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| 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.
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| 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.
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| One
of the only photos of the interior of the Family Dog on The Great
Highway (from a Stephen Gaskin "Monday Night Class" ca. October 1969) |
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 (October 7-9, 1969 Holy Man Jam) see here
- For a summary and the link to the most recent entries in this series, see here
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| The Family Dog ad from the October 16, 1969 edition of San Francisco Good Times |
October 17-30, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, 660 Great Highway, San Francisco, CA
In late October 1969, the Family Dog on The Great Highway was not in a good way. Of all the old Avalon Ballroom stalwarts who had played the Dog, only the Grateful Dead seemed able to draw a profitable crowd. The other bands had largely given up playing there. The venue functioned more like a community center. Local bands played, or acoustic acts. The weekend "headliners" tended to be acoustic groups that had a lower overhead, since they had less equipment and could afford the risk of getting little return for their efforts. Throughout the balance of October 1969, the acts playing the Family Dog did not draw a crowd beyond some local hippies, and in retrospect were only of interest to the sort of blog that traffics in the the rabbit holes of San Francisco psychedelia (like this one).
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| A photo from the Floating Lotus Magic Opera show "Bliss Apocalypse" ca 1969 |
October 17-19, 1969 Family Dog at The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Malachi/Floating Lotus Opera Company/Golden Toad (Friday-Sunday) Saturday (October 18) only plus Alan Watts
The weekend booking included two legendary Berkeley outfits, ensembles that can't be imagined outside of late 60s Berkeley, both of whom disappeared almost without a trace save for me. Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company and The Golden Toad have no known audio recordings (save for some fragments), no video and only the thinnest of descriptions of their unique presentations. So time travel back to this weekend would be illuminating and unique, but Time Sheath technology is not widely available enough for this yet. Malachi--he's pretty interesting too. These shows were probably thinly attended. More's the pity
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| A Floating Lotus Magic Opera flyer from Berkeley ca April 27, 1968 |
The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company is one of those only-in-Berkeley stories, all but unbelievable to to people who never lived in Berkeley, yet hardly even a standard deviation for those who have. Berkeley was some place in the late 60s: demonstrations on campus, riots on Telegraph Avenue, psychedelic rock bands for free in Provo Park or at night at the New Orleans House, blues at Mandrake's, Serious Folk at the Freight And Salvage. Oh yeah--and every Saturday, at John Hinkel Park, at 41 Somerset Place, near Arlington Circle, The Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company performing a really-hard-to-explain theater show with ritual chanting, costumes and music.
Though we have no video (that I know of), unlike some lost events, there are plenty of descriptions of the Floating Lotus Magic Opera Company, from inside and from the outside. There's a script of one of the "Operas" (called Walls Of Blood). Around late '68, Floating Lotus even got a good write-up in Rolling Stone magazine.
At least here in late 1969, the Opera also performed at the Family Dog on The Great Highway, so they were definitely associating themselves with the hippie rock scene, even if the Opera itself had nothing musically to do with rock. At the very end in early 1970, they switched to the larger Live Oak Park, further down the hill and closer to campus, at 1301 Shattuck (between Shattuck Avenue and Oxford Street).
I do know that the Floating Lotus Opera Company was not without resonance. Among other things, there were numerous people
involved, and costumes and stage sets. I know that around 1970, many of
the sets and costumes made their way over to San Francisco and became
part of The Cockettes stage show. Now, even I know that the Cockettes
were important, but I'm not knowledgeable enough to say how, really, much
less whether the Floating Lotus was influential or just a source of
stage gear. In any case, the Floating Lotus appearances at the Family Dog were among their few indoor appearances, and may have been their only San Francisco presentations. It's also possible that so many people were involved with Floating Lotus that a certain number of West Bay friends and family showed up at the Dog just to see it, similar to--dare I compare it--a High School musical.
