made the venue difficult to find for suburban teens. In the era before MapQuest, simple directions made a big difference. The problem seems to have been that not enough Bay Area rock fans had made it a habit to check out who might be playing at the Family Dog, and consider it as an option. For rock fans, checking to see who was at Fillmore West was automatic, whether or not you ended up going.  But the Family Dog hadn't yet gotten into the minds of Bay Area rock concert fans.

August 1969 had a run of really good bands at the Family Dog, including the Dead on two separate weekends (August 2-3 and 28-30), Country Joe and The Fish (August 8-10), Mike Bloomfield (August 15-16) and a slew of bands on the Wild West "makeup" shows (August 22-24). If there was any time that rock fans were noticing the Dog, it would have been this month. In retrospect, however, we can see August 1969 as a high water mark for the Family Dog. Come September, things would fall apart for the balance of the year. Probably no week in the Family Dog's 14-month history sums up its contrarian history so well as the first week of September.

On Saturday, September 6, 1969 the Family Dog had what must have been its biggest show in its history. It was good, too, because we have the tapes. It was very likely packed. The Jefferson Airplane, one of the biggest drawing acts in rock music, played the Great Highway, supported by no less than their old pals the Grateful Dead. Yet there was only the faintest hint of pre-show publicity, and not a word about it afterwards. If the Airplane and the Dead had played an unscheduled show at the Fillmore West, you can bet that Bill Graham would have made sure everyone heard about it, so every rock fan knew that the Fillmore was Where It Was At. The Family Dog let this event slip by without a trace--if Owsley Stanley had not taped both acts, we would never have any idea that the show had even happened.

Let's review the week of September 1-7, 1969 at the Family Dog on The Great Highway.

[For a more Grateful Dead-centric view of the weekend, see my post here]

September 1, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Monday Night class
Like any venue, the Family Dog was willing to rent the hall out during the week when there wasn't a booking. Bill Graham did the same at Fillmore West. Besides clearing a little cash, and providing workdays for a few staff members, these sort of events could remind patrons that the Family Dog was a happening concern, worth checking out.

Stephen Gaskin was a popular literature instructor at San Francisco State, whose campus was not too far down the road (at 19th Avenue and Holloway). Gaskin spoke about what we would now be called "Human Consciousness" or "Self-Help," but at the time he was called a "Hip Guru." I am no expert in this area, but I will say that Gaskin was neither a con artist nor interested in turning a profit, rare for those sort. His "Monday Night" class had been running since at least July. I don't know whether it was every Monday night or just some, but it was popular (the picture at the top of the post is from one of his Monday night events). Admission was free, and Gaskin just lectured, although I think they took donations. 

You would think that Chet Helms would have found a way to intrigue San Francisco State students that were interested in Self-Actualization on Labor Day Monday to consider checking out rock shows on the weekend. On this weekend, however, the show was a secret, so the crowd would not have seen a poster at the door encouraging them to check out the weekend rock show. An opportunity lost.

September 2, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Theatre of The Absurd Costume Ball (Tuesday)
Other than the listing (above) on the Family Dog flyer, I have no idea about this event. It does seem clear that various theater and dance groups took advantage of the Family Dog space for various events, but I don't have any sense that the Dog was able to capitalize on it in any way.

September 3, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Latin Night (Wednesday)
There had been a substantial Latin Jazz scene in San Francisco in the 1950s and '60s. Indeed, San Mateo's Cal Tjader had been an essential founder in the genre. Once Broadway in North Beach went topless, however, Latin Jazz went into decline in the city. Still, there was an existing scene, probably focused on "older" (although still under 40) fans. I doubt there would have been much synergy between the Latin Jazz crowd and the weekend psychedelic Dog shows, but renting out the venue for a night was still a good thing.

September 4, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Carnival Coronation Ball for Miss Playland 1969 w/Devil's Kitchen/Flying Circus (Thursday)
Playland-At-The-Beach was an amusement park, if an out-of-date one, and the Sunset District in those days was basically a suburb. So it's no surprise to find out that Playland apparently had an annual Beauty Pageant. It had probably run throughout the Summer. It is a telling irony that I am able to discern far more information about a weeknight local Beauty Pageant at Playland than any of the rock concerts by bands who remain popular decades after they were performing.

I originally only knew about this show from the website of the band Devil's Kitchen. Devil's Kitchen was a band from Carbondale, IL, who had moved to San Francisco in Spring 1968. They  became the "house band" at The Family Dog, opening many of the shows there, even ones for which they did not appear on the bill. They also played other clubs around the Bay Area. The band members were guitarist Robbie Stokes, keyboardist/vocalist Brett Champlin, bassist Bob Laughton and drummer Steve Sweigart. While Stokes remained in the Bay Area for a dozen years or so, the rest of the band members ultimately returned to the Midwest later in 1970. Ironically, a recording of the group's performance at The Family Dog on March 22, 1970, promulgated by Wolfgang's Vault, roused the band back to life, and that is how I got in touch with them (Brett Champlin responded very kindly to emails, and to answer the obvious question, he is a 4th cousin of Bill Champlin but they had not met prior to the band arriving in SF).

