412 Broadway, San Francisco, CA, Mr. D's, November 7-8, 1969: Three Dog Night/Hoyt Axton

(a San Francisco Chronicle ad from November 2, 1969, advertising Three Dog Night at Mr. D's, located at 412 Broadway)

When Historians look backwards, it is easy to make the path of history seem simple and inevitable, with a series of discrete events leading to a self-evident conclusion. This effect remains in force whether you look at Medieval Europe, 19th Century Railroads or 60s Rock. However, a closer look at the facts on the ground as they really happened always shows an uneven trail of dead ends and roads not taken. At the same time, the seeds of future result can be seen long before any fruit has ripened.

By November,  1969, Three Dog Night was a hugely successful band by any standard. They had just released a live album, following up on their two successful studio albums. They also had tremendously successful hit singles climbing the charts. What were they doing playing a supper club on Broadway in San Francisco, just down the street from Carol Doda at the Condor, and all the other topless clubs? Why weren't they headlining the Fillmore West, like every other hot band, or else the Berkeley Community Theater or some other venue? The weekend at Mr. D's was Three Dog Night's first headlining performance in the Bay Area, and it seemed to fly in the fact of rock orthodoxy.

Since the band's engagement at Mr. D's has seemingly been lost to rock history up until now, and I can find no other information about it besides promotion for the event, I will consider what facts I do know about the band, the venue and the rock market at the time in the hopes of finding a convincing hypothesis. Hopefully some long dormant memories of the Three Dog Night engagement at Mr. D's will be resurrected. Anyone with information, informed speculation or just a clever idea is encouraged to share them in the Comments.

Three Dog Night
Three Dog Night had initially formed in Hollywood in 1967, under the name Redwood, but became a real going concern in 1968. Although the band had a contemporary rock sound, they had a number of features that made them different than their peers. First of all, the group had three excellent lead vocalists, rather than one, and had sophisticated vocal arrangements in the style of Motown or Stax, albeit in a rock rather than a soul context. Secondly, the majority of Three Dog Night's albums featured newly arranged cover versions of contemporary rock songs, few or none of which were commissioned by the group. Three Dog Night keyboardist Jimmy Greenspoon (in his fascinating autobiography One Is The Loneliest Number) cites Vanilla Fudge's dramatic re-arrangement of The Supremes "You Keep Me Hangin' On" as an inspiration.

Three Dog Night's musical discipline and cover material was in distinct contrast to the self-contained self expression of 60s rock, particularly the kind coming out of San Francisco. This did not make Three Dog Night popular with Rolling Stone magazine and its readers. Nonetheless, the band had a fantastic ear for hearing good songs and giving them a "heavy" rock treatment that worked well both on the radio and the home stereo. The majority of Three Dog Night's fans had not heard the originals anyway, as they were plucked off very obscure records, so it all sounded new to them. Time has been fairly kind to Three Dog Night--songs like "Eli's Coming" and "Liar" hold up fairly well when compared to a lot of psychedelic odes to self expression recorded in the late 60s and early 70s, and the band's contributions to their hits makes it clear that songwriting is only one piece of a hit record.

Three Dog Night's self-titled debut album on ABC-Dunhill was released in October 1968. The single "One" (a Harry Nillson song) did not hit until mid-1969. "One" peaked at #5 on the Billboard magazine charts, while the album peaked at #11. Three Dog Night's follow up album Suitable For Framing was released in June 1969 (ultimately reaching #16). By November, it had spawned two giant hits, "Easy To Be Hard"(peaking at #4) and "Eli's Coming" (#10) A third hit, "Celebrate" (#15), would climb the charts in early 1970. For some reason, ABC-Dunhill also released a live album, Captured Live At The Forum. Recorded on July 14, 1969, when Three Dog Night opened for Steppenwolf, the album recapped the most popular songs of the first two albums. It too was a huge hit, reaching #6.

Three Dog Night Live In The Bay Area 1968
San Francisco and London in the 1960s were the twin Capitals of rock music. While rock music in America was financed and produced primarily in New York and Los Angeles, the San Francisco model of rock concerts and FM radio transformed the music industry. As a result, American record companies often looked to San Francisco for credibility and innovation. This wasn't just habit: for some years after the first wave of bands came out of the Fillmore and the Avalon, a slew of innovative and popular bands came out of the Bay Area, like Sly and The Family Stone, Santana, Tower of Power, The Doobie Brothers and The Tubes, to name a few. For a new band, establishing itself in the Bay Area was one sure way to attract attention and confer credibility.

