Andrew, Davies, Nieves & Wall – Coast To Coast on a piece of toast….. by Andrew, Davies, Nieves, & Wall

I got together with some really talented people a while back and we recorded fifteen songs. The whole project is ready to go, and we need your help in getting it out there. Thank you so much.

Sam Andrew     Big Brother and the Holding Company

Andrew, Davies, Nieves & Wall – Coast To Coast on a piece of toast….. by Andrew, Davies, Nieves, & Wall

An album of 15 tracks of original music by Sam Andrew (Big Brother & The Holding Co.), Mary Bridget Davies, Ben Nieves, & Jim Wall

Sam Andrew

Sam Andrew

The stars have aligned!

Somehow, despite a wide geographic gap and an assortment of demanding schedules, a new musical release is in sight for former Janis Joplin band-mate, Sam Andrew, Broadway’s “A night with Janis Joplin” star, Mary Bridget Davies and Big Brother & the Holding Co. alumnus Ben Nieves and Jim Wall. With a collection of original material to record, 60′s rock pioneer Sam Andrew assembled his friends and frequent band mates at Blue Buddha Music Studio in Cleveland, Ohio. The result is Coast To Coast (on a piece of toast) by Andrew, Davies, Nieves & Wall, an album which cohesively and adventurously visits a vast array of styles including rock, jazz, blues, gospel, funk, r&b, soul and country. The track list features many numbers composed by Sam and additional collaborators over a span of decades as well as works written with Davies, Nieves and Wall.

Ben Nieves, Mary Bridget Davies, Jim Wall

Ben Nieves, Mary Bridget Davies, Jim Wall

The songs have been recorded!

The music is, as they say, “in the can”. In addition to outrageous performances by vocalist, Mary Bridget Davies and soul stirring guitar solos throughout, the record features inspired performances by guest keyboardist Chris Hanna, Rob Williams & Jake Wynne on horns and Becky Boyd & Claudia Schieve on Backing Vocals.

With your help, we can finish and release this collection of music!

Be among the first to own our new record while helping us bring our mission to fruition. Your involvement allows you to pre-order our cd and/or digital downloads. In addition, you will help to assure that the music we’ve worked so hard to create will reach the public. You will have access to the rewards we offer that are only available through our kickstarter campaign. You will also be supporting the creation of independently made and marketed music by facilitating mixing, mastering, pressing, artwork & layout, marketing and a wide variety of other costs involved.

Sharing is caring!

We’d love for you to  “SHARE” & “LIKE” and help us spread the word any way you can.YOU can take us beyond the set goal amount required to receive our kickstarter funding so we can light up your speakers ASAP!  Keep in mind that, if we do not reach our kickstarter goal by our preset end date, the project goes unfunded and all contributions are refunded. THANK YOU to those who get on board early and help us build up steam!

An Awesome Gift Idea!

You can pass your rewards on to friends and family as a holiday gift, as a thank you or just to be cool. Print the gift certificate below to let them know that they are a part of this musical creation because you’ve contributed on their behalf!

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Hope to see you soon!

Whether we’re performing together or with Big Brother, A Night With Janis Joplin, The Sam Andrew Band, Color Wheel or any of our other projects, we hope to run into you at the shows. Thanks for taking the time to visit our kickstarter page and an extra special thanks to those of you who contribute. Peace & Love

For more information about Sam, Mary, Ben and Jim, open the full bio (using the icon near the top right side of this page) and explore the links below. Also, visit bbhc.com and check out Sam’s artistic and informative blog… Sundays With Sam!

http://bbhc.com

http://marybridgetdavies.com

http://anightwithjanisjoplin.com

http://jimwallmusic.com

www.rockhall.com/blog/tag/ben-nieves

Risks and challenges – Learn about accountability on Kickstarter

Unforseeable delays are a part of life. If, for any reason such a delay occurs, we would send an update with an explanation and updated delivery information. The fact that the music is recorded greatly minimizes the risk of not completing the project in a timely manner.
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Funding period

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Big Brother and the Holding Company, part six. 1969-1972

1969 – 1972        The Long Slow Slide Down the Other Side.

2-3 February 1969

7 March 1969   Dale Burkhardt attends a Kozmic Blues Band show and snaps this one.

28 March 1969

The Kozmic Blues Band played at The Royal Albert Hall, so to celebrate, I took a bath.