According to Brett Champlin, Devil's Kitchen were just another dance band at this show, providing music after the pageant was complete. The Metropolitan Sound Company was a soul band from Oakland, playing original soul music with a Hendrix touch, and the bands probably alternated. While the ticket rather enticingly says "Dress Optional," I take that to mean that guests were not obligated to dress formally, rather than at all. Based on the Examiner ad (above), it seems that Metropolitan Sound Co was replaced by the Mill Valley band Flying Circus. Flying Circus had existed since 1966, albeit with many personnel changes, and currently featured lead guitarist Bob McFee. He was the brother of Clover lead guitarist John McFee (many years later in the Doobie Brothers and Southern Pacific), and the two bands shared equipment and a rehearsal hall. As far as I can tell, Flying Circus played the kind of funky country rock typical of future Marin County bands. Brett Champlin only vaguely recalls the event, since he still has the complimentary ticket, so it was probably just another night for a working band. 

The SF Chronicle of Friday, September 6, 1969 reported Judith Vacek's election as Miss Playland '69

Given the paucity of information about rock shows at the Family Dog, it's notable that not only was there an ad in the Examiner for the Coronation Ball, we even know who won. The Friday SF Chronicle reported:

Judith Vacek shoots a good game of pool, measures a classic 36-26-36 and is "Playland Girl '69."

The 20-year old Tiburon girl was officially crowned as the Queen Of Playland At The Beach Thursday. The contest was conducted all summer and decided by popular vote of the public.
Miss Vacek, who aspires to be an airline stewardess, received a 1970 Ford Maverick that went along with her new title.

So, Judith Vacek won a Ford Maverick, was a babe, and shot a good game of pool. Wherever she is today, I hope that the Maverick served her well, that she had a nice life, and that she kept her pool game sharp. Yet the Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead played the Family Dog over the weekend, and we only know about Judith. 

Let's set our modern hats aside and think about the Miss Playland Coronation Ball from 1969. It was some sort of "election." Apparently the different contestants invited their family and friends to submit votes and then come and cheer and vote for them. Now, let's be real here--what was rock and roll about in 1969 (and probably every other year)? Did all of the Miss Playland contestants get free tickets to the Family Dog? If not, why not? If you were a teenage boy rock and roller in 1969--long haired or not--and knew that beauty pageant contestants might be showing up at the venue on Friday night, wouldn't you be there? More importantly, wouldn't the venue want to shout to the newspapers that all the contestants (and their sisters!) were given free tickets all weekend? Now, maybe they did get free tickets--Judith Vacek could have driven her friends in her new Maverick--but the whole point would have been to publicize it. Yet somehow the Family Dog missed this equation.

September 5, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Malachi/Rubber Duck (mime) and a jam with members of 3 groups we're not allowed to name
We only have the faintest hint of what might have happened on Friday night. The San Francisco Good Times had a cryptical ad (above). Malachi was a sort of moody guitarist, and Rubber Duck was a mime (Joe McCord) working with a rock band playing improvised music. But that wasn't the appealing part (well, unless you thought Beauty Pageant contestants would be there). The ad said, temptingly, "a jam with members of 3 groups that we're not allowed to name." 

Literally, we know nothing else about Friday night--not even if it happened.

September 6, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead (Saturday)
We have two great tapes from Saturday, September 6: one by the Jefferson Airplane, and one by the Grateful Dead. Notwithstanding that they were both recorded by Owsley Stanley himself, famous for (among many other things) accurate dating on tape boxes, internal evidence fits as well. At the end of the Grateful Dead tape, Jerry Garcia says "coming up next, Jefferson Airpane." At the end of the Airplane tape, Garcia jams with the Airplane. So it looks pretty definitive: whatever else happened on the weekend, the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane played the Family Dog on the Great Highway on Saturday night.

So why do we know nothing? It's understandable that contracts or other issues may have prevented some advance publicity. In any case, it wouldn't have affected attendance. Jefferson Airplane were one of the most popular live rock bands in the country, much less in San Francisco. Their most recent album, Bless Its Pointed Little Head, recorded at Fillmores East and West, and released in February 1969, had been a huge hit. The Grateful Dead were a popular local band, by any standard. The place was going to be packed. But why didn't Chet Helms make sure the world knew? Bill Graham would have, and that's why the Fillmores are legendary today,--because Bill constantly reminded us. Chet could have done the same, and yet he didn't.

When I speculated about this show many years later, I did get one tantalizing clue from an unknown Commenter:

Yes, I was there that night, working for the light show company that did the show. Both bands were there and traded sets, then both bands took to the stages at either end of the ballroom and jammed together until 2 a.m.

The syntax is a bit confusing here, but the eyewitness suggests the Dead and the Airplane were on separate stages at opposite ends of the venue. Uniquely, the Family Dog had two stages, and they were known to use both to enable quick set changes. It's fascinating to think of the Dead and the Airplane sharing a venue, but on different stages. Yet we only have the barest of clues, memories almost slipped beyond the horizon.

[update 17 Aug 2023] New information has come to light that tells us that the New Riders of The Purple Sage opened the show on September 6. This fulfills the hint that there "three groups we're not allowed to name."

September 7, 1969 Hyde Park, London, England Crosby, Stills and Nash/Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead/Joni Mitchell (canceled)
As if San Francisco's Wild West Festival fiasco wasn't enough, just a few days later (August 27) Ralph Gleason had announced (above) plans for the Grateful Dead to join Crosby Stills and Nash, The Jefferson Airplane and Joni Mitchell to play a free concert in London for a Granada TV Special. Gleason:

The Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Crosby Stills and Nash (now a Bay Area band: they're moving here) and Joni Mitchell will be presented in a free concert in London's Hyde Park on September 7. 

The groups, with some additions to be announced, will be flying over directly from San Francisco. The show is being put on for filming for a Granada TV program and there's a possibility that there will be other concerts in Europe later.

