Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco May 13-14, 1966: Blues Project/Sons Of Adam/Quicksilver Messenger Service

This post is part of a series analyzing every show at The Avalon Ballroom.

Friday-Saturday May 13-14, 1966 Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, CA 
Blues Project/Sons Of Adam/Quicksilver Messenger Service

Just five weeks into its existence, the Avalon Ballroom was already repeating bookings. Blues Project had played the opening of the Avalon, less than a month earlier (April 22-23). Although the release date of their first album (Live At Cafe Au Go Go) is somewhat foggy, it had definitely been released by now. Blues Project were ending a stay of several weeks in California, and their live shows had been enormously successful. The band members were much more experienced musicians than most of the musicians in the San Francisco bands, and even more so on electric instruments. The Blues Project would return East with a legion of hip fans on the West Coast.

Sons of Adam had played the second weekend of the Avalon (April 29-30). The Los Angeles band had a sterling reputation as a live band, although no recording has been released. Supposedly (per Ugly Things magazine #26) there is a good live tape of Sons Of Adam that may eventually see the light of day, where guitarist Randy Holden shines. One may hope its so.

Quicksilver Messenger Service had played for the Family Dog before, but when Chet Helms was alternating bookings with Bill Graham at The Fillmore Auditorium on February 26, 1966. Quicksilver had been formed when guitarists John Cipollina and Jim Murray met guitarist Gary Duncan and drummer Greg Elmore at the initial Family Dog event at Longshoreman's Hall (on October 16, 1965). Cipollina and Murray had been rehearsing a band at the Matrix, but the band never performed. One member, guitarist Skip Spence, was poached by the Jefferson Airplane (to be their drummer, oddly), and another, bassist David Freiberg, got busted and had to spend 60 days in jail. Supposedly there were plans to align this rehearsal group with singer/songwriter Dino Valenti, also then in jail on a drug bust, but with Spence and Freiberg gone the group disintegrated (drummer Casey Sonoban was the final member).

Duncan (nee Gary Grubb) and Elmore were from a little town in Central California called Ceres, near Merced. They had played in a variety of successful "teen" bands, most notably The Brogues, who released some fine, punky 45s. The Brogues were popular from about San Jose to Stockton, but the band broke up when some key members were drafted. Duncan and Elmore came to San Francisco to look for band members, and found Cipollina and Elmore. When Freiberg ended his 60-day sentence in late January, the band was complete. They lived on an old houseboat in Sausalito, a lodging obtained via the offices of John Cipollina's father. Initially the group had no name, and played that way at The Matrix and parties at Muir Beach Lodge in Western Marin.

Initially, Quicksilver had very little money or equipment. Their first gig was at a Christmas Party for an improvisational comedy troupe called The Committee, probably on December 24, 1965. With only two guitars, Gary Duncan mostly sang and played tambourine. At a party at Muir Beach Lodge in Western Marin, probably on January 15, 1966, they met their patron Ambrose Hollingsworth, a wealthy heir who provided some financial support for the band. The group considered their converging astrological signs and settled on a name as well.

Quicksilver Messenger Service rapidly became regulars at The Fillmore Auditorium. Initially, various promoters rented the hall from leaseholder Charles Sullivan, and shows were presented by Bill Graham, Chet Helms and various other entities, including Quicksilver themselves. By the time of their first Avalon show in May, Quicksilver had played the Fillmore 18 times from February to April.

By this time, the band had three guitars, and Duncan's driving rhythm guitar centered the band. Here and there they would switch instruments as well, as Duncan was a good bass player and he could free up Freiberg for some singing. Cipollina was working on his unique, shivering guitar style, and Duncan, Freiberg and Murray shared lead vocals. There are no tapes of Quicksilver from this early, but apparently thanks to Duncan and Elmore's live experience the band had a much more professional sound much more quickly than some of their San Francisco contemporaries.

Next: May 20-21, 1966 Love/Captain Beefheart and The Magic Band/Big Brother And The Holding Company

March 4, 1966 Swarthmore College Rock Festival, Swarthmore, PA Blues Project/Myddle Class

The article excerpted above from the March 2, 1966 edition of the Delaware County Daily Times proudly announces "Swarthmore College To Rock 'n' Roll For First Time." Swarthmore College is an academically exceptional private college about 20 miles West of Philadelphia. As Rock and Roll creeped into serious culture on the Beatles coattails, serious students who hitherto dismissed rock as "dance music" started to get on board. In the 1960s, many colleges had significant entertainment budgets, and if a few shrewd students could get on the appropriate committees, an act thoroughly unacceptable to the college--had they known who they were--could be paid to come on campus and indoctrinate the youth.

