AFM6 San Francisco Sessions Dataset, 1967-1972

Tony Orbasido was running the American Federation of Musicians' Local No. 6 in San Francisco when I started asking him about researching in whatever papers they had. What they had was two 4-drawer filing cabinets stuff with studio recording contracts. I think the union didn't keep gig contracts in hard copy beyond 3-4 years for space reasons, and there were no gig contracts relevant to me.

This was before I could take legible cellphone pictures. I had to run Xerox copies of what I wanted. In later years, I progressively digitized these paper copies. The sample is biased with respect to anything in the Garciaverse, because I was explicitly looking for and only gathering out to Spudfactor = 1 musicians, in addition to Garcia himself. As I have reported, the Jerry Garcia and Grateful Dead contents of these files was dramatically light. I think Tony O said someone had come through and gathered them up. This could well have been the Jerry Garcia Estate, but I do not know that. Anyway, within the limits of the media I was working with, I was able to go through 1967-1972 pretty thoroughly.

I published the Garcia-relevant stuff in batches. By way of making an index, here they are.

San Francisco Sessions, 1967-1968 (August 4, 2015)

San Francisco Sessions, 1969 (August 5, 2015)

San Francisco Sessions, 1970 (August 9, 2015)

San Francisco Sessions, 1971 (July 3, 2016)

San Francisco Sessions, 1972 (November 18, 2017)

Altogether, this is my AFM6 San Francisco Sessions Dataset, 1967-1972

Hartbeats to New Riders: from spacesuits to OshKosh

Somewhere I have Mickey Hart saying basically what's in the title, but I cannot for the life of me find where I got this, and the Google is not helping me.

Anyone know where Mickey might have said this?

TIA!

John Coltrane has a spudfactor of 2?

Spudfactor is the number it takes to get from Jerry to another musician, using ties defined as making music together, in person.

Jerry Garcia = spudfactor 0

Anyone who played with him, live or live in studio, even picking in someone's living room, has SF1.

Then everyone they ever played with --same definition-- now has SF 2 (at most). And so forth.

The universe of SF1, when we draw all of the ties between all of the other players, defines the Side Trips Social Network.

Anyway, we were playing around with links out from Jerry to Coltrane, and my amazing commenters have determined that Jerry 0 > Ornette 1 > Coltrane 2.

So much fun. Original question was about John Chambers. We have moved on.

It's my understanding that Hartbeats era Matrix drummer John Chambers played with John Coltrane. I could check, but I wanted to pin this here before I head out to the ol' salt mines.

https://www.discogs.com/artist/1292605-John-Chambers-2

The Quick at San Quentin

http://www.sfgate.com/music/article/LSD-king-Owsley-Stanley-s-Sonic-Journals-11209700.php

And Bear was there taping. I assumed immediately this was 2/15/68, partly, I am sure, in hope that this means that the Quick sets from the Pacific Northwest Tour were taped. Hamina hamina. That said, I don't see any reference to Quick guys in the various reports of this gig.


! deadlists: http://deadlists.com/deadlists/showresults.asp?KEY=2/15/68
! ref: URL hannan, Ross. 2009. The Grateful Dead San Quentin Performances: A Theory. Lost Live Dead, December 4, 2009, URL http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2009/12/grateful-dead-san-quentin-performances.html, consulted 8/5/2012;
! expost: UPI 1968 ("Hippies Support Quentin Paper");
! expost: Torgerson 1968;
! ref: Abbot 2007;
! Corry: http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2009/12/grateful-dead-san-quentin-performances.html?showComment=1259944365140#c6637997183837294175;
! ref: Dister 2007, 150-151.

update: looks like Ross has confirmed Quick guys 2/15/68. Do we imagine Bear would have labeled his tape as QMS?

What about this 4/11/67 listing (not in Deadlists)? Any chance that a) QMS guys were there and b) Bear was taping?

In the alternative, what about the "3/7/68" thing, also putatively a San Quentin date, per Deadlists. Any chance a) this happened (w/ QMS), and b) Bear taped?

Let me step out of my Garciacentrism for a second, actually: I am only looking for QMS at San Quentin that crosses Jerry or the GD. Is there any other known QMS there? I see nothing at Bruno's list.

Anyway, man, 1,300 reels of stuff. Wow.

Investing in Marmaduke

Some notes-to-self.

Corry:

The Grateful Dead family was interested in turning John Dawson into a recording artist as early as 1968, and willing to spend their own studio time to do it, even though nothing ever came of it, so the New Riders project can be seen as a solution rather than a random idea.

I do think this slips a little into "functional fallacy", of postulating as the cause of some beneficial thing the mere fact that it is beneficial, ergo, folks must have wanted it and caused it to be produced. It might have been that they loaned him a bunch of money as friends, and then contributed so as to increase the probability of future repayment. So that would be "money -> idea" rather than "idea -> money" (in which case we are 180 degrees from our usual positions).

