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| A poster for the Peanut Butter Conspiracy and the 90th Congress at the Boston Tea Party, July 14-15, 1967 (from the FB Boston Tea Party compilation) |
Boston Psychedelic Rock Concert Chronology 1967
The history of underground psychedelic rock in the 60s in Boston was different than in any other major American city. Broadly speaking, there were two main paths for most cities. The first, and most famous path, was the San Francisco one: dissatisfied long haired youth provides an audience for local bands influenced by jazz, BB King and Revolver, congregating in underused downtown venues in a fading part of town. Before anyone knew it, particularly in the West there would be a Fillmore or an Avalon (or the Crystal in Portland, the Family Dog in Denver, Vulcan Gas in Austin or Eagles Ballroom in Seattle), and even if the venues didn't persist, the audiences did. Bands like the Grateful Dead or Canned Heat would come through town and help create a new underground economy.
The other trend was the negative version of the first one. Some local promoters would try and book some long-haired bands, but it didn't lead to much. The cops might be against it, there wasn't a promising part of town, or the promoters didn't have it together. The Dead, or Canned Heat, or Iron Butterfly might have passed through, but to the extent they played those cities, they were grudgingly absorbed into the regular Civic Auditorium-type gigs, just like Top 40 bands or country stars. The only real exception to this dichotomy was New York City, whose history has to be dissected by Borough or Neighborhood, which you will find generally fall into the two main paradigms, but distributed throughout the city itself.
Boston rock had a different history. Cambridge, Massachusetts, just across the Charles River from Boston, was one of the principal birthplaces of the “Folk Boom” of the early 1960s. Fueled by students from the many colleges in Cambridge, students who were serious about music as art rather than just entertainment flocked to places like Club 47, at 47 Mt Auburn Street. Club 47 was originally a jazz club, but on Tuesday nights they had a sort of "hoot night," and in Fall '58 a Boston University student named Joan Baez showed up. Things happened. Cambridge and Greenwich Village were the twin anchors of a rising interest in folk music that wasn't just decontextualized re-tellings of old folk songs (it is notable that Joan Baez was from Palo Alto, and that the Kingston Trio got their start there, but that's another saga).
Boston and Cambridge was one of the first outposts for the stirrings of what would become "the counterculture." It wasn't just Joan Baez. The Jim Kweskin Jug Band introduced jug band music to America, and they would have been hugely influential even if they weren't important to Jerry Garcia's idea of how music should be performed--but they were, and he saw them in Berkeley in March, 1964. That wasn't all. Two Harvard Assistant Professors had shared experiments on something called "LSD-25" with students as early as 1962, and while Tim Leary wasn't Owsley, Cambridge and Boston weren't naive a few years later, unlike pretty much everywhere else.
When the Beatles and the British Invasion came in, New England jumped in with both feet, from Boston to Nantucket and in every suburb. Nearer the Charles River, however, the response was sophisticated, if no less enthusiastic. The Charles River Valley Boys, for example, played bluegrass versions of Beatles songs, a sort of second order joke that wouldn't have flown in a lot of towns. So on one hand, downtown Boston and Cambridge were absolutely ready for the rock explosion that would follow, as "folk-rock" followed the Beatles (via The Byrds, The Lovin' Spoonful and others) and the local bands who formed in their wake. Yet on the other hand, Boston's predisposition to the oncoming music revolution had some unexpected consequences.
In downtown Boston, there were plenty of venues, serving the student and faculty populations of all the colleges and universities. Sure, many of them mostly had theater and symphony productions, but they had no restrictions on having folk acts or other kind of music on off nights. Local Boston promoters had been booking "long-haired" folk acts since the early 60s, so booking black blues bands from Chicago or somewhat longer-haired musicians with pop hits was no problem. What that meant, paradoxically, was that the hot touring acts who played the West Coast ballrooms for hippie promoters--Butterfield Blues Band or Jefferson Airplane--were playing for better capitalized promoters in Boston as part of the regular entertainment scene. There were well-paying weekend gigs at college gyms, and Sunday nights when the Symphonies weren't using their halls.
So the "psychedelic" underground in Boston was really underground, not at all part of the record companies mainstream. All those bands were playing Boston, at colleges or other events, and Boston college students and local hippies were fully tuned in, but there was no Fillmore (or Chicago's Electric Ballroom, or Eagles like Seattle) that was one-stop shopping for the local hipsters. The Boston venues had entirely different arcs. Those arcs had begun with the Boston Tea Party in January, 1967. |
| 53 Berkeley Street in Boston, as it appeared in the 21st century. There is now a 7-11 on the ground floor. |
Boston Tea Party, 1967
The
Boston Tea Party, at 53 Berkeley Street, had opened on January 20, 1967.
Ray Riepen and David Hahn were the founding partners, supposedly
opening with a capitalization of a mere $850, and dependent on a lot of
volunteer labor. The site had previously been a synagogue, and then a
coffee shop called The Moondial. Riepen had come to Harvard Law School from Kansas City
for a Masters Program in Fall '66. The club was opened as an underground
concert venue, like the Fillmore. The legal capacity of the Boston Tea
Party was 550, and only increased to 720 in 1968 when they had added another fire
escape. Whether exceeded or not, that made it half the size of the
Fillmore. Thus no matter what, the Tea Party wasn't going to compete directly
with the local promoters booking shows at colleges, arenas and concert
halls.
The Boston Tea Party of 1967-68 is most remembered--on the web, at least--for being the home-away-from-home for the Velvet Underground. Scholarship on the Velvets is epic, and the pinnacle of it is Richie Unterburger's chronology White Light, White Heat. Without VU scholars, we would know surprisingly little about the Boston Tea Party. While VU were famous for the adage that "not many people bought their record, but everyone who did formed a band," it's important to remember that Boston Tea Party was an underground hipster joint, and not many people in Boston had heard the Velvet Underground. If more people had heard them, however, the band wouldn't have been any more popular. They weren't that kind of band.
A Boston Tea Party Facebook Group (Do You Remember The Boston Tea Party
1967-70) has produced a remarkable compilation of posters, flyers and
other ephemera from the beginning to the end of the venue (it can be
downloaded at the Facebook page). It's an amazing snapshot into the
past, and highly recommended. This post will take the Tea Party saga and wrap it into the larger story of the emerging Boston rock scene in the late 60s.
Boston Psychedelic Rock Status Report, July-December 1967
In the summer of 1967, there was a thriving rock concert industry in Boston, particularly near the Charles River and the major Universities. In contrast to other big cities, however, the most prominent concerts were at the college auditoriums and gyms. By 1967 standards, there was a large, sophisticated audience who that knew and liked folk, blues and jazz music along with the new psychedelic rock and roll.
At the same time, the little Boston Tea Party was thriving as an underground club. The Tea Party had built a solid core of bands that could play the club repeatedly: the Hallucinations, the Beacon Street Union, the Bagatelle, Lothar and The Hand People and others. Boston rock fans could decide to check out the psychedelic underground or bands that were popular on the radio. The hit bands played the colleges, and there was underground music at the Tea Party, and it was all pretty much in one area. Most cities had one or the other, but Boston seemed to have it all the pieces for something big to happen.
In my previous post, I reviewed Boston rock concerts in the first half of 1967, including the founding of the Boston Tea Party. In the second half of
1967, this trend would only continue. A competing underground club
would open, but the Tea Party would continue to thrive, and all the
colleges kept booking shows. This post will look at Boston rock concerts from July through December 1967.