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| Bob Thomas iconic Grateful Dead logo, originally designed as a stencil so that Owsley Stanley could distinguish the Dead's equipment backstage from that of other bands |
Robert Thomas was an old friend of Owsley Stanley. Besides being one of Owsley's housemates at his mountaintop aerie on Ascot Drive in Oakland (above Highway 13 and Park Boulevard), he played a number of other parts in Grateful Dead history. Most famously, it was Thomas who devised the "Skull-and-Lightning-Bolt" logo for the Dead, originally designed as a stencil so that Owsley and the crew could distinguish the band's equipment from others backstage at a rock festival. Thomas also did the cover art for Live/Dead.
Bob Thomas was an accomplished piper, playing a variety of traditional and largely obscure pipes from Europe. As a result, Thomas put together a small band of players who performed at the Los Angeles and Marin Renaissance Fairs in the 1960s. They apparently played 15th to 18th century Mediteranean tunes on replicas of older instruments, including pipes and various stringed instruments. It couldn't be called authentic--it's not like there were tapes--but it represented a sincere effort to provide a whiff to fairgoers as to what European music from a few hundred years earlier might have sounded like. Thomas's 'Fair Band' varied in size and instrumentation, depending on who was available, but they were apparently the house band for the original Marin County Renaissance Pleasure Faires.
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| Bob Thomas playing one of his pipes |
The Golden Toad
The original Golden Toad was an outgrowth of the Faire band. Originally a quartet, the group played a few local dates in mostly atypical venues. The Faire was only open at certain times, such as several weekends in the Summer, so the Golden Toad provided Thomas and his bandmates a chance to continue playing their music outside of the confines of the Faires. The earliest record I can find of a public performance by The Golden Toad outside of the Renaissance Fair was the 35th Annual Berkeley Old-Time Fiddlers Convention on June 8, 1968, in Provo Park (really the first time it was held, but it's a long story). The Toad also played a few times at the Freight And Salvage, Berkeley's traditional folk club.
The Golden Toad had begun as a quartet, but they added and subtracted members as time went on. Reputedly, they were known to have performed with up to 23 members, although how often they did that remains unknown. They also had some association with the Floating Lotus Opera. Some of the better known members of the Golden Toad included fiddler Will Spires and Deborah and Ernie Fischbach. Those with too many albums will recall that the Fischbachs had recorded a legendarily obscure album in 1967 called A Cid Symphony. Most or all of the members of The Golden Toad played other kinds of music in various ensembles, so the band was inherently part time, but perhaps by virtue of being a labor of love the Golden Toad seemed to have no need to make concessions to anything resembling conventional business practices.
The Golden Toad and Floating Lotus Magic Opera regularly appeared together in Berkeley. There was a particularly legendary event, or series of events, in which the ensembles appeared early on a Sunday morning, and baked bread. The bread was consumed after the performances. Although the full membership of both the Toad and the Lotus is unknown, it's likely they shared a lot of players. It may also be that the sheer volume of performers helped improve the gate.
Malachi (born John Morgan Newbern, in Baltimore), was a Buddhist guitarist. He had put out the album Holy Music on Verve in 1966. Malachi (1944-2020) lived in Santa Rosa, and had a full life as a musician and luthier.
English-born Alan Watts (1915-73) was a well-known popularizer of Zen teachings, and was well-known from KPFA radio in Berkeley and numerous books. Watts had appeared at the "Holy Man Jam" a few weeks earlier. These kinds of lectures were popular at the Family Dog, but the audiences they drew didn't seem to translate to increased gates for the rock and roll shows.
October 20, 1969 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Monday Night Class with Stephen Gaskin
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 think it was every Monday night but just some, and it was the most popular regular booking at the Dog, save perhaps for the Grateful Dead (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.
October 21, 1969 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: A Night of Guitar and Dance, Classical Flamenco, Folk and Rock (Tuesday)
I have no clue about this night's event.
October 22, 1969 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA New Riders of the Purple Sage/Lazarus (Wednesday) Ecological Ball
In the midst of a couple of weeks of desultory bookings, and weeknights with some unknown locals, a genuine rock star was playing on Wednesday night. True, the Grateful Dead were not the juggernaut they would become a few decades later, but even in 1969 San Francisco Jerry Garcia was a rock star if anyone was. His picture had been in the Chronicle and Examiner since 1966, he was regularly quoted and the Dead were far more famous or infamous than their poorly-selling albums might suggest. The New Riders of The Purple Sage had played around enough that the local hippies knew Garcia was in the band.
