Thee Image and The Miami Rock Scene, March 1968-April 1969

The recent discovery of some "lost" Grateful Dead gigs at Thee Image in Miami on April 12-13-14, 1968, springing from an AP Wire Service story about an Easter Sunday "Love-In" at Greynolds Park in North Miami Beach (right, from the Colorado Springs Gazette of April 15, 1968), pointed out the paucity of prosopographical analysis of Thee Image and the psychedelic rock scene in Miami in the late 1960s. I am attempting to rectify the gap with this post.


Overview
Thee Image was Miami's biggest and best known psychedelic rock club, even though it was only open for about 13 months. It was located in a former 32-lane bowling alley at 18330 Collins Avenue, just North of Miami in Sunny Isles Beach. It was principally operated by a band from Tampa, FL, originally called The Motions, who had changed their name to Blues Image in an homage to The Blues Project. Blues Image were reputedly hip Florida's best live band, with twin drummers and a funky, swinging sound. Besides helping operate the club, they were the house band and apparently played just about every weekend there, whether or not they appeared on the bill.

Thee Image opened on March 15, 1968 with The Mothers of Invention, and the last gig that I can find was April 26, 1969 with Ten Years After. The club had three stages and multiple rooms, along with a wall of Ampeg speakers, so it wasn't just a converted building. The club seems to be remembered fondly by performers and fans, but there is very little in the way of photographs or live tapes, and only a few posters circulate.

Visiting bands were impressed with the Blues Image, but Frank Zappa suggested that they would have to go to New York or Los Angeles to make it, and Eric Burdon invited them to Los Angeles, so in Spring 1969 they closed Thee Image and moved to Los Angeles. They briefly backed Burdon and went on to some success with the hit single "Ride Captain Ride" in 1970.

Background
The one really interesting source on the late 1960s Florida rock scene was a multi-page site by one GL Sullivan, full of fascinatingly detailed information including detailed line drawings. This site is no longer accessible on the web, so while I will quote from it liberally, any information on links to his material would be very welcome.

The South was slow to open itself to psychedelic rock, not due to lack of interest from young people, but due to the more conservative nature of the region and police hostility to long hair, drug use and draft resisters.  Miami, while very much part of the South, was also primarily a resort town and a destination for many people from the Northeast, and it had the relaxed informality of most seaside communities. While not necessarily hippie friendly, and while not yet quite Margaritaville, it was less conservative than other port cities in the South, so its not surprising that Miami was one of the first places in the South to attract a critical mass of hippies.

The World, Biscayne Blvd at NE 142nd Street
According to Sullivan

Previously in South Florida, before The World had opened in 1967, the only concert venues had been Code One and Tiger's Den (Masters) in Ft. Lauderdale and The Place
in North Miami. The World, sponsored by radio station WQAM and hosted by DJ Rick Shaw, was built in an old National Guard Armory hanger building off of Biscayne Blvd.
at NE 142nd St.  Admission was $1.75. 

It was total Psychedelia. There were 5 or 6 stages high up over the dance floor.   Black lights, strobe lights and oil/slide light shows were everywhere.   The house band was The Kollektion, a Super Group made up of members of the best local bands in South Florida, such as the Mor-Loks, the Shaggs, Sounds Unlimited and Dr. T & the Undertakers. 

Several bands would play every Wed., Fri. & Sat. nights, with a host of national acts, such as:  Spirit, Spencer Davis Group, Iron Butterfly, Mitch Ryder, Wilson Pickett, Moby Grape and Wayne Cochran.  Today, the building is a warehouse.

I only have a few performance dates for The World:

• May 3-4, 1968 Iron Butterfly/The Seven Of Us/Echo
• May 10-11, 1968 Clear Light/Blues Image/Bangles

Based on the bands mentioned by Sullivan, the venue probably did not last beyond the middle of 1968. As the rock market evolved, Miami hippies first needed a cooler place, which they found at Thee Experience, and then a bigger place and The Blues Image helped put together Thee Image. Sullivan:

The World had started to become too big and many of the local "hippies"  needed a smaller, cooler, hipper more private place to hang.  Soon, Thee Experience opened up a few blocks down the road, in a biker bar. The better San Francisco and West coast bands were playing there, instead of The World. 