LIA seems to agree that the idea of Dawson as a "solution" doesn't follow from what we know: "we don't know what the purpose of the Dawson demo was, if Garcia himself had any plan or record-label in mind, or if Dawson just wanted to shop around various companies, or if there was thought to be any leverage from Dawson's 'Dead connection'."

Either way, cool insight: this is "as if" it were an early investment in a more diversified portfolio of commercializable music - absolutely fascinating.

updates

LIA comments "If indeed the Dead were giving some of their studio time to an old buddy, it strikes me as a precursor to the Round Records idea", an interesting thought. JGMF, in comments:

I agree with LIA (in comments) and you that Round becomes the formalized expression of some basic elements of the Garciaverse: he wanted to help out his friends with paying gigs, and the world demanded that he monetize himself (in addition to giving time, effort and layers of skin) to achieve that. For all of his other flaws, Garcia was an unusually generous friend. Think about how many lives were "made," how many properties in Marin and Sonoma made affordable, by professional involvement with Jerry. Man had the Midas Touch.

JGMF, in comments, where apparently I have already had the same urge to think through the titular proposition. At least I agree with myself that this is interesting!

[Corry says] "I find it strange that no record company was interested in John Dawson's demos." Here's a flyer: maybe the record companies insisted on some demonstrable GD/Garcia connection, e.g. a playing contribution from Jerry, as a condition of signing on his friends? This necessity drove (at least to some extent) Garcia's constitutive role in the NRPS, which is consistent with your idea that the NRPS was a solution (a band with Garcia, i.e., one that could sell records) to a problem (Jerry's desire to help his ol' pal Marmaduke).

Grateful Dead at Clifford's Catering, Walnut Creek, March 1-2, 1968

In 2011 I made a post under the heading of "GD in Walnut Creek; East Bay Psychedelic Scene?" in which I noted the mystery surrounding the Dead's Listed gigs in Walnut Creek on March 1-2, 1968.

John Fernbach has shared the following handbill. Yeah! Thanks!

Reader Brad Vicknair has graciously shared an ad for the show and some wonderful recollections, which I reproduce here with his permission. Thanks, Brad!

I saw The Grateful Dead at Clifford's Catering in Walnut Creek on Saturday, March 2nd, 1968.

I was friends with twin brothers and their older brother was one of the guitar players for The Looking Glass. They were a band from Concord/Walnut Creek that played locally in the late 60's. The drummer's father booked The Grateful Dead and The Looking Glass at Clifford's on Friday, March 1st and Saturday March 2nd. The Dead played the weekend before at Kings Beach Bowl in Lake Tahoe and the day after their Saturday night gig in Walnut Creek, they played on two flatbeds on Haight Street.

The venue was originally Portuguese Hall. A poster from 1963 promoting Bobby Freeman, Wally Cox, and The Untouchables lists the venue as Walnut Creek Hall. In 1965 and 1966 the venue was called Holy Ghost Hall. Local bands and major recording artists appeared, including Sonny & Cher, Martha and the Vandellas, Dick and Dee Dee, Dobie Gray and others. In 1967, the venue was called Scuzzy Mouse. The venue has gone through many name changes over the years, but is best remembered as Holy Ghost Hall.

The venue was called Clifford's Catering when The Grateful Dead appeared. Clifford's was a restaurant/catering business that would rent out the hall on occasion. I have a copy of an advertisement for The Grateful Dead at Clifford's [see above-ed]. I don't remember seeing a poster, but there may I have been one. I had a ticket, but it's long gone. It was black and white, about 3" x 5", with a I drawing of a hippie as the central image and LSD, a peace sign and other symbols in the I background. I have a Looking Glass business card and the art is similar in style to the ticket that I remember. The ticket and poster, if there was one, was probably band generated.

The hall at Clifford's was upstairs. There was a table at the top the top of the stairs where a couple of girls were selling tickets. We bought our tickets and entered the hall, which had a raised stage with curtains in the back and on the sides. It wasn't overly crowded, but more people may have attended on Friday night.

When The Dead came on, it was easy to move freely in front of the stage. Pigpen was having problems with his Hammond B3. The sound was going in and out, and he spent the first two or three songs under the keyboard, by the foot pedals. There was a sound man helping, but it was mostly Pigpen working on the organ.

Mickey Hart was playing wildly! He broke drumsticks and in one seamless motion, sent them flying over his back shoulder and grabbed another drumstick from his bass drum. He impulsively ran off stage mid song and returned with a large gong. Mickey seemed to be enjoying himself and was entertaining to watch!

Several people in the audience kept shouting requests for "The Golden Road". Finally, Jerry responded, "We don't know that one I anymore". They played "Cold Rain & Snow". The Looking Glass also played the song regularly. My friend said that on Friday night, The Looking Glass asked the Dead if they minded if they played "Cold Rain & Snow". Supposedly, they played it and The Dead complimented them, saying that they liked The Looking Glass version better than their own.

Pigpen took control when they played a long version of "Turn On Your Lovelight".

