THE ACID TEST IS HERE
Sunday night, February 6th, the Acid Test began in L.A. at the Valley Unitarian Church. Inspired initially by novelist Ken Kesey, it amounts to a revolutionary concept of the function of the theatre and the relationship of individuals in a society.
Kesey was not here; he has ridden into the hills and will return again when his people call "All free!" As it is, although his group had only been here a day, police were hunting down its distinctive bus under orders to roust it wherever it was found. However, I do not get the impression that Kesey's group is dependent upon any one person to do its job nor that it's distracted by persecution.
When I asked Lee Quarnstron, one of the central group, if they began the performance with any set format, he answered, "'Freak freely' is our motto; as long as you hurt no one. We groove together. To repeat any procedure or method is to play an old game. We want to play new games."
Their first performance in L.A. was indicative of their methods. The floor of the room was littered with musical instruments, creatively dressed people, tape recorders, movie projectors, pieces of colored material... The walls and ceiling relentlessly changed color and images; my eyes were caressed and assaulted by random juxtapositions of shapes and colors. It appeared to be an integrated aesthetic fantasy controlled by some masterly yet casual hand.
Then two people, obviously not performers, rose and began playing with a large sheet of cellophane during a particularly beautiful musical session. By really digging what they were doing, they entertained all who watched. Events were moving in harmony despite their seemingly random development. The experience demanded each person to add honestly and creatively. By forsaking your anxieties and bullshit, you surrender yourself to the room and achieve a height of involvement equal to the sum total of all exposed potential in it.
Poet Neil Cassidy went out on an hour's worth of fascinating word salad over a mike while interferometric Del Close began casting magical and ineffable colors onto a wall, directed only by his spontaneous explorations of what he was doing. Hugh Romney began a monologue like an incantation while watching a film being shown on another section of wall. Dick Webster beat his gongs whenever some musician's sound enticed him; musicians tastefully tried musical possibilities until all were in the same place at once. A girl ran in a circle, stopping sporadically to dance enchantingly. Free Press editor Art Kunkin rambled over to a still projector and jiggled the image on the opposite wall for five minutes before I realized he wasn't part of the performing group.
Frightening, insane, chaotic? I suppose the answer depends on where you're at. To me, what went down was a recapture of an experience Man hasn't given himself the simple luxury of since he left his cave. It was a unification which insisted on confident naturalness. There were no distinctions between roles and functions and identities - only good people tripping out on their mutual creative expression and free exultation. I'm sure someone must get his head in a bad place during one of these performances, but it would be impossible to keep it there among such good vibrations.
Quarnstron later told me that all these experiences will ultimately be organized into a movie. The show I came to watch is a show in which I am a performer. To be passive in this experience - as in any other - is to deny myself my own capability.
The Acid Test will be here about two weeks and is currently seeking a place to live, work, perform. The central group works all day on their maze of tapes and films and plays all night to radiate epiphanies. The Free Press and your local grapevine will let you know where and when the next Acid Test will be.
Ralph Gleason, in San Francisco (where the group successfully performed for some three months) has described their efforts with Dylan's lines about Mr. Jones: "Something is happening here, but you don't know what it is." Quarnstron describes them in the paraphrase, "THIS is what's happening here." The difference in tone is crucial: the Acid Test warmly welcomes all who come to it cleanly, clearly, totally. Their Yes is open and unqualified; they say No only to negatives.
Is this a nihilistic Hedonism or a new attempt to achieve fulfillment in a world of increasingly maniacal rigidity? I suppose the answer depends on how up-tight you are, how certain you are of your own validity and stature.
(by Paul Jay Robbins, from the "Happenings" column, Los Angeles Free Press, 11 February 1966)
See also:
http://www.postertrip.com/public/5579.cfm
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2017/01/march-19-1966-carthay-studios-los.html
Jun 29, 2017
December 6, 1968: The Spectrum, Philadelphia
ROCK GOING ESTABLISHMENT?
One of the things you start wondering about, while you are sitting in your red-cushioned seat at the Spectrum listening to a guitar player who belongs to a group called the Iron Butterfly playing on his knees, is if this all means that rock music, the curse of the over-25 class, is finally going establishment.
The scene was Friday night, at the Quaker City Rock Festival No. 2, a concert designed to show off the talents - and the massive electronic sound - of five rock groups, including the Iron Butterfly, which also boasted a topless drummer who played what must be the most monotonous 10-minute solo in the history of man, and a fire, lit in a metal pan on the revolving carpeted stage by the guitar fellow who played on his knees.
The funny thing about it is that you would expect the young people who attend rock festivals to really let themselves go, surrounded by 10,000 of their peers and the sound they love being blasted from about a dozen speakers darn near as big as your refrigerator.
But they sit there, talking to each other, clapping politely at the end of each song (Rock compositions are always called songs, just as the people who play them are always called groups, and never combos.), and, occasionally, a few of them would extend aloft an arm topped by the Churchillian "V for victory" sign, although, I have learned, to them it means peace, or Black Power, or groovey, or something like that.
It was, admittedly, not as good as Quaker City Rock Festival No. 1, which had the Chambers Brothers and the Vanilla Fudge and Janis Joplin with her former supporting group, Big Brother and the Holding Company.
No. 2 started off with the Creedence Clearwater Revival, a group that plays something they call folk rock and has one song, a two-parter, really, called "Suzie Q" which most people can stand and is probably the best thing that they will ever do.
Next team on the revolving stage was the Grateful Dead, and they, too, are not in the class with the Beatles or the Doors or the Jefferson Airplane. Only once, in the midst of a song that lasted perhaps 20 minutes, did the Grateful Dead appear really alive, and that was when a guitarist, with the help of enough transistors and other radio insides to build two television sets, wrenched from his instrument a series of high, feedback-augmented chords that could be compared, favorably, with some of the better compositions of Stravinsky.
By now it is 9 p.m., about a third of the way through the night, and the audience, high-schoolers and college types clad in the usual nonconformist's uniform of long hair and slightly exotic clothes, was acting politely bored, much like a solid, upper-middle-class burgher who has been dragged to a symphonic concert by his wife and is trying to appear gracefully interested and still stay awake.
Part of the problem is the time involved changing the stage between acts. Each group plays for about 45 minutes, and it takes almost that long for the speakers, amps, organs, and funny lights to be put into place and wired together, a hiatus punctuated frequently by an announcer with a 19-word, pseudo-hip vocabulary who urges the audience to be patient.
The other problem is acoustics. The Spectrum, better known for ice hockey and basketball, is not really a concert hall, for one thing, and during the first three sets, the auditorium's amplifier was occasionally feuding with the musicians' amps, creating a sound like that of a very cheap transistor playing at full volume under water.
But the Iron Butterfly scored points with a new number, still not available on records, called "Soul Experience," and with their magnum opus, a 27-minute work entitled, I believe, "In-a-Gadda-da-Zida," which sounds better than it reads, except for the solo by the topless drummer.
It was at about this time, while waiting for Sly and the Family Stone, that the announcer said that the Rolling Stones are coming to the Spectrum in March, their first American concert in four years, and the crowd nearly went wild.
The high point of the night, excitement-wise, was the Family Stone, which attempted to turn on the audience and nearly succeeded. Sly Stone was running up and down the aisles, waving the "V" sign and letting the audience help by yelling something that sounded like "hi ya" every so often, and you could see the tension build, but the bubble broke before more than a third of the people were out of their seats, and suddenly it was a little sad, because the audience could not or would not turn on, and Sly Stone and the rest of his group were in a frenzy that had been beautiful but now slightly embarrassing.
And that is when the half-formed thought about the Establishment gobbling up rock music becomes even more intriguing, because any concert that costs $5.50 to attend cannot be considered in the same class as its origins, those cheap dance halls where musicians like the Beatles starved on 5 pounds a week and devised a music form that could appeal to the young, interest the old, and eventually cause some of the world's stuffiest critics to rank them with Beethoven.
The last group was Steppenwolf (the name is stolen from a book by Herman Hesse), and Steppenwolf was almost good enough to wash away those heretical thoughts. But then you remember that "Born to be Wild" is probably the best song that Steppenwolf has done, and notice that the audience is anything but wild, and then you realize that there was probably a time when even Guy Lombardo was considered new and different, a brief shining moment before he, too, became Establishment.
(by W.G. Tudor, from the Morning News (Wilmington DE), 9 December 1968)
http://www.dead.net/show/december-6-1968
Thanks to Dave Davis.