Of course, none of this happened. Various major bands had played free concerts in Hyde Park during this summer (including Blind Faith and the Rolling Stones), so this idea wasn't as far-fetched as it sounds. Among many other byproducts of this scheme, Grateful Dead manager Rock Scully flew to London and made contact with the Rolling Stones, which indirectly lead to the unfortunate Altamont debacle. Scully describes the whole story in his autobiography. Whatever the reality quotient might have been, the unfulfilled plan left the Airplane and the Dead free on this weekend, so they seem to have chosen to play the Family Dog instead. I assume the show was announced on KSAN. Once the word was out, any Airplane show was going to be packed, much less one shared with the Dead.

September 7, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA:? (Sunday)
Who else performed at the Family Dog this weekend? Honestly, we don't know. Malachi, a sort of troubadour guitarist, and "Rubber Duck" (Joe McCord), a mime backed by improvising musicians, were listed as performing Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Did they? Who knows? Thanks to Mr Owsley, however, we have yet another intriguing detail. It's worth remembering that Owsley was particularly scrupulous about noting the date correctly on the boxes of his tape reels (earning the undying appreciation of rock prosopographers everywhere). 

There is a 28-minute board tape from the Family Dog, dated September 7, 1969. The performers seem to consist of Jerry Garcia, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, drummer Joey Covington and another drummer. They perform some rock and roll oldies (see the setlist below),  and Joey Covington (future drummer for the Jefferson Airplane) sings a few. A crowd member calls for the old surf tune "Wipeout" and the players respond with the drum solo. A note on the box implies that Jerry Garcia may have joined the two drummers, briefly, on some drums. 

So there appears to have been a jam on Sunday. Probably some band equipment was left there from the night before, on purpose. Did Malachi or Rubber Duck play? Did the Dead/Airplane players do any other music? It seems likely that Jorma, Jack and Joey would have done their full electric thing, as that was what they were doing around the Bay Area. But we don't know. There was some kind of crowd--someone called for "Wipe Out"--but no eyewitnesses have surfaced. Once again, with their most famous performers in residence, the Family Dog made sure that no one found out what happened on Sunday night. It was all downhill from here.

Owsley did not like the drum mix on Sep 7 69

[update 17 Aug 2023] The Owsley Stanley Foundation figured out that there is an additional reel from September 7. The Grateful Dead played at least one set on September 7 (setlist below), following a set by Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady and Joey Covington, with Will Scarlett on harmonica and Jerry Garcia on pedal steel guitar.

Appendix: Setlists

Grateful Dead, September 6, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA

Good Morning Little Schoolgirl [11:48];[0:13] ;
Doin' That Rag [6:28];[0:09] ;
He Was A Friend Of Mine [12:24];[0:06]%[0:16] ;
Big Boy Pete [3:09] >
Good Lovin' [3:55];[0:53] ;
It's All Over Now [4:04] [Total Time 47:00]

Jefferson Airplane, September 6, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA

Grace Slick-vocals
Marty Balin-vocals
Jorma Kaukonen-lead guitar, vocals
Paul Kantner-rhythm guitar, vocals
Jack Casady-bass
Spencer Dryden-drums
#plus-Jerry Garcia-guitar, Mickey Hart-drums, {unknown}-congas

[0:10] ; Ballad of You, Me & Pooneil > Starship [15:13] ; [0:20] ;
Good Shepherd [6:30] ; [0:12] ;
We Can Be Together [6:46]
% Somebody To Love [3:55] ; [0:05] ;
The Farm [2:53] ; [0:17] ;
Crown Of Creation [3:05] ; [0:08] ;
Come Back Baby [5:34] ; [0:12] %
Wooden Ships [5:38] > Go Ride The Music [0:35]
% Volunteers [#2:22] >
  Drums [1:54] >
  #Jam [25:27]  [Total time 1:20:12]

Garcia and Hart participate in the Jam following "Volunteers", as well as an unidentified conga player. The Jam includes a "Darkness Darkness" jam.

Grateful Dead, September 7, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA

Me & My Uncle
China Cat Sunflower
High Time
Mama Tried
Big Boy Pete
New Orleans
Not Fade Away
Easy Wind
Sitting On Top Of the World

Jam, September 7, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA

Peggy Sue [3:26] %
That'll Be The Day [3:20] %
Johnny B. Goode [3:44] %
Baby What You Want Me To Do [4:54]%[0:46] ;
Wipe Out Drums [0:16] >
Wipe Out Jam [3:54] >
Big Railroad Blues [1:16] %
Louie Louie [3:02] >
Twist & Shout [1:36] >
Blue Moon [1:29] [Total Time 28:49]

        Jerry Garcia, Jorma Kaukonen, Jack Casady, Joey Covington, {additional drummer}

For the next post in the series (September 12-14 '69 Its A Beautiful Day), see here

August 29-30, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/New Riders of The Purple Sage/Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen/Rubber Duck [FDGH '69 XVIII]

 

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."

• For a complete list of Family Dog shows (including FDGH), see here
• For the previous entry (August 28, 1969 Grateful Dead/Hartbeats) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

August 29-30, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/New Riders of The Purple Sage/Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen/Rubber Duck (Friday/Saturday)
By the end of August, 1969, the Family Dog on The Great Highway was widely known to be in poor financial straits. Although some excellent bands had played the Dog since it had opened in June, save for the opening night attendance had not apparently been exceptional. There was so little coverage of Family Dog concerts that we can only infer things like attendance, but all the evidence points to underwhelming crowds. Chet Helms and the Family Dog had significant tax problems stemming from 1967, which had been the Family Dog's most successful year. Helms' public acknowledgement of his tax problems (in the Examiner and elsewhere) was a clear indicator that the Great Highway shows were not selling well enough to resolve his issues.