Then, Thee Experience had booked the Mothers of Invention to appear.  The club was too small, so they found an old 32 Lane Bowling Alley on Collins Ave. and opened up Thee Image.  The Mothers of Invention opened thee Image on March 15/16, 1968 and the rest is history.   

Thee Image was the ultimate experience.  There were 3 stages with black lights and day glow paint everywhere.  A shop sold all your psychedelic needs.  And, of course there was the Meditation Room...   The house band was the Blues Image.   It was open Fri., Sat., & Sun. nights, with the admission price between $2 and$3, depending on who was performing. The  list of famous bands that performed there was endless, including: 
the Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Cream, Loving Spoonful, the Velvet Underground, Country Joe & the Fish, Big Brother & the Holding Company, The Yardbirds, TheTroggs, Procol Harum, Ten Years After, The Electric Flag, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, James Cotton Blues Band (James jammed with the Blues Image until the Sun came up), Cactus,
Elvin Bishop Blues Band, Savoy Brown and the US premiere of Magical Mystery Tour... 

Often, the band would put on a free concert Sunday afternoon at Greynolds Park.  Today,  the building is a  Publix  supermarket...

As near as I can tell, the operator of the initial, smaller Thee Experience club was one Marshall Brevetz. Brevetz was also involved with the Blues Image in the operation of Thee Image as well. Its hard to be certain what role he played, but it seems that Brevetz was more of a manager and booking agent, and Blues Image were more involved in the daily operation of the club.

I have no idea which "West Coast" bands played Thee Experience, and I would very much like to know.

Correspondent Ryan sent in a scan of the poster for the first concert at Thee Image, The Mothers of Invention on March 15-16, 1968

Rock Band Performances, Miami, FL March 1968-April 1969
It is reasonable to presume that Thee Image was open every weekend, with Blues Image and/or regional bands, but these are the dates I have been able to uncover. Anyone with additional information or memories (real or imagined) is encouraged to Comment or email me.

March 15-16, 1968  Thee Image, Miami, FL Mothers of Invention/Blues Image

March 23, 1968  Thee Image, Miami, FL Lovin Spoonful/The Bangles/The Kollection/Blues Image
Note that The Kollection were the house band at the competing club The World.

April 5-6-7, 1968  Thee Image, Miami, FL Country Joe and The Fish
There is a poster for the week of April 5-14.

April 8-9-10, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL Yardbirds/Blues Image/The Kollection/The Bangles
This was a rare Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday billing for the Jimmy Page-era Yardbirds.

April 11, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL Cream/Blues Image
As numerous Commenters have observed, Cream played a surprise show at Thee Image on this date, and apparently rattled the walls.

April 12-13-14, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL Grateful Dead
April 14, 1968    Greynolds Park, Miami, FL Grateful Dead/Blues Image
I have discussed these shows at length elsewhere.

April 19-20-21, 1968  Thee Image, Miami, FL Grateful Dead/Blues Image

May 3-4, 1968 The World, Miami, FL Iron Butterfly/The Seven Of Us/Echo

May 10-11, 1968 The World, Miami, FL Clear Light/Blues Image/Bangles
May 10-11, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL Procol Harum/Fantasy/The Kollection
Note that the two "House Bands," The Blues Image and The Kollection, are playing at their "opposite" clubs this weekend, a sign that the bands and promoters were cooperating.

May 18-19, 1968 Gulfstream Park, Hallandale, FL Miami Pop Festival
Jimi Hendrix Experience/Mothers of Invention/Blue Cheer/Crazy World of Arthur Brown/John Lee Hooker/The Crowd/The Bangals
Marshall Brevetz and Michael Lang, the owner of Coconut Grove's first head shop, put together the Miami Pop Festival at a horse racing track (Gulfstream Park) in nearby Hallandale. Criteria Studios in Miami helped put the sound system together, as they had for Thee Image. The show was a financial disaster, mainly due to bad weather, and the second day was canceled altogether. Hendrix, Zappa and many other unoccupied musicians spent the day jamming in a bar. Lang went on to organize Woodstock.