Later in the evening, the band was stretching out musically. Behind me in the back corner of the hall were friends and family of the band. A woman with dark shoulder length hair, wearing a black floor length dress with multiple overlay and a little girl about two years old with curly blond hair, walked up to the front of the stage. It was Mountain Girl and her daughter Sunshine Kesey. Mountain Girl put Sunshine on the stage in front of Bob Weir and he handed her the mic. As the band continued to play, Sunshine screamed into the mic at the top of her lungs like in a horror movie! Mountain Girl eventually took Sunshine off the stage and they returned to the back of the hall.

I was blown away by the whole experience of seeing The Grateful Dead!

My friend later told me that some of The Dead were looking for a place to crash on Friday night. His brother, the guitar player for The Looking Glass, lived with his parents in Walnut Creek and their response was, absolutely not! Supposedly the drummer and his father took in some of the band at their apartment in Concord.

When leaving Clifford's there was a sign at the top of the stairs announcing Country Joe & the Fish would be playing in two weeks. The Grateful Dead were paid $3,000 for the two nights and the promoter ended up losing money, so Country Joe & the Fish never appeared. Bands continued to play at the venue, which was called The Saranap Inn until 1973. In 1974, the Sufis bought the building and Sufism Reoriented (Meher Baba) established the Spiritual Training Center at the location.

San Francisco Sessions, 1967-1968

updated title 20160319

San Francisco Sessions Series

• San Francisco Sessions, 1967-1968
• San Francisco Sessions, 1969
• San Francisco Sessions, 1970
• San Francisco Sessions, 1971
• San Francisco Sessions, 1972 

In the course of my research into Jerry Garcia’s musical life outside the Grateful Dead, I have gathered up, well, an awful lot of stuff. Sometimes I can’t resist, especially if I find myself in amongst papers that others might not get around to, but that might contain good information.

The following is just a rough list of some of the union contracts I came across. You’ll see that this is biased toward names that I know from the Side Trips Social Network – that has been my research purpose. But sometimes there’s stuff that’s very peripheral that just catches my eye.

 I am trying not to transcribe too much information, since it’s so peripheral to my interests. I am putting it out here for other researchers who might be interested. The documents of course contain all kinds of other information I am just listing date/venue, artist/project/names, employer, and a six-digit number that will help me find the document in question. If you are curious about a particular document, drop me a line.

update: I have now posted a similar list for 1969.

1967

May 4, 1967 Golden State Recorders, 655 Harrison Street (TV)

Steve Miller (SM, Jim Cooke, Tim Davis, Lonnie Turner)

(illegible)

110942

May 12, 1967 KQED Studios, SF (TV - Replay of May 10 program)

BBHC

110231

May 12-13, 1967 Fillmore Auditorium (live)

Jefferson Airplane

RCA Victor

110309

June 28, 1967 Fillmore Auditorium (live)

Steve Miller (SM, Jim Cooke, Tim Davis, Lonnie Turner, James Peterman)

Mercury Records

110919

June 29, 1967 Fillmore Auditorium (live)

Steve Miller (SM, Jim Cooke, Tim Davis, Lonnie Turner, James Peterman)

Mercury Records

110900

June 30, 1967 Fillmore Auditorium (live)

Steve Miller (SM, Jim Cooke, Tim Davis, Lonnie Turner, James Peterman)

Mercury Records

110813

July 7, 1967 KQED Studios, SF (TV)

Country Joe and the Fish

KQED

111717

July 26, 1967 The Cheetah, Santa Monica (live)

Steve Miller (SM, James Cooke, Tim Davis, Lonnie Turner, James Peterman)

Pacific Radio – KPFK

111407

July 31, 1967 Golden Gate Park (live)

Mimi Farina

Bay Area Educational Television Association (KQED)

111114

July 31, 1967 Golden Gate Park (live)

Steve Miller (SM, Jim Cooke, Tim Davis, Lonnie Turner, James Peterman)

Bay Area Educational Television Association (KQED)

111133

September 18, 1967 unknown location (but see QMS for this date) (live)

Dino Valente

Epic Records

111501

September 18, 1967 New Committee Theater, 836 Montgomery St., SF (live)

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan)

Columbia Record Company

111520

November 8, 1967 Commercial Recorders, 149 Natoma, SF

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore, Nick Gravenites, Harvey Brooks)

Capitol Records

113510

November 10, 1967 Commercial Recorders, 149 Natoma, SF

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore, Nick Gravenites, Harvey Brooks)

Capitol Records

113544

1968

March 18-19, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

James Cotton (JC, Edward Adams, James Patrick Cooke, Raphael Martin Fierro, Larry Wayne Talbert, Jose Emilio Rodriguez

Vanguard

113426

May 7, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Wayne Talbert [leader], Dough Sahm, Mack Rebbenack, Martin Fierro, Joe Rodriguez, Eddie Adams, Bill Atwood, Mel Martin, Lee Charlton)

