Ace Of Cups Performance History 1967 (Ace Of Cups I)

Festival Of Growing Things, July 1-2, 1967, an outdoor festival in Marin County. Ace of Cups played both days.

Throughout the 20th Century, the Ace of Cups band was a mystery bordering on myth: an all-female "psychedelic" band playing many of the legendary places with all manner of legendary headliners, but with no released recordings, no known history and hardly even a photograph. This changed in 2003 with the release of their CD on the Big Beat label, It's Bad For You But Buy It (Big Beat CDWIKD 236). Historian and producer Alec Palao curated a wonderful release of demos and live tapes from the Ace Of Cups 60s heyday, and completed the set by writing comprehensive liner notes and finding wonderful photos that gave life to what had previously only been legend. Although 36 years late, that record was no less terrific for that, and it made great listening as well. It provided a fascinating window to a hitherto untold 60s story. As a result of It's Bad For You But Buy It, I set out to make a list of Ace Of Cups performances, and the band members were nice enough to post my initial version of the list on their website.

Thanks to the Big Beat cd and the general wonderfulness of the band's music, there has been a considerable amount of attention focused on the band. Indeed, in their most recent reunion, the Ace Of Cups embarked on a worldwide tour of Marin County, as they played two shows in Marin on May 13 and 14, 2011. The relentless frenzy of activity has continued, with the band recording a new cd scheduled to be released on November 9, 2018. Time marches on, however, and over the years I have considerably upgraded my information, so I am presenting here a more complete history of Ace Of Cups performances from 1967 onwards.

What follows is a list of Ace Of Cups performances known to me. This post will deal with the band's pre-history and shows from 1967, with subsequent years addressed in the next two posts (one for 1968, and another for 1969 through 1972). Anyone with additional information, insights, corrections or recovered memories (real or imagined) are encouraged to put them in the Comments or email me directly. Thanks to everyone who has helped over the years, especially Ross and all the members of the Ace Of Cups.

It's Bad For You But Buy It, released by Big Beat in 2003, was a cd compilation of demos and live performances by San Francisco's legendary Ace Of Cups. Great liner notes by Alec Palao told the band member's backstory

Ace Of Cups Pre-history
The pre-history of The Ace Of Cups is dealt with extensively in Alec Palao's liner notes, as well as on their own website, so I will not recap it all here. Suffice to say, the individual members of the future band all made their way to San Francisco as aspiring musicians and proto-hippies, working formally and informally with various musical aggregations. Bassist Mary Gannon and pianist Marla Hunt met drummer Diane Vitalich, and they started playing together in 1966. When guitarist Mary Ellen Simpson came on board, they knew they had the makings of a band, even if it was not fully formed.

Late 1966: Haight A Espresso, San Francisco, CA unnamed band
According to Palao, the four women played a little show at a coffee shop on Haight near Fillmore. I assume this was Haight Espresso at 776 Haight Street. There was an amp at the cafe, allowing the guitar and bass to be plugged in. The "gig" was almost certainly unbilled. The band had no name, even if the band members had plans. The missing piece of the puzzle arrived in the form of Denise Kaufman, who met the band members at a party.

Denise can outsurf all of you, too, but this blog doesn't have room to discuss it

Denise Kaufman
Some people have a natural instinct for what is coming next, and they find it before everyone else. Even by 60s standards, Denise Kaufman caught the big waves while everyone else was still paddling out to sea. As a teenager, she was a folk musician in San Francisco and Palo Alto in the early 60s and learned to surf in Hawaii. After High School she "got on the bus" with Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters (she is in Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test as "Mary Microgram"), went to UC Berkeley and made an early "garage rock" single, went out with the future publisher of Rolling Stone, and then dropped out to join a band in the San Bruno Mountains who later became Moby Grape, a subject covered in amazing detail by Patrick Lundborg in Shindig magazine. When Denise met the other members of the future Ace Of Cups, she was not yet 21 (I'm leaving out the part about where she became Madonna's yoga instructor, as it is outside the scope of this blog).

Denise was a terrific singer and songwriter, a bluesy harmonica player and a solid guitarist. She was the perfect front person for the band. The five members began to rehearse together in early 1967. For a variety of family reasons detailed by Palao, Kaufman was able to rehearse with the band during the day but not able to perform at night, so the group had some time to "get it together," to use the 60s cliche. By chance Denise met a man named Ambrose Hollingsworth, who had become disabled after a car accident. Hollingsworth had been the manager of the group Quicksilver Messenger Service, but had had to withdraw after his accident. However, he still wanted to be involved in the arts, so he became the patron of The Ace Of Cups. He staked the band to some equipment and a house in the then rural town of Tam Valley where they could rehearse. The lineup of the Ace Of Cups was

Denise Kaufman-guitar, harmonica, vocals
Mary Ellen Simpson-lead guitar, vocals
Marla Hanson-organ, piano, vocals
Mary Gannon-bass, vocals
Diane Vitalich-drums, vocals

The Ace Of Cups initial business card from 1967, with the phone number of manager Ambrose Hollingsworth

Spring, 1967:  forgotten venue, Etna, CA: Ace Of Cups
At manager Amborose Hollingsworth’s insistence, the band debuted in a sleepy town somewhat near Arcata, far north of San Francisco.  This gig, as described in the liner notes to Its Bad For You But Buy It, was apparently a shambolic mess, perhaps proving Hollingsworth dictum that it was best to open far from the center of the action.

Palao describes a few smaller early shows in the Bay Area, including the Tamarack Lodge near Bear Valley (see below), a gig near Mt. Shasta, and a fund-raiser on Mt. Tamalpais. The band's history prior to June 1967 remains murky even to me.

Ralph Gleason's Chronicle column,  June 2, 1967

June 3, 1967: The Matrix, San Francisco, CA: Notes From The Underground/Ace Of Cups
The first certain date where I have found the Ace Of Cups booked was at The Matrix on Saturday, June 3, 1967, as mentioned in Ralph Gleason's San Francisco Chronicle the day before (above). The Matrix was in the Marina District, and was San Francisco's first  (and principal) hippie nightclub. Notes From The Underground were a Berkeley "folk-rock" band who ultimately released an album on Vanguard. They had a bit of a following, so they headlined the Matrix on Friday and Saturday night, and The Ace Of Cups joined the bill for Saturday.

June 25, 1967: The Panhandle, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA:  Jimi Hendrix Experience/Ace Of Cups
The week after the Monterey Pop Festival (which was the weekend of June 16-18), there were numerous free concerts in Golden Gate Park and around the Bay Area. The Jimi Hendrix Experience was playing the Fillmore the entire week, opening for the Jefferson Airplane and Gabor Szabo. The Electric Flag, who had been rehearsing at The Ace Of Cups Tam Valley house prior to their Monterey debut, recommended Ace Of Cups to open Hendrix's free show on Sunday afternoon in the Panhandle.

David Biasotti, the future guitarist of the semi-legendary band Maxfield Parrish, was fortunate enough to attend the show. As a guitarist himself, he noticed that Hendrix used Mary Ellen Simpson's amp for his performance. Hendrix was impressed with the Ace Of Cups, and mentioned them later that year in an interview with the English music paper Melody Maker.

Festival Of Growing Things ad, July 1-2, 1967

July 1-2, 1967: Mt. Tamalpais Outdoor Amphitheatre, Mill Valley, CA
Thunderheaven Presents The Festival of Growing Things
Ace Of Cups patron Ambrose Hollingsworth presented his "Festival Of Growing Things" at the Mt. Tam outdoor amphitheater on the weekend of July 1 and 2 ("Thunderheaven" was his production company).  According to Charles Perry, everyone who attended received a packet of flower seeds. Apocryphally the June 10-11 festival on Mt. Tam was the last rock concert at the venue, but in fact this event was the final "official" rock concert at Mt. Tam, since it had already been scheduled (at least until the 21st century, when producer Michael Nash brought them back). The Ace Of Cups played both afternoons. The United Artists potboiler documentary Revolution, filmed in the summer of 1967, includes a brief clip of The Ace of Cups performing at the festival, although whether it is Saturday (July 1) or Sunday (2) is unknown.