May 25, 1968 Dinner Key Auditorium, Coconut Grove, FL Vanilla Fudge/Ojus Philharmonic
Jim Morrison’s notorious exposure incident took place here in 1969.

June 7-8, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL Vanilla Fudge/Fantasy

>July 2-7, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL Fleetwood Mac
Fleetwood Mac was booked, but canceled. They hung out in San Francisco this week.

July 14, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL Blood, Sweat & Tears/Blues Image
David Clayton-Thomas had already joined, as founder Al Kooper had recently left.

“Summer 68”  Thee Image, Miami, FL Spirit/NRBQ
“Summer 68” Thee Image, Miami, FL Amboy Dukes/NRBQ/Fantasy
“Summer 68” Thee Image, Miami, FL Canned Heat/NRBQ/Blues Image

September 20, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL Chambers Brothers

October 5, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL NRBQ/Blues Image/Fantasy

October 11, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL Blue Cheer

October 14, 1968  Thee Image, Miami, FL John Mayall
 From the Mayall Fan Club. Not confirmed—date approximate, venue assumed.

October 26, 1968 Sports Arena, Miami, FL Cream
Cream was the biggest live rock act in the country at the time. Numerous eyewitnesses say that Cream played Thee Image as well, although exactly when remains in dispute. It was probably considerably earlier than this show. Apparently, unscheduled shows were common at Thee Image, and often sold out by word of mouth. Jimi Hendrix Experience also apparently made a surprise appearance one night as well. This isn't as far-fetched as it might seem--touring bands often used Miami for a kind of time-out, sometimes when they were recording at Criteria Studios as well (update: April 11, 1968 seems like a plausible date, and a photo exists of Cream performing at Thee Image).

November 2, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL Canned Heat

November 15-16, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL Jeff Beck Group/NRBQ
According to various sources, Jimmy Page jams with the Jeff Beck Group on the first night. I really hope this is true, but of course Led Zeppelin plays Manchester the next night. I still prefer to believe its possible.

November 22-23, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL Steppenwolf
The date is from Billboard (Nov 16, 68). Possibly November 30 also.

November 24, 1968 Miami Beach Convention Hall, Miami, FL Jimi Hendrix Experience/Cat Mother and The All Night Newsboys
 
December ?, 1968  Thee Image, Miami, FL Iron Butterfly
According to Sullivan (who was there), guitarist Erik Brann collapsed on stage, and left in an ambulance.

December ?, 1968  Thee Image, Miami, FL Fever Tree/Fantasy

December 14, 1968  Thee Image, Miami, FL Amboy Dukes

December 21, 1968 Thee Image, Miami, FL Blues Image

December 28-30, 1968 Hollywood Pop Festival, Gulfstream Park, Miami, FL
I'm not certain who were the promoters behind this version of the Miami Pop Festival, but I believe Marshall Brevetz played a key role.

December 28, 1968: Jose Feliciano/Country Joe and The Fish/Buffy St. Marie/Chuck Berry/Infinite McCoys/Wayne Cochran/Dino Valente/Fleetwood Mac/Pacific Gas & Electric/Terry Reid
 
December 29-30, 1968:  Procol Harum/Three Dog Night/Steppenwolf/Marvin Gaye/Grateful Dead/Hugh Masakela/Flatt & Scruggs/Paul Butterfield Blues Band/Joni Mitchell/James Cotton Blues Band/Richie Havens/Box Tops/Iron Butterfly/The Turtles/Canned Heat/The Grass Roots/Junior Walker and The All-AStars/Sweetwater/Joe Tex/Ian & Sylvia/Charles Lloyd Quartet
 
February 14-15, 1969 Thee Image, Miami, FL Led Zeppelin/Fantasy
There are interesting descriptions of seeing Zep at Thee Image at the Zeppelin concert site.

February 21-22, 1969 Thee Image, Miami, FL John Mayall

March 1, 1969 Dinner Key Auditorium, Coconut Grove, FL The Doors
In a notorious incident, Thee Image promoters Ken and Jim Collier put on a Doors show at the large Dinner Key Auditorium, apparently a converted airplane hangar. Jim Morrison, quite out of it, reputedly exposes himself to an ugly crowd. Morrison is subsequently indicted for indecent exposure, and the effect is bad for both The Doors and rock music in the South. Since Thee Image were the promoters, contemporary Florida papers suggest that there is pressure on the venue to close.