Queen Victoria baptised the Royal Albert Hall in 1871.   And now we came to play here almost a hundred years later.

The Royal Albert Hall, or, as the London cabbies call it,  Halibut Oil (‘ albut o’l),  is in the north part of South Kensington.

We had a splendid time here which put me in a party mood.

The acoustics in this Hall were originally so bad that people said it was the only place where a British composer could be sure of hearing his work twice. Eric came to see us.

Bob Seidemann, old friend of ours, who did one of our album covers, plus the magnificent Blind Faith album, was there. He looks like this now. He didn’t then.

I thought about the people who had spoken and played in this space: Winston Churchill, Wagner, Verdi, Elgar, Rachmaninoff.

In 1969, engineers installed sound bafflings that were known as “mushrooms” or “flying saucers,” and the sound was vastly improved.

Suzy Creamcheese was so sweet to me in so many ways. She took me out to Hampton Court and gave me the royal tour. Suzy, thank you forever.

29 June 1969

20 July 1969          Snooky Flowers and I saw this event on television as it was happening.  The Chelsea Hotel, NYC.

8 August 1969       660 Great Highway        Tyrannosaurus Rex and Tongue and Groove.

December 1969   At a Stax/Volt party in Memphis with Janis Joplin, Carla Thomas, Rufus Thomas, Al Jackson, Jr., Steve Cropper, Duck Dunn and Booker T. Jones who is now a San Rafael resident. Duck Dunn died today, 13 May 2012, in his sleep in Tokyo. He was seventy.

25 August 1969

17 October 1969       Austin

18 October 1969   Hemisphere Arena  San Antonio        Sharrie Gomez and I doing a Macy’s ad.

24 October 1969       I’m listed as playing on this recording, but I’ve never heard it.

Talking god and the universe with Janis and Richard Kermode.

Richard came out of that Hammond B3 jazz scene in Buffalo. A lot of great players including him.

15 November 1969  This was a huge California demonstration against the war in Viet Nam.

19 November 1969   Fillmore West      Steve Miller had to cancel this show so Big Brother played it billed as Mumble, Fumble, Jumble and Dumble.

29 December 1969                  Geary Theatre               415 Geary Boulevard                 San Francisco

Janis said, “I don’t look good in this photo, so I’m putting it in just for you.”

Anthony Edman took this photograph of the Carol guitar.

7 February 1970     Encore Theatre    Burlingame  California

13 February 1970      Pepperland

20-21 February 1970   Great Highway   Rhythm Dukes       Jerry Miller          Bill Champlin

27 February 1970     Alaskaland Civic Center        Fairbanks   Alaska

5-7 March 1970        Keystone    San Francisco

They had some wonderful shows here, but the place was right next door to the police station in North Beach.

13-14 March 1970   New Orleans House   Berkeley         Horses in Tiburon.

20-22 March 1970    Family Dog at the Great Highway     Kaleidoscope       Devil’s Kitchen

28-29 March 1970      Lion’s Share        San Anselmo     California

4 April 1970   Fillmore West     Janis joins us for this one.                       James Gurley.

This photograph seems to be very heraldic of the 1970s. My overheated imagination sees mistrust here, matters gone awry, loss of faith, paranoia, alienation, loneliness. Am I being carried away ? Probably. Was it a weird time ?  It certainly was.   Richard Kermode  Linda Gravenites  Janis  George Ostrow  Bobby Neuwirth

7-9 April 1970                       Matrix

12 April 1970  Winterland        Kathi McDonald   Nick Gravenites   Mike Finnegan  David Shallock     We had a GOOD band.

23-24 April 1970  Inn of the Beginning  Cotati California            James Gurley.   He’s big, huge.

1 May 1970      Family Dog      Great Highway     San Francisco       I think this is a Randy Tuten poster.

8 May 1970    Merced Fairgrounds    Merced  California

15 May 1970     City Center    Kelowna    British Columbia

Kelowna is a vacation spot in British Columbia, on the east side of the Okanagan Valley.

16-17 May 1970   Strawberry Mountain Fair   Mission    British Columbia

20 May 1970    Pauley Ballroom   University of California      Berkeley

21 May 1970  Pepperland  Bermuda Palms   San Rafael   California       Full Tilt     Grateful Dead

With the amazing Meyer sound system.