August 10, 1968: Continental Ballroom, Santa Clara, CA: Country Joe And The Fish/Eternity's Children/Three Dog Night/Weird Herald
Three Dog Night made their Bay Area debut at the Continental Ballroom just outside of San Jose. The Continental was the San Jose area's main psychedelic venue (it was located at 1600 Martin Avenue in nearby Santa Clara), but it was never associated with one promoter. As a result, it has less of an historic profile than the Fillmore or the Avalon, but all the heavy San Francisco bands played there. I do not know anything about this show other than the fact that it happened. All the members of Three Dog Night were very experienced performers by this time, but since it was still two months prior to their debut album, the crowd would have had no predisposition towards them one way or the other.

It would be very interesting to find out how Three Dog Night went over at this show (or anything else about it). Weird Herald had a tremendous reputation as a live band, but they were in the hard rocking psychedelic San Jose school of music (in which The Chocolate Watch Band ruled supreme). Country Joe and The Fish were a way more disciplined band than people realized at the time, but they were a prototype Fillmore band themselves. I know nothing about Eternity's Chidren. There's no telling how long or short Three Dog Night's set was, or what the sound was like, much less how they went over to a crowd of San Jose hippies.

San Mateo Times, Dec 20, 1968 ad

December 26,1968: Cow Palace, Daly City, CA: “Holiday Rock Festival”
Steppenwolf/Canned Heat/Santana/New Buffalo Springfield/Three Dog Night/Spencer Davis Group/Blue Cheer/The Electric Prunes/Flaming Groovies/Tender Loving Care
This KYA (1260am) sponsored event seems to have been an attempt to cash in on the model of the Monterey Pop Festival. I'm not sure if all the acts even played, and in any case they must have played short sets. Three Dog Night shared management with Steppenwolf, so that accounts for the booking. It's worth noting, however, that Three Dog Night's management has booked them at a Top 40 radio event rather than third on the bill at Fillmore West. Since the band shared management with Steppenwolf, they would not have lacked access to Fillmore West if they had desired it.

History has made the December 1968 "Holiday Rock Festival" look different than it really was. Steppenwolf and Canned Heat were the big headliners, as Three Dog Night had not had a hit yet. Santana was a popular live attraction at the Fillmore West and elsewhere, but they were some time away from recording their debut album (it was released in August 1969). The Spencer Davis Group, featuring Eddie Hardin, was a pretty good live band, but Stevie Winwood had left for Traffic two years earlier. The crowd was apparently fairly unhappy to find out that the New Buffalo Springfield only had drummer Dewey Martin from the old group, and that Steve Stills, Neil Young and Richie Furay were not part of the band. Richie Furay was playing with Poco at Fillmore West that weekend, and when he heard about the band, lawyers forced Martin to change the band's name to New Buffalo.

Blue Cheer were a true Fillmore psychedelic band, but if they in fact played, I can't imagine how the suburban crowd would have reacted to guitarist Randy Holden's sonic attack. This would have been near the end of Holden's brief tenure with Blue Cheer.

(a San Francisco Chronicle ad for Martha and The Vandella's at Mr. D's, from January 5, 1969)

Mr. D's, 412 Broadway, San Francisco, CA
Broadway in San Francisco was the City's entertainment district. It abutted bohemian North Beach, which provided the City's culture--Italian food, espresso and Beat Poetry, while Broadway provided bright lights, booze and jazz. The San Francisco jazz scene in the 1950s wasn't really lucrative, but its proximity to Los Angeles made it a great incubator for talent, and the same was true of folk music at the time. Success in San Francisco at the hungry i or other clubs was often a ticket to much larger success in the 50s and early 60s. Broadway in San Francisco, along with Jack London Square in Oakland and the El Camino Real in the South Bay, was part of the circuit of entertainment that played the lounges of Las Vegas, Reno and Lake Tahoe.

Broadway changed in the early 60s when topless dancing became the principal form of entertainment. This is worthy of a blog in itself (not written by me), but it had a profound effect on San Francisco music. For one thing, topless clubs were not perceived like strip clubs are today, and indeed shared almost nothing in common with them (save the obvious). Topless clubs were racy, but sort of respectable, like seeing an R-rated movie today. While they featured women without tops (duh), they also usually had music, comedy, dancing and other kinds of performances.