One of the things you start wondering about, while you are sitting in your red-cushioned seat at the Spectrum listening to a guitar player who belongs to a group called the Iron Butterfly playing on his knees, is if this all means that rock music, the curse of the over-25 class, is finally going establishment.
The scene was Friday night, at the Quaker City Rock Festival No. 2, a concert designed to show off the talents - and the massive electronic sound - of five rock groups, including the Iron Butterfly, which also boasted a topless drummer who played what must be the most monotonous 10-minute solo in the history of man, and a fire, lit in a metal pan on the revolving carpeted stage by the guitar fellow who played on his knees.
The funny thing about it is that you would expect the young people who attend rock festivals to really let themselves go, surrounded by 10,000 of their peers and the sound they love being blasted from about a dozen speakers darn near as big as your refrigerator.
But they sit there, talking to each other, clapping politely at the end of each song (Rock compositions are always called songs, just as the people who play them are always called groups, and never combos.), and, occasionally, a few of them would extend aloft an arm topped by the Churchillian "V for victory" sign, although, I have learned, to them it means peace, or Black Power, or groovey, or something like that.
It was, admittedly, not as good as Quaker City Rock Festival No. 1, which had the Chambers Brothers and the Vanilla Fudge and Janis Joplin with her former supporting group, Big Brother and the Holding Company.
No. 2 started off with the Creedence Clearwater Revival, a group that plays something they call folk rock and has one song, a two-parter, really, called "Suzie Q" which most people can stand and is probably the best thing that they will ever do.
Next team on the revolving stage was the Grateful Dead, and they, too, are not in the class with the Beatles or the Doors or the Jefferson Airplane. Only once, in the midst of a song that lasted perhaps 20 minutes, did the Grateful Dead appear really alive, and that was when a guitarist, with the help of enough transistors and other radio insides to build two television sets, wrenched from his instrument a series of high, feedback-augmented chords that could be compared, favorably, with some of the better compositions of Stravinsky.
By now it is 9 p.m., about a third of the way through the night, and the audience, high-schoolers and college types clad in the usual nonconformist's uniform of long hair and slightly exotic clothes, was acting politely bored, much like a solid, upper-middle-class burgher who has been dragged to a symphonic concert by his wife and is trying to appear gracefully interested and still stay awake.
Part of the problem is the time involved changing the stage between acts. Each group plays for about 45 minutes, and it takes almost that long for the speakers, amps, organs, and funny lights to be put into place and wired together, a hiatus punctuated frequently by an announcer with a 19-word, pseudo-hip vocabulary who urges the audience to be patient.
The other problem is acoustics. The Spectrum, better known for ice hockey and basketball, is not really a concert hall, for one thing, and during the first three sets, the auditorium's amplifier was occasionally feuding with the musicians' amps, creating a sound like that of a very cheap transistor playing at full volume under water.
But the Iron Butterfly scored points with a new number, still not available on records, called "Soul Experience," and with their magnum opus, a 27-minute work entitled, I believe, "In-a-Gadda-da-Zida," which sounds better than it reads, except for the solo by the topless drummer.
It was at about this time, while waiting for Sly and the Family Stone, that the announcer said that the Rolling Stones are coming to the Spectrum in March, their first American concert in four years, and the crowd nearly went wild.
The high point of the night, excitement-wise, was the Family Stone, which attempted to turn on the audience and nearly succeeded. Sly Stone was running up and down the aisles, waving the "V" sign and letting the audience help by yelling something that sounded like "hi ya" every so often, and you could see the tension build, but the bubble broke before more than a third of the people were out of their seats, and suddenly it was a little sad, because the audience could not or would not turn on, and Sly Stone and the rest of his group were in a frenzy that had been beautiful but now slightly embarrassing.
And that is when the half-formed thought about the Establishment gobbling up rock music becomes even more intriguing, because any concert that costs $5.50 to attend cannot be considered in the same class as its origins, those cheap dance halls where musicians like the Beatles starved on 5 pounds a week and devised a music form that could appeal to the young, interest the old, and eventually cause some of the world's stuffiest critics to rank them with Beethoven.
The last group was Steppenwolf (the name is stolen from a book by Herman Hesse), and Steppenwolf was almost good enough to wash away those heretical thoughts. But then you remember that "Born to be Wild" is probably the best song that Steppenwolf has done, and notice that the audience is anything but wild, and then you realize that there was probably a time when even Guy Lombardo was considered new and different, a brief shining moment before he, too, became Establishment.
(by W.G. Tudor, from the Morning News (Wilmington DE), 9 December 1968)
http://www.dead.net/show/december-6-1968
Thanks to Dave Davis.
Jun 28, 2017
August 23, 1968: Shrine Exposition Hall, Los Angeles
THE GRATEFUL DEAD APPEAR AT SHRINE
At their best, the Grateful Dead are a wondrous group and they were at their best for a weekend dance concert sponsored by Pinnacle at the Shrine Exposition Hall.
The San Francisco sextet has a number of failings - their vocals are weak, they seem to require at least 20 minutes to warm into excitement, and their original songs are not notable either for lyrics or for melodies - but their weaknesses become insignificant when lead guitarist Jerry Garcia gets going.
Garcia is brilliant, an instrumentalist with flawless timing, great melodic invention, and a magic ability to raise the Dead into continually higher peaks of excitement.
He and they excel at improvising at a giddy pace and nearly every song accelerates into roller coasterish speed at some point to display their staccato abilities. His guitar flights are sometimes beautiful and sometimes frenzied but they are always perfect for the group and the crowd.
Bob Weir, rhythm guitar; Ron McKernon (Pigpen), organ; Phil Lesh, bass; and Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, drums, generate a massive amount of music through which Garcia's guitar romps.
The Dead also are notable for a non-musical quality: of all the San Francisco groups, they probably have played more free concerts than any other. Pinnacle has been having financial problems and the Grateful Dead, who appeared in the first Pinnacle concert, appeared to help them out.
Also on the bill was Taj Mahal, the husky voiced blues singer and harmonica player whose band includes another fine guitarist, Eddie Davis.
Meanwhile, the Kaleidoscope, which again is being run by the people who started it, presented the Moby Grape, Genesis, and the McCoys Friday and Saturday nights.
The Moby Grape, another San Francisco group, has become a quartet with the departure of Skip Spence, who sang, played rhythm guitar, and mugged and danced frenetically during their appearances. Spence left because of ill health.
His absence does not seem to have thinned the group's musical ability, but their Saturday night performance was rather dull except for Jerry Miller's work on lead guitar.
A member of Genesis was in jail Saturday night, so I did not get to see them, and the well-publicized new McCoys don't merit much excitement, but the light show (apparently incorporating the Thomas Edison Castle people from the defunct Cheetah, to judge from familiar slides and movies) was very good.
(by Pete Johnson, from the Los Angeles Times, 26 August 1968)
https://archive.org/details/gd1968-08-23.sbd.sniper777.tomP.116193.flac16
*
[A brief review of the Dead's first appearance at the Shrine, May 17-18, 1968.]
... Meanwhile, over at the Shrine Exposition Hall, the Grateful Dead pummelled several thousand persons with their long improvisational rock music in a show sponsored by the Pinnacle.
The sound of the San Francisco sextet is heavily dependent on lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, whose brilliant playing makes it hard to realize that he is surrounded by routine musicians.
They have two average drummers instead of one good one. Pigpen's organ is generally barely audible and his voice, the best in the group, is mediocre.
Garcia, however, led the group through some exciting blues-based music which roused the Shrine crowd into fervid demonstrations of appreciation.
(by Pete Johnson?, from the Los Angeles Times, 20 May 1968)
Thanks to Dave Davis.
Los Angeles Times staff writer Pete Johnson had also reviewed the Dead at the Hollywood Bowl 9/15/67 and the Shrine Exposition Hall 11/10/67:
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/september-15-1967-hollywood-bowl.html
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/november-10-1967-la-shrine-hall.html
At their best, the Grateful Dead are a wondrous group and they were at their best for a weekend dance concert sponsored by Pinnacle at the Shrine Exposition Hall.
The San Francisco sextet has a number of failings - their vocals are weak, they seem to require at least 20 minutes to warm into excitement, and their original songs are not notable either for lyrics or for melodies - but their weaknesses become insignificant when lead guitarist Jerry Garcia gets going.
Garcia is brilliant, an instrumentalist with flawless timing, great melodic invention, and a magic ability to raise the Dead into continually higher peaks of excitement.
He and they excel at improvising at a giddy pace and nearly every song accelerates into roller coasterish speed at some point to display their staccato abilities. His guitar flights are sometimes beautiful and sometimes frenzied but they are always perfect for the group and the crowd.