The event is memorable for many reasons.

This is a Hells Angels party to begin with, so the money will be straight and the sound system excellent.

There will also be more drugs and alcohol than would seem to be prudent.

This will be the first time that Janis’ old band and her new band will be at the same venue, so everyone is a little on edge.

Not exactly a battle of the bands, but not exactly not one either.  Janis gets into a fight with an Angel and he punches her. She breaks a bottle over his head. This is the peace and love crowd.

22 May 1970    Keystone Korner    Berkeley

29 May 1970   Santa Monica Civic Auditorium

9 June 1970    Diamond Head Crater Festival                 Hawaii

8 June 1970    The Andrews Amphitheater   Hawaii   This place is used for commencement exercises for the University of Hawaii.  I was proud to play here.

My wife is Hawaiian. More Hawaiian blood, as a matter of fact, than most Hawaiians.  Here she is with Grant Jacobs, Richard Hundgen, and I wish I knew her name, she has a lovely smile.

The equipment managers that we had at that time, forty years ago, decided to jump ship and become Hawaiian. They are there still.

And of course our President was born there in the same hospital, Queens Hospital, as my wife. Either there or in Kenya, I forget which. Depends on whom you ask, someone who actually knows something, or someone who is incredibly ignorant and backward. President Obama went to Puniho High School, and so did Jonelle DeNike, here with her husband Howard in Paris, old friends from University of San Francisco days.

This proportion may surprise you. It did me, almost as difficult as realizing that the eyes are half way down the head instead of near the top where children draw them.

 

10 June 1970    Kahului Armory    Maui   Hawaii

Also called the Pu’unene Armory.

Maui is the island without a military base, so they just had to build an armory here.

My father was in the Air Force, and so I was raised in places like this. Still, it does seem like a rather Spinal Tap place to have a concert.

Remember in Spinal Tap when the lieutenant (Fred Willard), looking at his watch says, “I make it, oh, 1830 hours now, so why don’t you go on about 1900 ?”

And Derek Smalls (Harry Shearer) says, “You mean it’s seventy hours until we play ?”

Steve Keyser.

13-14 June 1970  Portland Music & Art Fair    Portland Oregon

17 June 1970    Convention Center    Las Vegas

19  June 1970   Terrace Ballroom    Salt Lake City   I have a cassette tape of this gig.  We actually played all that music.

26 June 1970   Junction Night Club    Kelker   Colorado

3-5 July 1970     Euphoria    San Rafael      California     Another Randy Tuten poster.

11 July 1970  Sports Arena  San Diego Full Tilt Boogie Band     I remember flying home with Janis, Nick Gravenites, Mike Bloomfield et alia from this one. Bloomers was on a roll. He was ranting in that special Bloomfieldian style about taping two baloons full of lukewarm water to a bathroom mirror and masturbating into the sink. You know, typical inflight conversation. It was something else to have Big Brother and Full Tilt in that same small tight space. Good thing we all loved each other. Of course, in those days you could smoke and the flight attendants wore miniskirts. If I remember correctly, there was even a piano bar upstairs. Seat belts were only for taking off and landing, and sometimes not even then.

17 July 1970  Love Valley Festival   Love Valley  North Carolina       There was a counterfeit Big Brother running around about this time. Maybe they played this one ?

I always thought, “Why in the world would anyone want to counterfeit us, when they could just go ahead and be themselves ?”

I mean, it couldn’t be for the money, because we weren’t making any, so how could they ?

Might as well be yourself, as Oscar Wilde noted, everyone else is taken.

31 July 1970  Phoenix Veterans Coliseum  Arizona

6 August 1970  Peace Festival   Shea Stadium  Flushing Meadows    New York

13-15 August 1970   Fillmore West    San Francisco   Commander Cody     George Frayne, one of my favorite people.  Good artist too.

18-19 August 1970    The Matrix      San Francisco      No, he wasn’t on the gig, but I love the way he sings, so here he is. Paul supposedly came to the Matrix to see us one time, but when we met him, we asked him about it and he said he wasn’t lucky enough to be there.