The big change for San Francisco musicians was that Broadway club owners abruptly lost interest in paying for quality music. The clubs needed bands, but mainly just to keep the beat. While rock groups that were new in town found a nightly gig at a topless club a convenient way to pay the bills, no agent was going to discover them there. The rise of the topless phenomenon in the mid-60s forced all the rock musicians to play the Fillmore and the Avalon, since there were no other well paying bookings on Broadway anymore.

While Broadway's time as San Francisco's first stop in entertainment was passing, that wasn't so obvious at that moment. I'm not sure who "Mr D" was, but the club opened around late 1968, replacing a topless club called The Moulin Rouge. Mr. D's was a supper club, offering dinner, drinks and two shows a night. They shared headliners with Reno and Tahoe. Motown acts were booked regularly, like Marvin Gaye, The Temptations or Martha And The Vandellas (above), and they typically played a week long engagement. Because it was a restaurant, minors were welcome, but that was aimed more at groups of people (who might include the occasional minor) rather than teenagers per se, since it was too expensive for kids.

After a year of booking Vegas-style acts like Tony Bennett and Motown, I have to assume that Mr. D's started to see the writing on the wall. Up until the Three Dog Night show on November 7, 1969, I know of no rock act booked at Mr. D's. However, Mr. D's was booking headliners like Marvin Gaye, so their financial terms must have been reasonable. Three Dog Night was riding its third straight hit single of the year, and the band knew its way around the stage. Thus it's plain that Mr. D's was trying to hook a new audience with a popular band, and that Three Dog Night must have had various options for performing in San Francisco, and their booking agent must have consciously chosen Mr. D's. A few years later, intimate clubs for rising rock bands were par for the course, exemplified by The Bottom Line in Manhattan or The Roxy in Los Angeles, but no one was ready for it in 1969.

Three Dog Night at Mr. D's, Friday November 7 and Saturday November 8, 1969
At this point I am left with only speculation. Anyone with real insight or knowledge is urged to chime in via the Comments. Nonetheless, the evidence points to certain facts.

• Three Dog Night had not played San Francisco since the end of 1968
• Three Dog Night's music style and willingness to cover contemporary rock songs was different than other bands
• Three Dog Night never played The Fillmore West

Three Dog Night had become very successful in 1969 by following a path that no other band was taking. It did not make them popular with Rolling Stone magazine, but the market was now big enough that there was room for other ways to make it as a rock band. Three Dog Night's management must have wanted the band to headline an engagement in San Francisco, rather than share billing at the Fillmore West. I think Mr. D's was pretty desperate to get in on the rock market, and made a pretty good offer for Three Dog Night. Since Three Dog Night had defied sixties rock protocol so far, skipping Fillmore West to headline a Broadway club would have been par for the course.

However, I think the show was a financial disaster. The show was mentioned in Ralph Gleason's Chronicle column on Friday night (above), but it was never reviewed to my knowledge. Mr. D's booked a few lesser rock acts for the balance of the year, and then closed. Broadway had gone from an entertainment district to a (sort of) red-light district, and there was no place for supper clubs. I think the teenagers who wanted to see Three Dog Night would not have been allowed to go to Broadway by their parents, and the adults who wanted to see them would have found it difficult to park.

I have never found any reference to Mr D's other than ads in the Chronicle, much less Three Dog Night's performance there, and thus it remains a mystery. One enduring curiosity, however, is the fact that Hoyt Axton seems to have opened for them. I don't know if this is where he met the band--probably not--but hanging around together during a disastrous weekend engagement is one way that musicians become friends, so I can't help but think the band gave a good listen Hoyt's songs, even if they didn't strike gold with them until later (as they would with "Joy To The World" and "Never Been To Spain").

Aftermath
Three Dog Night had numerous successful singles and albums up through the mid-1970s. Relative to their massive success, however, they were never big in San Francisco. Perhaps they were so successful elsewhere that they never needed to try, but given the few, odd performances that Three Dog Night had in the Bay Area in the 1960s, it probably wasn't a complete coincidence. After many ups and downs, the band broke up and reformed various times, but as of today Three Dog Night are still going strong.