Boston Rock Chronology, July-December 1967 (Boston Rock II)
The booming Boston Metro rock market was built around college students. The major colleges and universities in Boston, Cambridge and nearby suburbs provided a ready-made market for live rock music, and a market that did not require permission from their parents. The extensive transportation network of a big city also ensured that access to concerts was far less of a problem than it was in some places.
In the Summer, however, many of the college students were out of town. As a result, there were few promotions at local symphony halls and college gyms, featuring popular touring acts. The Boston Tea Party remained open, however, and it did not have to compete with the bigger halls. Richie Unterberger, in his exceptional Velvet Underground chronology White Light/White Heat, noted that some fans say that many people went to the Tea Party regardless of who was playing. Since the capacity of the Tea Party was only around 500, so it was an intimate place. In any case, if you liked live rock music, there wasn't much competition, either.
July 7-8, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA The Ragamuffins/Street Choir (Friday-Saturday)
The Ragamuffins and the Street Choir were presumably local or regional bands. I know nothing about either of them.
July 14-15, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA Peanut Butter Conspiracy/90th Congress (Friday-Saturday)
The Peanut Butter Conspiracy, from Los Angeles, are now mainly remembered for their dated name, but they were a popular group at the time. They would release two albums in 1967, and had a hit of sorts with “It’s a Happening Thing.” The band was promoted along the lines of the Jefferson Airplane, with folk-rock harmonies, female lead singer Barbara Robison and a dumb, clever name. Their Columbia debut album The Peanut Butter Conspiracy Is Spreading had been released in March. While the name of the band has not aged well, in fact they weren't bad.
The 90th Congress (besides being the US Legislative Body for 1967-68) was a band from Manchester, NH. They released one single in 1967 on Right Records, "The Sun Also Rises."
The Newport Folk Festival, in Newport, RI, was held on the weekend of July 14-15. While Folk Music had peaked, the Festival itself was a huge destination. Much of the potential live rock audience, even in Boston, would have been 75 miles southwards, in Newport.
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| 337 Washington Street, Brighton (in Brighton Center), site of the Crosstown Bus in 1967, as it appeared around 2011. |
July 14-15, 1967 Crosstown Bus, Brighton, MA: Lothar and The Hand People/New York Rock and Roll Ensemble/Mandrake Memorial/Pink Oyster (Friday-Saturday)
The Crosstown Bus was at 337 Washington Street in the Brighton neighborhood. The Crosstown Bus was the first underground rock club that was a direct competitor to the Boston Tea Party. Brighton had once been a town on its own, but in 1820 it had agreed to be annexed to the city of Boston. The club was on the third floor of the commercial Warren Hall building in Brighton Center, and probably wasn't any larger than the 500-capacity Tea Party. Warren Hall had been built in 1879. Apparently, in the photo above, the Crosstown Bus was on the left side of the building on the third floor, and possibly not even the whole floor.
I have found one eyewitness description of the club's brief history, about seeing the Doors. Steve Morse of Boston Magazine said “I slapped high-fives with crazed rock poet Jim Morrison of The Doors
as he zigzagged through a crowd at The Crosstown Bus in Brighton, where
hippie girls danced in go-go cages and tinfoil adorned the walls for a
psychedelic ambiance.” The mention of the "cages" suggests it was modeled on West Hollywood's Whiskey-A-Go-Go. Legendary as it was, however, the Whisky depended on a certain Sunset Strip ambiance that did not translate well to other cities. So the Crosstown Bus may have been an anachronism as soon as it was founded.
As for the opening weekend acts, the New York Rock and Roll Ensemble were conservatory-trained musicians who determined that there was more money in being in a rock group than a symphony. Keyboardist Michael Kamen would become a successful movie soundtrack composer some decades later. The group featured parts for oboe and cello, rare in a rock group. The Ensemble would release their first (of five) album on ATCO Records in 1968.
Mandrake Memorial were from Philadelphia, and were more or less the ‘house band’ at Philadelphia’s first psychedelic venue, The Trauma. The group would release the first of their three albums on Poppy Records (an MGM subsidiary) in 1968. At this time, the underground rock market was so nascent that popular local bands from other cities could play in another, since underground buzz was the only currency available (this pre-internet phenomenon would surface in the punk era a decade later).
Pink Oyster is unknown to me.
July 21-22, 1967 Crosstown Bus, Brighton, MA: Lothar and The Hand People (Friday-Saturday)
Lothar and The Hand People had been founded in Denver in 1965, but had migrated to New York sometime in 1966. Lothar was ostensibly the name of the Theremin that the band used, a sort of primitive synthesizer. Lothar and The Hand People would release some albums on Capitol starting in 1968. Thanks to "Lothar," the band was one of the first rock bands to tour and record with any kind of synthesizer. Lothar And The Hand People had already headlined four weekends at the Boston Tea Party (from March 17-18 '67 through June 30-July 1), so clearly the band had built some kind of local following.
July 21-22, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Free Spirits/The Shakers (Friday-Saturday)
The Free Spirits, formed in 1966, had been one of the first true "jazz-rock" hybrids in New York. They had two guitarists, including the great Larry Coryell, drummer Bob Moses and saxophonist Jim Pepper (guitarist Chip Baker and bassist Chris Hills completed the band). The Free Spirits released a very interesting-but-not-actually-good debut album on ABC Records, Out Of Sight And Sound, in February 1967, produced by no less than Blue Note's Rudy Van Gelder.
By July, Larry Coryell had already moved on to the groundbreaking Gary Burton Quartet, where Bob Moses would soon join him, so I don't really know who was in this lineup of the Free Spirits.
The Shakers had played the Boston Tea Party a few weeks earlier (June 30-July 1), but are otherwise unknown to me.
July 22, 1967 Back Bay Theater, Boston, MA: The Fugs (Saturday)The Fugs were an underground folk group from Greenwich Village, formed by poets Ed Sanders and Tuli Kupferberg in 1964. By 1966, they had released their first album on the tiny ESP-Disk label. It was full of subversive songs like "Kill For Peace." By 1967, The Fugs singers were supported by other (better) musicians. Apparently the band played a week at the Back Bay Theater, but I only know of this date because there was a tape (thanks @Bourgwick for finding this).
The Back Bay Theater was another aging venue available for rent by rock promoters, near all the colleges and public transport. The Back Bay, at 205 Massachusetts Avenue, opened on March 12, 1922 as a Loew’s State Theatre.
Designed as a Vaudeville auditorium, it showed movies on opening night,
and was primarily a movie theatre for most of its life. In 1963 the
venue changed its name to the Back Bay Theatre (it was briefly called
Donnelly Theatre). It seated about 3500 and primarily presented opera
and performers like Judy Garland. The building was torn down around
June, 1968.
July 28-29, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: The Paupers/Bagatelle (Friday-Saturday)
The Paupers were Toronto's leading psychedelic export. The group had been popular in Toronto since 1965, but by early '67 they had been signed to Verve Records and were managed by the high-powered Albert Grossman, who was also Bob Dylan's manager. Grossman had gotten the Paupers to open for Jefferson Airplane when they had played the Cafe Au-Go-Go in Greenwich Village in February of 1967. The Paupers great performances got attention because they were opening for the red-hot Airplane.