Bob Weir, rhythm guitar; Ron McKernon (Pigpen), organ; Phil Lesh, bass; and Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, drums, generate a massive amount of music through which Garcia's guitar romps.
The Dead also are notable for a non-musical quality: of all the San Francisco groups, they probably have played more free concerts than any other. Pinnacle has been having financial problems and the Grateful Dead, who appeared in the first Pinnacle concert, appeared to help them out.
Also on the bill was Taj Mahal, the husky voiced blues singer and harmonica player whose band includes another fine guitarist, Eddie Davis.
Meanwhile, the Kaleidoscope, which again is being run by the people who started it, presented the Moby Grape, Genesis, and the McCoys Friday and Saturday nights.
The Moby Grape, another San Francisco group, has become a quartet with the departure of Skip Spence, who sang, played rhythm guitar, and mugged and danced frenetically during their appearances. Spence left because of ill health.
His absence does not seem to have thinned the group's musical ability, but their Saturday night performance was rather dull except for Jerry Miller's work on lead guitar.
A member of Genesis was in jail Saturday night, so I did not get to see them, and the well-publicized new McCoys don't merit much excitement, but the light show (apparently incorporating the Thomas Edison Castle people from the defunct Cheetah, to judge from familiar slides and movies) was very good.
(by Pete Johnson, from the Los Angeles Times, 26 August 1968)
https://archive.org/details/gd1968-08-23.sbd.sniper777.tomP.116193.flac16
*
[A brief review of the Dead's first appearance at the Shrine, May 17-18, 1968.]
... Meanwhile, over at the Shrine Exposition Hall, the Grateful Dead pummelled several thousand persons with their long improvisational rock music in a show sponsored by the Pinnacle.
The sound of the San Francisco sextet is heavily dependent on lead guitarist Jerry Garcia, whose brilliant playing makes it hard to realize that he is surrounded by routine musicians.
They have two average drummers instead of one good one. Pigpen's organ is generally barely audible and his voice, the best in the group, is mediocre.
Garcia, however, led the group through some exciting blues-based music which roused the Shrine crowd into fervid demonstrations of appreciation.
(by Pete Johnson?, from the Los Angeles Times, 20 May 1968)
Thanks to Dave Davis.
Los Angeles Times staff writer Pete Johnson had also reviewed the Dead at the Hollywood Bowl 9/15/67 and the Shrine Exposition Hall 11/10/67:
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/september-15-1967-hollywood-bowl.html
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/november-10-1967-la-shrine-hall.html
Jun 27, 2017
May 5, 1968: Central Park, New York City
6,000 IN PARK ROCK TO WEST COAST SOUND
It was a beautiful day in Central Park yesterday for lollipops, dogs, pretty girls, wisteria, and hard rock.
The rock was provided for free by three of the currently best-known groups on the rock 'n' roll scene - the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Jefferson Airplane, and the Grateful Dead.
The area's normal Sunday denizens - pretty girls in their slimmest pants suits walking dogs in hopes of meeting the lawyers and advertising men in their weekend Nehru jackets and turtlenecks - were all but swamped in the horde of young people who flocked to the concert.
About six thousand, the police estimated, jammed into the plaza in front of the bandstand near the Mall while thousands more sprawled out on the grass and under the trees. A few of the park benches were held by elderly people who listened and watched solemnly.
Free concerts have become a tradition among the oddly named groups in San Francisco who are bringing the music back to its rhythm and blues roots and adding an almost overpowering electronic sound.
"We almost always do free concerts - sometimes after the paying gig (job) we go outside and do another show for the kids who can't get [in]," explained Rock Scully, the Grateful Dead's road manager, as musicians and technicians set up their equipment in the concrete bandstand.
The most popular apparel among the youths was cast-off military jackets, often decorated with peace buttons. Many of them carried photographic equipment, and they showed their affection for the bands by cheering wildly, holding up two fingers in the "V" sign, and throwing lollipops on the stage.
As the wailing notes of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band drifted across the football players on the Sheep Meadow and bounced off the apartment houses on Central Park West, a barefoot blond girl in the back did an intricate dance by herself.
Grace Slick, the lead singer of the Jefferson Airplane, brought the crowd to their feet as she half-growled her lyrics into a hand microphone, and the excitement was maintained by the Grateful Dead, a band consisting of an electric organ, two electric guitars, an electric bass, a Chinese gong, and two complete sets of drums.
The Dead are extremely driving, amplified and hirsute, even by San Francisco standards, and in their finale, one of the drummers appears to run amok and savagely attacks his cymbals, while another member of the band sets off a small explosion.
As the group was playing, Michael F. Goldstein, a public relations man who assisted William Graham of the Fillmore East and Howard Solomon of the Cafe au Go Go in setting up the show, approached a glum-looking police captain near the bandstand.
"It's a great day and there aren't any hassles, captain, why aren't you happy?" Mr. Goldstein asked.
"I'd rather be listening to some Bach or Mozart," the captain replied, "or even Beethoven, heavy as he is."
(by John Kifner, from the New York Times, 6 May 1968)
See also:
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/may-4-9-1968-new-york.html
It was a beautiful day in Central Park yesterday for lollipops, dogs, pretty girls, wisteria, and hard rock.
The rock was provided for free by three of the currently best-known groups on the rock 'n' roll scene - the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Jefferson Airplane, and the Grateful Dead.
The area's normal Sunday denizens - pretty girls in their slimmest pants suits walking dogs in hopes of meeting the lawyers and advertising men in their weekend Nehru jackets and turtlenecks - were all but swamped in the horde of young people who flocked to the concert.
About six thousand, the police estimated, jammed into the plaza in front of the bandstand near the Mall while thousands more sprawled out on the grass and under the trees. A few of the park benches were held by elderly people who listened and watched solemnly.
Free concerts have become a tradition among the oddly named groups in San Francisco who are bringing the music back to its rhythm and blues roots and adding an almost overpowering electronic sound.
"We almost always do free concerts - sometimes after the paying gig (job) we go outside and do another show for the kids who can't get [in]," explained Rock Scully, the Grateful Dead's road manager, as musicians and technicians set up their equipment in the concrete bandstand.
The most popular apparel among the youths was cast-off military jackets, often decorated with peace buttons. Many of them carried photographic equipment, and they showed their affection for the bands by cheering wildly, holding up two fingers in the "V" sign, and throwing lollipops on the stage.
As the wailing notes of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band drifted across the football players on the Sheep Meadow and bounced off the apartment houses on Central Park West, a barefoot blond girl in the back did an intricate dance by herself.
Grace Slick, the lead singer of the Jefferson Airplane, brought the crowd to their feet as she half-growled her lyrics into a hand microphone, and the excitement was maintained by the Grateful Dead, a band consisting of an electric organ, two electric guitars, an electric bass, a Chinese gong, and two complete sets of drums.
The Dead are extremely driving, amplified and hirsute, even by San Francisco standards, and in their finale, one of the drummers appears to run amok and savagely attacks his cymbals, while another member of the band sets off a small explosion.
As the group was playing, Michael F. Goldstein, a public relations man who assisted William Graham of the Fillmore East and Howard Solomon of the Cafe au Go Go in setting up the show, approached a glum-looking police captain near the bandstand.
"It's a great day and there aren't any hassles, captain, why aren't you happy?" Mr. Goldstein asked.
"I'd rather be listening to some Bach or Mozart," the captain replied, "or even Beethoven, heavy as he is."
(by John Kifner, from the New York Times, 6 May 1968)
See also:
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/02/may-4-9-1968-new-york.html
May 15, 2017
March 11, 1968: Memorial Auditorium, Sacramento, CA
CREAM CONCERT
CREAM should have convinced everybody within listening distance that they are, without any doubt, the finest in the rock idiom. For the very first time in Sacramento's rock concert history, the audience was courteous as well as appreciative.
Ginger Baker's "Toad" solo was inspired as he was encouraged by the very aware audience. Every complicated passage in his improvisations met with an ovation. Of the three times I have seen CREAM in concert, this was the best solo by Baker.
The songs played were of varying origins. Some were unreleased as yet, and others came from either "Fresh Cream" or "Disraeli Gears." "Tales of Brave Ulysseus," "N.S.U.," "Sunshine Of Your Love," "Sittin' On Top Of The World," and the medley of "Steppin' Out" (solo by Clapton), "Train Comin'" (harmonica solo by Bruce), and "Toad."