The Grateful Dead had played the Family Dog at the beginning of the month. The opening Friday night had been undermined by the brief "strike" of the Light Show Guild. The Dead had played the next two shows (on Saturday and Sunday, August 2-3), and the Examiner reported that Saturday, at least, was a "packed house." We have no idea about Sunday's crowd. Still, the Grateful Dead were one of the few bands that returned to the Family Dog over and over, so they must have done alright. Although the Dead did not yet have a traveling circus of Deadheads following them around--which was initially an East Coast phenomenon in any case--the band had a solid core of local fans. Unlike other groups, when the Dead played all around the Bay Area, they increased their demand rather than reduced it. So whoever might have been seeing the Grateful Dead at the Great Highway, returning less than a month after their last appearance was an attraction, not a detriment.

Grateful Dead Touring Plans, August 1969
The Grateful Dead had begun the month of August at the Family Dog, but they were mostly booked at rock festivals for the month. The Grateful Dead's bookings were:    

    August 1-3, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA
    August 5-6-7, 1969 Fillmore West
    August 16, 1969 Woodstock Festival, Bethel, NY
    August 20, 1969 Aqua Theater, Seattle, WA
    August 22, 1969 Wild West Festival, Kezar Stadium, San Francisco, CA
    August 23, 1969 Bullfrog 2 Festival, Mt St Helens, OR
    August 24, 1969 Vancouver Pop Festival, Paradise Valley Resort, Squamish, BC
    August 29-30, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA
    September 1, 1969 New Orleans Pop Festival, Baton Rouge Speedway, Prairieville, LA

Of course, the Dead's actual performance schedule was quite different. They didn't play the first night at the Family Dog (August 1), Fillmore West was canceled, they were rained out at Aqua Theater and played a bar (El Roach, Ballard, WA August 20), and then the Aqua next night (August 21), the Wild West was canceled (so NRPS could play Bullfrog 2), they added an extra date at the Family Dog (August 28) and the band canceled out in British Columbia. Rock concerts were turning into big money, but the market was far from stable.

Still, it's only possible to discern the Dead's touring schedule without knowing what they had planned, even if it didn't work out. The Dead's weekend at the Dog at the end of August did not appear on any schedules or press releases, and wasn't even mentioned in the newspaper. Indeed, the flyer above is the only trace of any advertisement. Now, the Dead were booked as the headliner at the opening night (Friday August 22) of the canceled Wild West Festival. Since Bill Graham was booking the Festival, you can take as a guarantee that no Bay Area Grateful Dead show within 3 weeks of the Festival could be advertised until after the Festival show. So the Dead may have planned to play the Dog all along, but they couldn't have announced it in advance. The fact that there was no mention in the newspapers during the weekend, either, can be blamed on weak operations by the Dog. The way the footer of the flyer is written (with days of the week), it's clear the flyer was made for circulation the next week (August 29-September 4). 

The Dead apparently played on Thursday night, even though we only have tapes for the New Riders of The Purple Sage and "The Hartbeats" (a jam with Garcia, Lesh, Kreutzmann, Hart and organist Howard Wales). Given the precarious financial circumstances of the Family Dog, my suspicion is that the Dead did not have a guarantee, like they would have gotten from Bill Graham at the Fillmore West. Rather, they were getting a percentage of the door, and taking the risk or reward of the result. That makes sense of the Thursday night show--if the Dead thought they could get a few more admissions from a casual Thursday night show, they would take it. Since the band and crew could sleep at home, there were no travel costs. Publicity probably came from announcements on KSAN and other fm radio stations. Newspapers and posters actually played only a small role in concert promotion, particularly right around the day of a show.

The New Riders of The Purple Sage
One significant historical note was that this weekend's booking at the Dog was the first time in the Bay Area that the New Riders of The Purple Sage were booked to open for the Grateful Dead, as they would so many times in the forthcoming years. The band had opened for the Dead at Longshoreman's Hall back on July 16, but they hadn't been advertised and the bad didn't have a name. The New Riders name debuted at the Matrix on August 6, and the Riders had been booked to open at the Aqua Theater in Seattle on August 20 (since it was rained out, they actually opened on August 21). The New Riders had played two gigs on Tuesday nights at the Family Dog (August 12 and August 19), but the band was still largely unknown to even the local followers of the Dead. These nights at the Family Dog were the first of dozens, if not hundreds, of times that the New Riders would open for the Grateful Dead.

At this early stage, the New Riders were

John Dawson-acoustic guitar, vocals
Jerry Garcia-pedal steel guitar
David Nelson-electric guitar
Bob Matthews-bass
Mickey Hart-drums 

Bob Matthews was an old Palo Alto friend of the band, and was one of the Grateful Dead's "staff engineers." He had mixed Live/Dead with his girlfriend and partner, Betty Cantor, and the pair would go on to produce Workingman's Dead, among many other albums. Matthews would give up his career as a musician at the end of 1969 to focus full time on being a recording engineer and producer.  

During this period, the Grateful Dead were experimenting with a configuration they called "Bobby Ace And The Cards Off The Bottom Of The Deck." Bob Weir would duet on a few country covers with John Dawson, backed by the Garcia and the New Riders. Thanks to Owsley, we have a few hints about this idea, even though it was dropped by 1970 ( a few of the tracks from the August 29 and 30 show were released on the Owsley Stanley Foundation 5-disc box Dawn Of The New Riders of The Purple Sage).