July 1: Eric Burdon and The Animals/Quicksilver Messenger Service/Blue Cheer/Sandy Bull/Congress of Wonders/Charlatans/Wildflower/Freedom Highway/Melvin Q Watchpocket/Ace of Cups/Lamp of Childhood
Eric Burdon and The Animals were headlining the Fillmore all week, and made a guest appearance. [Early posters included Miller Blues Band/Hugh Masakela/Mt. Rushmore, none of whom likely played]

July 2:  Big Brother and The Holding Company/Country Joe and The Fish/Miller Blues Band/Sandy Bull/Congress of Wonders/Charlatans/Wildflowers/Freedom Highway/Melvin Q Watchpocket/Ace of Cups/Lamp of Childhood [early posters had Mt. Rushmore/Phoenix]
Mary Gannon has said she does not recall Big Brother  playing, and that Quicksilver played both days instead. She recalled the Eric Burdon appearance as well, and Animals guitarist Vic Briggs confirmed it.

San Francisco Chronicle Datebook, August 4, 1967

August 4, 1967: Haight A Espresso, San Francisco, CA Ace Of Cups/Black Swan/Jim Trumbleaux Quartet (noon and following)
The venue was at 776 Haight Street, near Scott. Because the band played this show, I have assumed it was the location of the debut of the proto-band in 1966 (above), but I don't know that for a fact. This seems to have been an all-day event, and I have to assume that the Ace Of Cups played early, as they had a show in Santa Clara that night.

776 Haight Street is currently the location of the Eden Sauna And Tea Garden.

Continental Ballroom, Santa Clara, CA August 4-5, 1967

August 4-5, 1967: Continental Ballroom, Santa Clara, CA: Quicksilver Messenger Service/James Cotton Blues Band/Congress of Wonders/Ace of Cups.
Although Ace Of Cups had attracted some attention around the Bay Area, Ambrose Hollingsworth was not in a position to be an effective manager. When he had been the manager of Quicksilver in 1966 and had suffered terrible injuries in an automobile accident, he had handed off their management to his friend Ron Polte, a former Chicago labor organizer. By Summer 1967, Polte had helped make Quicksilver one of the top Fillmore bands. Polte also ran a talent agency, West-Pole, who played an important role in booking bands.

In the Summer of 1967, the entrepreneurial Polte booked a series of 8 weekend concerts at Santa Clara's Continental Ballroom, bringing the top psychedelic bands to the South Bay. The Continental Ballroom was a converted roller skating rink, and it was a top venue for the thriving San Jose rock 60s rock scene, which had developed in parallel with the more legendary San Francisco venues. The Ballroom was located at 1600 Martin Avenue in Santa Clara, not far from San Jose.

Polte first heard Ace Of Cups at the Continental Ballroom and was duly impressed. Once again, he took over management of the group from Hollingworth, and again with Hollingsworth's blessing. Polte's connections and savvy accounted for the Ace Of Cups presence at many excellent concerts. However, Polte overplayed his hand with record companies. He had a sound strategy of playing companies off against each other to get a higher bid for his bands, but he turned down so many offers for the Ace Of Cups that they never ended up recording. Nonetheless, without Polte The Ace Of Cups would not have been known at all, and band members still recall him fondly.

In the Fall of 1967, Polte started booking Ace Of Cups around the Bay Area. I have not yet had much success at identifying many dates for the second half of 1967. They may have played some smaller places that I have not been able to pin down, but they also may not have played that many shows in late 1967. The Ace Of Cups were booked at the all-day event at Muir Beach Lodge on September 24, 1967, but they did not perform.

Ace of Cups opened for one of the first San Jose area rock festivals, on October 8, 1967 at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. Big Brother and Quicksilver were the headliners.

October 8, 1967: Family Park, Santa Clara County Fairgrounds, San Jose, CA
Big Brother and The Holding Company/Quicksilver Messenger Service/Mother Earth/Mad River/Freedom Highway/Ace of Cups/Dr. West’s Medicine Show 
Haight Ashbury Medical Clinical Benefit
This relatively high profile event was an outdoor concert benefiting the Haight Ashbury Medical Clinic. While most Santa Clara County Fairgrounds events were held in the regular Pavilions or Arenas, this was an all-day affair outdoors in the park, an event not to be repeated. About 7500 people attended, nuns took tickets while Hells Angels watched over them. There was no trouble, and everyone had a great time. It never happened that way again.

The bill was heavily weighted towards bands booked by West-Pole, or affiliated with West-Pole in various ways, so Ace Of Cups found themselves on the bill. Remarkably, an audience recording of every single band on the bill has survived, a very rare occurrence for a 1967 concert.

The Scenedrome page of the Berkeley Barb listed every show in Berkeley, and often other shows around the Bay Area. The listings are much beloved by rock prosopographers. This clip is from the Oct 20 '67 Barb, noting the band's performance at New Orleans House on the forthcoming Thursday (Oct 26)

October 26-28, 1967: New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Ace of Cups/Congress of Wonders
By the end of 1967, some other clubs around the Bay Area had started to join The Matrix in presenting original rock music. The New Orleans House in Berkeley, at 1505 San Pablo, had opened in 1966 as a traditional jazz venue, but it had shifted over to younger music by the end of the year. Although the New Orleans House featured a variety of folk and blues performers (particularly after The Jabberwock closed), by the end of 1967 it was primarily a venue for rock bands playing original music.

The New Orleans House had become the primary gig in Berkeley for music of all types, primarily rock, but also folk, blues and “other.” The club was run by Kitty Griffin, and Denise Kaufman had been friends with Kitty’s son for since high school. The New Orleans House served beer and food, and weekend events usually featured a light show as well.

West-Pole had booked the entire week at the New Orleans House. The mighty Quicksilver Messenger Service played Tuesday and Wednesday (Oct 24-25), supported by Congress of Wonders, and Ace of Cups had the weekend. At this point, almost no one would have heard of Ace of Cups in Berkeley, but Denise herself was probably well-known(thanks to fellow scholar LIA for tracking this date down).

Berkeley Barb ad for The New Orleans House, Berkeley, December 1, 1967

December 1, 1967: New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Ace of Cups/”Xmas Carol” by Congress of Wonders
Congress of Wonders were part of the West-Pole stable. They were a hip comedy trio, later a duo, who actually ended up releasing some albums on Fantasy in 1970 and '72. The comedy routines were staples of FM radio in the Bay Area for many years, particularly "Pigeon Park." The comedy trio played almost all of their gigs with rock bands, since there wasn't a comedy club circuit, and the group's humor didn't fit the kind of "Las Vegas Lounge" venues available to comedians at the time.


December 2, 1967: New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA: Ace of Cups/Savage Resurrection
The Savage Resurrection were a "garage band" from nearby Richmond, CA. Although the Aces had been opening at the Matrix in June, by the end of the year they were weekend headliners at a comparable club in Berkeley. This was a definite if modest step forward, and the band's future seemed bright.

Ace of Cups likely played many more shows in 1967 than I have been able to identify here. Anyone with additional information, insights, corrections or recovered memories (real or imagined) is encouraged to put them in the Comments or email me.

The next post will address The Ace Of Cups 1968 Performance History.

Appendix: Female "Psychedelic" Bands in 1967
After the 1960s, only the lucky fans who had gotten to see Ace of Cups in concert knew what they had sounded like. As a result, much of the band's mythological status stemmed from the fact that they were an all female band.  While the Aces gender makes them stand out, it's important to note that there were many all female rock bands before them--not incidentally usually called "All-Girl" bands. Beyond San Francisco, there were a few: Goldie And The Gingerbreads (who recorded on Decca in 1963), and The Pleasure Seekers, from Detroit (featuring the hard-rockin', troublemakin' Quattro sisters).

What made the Ace of Cups stand out was not that they were all women, but they were all adult women writing and performing their own music. In that respect, they were asking to be taken just as seriously as the Grateful Dead or the Jefferson Airplane, and in that respect they were women far ahead of their time, thus rightly accounting for their legendary status. A brief look at some of their local contemporaries will be instructive.

The Freudian Slips
The Freudian Slips were a band of high school girls from the affluent Peninsula suburb of Atherton, CA. In a  1966 Life magazine article on garage bands, the Freudian Slips had their picture published. The four members were Woodside High School students, and some of the band members went on to professional entertainment careers. Nonetheless, even the band members suggest that they weren't that tight and were treated more or less as a novelty act. They did play various hip gigs at places like The Ark in Sausalito, through the Summer of 1967. The Slips probably played all covers, and while I'll bet it was fun to see some High School girls rocking out to British Invasion songs (and any band with Wendy Haas couldn't have been all bad), the fact that the Slips broke up when some or all members graduated from High School seems to have been taken as "proof" that they were a novelty.