The Paupers were a quartet, featuring lead singer and rhythm guitarist Adam Mitchell, lead guitarist Chuck Beal, bassist Denny Gerrard and drummer Skip Prokop. Prokop and Mitchell were the main songwriters, and Gerrard's bass playing stood out. In mid-67, the Paupers had some underground status, but they only had released a few singles. Their debut album Magic People would not come out until November 1967, but the Paupers never lived up to their early underground buzz. Legend has it, however, that they were a tight, well-rehearsed group, which wasn't always the case with underground psychedelic bands in 1967. They probably sounded great at the Tea Party. Diane White of the Globe reviewed The Paupers (on Wednesday August 2, referring to the Saturday, July 29 show) and suggested that with Grossman's backing, they would be the Next Big Thing.
The Bagatelle featured Willie Alexander (formerly of The Lost). They would release an album in 1968 (11 PM Saturday, ABC Records)
August 4-5, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Peanut Butter Conspiracy/Bagatelle (Friday-Saturday)
The Peanut Butter Conspiracy returned to the Tea Party a few weeks after their debut (July 14-15, above). On one hand, this speaks well of the band's performance a few weeks earlier. It's also important to recognize, however, that there weren't many psychedelic bands touring around in the East Coast summer, and there weren't many places to play, either, so a repeat booking made sense for both the Conspiracy and the Tea Party.
August 4-5, 1967 Crosstown Boss, Brighton, MA: Lothar and The Hand People/The Street Choir (Friday-Saturday)
August 10-11, 1967 Crosstown Bus, Brighton, MA: The Doors/Ragamuffins (Thursday-Friday: two shows each night)
The Doors played the Crosstown Bus on a Thursday and a Friday. At the time, the Doors were still an "underground" band. The band's debut album had been released in January of 1967. "Light My Fire" was released as a single in April, and it would spend three weeks at #1 on the Billboard charts as this show happened (it was #1 from July 29 through August 12). So The Doors played Crosstown Bus at the exact moment when they were crossing over--appropriately--from underground to mainstream pop success. There were double shows each night, a unique event in the brief history of the venue. The Doors were probably booked in April, and the Bus found themselves with a very high profile booking by the time the shows actually happened.
On Saturday, August 12, the Doors were booked at the Forest Hills Tennis Stadium in Queens, which had a series of Saturday night concerts in the Summer called The Forest Hills Music Festival. The Doors were booked to open for Simon And Garfunkel. By the time the show happened, of course, the Doors could have headlined their own night.
August 11-12, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Velvet Underground/The Freeborne (Friday-Saturday)
In a perfect microcosm of the rock market in Boston, on the exact weekend that the Doors would break on through to the other side on the Crosstown Bus, the Velvet Underground were playing another weekend at the Boston Tea Party.
The Velvet Underground, by any standard, were an important, influential band. MGM/Verve had released the band's famous debut album The Velvet Underground and Nico
in March, 1967, even though the album had been finished by the end of 1966. Due to a lawsuit over an unauthorized cover photo, the
album was withdrawn and delayed until around June '67, undermining what
little commercial momentum the band might have had. The Velvets got no radio play, but at least by Summer curious fans could buy the album. In 1982, Brian Eno
famously said that while the album sold only 30,000 copies in its early
years, "everyone who bought one of those 30,000 copies started a band."
The Velvet Underground, despite their now-legendary status, were not really a popular group anywhere except Boston. Steve Nelson, later the house manager of The Tea Party booked the VU many times, and at one point became manager of the group. It's important to note, however, that if more people had heard the Velvets back in the 60s, almost none of them would have liked the band. The band was brilliant, but not the sort of brilliance that makes best-sellers. The group's counterintuitive insistence in allowing no R&B influences made the group sound strange, which was intentional, and the perfect setting for Lou Reed's dark tales.
Despite the paucity of record sales, the Velvet Underground has been one of the most researched bands ever (Richie Unterberger's White Light, White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day-By-Day is most highly recommended). Much of our admittedly limited information about the Boston Tea Party comes from the Velvet Underground saga.
In order to compete with the Doors at the Crosstown Bus, the Tea Party made sure that Andy Warhol was present, and announced that he would be filming. There is a preserved, unseen 33-minute color film called The Velvet Underground in Boston that may be from these shows (Unterberger explains the mystery in some detail). By August 1967, the Velvets were a quartet, as singer Nico had left the band. Since she had been sort of stapled onto the band in the first place, it didn't really harm the group's fundamental appeal.
Freeborne would release their only album Peak Impressions in 1968, on Monitor Records.
August 18-19, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Hallucinations/Ultimate Spinach (Friday-Saturday)
The Hallucinations had been one of the first bands to play the Boston Tea Party in early 1967. Singer Peter Wolf and drummer Stephen Jo Bladd would join up with the J. Geils Band later the next year and go on to fame and fortune, but for now they were another band trying to make it pay.
Ultimate Spinach was a newly-formed Boston psychedelic band, led by keyboard player/songwriter Ian Bruce-Douglas. Douglas was the main lead singer, too, with support from singer Barbara Hudson. Ultimate Spinach was apparently pretty good in person, and their debut album was released in January 1968 and critical reception has held up fairly well.
Unfortunately for the Spinach, however, MGM producer Alan Lorber decided to take a lesson from San Francisco, and decided that the "next big scene" was in Boston. Maybe he could have been right. But since he signed a number of Boston underground bands, and MGM made a huge fuss about "The Bosstown Sound," hippies nationwide were suspicious of the hype. Ultimate Spinach (along with Beacon Street Union and Orpheus) were written off as record company put-ups, and "The Bosstown Sound" bombed. Ultimate Spinach was far better known as a record company hype than for any music they made. The debacle of The Bosstown Sound haunted the record industry well into the 90s.
August 25-26, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Country Joe And The Fish (Friday-Saturday)
By late August, college students would have started returning to Boston. Country Joe and The Fish, one of San Francisco's biggest musical exports, had released their striking first album on Vanguard in May. Electric Music For The Mind and Body, unlike some psychedelic debuts, was a fully-realized album, and Country Joe and The Fish were a fine live band. At this time, there were very few underground venues outside of the West Coast for bands like Country Joe and The Fish. J. Klarfield reviewed them in the Boston Globe on Saturday August 26.
We know from the Brighton-Allston Rock Music History page that Eden's Children, Beacon Street Union and the Hallucinations, among others, played the Crosstown Bus. Logic tells us it was likely the end of August or early September, as we have no other evidence. Our only clue is that the last band was The Hallucinations. Peter Wolf recalls the band hustling its equipment out the back door while the sheriff was padlocking the front doors. The Bus was not in compliance with all sorts of codes, and was locked up, never to re-open, probably at the end of August.
September 1-2, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Catharsis/The Mushroom (Friday-Saturday)
Catharsis and The Mushroom are unknown to me. Catharsis had played the Tea Party back on February 3-4. This was Labor Day weekend, and it's notable that the underground rock scene was not yet mature enough to add the "extra weekend night" for Sunday. It was still a local scene, not specifically directed at students.
September 8-9, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Canned Heat/90th Congress (Friday-Saturday)
Canned Heat were from Los Angeles, and were another band who helped pioneer the psychedelic touring circuit. There's a tendency to take Canned Heat for granted now, but they were an important group for any number of reasons. Initially, the group featured some record collectors who wanted to keep jug band music alive by playing ancient blues tunes they were familiar with. Singer Bob "The Bear" Hite teamed up with Alan "Blind Owl" Wilson, who had many connections to the early 60s Cambridge folk scene. Wilson was a fine singer and harmonica player as well as a good guitarist. A few other Los Angeles musicians played in early configurations of the band. The name came from a 1928 Tommy Johnson song "Canned Heat Blues," about an alcoholic taken to drinking Sterno. Mostly, the little ensemble gigged in a few Southern California record stores and folk clubs.
