JGJK: Eisenhower Auditorium, Penn State University, November 16, 1984
Archives of the Penn State Daily Collegian are available online at http://digitalnewspapers.libraries.psu.edu/, which might prove useful for others (I have found lots of Jerry-related stuff).
Just for giggles, I thought I'd post this little snippet from the police blotter over the weekend of the Jerry Garcia/John Kahn show (Robert Hunter opening) at Eisenhower Auditorium on 11/16/84:
Tee hee.
Good scheme, too bad it didn't work. Also funny to me because it's so east coast. Hard to imagine anyone at, say, CU-Boulder thinking a university blazer would draw attention away from them. :)
Lost Live Dead and related have inspired me. Sorry to steal your schtick! I don't get into depth (nor turn a phrase) the way LLD does, but it sure is fun, anyway.
So the SF Chronicle is almost certainly loaded with stuff of interest. Unfortunately, unless I am missing something it does not seem to be available electronically prior to 1985. The San Francisco Public Library has paper indexes back into the 70s, and fiche indexes from before then. These latter seem unreliable at best. The former (paper indexes) are fine, but obviously don't pick up things like ads or concert listings. So it's really a needle-in-a-haystack resource, involving the dizzying and eye-drying work of scanning microfilm, the quality of which ranges from OK to illegible.
Anyway, one of the really good articles I found, based on a lead (though I think it had a mistake in it) from David Dodd's quite amazing annotated bibliography (1), is the Ellwood one referenced below (2). There is so little known about these early Garcia gigs that every little piece of information is golden.
correction: I had this listed as the Chronicle, but of course Elwood was the music guy at the San Francisco Examiner. Same situation applies, a fortiori.
The article references a Jerry Garcia - Merl Saunders gig "last night" (i.e., 2/11/72) at "a far out club, Bo Jangles, at 709 Larkin" (San Francisco, CA 94109). It notes that Armanda [sic] Peraza was present on congas and Bill Kreutzmann on drums. There is no information about tunes played.
This article interests me for a few reasons.
First, until now there has not been a show for this date at the Jerry Site (TJS). I have remedied this.
Second, there is a show dated 2/12/72 at TJS, with location given as Bojangles Club, Sacramento. This listing seems to derive from the list of uncirculated Betty Boards, and gives Roger "Jellyroll" Troy as one of the guests. A few thoughts on this.
2a. Although TJS goes so far as to say that "The venue is known today as Beau's Bojangles", I certainly wonder whether this show was actually played in SF. It always seemed odd to see that Sacramento show in the mix this early - this band at this time was pretty exclusively a Bay Area (and largely a San Francisco) phenomenon. Given that they played at a Bo Jangles in SF on 2/11, I suppose its possible that the "Iranian combine" that ran the place also had one in Sacto ... stranger things could have happened.
2b. We are also left to wonder whether the "2/12" show is actually the 2/11 show discussed by Elwood. A listen to the tape, to check for the presence of Peraza, might shed some light, but at this point that's not one of my options. So this remains an open question.
As an upshot on this point #2, I'll just work under the assumption that JGMS played a Friday (11) and Saturday (12) engagement for Bo Jangles. I'll list the Friday show as SF and will leave the Saturday listing as Sacramento unless more evidence emerges. Perhaps I'll put a note on TJS listing to mention the uncertainty around the Sacramento location.
Third, in a case of Serendipity, Corry had asked in comments on the NRPS ca. 11/1/70 post whether the Both/And club was still open as late as late 1970. While it could well have opened and shut and taken on various permutations, I simply note that Elwood's article also mentions a gig "at the relatively sedate and traditional Both-And jazz club". So something by that name was running in early 1972, FWIW.
References
(1) Dodd, David G., and Robert G. Weiner. 1997. The Grateful Dead and the Deadheads: An Annotated Bibliography. Music Reference Collection no. 60. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press.
(2) Elwood, Philip. 1972. Distinctive Variety of Musical Styles. San Francisco Examiner, February 12, 1972, p. 8
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The San Francisco section of the "From the Music Capitals of the World" Feature in the November 21, 1970 issue of Billboard (p. 25, available via Google Books), written by Mary Turner, indicates that the New Riders of the Purple Sage performed at an event called "Marathon 70," put on by Both/And Productions, over the Halloween Weekend of 1970. The image is below. We know that GD and NRPS were at SUNY Stony Brook on Halloween night (Saturday). We also know that the GD were in Port Chester from Thursday, November 5th.
Did the NRPS (and Jerry) come back to the Bay Area rather than just hanging around the east coast? Hard to say for sure, but there seems to be enough evidence (fragmentary, but independent) suggesting that they did, and thus that this gig might well have happened.