The Svelts
The Svelts were from Sacramento, but they played some shows on the outer reaches of the Bay Area, and by 1968 they had evolved into Wild Honey. I'm not certain whether the Svelts or Wild Honey were mostly or entirely female, but in any case they were another cover band. The Svelts featured the Millington sisters (June and Jean), who could both really play, but The Svelts were still "entertainers." June and Jean Millington ended up leading the group Fanny, an all-women band that recorded a number of albums in the 1970s. However, while Fanny played original music, and the Millingtons were contemporaries of Ace of Cups, the Aces were playing original music while the Millingtons were still stuck on the dance circuit.

Tipsy's All-Girl Topless Band
In 1966 and 67, although rock music dominated record sales, it was still a very small part of the live music entertainment dollar, even in San Francisco. A look around at the women performers on Broadway, San Francisco's North Beach entertainment district, shows how far ahead of their time the Ace Of Cups really were. It's no surprise to find that most women performers on Broadway and North Beach were singers or dancers (many of them topless). Nonetheless, it's still surprising to see the patronizing San Francisco Chronicle ad that says "The World's First And Only (All-Girl) Topless Band." I didn't find this in some weird rag--it was in the San Francisco Chronicle entertainment ads, right next to an ad for a French Restaurant and just above an ad for a jazz club.

In another blog post I found a contemporary, if mysterious listing, for a Las Vegas style group of women called The Socialites, playing a lounge in suburban Walnut Creek in 1969. Amidst the usual chatter about how attractive the band members were, the Oakland Tribune columnist could only compare The Socialites to the 'All Girl Topless Band' at Tipsy's. Ace of Cups were not the first all female rock band, and someone may even be able to find a group of women playing and writing their own rock music in 1967. However, whether compared to the Freudian Slips or the Tipsy's band, Ace of Cups were a serious female rock band in San Francisco, where rock bands first started to be taken seriously, and for that the Aces stand tall indeed.

The cover of the Ace Of Cups debut studio album, released on High Moon Records in November 2018

Ace Of Cups (High Moon Records 2018)
It is appropriate then, that Ace of Cups finally get to release the album they might have released some decades ago. Few bands from that era can even muster a quorum, much less all original members. Another World Tour, at least the world of Southern Marin County, will surely follow.

The next two posts will address Ace of Cups performance history for 1968, and then for 1969 through 1972.

Palo Alto Psychedelic Rock Shows 1965-66 (Palo Alto I)

The site of The Big Beat, at 998 San Antonio Road in Palo Alto, as it appeared in 2009. The contours of the building were probably largely unchanged since the building was the site of the Palo Alto Acid Test on December 18, 1965

Palo Alto, California, is only a town of about 60,000, about 35 miles South of San Francisco, and yet it looms large in the world, far out of proportion to its modest size. Palo Alto residents, like the residents of most small towns, think the world revolves around itself. The principal difference between Palo Alto and other towns is the tendency to invent or encourage institutions that redound to the importance of Palo Alto--Stanford University, Hewlett-Packard, The Stanford Shopping Center, Acid Tests, The Grateful Dead, Mapquest and Google, for example, just to name a few. All of these institutions re-write history in Palo-centric ways that reaffirms the town's importance. Residents of neighboring communities find Palo Altans self absorbed and self-important, which we probably are, but our next innovation will just reconfigure the past in a way that justifies our own narrative. And so it was with psychedelic rock and roll in the 1960s.

Palo Alto, by its own accounting, played a big part in 60s psychedelic rock and roll. The history of the Fillmore and The Avalon always begins with Ken Kesey at Stanford, and the parties and acid tests that followed. Of course, Kesey's cottage was really next door in Menlo Park, but that sort of detail never interfered with a Palo Alto story. At the same time, Jerry Garcia and other bohemians were hanging out in downtown Palo Alto, even if they often lived in Menlo Park themselves. Certainly, Jerry Garcia started playing live in Stanford and Palo Alto, and he took acid for the first time in Palo Alto, and by the end of 1965 Garcia was the lead guitarist in an electric blues band. The Warlocks--who debuted themselves in Menlo Park--became the Grateful Dead, and the house band of The Merry Pranksters, and Palo Alto's place in the rock revolution was secure.

Yet Palo Alto, as ground zero for the consciousness expansion of rock music, has a rather scattered history of rock and roll events. While some of this had to do with economics, some of it had to do with the very peculiar circumstances of Palo Alto and Stanford, which both favored and discouraged any kind of rock and roll underground. But this peculiarity is perfectly Palo Alto--a story that applies to no other town, which is just how Palo Alto likes it. This post will begin my series on the rock and history of the the second half of the 1960s in Palo Alto.

The Cabana Hotel, at 4290 El Camino Real in Palo Alto, soon after its opening in 1963. Part owner Doris Day said to her husband, "but Marty, it's Palo Alto." So true. Doris also referred to the fountain as having a statue of a Greek whore.

August 30-31, 1965 Cabana Hotel, Palo Alto, CA
The first and most important event in Palo Alto's rock and roll history was it's biggest, and to some extent it has never been topped. 60s rock and roll begins with The Beatles, and when the Beatles played the Cow Palace in San Francisco, they rather inexplicably chose to stay at a hotel in Palo Alto. The town has never gotten over it.

Palo Alto's Cabana Hotel, at 4290 El Camino Real, far South of downtown and the Stanford campus, was built in 1962. South Palo Alto was a casual suburban strip mall at the time, and the opulent hotel was garishly out of place. Conceived by entrepreneur Jay Sarno, with investors who included Doris Day's husband Martin Melcher (Doris was reputed to have said, "but Marty, it's Palo Alto? Who's going to stay at such a hotel in Palo Alto, and without gambling?"), the hotel became the model for the Caesar's Palace resort in Las Vegas. Apparently, Beatles manager Brian Epstein felt that staying in Palo Alto would be less difficult than staying in San Francisco, so for the nights of August 30-31, 1965, The Fab Four stayed at the Cabana in Palo Alto.

Things were different then. Apparently the Beatles only had two rooms (supposedly Ringo did not even spend the night, as he found a friend). Young women from all over the Bay Area persuaded their parents to let them go to the Cabana, and young men tried to dress like journalists in suits and ties, and they all tried to crash the hotel. Many of them succeeded. No other rock and roll event has ever affected Palo Alto so much. The Beatles' rooms are now a special suite.

A 2011 closeup of 998 San Antonio Road, the site of The Big Beat. If these walls could talk, they would probably have said, "I don't remember, man."

December 18, 1965 Big Beat Club, Palo Alto, CA Palo Alto Acid Test The Grateful Dead/The Witches
For most towns, it is hard to identify when the psychedelic rock and roll revolution hit the place. Palo Alto isn't like most towns. There's a date and an address. It was Saturday, December 18, 1965, at 998 San Antonio Road, at a club that had not yet opened called The Big Beat. Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters had an Acid Test--LSD was still legal--at an empty club near the Freeway. The Grateful Dead were there, and they met legendary acid chemist Owsley Stanley, and the world would never be the same. Only a few hundred people, if that, attended the event and partook of the Kool-Aid, but the world found about it from Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. More recently, David Browne's excellent book So Many Roads has an excellent chapter where eyewitnesses recall the event in great detail.

Palo Alto's only rock venue in 1966 was The Big Beat. Although it had hosted the Palo Alto Acid Test before it opened, it was far from downtown and the Stanford campus, and mostly featured a cover band (the ad is from the Stanford Daily of December 2, 1966)

The Big Beat was in the far Southeastern corner of Palo Alto. When it officially opened in early 1966, the club's location actually made it more accessible to people who lived in Mountain View, Sunnyvale and Cupertino rather than Palo Alto. One of many oddities of Palo Alto was that there were no bars downtown, so there was nowhere for Stanford students to drink. This was no accident, as founder Leland Stanford had insisted that Palo Alto serve no liquor as a condition of funding the University. By the 1960s, downtown restaurants near campus served beer and wine, but downtown was still dormant. Other parts of Palo Alto had bars and nightlife, but they weren't near campus. Their clientele often came from towns just south, which was why the Big Beat was located in the far southern corner of the town.