By 1966, the band had "gone electric." Henry Vestine, ex-Mothers of Invention, had joined on lead guitar, Frank Cook on drums, and by early 1967 Canned Heat had added Larry "The Mole" Taylor on bass. The group had a unique style, transposing a boogie-woogie style into twin guitars and a bass, and creating the rock sub-genre of "boogie" music (aka "Chooglin'") more or less single-handedly. After some early efforts, the band recorded their debut for Liberty Records in Spring '67, and their self-titled album had been released in July 1967. They also teamed up with managers Skip Taylor and John Hartmann, who were ambitious and had big schemes. Canned Heat's management had no less of a plan than to open their own Fillmore-style venue in Los Angeles, called the Kaleidoscope. Their initial forays in 1967, however, had met with resistance.
Canned Heat was one of the first underground bands to really get out and go around the country, playing wherever they could, bringing their inimitable boogie to any place that would have them. Right after the Boston Tea Party show, Canned Heat would play two weeks (September 12-24) at the Cafe Au-Go-Go in Greenwich Village. At this time, Canned Heat's line-up would have been
Bob Hite-vocals
Henry Vestine-lead guitar
Alan Wilson-guitar, harmonica, vocals
Larry Taylor-bass
Frank Cook-drums
>September 8, 1967 Crosstown Bus, Brighton, MA: Cream-canceled
The Crosstown Bus booked another underground sensation for the weekend of September 8 and following, namely Cream. Cream had just played a breakthrough engagement at the Fillmore, and the word was out about them. At the time the Bus had booked the show, likely back in June, probably no one had heard of Cream and the bandwould have received few booking offers. Thus the tiny Crosstown Bus could have garnered the booking. By September, however, Cream were a big deal. Unfortunately, the Crosstown Bus had closed.
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| A photo of Cream at the Psychedelic Supermarket in Boston, September 1967. Photo by the girlfriend of the guitarist (Ken Melville) in the opening act |
September 10-16, 1967 Psychedelic Supermarket, Boston, MA: Cream (Sunday-Saturday)
"Underground" rock music was turning into a big thing, for those operators who had their ear to the ground. Cream had killed it in San Francisco, and was booked for Boston, but the Crosstown Bus had folded. Promoter George Popadopolis (sometimes spelled various ways) had run a popular folk club called The Unicorn since the early 60s. By the mid-60s, The Unicorn and other folk clubs were booking electric blues bands and the like. The "rock underground" had distinct links to folk music, in contrast to the kind of popular dance music that was often played on Top 40. So Popadopolis seemed to have heard that Cream was a success in San Francisco and had a week of open dates canceled in Boston. Papadopolis opened a new venue, just to accommodate Cream. The venue wasn't ready, but Boston was ready for Cream, and he wasn't going to wait.
The Psychedelic Supermarket was a converted parking garage, with grim acoustics to match. The official address was 590 Commonwealth Avenue, near Kenmore Square, but the actual location was in an alley backing on to Boston University. Since Papadopolis had run The Unicorn, he was a more experienced operator than the hippie-ish Tea Party team. Papadopolis apparently had been planning to convert the parking garage into a venue anyway, but he sped up his timetable to accommodate the Cream booking. The Psychedelic Supermarket had great bookings, but it's not remembered fondly by fans or patrons: the sound was lousy, the room uninviting, and Papadopolis had no reputation for generosity.
Lawrence Azrin, a former Boston disc jockey, has some biting reflections on the Psychedelic Supermarket
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] 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.Another Boston music fan has equally dour memories:
The club, well there wasn’t anything psychedelic about it and it had nothing in common with a supermarket. We paid probably something in the vicinity of $3 to get in. It was, in fact, the basement of an old manufacturing building, the type of building in New York that became popular for some of the first lofts in the ’60s and ’70s, which were large open areas converted into living spaces. It was a long room, all concrete, floor and pillars, with a stage at the far end, behind which was a plaster board wall that separated the club from the dressing room.
There were probably no more than about 200 people in the club. No chairs, we sat cross-legged on the floor not more than 20 feet from the stage slightly on the left hand side of it, opposite Jack Bruce and his Marshall rig. Cream came out dressed in flowered shirts, much like the fare you would find on King’s Road at Granny Takes A Trip in London (there was one in New York a little later on the upper East side), with tight jeans and moccasin-style boots with fringe. Clapton wearing the tallest with his pants tucked in.
There was nothing like Cream, however, despite the uninviting confines of the Psychedelic Supermarket. At the Fillmore, with the unexpected obligation to play two one-hour sets, and lacking any material, Cream had simply jammed. They jammed out the blues, Coltrane-style, with their Marshall Stax amplifiers turned up high (and Ginger Baker letting it rip), and San Francisco flipped out. Suddenly the template for live rock music was different, really different, and it didn't matter if you saw Cream at the beautiful old Fillmore or a concrete parking lot in Boston.
It's a little bit unclear how soon the Psychedelic Supermarket booked shows after Cream. There were no memorable posters, only occasional flyers, and Popadopolis didn't seem to spend much, if anything on ads. So we only have occasional sightings of Supermarket shows through 1969. Nonetheless, it seems that the venue was open regularly, possibly every weekend and often several nights a week. There are numerous references to bands having played the Psychedelic Supermarket with no corresponding listing or flyer, so we are missing a lot of events at the venue.
September 15-16, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Wildflower/The Bagatelle (Friday-Saturday)
The Wildflower were another band from San Francisco’s Fillmore scene. The band had actually been founded at the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland in late 1965. Guitarist Stephen Ehret was from suburban Belmont, CA (near the SF Aiport), and had been part of the folk scene with Peter Albin, Jerry Garcia and others. Ehret went electric at the same time his friends did, which is why the Wildflower played so many of the early underground gigs at places like the Matrix and the Avalon. Noted Beat poet Michael McClure was an English instructor at CCAC, and he wrote the lyrics for a few Wildflower songs.
In 1967, after a few changes, the Wildflower had an East Coast tour, when San Francisco bands were still a novelty. In 1966, The Wildflower had released a single on Mainstream Records, a Chicago label that had also signed Big Brother. They also had four tracks on a 1967 Mainstream "sampler" album called A Pot Of Flowers. After the Eastern tour, however, the Wildflower kind of ground to a halt. The band did not fully break up until 1968, but the '67 Eastern tour was more or less their high water mark. In 2008, the re-formed Wildflower released a cd of songs they had performed in the 60s, but never recorded.
September 22-23, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: The Mushroom/The Hallucinations (Friday-Saturday)
September 21-24, 1967 Savoy Theatre, Boston, MA: Velvet Underground (Thursday-Sunday)
One of the unique features of the Boston rock concert market was that there were numerous venues available for rent, all near the college-age audience and accessible by public transport. On top of that, those venues had been available to rent for many years, so the latest iteration--long-haired rock dudes playing loud electric music--was no threat to public order. In this case, the Velvet Underground put on a "Happening"--what today might be called a Multi-Media event--for three nights at an old Vaudeville house. These sorts of things didn't happen in other cities, but they happened all the time in 1967 Boston.