412 Broadway mostly remained a nightclub, as it does today, even though it changed names and formats. Briefly, its history seems to be

• 1965-67: The Moulin Rouge (some Broadway background here)
• 1968-69: Mr. D's
• early 70s: The Seven Divinities
• Aug-Dec '73: The Matrix (sometimes known as The New Matrix)
• 1974>: Don Cornelius's Soul Train (yes, the very same)
• late 70s': The Hippodrome
• 1980-90: The Stone (Keystone overview is here)
• 1990s: mostly empty
• Today: Broadway Showgirls Cabaret (don't google it at work)

3138 Fillmore Steet, San Francisco, CA, January 6, 1969: Open Jam with Peter Albin and Dave Getz

(San Francisco Chronicle Datebook listings from Monday, January 6, 1969)

The San Francisco Chronicle Datebook section was full of interesting listings in the 1960s, even if they often only provide tantalizing clues to events that would otherwise have disappeared. San Francisco's Matrix club was one of the few hippie hangouts, and all sorts of surprising events took place there. Ironically, as a hangout rather than a major venue--The Matrix was too small to be "major"--many of the most interesting events seems to have taken place on weeknights. On January 6, 1969, the first Monday of the year, the listings of openings (above) are topped by this one:

ROCK CLUB--Peter Albin and David Getz in an open jam session at The Matrix, 3138 Fillmore.

Peter Albin and Dave Getz were the bassist and drummer, respectively, of Big Brother and The Holding Company. Big Brother had just broken up in late 1968, when Janis Joplin had left the group. Janis had not been an original member, but she rapidly eclipsed the group itself, and when their 1968 album Cheap Thrills became a mega-hit, Janis ended up leaving the band behind. The rocket ride from underground hipsters to National rock stars had been very hard on some of the band members, and Big Brother did not survive her departure. Janis Joplin and Big Brother played their last show at the Avalon Ballroom on December 1, 1968. Afterward, guitarist Sam Andrew continued on with Janis's new band, while fellow guitarist James Gurley took some time out from making music. Albin and Getz were left adrift.

I had known from various Family Trees and the like that Albin and Getz started jamming together in early 1969. David Nelson, an old South Bay friend of Albin, was known to be one of the participants. Nelson's group The New Delhi River Band had ground to a halt in early 1968, so he too was at loose ends. A few other musicians are vaguely alleged to have jammed with Albin and Getz, but it was difficult to ascertain. However, until I found this listing, I had no idea that Albin and Getz had led any kind of public performance. Who played with them? What did they play?

From 1968 onwards, at least, Monday night was usually "jam night" at the Matrix. A local band or musician would host a jam session. Usually someone was the host for many Monday nights in a row, but sometimes individual musicians or bands would host a single Monday night session. Monday night was a very thin night for performances, so in many ways it was like "musicians night out." When you read about various rumors about famous San Francisco players sitting in at the Matrix, often as not it turns out to have been on a Monday night. Also, to some extent the term "jam" implied as much that the show wouldn't be "regular" rather than specifically that there was a jam. Thus if a group of players wanted to work on something different in public, billing it as a "jam" implied that you wouldn't be seeing a regular set.

In any case, you know what I know. Albin and Getz, who had probably been jamming with their friends somewhere, led a jam session at The Matrix. I would suspect David Nelson was there, since he has acknowledged hanging out with them at the time, but even that is just a guess. Albin and Getz knew everybody and were well liked, and on a Monday night in January almost no musican in San Francisco was working, so absolutely anyone could have played with them.

Tantalizing as this event was, it doesn't seem to have been repeated. The next weekend, January 13, the bill wasn't Albin and Getz--it was "Carlos Santana And Friends," if anything even more fascinating. The next two Mondays (Jan 20 and Jan 27) were not listed in the Chronicle, so while there may have been even better shows, we don't know anything about them. Needless to say, anyone with insights, recovered memories (real or imagined) or amusing speculation is encouraged to chime in.

Postscript: I am no expert on this, but it is plausible that "The Commodores" who are playing at Nero's Nook in Palo Alto, were in fact the Lionel Richie-led band from Tuskegee, AL, who hit it very big in the 1970s. They did sign to Atlantic in 1968, and Nero's Nook, at the swanky Cabana Hyatt House, would be the sort of supper club engagement Atlantic might have tried to find for them.

1702 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA, January 17, 1969: Indian Puddin' And Pipe/Tripsichord Music Box

(a clipping from the January 17, 1969 San Francisco Chronicle Datebook, announcing shows that would be opening that night)

San Francisco's Straight Theater, located at 1702 Haight Street (at Cole), was seen as the linchpin of a successful Haight Ashbury. The hippies who lived in the neighborhood, bands included, had to go downtown to the Fillmore and the Avalon to make or listen to music. The Straight Theater was an old movie theater that was ripe for conversion to a psychedelic concert hall, but it was blocked by the city of San Francisco in a political struggle over dance permits. By the time the Straight started putting on shows in Summer 1967, the wave had crested somewhat, and the Straight never caught up to its competitors. Although the venue was a crucial part of the Haight community, the Straight never had the cachet of either the Fillmore or the Avalon, but it is remembered fondly. We have attempted to construct the history of musical performances during the Straight Theater's existence as a rock venue, but some gaps persist. Some peculiar listings in the early 1969 San Francisco Chronicle shed some light on an obscure window of the Straight's final months.