26 August 1970       Washoe County Fairgrounds

28 August 1970       Sing Auditorium    San Bernardino      Mary Swope took this photograph.

25 September 1970    Saginaw Auditorium      Michigan

3-5 October 1970               Euphoria            San Rafael           California

4 October 1970   The Landmark Motel  Hollywood        A British writer just interviewed me from the very room.  He mentioned all of the scrawlings on the bedroom closet wall.

Swimming in the pool, yelling up to the rooms, “Hey, come on down ! Bring Mary Jane with you, OK?”

6-7 October 1970    The  Matrix           Blues for an old friend.

23 October 1970    Basin Street West    Omigawd, we substituted for Sarah Vaughan ?    I wonder how that worked ?  I can’t remember, but I do know that Combination of the Two doesn’t sound a lot like Over The Rainbow.

26 October 1970   Lion’s Share     The Drinks Are On Pearl.

Janis left $ 2,500, a lot of money then, for us to have a party in her honor. We did it right.  Music and dancing all night.

27-29 October 1970   The Matrix

30 October 1970   46th Street Rock Palace     Brooklyn

2 November 1970   Harding Theatre   San Francisco

20-21  November 1970   Winterland     San Francisco

5 December 1970  The Birmingham Palladium    Detroit

We all signed this one.  I was with Carol Cavallon when I bought this guitar on 48th Street, Manhattan, across the street from Manny’s.

8-9 January 1971   Fillmore East    Buddy Miles    Sweetwater    I loved the way Buddy looked when he was on the drums.

17 January 1971     Syria Mosque       University of Pittsburgh

18-19 January 1971      Ungano’s       New York City

20 January 1971    Capitol Theatre   Port Chester   New York             Carol Cavallon    Putney  Vermont

29-30 January 1971      ”El Monte” always makes me think of Reuben and the Jets, Frank Zappa.

4 February 1971    Inn of the Beginning        Cotati            California

13 February 1971   Pepperland    737 East Francisco Boulevard   San Rafael   California

Whitey Litchfield, millionaire construction magnate, created Litchfield’s Bermuda Palms in the late 1940s. This was “California’s Las Vegas.” I mentioned before that I had played tenor saxophone in numerous big band rehearsals here, little dreaming at the time that Duke Ellington, Count Basie, Lionel Hampton and many other stars of the 1940s had played in that same room.

20-21 February 1971            Pepperland

23 February 1971    Broadcast of television series The Turned On Crisis including an episode with Big Brother: Why Can’t You Hear Through The Noise in Your Ear.

6 March 1971      Shasta College

12-13 March 1971  Friends and Relations Hall  Great Highway  San Francisco    Kathi McDonald.

Also on this gig:   Clover       I see    Alex Call   Huey Lewis     John McFee      Sean Hopper

25 March 1971        New Monk            Berkeley

The New Monk was in Berkeley where Shattuck and University make a T.   2119 University.  It was a funky place.  Freddie Herrera bought it in August of 1971, and it became the Keystone Berkeley in March 1972.   I think that this expression could fairly be called supercilious.   Or even supersillyious.

9-10 April 1971    Friends and Relations Hall     Kathi McDonald, one of the best singers ever… and the funniest.

15 April 1971     Inn of the Beginning   Cotati   California

19 April 1971      Friends and Relations Hall         Hubert Sumlin      Snooky Flowers    Rich Kirch   Freddie Roulette

22-23 April 1971    Bimbo’s    San Francisco

24 April 1971    Peace Rally   Golden Gate Park

Always a good idea.

26 April 1971  Sonoma    WELL !   We know when we’re not wanted.   We left in a huff.   (Actually, it was a Buick.)

7 May 1971   California Hall    San Francisco

17 May 1971       New Monk

21 May 1971   Keystone            Nick Gravenites

28 May 1971     Selland Arena   Fresno    California     B.B. King  Elvin Bishop    Elvin liked to play poker after a gig.

10 June 1971  Fox Theatre   Long Beach

9 July 1971        Harlingen    Texas

August 1971       Release of How Hard It Is

We had a great B3 player on this one, Mike Finnegan, who can sing as well as he can play. He recorded Buried Alive In The Blues with us and we should release that someday. It’s definitely the best version of that song.

Mike went on to play with everyone, including Joe Cocker  performing here on American Idol, another of Rupert Murdoch’s panderings to the lowest common denominator. But, as Mike says, “A gig is a gig.”    Hey, maybe Kacee Clanton was on this one too ?  I think she was.