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| Not
your typical 60s Velvet Underground venue (Savoy Theater, 163 Tremont
St, Boston, now the Boston Opera House at 539 Washington--as restored) |
The Savoy Theater had been built in 1928 as a Vaudeville house and movie theater. Capacity was around 2600 and it had a complicated ownership history. The address was listed as 163 Tremont Street, although the current entrance is 539 Washington. In 1965, the theatre was re-named the Savoy Theater, and mostly showed movies (in the 70s, it became the Savoy I and II). After many more gyrations, the restored building became the Citizens Bank Opera House.
Velvet Underground showed there New York art-scene roots with this event. The idea was that the Velvets would play behind a light show, and then show the movie "The Happening," starring Anthony Quinn. Although the show was billed as starting on Friday, September 22, a review in that day's Globe indicates that there was a performance the night before (Thursday September 21), possibly mainly for reviewers. Richie Unterberger describes the event in detail. This sort of special event was Boston-only--other cities were not equipped for a downtown happening in an art-deco theater.
September 29-30, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Children of Paradise/Beacon Street Union (Friday-Saturday)Children Of Paradise are unknown to me.
The Beacon Street Union (per Wikipedia) was composed of four Boston University
students: singer John Lincoln Wright (September 23, 1947 - December 4,
2011), guitarist/singer Paul Tartachny, bassist/singer Wayne Ulaky,
keyboardist Robert Rhodes and drummer Richard Weisberg. With the
exception of a few rock standards, their diverse music was composed by
members of the band, primarily Wright and Ulaky.
In 1968, the
band's
label, MGM Records, would promote them as part of the so-called Bosstown
Sound
(along with the bands Ultimate Spinach and Orpheus), shepherded by the
record producer Alan Lorber.
Since the national "underground" was suspicious of any hip music promoted by "The Man," and thus the Boss-town bands would meet with little nationwide success. Their debut album, The Eyes of the Beacon Street Union, was released around April 1968. When the "Bosstown Sound" promotion bombed, the record industry was spooked for the next few decades. Whenever bands started to break out en masse from a city--such as Seattle in the early 90s--record companies would let journalists talk about such trends, rather than make a catchphrase in their ads, fearing a repeat of the Bosstown Sound debacle. The Beacon Street Union were well-established at the Tea Party, having played weekends in February, May and June.
October 6-7, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Canned Heat/Ultimate Spinach (Friday-Saturday)
Canned Heat and Ultimate Spinach were both returning shortly after their initial weekends (September 8-9 and August 18-19, respectively).
October 7, 1967 Back Bay Theatre, Boston, MA: Donovan/Janis Ian/Midnight String Quartet (Saturday two shows 7 and 10pm)
Scottish singer Donovan (b. Donovan Leitch 1946) was both a pop star and a rock star. He was hip, initially compared to Bob Dylan as a singer and writer, yet having huge psychedelic pop hits to his name. "Sunshine Superman" had reached #1 in 1966, followed by "Mellow Yellow," which made it to #2. By Fall '67, Donovan's fifth album had been released by Epic as a double-lp in April 1967, A Gift From A Flower To A Garden. His single "First There Is A Mountain" (the melody of which would become even more famous as an Allman Brothers theme) was released in August and had reached #11. So Donovan was a huge touring act. Also, it's worth noting that unlike many long-haired rock acts, this was a proverbial "date" show: you might not take a nice girl to the grungy Boston Tea Party to see some arty New York band, but girls liked Donovan, and the seats were reserved. There were two shows (7pm and 10pm), a sign that Donovan was a huge draw.
Despite the implication that Donovan was a pop lightweight, his music has held up far better over the decades than some of his contemporaries. His live band at these shows was probably the same one used on his 1968 double-album Donovan In Concert, which itself was recorded in September 1967. Donovan is a better guitar player than people realize, and he was ably supported by British jazz flautist Harold McNair and drummer Tony Carr (on the live album, the band was rounded out by pianist Loren Newkirk, bassist David Troncoso and John Carr on bongos, but I'm not sure if they were always part of his touring ensemble).
Janis Ian (b.1951) had written the hit folk song "Society's Child" in 1965 and released it in 1966. It had gone to #14, and #1 in some cities. In 1967, however, she was seen as a one-hit wonder folk singer. Verve had released her debut album earlier in 1967. Ian's career would sputter for a few years, before she re-appeared as a mature and successful singer-songwriter in the mid-70s.
The Midnight Quartet are unknown to me. It's possible they were a string section hired to support Donovan.
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| The Kresge Auditorium, at 48 Massachussetts Avenue on the MIT campus, built 1955 (photo ca 2017) |
October 7, 1967 Kresge Auditorium, MIT, Cambridge, MA: Ian & Sylvia (Saturday)
The Kresge Auditorium was a unique structure at 48 Massachussets Avenue, on the MIT campus. The concert hall seats 1266, and was opened in 1955. Ian & Sylvia were a popular folk duo, and while they weren't a rock act--although they would shortly become one--broadly speaking they appealed to the same college-age audience. Canadians Ian and Sylvia Tyson had scored a huge hit at home with Ian's song "Four Strong Winds" in 1964. In 1965, a San Francisco band called The We Five had a huge US hit with the Sylvia Tyson song "You Were On My Mind." Ian and Sylvia's career had been fairly successful in the mid-60s, but folk music was sounding a bit passe by '67. Their current album would have been Lovin' Sound on MGM. The next year, the Tysons would record a country-rock album in Nashville, one of the ensembles that started the migration to "country-rock."
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| The Tech (Tuesday Oct 10 '67) describes how a freshman MIT student saved the Ian & Sylvia concert |
An article in the Tuesday edition (Oct 10 '67) of The Tech, the MIT student newspaper, described Ian & Sylvia's dissatisfaction with the sound system. The Tysons were touring with an electric bassist and lead guitarist, beginning their evolution towards country rock. The PA system at the Auditorium was for public speaking, not music. Per The Tech, eager student engineer Alvin Sellers ('70) rushed to their aid. Clearly Sellers knew every rock musician on campus, and rapidly rounded of proper gear. The theme of clever MIT students solving amplification problems on the spot came up in The Tech more than once in 1967. It also tells a more serious story, however, about how the electrification of rock music was the province of the young, similar to how computers would befuddle older people some decades later.
October 13-14, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: The Luvs/The Grass Menagerie (Friday-Saturday)
The Luvs are unknown to me. The Grass Menagerie had played the Tea Party in June, but are otherwise unknown to me.
Phluph was a psychedelic band from Boston. They would release an album on MGM/Verve in 1968. It wasn't particularly well-received, but since they were on MGM, Phluph was lumped in with the Bosstown Sound debacle, and would not have been likely to get a fair hearing.
The Clouds were regulars at Boston Tea Party, but I don't know much about them. I do know that at one point they included singer Jo Baker, who would move to San Francisco by early 1970 and take over the lead vocal duties of the Elvin Bishop Group.
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| An ad for the Psychedelic Supermarket in The Tech (the MIT newspaper) from October 24, 1967 |
October 24-29, 1967 Psychedelic Supermarket, Boston, MA: Chuck Berry (Tuesday-Sunday)
The Psychedelic Supermarket advertised a week of Chuck Berry shows in The Tech. This booking was the first sign of the Supermarket that I have found since the Cream concerts in early September. While I think the Supermarket opened early to accommodate Cream, had they been dormant the entire time? I don't think so. But as to who else had been booked in late September and the rest of October. I can't find a trace.