Mercury Records

120715

May 8, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

“Joyce Dunn” (Dough Sahm [leader], Wayne Talbert, Martin Fierro, Frank Morin, Bill Atwood, Whitney Freeman, Mack Rebbenack)

Mercury Records

120654

May 9, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Wayne Talbert [leader], Martin Fierro, Joe Rodriguez, Eddie Adams, Bill Atwood, Mel Martin, Lee Charlton)

Mercury Records

120654

May 11, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Sir Douglas Quintet “Honky Blues” (Dough Sahm [leader], Hewlett Crist, Frank Morin, George Rains, Whitney Freeman, Martin Fierro, Wayne Talbert, Bill Atwood, Mel Martin)

Mercury Records

120645

May 18, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene, Norman Bellas)

MGM

113624

May 19, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene, Norman Bellas)

MGM

113643

May 21, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene)

MGM

113653

May 22, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene)

MGM

113702

May 23, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene, Harvey Brooks)

MGM

113715

May 28, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene)

MGM

113715

May 29, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene)

MGM

113735

June 4, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene)

MGM

113806

June 8, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene)

MGM

113756

June 10, 1968 Sierra Sound Laboratories, 1741 Alcatraz Ave., Berkeley

Blues Project (Andy Kulberg, Roy Blumenfeld, John Gregory, Richard Greene)

MGM

113747

June 11, 1968 Avalon Ballroom 1:30 pm

Harvey Mandel (HM [leader], Armando Peraza, Frank [Lalo] Varela, Edward F. Hoh, Arthur Stavro)

Mercury Records

120548

June 24, 1968 Commercial Recorders, 149 Natoma Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Wayne Talbert, Mack Rebbenack, Edward Adams, Jose Rodriguez, Martin Fierro)

Mercury Records

120737

June 25, 1968 Commercial Recorders, 149 Natoma Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Wayne Talbert, Mack Rebbenack, Edward Adams, Jose Rodriguez, Martin Fierro)

Mercury Records

120119, 120130

June 27, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Martin Fierro [leader], Bill Atwood, Mike Ropec, Melvyin Martin, Richard T. Washington

Mercury Records

120027, 120309

June 28, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

“Wayne Talbert” (Martin Fierro [leader], Mike Ropec, Mel Martin, Frank Morin, Richard Washington, Wilfred Sache, Lewis Davis, Bennie Harris)

Mercury Records

120042

June 29, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

“Wayne Talbert” (Martin Fierro [leader], Mike Ropec, Bill Atwood, Mel Martin, Frank Morin, Richard Washington)

Mercury Records

115239, 120257

July 1, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Martin Fierro [leader], Wilfred Sache, Melvyn Martin, Mike Ropec, Lewis Link Davis, Frank Morin)

Mercury Records

120620, 120631

July 3, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Martin Fierro [leader], Wilfred Sache, Melvyn Martin, Lewis Link Davis, Alfonso Molino Jr.)

Mercury Records

120017, 120319

July 9, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Wayne Talbert and the Melting Pot (Martin Fierro [leader, address is c/o Brian Rohan], Wilfred Sache, Melvyn Martin, Lewis Link Davis, Alfonso Molino Jr.)

Mercury Records

120058, 120610

July 12, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (Powell St. John [leader], Martin Fierro)

Mercury Records

120522

July 15, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (Powell St. John [leader], Martin Fierro, Bob Arthur, John Andrew, George Rains, Mark Naftalin)

Mercury Records

120511

July 16, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (Martin Fierro [leader], L. Link Davis, Bob Salisbury)

Mercury Records

120500

July 17, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Roy Head (Doug Sahm [leader], Martin Fierro)

Mercury Records

120340

July 19, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Roy Head (Frank Morin [leader], Martin Fierro)

Mercury Records

120359

July 31, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (John Andrews [leader], Link Davis Jr., Martin Fierro, Robert Salisbury, Spenser Perskin)

Mercury Records

114118

August 1 (?), 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Mother Earth (John Andrews, George Rains, Robert Arthur, Mark Naftalin, Link Davis Jr., Frank Morin, Ronald Tourmina, Tracy Nelson [leader], Martin Fierro, Robert Salisbury)

Mercury Records

114100

August 4, 1968 Frost Amphitheater, Palo Alto, CA (live)

Don Ellis (too many other people to list, no names familiar to me)

Columbia Records

114300

August 5, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Mother Earth (John Andrews [leader], George Rains, Robert Arthur, Mark Naftalin, Link Davis Jr., Frank Morin, Ronald Tourmina, Tracy Nelson, Martin Fierro)

Mercury Records

114050

August 8, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (Martin Fierro [leader], James Cooke, Frank Morin, Lewis Link Davis, Ronald Tourmina, Louis Gasca, Spenser Perskin)

Mercury Records

114031

August 9, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (Martin Fierro, Frank Morin [leader], Lewis Link Davis, Ronald Tourmina, Louis Gasca)

Mercury Records

114217

August 14, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Mother Earth (Powell St. John [leader], John Andrews, Terry Anderson, Robert Arthur, Mark Naftalin, Frank Morin, Ronald Tourmina, Martin Fierro, Luis Gasca, Cox [?] Rodriguez)

Mercury Records

114138

August 15, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (Powell St. John [leader], Martin Fierro, Luis Gasca)

Mercury Records

114207

August 16, 1968 Columbus Recorders, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mother Earth (John Andrews [leader], Martin Fierro, Luis Gasca)

Mercury Records

114157

August ??, 1968 Korty Films Inc., Stinson Beach, CA (film “Riverrun”)

Richard Greene (leader), Peter Berg

Korty Films, Inc.