At this time The Blues Project were the hippest band in Greenwich Village, playing swinging bluesy versions of classic folk and blues songs. They were perennial regulars at the ultra-hip Cafe Au Go Go, but their first album (Live At The Cafe Au Go Go) had not yet been released. Shortly after this, the band would head West and conquer the Fillmore and Avalon, but all that lay in the future. At this time, the Blues Project was just another Greenwich Village band looking for paying gigs. Since Swarthmore is only about two hours from the Village, and The Au Go Go allowed in teenagers, I have to assume some with-it students knew about the band and got them booked.

In early 1966, there was no concept of a "Rock Festival" as we know it today. The Swarthmore students must have sold it to the college on the grounds of being similar to a Folk Festival, something the school would have been comfortable with. Events consisted of

• 2:00 pm Friday, March 4, Brown Hall: Festival organizer Chris Brown will play his own records and the harpsichord, to introduce the unitiated to rock and roll blues (really, that's what it says)
• 3:00 pm Friday, March 4, Somerville Hall: Record dance, featuring hits of 1965 or before
• late afternoon Friday, March 4, Somerville Hall: screening the "TAMI Show" movie
• 7:00 pm Friday, March 4: Sharpies Dining Hall: The Myddle Class, a New Jersey folk-rock band (students only)
• 9:00 pm Friday, March 4: Clothier Hall: formal concert with The Blues Project
• The Campus will be quiet until Saturday morning classes are finished (yes, children, they had Saturday morning classes, and if you flunked them you were drafted and sent to Vietnam)
• 1:30 pm, Saturday, March 5: Clothier Hall: lecture and demonstration by Peter Schickele and his band The Night People. Shcickele, a Swarthmore alumni, was widely acclaimed for his "PDQ Bach" concerts (too hard to explain). Schickele would create and perform a rock song at the lecture.
• 5:00 pm, Saturday, March 5: Wallingford Arts Center, Nether Providence: cocktail reception for over-21 students
• 7:00 pm, Saturday, March 5: Clothier Hall: concert with Peter Schickele and The Night People, Swarthmore Scruples, The Side Track (from Montreal) and Philadelphia City Hall Singers

This is pretty far from the Woodstock model. On the other hand, if Woodstock had had a cocktail reception for the 21-and-overs on Saturday night, perhaps the event would have been even better, so who can say (the harpsichord thing, maybe not). In retrospect, Peter Schickele, while kind of "hep" at the time, was hardly rock and roll, and chump acts like the City Hall Singers (unnacompanied singers who sang under the arches at City Hall because they liked the echoes) seem like light fare, the Blues Project were the coolest band for 1000 miles (the distance to the Butterfield Blues Band in Chicago, friends and rivals of The Blues Project). Although I know little about The Myddle Class, supposedly they were a cool New Jersey garage band, so it sounds like all the memorable action was on Friday night.

Other than this article, I know nothing about the First Swarthmore Rock Festival. Intriguingly, I am told there was at least a second Swarthmore Rock Festival the next year, either October 1966 or Spring 1967, featuring the Jefferson Airplane and Woody's Truck Stop (with teenage lead guitarist Todd Rundgren). At the very least, it suggests that the first one went well enough to allow the second to happen. I wonder if there was a third one?

Avalon Ballroom April 22-23, 1966: The Blues Project/Great Society

This post initiates a series analyzing every rock concert at the Avalon Ballroom. Above is the Wes Wilson poster for the event (FD5--thanks to Ross for the scan).

April 22-23, 1966 The Blues Project/Great Society

Transplanted Texan Chet Helms had started informally promoting shows in the basement of an old Victorian (by then a boarding house) on 1090 Page Street. He had taken over The Family Dog name from Luria Castell and others in early 1966, and initially he went into a partnership with Bill Graham. From February through early April of 1966, Graham and Helms alternated promotions each weekend at the Fillmore. Disputes rapidly arose between the two entrepreneurs, and Helms, realizing he would never co-exist with Bill Graham, found his own venue.

Helms took over the lease on The Avalon Ballroom, opened in 1911 as The Puckett School of Dance, for 800 dollars a month.  It was on 1268 Sutter (at Van Ness), 8 blocks nearer to downtown than the Fillmore, but just as far away from North Beach or the Haight Ashbury. The Avalon was somewhat smaller than the Fillmore, and was always a looser, wilder scene, remembered fondly by everyone who went.  As the evening wore on, the Avalon staff typically joined in the dancing and carrying on, and no one took tickets.  Over time, the hippie style of management meant that bands sometimes didn’t get paid (or on occasion were just given a kilo of weed).