April 25-26, 1969 Thee Image, Miami, FL Ten Years After
(Note: of the groups referred to by Sullivan above who are not otherwise on this list, the well-researched Big Brother, Electric Flag and Velvet Underground lists do not include Thee Image or Miami, although anything is possible. The Troggs toured America in Spring 1968, and Savoy Brown and Elvin Bishop toured America in early 1969, and Butterfield Blues Band toured constantly, although I cannot pin down exact dates).

(the building on the left is the "Sunny Isles Bowl," opened in 1962, and converted in 1968 to Thee Image. The postcard image is from an exceptional Led Zeppelin site, and includes a photo of Cream at Thee Image)

Appendices: The Blues Image and Marshall Brevitz

It is worth adding a few words about The Blues Image and Marshall Brevetz, some of the principal entities behind Thee Image.

Blues Image

Blues Image were a 6-piece R&B band called The Motions from Tampa, Florida, with two drummers, one of several acts around the country who started playing with two drummers, including the Dead in San Francisco and Clear Light in Los Angeles. There seems to be a good argument to make that The Motions were first in 1966, but in any case none of the bands seemed aware of each other. The Motions moved to Miami because they felt they had a better chance to make it. They changed their name, too, and Blues Image was an homage to Al Kooper and The Blues Project, at that time an ultra-hip band (and rightly so). The best known members of Blues Image today are guitarist Mike Pinera, still rocking it today, and drummer/percussionist Joe Lala, active for many years as a session man and best known for working with Stephen Stills Manassas (not to mention a lengthy acting career).

When Thee Image opened in March 1968, Blues Image were not only the house band, they ran the club. It appears that Blues Image played pretty much every weekend at Thee Image, whether or not they were on the poster. Visiting musicians were very impressed with the group, and both Frank Zappa and Eric Burdon told them that they had to move to New York or Los Angeles to make it. Since Zappa and Burdon were both based in Los Angeles, Blues Image moved to Los Angeles. They released a few albums, enjoyable blues rock for the most part, but clearly somewhat tamer than their impressive live reputation, a typical result of 60s record production.

After their self-titled debut album on Atco in 1969, Blues Image's second album in 1970 was called Open, and it featured the single "Ride, Captain, Ride" a worldwide monster hit. Mike Pinera had actually left the band he helped found by that time, but he went on to play with Iron Butterfly, Ramatam, New Cactus, Alice Cooper, Ted Nugent and many others. After a final album in 1971 (Red, White and Blues Image) the group broke up for good. 

Marshall Brevetz
Although the Blues Image ran Thee Image, one of the key participants was a promoter named Marshall Brevetz. He seems to have been a big mover and shaker on the Florida rock scene in 1968. He organized two outdoor concerts in 1968 at Gulfstream Park (May 18-19 and December 28-30) in Hallandale, FL. Hallandale is fairly near to Thee Image. The Dead played the Hollywood Pop Festival in December 1968 (Hollywood is a small town near Hallandale). Brevetz worked with future Woodstock promoter Michael Lang on these concerts.

Brevetz, too, was looking for a larger stage than Miami could offer at the time, and he moved with The Blues Image to Los Angeles in April 1969. With the house band and staff gone, Thee Image closed. Brevetz opened a hip Hollywood (California) nightclub called Thee Experience, at 7551 Sunset Boulevard (between Stanley and Curson), with the name a shout out to the prior club. Blues Image initially were the house band at Thee Experience, until they were rapidly snapped up by Atco, just as Zappa and Burdon had predicted (Blues Image apparently backed Eric Burdon for a tour as well, in mid-1969).

In 1970, Thee Experience closed, and Brevetz replaced it with a venue called Thee Club, with his signature "Thee" intact. Thee Club was somewhat ahead of its time, an upscale restaurant and rock club, but the rock market was not ready for it. Still, Brevetz opened Thee Club with an appropriate bang, bringing in the acoustic Grateful Dead to open the venue on August 28, 1970.