A photo of Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, ca 1969, published in the August 11, 1969 Berkeley Barb. The photo was probably taken a few months earlier in Ann Arbor, MI

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, Ann Arbor, MI 1967-69
University of Michigan graduate students George Frayne (Fine Arts, piano) and John Tichy (Physics, guitar) had formed the group in Ann Arbor in 1967 as Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, as an homage to an obscure movie serial (actually called Kommando Kody). The group was a loose aggregation of local musicians, and was a continuation of a band that Frayne and Tichy had begun as undergraduates. Although the story gets changed and embellished with each telling, it does seem that the band chose the name and then had to “decide” who was “Commander Cody,” since people kept asking. For reasons that changed periodically with each retelling, George Frayne was designated as Commander Cody.

George Frayne had received his MFA in Spring 1968 and got a position teaching Art at the University of Wisconsin at Oshkosh (the main campus was at Madison—Oshkosh was a satellite). The Commander Cody band continued on with various members throughout the 1968-69 school year. Frayne did come home to play with Commander Cody on weekends, but ultimately the band “fired” him in order to be able to play more gigs. The Commander Cody band was particularly interested in playing “honky tonk” country music, in a Bakersfield style that was distinct from the fashion popular in Nashville, as well as rocked up versions of Texas Swing music, all of which was largely lost on the R&B-oriented fans in Michigan. The band finally ground to a halt in the Spring of 1969 when guitarist Bill Kirchen headed out West to California. 

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, Summer 1969

• Billy C Farlow-vocals, harmonica, acoustic guitar
  
• Bill Kirchen-lead guitar, trombone, vocals
• Steve “West Virginia Creeper” Davis-pedal steel guitar
• Andy Stein-fiddle, tenor sax
• George “Commander Cody” Frayne-piano
• Lance Dickerson-drums
• Gene Tortora-bass

When some of the Ann Arbor crowd found a gig in San Francisco, the call went out to the rest of the band. The story is somewhat complicated,  but fortunately I wrote it all out elsewhere. By July 1969, the Lost Planet Airmen had assembled in Berkeley. They "debuted" on Telegraph Avenue, playing acoustic (Frayne on accordian) in front of Cody's Books, although--in perfect Berkeley fashion--they were soon interrupted by a riot. The band found a house in Emeryville, and started to book gigs.

The Emeryville, CA house on  the left was reputedly the "band house" for Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen, ca 1969

According to an article by Rolling Stone writer Ed Ward (RIP), Cody and The Airmen debuted at audition night at a Berkeley club called Mandrake’s, at 1048 University (near San Pablo Avenue). Mandrake’s was a little beer joint that generally featured blues and danceable rock. The Cody crew had so many friends from Ann Arbor that they managed to pack the place on a weeknight, so they were immediately booked. While the Cody band was a terrific outfit, it was a fact that Ann Arborites moved to Berkeley with their social life intact, so Cody already had a built in fanbase in Berkeley.

The Airmen's integration into Berkeley was so seamless that their audition show at Mandrake's was reviewed in the next week's Berkeley Barb (August 11, 1969). Clearly written by a friend of the band, the article included a photo of the group (above) and the headline "Real Country Rock." However, a waitress who worked at Madrake's at the time thinks that the photo was not from the club, although she recognizes Cody and the Airmen circa 1969. We have assumed the photo was taken in Michigan, and given to the Barb writer for publication, but I would love to know exactly where it was taken.

Since their appearance at Mandrake's, the Airmen had hustled their way onto the bill at one of the Wild West Benefit shows at the Family Dog (Saturday, August 23), and then played some sort of "Golf Festival" at the San Francisco Jewish Community Center. Thus their weekend booking with the Dead at the Family Dog was only the second time the band had been advertised in the Bay Area. An eyewitness recalls Cody and the Airmen playing Thursday (August 28) as well, but we have no way of determining that yet.

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 it's unlikely (though not impossible) that they performed with him this night. Typically McCord was backed by Berkeley musicians, who often included drummer Chicken Hirsh, bassist Tom Glass (aka poster artist Ned Lamont) and keyboard player Toni Brown (for more on the McCord/Garcia connection, see the Comment Thread here). In 1971, Constanten would perform in the group Touchstone, who released the album Tarot, apparently the music used to back McCord.

What Happened?
As always with the Family Dog on The Great Highway, we don't really know. Thanks to Mr Owsley, we know the shows occurred, because we have tapes for the Grateful Dead and the New Riders. The extant Dead tapes are about 90 minutes, so it seems pretty likely that the Dead played one long set each night. Maybe we are missing an encore or a fragment or something, but the sets seem pretty complete. We have one eyewitness comment, from Saturday night. On the archive, Commenter @cvdoregon says

I was with the Poppycock Light Show company and we did this show. It was fantastic! I spent time with Jerry Garcia backstage and the rest of the band. Loved every minute of it. Great memory...although we were all pretty stoned =)

The Poppycock was a rock club in Palo Alto. The light show's "stage name" was Glare. Other than his comment, however, we don't really know anything. Were the shows packed? Empty? Since the Dead came back regularly, they must have done alright, but we can't tell much beyond that. Some fine music got played, but we are left to wonder what it was really like. 