The policemen deserve a round of applause for their deplorable treatment of the musicians. Baker's sarcastic comment, "We love your police," was an indication of the obviously disrespectful attitude that usually pervades the cops' conduct. As the musicians were filing out of the back door of the auditorium, I heard the comments of the security police, for instance: "Hi, Sweetie" and "Take a bath." And they complain about the kids being badly behaved. I suggest that our lovable men in blue learn a few manners!!
The GRATEFUL DEAD were surprisingly good. The two drummers came up with a counter play that developed into an Afro-Cuban rhythm. The songs they played remained unnamed, but all six members of the group performed admirably. This is the first concert in Sacramento that even faintly resembled a Fillmore happening.
Both of the rock groups received standing ovations. The concert was a huge success. Aside from the ignorance and rudeness of the police, everyone who was there could feel the goodwill towards everyone. It was the first beautiful happening in our city.
(by Mick Martin, from the Pony Express, Sacramento, 15 March 1968)
No tape, alas!
Another review is here:
https://deadsources.blogspot.com/2020/05/march-11-1968-memorial-auditorium.html
See also:
http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2016/03/march-11-1968-civic-auditorium.html
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2010/03/cream-and-dead.html
* * *
(Here is another Cream review by the same author, seven months later.)
OF CREAM AND CONCERTS
The last two weeks were brim-full of superlative concerts by some of the best well-known and unknown rock groups. Anyone with a fast car could have caught them all and, as an afterthought, should have. Many once-in-a-lifetime rock milestones were happening; I will try to acquaint you with them.
Best of the lot was the really enjoyable CREAM concert at the Oakland Coliseum. [October 4] After listening to four other CREAM concerts, I was ready to be hyper-critical of what they played. I couldn't be. As the rest of the capacity crowd, I was aware that three musicians were spontaneously creating on stage and listened appropriately.
The songs played included tracks from their three album releases: "White Room"; "Politician"; "Deserted Cities Of The Heart"; "Crossroads"; "Spoonful"; "Toad"; "Sunshine Of Your Love"; and "I'm So Glad."
The introduction and conclusion to "Toad," which involved all three artists, was terribly sloppy. The solo was not the best I have heard by Ginger Baker, but it was adequate. "White Room" and "Politician" were earmarked by fine solo passages.
"Spoonful," more than ever before, was the best tune. It was inspiring to hear the interaction between Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Baker. They go into some very pleasing variations. Musically it was exciting to try to follow them simultaneously through the individual and collective improvisions.
[The opening bands:] The COLLECTORS were fair. At times I felt they were almost into it, but their attitude was all too unsure and they didn't make me want to listen. IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY, on the other hand, was captivating and polished both at this concert and at the Fillmore West the week before. The violinist is a true craftsman; his emotions are easily felt through his music. The rest of the group makes statements that are just as effective. I can see considerable success here.
SUPER SESSION featured an added treat. [Fillmore West, 9/28/68] Mike Bloomfield was hospitalized; so, on Saturday night, Carlos Santanna and Steve Miller jammed with Al Kooper and his sidemen. Miller was poor; he wouldn't get into it. Santanna, on the other hand, was creative and positively engrossing. The interaction between Kooper and Santanna was very pleasing. It's going to be a nice LP. (They were recording live.)
In Sacramento, The GRATEFUL DEAD, TURTLES, YOUNGBLOODS, INITIAL SHOCK, SANPAKU, and FAMILY TREE played to a surprisingly small crowd of 2,000. [Memorial Auditorium, 10/5/68] The TURTLES were funny and entertaining. They were a release from the intensely musically innovative atmosphere. Mark Volmann is a comedian, in the truest sense of the word.
The DEAD, INITIAL SHOCK, and SANPAKU were the musical highpoints of the evening. SANPAKU's hornmen are so beautiful, their solos are always different, and yet they build to a completely emotional climax. Their original material is well arranged and worth repeated listens.
INITIAL SHOCK and the DEAD were better than ever and twice as groovy. Both groups always provide me with the feeling that I have heard something worthwhile, and on this night I felt they did exceptional jobs. YOUNGBLOODS were nice, and FAMILY TREE shows promise. It was an enjoyable evening, but I can't wait for Sacramento to get it together and support promoters like Whitey Davis, who really cares about music.
(by Mick Martin, from the Pony Express, 10 October 1968)
CREAM should have convinced everybody within listening distance that they are, without any doubt, the finest in the rock idiom. For the very first time in Sacramento's rock concert history, the audience was courteous as well as appreciative.
Ginger Baker's "Toad" solo was inspired as he was encouraged by the very aware audience. Every complicated passage in his improvisations met with an ovation. Of the three times I have seen CREAM in concert, this was the best solo by Baker.
The songs played were of varying origins. Some were unreleased as yet, and others came from either "Fresh Cream" or "Disraeli Gears." "Tales of Brave Ulysseus," "N.S.U.," "Sunshine Of Your Love," "Sittin' On Top Of The World," and the medley of "Steppin' Out" (solo by Clapton), "Train Comin'" (harmonica solo by Bruce), and "Toad."
The policemen deserve a round of applause for their deplorable treatment of the musicians. Baker's sarcastic comment, "We love your police," was an indication of the obviously disrespectful attitude that usually pervades the cops' conduct. As the musicians were filing out of the back door of the auditorium, I heard the comments of the security police, for instance: "Hi, Sweetie" and "Take a bath." And they complain about the kids being badly behaved. I suggest that our lovable men in blue learn a few manners!!
The GRATEFUL DEAD were surprisingly good. The two drummers came up with a counter play that developed into an Afro-Cuban rhythm. The songs they played remained unnamed, but all six members of the group performed admirably. This is the first concert in Sacramento that even faintly resembled a Fillmore happening.
Both of the rock groups received standing ovations. The concert was a huge success. Aside from the ignorance and rudeness of the police, everyone who was there could feel the goodwill towards everyone. It was the first beautiful happening in our city.
(by Mick Martin, from the Pony Express, Sacramento, 15 March 1968)
No tape, alas!
Another review is here:
https://deadsources.blogspot.com/2020/05/march-11-1968-memorial-auditorium.html
See also:
http://lostlivedead.blogspot.com/2016/03/march-11-1968-civic-auditorium.html
http://deadessays.blogspot.com/2010/03/cream-and-dead.html
* * *
(Here is another Cream review by the same author, seven months later.)
OF CREAM AND CONCERTS
The last two weeks were brim-full of superlative concerts by some of the best well-known and unknown rock groups. Anyone with a fast car could have caught them all and, as an afterthought, should have. Many once-in-a-lifetime rock milestones were happening; I will try to acquaint you with them.
Best of the lot was the really enjoyable CREAM concert at the Oakland Coliseum. [October 4] After listening to four other CREAM concerts, I was ready to be hyper-critical of what they played. I couldn't be. As the rest of the capacity crowd, I was aware that three musicians were spontaneously creating on stage and listened appropriately.
The songs played included tracks from their three album releases: "White Room"; "Politician"; "Deserted Cities Of The Heart"; "Crossroads"; "Spoonful"; "Toad"; "Sunshine Of Your Love"; and "I'm So Glad."
The introduction and conclusion to "Toad," which involved all three artists, was terribly sloppy. The solo was not the best I have heard by Ginger Baker, but it was adequate. "White Room" and "Politician" were earmarked by fine solo passages.
"Spoonful," more than ever before, was the best tune. It was inspiring to hear the interaction between Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, and Baker. They go into some very pleasing variations. Musically it was exciting to try to follow them simultaneously through the individual and collective improvisions.
[The opening bands:] The COLLECTORS were fair. At times I felt they were almost into it, but their attitude was all too unsure and they didn't make me want to listen. IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY, on the other hand, was captivating and polished both at this concert and at the Fillmore West the week before. The violinist is a true craftsman; his emotions are easily felt through his music. The rest of the group makes statements that are just as effective. I can see considerable success here.
SUPER SESSION featured an added treat. [Fillmore West, 9/28/68] Mike Bloomfield was hospitalized; so, on Saturday night, Carlos Santanna and Steve Miller jammed with Al Kooper and his sidemen. Miller was poor; he wouldn't get into it. Santanna, on the other hand, was creative and positively engrossing. The interaction between Kooper and Santanna was very pleasing. It's going to be a nice LP. (They were recording live.)
In Sacramento, The GRATEFUL DEAD, TURTLES, YOUNGBLOODS, INITIAL SHOCK, SANPAKU, and FAMILY TREE played to a surprisingly small crowd of 2,000. [Memorial Auditorium, 10/5/68] The TURTLES were funny and entertaining. They were a release from the intensely musically innovative atmosphere. Mark Volmann is a comedian, in the truest sense of the word.