Thee Club did not last long either, however, and Brevetz moved on to artist management, where his primary client was Bobby Womack. Womack was successful as a performer, producer and writer in the 1970s, but Brevitz died in 1986, and his intriguing career was cut short.

(update: a very interesting Forum thread mostly populated by Miami folks has some very interesting memories about Thee Image, and is well worth a look)

The Psychedelic Supermarket, Boston, MA 1967-68 Performance List (Work In Progress)

Boston, Massachusets in the late 1960s had a thriving rock scene, which was not surprising for a major Northeastern city with numerous colleges in the city itself and the nearby suburbs. However, while there are various overviews of the Boston scene available on the web, I know of no complete and accurate chronology of rock shows in the Boston area available in print or on the Web. As a result, performances for many groups have fallen under the radar.

While the famous Boston Tea Party is fairly well represented on the Web, The Psychedelic Supermarket, an obscure and unloved venue on Kenmore Square, remains shrouded in obscurity. There are a variety of impressionistic memories, but this post is an attempt to collect the available information about performances at Boston's Psychedelic Supermarket. This is a work in progress, with a considerable number of gaps, but it is the only attempt I know of to accumulate all the performance dates at the venue. There is considerably more information to be uncovered, but I am hoping to use this post as a starting point.

The Venue
The street address of the Psychedelic Supermarket was 590 Commonwealth Avenue, but actually the venue was in an alley behind Commonwealth Avenue, near Kenmore Square and backing onto Boston University. The "street address" made it easier to find. The venue was a converted parking garage, with acoustic qualities to match, and it was not remembered fondly by bands or patrons. Supermarket Promoter George Popadopolis had run a Boston coffee house called The Unicorn since the early 1960s, and by the mid-60s he was booking electric blues bands as well as folk music.

Boston's first and most famous psychedelic venue was the Boston Tea Party (at 53 Berkeley Street) and the second was The Crosstown Bus at 337 Washington Street in suburban Brighton. The Crosstown Bus ran afoul of the city and the police, however, apparently over licensing (the J. Geils Blues Band managed to get their equipment out just before the place was padlocked), just as the hottest band in the country had a booking there.

The Psychedelic Supermarket appears to have debuted with Cream from September 8-16, 1967. It appears that George Popadopolis seems to have hastily created this venue to facilitate Cream, in order (apparently) to cash in on the dates dropped by the hastily closed Crosstown Bus.  Memories of the club's debut suggest that it was not ready. It seems possible that a plan by Popadopolis to create a club was abruptly accelerated to cash in on the availability of Cream. Apparently, the venue was initially a parking garage during the day, and then the lower floor of the garage was converted to a concert facility for the evening. Eyewitnesses recall little more than cold concrete, no amenities and poor sound. There was some suggestion that an effort was made to make the venue more palatable throughout 1968, but it was never a comfortable facility.

The Unicorn, Popadopolis's other club was a coffee house with folk music on 815 Boylston Street (h/t The Funky Judge for the exact address). Now an Apple Store, it was near Boston University and Commonwealth Avenue, just across the Charles River from Cambridge and all its college students. As music evolved, some electric groups started to play The Unicorn as well. A Butterfield Blues Band performance from the Unicorn in 1966 has been widely circulated (for more about Popadopolis and the Cambridge folk scene, see the fine 1979 book Baby Let Me Follow You Down by Eric Von Schmidt and Jim Rooney). Thus Popadopolis's move into rock promotion, while sudden, was consistent with his prior businesses.

The Supermarket does not appear to have had much in the way of collectable or interesting handbills or posters, so the shows are somewhat lost to history. Some handbills are around from the 1967 era, but they seem based on blank format with an inserted photo and dates (a common practice at the time).

A veteran Boston commentator has unfond memories of the venue;

“The Psychedelic Supermarket (located where Kix and the Nickelodeon Cinema in Kenmore Square are now) was a blatant attempt by George Popadopolis to cash in on a trend. He had run the Unicorn, a Boston folk club, for some years before deciding to expand in early 1968. Seating of 300 was in the lower tier of a garage that was completely concrete, except for the stage. Cream played a memorable gig there in February '68 (sic—actually September 1967)not to mention Janis Joplin and the Holding Company. Stories of Popadopolis' financial finagling are a legend.. . groups would cancel contracts and leave because they would be paid less for long stands. The exposure was supposed to make up for the lesser pay!! One out of two bands would leave a gig after one set for various reasons and regular club-goers remember him raising ticket prices from $4.50 to $5.50 when he knew that a show was going to sell out.”