The Avalon and The Fillmore summed up the dichotomy of the ballroom scene.  Bands and fans preferred the Avalon, but it was ultimately too disorganized to survive.  The implicit commercialism of the Fillmore guaranteed a level of professionalism that allowed bands to persist.  Most big cities and college towns soon developed a psychedelic ballroom scene, based on what little information could be gleaned from rumors and Life Magazine. Most of these scenes were like the Avalon:  fun, economically unsound, and unable to survive.  The Fillmore took the parts of the ballroom scene that were good for the music and injected enough commercial sense to insure survival.

For its opening weekend, the Avalon booked The Blues Project, the hippest band in New York.  Blues Project played extended blues like every band in this era, but they came at it from a more musical, up tempo New York style, doing relatively jazzy versions of blues songs, or bluesy versions of folk songs. Danny Kalb, though unknown beyond Greenwich Village, was one of the best electric blues guitarists outside of Chicago, and Al Kooper’s organ was well-known for his seminal playing on Bob Dylan’s “Like A Rolling Stone.”  Unlike any of the San Francisco bands, guitarist Steve Katz, bassist Andy Kulberg and drummer Roy Blumenfield could play a fast blues shuffle and still swing.  Although vocalist Tommy Flanders, who appeared on their soon-to-be released album Live At The Café Au-Go-Go (Verve May 66), had already left, Kooper, Katz and Kalb were adequate vocalists.

The Blues Project, already popular in Greenwich Village and the East Coast College circuit, were making their first trip West. The Avalon wasn't their Bay Area debut--they probably played The Matrix the week of April 12-17, and definitely played the San Francisco State Folk Festival (the weekend of April 15-17)--but the Friday and Saturday night shows were the highest profile gigs for the band in the area. Chet Helms was well known in the underground, and the opening of the Avalon was a big deal, and the Blues Project's hot swinging blues put the San Francisco bands on notice about how good a band could be. After this weekend, The Blues Project were extremely popular in San Francisco for the life of the band, and the Avalon was off to a roaring start.

The Great Society came out of the Film and Art world, and had never been folkies.  They were interested in improvised music and (for lack of a better term) Performance Art.  Grace Slick and her husband Jerry had seen the Airplane perform in August 1965, and felt inspired to form a rock band. Grace played keyboards and sang, Jerry played drums, Jerry's brother Darby played lead guitar, and David Miner played guitar and sang. Their inability to find a bass player in 1965 had led them to hire one Bard Dupont, after a chance meeting in the post office, because he had long hair and hip clothes.  The Great Society's public debut was at the first Family Dog event on October 16, 1965 at Longshoreman's Hall, although they did a brief unpublicized performance at a coffee shop the night before.

Great Society’s record company, Autumn, supposedly released a single of “Someone To Love” in March, written by Darby Slick, and later to become the legendary “Somebody To Love” when performed by The Jefferson Airplane.  The 45, while actually pressed, was never apparently distributed, as a result of Autumn Records’ financial difficulties.  Also, despite Dupont’s desire to be in a band, he didn’t play an instrument and his inability to play bass was holding up the band. By the time of the Avalon debut in April, Dupont had been summarily fired (he made the band promise to tell everyone he had quit) and replaced by Peter Vandergelder, a saxophonist who--while not a bassist either--was at least an actual musician.

The Great Society, who styled themselves jazzy improvisers, were humiliated by the musical sophistication of the Blues Project.  The Society decided to rent a house in Mill Valley, live communally and rehearse twice a day.  At this time, the Great Society were David Miner (guitar, vocals), Grace Slick (vocals, guitar, sometimes doubling on bass), Darby Slick (lead guitar), Peter Vander Gelder (bass, saxophone) and Jerry Slick (drums). While unsophisticated, The Great Society were neither blues nor folk, and didn't sound like anyone else playing live or on the radio, and Grace Slick was always a major presence, so while The Blues Project were the musical highlight, the Great Society were also memorable performers for the lucky attendees of the Avalon's first nights.

UPDATE: A knowledgeable Italian pointed out that in Spring 1966, the lead singer for The Blues Project was Emmaratta Marx, who was in the band for about two months. Although she only performed with the band for a few months, her presence with the Blues Project's stunning debut must have helped confirm the notion to the San Francisco underground that successful bands had female lead vocalists (or "chick singers" as they were called then).

Next: April 29-30, 1966 Big Brother and The Holding Company/Grass Roots