We also have another eyewitness.Earlier, I posted an analysis of this weekend's shows on my Grateful Dead blog. A correspondent wrote in with his recollections of seeing not just August 28, but the weekend's shows as well

I attended these shows. I have no memory of Commander Cody or Rubber Duck playing at all. Rather, there was a group called Phoenix. The line up was Phoenix as the opener, then New Riders, then the Dead with the bonus Hartbeats one night. There were stages at either end of the hall and while Phoenix was playing at one end, the Riders were setting up at the other and then the Dead while the Riders played. God showed up as well in the form of Pig and Jerry tearing it up and leaving we poor mortals smoking wrecks. When it was over, we stumbled out and across the Great Highway to collapse on the sand and let the crashing surf bring us back to earth.

Phoenix was a San Francisco band with roots going back to the Acid Test days (when they were known as Universal Parking Lot). Is the Internet great or what?  It's also fascinating to see that two stages were in use, in a complete break from rock concert orthodoxy.

Doug McKechnie and his Moog synthesizer ca 1968

August 31, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Gravity/Transatlantic Railroad/Devil's Kitchen/SF Radical Lab (Sunday)
On Sunday, some local bands performed. Monday, September 1 was Labor Day, so the show wasn't on a school night. The band Gravity is unknown to me. I assure you, if a San Francisco band playing a ballroom in 1969 is unknown to me, they are definitely obscure.

Transatlantic Railroad was a Marin band. Devil's Kitchen was a bluesy four-piece band from Carbondale, IL. They performed regularly at the Family Dog. 

The SF Radical Lab represented a performance on Moog Synthesizer by Doug McKechnie. At this time, there was a little bit of awareness about synthesizers, through Walter Carlos' 1968 album Switched On Bach, and George Harrison's 1969 Electronic Sounds lp, but they were pretty mysterious. No one would have seen a Moog Synthesizer live, so in that respect McKechnie would have been quite interesting.

Doug McKechnie's history was unique in so many ways. Around about 1968, McKechnie had lived in a warehouse type building on 759 Harrison (between 3rd and 4th Streets-for reference, 759 Harrison is now across from Whole Foods). Avalon Ballroom soundman and partner Bob Cohen lived in the building, and Blue Cheer (and Dan Hicks and The Hot Licks) practiced upstairs. One day, McKechnie's roommate Bruce Hatch acquired a Moog Synthesizer, and the instrument arrived in boxes, awaiting assembly. At the time, a synthesizer was like a musical unicorn, only slightly more real than a myth. Hatch had the technical ability to assemble the machinery, but he was basically tone-deaf. So McKechnie focused on actually making music on the Moog. 

McKechnie and Hatch referred to their enterprise as Radical Sound Labs. Word got around--McKechnie helped the Grateful Dead record the strange outtake "What's Become Of The Baby" on the 1969 Aoxomoxoa sessions in San Mateo (his memories are, uh, fuzzy). Thanks to the Dead, McKechnie and his Moog--the size of a VW Bus--can be seen in the Gimme Shelter movie, providing peculiar music on a gigantic sound system for the anxious masses. When McKechnie opened for rock shows at the Family Dog, he used the name "SF Rad Labs."

Unlike the very few other synthesizer artists, McKechnie was not associated with an academic endeavor, he wasn't trying to sell an instrument, and he didn't have any record company affiliation. None of those things were bad, by the way--it's just that the thoroughly hippie underground McKechnie could do what we wanted. Now, probably, what he played at the Family Dog wouldn't have held up that well over time, if there was a tape. But at the time, a Moog was a Unicorn. If you saw at a Unicorn at a farm, you wouldn't say "it's not a good plow horse, though." So this must have been pretty far out to listeners at the time, even if it would sound less so to us now.

Appendix: Setlists

New Riders of The Purple Sage, August 29, 1969, Family Dog on The Great Highway
To Have the Hurting End (John Dawson original)
Games People Play (Joe South-1968)
All I Ever Wanted (John Dawson original)
Connection (Rolling Stones, from Between The Buttons-1967)
Mama Tried [w/Bob Weir] (Merle Haggard-1968)
Cathy's Clown [w/Bob Weir] (Everly Brothers-1960)
Fair Chance to Know (John Dawson original)
Seasons of My Heart [w/Bob Weir)] (George Jones-1965)

Grateful Dead, August 29, 1969, Family Dog on The Great Highway [[1:19:54]
Casey Jones [5:08] ; [0:10] ; 

Easy Wind [7:55] ; [0:18] ;

Me And My Uncle [3:07] > 

  High Time [7:03] ; [1:03] ; 

New Orleans [3:24] > 

  Searchin' [3:21] > 

  Good Lovin' Jam [0:26] > 

  Good Lovin' [4:#00] ; [0:30] ; 

Dire Wolf [4:28] > 

  King Bee [7:38] ; [0:15] ; 

Turn On Your Love Light [30:07] ; [0:43]

 

New Riders of The Purple Sage, August 30, 1969, Family Dog on The Great Highway
Superman (John Dawson original)
Henry (John Dawson original)
All I Ever Wanted (John Dawson original)
Last Lonely Eagle (John Dawson original)
Saw Mill [w/ Bob Weir] (Buck Owens-1963)
Whatcha Gonna Do (John Dawson original)
Cathy's Clown [w/Bob Weir] (Everly Brothers-1960)
Mama Tried [w/Bob Weir] (Merle Haggard-1968)
Six Days On The Road (Dave Dudley-1963) 

 

Grateful Dead, August 30, 1969 Family Dog on the Great Highway [1:27:42]
China Cat Sunflower [2:55] >
  Jam [2:43] >
  Doin' That Rag [7:42] ; [0:47] ;
Morning Dew [10:47] ; [0:25] ;
Easy Wind [8:20] ; [0:10] % [0:04] ;
Dark Star [28:52] >
  St. Stephen [6:26] >
  The Eleven [6:35] >
  Drums [5:14] >
  High Time [5:38] ; [1:04]

For the next entry in the series (September 6 '69, Jefferson Airplane/Grateful Dead), see here

 

August 28, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/Mickey Hart and The Hartbeats/New Riders of The Purple Sage (FDGH '69 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."