The DEAD, INITIAL SHOCK, and SANPAKU were the musical highpoints of the evening. SANPAKU's hornmen are so beautiful, their solos are always different, and yet they build to a completely emotional climax. Their original material is well arranged and worth repeated listens.
INITIAL SHOCK and the DEAD were better than ever and twice as groovy. Both groups always provide me with the feeling that I have heard something worthwhile, and on this night I felt they did exceptional jobs. YOUNGBLOODS were nice, and FAMILY TREE shows promise. It was an enjoyable evening, but I can't wait for Sacramento to get it together and support promoters like Whitey Davis, who really cares about music.
(by Mick Martin, from the Pony Express, 10 October 1968)
May 12, 2017
November 29-30, 1968: Hyde Park Teen Center, Cincinnati OH
THE GRATEFUL DEAD COMING – TO BREAK UP
To the Editor:
This year the Hyde Park-Mt. Lookout Teen Center will attempt an unprecedented program of live entertainment for all teens in the area. As you know, we brought The Vanilla Fudge to Cincinnati recently, and on November 30 we will present The Grateful Dead in two public concerts. Later on we hope to bring other nationally-known groups to town. This will probably be the last midwest concert for the group, since they are breaking up in December.
When our Teen Center first opened there was some criticism that all area teens could not take part. But everyone is welcome to attend these concerts. The two shows on November 30 are scheduled for 7:30 and 10 p. m. Tickets are $3.50 per person, and can be purchased in advance at the Center, 2753 Erie Avenue in Hyde Park. Since people were turned away at The Vanilla Fudge concert, we suggest concert goers buy their tickets ahead of time, for guaranteed admittance.
On November 29 we will sponsor two concerts by The Grateful Dead for members and their guests.
Sincerely,
D. J. Weber
Hyde Park-Mt. Lookout Teen Center
(from the letters to the editor, Cincinnati Enquirer, 9 November 1968)
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/100723425/
*
GREATFUL DEAD CONCERT CAPTURES ‘PARTICIPATION’
This year the Hyde Park-Mt. Lookout Teen Center will attempt an unprecedented program of live entertainment for all teens in the area. As you know, we brought The Vanilla Fudge to Cincinnati recently, and on November 30 we will present The Grateful Dead in two public concerts. Later on we hope to bring other nationally-known groups to town. This will probably be the last midwest concert for the group, since they are breaking up in December.
When our Teen Center first opened there was some criticism that all area teens could not take part. But everyone is welcome to attend these concerts. The two shows on November 30 are scheduled for 7:30 and 10 p. m. Tickets are $3.50 per person, and can be purchased in advance at the Center, 2753 Erie Avenue in Hyde Park. Since people were turned away at The Vanilla Fudge concert, we suggest concert goers buy their tickets ahead of time, for guaranteed admittance.
On November 29 we will sponsor two concerts by The Grateful Dead for members and their guests.
Sincerely,
D. J. Weber
Hyde Park-Mt. Lookout Teen Center
(from the letters to the editor, Cincinnati Enquirer, 9 November 1968)
https://www.newspapers.com/newspage/100723425/
*
GREATFUL DEAD CONCERT CAPTURES ‘PARTICIPATION’
Hair and lights were all over the place last Friday and
Saturday at the Hyde Park-Mt. Lookout Teen Center, as the Greatful Dead oozed
above ground to do their thing.
The concert was one of those truly sensational things that
hardly ever happens – but when it does, it’s an experience to be remembered.
Having had time to think, I analysed what it takes to make
such a concert – what has to be there before the magic takes over.
I found there were many unique things going together to make
the show a great one.
First of all, there was the geography of the teen council
building itself. It’s small. So small in fact, that you can’t even call it
dinky – you have to say it’s intimate.
Intimate surroundings are very conducive to a good rock
show.
Of course there were no chairs. People just sat cross-legged
on the floor like oriental meditators.
Then there’s the light show. A color wheel cast its
projections on the wall behind the stage and shadows of light passed over the
attentive group as pinpoints of color periodically burst above the crowd.
As the group plays, the lights keep a strange sort of time
with the music – sometimes right in time, and sometimes so vastly dissonant
that some sort of “theory of polarities” seems to be operating.
Of course there’s the group itself. They come on all smiles,
chattering with the audience, tuning their instruments and just being ugly.
Beautiful!
Their sound is something else again too. The Greatful Dead
is a large group – three guitars, two sets of drums, two keyboards and a horn.
And their sound is everywhere. It fills every corner of the
hall, but isn’t painfully deafening (as one might think in such cramped
quarters); it vibrates every floorboard, but is never oppressive.
This is the kind of show the Dead like best. One where
people don’t just sit like statues and listen because they paid $3 for a
ticket, but one where people sit on the floor, dance, and in general
“experience” the music.
Because you can feel the vibration of every drumbeat,
because your eardrum feels the reverberation of every guitar scream, because
every progression on the keyboard rattles your brain, because every swirl of
light covers yours and the performer’s face and captures your eyes, because
everyone is so close together and so near the stage, because everyone is lorded
over by some huge communal over-soul, you don’t watch a Grateful Dead concert,
you participate.
Yes, it’s all of these things which work together to achieve
the final effect – that Greatful Dead charisma.
It is also these very same things which work together to
make a great concert, and which also help to make rock music one of the most
exciting, alive and ever-explosive fields on the horizon today.
(by Jim Knippenberg, from the Cincinnati Enquirer, 7 December 1968)
*
BOB HAS A LOST WEEKEND – OR THE INTERVIEW THAT NEVER WAS
(Editor's Note: Last weekend Teen-Ager reporter Bob Buten
was sent to the Hyde Park - Mt.
Lookout Teen
Center to hear and
interview The Greatful Dead. Due to too many unusual circumstances, the
interview didn't come off. But Bob put in so many hours at the place just
trying to meet them, he felt some sort of story was in order. It follows.)
I left my house about 6:30 p.m. last Friday night to get to
a concert at the Hyde Park-Mt. Lookout Teen Center which was to start at 8
p.m. You see, I live in Fort Thomas,
Kentucky and knew I would be lost
for the first hour, so I left early.
I was surprised to find myself at the Center a half-hour
early! I met Jim Knippenberg, the Teen-Ager music columnist, outside and we
talked for awhile about how he was going to rip O. C. Smith up in his next
column. As we stood in the cold I told Jim what a nice guy O. C. Smith really
was, once you get to know him. I don't know why I said that because I dont
really know who O. C. Smith is.
When the Center doors finally opened I got inside, but I
didn't stay there long. I was quickly booted out as a freeloader. After
unsuccessfully trying to prove my identity as a Teen-Ager reporter to five or
six unbelievers, I went back to my car and found it parked in by a bunch of
other cars! Soon the Cincinnati Police came to my rescue and moved the cars so
I could leave.
Now Saturday I was supposed to actually interview the
Greatful Dead, because the director of the Center heard how I was asked to
leave Friday night. He had it all set up for 1:30 p.m. But guess what? The
group didn't show up until 5 p.m.!
During those long hours of waiting at the Center I did get
to browse around and meet some of the members. The place is really great! I
wish there was something just like it in Fort
Thomas!
Since the interview didn't come off again I was given a
ticket for the Saturday night concert. After another long drive I came back to Hyde Park and waited until 10 p.m. for the concert to
start. The Greatful Dead came on around 11 p.m., and played three tremendous
songs. While they played some guy with long hair tossed daisies into the crowd
and got a lot of people excited. There was also a fabulous light show, when
combined with the music, seemed to shake the building!
After the concert was over the whole group went downstairs
and ate fruit. It looked so good I had a few pieces myself.
Would you believe I finally got to one of the Greatful Dead
guys and I asked him what he was supposed to do while his buddies played their
instruments. (You see, he just stood on the stage and jumped around with a mike
that wasn't plugged in, so I was curious.) I didn't get much of an answer, but
he seemed like a pretty cool guy. Soon they all disappeared, one by one, until
there wasn't anyone left in the room. So I left, too.
Some interview!
(by Bob Buten, from the Cincinnati Enquirer, 7 December 1968)
Alas, no tape!