9 October 1971   Monterey Fairgrounds     Clover        Jon Sievert took this one.

7 November 1971    Trying to guard Kathi.   Can you hear me barking ?

12 November 1971       Winterland

13 November 1971

9-11 December 1971      Inn of the Beginning          Cotati            California

31 December 1971    Many photographs of this guitar because she is gone now, playing the Hard Rock Café circuit.

1 January 1972

14 January 1972

30 January 1972   Curtis Hall    Tampa     Florida      Sam   Lee Bittner   Kathi McDonald   Mike Pendergrass   Peter Albin

 

13 February 1972      Mama Einstein’s    What do you want ?  I was the only one left.

15 February 1972   Valentine’s party    The Boathouse      Harding Road      San Francisco      You know, out by Lake Merced.

19 February 1972   University of Iowa  Iowa City    Allman Brothers    Vivid memories of partying with these guys. They had a couple of revolvers from the Civil War. Confederate, of course.

26 February 1972    American Legion Hall     Merced     California

19 March 1972    You have to watch these rock writers all the time.   Kathi was our new singer, not Elvin’s.

13 April 1972

22 or 23 April 1972     Dubuque & Court Street Party   Iowa City

Kathi and I went out partying in an old farmhouse, deserted, crackly, in the middle of a cornfield. It seemed as if we were there for days.

25 April 1972      Iowa Wesleyan   Fayetteville     Iowa

29 April 1972                  Upper Iowa             Mt. Pleasant

1-2 May 1972   Ace Beer Garden  Iowa City

June 1972      Pioneer High School    Whittier   California

2 June 1972       Fort Homer Hesterly Armory     Tampa

June 1972    Schererville     Illinois          Blue Oyster Cult.    These guys were great to hang with. Hysterical as a matter of fact.

June 1972     Catholic High School          Niles           Illinois

June 1972    Romeoville Roller Rink           Romeoville        Illinois

15 June 1972      Hersey High School       Arlington Heights     Illinois

June 1972     Grande Ballroom              Detroit

June/July 1972     Louisiana         Life becomes quite fuzzy along about now.   Note that there are often no specific dates for these events.

July 1972      Miami            Spirit

22 July 1972   Marine World   Redwood City    California        I love mingling with wild life, marine or otherwise.

4 September 1972

17 September 1972   A slice of life in the 70s.   If you read between the lines, this pretty much says it all.

         

                          

9 October 1972   Berkeley Folk Music Festival     Big Mama Thornton     Earl Collins    Silver String Macedonian Band    Frontier

 

24 November 1972    Marin County Civic Center Auditorium   Quicksilver      Clover      Yogi Phlegm       A Cold Turkey Rock Party

Clover !     Johnny Ciambotti.   John McFee is there.   Mitch Howe.  Alex Call.   Huey Lewis.  Sean Hopper.  Good band.   Alex has a beautiful voice.

And, talking of Marin musicians, this is one who has been an inspiration to me for years: Terry Haggerty.

Somewhere in my personal effects I have a Local # Six Musicians’ Union directory from the 1950s. Terry’s father is in there along with Paul Desmond and many other noteworthy players from that era.

Terry and David Shallock came to my house in Fairfax one day, and they did a smokin’ version of Frosty, the Snowman. It was so great to hear that. Especially in August.

It’s the whole person, though, you know ? Terry is a great guitar player, one of the best, but it’s as a human being that he shines brightest.

Thank you for being here, and I’ll see you in a week.

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

_________________________________________________________________________

Big Brother and the Holding Company, part five. July-December 1968

July-December 1968                        The top of the mountain.

5 July 1968    Concord Coliseum     Concord    California

The Concord Coliseum began as a grocery store. Then it was a holy hall of music, and now it has become a Petco.

6 July 1968   Santa Rosa Fairgrounds    Santa Rosa    California       Balls and Chains.

7 July 1968    Golden Gate Park      San Francisco

10 July 1968      Provo Park      Berkeley

12-13 July 1968         Kaleidoscope   Los Angeles

16-18 July 1968   Fillmore   San Francisco

20 July 1968     Lagoon Opera House    Ogden Utah

I remember taking rides on these fast little cars that could turn on a dime.