• For a complete list of Family Dog shows (including FDGH), see here
• For the previous entry (August 26, 1969 Great SF Light Show Jam) see here
  
• For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here

August 28, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Grateful Dead/Mickey Hart and The Hartbeats/New Riders of The Purple Sage (Thursday)
Prosopographical research on rock shows at the Family Dog on The Great Highway is closer to Archeology. We often have very limited information about what shows were even scheduled, and almost never have information about the bands that actually played or anything that happened. Since the shows were generally--apparently--thinly attended, eyewitness accounts on blogs and message boards are few and far between. For '60s research, Grateful Dead performances are usually our best hope of getting some information, since Deadheads and the Grateful Dead cosmos have made a half-century long effort to document everything.

Initially, Thursday, August 28, 1969 had no provenance save for the Grateful Dead. The Family Dog had advertised the Grateful Dead for Friday and Saturday (August 29 and 30), supported by the then unknown New Riders of The Purple Sage, Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen and Rubber Duck. The Dog pretty much never had shows on Thursday night as part of a weekend run. Yet the Grateful Dead vault had a tape labeled "Hartbeats" from the Family Dog, recorded by Owsley Stanley himself, and dated August 28. It should be noted that Owsley's tape labeling was scrupulously accurate.

I speculated about the tape and the mysterious performance in a blog post many years ago. My speculation at the time, reasonable but in the end incorrect, was that the Dead had set up their equipment in advance of their weekend show, and had taken the opportunity to jam a little bit. My blog Commenters and I generally speculated that this may have been a response to Jerry Garcia's request at a meeting of The Commons (on Tuesday, August 12) for the Dog to host jam sessions during the day. There was no flyer, no advertising, no trace of the event, so the general assumption was that the hour long tape was members of the Dead having some fun with some friends.

The lineup for the tape was Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart, organist Howard Wales and a brief appearance by a flute player. Starting back in 1968, Garcia, Lesh, Hart and Kreutzmann had played some gigs at the Matrix as Mickey Hart and The Hartbeats, sometimes joined by some guests. They typically played some instrumental Dead jams and a few blues numbers, which is exactly what transpired on the tape. It all seemed to fit--a weeknight jam for Garcia, for a few random hippies, when the Dead's equipment was already set up.

Yet one anonymous Commenter said:

I was there for the concert on the 28th and remember all the bands playing, the Dead, New Riders, and Commander Cody. There was also a short set from Mickey and the Heartbeats which played either during or after the normal Dead set. The hartbeats did High Heeled Sneakers and maybe even Schoolgirl. It was a fantastic night.

Memories are a tricky thing, and it was always possible that the Commenter was remembering Friday or Saturday, or combining Thursday and Friday. But guess what? Its looking like he remembered pretty well, whoever he (or she) was.

Eventually, I posted a version of this analysis elsewhere, and a fellow scholar found a contemporary poster. While it seems the Family Dog had initially advertised a Friday and Saturday booking for the Dead, a Thursday ad in the San Francisco Good Times underground paper listed a show on that night as well. So the Dead show was scheduled, and at least somewhat publicized.

The post on my Grateful Dead blog netted some other information as well. A correspondent wrote in with his recollections of seeing not just August 28, but the weekend's shows as well

I attended these shows. I have no memory of Commander Cody or Rubber Duck playing at all. Rather, there was a group called Phoenix. The line up was Phoenix as the opener, then New Riders, then the Dead with the bonus Hartbeats one night. There were stages at either end of the hall and while Phoenix was playing at one end, the Riders were setting up at the other and then the Dead while the Riders played. God showed up as well in the form of Pig and Jerry tearing it up and leaving we poor mortals smoking wrecks. When it was over, we stumbled out and across the Great Highway to collapse on the sand and let the crashing surf bring us back to earth.

Phoenix was a San Francisco band with roots going back to the Acid Test days (when they were known as Universal Parking Lot). Is the Internet great or what?  It's also fascinating to see that two stages were in use, in a complete break from rock concert orthodoxy. My correspondent also added that, at least on the first night, there were only around 300 people there.

 

Dawn Of The New Riders
In early 2020, the Owsley Stanley Foundation released a great 5-disc set called Dawn Of The New Riders of The Purple Sage. One of the discs had a complete New Riders set from Thursday, August 28 (see below for the list). As if that wasn't enough, Bob Weir joined the New Riders for several numbers, previewing a never-fulfilled concept called Bobby Ace And The Cards Off The Bottom Of The Deck. So that means Weir was at the Family Dog that night, so a Grateful Dead set suddenly seems very likely. It remains to be seen whether the Dead set was recorded by Owsley, and whether that tape can surface, but given the paucity of evidence we typically deal with for the Family Dog, I'm going with the likelihood that the Dead played a set, along with the "Hartbeats" jam and the New Riders.

Howard Wales and Jerry Garcia, from the back cover of their 1971 Hooteroll? album. Tame as it may seem now, passing a joint on the back cover of your album was A Statement at the time.