List of Known Performances at The Psychedelic Supermarket

Anyone with corrections, additions or new information, please Comment or email me. There are many blank spots in the schedule. Numerous local and regional bands acknowledge performing there, such as Tangerine Zoo or Crow (with a teenage Donna Summer as lead vocalist), but I have not been able to identify any dates for those groups. The Tom Swift Electric Band was apparently the "house band" and played many of the shows at the Supermarket as an opening act, but that too has been very difficult to pin down. I also do not know if the Supermarket was open only on weekends, like the Boston Tea Party, or all days of the week. I will be appreciative if anyone can comment on the general schedule of the place.

(Thanks to some useful correspondence, I have updated the list since the original post--new or changed dates are shown as added or updated)

September 10-16, 1967 Cream 
Cream was on their first American tour, and had just finished an exciting run at San Francisco's Fillmore. While they may not have played all seven nights, they played most of them, and by all accounts Clapton absolutely tore down the house.  They apparently played Brandeis University one night (Saturday September 9), and and some eyewitnesses allude to "six nights," so perhaps Cream played from Tuesday September 11 through Saturday September 16. In any case, although the club was not ready for prime time, it was a memorable event (updated).

A photo survives.

October 24-29, 1967  Chuck Berry
The Massachusets Institute of Technology in Cambridge has every surviving copy of its newspaper scanned into an archive, befitting the legacy of a top-flight Engineering school. The Tech is a fantastic resource for the Boston and Cambridge rock scene in the late 1960s. This set of shows was advertised in The Tech. The ad in The Tech (10.24.67) says “for benefit of Multiple Sclerosis.”

Its impossible to know how many shows were actually held at The Psychedelic Supermarket. Were there shows every night, or every weekend? Were there only shows when there was a headline act? I have never found a definitive answer to that question, particularly in the early days. 

October 31-November 13, 1967 Electric Flag/Blues Children/The Illuminations

The Electric Flag, Mike Bloomfield's newly minted "American Music Band," after debuting for two weekends at the Fillmore (some with Cream), played two full weeks at the Supermarket. A flyer survives, although I am not entirely certain about the dates. The engagement may have begun on Friday November 1. The J. Geils Blues Band, then a local group, may have opened some of the shows (updated).

November 15-16, 1967 The Yardbirds (CANCELED show)

November ?-, 1967 Procol Harum (updated)
 
November 24-25, 1967 Mothers of Invention

December 8-9, 1967 Grateful Dead
I have written about the Dead at the Supermarket elsewhere. There is an extant flyer, which has the same format as other flyers. Steve Grant's review of The Dead at the Pscyhedelic Supermarket in the Tuesday, December 12, 1967 edition of The Tech (Volume 87, issue 52, page 6).

December 29-30, 1967 Grateful Dead
It is an apocryphal Dead story that the Dead played Boston on December 30 and flew home to San Francisco the next day, expecting to jam with Quicksilver at Winterland on New Year's Eve. However, a potent batch of brownies--no doubt filled with chocolatey goodness--caused many  of the exhausted band members to fall asleep and miss the jam. Regardless of whether you believe the brownie story, it does confirm that the Dead were on the East Coast so I am inclined to believe they played Psychedelic Supermarket two weekends of December 1967.

January 5-6 1968 Moby Grape



January 12-13, 1968 Chuck Berry(added)

January ? 1968 The Fugs
An article in the February 23, 1968 edition of the MIT student newspaper (The Tech) mentions previous gigs at the Supermarket by Moby Grape, The Fugs, Spirit, Procol Harum and Electric Flag, but these could have been at any time from September 67 thru February 68. There is a circulating audience tape of The Fugs at The Psychedelic Supermarket from some time in 1968, so it is probably from one of these shows. Moby Grape was touring the East in January and February 1968 (updated).