January 17, 1969: Straight Theater, San Francisco, CA: Indian Puddin' and Pipe/Tripsichord Music Box
The Straight was managed in a collective, hippie style, but it was not prepared for the explosion of the rock music in the late 60s. Just as rock music became profitable, the absence of working capital insured that the venue was unable to compete. Up until now,  we had thought that the venue was dark from New Year's 1968/69 through March 1969. That appears to not quite be the case. In early January, Chronicle columnist Ralph J Gleason wrote "the Straight Theater is now running weekends again with local bands." Although I am not aware of any ads, there were a few listings in the Chronicle's Datebook section. The first one, visible up top, featured two groups, Indian Puddin' and Pipe and the Tripsichord Music Box. Both of these groups were also promoted on the weekend of January 31-February 1.

January 31, 1969: Straight Theater, San Francisco, CA: Indian Puddin' and Pipe/Tripsichord Music Box
What is the significance of these two groups playing some underpublicized shows at the Straight Theater in early 1969? They indicate the unmistakable presence of the infamous promoter Mathew Katz. The rarely photographed Katz had been the manager of Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape when they had first started. Katz was in litigation with the Airplane for over 20 years; the Grape's lawsuit against him was only settled (in their favor) last year, after over 40 years. Few of the musicians who worked with Katz have fond memories of him.

By 1969, Katz was more focused on owning the names of groups, rather than the groups themselves. Both Indian Puddin' and Pipe and Tripsichord Music Box have complex personnel histories that are hard to follow. Katz seemed to believe that a popular group name had more value than the band members who made up the group, and he would pick out the group names himself. From 1967 onwards, Katz also seemed to have an interest in controlling certain venues, at least temporarily, in order to provide an opportunity for his bands to play. How thinly attended concerts at underpublicized venues helped Katz's promotional plans remains impossible to discern.

The whiff of these two listings suggests that Katz took over the booking of the Straight Theater for a month or two in 1969. The lack of other listings is more likely a sign of Katz's unwillingness to actually purchase advertising or pay for posters, just one of his many inexplicable practices. By March of 1969, circulating posters suggest that other entities were attempting to use the Straight for rock shows, even though they weren't successful. However, if Katz was the de facto promoter of the Straight for a month or two in early 1969, it's not surprising that few people recall it and even fewer mention it. Katz has had a lot of bad ju-ju assigned to him over the decades, apparently with some justification, and no one seems to have good memories they want to recall. It's no wonder that this chapter of Straight Theater history has remained unknown.

As near as I can tell, Katz continued to book his bands in distinctly different venues, apart from the regular rock nightlife in the Bay Area. By the mid-summer of 1969, Katz's bands mostly played at a place on 345 Broadway in San Francisco called Headhunters Amusement Park (it was the former site of a club called Goman's Gay 60s). Later in 1969, his bands were regularly listed at the even more mysterious Aheppa Center, at 7400 MacArthur Blvd in Oakland (near the Eastmont Mall). The radio silence that accompanies most of Katz's activities has left these venues complete ciphers that await excavation.

December 3, 1966: 658 Escondido Drive, Stanford, CA: "A Happening In The Wilburness" with Big Brother and The Holding Company

( a clipping from the entertainment listings of the Berkeley Barb on December 2, 1966)

Stanford University, founded in 1891 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford, was always a unique institution. However, its current status as a sort of West Coast Ivy, where the children of (smart) Presidents attend alongside other future world leaders, even as new industries are invented in dorm rooms, is a rather more recent development. When founder Leland Stanford died in 1893, the University remained on somewhat shaky financial ground until the mid-1950s. The University was always land rich and cash poor, and as a result a more interesting place than it probably is these days. The finances of Stanford changed dramatically in the 1950s, but the University still remained interesting enough in the 1960s. It was not a coincidence that Ken Kesey started the LSD revolution near Stanford, at Perry Lane in Menlo Park,  in the early '60s.