First, the Jerry Site lists a Monday, November 2nd "Jerry Garcia and Friends" show at the Harding Theater, SF, based on information contributed by Joey Newlander from a listing in the Berkeley Barb. TJS further speculates that the gig did not happen, what with the GD out east. OK.
Second, the PERRO tapes (in this case, sessions for David Crosby's If I Could Only Remember My Name) include at least one cut ("Cowboy Movie") said to have been laid down at Heider's in SF on Tuesday, November 3rd. (This has always been important to me, since that was the date of my birth and I *love* the idea that that's what Jerry was doing on that day!)
Third, Good Times (v.3 n.43, 10/30/70, p. 16) ran a listing for a Garcia/Saunders show at the Matrix on this same night, Tuesday, November 3rd.
Fourth, though not independent of #2, I also have a PERRO session listed for Wednesday, November 4th, though I have no notes on where that information might have come from.
Now we have a fifth piece of evidence in the indication that NRPS might have been back in the Bay Area in between Stony Brook and Port Chester.
I am going to go ahead and speculate that the "Halloween Weekend" notion plus the gigs seemingly booked for every other night during this short window, both militate in favor of a Sunday, November 1, 1970 listing.
I'd like to hear from anyone who knows more about this event ("Marathon 70") and/or the Both/And. Thoughts?
In an earlier post I had asked about a show scheduled for Folsom Field at CU-Boulder on August 28, 1977. Turns out it was for a festival known as "Sun Day" (this being Sun Day 3), with the following on the bill: Willie Nelson; Emmylou Harris; Dave Mason; Jerry Jeff Walker; Stillwater; Jerry Garcia. This was going to be co-organized by Feyline and the CU Program Council. I originally became aware of this through a Calendar listing in Colorado Springs Gazette-Telegraph, August 27, 1977, p. 22D.
The Boulder Daily Camera had one earlier mention that I found, regarding a hassle about the provision of emergency medical services (Linda Cornett, "Ambulance Debate Rises in Plans for CU Concert," Boulder Daily Camera, August 14, 1977, p. ??)
This didn't sink the gig, though, at least not according to published reports. It turns out that an illness in the Willie Nelson group and "personnel issues" in the JGB led to the cancellation. The notice speculates that these latter are in connection with Tutt and Elvis, the latter of whom died a bit before the scheduled gig. It also notes, however, that ticket sales had been slow. May have been win-win-win all around to cancel it. For the skinny, see "Big Concert Canceled; Borrow Some Records," Boulder Daily Camera, August 19, 1977, p. 17.
I plan on poking through the Program Council archives to see if there's more to the story, just for giggles.
A mention in the "From the Music Capitals of the World" feature in Billboard, September 11, 1971, p. 22 says that "Columbia's New Riders of the Purple Sage play the Manhattan Center Ballroom, Wednesday (15) at 34th St. & 8th Ave."
Hard to know what to make of this. That particular week was a blank slate until recently, when in my searching around I discovered listings and such for the following gigs:
Friday 9/10/71, JGMS @ Harding Theater, SF (1)
Thursday 9/16/71, JGMS @ Keystone Korner, SF (2)
Friday 9/17/71 and Saturday 9/18/71, NRPS @ Friends and Relations Hall, SF (2, 3)
So while it's not impossible that JG could have gone east to play with the NRPS on 9/15/71, it seems pretty unlikely, doesn't it? I'd be grateful for thoughts and/or leads about how to figure out whether this happened. Who would have been promoting Manhattan Center gigs at that time?
References:
(1) listing in Hayward Daily Review, September 16, 1971, p. 25.
(2) Oakland Tribune, September 15, 1971, p. 25
(3) there is also a poster IIRC.
I love El Dorado Canyon. Driving there today, the Flatirons just seemed to be stretching and reaching for the sky under the brilliant autumn sun. Never particularly noticed how their angling back from town gives them that "reaching" feel.
Driving back, just basked in the golden glow. Man it's nice up there.
Pretty nice water. From Boulder, 93 to 6 to the second bridge. Caught some pretty good-sized (for me) rainbows. Used a little rainbow something-or-other nymph on top and did OK with big green beadheads on the bottom. Needed some split-shot but couldn't find it, so had to rely on the big fellas just sinking.
Was told that it would be good where the river curves around the mountain, since the road goes through a tunnel and few venture out that far. Good-looking water, but I didn't do great that far over. I was getting tired, could partly be it.
May try this again if weather is still good over the next month, because flows seemed ample enough to hold up for a bit yet.