See also:
Apr 27, 2017
3/21/70 Capitol Theater, Port Chester NY
GRATEFUL...DEAD...GRATEFUL...DEAD
After our performance on Sat. night, a few Pageant Players went up to Portchester to catch the Grateful Dead doing a late show at Howard Stein's Capitol Theater. We got in free since someone in the group knew someone on the inside. The Grateful Dead are generally considered to be one of the grooviest rock groups, in terms of the cultural revolution: the most political, the most freaky, doing free shows whenever they can, supporting communes, doing a more relaxed kind of jamming show, rather than a slick series of arranged numbers. And they're really great musicians. They were my favorite American group. I hadn't seen them perform for over a year, and was looking forward to it when we went up there. But in the back of my head, I was wondering how I would respond to them now that I have a much more complete consciousness of women's liberation, and a strong awareness of how Male the whole rock scene is.
We came in just as a Busby Berkeley film was ending. The Grateful Dead were to go on next. And the crowd was hollering for them. I thought I was imagining things, but the atmosphere seemed hysterical, more than I've ever seen at a rock concert. I found out later that the Dead the night before had given the audience free acid, and this crowd wanted the same. The Dead came on, and opened up with a few fast numbers. The audience, or a large part of it anyway, was up on its feet shouting, dancing, screaming, waving. That was beautiful. It was a nice change from the usual stoned stupor of rock concerts. But the audience was so high strung and crazy that they couldn't wait for the Dead to tune their instruments in between numbers. They would start hooting and screaming. Then someone from the Dead gave the finger to the audience, and this started the playful hostility which continued all evening between the audience and the Grateful Dead, and between the audience members themselves. It reminded me a bit of a nightclub, with the hostile drunks yelling comments at the performers. I did feel that the energy of the audience had nowhere to go in that theater, with all the seats. It was very frustrating to try to dance, and let loose, and you began to feel like a caged animal.
I felt sorry for the Grateful Dead at different moments, having to contend with a bunch of nuts everytime they tried to tune up. But, then I thought, they agree to play at those theaters, they agree to play for those prices, they agree to play under those blue lights, that go off completely in between each number, And the audience is in darkness the whole time, so you can't possible relate to anyone near you, only the STARS on stage.
Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh did some beautiful blues, spiritual numbers on acoustic guitar. I was digging it. Then on comes Pigpen, and in his mellow lyrical voice sings about Cala May, who some people say is built like a Cadillac, but I know she's just a Model T, by her shape, and she can't take the weight, etc., etc. Something inside me went boom. There I was digging this beautiful voice, beautiful guitar, but with words about some woman's box. And I knew it would happen. I felt pretty sullen for the rest of the concert. I was also getting turned off by the fact that the audience just seemed to be waiting for the hits, like they didn't come to hear great music, great jamming, just the hits, which they were screaming for in between each number. The Grateful Dead just seemed like another commodity.
Everyone flipped out when Pigpen launched into "Turn on Your Love Light." It was what they were waiting for. Pigpen's riffs for that night included a little story about how his baby calls him when she wants him, first softly daddy, then he says yeah, real cool, then louder Daddy, him still cool yeah baby, then she screaming DADDY, and he's still real cool, says yeah baby, yuk, yuk. The predominantly male audience naturally flipped out over this. I flipped out inside.
The men in the Pageant Players who went, said they felt funny themselves about the concert, the songs, etc. In fact, it was my boyfriend, who pointed out to me that the audience was mainly men, and they seemed to be flipping out over the Dead more than the women. Weird atmosphere.
I thought about it all the next day, and realized the whole concert seemed like a hippie stag party.
We all know that the rock scene is male dominated, as are most other areas of creative work. But no other area is so totally male, as music. Has anyone reading this article ever met a woman bass player, a woman electric guitarist, woman drummer? I doubt it. And if you have, it's one or two, and maybe you had to think about it for a few minutes. Women write, paint, do theater, etc. But men make music, and this goes for classical, jazz, rock.
When I was in Brooklyn College majoring in music, I spent many hours around musicians, jazz and classical. And in the last few years, to some extent around rock musicians. And I tell you that musicians incorporate the hangups of straight society regarding men and women, more than men in the other fields. I know there are exceptions. But I found that in general guys who were poets, painters, were much more willing to see women as intellectual creative people, than were musicians, who thrive on a male ego, subservient "chick" relationship, which the whole hippie rock culture reinforces. And the fact that musicians spend so much time together playing music and that they are all men, makes their relationships with women purely sexual. It's exactly like the straight world where the man has his work outside the home, his main interests, outside the home, away from his woman. But he comes home to get fed, get laid, and maybe dig his kids.
I think that rock music has changed a lot of things, released a lot of energy, created some good images for young people, emphasized enjoyment, sensual pleasure, relaxation, freaking out, looking weird, turning on. But I also think as far as the male-female relationship goes, as far as women's liberation goes, and the image a woman should have of herself, it is totally reactionary, and must be changed. A woman can relate to rock music now only if she is a groupie, if not literally, then figuratively. As the drooling sex hungry little girl dying for IT from Pigpen, Jim Morrison, or Peter Townshend. I can't relate to that bullshit.
I don't think music should be asexual either. I think music is communication on a very emotional, sexual level. That's why I've always dug it so much. But sexual not in a male chauvinist context nor narcissistic display. Women and men should be playing in groups together. Women playing the instruments, writing the material. And not just having a "chick" sex object singer, in a male group. There's nothing new about that. But women playing drums, or electric guitar, is somehow very threatening to our images of what is feminine and masculine.
To me the whole image of the rock scene is an image of a mod, "pretty," long-haired, mini-skirted, or bell-bottomed passive, sweet chick, nice enough to be at the side of any strong manly rock musician or business man. Or an image of a braless, long-skirted, sweet, mother earth commune hippie chick. Both of those are distortions. And accepted roles. Just as the aggressive, dominant, creative genius is the role that men play, and what women LOOK UP to. And that's not my revolution, nor any of my sisters'. Women unite. Let's start making music. Revolutionary music.
(by Arlene Brown, from Rat, 4 April 1970)
https://archive.org/details/gd1970-03-21.late.aud.lee.pcrp.21779.shnf
http://seanhowe.tumblr.com/post/159552170872/new-york-city-1970-women-working-at-the
More reviews of 3/21/70:
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/07/march-21-1970-capitol-theater-port.html
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2014/02/march-21-1970-capitol-theater-port.html
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2014/03/march-21-1970-capitol-theater-port.html
After our performance on Sat. night, a few Pageant Players went up to Portchester to catch the Grateful Dead doing a late show at Howard Stein's Capitol Theater. We got in free since someone in the group knew someone on the inside. The Grateful Dead are generally considered to be one of the grooviest rock groups, in terms of the cultural revolution: the most political, the most freaky, doing free shows whenever they can, supporting communes, doing a more relaxed kind of jamming show, rather than a slick series of arranged numbers. And they're really great musicians. They were my favorite American group. I hadn't seen them perform for over a year, and was looking forward to it when we went up there. But in the back of my head, I was wondering how I would respond to them now that I have a much more complete consciousness of women's liberation, and a strong awareness of how Male the whole rock scene is.
We came in just as a Busby Berkeley film was ending. The Grateful Dead were to go on next. And the crowd was hollering for them. I thought I was imagining things, but the atmosphere seemed hysterical, more than I've ever seen at a rock concert. I found out later that the Dead the night before had given the audience free acid, and this crowd wanted the same. The Dead came on, and opened up with a few fast numbers. The audience, or a large part of it anyway, was up on its feet shouting, dancing, screaming, waving. That was beautiful. It was a nice change from the usual stoned stupor of rock concerts. But the audience was so high strung and crazy that they couldn't wait for the Dead to tune their instruments in between numbers. They would start hooting and screaming. Then someone from the Dead gave the finger to the audience, and this started the playful hostility which continued all evening between the audience and the Grateful Dead, and between the audience members themselves. It reminded me a bit of a nightclub, with the hostile drunks yelling comments at the performers. I did feel that the energy of the audience had nowhere to go in that theater, with all the seats. It was very frustrating to try to dance, and let loose, and you began to feel like a caged animal.
I felt sorry for the Grateful Dead at different moments, having to contend with a bunch of nuts everytime they tried to tune up. But, then I thought, they agree to play at those theaters, they agree to play for those prices, they agree to play under those blue lights, that go off completely in between each number, And the audience is in darkness the whole time, so you can't possible relate to anyone near you, only the STARS on stage.
Jerry Garcia and Phil Lesh did some beautiful blues, spiritual numbers on acoustic guitar. I was digging it. Then on comes Pigpen, and in his mellow lyrical voice sings about Cala May, who some people say is built like a Cadillac, but I know she's just a Model T, by her shape, and she can't take the weight, etc., etc. Something inside me went boom. There I was digging this beautiful voice, beautiful guitar, but with words about some woman's box. And I knew it would happen. I felt pretty sullen for the rest of the concert. I was also getting turned off by the fact that the audience just seemed to be waiting for the hits, like they didn't come to hear great music, great jamming, just the hits, which they were screaming for in between each number. The Grateful Dead just seemed like another commodity.