I have reason to believe that the "Happening" listed above in the Berkeley Barb was the last gasp of an older, looser Stanford, mixed in with some 1960s troublemaking, but I am unable to find a reliable eyewitness. Thus, I am using this post to marshal what little evidence I can uncover in the hopes that some reader will Flash Back and find this post and give us clues to what really happened. I can say, however, that there were quite a few interesting rock events in Stanford in the Fall of 1966, yet after this event, Stanford all but eliminated rock music shows. There was one outdoor rock concert in 1967, and one other very interesting event, and two more in 1968, but Stanford seems to have been resolutely against rock music events on campus after Fall 1966.

Did something happen that unsettled the Administration? Could it have been an all-day, acid fueled, multi-building party culminating with Janis Joplin and Big Brother and The Holding Company playing the Wilbur Hall Dormitory Dining Commons? God, I hope so.

"Happening In The Wilburness"
An old Big Brother list mentions a December, 1966 event under the heading "A Happening In The Wilburness." Ross discovered the Barb listing (above, from December 2, 1966) and I am confident this was the same event. Rather than listing the event as a concert, the Barb calls it a "Happening:"

HAPPENING: Big Brother & the Holding Company, lights, film, poetry, jazz, sculpting, experiments; Wilbur Hall, Stanford U.. all day? $1.50

Some reasonable speculation suggests the outline of this event. Wilbur Hall was built after World War 2 to handle the incoming volume of students. The "Hall" was actually a complex of 8 residential houses and a central dining commons. It currently houses 707 students, and the grounds cover a substantial area. The Stanford campus has always been sprawling, since its inception, but in the mid-60s the location of Wilbur Hall would have been less developed, as there were considerably fewer labs, classrooms and other buildings on campus (the mailing address is 658 Escondido, but the actual location of the Dining Commons is on Bowdoin Lane, off Campus Drive).

Since there were no less than nine available buildings, plus some open space, the implication seems to be that different activities took place in different parts of the grounds, presumably culminating with a Big Brother concert in the Dining Commons. I have to assume "The Wilburness" was a student nickname for the grounds as a whole. Crowded as the Stanford campus is today, Wilbur Hall would have been more isolated at the time and the name may have been fairly appropriate.

A "Happening" was a 60s term for what would loosely be termed either "Performance Art" or a "Festival" today. I have to assume that the event was at the end of the Fall Quarter, and some insurrectionist students had gotten permission to hold a "Fall Dance" or something, and turned it into a full-on sixties event. I believe the key word here is "experiments," which I think is code for an Acid Test, but I will explain my reasoning subsequently.

Although Stanford was not nearly as urban as Berkeley, the campus had its share of interesting rock events in the Fall of 1966. The Cryptical Development blog has an excellent post on some 1966 and '67 ads for events in the Stanford Daily, including performances by the Grateful Dead, Butterfield Blues Band and Jefferson Airplane. After that Fall, however, as the post shows, Stanford rock events abruptly ceased. There was an outdoor rock concert in May 1967 at the Frost Amphitheater, and a Summer rock concert at Frost in July 1968, but Stanford seems to have simply declared a moratorium on such events. Why? Surely many of the Stanford students wanted to see all the Fillmore bands, who would have been happy to play there on an available Friday night.

Here's what I think happened, although I cannot find proof. Some students got access to some sort of funds for a "Fall Dance" and asked to have a sort of "Festival" at the Wilbur Hall grounds. They probably emphasized art, poetry and jazz to the Administration, who blithely said yes. LSD was legal up until October 6, 1966, and the Kesey crowd was well connected to the Stanford campus. I think the "Experiments" alluded to was a code for an Acid Test--what else would they be experimenting on?--and madness reigned all day and all night on the Wilbur Hall grounds. Why else would the students be very vague to the Barb about the length of the event?

The campus cops probably wondered why no one smelled like whisky, but they must have figured something was up. A full volume concert by Big Brother and The Holding Company must have finished off the evening and the University's patience, because rock music would not be performed at night on the Stanford campus for a very long time.

I can't prove any of this. If any old Stanford students are having odd flashbacks right now, please Comment.

"The Experimental Group"
Palo Alto and Stanford had an interesting bohemian runup to 1966. Ken Kesey had come to Stanford on a writing fellowship in the early 1960s, and his merry bunch got their start just off campus on Perry Lane. Jerry Garcia and other bohemian folkies lived near downtown, as tolerant Palo Alto was unbothered by bearded, draft-dodging ne'er-do-wells. Palo Alto even had it's own Acid Test on December 18, 1965 (and the building is still there). While Kesey went on the lam, and the Dead moved to San Francisco, there was still a modest core of like minded lunatics in Palo Alto and the Santa Cruz Mountains.