114413

August 27, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

“Junior Parker” (Frank Morin [leader], George Rains, Link Davis, Ron Tourmina, Martin Fierro, Terry Hensley, Henry Angeli Jr., Whitney Freeman, Charles Pritchard, Doug Sahm, Hewlett Cris)

Mercury Records

120843

September 14, 1968 Coast Recorders, SF

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115733

September 16, 1968 Coast Recorders, SF

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115743

September 17, 1968 Coast Recorders, SF

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115752

September 23, 1968 Coast Recorders, SF

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115004

September 24, 1968 Coast Recorders, SF

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

114951

September 26-27-28, 1968 Fillmore West, SF (live)

Al Kooper [leader], Mike Bloomfield, Skip Prokop, John Kahn

Columbia Records

120756

October 5, 1968 Coast Recorders, 960 Bush Street, SF

Amigos de Musica Band (Doug Sahm [leader], Whitney Freeman, Terry Alan Hensley, Ron Taormina, Jose Rodriguez, George Rains, Martin Fierro, Frank Morin)

Mercury Records

120414

October 10-11-12, 1968 Winterland (remote session)

Dino Valente

Epic Records

115900

October 24-25-26, 1968 Fillmore West (live)

Jefferson Airplane

RCA

114750, 114800, 114810

November 4, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Shades of Joy (Martin Fierro [leader], Edward Adams, Jose Rodriguez, Jackie King)

Mercury Records

1145354

November 5, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Shades of Joy (Martin Fierro [leader], Edward Adams, Jose Rodriguez, Jackie King, Jymm Young)

Mercury Records

1145544

November 6, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Shades of Joy (Martin Fierro [leader], Edward Adams, Jose Rodriguez, Jackie King, Jymm Young)

Mercury Records

1145601

November 7, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Mitch Greenhill (Richard Greene [leader], Peter Kleinow)

Mercury Records

114641

November 7, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Shades of Joy (Martin Fierro [leader], Edward Adams, Jose Rodriguez, Jackie King, Jymm Young)

Mercury Records

1145552

November 7, 1968 Fillmore West (live)

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115818

November 8, 1968 Columbus Recording, 916 Kearny Street, SF

Shades of Joy (Martin Fierro [leader], Edward Adams, Jose Rodriguez, Jackie King, Jymm Young)

Mercury Records

1145612

November 8, 1968 Fillmore West (live)

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115843

November 9, 1968 Fillmore West (live)

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115828

November [between ca. 6 and 12], 1968 KQED-TV studios (TV: West Pole II)

It’s a Beautiful Day (David LaFlamme [leader], Mike Holman, Patricia Santos, Linda LaFlamme, Val Fuentes, Harold Wagenet)

Bay Area Educational TV Association

114515

November 10, 1968 Fillmore West (live)

QMS (John Cipollina, David Freiberg, Gary Duncan, Greg Elmore)

Capitol Records

115807

November 23, 1968 Pacific Recording Studios, San Mateo, CA

Wayne Ceballos (WC, Kenneth Newell, Larry Martin)

Sire Records

114905

Ron Polte on the Demise of the Carousel

Bottom line:

A bunch of hippies, a bunch of good people, got together and refused to run a business. And, I'm sorry, you've got to live in that world if you're gonna run a business.

On Rakow, in particular:

What Ron Rakow did to those people, he chained them to a machine that couldn't make money. It wasn't free. And the energy of all those good people in that building wasn't going anywhere, It was being trapped. Because he chained them to a financial problem, which was $9,000 a month rent, plus 20%. They couldn't have made it in 25 million years, man.

And then when he was going down, and he was $66,000 in the hole and they were in danger of losing it, they ran to the community and said, "Let's get the community together, together we can save it." It was a bummer to lay on the community.

In front, had Ron Rakow been honest with himself about business, he would have said, "$9,000 a month is too fucking high. And if we can't get this dance hall for $5,000, let's not take it. But instead, he took it. So it just went down the tubes.

On Graham taking over:

The only reason that Bill Graham got that dance hall was because they gave it to him. He would not have taken that dance hall. Ask Ralph Gleason, Ron Rakow, Bill Thompson, Rock Scully ... They said, "If we can't score it by Wednesday, if we can't make any deal with the owner to come up with the eight grand or a new ballroom manager, and a new organization, then you're free to go do whatever you want on Thursday. And that's what he did.