Everyone flipped out when Pigpen launched into "Turn on Your Love Light." It was what they were waiting for. Pigpen's riffs for that night included a little story about how his baby calls him when she wants him, first softly daddy, then he says yeah, real cool, then louder Daddy, him still cool yeah baby, then she screaming DADDY, and he's still real cool, says yeah baby, yuk, yuk. The predominantly male audience naturally flipped out over this. I flipped out inside.
The men in the Pageant Players who went, said they felt funny themselves about the concert, the songs, etc. In fact, it was my boyfriend, who pointed out to me that the audience was mainly men, and they seemed to be flipping out over the Dead more than the women. Weird atmosphere.
I thought about it all the next day, and realized the whole concert seemed like a hippie stag party.
We all know that the rock scene is male dominated, as are most other areas of creative work. But no other area is so totally male, as music. Has anyone reading this article ever met a woman bass player, a woman electric guitarist, woman drummer? I doubt it. And if you have, it's one or two, and maybe you had to think about it for a few minutes. Women write, paint, do theater, etc. But men make music, and this goes for classical, jazz, rock.
When I was in Brooklyn College majoring in music, I spent many hours around musicians, jazz and classical. And in the last few years, to some extent around rock musicians. And I tell you that musicians incorporate the hangups of straight society regarding men and women, more than men in the other fields. I know there are exceptions. But I found that in general guys who were poets, painters, were much more willing to see women as intellectual creative people, than were musicians, who thrive on a male ego, subservient "chick" relationship, which the whole hippie rock culture reinforces. And the fact that musicians spend so much time together playing music and that they are all men, makes their relationships with women purely sexual. It's exactly like the straight world where the man has his work outside the home, his main interests, outside the home, away from his woman. But he comes home to get fed, get laid, and maybe dig his kids.
I think that rock music has changed a lot of things, released a lot of energy, created some good images for young people, emphasized enjoyment, sensual pleasure, relaxation, freaking out, looking weird, turning on. But I also think as far as the male-female relationship goes, as far as women's liberation goes, and the image a woman should have of herself, it is totally reactionary, and must be changed. A woman can relate to rock music now only if she is a groupie, if not literally, then figuratively. As the drooling sex hungry little girl dying for IT from Pigpen, Jim Morrison, or Peter Townshend. I can't relate to that bullshit.
I don't think music should be asexual either. I think music is communication on a very emotional, sexual level. That's why I've always dug it so much. But sexual not in a male chauvinist context nor narcissistic display. Women and men should be playing in groups together. Women playing the instruments, writing the material. And not just having a "chick" sex object singer, in a male group. There's nothing new about that. But women playing drums, or electric guitar, is somehow very threatening to our images of what is feminine and masculine.
To me the whole image of the rock scene is an image of a mod, "pretty," long-haired, mini-skirted, or bell-bottomed passive, sweet chick, nice enough to be at the side of any strong manly rock musician or business man. Or an image of a braless, long-skirted, sweet, mother earth commune hippie chick. Both of those are distortions. And accepted roles. Just as the aggressive, dominant, creative genius is the role that men play, and what women LOOK UP to. And that's not my revolution, nor any of my sisters'. Women unite. Let's start making music. Revolutionary music.
(by Arlene Brown, from Rat, 4 April 1970)
https://archive.org/details/gd1970-03-21.late.aud.lee.pcrp.21779.shnf
http://seanhowe.tumblr.com/post/159552170872/new-york-city-1970-women-working-at-the
More reviews of 3/21/70:
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2012/07/march-21-1970-capitol-theater-port.html
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2014/02/march-21-1970-capitol-theater-port.html
http://deadsources.blogspot.com/2014/03/march-21-1970-capitol-theater-port.html
Apr 7, 2017
Early 1967: Dead Praise
THE GRATEFUL DEAD RISE
I first heard them play over a year ago. After the set I wandered up to the bass player (long blonde hair, blue corduroy pants, a yellow velvet shirt) and asked for the name of the group.
"The Grateful Dead."
"What?"
"The Grateful Dead," he said.
It is amazing what this band can do. In a long while of listening to all the "new rock and roll" groups that have come to and from San Francisco, the Dead is the only one (among about 10 in the world) that set after set, weekend after weekend, grabs me out of my chair every time.
The nucleus of the Grateful Dead was a Peninsula band: Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions.
Three of the current members were in it: Jerry Garcia, 24, lead guitarist; rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, 19, then a junior in high school and from a social Atherton family (the band played for his sister's debutante party this summer); and Ron McKernan, 21.
Ron is better known as "Pig-pen," an affectionate name having something to do with his rather outrageous appearance. "I began singing at 16. I wasn't in school, I was just goofin'. I've always been singing along with records, my dad was a disc jockey, and it's been what I wanted to do."
He has a rich voice which reaches all the inside places of the pains of life. Noted jazz critic Ralph J. Gleason named Pigpen "one of the major bluesmen in America."
Mother McCree's went on for a while until a year and a half ago they decided to do rock and roll. "Rock is more immediate music; it's closer to what's happening in people's heads."
Bill Sommers, 20, from a Stanford football background, had played in about 10 bands until they asked him to join. Although the best drummer in the Bay Area, he had been holding down a fulltime short-hair job. Bass player Phil Lesh, 28, was the last to join.
The Grateful Dead (look the phrase up in Webster's) spent six months "in the woodshed" between Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Vancouver.
"Woodshedding" was working out new material, tightening arrangements, living, suffering and starving together, a process which, like the Beatles in Germany, brings a group so close in their minds and their music that they can make the group sound a greater total than the sum of five individuals.
It will be difficult to capture the spirit and excellence of this group on a record. (They are now with Warner Brothers.) One of the great pleasures of the group is their incredible stage presence. They have fun.
Jerry sings very sadly and quietly, especially on numbers like Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." Pigpen plays the harmonica and organ, both in a style which is best described as alternatingly marauding and mysterious.
Phil and Jerry do most of the writing.
"The lyrics are nonsensical and banal," they explain.
"You just do what you do," Phil says, "and we all kind of fell together. We orbit around a common centre. It is impossible to define but it has something to do with making good music of any kind. That's the Grateful Dead."
(by Jann Werner, from the Ottawa Journal, 5 May 1967)
Thanks to Dave Davis.
I first heard them play over a year ago. After the set I wandered up to the bass player (long blonde hair, blue corduroy pants, a yellow velvet shirt) and asked for the name of the group.
"The Grateful Dead."
"What?"
"The Grateful Dead," he said.
It is amazing what this band can do. In a long while of listening to all the "new rock and roll" groups that have come to and from San Francisco, the Dead is the only one (among about 10 in the world) that set after set, weekend after weekend, grabs me out of my chair every time.
The nucleus of the Grateful Dead was a Peninsula band: Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions.
Three of the current members were in it: Jerry Garcia, 24, lead guitarist; rhythm guitarist Bob Weir, 19, then a junior in high school and from a social Atherton family (the band played for his sister's debutante party this summer); and Ron McKernan, 21.
Ron is better known as "Pig-pen," an affectionate name having something to do with his rather outrageous appearance. "I began singing at 16. I wasn't in school, I was just goofin'. I've always been singing along with records, my dad was a disc jockey, and it's been what I wanted to do."
He has a rich voice which reaches all the inside places of the pains of life. Noted jazz critic Ralph J. Gleason named Pigpen "one of the major bluesmen in America."
Mother McCree's went on for a while until a year and a half ago they decided to do rock and roll. "Rock is more immediate music; it's closer to what's happening in people's heads."
Bill Sommers, 20, from a Stanford football background, had played in about 10 bands until they asked him to join. Although the best drummer in the Bay Area, he had been holding down a fulltime short-hair job. Bass player Phil Lesh, 28, was the last to join.
The Grateful Dead (look the phrase up in Webster's) spent six months "in the woodshed" between Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Vancouver.
"Woodshedding" was working out new material, tightening arrangements, living, suffering and starving together, a process which, like the Beatles in Germany, brings a group so close in their minds and their music that they can make the group sound a greater total than the sum of five individuals.
It will be difficult to capture the spirit and excellence of this group on a record. (They are now with Warner Brothers.) One of the great pleasures of the group is their incredible stage presence. They have fun.