Howard Wales
Over the years, the most intriguing part about the Family Dog "Hartbeats" tape was the presence of organist Howard Wales. In a much later interview, Tom Constanten complained that Wales had "a bigger stack" (of Lesley Amplifiers, presumably) than him, a whiff that there was some competition involved. I had always assumed that Wales was sitting in when TC wasn't there, but now it seems more likely that the whole band was there, and the Hartbeats jam was something extra.

Now, Howard Wales was an experienced musician and a brilliant player. Wales was from the Cincinnati area, where he had backed guitarist Lonnie Mack in the mid-60s. Wales then ended up in El Paso, TX, working in a jazz trio with tenor saxophonist Martin Fierro, and after that in Seattle. By 1968, Wales had made landfall in San Francisco. He joined a blues trio that had just moved from Milwaukee, The New Blues. They became a quartet called the AB Skhy Blues Band. The band's debut had been released on MGM in 1969, and they performed regularly around the Bay Area.

Howard Wales was part of A.B. Skhy when they released their 1969 debut on MGM Records

Wales must have met Garcia somewhere. I'm not aware of AB Skhy opening for the Dead prior to this, and Garcia in general did not "hang out" at the Avalon or in bars, so it's mysterious how they connected. The geography of the Family Dog isn't irrelevant here. I don't know where Wales lived, but it's a safe bet it wasn't out in the essentially suburban Sunset district. Wales wouldn't have come to the Family Dog at all, and even less likely if he brought his own organ, without the guarantee of jamming. The Great Highway was a long way from anywhere, and nobody jammed with the Dead in '69 unless they were invited, which means they had received the Garcia seal of approval. So how Wales ended up at the Family Dog this night is not just a mystery, but part of a larger puzzle that may never be solved.

Of course, we now know the story that Wales and drummer Bill Vitt were managing the Monday night jams at the Matrix in the Spring of 1970, and Jerry Garcia started showing up. Garcia showed up because he wanted to jam with Wales. Vitt, in turn, would invite bassist John Kahn, and Garcia and Kahn's partnership would begin there. But the roots of it seem to trace back to the Family Dog. Somehow, Wales was invited to jam with the Hartbeats configuration, and we even had a tape. A few years later, we had the Howard Wales/Jerry Garcia album Hooteroll? (released on Douglas/CBS in 1971, but recorded in October 1970, yet it all seems to have started for undetermined reasons at an unpublicized Thursday night at the Family Dog. It's distinctly possible that Garcia had somehow previously jammed with Wales at the Matrix, a regular jamming site, and invited him out to the Dog for a more serious go at it. No wonder TC had some anxiety even years after the fact.

Known Facts

• Knowledge of the show comes from a Bear cassette master of the show labeled "Hartbeats," with the date of the show and  the location. 
• Although there are some tape flips and some resulting missing snippets of music, the tape seems to be 81 minutes and sounds like a complete set.
• The band lineup appears to be Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, Mickey Hart and organist Howard Wales.
• A flute player joins in at the beginning of "Dark Star," just shy of the 10-minute mark, but he is hard to hear and seems to drop away 
• This is the first time I am aware of Howard Wales playing with Jerry Garcia

Unknowns

• Did anyone other than Owsley use the name "Hartbeats" for this show? Was that just convenient shorthand for a jam, or were they introduced that way? It wasn't actually used in 1968, and although I'm aware that it appeared on a 1969 bill at the Matrix and 1970 at the Dog and the Matrix, we don't have have tapes of any "Hartbeats" sets at those shows
• It's plausible but uncertain that Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen would play a set. They were new in town, and would not have been socially connected to the Dead at this point, so an invitation to a stealth event isn't as likely. In any case, they probably appeared on the next two nights, but we don't positively know that either (see the next Family Dog post for a more thorough discussion of Cody and the Airmen)
• My personal correspondent recalls Phoenix rather than Commander Cody. It may be that the Internet commenter was confusing one of the nights
  
• Who played flute? I discuss that a little bit here--one possibility is Steve Schuster, another is Andy Kulberg of Blues Project, both socially connected enough to be invited
  

Setlist: New Riders of The Purple Sage, August 28, 1969, Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA

John Dawson-acoustic guitar, vocals
Jerry Garcia-pedal steel guitar
David Nelson-electric guitar
Bob Matthews-bass
Mickey Hart-drums

Six Days On The Road (Dave Dudley-1963)
I Am Your Man (John Dawson original)
Last Lonely Eagle (John Dawson original)
Whatcha Gonna Do (John Dawson original)
[introducing the famous Bobby Ace]
Mama Tried [w/Bob Weir] (Merle Haggard-1968)
Cathy's Clown [w/Bob Weir] (Everly Brother-1960)
Old, Old House [w/Bob Weir] (George Jones-1965)
Me And My Uncle [w/Bob Weir] (Judy Collins-1964)
Seasons Of The Heart [w/Bob Weir] (George Jones-1965)
Slewfoot [w/Bob Weir] (Porter Wagoner-1966)

note: save for the Dawson songs, I have listed the best known cover versions, not the songwriters

Setlist: Hartbeats, August 28, 1969, Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, C

Jerry Garcia-guitar, vocals
Howard Wales-organ
Phil Lesh-bass
Bill Kreutzmann-drums
Mickey Hart-drums
#unknown-flute ("Dark Star Jam")

It's A Sin
High Heeled Sneakers
Dark Star Jam#>
  The Eleven Jam>
  Dark Star Jam

For the next entry in the series (August 29-30 '69, Grateful Dead), see here