Since The Big Beat served beer, no one under 21 could come--well, except for 18 year old girls on dates, but that's a digression--, and since you needed a car to get there, it wasn't appealing to the downtown bohemians who were Jerry Garcia's old pals. If they were getting into a car, they were more likely to go to San Francisco or the Santa Cruz Mountains than South Palo Alto. The Big Beat was open from 1966 to early 1968, and probably did OK for a while, but it was rapidly outdated. Local combos playing covers were not nearly as hip as underground bands playing their own stuff at the Fillmore, and the Big Beat faded away without fanfare. Otherwise, just about all the meaningful Palo Alto rock and roll in 1966 was at Stanford University.

January 25, 1966 Downstairs Grill Room, Tressider Memorial Union, Stanford University: Lovin' Spoonful
Stanford had always been land-rich yet cash poor, so for its first 60 years of existence, the University was a somewhat threadbare institution for the sons of would-be gentlemen. By 1955, however, Stanford had figured out how to capitalize on its land, and one of the first outdoor malls, the Stanford Shopping Center, was built on its property. Along with the industrial park that would incubate Silicon Valley, Stanford's economic status rose dramatically, and it's academic and cultural profile rose accordingly.

Like all colleges and universities back in the day, Stanford had an entertainment budget for students. Early in the Winter Quarter of 1966, Stanford scored perhaps the hippest band in America at the time. Although the Lovin' Spoonful are now shrugged off as just another oldies act, their late '65 hits like "Do You Believe In Magic" lit up the radio. The Spoonful had headlined the very first Family Dog Dance in October 1965, so they were as cool as could be. The Tressider Student Union was at the center of campus, so this would have been a happening event.

Shortly after this, there was a confirmed  appearance at Tressider by the Butterfield Blues Band, although I haven't been able to pin down the date. I assume this was some sort of show during the time the band had its epic engagement at the Fillmore Auditorium (February 25-27, 1966). At a time when new folk rock bands were just figuring out electric instruments, the Butterfield Blues Band were polished masters. Any Stanford students who wanted to hip in Winter '66 got a good dose right on campus. The Butterfield show was alluded to in the Stanford Daily, and eyewitnesses recalled it as well.

An ad for the Lovin Spoonful at Tressider Union Deck, from the May 13, 1966 Stanford Daily

May 19, 1966 Tresidder Memorial Union Deck, Stanford:  Lovin Spoonful

At the end of Spring Quarter, the Lovin Spoonful returned. Now they were playing outdoors on the back of Tressider, at an outdoor deck which today has long since been turned into another extension of the building. This time, not only were the Spoonful playing a bigger room, but tickets were $2.00 instead of $1.50. They were still piling up hit after hit ("You Didn't Have To Be So Nice," "Daydream," and "Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind") and were bigger than ever. An eyewitness, then in the 6th grade, reported a warm day and a great show. The Spoonful headlined at Berkeley's Greek Theater on Saturday night, two days later, at the time a huge venue for a rock band. The Spoonful were definitely a coming thing.

The Lovin' Spoonful, with great songs, huge hits and a nice live act, should have ridden into the Fillmores on a white horse and become monstrously popular. Sometime in 1966 or 67, however, possibly during this weekend, the Spoonful got busted for weed in San Francisco. Spoonful guitarist Zal Yanovsky, afraid of being deported back to Canada, snitched on his dealer, who was the manager of the San Francisco theater group The Committee. The Spoonful were thus ostracized from the San Francisco underground, and were never booked at the Fillmore or the Avalon. While this may have been just a casual inconvenience to their booking agent, the fact that they never played the Fillmore  insured that the Spoonful was remembered as just an old hit single act, and not the underground sensation they truly were.

Jefferson Airplane Takes Off was the band's debut album, released on RCA in December 1965

May 22, 1966 Cabana Hotel, Palo Alto  Jefferson Airplane/others  

Peninsula Volunteers “Step N Time” Gala

The Cabana Hotel, as the Peninsula's most glamorous, was a regular venue for high school proms and debutante balls. Thus it was the site of a charity fashion show on Sunday, May 22. No doubt in an effort to be hip, San Francisco's most prominent rock band The Jefferson Airplane were the headline entertainers. The Airplane had released their successful debut album, and had had a little hit with "It's No Secret," but they were not yet what they would become. Their female lead singer was Signe Anderson, a fine singer, but no Grace Slick.

Another local band was also on the bill, and both bands played around the swimming pool. The local band opened the show, and one of its members reported that the PA was so inadequate that the Airplane borrowed the opening band's equipment, too. Another eyewitness, David Biasotti (the future guitarist of the semi-legendary band Maxfield Parrish), reported that the Airplane simply played instrumentals for much of the show, perhaps as a protest. At the end of the show, drummer Skip Spence threw his sticks in the air and announced he was leaving the band, although Biasotti may be the only one who recalled that (Spence would move on to help found the great Moby Grape).

The approximate site of The Outfit, ca. 2011, on Homer Lane in Palo Alto, behind Town And Country Village shopping center, across the railroad tracks. It is now a parking lot for the Palo Alto Medical Center.

June ?, 1966 The Outfit, Palo Alto, CA The Outfit
There were a very small number of proto-hippie bohemians in Palo Alto at this time. One eyewitness told me that in total, they were just "a few dozen, plus the Kesey people" (this has been informally confirmed by others). The "scene," such as it was, revolved around two crumbling Edwardian houses near downtown. One was on Channing Avenue, and the other was on Waverley Street, near Forest. Jerry Garcia had lived in the Waverley Street house until the Grateful Dead had moved to Los Angeles with Owsley in February 1966. The remaining crew entertained themselves as best they could.

Some people in the Channing house got the idea that they should have their own joint, and the infamous Willy Legate found an old warehouse near Homer Lane, just across the railroad tracks on Alma (now a medical center parking lot). They named their club "The Outfit," and figured that they would have a band and a light show also called The Outfit. A carpenter named Bill Shuman made a little stage, and the gang had a sort of party. It wasn't publicized, because that would attract cops, but it happened. It was a sort of Acid Test--remember, LSD was still legal--and Neal Cassidy even showed up.

For entertainment, there was an ad hoc band with guitarist Pete Schulzbach and singer John Tomasi, who were members of a local group called The Bethlehem Exit, and guitarist David Nelson, an old bluegrass pal of Jerry Garcia. The trio played some rambling electric blues while the light show pulsed. A number of local bohemians showed up, but the idea of The Outfit wasn't sustainable. There wasn't another event.

October 6, 1966  Basketball Pavilion, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA Jefferson Airplane/Paul Butterfield Blues Band

By the time Stanford students returned to school for the Fall Quarter of 1966, a lot had happened. The peculiar little "Acid Tests" started by Ken Kesey had become a very big deal indeed, so big that LSD itself was declared illegal in California on October 6. Two underground ballrooms in San Francisco, the Fillmore and the Avalon, were both putting on shows every weekend which were the talk of teenagers and college students in every town of the Bay Area. To memorialize the illegality of LSD, the Grateful Dead and Big Brother had played for free on October 6 in the Panhandle, near Golden Gate Park, and every longhair in the region had showed up. along with then-fugitive Kesey himself. They all had no idea that they numbered in the thousands.

The Butterfield band, who had played Tressider a few quarters ago, were now booked as headliners for three weekends at the giant Winterland arena, joined by the Dead and the Airplane. On this Thursday night, as a prelude to a weekend featuring Butterfield, the Airplane and the Dead, just the Airplane and Butterfield played the Stanford basketball Pavilion. Before NCAA Basketball became a proverbial ‘big deal’, the Stanford basketball team played in a 1200 seat auditorium built in 1921, on the corner of Serra and Galvez. The gym was just a few short miles from the Perry Lane house where Kesey’s LSD quest began. 

An eyewitness reported that Mike Bloomfield played Jorma’s Guild instead of his customary Fender, and various people also report Jerry Garcia attending the show. The Pavilion was superseded as the basketball venue by the nearby Maples Pavilion in Spring 1969, but it remains in use. It is now known as Burnham Pavilion. 

 

[update 20260609] thanks to Lachlynn Dodson, whose father preserved some flyers from back in the day, we have an additional flyer for the Airplane/Butterfield show at Stanford. 

October 14, 1966 Tressider Memorial Union Deck, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA  Grateful Dead/Wildflower

The Grateful Dead finally got their chance at Stanford a week later. Although the Dead had left Palo Alto for underground success earlier in the year, they still hadn't played back in Palo Alto, because there was nowhere for them to play in town. However, with Big Mama Thornton joining the Airplane and Buttefield at Fillmore this weekend, the Dead were free to play over at Stanford. After the Grateful Dead show on Friday, October 14, there was never another concert at the Tressider Deck again. Damn, it must have been fun.