Ideas for the future:

Let's get together, do a benefit or a festival, and rent two places like the Matrix for a year, one at the south end and one at the north end of the city. And hire a couple of people to manage those 2 or 3 hundred capacity rooms, and put the young bands in there. … We should do that. Right now, there's a lot of wounds to heal and everybody is tired after the Carousel, so it's gonna take a little while. But it should come to pass.

The festival idea would manifest as the ill-fated Wild West Festival. At the same time, the Matrix really did take up some of the slack left by the Carousel (the  Tuesday Night Jam morphed into the Monday Night Jam), and the Family Dog had the south end of town covered, albeit in a bigger room with the problems of rent and overhead and all that Polte identified as problematic for the prospective hip community musical operations. Indeed, Chet Helms never could make the Dog work, and he was out in less than a year.

REFERENCE:

Darlington, Sandy. 1968. Ron Polte: A Good Word for Bill Graham. San Francisco Express Times, July 31, 1968, p. 13.

GD at Carousel, May-June 1968

Since I am on the subject, the ad below (published 5/30/68) lists the GD at Carousel on Friday May 31, Saturday June 1, and Sunday June 2, 1968. The Chicken lists Thursday (5/30) through Saturday (6/1).

Sorry if this has all been gone over, but I don't see any notes in my own files on this.

GD April 5, 1968 (Friday), Carousel - never happened

Updated: the SFC Datebook of April 5, 1968 (p. 47) shows John Lee Hooker, Loading Zone, Mother Earth. Given the two conflicting pieces of print, I'll prefer the later-published one (SFC) to the earlier-published one (Express Times issue of ca. 4/3/68) (lex posterior derogat priori).

Corry's tour itinerary shows an open Friday night for GD/Garcia on April 5, 1968.

Randomly, I just found a listing for the GD and Chuck Berry at the Carousel that night. Here it is.

This is one of the interesting thing about cross-validating from the Barb to the Express Times and other sources - sometimes interesting things pop up!

The Chicken lists John Lee Hooker, Loading Zone and Mother Earth.

update: The Chicken was right all along, and I think there was no hidden GD show this night, at least not at Carousel.

Interesting that this was ever on any calendar at all, though. I wonder what the GD ended up doing this night instead of gigging, as at-one-time advertised?

Carousel, May 22, 1968 - Jerry Garcia and others

Garcia and others are listed for the Carousel on May 22, 1968. According to a report in Billboard (Lehman 1968), this was a benefit concert to promote bringing jazz into schools, with an organization called the Jazz Action Movement (JAM).

San Francisco Express Times, May 22, 1968, p. 14.

The night before circulates from Bear's journal tape, remarkably enough (shnid-22727). The poster for that night said "Rock Jam" and we know it as Tuesday Night Jam. Check the linked info file for players.

This night, the Wednesday, May 22 gig, lists no personnel. I could drool over which jazz players might have dropped in for this benefit. I don't know of any other information about this show, pending, again, a check on Rhoney Stanley's book.

See also my post glancing across the Tuesday, June 4, 1968 Tuesday Night Jam,  "Strung Between Dreams and Reality" (title courtesy of the great Ralph Gleason). I think, but am not sure, that 6/4/68 is relevant to Stanley Mouse's purple pig poster (AOR 2.170).

Need to double-check. Rhoney Gissen Stanley's book covers the event in great detail.

Anyway, back to listings, some nice color in here. I bet the Russian River Rodeo in Guerneville on Sunday, May 26 was a mighty time - a whole 'nother sense of a Bear Republic, I suspect!

REFERENCES

URL http://www.classicposters.com/Tuesday_Night_Jam/poster/Art_of_Rock/2.170;

Lehman, Godfrey. 1968. Coast Group Set Up To Keep Jazz Alive. Billboard, May 18, 1968, p. 20, via Google Books.

Stanley, Rhoney Gissen, with Tom Davis. 2013. Owsley and Me: My LSD Family. Rhinebeck, NY: Monkfish Book Publishing Company.

Context: 19681009-19681013 Express Times listings

McHenry Library at UCSC has one random roll of the great San Francisco Express Times from the turbulent year of 1968.  I have some holes in my collection of listings from that paper in that year, had lots of other really specific stuff to get into, but had a few brief moments to spin some film.

I was so rushed that I didn't get proper citation information on this. Anyway, a few tidbits as notes to self and others.

Miles Davis at the Both/And on 10/9/68. Awesome. Not listed in plosin's amazing Miles Ahead data, I have inquired. Given a time machine, I'd be at the Matrix, but the opportunity cost is great!

YellowShark, a few things to note:

10/9/68 Freight and Salvage hoot/open mic
10/11/68 Freight and Salvage John Shine
10/11/68 BCT Note: Benefit Concert for People's World

Very odd paucity of music listings. Wonder why?

