Under the rock and jazz heading, you'll see Terry and the Pirates, featuring John Cipollina and Nicky Hopkins playing the Longbranch Saloon in Berkeley on Friday January 2 and Saturday, January 3, 1976.
I had never really picked this up before. After flaming out of JGB on New Year's Eve 1975-1976, two days later Nicky is picking up a gig with his good buddy (and great guitarist, and Garcia pal) the Little Onion and Terry Dolan, who has come clean that he was dealing coke at the time (Dawson 2011, 261).
I have no moral judgment on any of this or any of these people. I know the drugs are touchy, but they are what they are, and I see little point (and considerable loss) in ignoring the pharmacological context of all of this, not least given how consequential substances were in how so many lives unfolded (and ceased doing so).
It's interesting to find out what the Terry Dolan "connection" was, after all these years. I had always wondered how a competent but essentially b-list talent had such good bands all the time, even thought they hardly worked. It just shows how a suburban childhood stunts one's conceptual powers.
ReplyDeleteI saw Terry And The Pirates at Keystone Berkeley, in about 1982, with Cippo, Dolan, Hopkins (on electric piano), David Hayes on bass and some usual suspect (Jeff Myers?) on drums. They were pretty enjoyable, but the best songs were QMS instrumentals (like "Cobra") and a cover of "I Put A Spell On You," sung by Hayes. Dolan's songs weren't bad, but they weren't memorable either.
In a post about Greg Errico, Corry posts a December 1975 Keystone calendar which I have never seen. Despite being the revised version, it shows Stoneground with Kathi McDonald on Friday 1/2/76 and Earthquake with Eddie Money on Saturday 1/3. That calendar had been printed in advance of the month, one presumes, so I would consider the later Oakland Tribune listing for Terry and the Pirates to represent a change of plans. Though I am speculating, this seems consistent with the idea that Nicky's departure (and playing with Terry and the Pirates) advened rather late in the day. No smoking gun, of course, but perhaps suggestive.
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