The most cryptical part of the ad is the notation "for benefit of Multiple Sclerosis." I assure you, benefit or not, Chuck Berry got paid in cash for each show as soon as he pulled up in his Cadillac, as he always did. So why was the show a benefit? It was common for campus events to share any profits with a charity, but this wasn't on campus.
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Chuck Berry was a legend of course, and his blues guitar sounds made for a comfortable enough transition into the electric underground rock world. Berry's label, Mercury Records, was alert to that: at this time, his current album was Chuck Berry With The Miller Band Live At The Fillmore Auditorium, released in September 1967. Chuck never toured with a band, figuring--with good reason--than any and all rock bands could and should play Chuck Berry music. Thus the promoter of a Chuck Berry concert always hired a local band to back him, usually the opening act.
At the Fillmore in June (June 27-July 2 '67), the opening act backing Chuck had been a rising local act, the Steve Miller Blues Band. Mercury figured out that the Miller Band were going places, and included their names on the album. Thus the first released recording of the Steve Miller Band was with Chuck Berry, as their own album would not be released until mid-'68. Berry is a difficult character, but his musical ability had never been in question. Ably backed by the Miller Band, on the Fillmore album Berry is alternately bluesy, swinging and rocking. Chuck Berry could have easily taken the road to being a Fillmore-era guitar hero, but that was not who he chose to be.
October 27, 1967 Jordan Hall, Boston, MA: The Barbarians/The Hallucinations/The Cloud (Friday)
Jordan Hall, at 30 Gainsborough Street, was the 1,051-seat performance hall of The New England Conservatory, and was across the street from the Symphony Hall. It was regularly rented out for folk, blues or rock concerts. According to a brief article in The Tech (Oct 20 '67), the show is billed as “The surfacing of underground music scene in our town.”
The Barbarians, from Provincetown, RI, had been a famous New England garage band. They had a legendary hit "Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl" in 1965. They were also known as Moulty And The Barbarians, after their infamous one-handed drummer Victor "Moulty" Moulton (his other hand had a hook, really it did). By 1967, the Barbarians were about to fold up. Some members would move to San Francisco and form the group Black Pearl.
October 27, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: The Bagatelle/Sidewinders (Friday)
October 28, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: The Hallucinations/Sidewinders (Saturday)
The Sidewinders are unknown to me.
October 30, 1967 Psychedelic Supermarket, Boston, MA: Procol Harum (Monday)
The Psychedelic Supermarket had a one-night booking for Procol Harum, on their first American tour. This was surely an empty night on their trip, and for a UK band, however little money you made an off-night, it was more than not playing. The band was touring behind their classic debut album and single "A Whiter Shade Of Pale," with their classic lineup (Gary Brooker, Matthew Fisher, Robin Trower, BJ Wilson and bassist David Knights).
October 31-November 12, 1967 Psychedelic Supermarket, Boston, MA: Electric Flag/Blues Children/The Illuminations (Tuesday-Sunday)
Although Supermarket promoter George Papadopolis has a reputation for being a shady operator who didn't always treat his bands well (see this amazing Comment Thread--10 years long and still running--about the Supermarket, where everyone has a story about Papadopolis), he definitely had a knack for figuring out which bands were happening. Papadopolis was the first to book Jefferson Airplane in Boston, at his Unicorn folk club (in April of 1967). He had opened the Supermarket just to book Cream, and his timing was perfect. For his next major booking, he booked Mike Bloomfield's Electric Flag for two weeks.
Mike Bloomfield had been America's first sixties guitar hero with the Butterfield Blues Band. Back in 1966, they had torn up the Fillmore and everywhere else they played, inspiring a legion of guitar players when he led jams over twenty minutes on the classic "East-West." The mercurial Bloomfield had left Butter in early '67, fed up with management, and had moved to San Francisco. Their Bloomfield put together the Electric Flag, a group designed to play all kinds of American music: rock, blues, jazz, soul and even country. With seven or eight great musicians, they were versatile and experienced. The Electric Flag were underground legends before they had even released an album, which is how they came to headline two weeks at the Supermarket. Their Columbia debut album, A Long Time Comin', would not even be released until March 1968. The Flag had hardly played live, so they were an attraction solely on the buzz of Mike Bloomfield's new band.
At this time, the Electric Flag would have beenNick Gravenites-vocals, guitarThe Flag was notoriously inconsistent, but when they were firing on all cylinders, they really could play all kinds of American music really, really well. They must have nailed it at least one night out of a dozen. A tape survives of one these nights, supposedly a Grade Z collectors-only audience tape.
Mike Bloomfield-lead guitar
Peter Strazza-tenor sax
Herbie Rich-baritone sax, organ
Marcus Doubleday-trumpet
Barry Goldberg-piano, organ
Harvey Brooks-bass
Buddy Miles-drums, vocals
Blues Children and The Illuminations are unknown to me,
November 3-4, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: The Bagatelle/Mandrake Memorial (Friday-Saturday)
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| The Tech reported on the 1967 MIT Junior Prom on October 10 |
November 4, 1967 Back Bay Theater, Boston, MA: Lovin' Spoonful/Jerry Shane (Saturday 2-5pm). MIT Junior Prom
In
the 1960s, most colleges had formal dances of some kind, just like high
schools. For the bigger schools, the featured bands had recording
contracts and were not just local nobodies. The geography of Boston and
Cambridge, however, meant that such campus events took place right in
town and had an impact on the live rock market itself. The weekend of November 3-4 had the MIT "Junior Prom," which featured a formal dance
on Friday night at the Sheraton Boston Grand Ballroom, an outdoor event on Saturday morning, a Boston concert
on Saturday afternoon and a dance and "beer bash" on Saturday night. The
assumption was that the largely male MIT student body would invite
their dates, likely from one of the nearby 'Seven Sisters" women's
colleges (Wellesley, Vassar, Smith, Mt. Holyoke, etc), to the city for
the weekend.
At this time, the Lovin’ Spoonful were a hugely popular group. The Lovin' Spoonful's current single was "Six O'Clock" which would reach #12. This was just the latest in a long string of hugely popular, catchy hits starting in late 1965: "Do You Believe In Magic," (reached #9),"You Didn't Have To Be So Nice," (#10) "Daydream," (#2) "Summer In The City" (#1), "Nashville Cats" (#8) and "Darling, Be Home Soon" (#15) still resonate today. The Spoonful were essential in making folk-rock music popular and commercially viable. The quartet was also a good live band, not true of many 60s pop artists. The Back Bay Theater was one of the larger available rock venues, but once again this was a show for MIT students to take their dates, and the Spoonful was appealing without being too disreputable. Jerry Shane was a comedian.
November 4, 1967 DuPont Gym, MIT, Cambridge, MA: Chuck Berry/Ill Wind (Saturday) MIT Junior Prom
On Saturday night, there was a rock dance in the MIT gym. The formal dance had been held the night before. The Tech carefully reported
Chuck Berry and Ill Wind will be in DuPont at 8 for the beer blast; entrance will be through the back door of the athletic center only. No liquor may be brought, although refreshments will be available in large quantities. Dress will be informal, but no one wearing a sweatshirt will be admitted.