 

[update 20260609] thanks again to Lachlynn Dodson, and her father, we have a hitherto unseen flyer for the Grateful Dead at Tressider Deck. It turns out that The Wildflower opened the show. Wildflower guitarist Stephen Ehret was an old pal of Garcia's from the folk scene. The Wildflower had gotten together in Oakland at the California College of Arts & Crafts.

 

Apparently, Ken Kesey and the Pranksters were at the show, and the infamous Further bus was parked outside Tressider. Nothing could have frightened Stanford admin more than such an invasion, so it's no surprise that the Dead were banned (for the first time).  An eyewitness reported ecstatic dancing, of the sort done by Deadheads unto this day, but at the time a shocking new thing.

November?, 1966 Experimental Building, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA New Delhi River Band

We have a poorly scanned handbill for an event at Stanford on April 10, 1967. My two eyewitnesses were very vague (I wonder why?), but both thought that there were two events, one in the fall and one in the Spring. The event or events, whether one or two, were some sort of "happening" put on by The Experimental Group

The Experimental Group, sometimes known just as The Experiment, was a group of Stanford students and faculty who were interested in reforming education in various progressive ways. They would eventually merge with a similarly minded civilian group called The Mid Peninsula Free University (known locally as Free U). That story is peripheral to this one, except that The Experiment and MPFU put on a number of free rock events in Stanford and Palo Alto. The 1967 handbill locates the event at "The Experimental Building." I'm not even clear where "The Experimental Building" was, although I think it was one of the then-new buildings near Serra and El Camino Real. 

The New Delhi River Band were Palo Alto’s second psychedelic blues band. The NDRB was an outgrowth of The Outfit, which had opened and closed in June. At this time, the band lived on Channing Avenue and featured Jerry Garcia’s old pal, and future New Rider, David Nelson on guitar, along with bassist Dave Torbert, from Redwood City, and also a future New Rider. Lead singer John Tomasi and lead guitarist Peter Schulzbach were from a Cupertino  band called Bethlehem Exit, and drummer Chris Herold rounded out the group.  Although no tapes survive of the group, they apparently aspired to sound somewhat like the Butterfield Blues Band. 

By this time, the NDRB were already the “house band” at The Barn, a psychedelic outpost in the tiny town of Scotts Valley, about 37 miles southwards, in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The Barn was a self-contained mini-Fillmore, the remarkable story of which we have detailed elsewhere.   The late Russell (Rusty) Towle, the band’s roommate, soundman and sometime Light Show man recalled the Stanford event in a personal email, and thinks it may have been two nights rather than one, although he couldn't recall if they were on consecutive nights or not (for the time, that was still a pretty clear memory). At this time, proto-hippies were trying to distinguish “Fillmore” type events from regular teen dances.

A 2011 aerial view (from Hoover Tower) of the Wilbur Hall Commons area at the Wilbur Hall dorms on the Stanford University campus.

December 2, 1966 Wilbur Hall Dorm, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA Big Brother & The Holding Company/San Andreas Fault Finders “A Happening In The Wilburness” 
Wilbur Hall, at 658 Escondido Drive on the Stanford campus, was the anchor of a quartet of dormitories. At the time, and perhaps still, Wilbur housed mostly freshmen. I believe Wilbur Hall was the dining commons and admin offices for all four dorms. Based on an obscure flyer, some sort of end-of-term event was held that featured no less than Janis Joplin and Big Brother. No such thing seems to have happened again.

 

An ad from the December 2, 1966 Stanford Daily (thanks Cleuci!)

Update: Correspondent Cleuci found an ad and some articles in the Stanford Daily. The Avalon Light Show was there (with Gary Ewing), the Chloe Scott Dancers, two bands--it never happened again. 

Remarkably, the Janis Joplin appearance was not the hippest bit of 60s rock trivia associated with Wilbur. Back in May 1961, the lounge of Arroyo Hall (one of the Wilbur dorms) featured a folk night with "Bob and Jerry," the first paid professional performance of Jerry Garcia and Robert Hunter. Whoever was a freshman that night in Arroyo lounge can now say "so when did you first see Jerry?" and know that he cannot ever lose.

Rock in Palo Alto after 1966

Psychedelic rock bands had come from Palo Alto in 1965, and some had even returned. But just about all the rock shows in 1966 were at Stanford University. However, after 1966, there were almost no significant rock shows at Stanford for the next several years. A Fall quarter with the Airplane, the Dead, some sort of Experimental Event and Big Brother seemed to be enough for Stanford. For 1967, the action would move away from campus and across El Camino Real to Palo Alto itself, and we shall start to see that in the next installment. 

2925 Willow Pass Road, Concord, CA: Concord Armory and Eastern Contra Costa Performances 1967-69 (Concord II)

A current view of the unassuming Concord Armory at 2925 Willow Pass Road (photo by and courtesy of Kent Wood)

The Concord-Walnut Creek area is now a thriving suburb of San Francisco, with heavy commute traffic going in all directions on a huge freeway network. In the late 1960s, however, Concord and Walnut Creek were sleepy little communities, with plenty of open space and few commuters to San Francisco, and even fewer elsewhere, as much of the County was agricultural. While teenagers were certainly aware of the Fillmore and Avalon, that was perceived as being quite a bit farther away than it is today, and there wasn't as much to do on weekend evenings. However, like many 60s suburbs, Concord and other communities in Contra Costa County had their own rock history, even if it is largely just some fond, fuzzy teenage memories.

As part of my ongoing efforts to resurrect lost Bay Area rock concert history, some years ago I pieced together what I could about a forgotten venue called the Concord Coliseum. All I had was one poster, some listings in the Teen Age section of the Oakland Tribune, and a few other fragments, but that was a starting point. The venue was run by Bill Quarry, who had run a production company called Teens And Twenties in Oakland and the East Bay in the mid-60s. By 1967, Bill Graham was dominating the East Bay, and Quarry seems to have moved over the Berkeley Hills to the next county. At this time, communities like Lafayette, Walnut Creek and Concord were growing, but still somewhat rural. There were still walnut groves in Walnut Creek--good luck finding one now.

The Concord Coliseum was only open for a year, from August 1967 through June 1968, but lots of interesting bands played there, including Moby Grape, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Country Joe and The Fish and The Yardbirds (with Jimmy Page). My narrow little post from October, 2009, triggered a remarkable Comment Thread, however, with a remarkable Long Tail that has continued on for nearly seven years. By now, the post features not only a fairly detailed list of shows, lively memories in the Comments and a remarkable selection of never-seen flyers from the venue. Scholar and Commenter Kent has been particularly thorough and resourceful in recovering these lost treasures. Kent's work has been so good, in fact, that the post is almost getting too detailed--all bloggers should have such problems!

As a result, I am continuing our look into Concord's lost rock history with another post. The initial focus will be on the Concord Armory, but we will look to extend this to the County Fair and other venues. Anyone with additional information, corrections, insights or recovered memories (real or imagined) please include them in the Comments. Thanks to all prior Commenters and particularly Kent for making this post possible.

A current look at the inside of the Concord Armory at 2925 Willow Pass Road (photo courtesy of and by Kent Wood) 

Concord Armory, 2925 Willow Pass Road, Concord, CA
Prior to the opening of Concord Coliseum, some concerts were held in early 1967 at the Concord Armory. The National Guard Armory is still there, at 2925 Willow Pass Road, not far from the Concord Pavilion, which has been Contra Costa County's leading concert venue since 1975. Thanks to Scholar and Commenter Kent, a few flyers have been rescued. Golden Star Promotions mostly worked in Sonoma County, putting on concerts in Santa Rosa and the surrounding area.

January 27, 1967 Concord Armory, Concord, CA: The Seeds/The Tame Greens/Blue Light District

February 10, 1967 Concord Armory, Concord, CA: Sopwith Camel
There is a poster circulating that has Sopwith Camel headlining a dance in Marin on this date, at the Santa Venetia (San Rafael) Armory, but the Camel were replaced by the Grateful Dead. Thus I assume that the Camel actually played Concord Armory.

February 17, 1967 Concord Armory, Concord, CA: Battle Of The Bands
The poster for this long-forgotten event was by banjo legend Rick Shubb, also a well-known poster artist.

February 21, 1967 Concord Armory, Concord, CA: The Baytovens/Hypnotist Collectors

The Baytovens were a locally popular "garage rock" band, who got good airplay on KFRC-am in San Francisco.