The principal core of hip late 60s Palo Alto was the Mid Peninsula Free University (MFU), who began in 1967 in an attempt to provide an educational alternative to Stanford. The MFU story is too long to tell here, but MFU was instrumental in making sure there were free concerts in Palo Alto throughout 1967 and '68, in contravention to less liberal towns. On their now inaccessible website, the MFU founders were associated with some mysterious entity called "The Experimental Group," seemingly an ad-hoc Stanford organization. Who were they?

My one whiff of information about "The Experimental Group" is this mysterious poster (h/t Ross)

The poster advertised a "Psychedelic Celebrations Workshop" on Monday, April 10, 1967 at 8:00 pm. The event featured The Magic Theatre, The New Delhi River Band and the Medway Forest Indians. The event seems to have been at 'Experiment Building--Stanford University."  Let's parse what we can about this flyer.

The New Delhi River Band and The Magic Theatre were the "house band" and light show at The Barn, in Scotts Valley. At this time, The Barn had just been closed by the Santa Cruz County Sheriff's department. Both NDRB and Magic Theatre lived in Palo Alto, and two of the principals of The Magic Theatre were both former Stanford art students (they were different than the later Berkeley theater troupe of the same name, however). Since the Barn was closed and the band and light show were in town, this has the look of an ad-hoc student event using some local talent.

Where was the Experiment Building? To my knowledge, there was no such building at Stanford. Although I grew up in Palo Alto, I recognize that there may have been something called that, so here are my speculations:

• There was a lot of new building on campus at the time, and this may have been a temporary name for a building
• This may have been a student nickname for a building that really went by another name

Either or both of these speculations seem reasonable. However, if the building named Experiment (why a noun not an adjective, by the way?) was new or colloquial, why are there no directions? It doesn't say "Experiment Building, on Pampas off Serra St." Wherever the "Experiment Building" was, anyone seeing the poster was supposed to know where it was. Anyone who couldn't figure it out--like Campus Administration--wasn't supposed to know. I have a feeling there was a newly constructed or underused new building that was used temporarily as a playhouse by some enterprising students, and this flyer gave just enough information for those who needed to know it.

The Medway Forest Indians are even more mysterious, and likely another code. The Medway Forest seems to be in London, Ontario, Canada, and I'm hard pressed to say whether there was actually any Tribe associated with the Forest. It seems more probable that this was some bogus student group that sounded plausible, like UC Berkeley's "Pretentious Folk Front."

I believe there is a different, more crudely drawn flyer for a similar event, possibly for sometime in November, 1966, but I can't find the flyer right now. I think the April 10, 1967 event with NDRB was an Acid Test disguised as a 'Psychedelic Celebration,' and on the Stanford Campus at least the code word was "Experiment," since I presume even square administrators had learned about "Acid Tests." This leads me back to thinking that the Wilbur Hall listing that promised "Experiments" was a clear shout out those in the know to leave all of Saturday afternoon and evening free for "A Day In The Wilburness."

March 5, 1970: Freight and Salvage, Berkeley, CA: Peter Rowan and Richard Greene

(the panel from Thursday, March 5, 1970, for the Freight and Salvage calendar from March 1970)

Time, as Steve Miller informs us, keeps on slipping, slipping, slipping into the future. It is thus easy to look back and lose sight of the context of historical artifacts. The specific panel above is from the March 1970 performance calendar for Berkeley's Freight and Salvage club. The Freight opened in July 1968, and despite (or because of) being run by long-haired hippies, it was thoroughly committed to traditional forms of music in all its diversity. Each calendar featured a few dozen miniature panels for each performance (the March 1970 Freight calendar can be seen in its entirety here), and they serve as journals for the psychedelic artwork current at the time, yet they are overlooked because of their tiny size and because "folk" music is not as officially "psychedelic" as rock music from the same period.

Nonetheless, our detailed analysis of the founding of the Freight and Salvage reveals a number of surprising details about rock history. As we have detailed at length in our early history of the Freight and Salvage, the club served a variety of social and musical functions in late '60s Berkeley. One of those functions was to provide an outlet for musicians in rock bands to play the traditional music that had initially inspired them. Many of the rock musicians of the late 60s and early 70s had gotten started in music by playing bluegrass, blues or folk music in folk clubs; Jerry Garcia, Janis Joplin and Jorma Kaukonen were among the most prominent of those in the Bay Area. Yet many other band members around the Bay Area had similar stories.