I assume that Berry was backed by the opening act, Ill Wind. The Ill Wind had been formed by MIT students. Their lead guitarist, Ken Frankel, had played mandolin in a bluegrass group (The Wildwood Boys) with Jerry Garcia in summer 1963. The group would release an album called Flashes on ABC in 1968. Ken Frankel is thus one of the few musicians to have played on stage with both Jerry Garcia and Chuck Berry (Steve Miller and Loading Zone drummer George Marsh are the others I know of).
The Tech reported that the Junior Prom was a huge success. 1100 couples bought tickets for Lovin Spoonful at the Back Bay (capacity 2600), and 1200 couples bought tickets for the Saturday night beer bash. The Junior Prom Queen was Miss Linda Kilburn of Wellesley. The Spoonful complained about the sound system, but eager MIT engineers once again saved the day, per The Tech.
November 10-11, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Sun Ra And His Myth Science Arkestra/The Hallucinations (Friday-Saturday)
Sun Ra (born Herman "Sonny" Blount 1915-1993) is too much of a story for any blog post. Educated in Birmingham, AL, Sun Ra had a successful career as an arranger for big band leader Fletcher Henderson in Chicago in the 1940s. Ra discovered Afro-Futurism, and his music transformed as well, and he formed his own band. At times the Arkestra had over 20 members, including dancers and singers. Sun Ra and His Arkestra moved to New York City in 1961, where they lived communally and rehearsed constantly. The Arkestra is very hard to describe, but as a friend of mine told me in 1976, "imagine if the Duke Ellington Orchestra and The Grateful Dead were the same group." By 1967, regular appearances at Slug's Saloon in New York had made the Arkestra an undergound item all across the musical spectrum.
The Hallucinations were present to provide some regular order to the proceedings.
Jimmy Page and the Yardbirds were booked for two nights, but canceled. It is unclear who was at the Supermarket between the Electric Flag (booking ended November 12) and the Mothers (starting November 24), and I don't think the club was just closed. If anyone has any clues about which bands played the Supermarket during that period (or any time), please put them in the comments.
November 17-18, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Butter/Bo Grumpus/Salvation (Friday-Saturday)
Bo Grumpus was formed out of a duo called Two Guys From Boston (Eddie Mottau and Joe Hutchinson). They started performing ragtime-styled rock in Boston under the name The Bait Shop. They contacted their friend Felix Pappalardi, then in the process of producing Cream. Pappalardi moved the group to New York, where he got them a regular gig at Greenwich Village’s Café Wha. He also got the group a deal with Atco, but persuaded them to change their name to Bo Grumpus, based on a drawing by his artist wife Gail Collins. The band would released a Pappalardi-produced album on Atco in 1968. They would later change their name to Jolliver Arkansas and release another album on Bell in 1969.
Butter and Salvation are unknown to me.
November 23, 1967 Back Bay Theatre, Boston, MA: Beach Boys/Buffalo Springfield/Soul Survivors/Strawberry Alarm Clock/Pickle Brothers Beach Boys Fifth Annual Thanksgiving Tour (Thursday)
The Beach Boys had an annual "Thanksgiving Tour," supported by other popular acts. We now think about Buffalo Springfield as the springboard for the careers of Stephen Stills and Neil Young, but at the time the industry saw them as another teenybopper act. This 9-day tour was not at all on the Fillmore model. The bill played two or three shows a day, playing brief sets. Now, it would be surprising to have a rock concert on the Thursday of Thanskgiving, but it wasn't uncommon in the 60s.
The Beach Boys were a hugely popular touring and recording act, but even they knew that rock music was passing them by. The Beach Boys had scored a #1 hit with "Good Vibrations" in October, 1966, but rock music was moving from a singles market to an album market. Brian Wilson had been working on his Smile album, as a sort of answer to the Beatles' Sgt Pepper album, but it had been stalled. Instead, the Beach Boys had released the unsatisfying Smiley Smile album in September 1967. Critical reflection on the Beach Boys in recent decades has been pretty favorable, but in late '67 the rock underground dismissed the Beach Boys as an uncool teenybopper band.
On tour, the core Beach Boys' lineup was Mike Love, Carl Wilson (lead guitar), Al Jardine (guitar), Bruce Johnston (keyboards) and Dennis Wilson (drums), all singing their beautiful harmonies. Brian had long since left the road. For this tour, the Beach Boys also had Daryl Dragon on keyboards (later famous as "The Captain" with his partner Toni Tenille) and bassist Ron Brown. Per Keith Badman's exceptional Beach Boys' chronology, the band also recorded their performance at the Back Bay for their archives.
Buffalo Springfield, meanwhile, although they personally identified with the Fillmore scene and would have preferred to play a more underground venue, found themselves on a package tour playing brief sets. In June, the band had recently released the single "Bluebird" backed by "Mr Soul," both songs now classics. At the time, thought, it was just a modest hit. The band's new album Buffalo Springfield Again had just been released in October.
As a footnote, when Stephen Stills and Neil Young played Boston Gardens on June 26, 1976, Neil dedicated a song to those who saw Stills and Young at the Back Bay Theatre.
The Strawberry Alarm Clock were from Glendale, CA, and had released their hit "Incense and Peppermints in May 1967 (on Uni Records). It would reach #1 for one week. The band continued on for several years, and had occasional reunions, but never touched their initial high-water mark. As a peculiar footnote, Alarm Clock lead guitarist Ed King would join Lynyrd Skynyrd a few years later as their bass player.
The Soul Survivors were a soul trio from Philadelphia, produced by Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff. They had a big hit with "Expressway To Your Heart," released in 1967 and reaching #4 on the Billboard chart. The Pickle Brothers were a comedy duo.
November 24-25, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Ultimate Spinach/The Baul Singers & Dancers of Bengal (Friday-Saturday)
Ultimate Spinach returned to the Boston Tea Party for yet another weekend. Clearly they were developing an audience, and they were probably signed by Alan Lorber and MGM around this time.
The Baul Singers included the two odd looking gentlemen on the cover of Bob Dylan’s 1968 John Wesley Harding album.
November 24-25, 1967 Psychedelic Supermarket, Boston, MA: Mothers of Invention (Friday-Saturday)
Today, thanks to modern scholarship by Charles Ulrich and others, we have a good picture of Frank Zappa's complex activities. In November 1967, Zappa and the Mothers had finished recording Uncle Meat, and were mostly playing that sort of material live. Yet to fans, this was all unknown. The most recent Mothers Of Invention album was Absolutely Free!, which had been released back in April of 1967, and recorded well before that--several eons in Zappalogical terms. Zappa had released his solo album Lumpy Gravy on MGM in August 67, but few people had heard it.
The Mothers lineup would have been Ray Collins (vocals), Ian Underwood (alto sax and keyboards), Don Preston (keyboards), Bunk Gardner and Motorhead (saxophones), Don Preston (keyboards), Roy Estrada (bass and vocals), Jimmy Carl Black (drums and vocals) and either Artie Tripp or Billy Mundi (drums). Much of the material played by the Mothers, possibly almost all of it, would have had nothing to do with any of the three albums he had released. Still, Zappa was Zappa, and it didn't really matter--either you were overwhelmed or you found the Mothers annoying, and Frank was OK with either result.
December 1-2, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Kaleidoscope/Chain Reaction (Friday-Saturday)
By December, most of the colleges (and many surrounding high schools) would have been in finals week, so there were fewer rock shows around town. The forbidding New England weather in December would not have been any inducement, either. Since the Tea Party was more of an underground joint, however, they were less dependent on college students for attendance, and had a full schedule throughout the month.