Februrary 16-17, 1968 Colwell-Winfield Blues Band
The Colwell-Winfield Blues Band were a progressive blues band featuring two saxophones. The band released a 1968 album on Verve, and broke up in 1970. Horn men Colin Tilton (tenor sax) and Jack Schroer (alto) went on to become Van Morrison’s horn section during the Moondance period.

February 23-24, 1968 Big Brother and The Holding Company/Blood Sweat & Tears
Blood, Sweat & Tears, still featuring founding member Al Kooper, were touring in support of their recently released debut album. A well-recorded audience tape circulates of the band’s first night performance, the only known live tape of the Kooper-led B, S& T.

March 1-2, 1968 Charles Lloyd (added)

March 8-9, 1968 Country Joe and The Fish
The Friday night show (March 8) is reviewed in the Harvard Crimson (March 16, 1968), including an interview with Joe McDonald. Barry Melton is referred to as “lead guitarist Barry Nelson.”

On March 15, 1968, at 10:30 pm, Boston classical music station WBCN-fm begins broadcasting ‘underground’ rock on the overnight shift.  WBCN transforms the rock music scene in Boston and the Northeast, as fm rock stations did all over the country. The midnight-7am shift is handled by “The Woofuh Goofuh. ” The Woofuh Goofuh is Hallucinations lead singer Peter Wolf, who handles the overnight shift for the next year (unless he has a gig). He becomes an underground legend as a dj in Boston before he ever becomes famous as singer of The J. Geils Band in the 1970s.

March 15-16, 1968  Psychedelic Supermarket, Boston, MA Eden’s Children (updated)


March 22-23, 1968 Butterfield Blues Band
An audience tape circulates from March 23, featuring guitarist Elvin Bishop and saxophonist David Sanborn.

March ?, 1968  Mothers of Invention
According to the most informed Zappa chronologies, The Mothers played a weekend in March as well as the November, 1967 shows.

April 19-20, 1968 Tim Hardin (added)

May 10-18, 1968 First Annual Boston Pop Festival
This is mentioned in the “Making The Scene” column of The Tech. The “festival” was hosted by the Boston Arts Project, and the acts “include Colwell-Winfield Blues Band, Eden’s Children, Faith and others.”
>May 10, 1968  Listening/Hedge & Donna/Miss Lark/Freeborne
>May 11, 1968 3rd World Rasberry/Dave Morgan/Megan

May 24-25, 1968 Canned Heat (added)
Contributor Adam found an ad for these Canned Heat shows in the paper Boston After Dark.

June 3-6, 1968 Electric Flag (added)


June 25-29, 1968 Walk On Water (added)

July 25-26-27, 1968 The Fugs (added)

September 27-28, 1968 Traffic (added)

October 4-5, 1968 Colwell Winfield Blues Band
An enthusiastic review in The Tech (October 8, 1968) fails to say where the band was playing, but I am inferring it was at the Supermarket.

October 11-12, 1968 Blood, Sweat & Tears/Tom Swift Band
 The October 12 (Saturday) show is known from a review in The Tech (Oct 15 '68)), and the Friday night show was confirmed by Billboard magazine. The Tom Swift Electric Band featured guitarist Billy Squier (who had many hits in the 1980s) and keyboard player Barry Flast. The implication seems to be that The Tom Swift Electric Band was performing regularly at the Supermarket through much of its brief lifetime.

Billy Squier has said that The Tom Swift Electric Band was the "house band" at The Psychedelic Supermarket, and opened many shows there, including the Moody Blues and Steve Miller Band.  I don't know exactly when Squier's band became regular performers at the venue.

November 1-2, 1968  Moody Blues/Tom Swift Electric Band

There used to be a lengthy and amusing online description of seeing the Moody Blues at the Supermarket, but I can't find it any more.

November 8-9, 1968 Blue Cheer (added)
Blue Cheer had just completed a European tour. Guitarist Randy Holden had replaced Leigh Stephens just before the tour.

November 15-16, 1968 Sly And The Family Stone (added)

November 22-23, 1968  Psychedelic Supermarket, Boston, MA Procol Harum/The Spikes
 Reviewed in The Tech (12.6.68).