The group Seatrain was based in Marin County, but its roots were on the East Coast. A few members of the Blues Project (bassist Andy Kulberg and drummer Roy Blumenfield) had moved from East to West, and after completing some contractual obligations (the Blues Project album Planned Obsolescence) formed the group Sea Train. After an initial album, they elided their name to Seatrain, and added East Coast pal Peter Rowan on guitar and vocals, along with the Californian Richard Greene on violin. Greene and Rowan had played together in Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys, and Greene had wide experience in various ensembles, including recording with the Gary Burton Quartet (on the 1969 lp Throb). Rowan had been in Earth Opera with David Grisman, who recorded two albums for Elektra, but the band had exploded mid-tour in California in 1969.

By late 1969, Peter Rowan was working with Seatrain in Marin. Rowan, Richard Greene and various other members of Seatrain regularly played acoustic shows at the Freight and Salvage in late 1969 and early 1970 (we have extensively documented the the 1968-69 Freight here). Whether they played "acoustic Seatrain," bluegrass or other original material isn't entirely clear, but the little panel on the March  1970 calendar gives an intriguing clue. The March 5 listing says "Peter Rowan--alias Panama Red." Other listings at the Freight from around that time advertise "Panama Red and Richard Greene," and yet others list Rowan, Greene and other members of Seatrain by name.

Peter Rowan first bubbled out into rock consciousness as the writer of "Panama Red," the title track of the October 1973 New Riders of The Purple Sage album of the same name. Lucky Deadheads in the Bay Area who had seen Rowan play with Jerry Garcia and David Grisman in their bluegrass band Old And In The Way, or heard various local FM broadcasts, knew that Old And In The Way had been doing their version of "Panama Red" as well (both OAITW and the Riders also did Rowan's "Lonesome LA Cowboy"). I have discussed the early, misty origins of Old And In The Way elsewhere, but suffice to say it isn't hard to guess where the New Riders heard the song. The Riders catchy country rock version of the song received regular airplay both on rock stations like KSAN and soon afterwards on the groundbreaking "psychedelic country" station KFAT, out of Gilroy, CA.

"Panama Red" was a perfect mid-70s rock song, catchy and hummable, naughty enough to guarantee no AM airplay, but coded enough to escape the notice of imaginary authority figures (as if High School principals were analyzing rock lyrics). Indeed, as Panama Red itself was replaced by more potent forms of THC, the song itself became a paean to a more carefree era. When the Old And In The Way version was finally released on their 1975 album, the imprimatur of Jerry Garcia assured the song's immortality. Rowan became a popular alternative country rock figure, and new songs like "Free Mexican Airforce" became staples on KFAT. Rowan has had a diverse and successful career ever since, and he continues to tour and record.

It's easy to be nostalgic about Peter Rowan, "Panama Red" and days gone by--I certainly am--but a closer look at the evidence introduces a slightly different twist to the narrative. The Freight and Salvage poster frame celebrating Peter Rowan as Panama Red excerpted above is from March, 1970--a full three years before Old And In The Way and the New Riders started performing the song. Not only had Rowan probably already written the song by 1970, but apparently "Panama Red" was already some sort of performing alter ego for him. "Panama Red" seemed racy and coded enough for 1973, but the song may have been written as early as 1969, when it would have been downright subversive.

Seatrain recorded a number of albums for Capitol, but Peter Rowan had left the group by 1972. I have to assume that Capitol had rejected "Panama Red," or that the band refused to even consider showing it to them. By 1973, Rowan didn't even have a band, so letting the New Riders sing his catchiest song must have been a relief to Rowan, even if he may have been professionally frustrated. Yet it's intriguing to think that the catchiest weed song of 1973, a sort of early Anglo narcocorrido, had been too hot to handle for some years. It's also funny to think that the Freight and Salvage, often chastised back in the day for being too quiet and too serious (people couldn't even smoke!), was the only venue where Rowan's songwriting gems may have revealed themselves, as a true folk tradition in the making.

Although many fine folk artists have played the Freight every month since it's inception (see for yourself), a closer look shows the implicit rock links to the Berkeley folk scene. A few groups who would become Fillmore West and Winterland regulars are already playing there, such as Commander Cody and Joy Of Cooking, and more serious scholars may recognize some connections to the likes of the Diggers and Owsley Stanley. Rowan was a former member of Bill Monroe's Bluegrass Boys, and certainly earned his credentials as a folk musician many years before, but he too was another Freight musician who would make "folk" a part of rock music yet to come.