Jerry sings very sadly and quietly, especially on numbers like Dylan's "It's All Over Now, Baby Blue." Pigpen plays the harmonica and organ, both in a style which is best described as alternatingly marauding and mysterious.
Phil and Jerry do most of the writing.
"The lyrics are nonsensical and banal," they explain.
"You just do what you do," Phil says, "and we all kind of fell together. We orbit around a common centre. It is impossible to define but it has something to do with making good music of any kind. That's the Grateful Dead."
(by Jann Werner, from the Ottawa Journal, 5 May 1967)
Thanks to Dave Davis.
Mar 24, 2017
June 22, 1968: Travelodge Theater, Phoenix AZ
VIBRATIONS IN THE VALLEY
There's a worthwhile happening at the Phoenix Travelodge Theater tomorrow night. James C. Pagni of San Diego is bringing in a couple of acts that ought to bring glee to the hearts of all dedicated followers of fashion. The lineup will consist of of San Francisco's pride and joy, the Grateful Dead, England's Ten Years After, and last, if not least, our own Thackeray Rocke.
The Dead are probably the most unappreciated group around these days. While their music has had a tremendous influence on the modern rock scene, their popularity among the pop population has not been a reflection of it. They remain as sort of musician's musicians. A major reason for this may be the Dead's out-and-out rejection of the commercial system. (The Maharishi once tried to persuade them to get on the bandwagon and change their name to Everlasting Life. They couldn't dig it.)
On stage the Grateful Dead are something else. They combine a funky rock with some hard core blues and manage to come up with new exciting sounds. You get the feeling that while the Jefferson Airplane was so busy "loving you" the Dead were spending their time in rehearsal.
Ten Years After is another case of a fabulous group that is literally unknown in the States. (Promoter Pagni has another way of putting it, "I bought them too soon.") Their album has been at the top of the British charts for some time and lead guitar player Alvin Lee is finding himself thrust into that tight circle of such trendsetters as Hendrix, Clapton and Bloomfield.
The action will begin at 8.
(by Jon Sargent, from the Arizona Republic, Phoenix, 21 June 1968)
*
Jon Sargent also wrote a very brief follow-up review in his "Vibrations in the Valley" column in the 6/30/68 Arizona Republic:
Last weekend's Grateful Dead concert was a smash. Too bad not everyone knew it. The further the Dead got into their music the quicker some people got out to their cars.
More photos at: http://tjfranklinphotography.com/wp/the-grateful-dead/
There's a worthwhile happening at the Phoenix Travelodge Theater tomorrow night. James C. Pagni of San Diego is bringing in a couple of acts that ought to bring glee to the hearts of all dedicated followers of fashion. The lineup will consist of of San Francisco's pride and joy, the Grateful Dead, England's Ten Years After, and last, if not least, our own Thackeray Rocke.
The Dead are probably the most unappreciated group around these days. While their music has had a tremendous influence on the modern rock scene, their popularity among the pop population has not been a reflection of it. They remain as sort of musician's musicians. A major reason for this may be the Dead's out-and-out rejection of the commercial system. (The Maharishi once tried to persuade them to get on the bandwagon and change their name to Everlasting Life. They couldn't dig it.)
On stage the Grateful Dead are something else. They combine a funky rock with some hard core blues and manage to come up with new exciting sounds. You get the feeling that while the Jefferson Airplane was so busy "loving you" the Dead were spending their time in rehearsal.
Ten Years After is another case of a fabulous group that is literally unknown in the States. (Promoter Pagni has another way of putting it, "I bought them too soon.") Their album has been at the top of the British charts for some time and lead guitar player Alvin Lee is finding himself thrust into that tight circle of such trendsetters as Hendrix, Clapton and Bloomfield.
The action will begin at 8.
(by Jon Sargent, from the Arizona Republic, Phoenix, 21 June 1968)
*
Jon Sargent also wrote a very brief follow-up review in his "Vibrations in the Valley" column in the 6/30/68 Arizona Republic:
Last weekend's Grateful Dead concert was a smash. Too bad not everyone knew it. The further the Dead got into their music the quicker some people got out to their cars.
Mar 22, 2017
October 11, 1970: Paterson State College, Wayne, NJ
DEAD AFTERMATH
If you somehow missed Sunday evening's 7:00 o'clock performance by the Grateful Dead, but stuck around to raise hell about your money, you discovered to the Assembly Committee's relief that there would be a concert sometime the night of October 12.
The Dead late on arrival were minus one corpse, something about a lost bass player. The crowd stood passively, only occasionally crushing someone against the doors of the auditorium. Soon, thanks to the unrestrained efforts of the valorous N.Y. cabbie, a bass player did arrive in time for the nine o'clock show and was immediately given an option for the second appearance later in the evening. Bodies cleared, doors opened, nine hundred and eighty-seven people simultaneously passed through one set of double doors. (Approximately seven feet wide.)
Once inside, you had close to twenty seconds in which to obtain a seat, of course there were also the aisles. At that point, if you dig emphatic audio expression, you probably haven't thought about the ridiculously massive sound system staring down on you from the stage. Could all that have been delivered to the wrong Shea? Five or six figures wander out from the stage and take places in front of the wall of speakers. There are definitely six now, two drummers, why two drummers, "I still don't understand it."
The Dead play "rock blues," more often than not, wrapped country style. It's immediately captivating, and if you are really there to get into the sound, you can start with the first note: otherwise the second will do. Their greatest influence is The Band, "and fellows, it shows." But, do not disappear, there is a different individuality to their work. The lead guitar work more than made up for what was lacking in bass; but after all, he stepped out of the cab, and out onto the stage without even tuning up.
It was fascinating to see the audience become part of the show with the same speed at which they took their seats. It was also fortunate, for unfortunate was the brevity of both performances.
There is something to be said for the way in which the evening was run, for some people were not at all understanding in their point of view. There seemed to be a definite shortage of ushers; "compliments to those who showed." Also, hearts and flowers to the Assembly Committee for not hassling the two hundred or so people who attended each show unannounced.
Picture caption: "The Grateful Dead performed two concerts here during Homecoming weekend. They attracted one of the largest crowds ever to seek admission to a PSC activity."
(by Bill Lavorgna, from the Paterson State Beacon, 20 October 1970)
https://archive.org/details/gd70-10-11.aud.cotsman.9500.sbeok.shnf
http://cdm15701.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15701coll7/id/3078/rec/47
If you somehow missed Sunday evening's 7:00 o'clock performance by the Grateful Dead, but stuck around to raise hell about your money, you discovered to the Assembly Committee's relief that there would be a concert sometime the night of October 12.
The Dead late on arrival were minus one corpse, something about a lost bass player. The crowd stood passively, only occasionally crushing someone against the doors of the auditorium. Soon, thanks to the unrestrained efforts of the valorous N.Y. cabbie, a bass player did arrive in time for the nine o'clock show and was immediately given an option for the second appearance later in the evening. Bodies cleared, doors opened, nine hundred and eighty-seven people simultaneously passed through one set of double doors. (Approximately seven feet wide.)
Once inside, you had close to twenty seconds in which to obtain a seat, of course there were also the aisles. At that point, if you dig emphatic audio expression, you probably haven't thought about the ridiculously massive sound system staring down on you from the stage. Could all that have been delivered to the wrong Shea? Five or six figures wander out from the stage and take places in front of the wall of speakers. There are definitely six now, two drummers, why two drummers, "I still don't understand it."
The Dead play "rock blues," more often than not, wrapped country style. It's immediately captivating, and if you are really there to get into the sound, you can start with the first note: otherwise the second will do. Their greatest influence is The Band, "and fellows, it shows." But, do not disappear, there is a different individuality to their work. The lead guitar work more than made up for what was lacking in bass; but after all, he stepped out of the cab, and out onto the stage without even tuning up.
It was fascinating to see the audience become part of the show with the same speed at which they took their seats. It was also fortunate, for unfortunate was the brevity of both performances.
There is something to be said for the way in which the evening was run, for some people were not at all understanding in their point of view. There seemed to be a definite shortage of ushers; "compliments to those who showed." Also, hearts and flowers to the Assembly Committee for not hassling the two hundred or so people who attended each show unannounced.
Picture caption: "The Grateful Dead performed two concerts here during Homecoming weekend. They attracted one of the largest crowds ever to seek admission to a PSC activity."
(by Bill Lavorgna, from the Paterson State Beacon, 20 October 1970)
https://archive.org/details/gd70-10-11.aud.cotsman.9500.sbeok.shnf
http://cdm15701.contentdm.oclc.org/cdm/compoundobject/collection/p15701coll7/id/3078/rec/47
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