The Kaleidoscope had been founded in Los Angeles in 1966. There was pretty much nothing like them, as they all but single-handedly invented "World Music" a few decades before anyone was ready for it. Their debut album Side Trips was released on Epic in June, 1967. The band members were
David Lindley-guitar, harp guitar, violin, banjo, mandolin, vocals
Solomon Feldthouse-saz, bouzoukie, violin, more, vocals
Chester Crill-organ, piano, harmonica, violin
Chris Darrow-bass, violin
John Vidican-drums
The Kaleidoscope not only played electrified versions of diverse instruments, but they integrated musical styles from the Middle East and elsewhere into more typical rock settings. David Lindley said later that their approach immediately appealed to every musician, but audiences simply weren't ready for the diversity. The band was astonishing live, with all the members (save the drummer) casually switching instruments with aplomb.
The Chain Reaction is unknown to me.
December 2, 1967 Back Bay Theater, Boston, MA: Jefferson Airplane (Saturday)
The Back Bay Theater, slated for tear-down in June of 1968, had become a regular site for larger rock concerts. Jefferson Airplane had appeared in April (at the Unicorn and also at MIT), but by December they were genuine rock stars. After their big hit album Surrealistic Pillow had been released in February, with hits like 'White Rabbit" and "Somebody To Love," the band had followed up with After Bathing At Baxters. Even without a hit, the album would peak at #17. Jefferson Airplane were full-on rock stars when they returned to Boston in December.
Appropriately, the Back Bay Theater show was promoted by Bill Graham, who played a big part in booking the Airplane around the country. The band played two sets on Saturday night, with their own light show, in the Fillmore style. The show was reviewed in The Tech on December 5, 1967. Reviewer Steve Grant enthused "the Airplane really flew--to unprecedented heights--in two sets at Back Bay Theatre." He did add "the audience seemed a bit baffled by the lack of familiar songs, particularly in the second set. The Airplane, as a growing group of musicians, have deserted their popular straight style for something they consider better." Like it or not, Grant has captured what was happening with serious rock bands in the 60s.
December 8-9, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Clear Light/Street Choir (Friday-Saturday)
Clear Light had formed in Los Angeles in 1966, and had released an album on Elektra in 1967. They were an interesting band with two drummers, and were an important band in the bubbling Los Angeles hippie underground. Unfortunately, the band would break up in 1968. Drummer Dallas Taylor would go on to play with Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young.
The Street Choir is unknown to me.
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| This flyer for the Grateful Dead at the Psychedelic Supermarket appears to be a "blank" where the venue would fill in the upcoming acts, with a picture. The Supermarket did not have interesting, collectable posters, as most of them look like this one (with a different band and date) |
The Grateful Dead finally debuted in Boston with a weekend at the Psychedelic Supermarket. George Papadopolis had a consistent knack for booking bands just as a buzz was surrounding them. In fact, the Dead's debut album had been a bust, realistically speaking, but the Grateful Dead were somehow underground heroes anyway, even if very few fans had ever actually heard them.
According to Grateful Dead biographer Dennis McNally (pp. 231-235), in December '67 the band had been recording in New York at the Olmstead Studios on 48th Street, with Dave Hassinger as the engineer. Ramrod (a roadie), (drummer) Bill Kreutzmann and (soundman) Bob Matthews had driven the equipment truck cross country, and the band was in the Chelsea Hotel and then at a house in Englewood, New Jersey. Given the Dead's always precarious financial condition, it made sense that they would play a few weekend gigs while recording, because they would have needed the money.
The Grateful Dead were booked for Friday and Saturday night at the Supermarket, and also for a Saturday afternoon show at Clark University in Worcester, MA, just an hour West from Boston (in fact, the Worcester show was a debacle, so much so that Garcia publicly apologized when the band returned to Clark University in 1969). The Supermarket show was reviewed in The Tech the next week (December 12), including comments from Jerry Garcia.
December 15-16, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Richie Havens/The Bagatelle (Friday-Saturday)
Richie Havens (1941-2013) had a distinct style, somewhere between folk and jazz. He did not sing folk songs, per se, and while he was grounded comfortably in the blues he was not remotely a singer of traditional blues. He did jazzed up versions of blues songs, some of his own songs, and a few pop covers (like "Eleanor Rigby"). Havens wasn't a jazz singer, either, although he regularly played extended versions of songs in concert. His debut album, appropriately titled Mixed Bag, had been released on Verve back in July 1966. His follow-up, Something Else Again, would only come out in January 1968, a long time between albums for the era. Havens probably played with a small combo. Although he was--sort of--a folk act, he would have been at home in an underground rock club like the Tea Party.
December 22-23, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: Lothar and The Hand People/Beacon Street Union (Friday-Saturday)
December 29-30, 1967 Boston Tea Party, Boston, MA: The Hallucinations/Children of God (Friday-Saturday)
Peter Wolf and The Hallucinations had played the Boston Tea Party in January, the second weekend the club was open. They closed out the year as well. The Tea Party did not have a New Year's Eve concert, as this rock tradition had not started yet.
The Children of God are unknown to me (I wonder if they were a re-named Children Of Paradise, who had already played the Tea Party?)December 29-30, 1967 Psychedelic Supermarket, Boston, MA: Grateful Dead (Friday-Saturday)
The Grateful Dead appear to have returned to the Psychedelic Supermarket for the final weekend of the year, but did not play New Year's Eve in Boston or anywhere else. I say "appear to have returned" to the Supermarket, since there is no hard evidence that they played Boston or anywhere else that weekend. McNally and others allude to the band returning to San Francisco on December 31, anticipating jamming with Quicksilver at the Fillmore (they are foiled by some delicious brownies, and fall asleep). Everyone seems to assume they played the Supermarket, and the dates have appeared on lists since forever, but there is no confirmation. Until I uncovered the article in The Tech some years ago, the flyer for December 8-9 had been thought to be canceled, and rescheduled for December 29-30.
The Psychedelic Supermarket had very little in the way of flyers, nor did they advertise much. What little press coverage and advertising there was for the venue was in college papers like The Tech, and they did not publish around New Years, since school was out. So we have no ads, no review, no eyewitness accounts, and just a general assumption that the band played the Psychedelic Supermarket. But since they returned to SF on December 31, it seems likely the band played somewhere that weekend, and there weren't many venues for psychedelic rock bands with one unsuccessful album under their belt. Hopefully the Internet can work it's magic and someone will find a reference to the Dead at the Supermarket for the last weekend of the year.
Boston Psychedelic Rock, 1967
Unlike almost every other American city, save for perhaps Greenwich Village, Boston had come into the year with a thriving concert market for rock, folk and blues music that appealed to young people. The part of Boston centered around the colleges and universities had been absorbing the folk boom, not to mention the British Invasion, for some years. The numerous schools provided plenty of hip entertainment, not just music but theater and all other performing arts.
Still, Boston got its first truly "underground" psychedelic venue in January, 1967. The tiny Boston Tea Party was run on a shoestring, with mostly volunteer labor, yet it managed to stay open and even thrive throughout the year. The simple proof that the Tea Party thrived was that competition arose, first the Crosstown Bus and then the Psychedelic Supermarket. Bands were forming, some of them were good, and they had some places to perform. Something was happening next to the Charles River, even if no one was exactly sure what it was yet.