Of course we have no idea how may people this show drew. But note that it is the only weeknight event with a light show and a named opening act (the Berkeley band Lazarus, featuring the Barsotti brothers). So Chet and Jerry must have figured they would draw enough to pay out a little bit. Since the New Riders had played a Tuesday or Wednesday almost every week that Garcia had been in town, the gigs must have made some financial sense. At this time, there were almost no nightclubs in the Bay Area playing original rock music, so there would have been no competition for the bookings, and any profitable return would have been more than the Riders would have made rehearsing at home. Whatever you think about the New Riders, particularly the early, sloppy New Riders: would you pay a buck to see Jerry Garcia? Sure, there's been inflation, but it was still just a dollar. A few quarters, some dimes and the odd nickel--seems worth it for Garcia, yeah?
As for the tag "Ecological Ball," I have no idea.
Pretty much this must have been like hoot night at any folk club, some local players without any following. Not necessarily bad, in fact, but was it worth a buck?
October 24-26, 1969 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA Osceola/Barry McGuire & the Doctor/Shag/Clover [Sat only replaces Shag] (Friday-Sunday)
The headlining duo of Barry McGuire and Eric "The Doctor" Hord was probably pretty good in concert. But from the point of view of young hippies in the Sunset district, it wouldn't have been much of an attraction. McGuire, formerly a member of the New Christy Minstrels, had scored a huge hit in 1965 with "Eve Of Destruction." The song was written by producer PF Sloan, and it was almost a parody of a Bob Dylan folk-rock protest song (Sloan, a huge Dylan fan, would probably accept this characterization). McGuire, however, was marked as a one-hit wonder and a Dylan imitator. He had a few more records, but hadn't had a real hit since "Eve," so by 1969 any teenager would think he was trivial and over the hill.
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| The 1971 A&M Records album by Barry McGuire and The Doctor (Eric Hord) |
Eric Hord had been the lead guitarist for The Mamas And The Papas. Hord was an excellent player, but his name wasn't known the way the singers were, and he wasn't a "guitar hero" like Mike Bloomfield or Jeff Beck. The Mamas And The Papas were seen as mid-60s AM pop, not at all hip in 1969. So to the extent that any fans knew who "The Doctor" was--itself not that likely--Hord's credentials didn't measure up to having been in the Butterfield Blues Band or the Yardbirds. So there wasn't much reason to come see the headliners. McGuire himself has admitted that he had serious drug problems in this era, so it can't have helped his live show. McGuire and Hord would go on to make an album in 1971 (Barry McGuire and The Doctor), backed by most of the Flying Burrito Brothers, but it would quickly disappear.
The opening acts were all regular performers at the Family Dog. Osceola, led by guitarist Bill Ande, had formed in San Francisco, but was made up of expatriate Florida musicians. I don't know anything about Shag, but I recognize their name from bookings. On Saturday night, Shag was replaced by the Mill Valley quartet Clover. They would be signed to Fantasy Records, and would release their first (of two) albums for the label in 1970. Lead guitarist John McFee would go on to play with Elvis Costello, The Doobie Brothers and Southern Pacific, among many others.
October 27, 1969 Family Dog on the Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: Osceola/Occultist/Phoenix/Beefy Red (Monday) Cusp Party of Libra and Scorpio
I have no idea who promoted the "Cusp Party of Libra and Scorpio." Astrology wasn't really taken that seriously in the '60s, but you could ask someone what their sign was without being openly laughed at. A light show was booked (Heavy Water), so obviously some crowd was expected. I don't know anything about (the) Occultist, but they have a name befitting a light show. Since there were two stages at the Family Dog, booking two light shows was plausible.