Next time I am in Santa Cruz, I'll try to get scans of the 1968 SFET/GT listings.

Right now, I only have the following SFET/GT listings for the year (... dir *1968*):

SFET19680515-listings.jpg
SFET19680605-listings.jpg
SFET19680710-listings.jpg
SFET19680724-listings.jpg
SFET19680814-listings.jpg
SFET19680814-listings2.jpg
SFET19681009-approx-listings-19681009-19681013.jpg
SFET19681113-listings.jpg
SFET19681120-listings.jpg
SFET19681127-listings.jpg
SFET19681218p15-listings.jpg
SFET19681224-listings.jpg

Of course, the Yellow Shark spreadsheets supply lots of stuff not in the SFET, but I do like me some integrality in data sources!

Elves, Gnomes, Leprechauns and Little People’s Chowder and Marching Society Volunteer Fire Brigade and Ladies Auxiliary String Band

I cannot make any representation for the accuracy of any of this. It's a fascinating piece, of course. Dister was a famous French rock journalist (wiki) who spent ca. 1966-early 1968 in San Francisco, apparently spending a ton of time with the Dead, if the narratives are to be believed. I am sure it is perfectly well based in actual events. My sense is that he's more accurate on the early days (which I focus on here), when he was around, than later stuff, which he gleaned secondarily and in which I have found lots of mistakes on the particulars. Read it like you read Rock Scully's book (1996).

There are some new-to-me band names and such that are more up LIA's alley than mine. There are pre-GD bands and lots of little vignettes. It's a loose participant observation study. Fascinating.

This is an entry in the Reading Notes series, in which I just leave quotes and little annotations of stuff I have read. I make no representation of completeness, it's just whatever catches my eye. Aren't stochastics fun?!? As Ishmael said:

I promise nothing complete; because any human thing supposed to be complete, must for that very reason infallibly be faulty.

Reading Notes:

Dister, Alain. 2007. Grateful Dead: Une légende californienne. Paris: Le Castor Astral. ISBN 9782859207298, 254 pp.

Dister 2007, 22: Jerry’s “beau-père” was Wally Matusiewicz ... was that Ruth’s husband? Says he taught Jerry the rudiments of the guitar, don’t remember that elsewhere. “Wally was not a drinker, but he didn’t disdain the good Lord’s herb, which he considered less dangerous than alcohol.” #family, #Wally Matusiewicz, #Ruth Garcia

Dister 2007, 22: his teacher at the California School of Fine Arts was named Wally Hedrick, who was close to the Beat poets. (?), #Wally Hedrick, #Beats

Dister 2007, 24: after taking a joyride, he was offered a choice between prison and the Army. #Army

Dister 2007, 24: his Army drill sergeant “initiated him in the delicate art of finger picking on an acoustic guitar”. “Certain of his comrades were part of the Kingston Trio” (?) #acoustic, #folk

Dister 2007, 24: before the joyride and the military, Jerry “briefly took part in a jazzy group, The Chords, in the little Northern California town where his mother placed him” #pre-GD

Dister 2007, p. 27: Robert Burns, dit Hunter, born June 23, 1941 in San Luis Obispo. #Robert Hunter

Dister 2007 p. 36: “One can get nothing from the banjo if one does not have an innate taste for a job well done” ... JG as workaholic. “The rest, love, family, hanging out with friends, and the corresponding substances, those were always a sacré foutoir, the uncontrollable part of his existence” ... suggests that music was the one thing Jerry could really exercise some control over. #workaholism, #drugs

Dister 2007, p. 44: ca. 1963, while married to Sara and working at Morgan’s, in a band as follows. Garcia on banjo. Hunter on guitar. NB NRPS parallel: “Hunter was the first victim [of Garcia’s expectation of virtuosity]: he was thanked and thrown out of the group ... An enthusiastic player but with little talent, he gave way to Eric Thompson.” Also Pigpen, Kreutzmann. Name of the band? “Elves, Gnomes, Leprechauns and Little People’s Chowder and Marching Society Volunteer Fire Brigade and Ladies Auxiliary String Band” ... became Black Mountain Boys. #pre-GD, #Eric Thompson, #Bill Kreutzmann, #Pigpen

Dister 2007, 44: autumn 1963, Garcia and Hunter are in the Badwater Valley Boys and meet Bill Monroe at the Ash Grove in Los Angeles. Implies that this was before 11/22/63, JFK assassination. #bluegrass, #Ash Grove

Dister 2007, 44: Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions gig played the Tangent on 1/25/64. #pre-GD

Dister 2007, p. 61: after Frenchy’s, they spent three nights in a row at a Broadway strip joint, Pierre’s, autumn 1965. #pre-GD

Dister 2007, 66: had to change from Warlocks because there were bands by this name in England, Florida, Texas (including future members of ZZ TOP) and a NY-based quartet comprising Lou Reed, John Cale, Sterling Morrison and Mo Tucker, the future Velvet Underground. #pre-GD