March 20, 1967 Concord Armory, Concord, CA: The New Breed/The Wheel

The New Breed were from the Sacramento, and at one point included Tim Schmidt, later of Poco and the Eagles. The flyer tells us that The Wheel were formerly known as Jack And The Rippers.

March 25, 1967 Concord Armory, Concord, CA: Sir Douglas Quintet/The Spiders/Little Jimmie and The Goodtimers
Doug Sahm had been exiled to San Francisco due to an untimely pot bust in March, 1966. Possession of marijuana was a serious crime in Texas at that time. He found a performing home at the Avalon. In 1967, his Quintet was probably full of Texans, but the original band members were still on probation and would not rejoin him for another year. The Spiders were a tight, popular East Bay band, and a huge influence on the young musicians who would become Tower Of Power.

April 8, 1967 Concord Armory, Concord, CA: Syndicate Of Sound
The Syndicate Of Sound were from Sunnyvale, and had a big hit with "Hey Little Girl." The band and the venue were very teenage, but note the Avalon-style art and cryptical references to "certain herbs." Psychedelia was making its way across the Berkeley Hills.

April 15, 1967 Concord Armory, Concord, CA: Tears/Spiders

May 20, 1967 Concord Armory, Concord, CA: Baytovens
The Baytovens, originally from Hayward, could still draw out in the suburbs, but they couldn't dream of a gig at the Fillmore or the Avalon, and the time for these groups was starting to fade.

June 24, 1967 Concord Armory, Concord, CA: Immediate Family/The Virtues
By this time, school was out, so it seems there were fewer concerts.  The Immediate Family were a Walnut Creek power trio, led by guitarist Tim Barnes, who would end up in Stoneground. The Virtues were an ambitious Contra Costa band that would evolve into Country Weather. The era of teen bands was ending, and heavy psychedelic blues was the order of the day. On August 4, 1967, Bill Quarry opened the Concord Coliseum at 1825 Salvio, and the Armory was not used for concerts for some time.

November 22, 1968 Concord Armory, Concord, CA: Frumious Bandersnatch
Frumious Bandersnatch were from Lafayette. They had a three guitar lineup, not at all typical for the era, and most of the members were good singers. While the group did not release an album while they were together, one of them (George Tickner) played with Jerry Garcia, most of the members ended up in the Steve Miller Band at one time or another--one of them (David Denny) still tours with him--and some of them ended up in Journey as well, including manager Herbie Herbert.

Herbie Herbert and Frumious probably rented the Concord Armory and promoted this concert themselves. The Concord Coliseum had closed at the beginning of Summer 1968, and by this time the Bay Area concert market had regionalized, emphasizing bigger shows in San Francisco, Oakland, Berkeley and San Jose, rather than smaller regional events.

July 21, 1969 Concord Armory, Concord, CA: Santana
In the Summer of 1969, there were a series of shows at Concord Armory. I do not know who the promoters were. However, one dynamic at play in the Bay Area was the immense popularity of Fillmore shows had extended to the suburbs, but not all those suburban teenagers were able (or allowed) to go to big, bad San Francisco. So many second and third tier Fillmore bands put on smaller shows all over the Bay Area, usually with a local light show. Bill Graham's booking firm, the Millard Agency, was particularly active in finding suburban gigs for its acts.

Santana was booked by the Millard Agency, and by this time had already recorded their first album for Columbia, but it hadn't been released. The band would be familiar to teenagers from many Fillmore West posters, and they had played various High School dances around the region at well. A month later they would play Woodstock.

August 20, 1969 Concord Armory, Concord, CA: Sons Of Champlin
Marin's Sons Of Champlin were another hard-working band who played all over the Bay Area. They were booked by West-Pole, run by Quicksilver manager Ron Polte, who was also sharp about the appeal of the Fillmore bands in the suburbs (for a more complete story of the Sons during this period, see my post here).

September 13, 1969 Concord Armory, Concord, CA: Country Weather/Fox/Daybreak
Country Weather, once the Virtues, were also booked by Millard.

October 18, 1969 Concord Armory, Concord, CA: Rejoyce/Linn County/Beggars Opera
Rejoyce was a familiar name from old Bay Area rock handbills, but I don't know anything about them. Linn County were from Cedar Rapids, Iowa, by way of Madison, Wisconsin and Chicago. Known as The Prophets in Cedar Rapids, they had become the house band at a Chicago club called Mother Blues and changed their name to Linn County Blues Band (Cedar Rapids is in Linn County). They were signed by Chess Records and began to record, but Mercury Records heard them, signed them and moved them to San Francisco. In 1969, they had released their second album Fever Shot.

Contra Costa County High School Rock Highlights
It would be a formidable task to assemble a list of every rock band who played a Contra Costa County High School in the 1960s, and I won't even attempt it. Nonetheless, it is worth pointing out a few highlights. Anyone with additional highlights, please send them along.

August 23, 1966 Las Lomas High School, Walnut Creek, CA: Grateful Dead
The JGMF blog covered this in some detail. "Bob," a Commenter on the site sums up the story

I attended the 1966 show in Walnut Creek - I was 15 and attending Las Lomas High School at the time. My parents were subscribers to the Civic Arts Art Forum series and bought me tickets to shows I wanted to see. Most of the shows were at the Walnut Creek Library - I saw Dave Brubeck play there. I don't really remember that the Dead show was originally supposed to be at the library but was moved. It seems quite possible, even logical since rock 'n' roll was rare in the series, the library was small and there were a bunch of kids who wanted to see the Dead. Sorry to say, I don't remember much of what they played - one song that sticks in my memory was Pippen singing "Good Morning Little Schoolgirl" - of course that was totally appropriate. My main memory is what happened when the show started. There was no lecture, just a brief introduction. The crowd was split between season ticket holders like my parents and teenagers. When the Dead started playing all the teenagers left their folding chairs and started dancing, and someone, I guess the Civic Arts organizers, stopped the show. There was some discussion with the band on stage, then Jerry explained that the Civic Arts people had not applied for a dance permit, so there would be no dancing allowed. He said the band wasn't happy about it, that their music was dance music, but there was nothing they could do. So we sat on the floor in front of the stage and bounced around, dancing as best as we could sitting down. 

Phil Lesh's parents attended the show, apparently.

December 16, 1966 Miramonte High School, Orinda, CA: County Joe And The Fish
Country Joe and The Fish came over the Berkeley Hills--do you think they took Fish Ranch Road?--to play a Christmas dance at Miramonte.

July 29, 1967 San Ramon Valley High School Stadium, San Ramon, CA: Yardbirds/Sir Douglas Quintet/Loading Zone
One of the most famous events in Contra Costa High School history, at least retrospectively, was Jimmy Page and The Yardbirds headlining the football stadium at San Ramon Valley High School (at 501 Danville Blvd). San Ramon was probably an unincorporated area at the time. According to legend, Yardbirds drummer Jim McCarty was sick, and a drummer from one of the other bands filled in.

October 31, 1968 Monte Vista High School, Danville, CA: Sons Of Champlin/Spiders
Monte Vista High School is in Danville (3131 Stone Valley Road). Now, Danville is a very prosperous community of commuters to Silicon Valley and San Francisco, but back in the 60s it was still pretty rural. The Spiders were a popular East Bay dance band whose tight, sophisticated performances were a big influence on Tower Of Power.

February 22, 1969 Ygnacio Valley High School, Concord, CA: Beggar’s Opera/Lazarus/All Men Joy/Phoenix/Maggie’s Farm Benefit for Biafran Relief

All Men Joy and Phoenix were San Francisco bands. Lazarus was from Berkeley, and Maggie's Farm and Beggar's Opera were from Contra Costa. 

April 1, 1969 Las Lomas High School, Walnut Creek, CA: Santana

Santana had not yet recorded their first album, but it was the famous lineup. This was probably more like a concert than a school dance, but the distinction may not have been large.

The Grateful Dead at Campolindo High School in Moraga on May 16, 1969 (via JGMF)

May 16, 1969 Campolindo High School, Moraga, CA Grateful Dead/Frumious Bandersnatch/Velvet Hammer

The Grateful Dead, whose finances were always on a wing and a prayer during 1969, appear to have filled an off night by playing Campolindo, much to the pride of future graduates. Stories abound, not all of them true. Attendance was probably limited to high school students, but that's who was going to attend suburban rock concerts anyway. Velvet Hammer included some members from Campolindo.