As to the bands, Osceola returned, as they acted as sort of a "house band" at the Family Dog at this time. Phoenix was a San Francisco band with Acid Test roots and an extraordinarily complicated history, but their moment was passing. Beefy Red was a 10-piece Marin band with a horn section, somewhat on the model of the The Sons Of Champlin. Members included guitarist Barry Finnerty (later with the Crusaders), trumpeter Mark Isham (now a jazzman well known for film soundtracks) and drummer Jim Preston (later with the Sons).
Note that Stephen Gaskin was not presenting his Monday night class this week.
Wednesday's benefit for the American Indian Well Baby Clinic included Berkeley's Johnny Mars Blues Band and the appropriately named Womb (who were formerly called Birth--really).
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| The original trio of Dr. Humbead's New Tranquility String Band and Medicine Show, ca. 1968. (L-R) Jim Banford (guitar), Mac Benford (banjo), Sue Draheim (fiddle). |
October 30, 1969 Family Dog on The Great Highway, San Francisco, CA: "Minstrel Night" Golden Toad/Dr. Humbead's New Tranquility String Band (Thursday)
The Golden Toad returned Thursday night, and they would play throughout the weekend, including opening for the Grateful Dead on Saturday and Sunday (November 1-2). Since Toad leader Bob Thomas was an old friend of Owsley's, indeed Thomas was mostly resident in Owsley's Ascot Drive house in Oakland, the Golden Toad connections to the Grateful Dead were deep.
Opening the show was Berkeley's Dr Humbead’s New Tranquility String Band. The Humbeads played old-timey music (pre-bluegrass, essentially) and featured fiddler Sue Draheim (1949-2013) banjoist Mac Benford (1940-2020) and guitarist Jim Bamford (1939-73). Oakland native Draheim had lived at 6018 Colby Street, a large home where many musicians who performed at Berekeley's Freight and Salvage had resided at one time or another. "Dr. Humbead" was their soundman, Earl Crabb. Shortly after the band began performing, another Colby Street resident, mandolinist Will Spires who also performed with The Golden Toad, joined the group. Spires was also a member of The Golden Toad (Spires would go on to become an important folklore scholar, but that was still in the future).
In their early 60s, folk music had been somewhat in apposition to rock music, which was seen as "kids music." After the Beatles changed the world, folk music became considerably less popular. Over in Berkeley, however, some hippies had started up the Freight And Salvage coffee house. While they were extraordinarily serious about all kinds of folk music--not just bluegrass, but Irish music, California Western (pre-country) and other indigenous forms--they weren't retro. The Freight denizens had long hair, smoked weed, were opposed to the Vietnam War and liked the Beatles. In many cases, the musicians playing folk music at the Freight had been or were currently in rock bands, so there was nothing forbidden about electric music.
So despite their predilection for old-timey music, long hair was still a defining characteristic, and Dr. Humbead’s New Tranquility String Band played a number of rock gigs as well as more typical folk venues, including the legendary (and notorious) Sky River Rock Festival, the first outdoor rock festival, at Betty Nelson's Organic Raspberry Farm in Sultan, WA (on August 29, 1968). By late 1969. the quartet had played both Berkeley folk coffee houses and rock gigs. For a taste of Dr. Humbead's New Tranquility String Band, you can hear a few tracks on a sort of folk sampler on Folkways Records (compiled by Mike Seeger) called Berkeley Farms.
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| Dr Humbead's Map Of The World, ca 1968, with a list of population. Note Pigpen holding a Trident in the lower right Ocean |
As for the famous (or infamous) Dr. Humbead, Earl Crabb was the co-creator of Dr. Humbead's Map Of The World, along with artist Rick Shubb. Humbead's map puts Berkeley right next to Greenwich Village and Cambridge, skipping all the unimportant parts in between. It also lists all the important people in the world at the time. Whimsical as it is, Dr. Humbead's Map Of The World was a profound statement about insular Berkeley hippie culture at the time. It's worthy of a book, but fortunately, fellow scholar Jesse Jarnow's 2016 opus Heads: A Biography Of Psychedelic America places the Map Of The World in its appropriate critical context.
For the next post in the series (Halloween/Nov 1-2, 1969 Grateful Dead) see here
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