December 6-7, 1968 Steve Miller Band (added)

January 10-11, 1969 The Unicorn, Boston, MA Iron Butterfly
The Unicorn, also called The Unicorn Coffee House, took over the site of the Psychedelic Supermarket at 590 Commonwealth.  The Unicorn had been a smaller, folk-oriented venue in Cambridge that moved to the larger site. I'm not sure if the Unicorn in Cambridge was still open by this time, but since George Papadopolis owned both venues, this would have been a merger of sorts.

March 28-29, 1969 The Unicorn, Boston, MA Joni Mitchell/James Taylor (added)
An eyewitness in the Comments recalls Joni Mitchell being an hour late due to snow, but sounding all the better for it.

Nonetheless, other than the Iron Butterfly poster, I have seen little other evidence of the Unicorn as a post-1969 venue, so I think this was a late effort to lend some credibility to the venue that seems not to have succeeded. As the rock business got bigger after 1968, many small to medium sized venues faced great difficulties, and it is no surprise that a highly competitive market like Boston would have some casualties.

Aftermath
The building later became a movie theater (initially called the Nickelodeon), and was eventually torn down to provide a new science building for Boston University.

I am hoping that enough additional information will arise that I can significantly update this list (thanks to those who have already contributed additional dates and corrections).

Fillmore East April 26-27, 1968: Traffic/Blue Cheer/Iron Butterfly

(this post is part of a series cataloging every performance at the Fillmore East)

This was Traffic’s first American tour, which began on March 14 in San Francisco at The Fillmore. The group was originally a quartet, with Steve Winwood, Jim Capaldi, Chris Wood and Dave Mason.  However, the mercurial Mason quit and rejoined the group regularly, and he had apparently left the group prior to their American tour, which had begun in March. Traffic’s current album was Mr Fantasy (UA Dec 67).

Traffic was one of the first groups to emphasize overdubbing as a means of creating different sounds on different songs.  Winwood, Mason and Wood played numerous instruments, and clever use of the studio meant that Traffic songs could be anything from frothy pop ballads with flute and sitar to heavy rock with twin lead guitars and organ. Live, however, Traffic’s sound was very different, as it depended on Winwood’s versatile organ playing (including the bass pedals), and they were more like a typical (if excellent) British R&B combo. For whatever reasons, Dave Mason reappeared in New York and joined the group onstage for at least one of the four performances. He would rejoin the group for the recording of their next album.

Blue Cheer were an SF power trio, backed by LSD king Owsley Stanley, and named after a brand of his acid. Owsley bought the band tons of equipment (supposedly Blue Cheer had 12 Marshall Stacks, 6 each for bass and guitar), and they were famously loud.  Unlike other peace-and-love SF bands, Blue Cheer had a noisy, nasty sound and demeanor.  Their quasi-hit, a remake of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” is a precursor to Heavy Metal.  Their first album (Philips Mar 68) was called Vincebus Eruptum (the underground buzz at the time was that it was Latin for “Throw Up And Live“, although actually it meant nothing). Amazingly, their single got to number 14, and for many out in the hinterlands, it was a hint of something darker and wilder in the world.

Although Blue Cheer is fondly remembered for being ahead of their time as masters of sonic assault, even their fans concede that they weren’t particularly disciplined. This show would have been with the original trio, with Leigh Stephens on guitar, Dickie Petersen on bass and vocals, and Paul Whaley on drums.    

Iron Butterfly were originally from San Diego, and had relocated to Los Angeles in late 1966.  They were touring behind their first album Heavy (Atco Jan 68). However, the album had been recorded in late Summer 1967, and by the time Atco released the album, the band's lineup was somewhat different. Bassist Jerry Penrod had been replaced by Lee Dorman, and singer Darryl DeLoach had departed also, with vocals shared amongst the band. Erik Brann (sometimes spelled Braun) played guitar  along with Doug Ingle on organ and Ron Bushy on drums. According to an internet commentator, Iron Butterfly’s equipment had not yet arrived and they used Blue Cheer’s amps. At this point, the Butterfly were just another psychedelic group from California.

Next: May 3-4, 1968 Jefferson Airplane/Crazy World Of Arthur Brown