A listing from the June 21, 1969 Teen Age section of the Oakland Tribune announces the concert by  Frumous Bandersnatch at De La Salle High School

June 21, 1969 De LaSalle High School, Concord, CA Frumious Bandersnatch/Beggars Opera

De La Salle is a private high school with a prestigious reputation for sports, but it had only opened in 1965. By the Summer of '69, Frumious Bandersnatch were regulars at Fillmore West, albeit as show openers. They too were booked by the Millard Agency.

The San Andreas Fault poster (FD-700702) for the Family Dog presentation of The Kinks at Ygnacio Valley High School in Concord on July 2, 1970

July 2, 1970 Ygnacio Valley High School, Concord, CA: The Kinks/Beggars Opera

Although 1970 is beyond my scope, no chronicle is complete without mentioning perhaps the most curious 60s rock show in Concord:  a Family Dog production at Ygnacio Valley High School. Since school was out, the hall would simply have been rented. I'm not aware of another Family Dog production this far East. The Kinks had played Tuesday and Wednesday for Chet Helms and the Dog in San Francisco, and Chet added an extra date.

Contra Costa County Fairgrounds
Every county in California has a County Fairgrounds, initially to provide a place and a means for farmers and ranchers to display their wares and buy and sell goods. It was also an excuse for an annual celebration. By the mid-20th century, while every county still had a county fair, Fairgrounds were used for entertainment and trade shows as well. The Contra Costa County Fairground were in Antioch (at 1201 W. 10th Street), in the Eastern part of the county. In the late 60s, Antioch was still in a rural area, which was a good place for the County Fairgrounds.

Still, rural or not, there were rock shows at the Contra Costa Fairgrounds in 1969. Since the rock audience was largely teenage, parents were probably far more comfortable with letting their kids go to a show at the Fairgrounds, where they had probably been many times, rather than letting them drive off to Berkeley or San Francisco. This is hardly a complete list of Fairgrounds shows, just a few highlights. If anyone can confirm other evidence of Fillmore West bands playing the Fairgrounds, please note it in the Comments.

November 26, 1969 Main Exhibition Building, Contra Costa County Fairgrounds, Antioch, CA: It's A Beautiful Day/The Kinks/Cold Blood/Dry Creek
It's A Beautiful Day was riding high on their first album, so they headlined over The Kinks. After a long absence from touring America, the Kinks had returned in late 1969, behind the album Arthur and the single "Victoria." Pianist John Gosling had joined the band, and they were now a five-piece.

February 21, 1970 Contra Costa County Fairgrounds, Antioch, CA: Sons Of Champlin/AUM/Joy Of Cooking
The Sons Of Champlin had put out three fine albums and toured hard, but gotten nowhere. They pretty much broke up after this show, and did not formally perform as The Sons for a few more years. AUM, featuring guitarist Wayne Ceballos, were booked by the Millard Agency and had opened many Fillmore West shows. Joy Of Cooking was a rising Berkeley band at the time.

April 17, 1970 Contra Costa Fairgounds, Antioch, CA: Quicksilver Messenger Service/AB Skhy/Beggars Opera
This would have been one of the final shows of the Just For Love lineup of Quicksilver, with singer Dino Valenti and piano legend Nicky Hopkins augmenting the classic quartet (John Cippolina, Gary Duncan, David Freiberg, Greg Elmore). AB Skhy had relocated from Wisconsin, and picked up organist Howard Wales in San Francisco, but I think Wales had left by this time, replaced by guitarist Dennis Geyer.

1300 Boulevard Way, Walnut Creek
Walnut Creek is now a very upscale Bay Area suburb--Stephen Curry lives there, for example--but it was not always so. I can recall when there were actually walnut groves. Walnut Creek doesn't really have much of a 60s rock history. Interestingly, however, it all revolves around one place--1300 Boulevard Way.

February 23, 1963 Walnut Creek Hall, Walnut Creek, CA: Bobby Freeman/Wally Cox/The Untouchables
Correspondent Kent found this ancient "boxing-style" poster, for what very well may be Walnut Creek's very first rock show. It was held at The Walnut Creek Hall, at 1300 Boulevard Way. Bobby Freeman had had a huge hit with "Do You Wanna Dance" (no, Jerry Garcia did not play on it, whatever you may have read). The Wally Cox was not the actor, but a singer.

March 1-2, 1968 Clifford's Catering, Walnut Creeek, CA: Grateful Dead/The Looking Glass
For many years, this show was listed as having been at The Looking Glass, on 1300 Boulevard Way. I had assumed it had been canceled. JGMF finally tracked it down, however, and it turns out to have actually occurred. The Grateful Dead played Walnut Creek twice, in 1968.  JGMF correspondent Brad Vicknear reports the details

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

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

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

The venue was called Clifford's Catering when The Grateful Dead appeared. Clifford's was a restaurant/catering business that would rent out the hall on occasion.

It might seem that the rock and roll history of Walnut Creek would end at Clifford's Catering, but that was not quite so. It is a little known (but confirmed) fact that Pete Townshend and his family spent the Summer of 1975 in Walnut Creek, so that Townshend could study with Meher Baba. And where was Meher Baba's study center located? You guessed it--1300 Boulevard Way.

I am looking forward to updating this posts with additional Conta Costa County events at various locations from around the region.

November 21, 1968: Santana, Quicksilver Messenger Service – Los Altos High School Gym, Los Altos, CA

Guest Post by Light Into Ashes

After more than forty years, our knowledge of the Bay Area rock performances of the ‘60s is still growing. Despite the diligent efforts over the years of researchers and sites like this to compile the histories of bands and venues, show lists even for the most famous bands are still incomplete. Some shows remain unknown or forgotten to this day, lasting only in the memories of a few aging fans.

Our knowledge that a concert took place primarily comes from posters or newspaper listings from the major cities; but when those aren’t available or don’t survive, shows can often slip through the cracks and become “lost,” especially if they were played outside the traditional venues. So when someone reminisces about the old days and says, for example, “I saw Santana and Quicksilver play a show at my high school back in ’68,” it can be hard to find any corroborating dates or details, since such a show can’t be found in any of the bands’ performance listings:

http://thesanfranciscosound.blogspot.com/2010/02/quicksilver-messenger-service_7244.html

http://thesanfranciscosound.blogspot.com/2010/02/santana-family-tree-gregg-rolie-years.html

http://santanamigos.pagesperso-orange.fr/1968.htm

Nonetheless – in this case, not only was the show played, but there is quite a lot of information about it, including audience memories, ticket stubs, photos, and even a short review!

I first heard of this show when corresponding with Randy Beucus, a graduate of Los Altos High, about various concerts he’d seen. He commented, “When I was in high school I was able to book Santana and Quicksilver… I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of these high school shows have been forgotten.” 

This show had indeed been forgotten, and I was surprised to hear that a concert with these two bands had never been reported before.

A search revealed that a few people had mentioned the show online after all – in fact, it left quite an impression on them. For instance, on the “Fandalism” site, musicians were asked, “What was the first concert you ever went to?”

Byron Laursen: “Late 1968 at Los Altos High School, with my brother, then a teacher, who had to chaperone at a concert featuring two emergent SF bands... The show was so loud that all I could be sure of was that the second band was rock-and-roll-y and the first one had some Latin influence. It was Santana opening for Quicksilver Messenger Service.”
http://www.fandalism.com/bytree

Alan Eglington: “The first pro Pop Concert I ever bought tickets for and attended without adult supervision was, dare I say it? (drum roll please!) "Chad & Jeremy" (hey! I had a good time so sue me!) at the Los Altos High School main gym. But to show how fast things changed…I attended my second pro concert in the same location, the "Santana Blues Band" opening for "Quicksilver Messenger Service!" That concert had a huge impact on my personal development, because soon after I was drumming in my second band. And that band ended up playing a lot of Santana & Quicksilver material.”
http://fandalism.com/eyebone

Eric Weitzmann also mentioned on Facebook, “Santana and Quicksilver Messenger Service played our high school (Los Altos, Ca.) in 1968. I'll never forget that show, and still have the ticket stub.”

This was exciting news, and he was able to add further details:
“The show was on Thursday, November 21, 1968. 7:30 pm in the Boys Gym, Los Altos High School. $2.50 for students with Student Body Cards and $3.00 all others. It was cool, they had a "Light Show," very psychedelic. The bands sounded really good, it wasn't unusual for rock bands to play high schools back then because there wasn't the club venue scene like there is now. I remember waiting in line before the show and all the guys from Santana walked right by us.”  