Dister 2007, 74: GD in LA from February-May 1966 #GD

Dister 2007, p. 78: Olompali ca. June 1966. #Olompali

Dister 2007, 90: “Jamming together, or sitting in with each other’s bands, is what fundamentally distinguished San Francisco’s music scene from LA’s.” #collective improvisation

Dister 2007, p. 91: Bay Area rockers grew out of the folk scene, especially in Berkeley and Palo Alto. “Ces habitués des hootenannies sont également rompus à l’exercise de la jam-session” #collective improvisation, i.e., #jam

JGMF: The hoot and the open jam session spontaneously evolved in many different contexts. Multiple discovery is common in science (wiki), biologists see tons of convergent evolution (wiki), and even some anthropologists talk about cultural universals (Brown 1991). Anything that has this quality of coming up again and again in the human condition is, in brief, probably really important. And playing music together is one of these kinds of things, really down to the root of our natures. I am talking shelter, warmth, maybe some food and drink, some good old goddamned human company. Get a room for the sex if you can, but the drugs and rock 'n roll are never far from the fire, and that's true for white folks in Appalachia and black folks in the Mississippi delta. Beat a drum, pluck a string, sing a little. In the American context, hollers, Gospels-spirituals, blues, jazz, soul, R&B, funk, and any other "black music" you can think of, whether South, North, Midwest, Great Migration, or wherever, has its improvisational tradition, and this is no less true of your old-timey, folk, Gospels-spirituals, bluegrass, country, rockabilly, rock or heavy metal. It's a people thing, painted in the riotous colors of every other kind of earthly variation.

Dister 2007, p. 103: GD were evicted from Olompali and refuged at Camp Lagunitas in ca. August 1966. Moved to 710 Ashbury in September 1966. #Olompali, #Camp Lagunitas, #houses

Dister 2007, 126-127: story of stealing the equipment from Monterey Pop. P. 127 equipment (le matos) “duly returned eight days later [6/26/67], after having been put to use during a free concert in the Panhandle, a concert in which both Eric Burdon and Jimi Hendrix participated (but where are the tapes?)”

JGMF: I list 6/21/67 at the Polo Grounds (no source, not in Deadlists) and 6/24 at El Camino Park in Palo Alto (http://rockprosopography101.blogspot.com/2009/07/june-24-1967-el-camino-park-palo-alto.html, last consulted 3/28/2011), but nothing from the Panhandle.

Dister 2007, 134: the 10/2/67 bust and subsequent police harassment “ended the [MG-JG] dream of living in the middle of the cauldron” of 710 Ashbury, with the baby and all that, living in the attic. “They would first move near the Palace of the Legion of Honor, not far from the Presidio where Jerry did his brief military service. A little later, they’d cross the Golden Gate Bridge for Larkspur bungalow rented out by John Cipollina’s father.” MG in Greenfield says they lived there six months. #houses

Dister 2007, 141. This is interesting about early GD musical interactions. “Early in November 1967, Pigpen (or maybe Garcia) allows me to accompany him into the recording studio.” Anthem of the Sun ... “The little studio is somewhere downtown. Everyone’s there, squeezed around the console. Garcia’s listening to live tapes, pushing buttons, switching from one solo to another, juggling the mix, barely taking the time to the others what he had in mind. Weir s’emporte, he’s like that, rock ‘n roll energy, shooting nasty looks when he didn’t agree. The exchanges are pretty sharp, one could think that these guys aren’t on the same wavelength, that the group is at risk of imploding at any moment. Several alternative musical conceptions, as many different ways of engaging them ...” #Bob Weir 

JGMF that's a cool little piece of color right there.

Dister 2007, p. 143. Says that TC came into the GD at the time they were working on Anthem ... it comes into the narrative before a discussion of November 1967 ... #Tom Constanten

Dister 2007, 146: first live Dark Star was 12/xx/67.

Dister 2007, 147: Ramrod, first roadie, arrives late December 1967. Rex Jackson came next?

Dister 2007, 150-151. Description of a February 1968 gig at San Quentin. He says “I believe that the day of the concert, or the day before, they found Neal’s body on the side of a railroad track somewhere just outside of San Miguel de Allende, Mexico.” That was February 4, 1968. Later below, he says that “Phil Lesh had stayed in Oregon after a series of concerts in Portland and in the colleges and universities in that neck of the woods. So Bob Weir played bass.” I think he is conflating some stuff here. The correct date, based on contemporary ex post reports (the best kind of data) clearly confirm Thursday, 2/15/68 as the date of this event (UPI 1968; Torgerson 1968; see also Hannan 2009 SQ LLD post).

Contrasts 5/8/69 People's Park with 5/7/69 GGP show. "A distillation of the ending Sixties: a few show in Golden Gate Park, with Bear at the audio console, while ten miles away as the crow flies, tear gas is still sticking to the trees on the Berkeley campus" (Dister 2007, 158). #jerry and the Jeffersons