The show was well-attended, and was quite an event for the school. “The basketball floor was open for dancing, with bleacher seating on both sides… I don't recall many parents or hipsters coming. Mostly, the student body.”

Paradoxically, Randy Beucus, who’d booked the show, had no memory of it:

“I didn't go, even though it was my senior year in high school and I was pretty much responsible for putting the show together… I stayed away from the show even though I helped put it on. I just couldn't see myself seeing those bands at my high school. I was seeing both bands anyway [in San Francisco] around the same time… 

“That was the only show that I booked, but I went to a lot of rock & roll shows from my freshman year in high school, and when I found out the school had a certain amount of money to get a "big" known San Francisco group to play, someone contacted me… I must have called one of the Polte brothers (Ron & Frank) who managed Quicksilver, and maybe the same for Graham who was managing Santana at the time.”

Santana was booked by Bill Graham’s Millard Agency – Graham could be reached by phone at the Fillmore for bookings. Quicksilver would have to be contacted separately – they were booked by the West-Pole agency run by Ron Polte, who also managed the band. (Frank Polte was their road manager.)

The school’s budget is unknown, but Bill Graham for one was eager to get high school bookings, as a way of building an audience for his bands on Millard. One story from the Santanamigos site illustrates this point, when a show was booked by a San Jose high school in March ’69: “My friend Jamie called Bill Graham (promoter and Fillmore owner), and asked for Santana to play. Bill asked how much the student body had as a budget, and Jamie told him we had $2,500. Bill laughed and said ‘no way,’ Jamie said ‘thank you, we will get someone else.’ Bill called back within about 10 minutes, and said ‘OK, you can have them and the three other groups for that price!’”

http://santanamigos.pagesperso-orange.fr/1969.htm (3/7/69)

Corry writes: “It was very much the Millard strategy to put their bands in the suburbs. They were all Fillmore West openers, so they could play the 'burbs and advertise truthfully, "Direct From Fillmore West." It certainly built an audience for Santana. Don't forget that the rock audience was pretty young… All of the Millard bands also played a lot of gigs at suburban gyms and movie theaters, that held 700-1000 people. A lot of parents who weren't going to let their high schoolers drive to San Francisco had no problem with letting them drive a few miles to a local place.”

It must have been a treat for the Bay Area teens who couldn’t drive to San Francisco to have the Fillmore bands come to them.

Santana played quite a few local high school shows in the year before their first album came out – in fact, the day after this show, November 22, they would play at Campolindo High in Moraga. Other examples include:

Mission San Jose High School, Fremont (fall '68 dance)

Elizabeth High School, Oakland 10/18/68

Woodside High School, Woodside 2/11/69

James Lick High School, San Jose 3/7/69

Washington High School, Fremont 3/8/69

Las Lomas High School, Walnut Creek 4/1/69

Palo Alto High School, Palo Alto 6/10/69 (graduation dance)

In contrast, Quicksilver were rarely spotted at high school shows at this time. They were the more established, well-known band and had just taken a short cross-country tour in October; whereas Santana would barely leave California until the summer of ’69. Making this booking even more unusual, this was to be one of Quicksilver’s last appearances before Gary Duncan left the band in January ‘69, effectively leaving Quicksilver in limbo for another year before he rejoined.

This was an unusually high-profile booking for Los Altos High, which typically had less well-known local bands play its dances. For instance, the Homecoming dance in ’68 was played by The People (fresh from their regional hit “I Love You”), and the prom dance in ’69 featured the Syndicate of Sound (still best-known for their ’66 hit “Little Girl”) – both popular San Jose bands who’d been in the charts, though not the kind of acts you’d see at the Fillmore.

Randy mentions: “I tried to have Paul Butterfield to play my high school the year before…but when I called Albert Grossman, the price he wanted for the Butterfield Blues Band was higher than the school could pay for.”

Other concerts at Los Altos High from ’66-70 were played by such local groups as the Tribesmen, the Lord Jim Quartet, Bogus Thunder, New Dawn, Green Catherine, and Gropus Cackus, and others even more obscure, or still in high school – we only know of these since they were pictured in yearbooks. (Chad & Jeremy’s show there is still fondly remembered by some grads, though!)

As a big show for the school, you might wonder if the Santana/QMS concert was mentioned in the school yearbook, the Excalibur. I was thrilled to find out that the show actually got a two-page spread in the 1969 yearbook, with photos and a brief report:

Pictures courtesy of Randy, who observes: “Notice the mistakes in names for the members of Santana. The yearbook company got into trouble for adding the balloon caption over Duncan's head!”

In an odd case of misreporting, the Santana bandmembers’ names are totally mistaken. In reality, the bass player was David Brown; the drummer was Bob “Doc” Livingston; and the percussionist was Marcus Malone. (Livingston and Malone were soon to leave the band within the next few months.)

The yearbook culprit who had Gary Duncan saying “I’m so sweet” has not yet been found.

The text:

Shades of Quicksilver and Santana 

“The sometimes annual fall concert featured the sounds of “Quicksilver Messenger Service” and “Santana” and the lights of Mr. What. The barrier between performers and the sizable audience of 2000 was broken when members of Quicksilver asked some of the listeners to come closer and sit on the floor. Although given second billing, Santana drew the admiration of many, and their blues sound was widely considered better than the rock of Quicksilver.”

It’s interesting that the relatively unknown Santana proved more popular with the audience. Quicksilver had one album out, but Santana had not yet recorded and their first album wouldn’t be released until October ’69, so they were perhaps known mostly by their live reputation. Some students might already have seen a few of the many San Francisco shows Santana had played that year.

On the other hand, Santana’s band and its “Latin influence” may also have seemed more fresh and new to older listeners than Quicksilver, who had been playing the same small repertoire all year.

Santana’s “blues sound” is mentioned – at the time they were sometimes still billed as the “Santana Blues Band.” (Though they’d shortened their band name back in the summer, show posters outside of San Francisco still kept the older name.)

Randy wrote: “As I recall I was told that the bands only played one set each. At that time Quicksilver's first sets were nothing special. Kind of like the Dead, they really came alive in their second sets.”

Quicksilver’s request to the audience to “come closer and sit on the floor” is also striking. Perhaps they were having trouble ‘coming alive’ – one wonders why this empty floor wasn’t filled with dancers?

But that reminds me of a recent eyewitness memory of a somewhat older crowd at the Dead/Quicksilver show at South Oregon College in Ashland, Feb 4 ’68: “I was there and it seemed the only ones dancing were the ones that had a fair amount of LSD in our systems (far too many folks were sitting on the floor with their mouths agape).”

Scheduled for 7:30, the concert probably did not run very late. As the opener on a weeknight high-school show Santana’s set may have been short, but their setlist was probably similar to the Fillmore West sets from the next month released as “Live at the Fillmore ’68.” Quicksilver’s setlist was most likely much the same as at their famed Fillmore West run earlier in November, partly used on the Happy Trails album and later circulating on tapes and bootlegs:  

http://concertaday.blogspot.com/2011/11/november-7-8-9-10-1969-quicksilver.html

So it’s easy to imagine what the show must have sounded like in the crowded gym.

Mr. What also did the light show at Santana’s 2/11/69 Woodside High concert, but I haven’t seen them listed elsewhere.

At any rate, the bands were loud, the light-show psychedelic, the gym converted to a mini-Fillmore for the night, and the experience was burned in students’ memories. No doubt before long many of them were heading off to San Francisco to see more rock shows.

While it would be nice to report that this show passed into Los Altos legend, oddly enough, any word of it instead soon vanished into the fog of the sixties. No ads or posters have survived, no press listings were found; and the yearbook spread appears to have remained unknown outside the student body. As a result, only those who attended remembered that it ever took place.

It’s possible more memories of this show may come to light, now that this article has been posted. Los Altos High also had a biweekly newspaper, the Lance, which may well have run an article on the show, if anyone has access to issues from November ’68…

Two related posts worth checking out:  

A description of a Santana/Quicksilver show with the Dead at Winterland a month later (and “so sweet” Gary Duncan’s last appearance with Quicksilver for a year) -  

http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2011/12/december-31-1968-winterland-grateful.html

And a listing of Palo Alto High School concert highlights, 1967-69 -  

http://rockprosopography101.blogspot.com/2010/02/june-16-1967-cubberley-high-school.html