A little hippy humor.

Backstage where the magic happens.

22 July 1968        Westbury Music Fair  Long Island

25 July 1968   Columbia Records Convention    San Juan Puerto Rico   Blood, Sweat and Tears were so good that night.

27 July 1968    Newport Folk Festival  Newport  Rhode Island     We had always dreamed about attending this event and now we’re playing it.

Baron Wolman took this one at Newport.

An ad for Cheap Thrills:   Notice the emphasis here on the nonverbal experience. Very interesting for an ad from a corporation. But, hey, it’s the 60s.

2-3 August 1968    Fillmore East with the Staple Singers.   Big thrill for us to be with the Staples.

4 August 1968    First Annual Newport Pop Festival   Orange County Fairgrounds   Costa Mesa  California      This was the first music event to attract more than 100,000 people. Trouble is, I can’t remember if we played there or not, and you would think I would remember something that big. Some of the books say we “may have played there,” but we aren’t on the posters.

We had just played Newport, Rhode Island, only a week before, so the two gigs may be conflated here.

Myra Friedman wrote the first important biography of Janis. She won a New York Times book prize for it.

Some Jewish high school kids in St. Louis, 1949.

Myra Friedman is in the first row left.

9 August 1968  Kiel Auditorium    St. Louis

10 August 1968       Forest Park                    St. Louis

14 August 1968      Indiana Beach     Monticello      Indiana

When my wife Elise first saw this photograph, she said, “You look mental. Is everything all right?”   (She’s a nurse, OK?, so it was a professional question.)

16-17 August 1968   Aragon-Cheetah     Chicago

18 August 1968     Tyrone Guthrie Theatre   Minneapolis

23 August 1968  Singer Bowl  Flushing   Queens     New York City

Singer Bowl  Flushing  Queens…   Now, could you make up a name like that ?

Jimi broke a string right on the first song. He said, “Don’t worry, I’m going to make it up to you in spades.”      He did too.

30 August 1968    Palace of Fine Arts  San Francisco

6 September 1968             Hollywood Bowl

10 September 1968

12-14 September 1968     Rick Griffin  Wes Wilson  Bonnie MacLean  Mouse and Kelley     Their art will last much longer than our music.

15 September 1968   Rose Bowl    Pasadena    We hopped in a limousine after the gig, and the fans piled on top. I was afraid we would be crushed.

22 September 1968   Del Mar Fairgrounds     San Diego

27 September 1968          University of California at Irvine

28 September 1968  San Diego      I got a ticket for driving a hundred miles an hour to this gig.

4 October 1968  Public Hall   Cleveland

Little did I realize then that Cleveland would loom large in the Big Brother legend. We will play in Italy in June 2012, and two of the band members will be from Cleveland. Cleveland was the first place where I was music director of Love, Janis in 1999, and I made a CD there in December 2011 with Mary Bridget Davies, Ben Nieves and Jim Wall, all Clevelanders. And of course the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is there, even if they won’t let us in.

5 October 1968    State University of New York    Buffalo

10 October 1968   Quaker City Rock Festival    Philadelphia

11 October 1968     War Memorial Auditorium     Syracuse

13 October 1968      Music Hall      Cincinnati

I kissed Susan Ammon, third from left, then, and was lucky enough to kiss her again on Earth Day, forty-four years later.

15 October 1968    Grande Ballroom       Detroit

Janis and Peter, all dressed up with everywhere to go.

18 October 1968     Penn State University   University Park

19 October 1968  The Spectrum  Philadelphia

20 October 1968   Alexandria Roller Rink     Alexandria   Virginia

Jeff Beck was supposed to be a terror to work with, the bad British blues boy. I found him to be good natured and polite. Plus, he played an SG as James and I did.

25 October 1968   Curry Hicks Cage    University of Massachusetts    Amherst

26 October 1968    Worcester Polytechnic institute    Worcester   Massachusetts

1-2 November 1968  Electric Factory Philadelphia    We met a man in a gorilla suit here who became the “big brother” in Big Brother and the Holding Company.

8 November 1968   Rocky Point   Warwick  Rhode Island

9 November 1968     Woolsey Hall    Yale University     New Haven   Connecticut

10 November 1968        White Plains     New York

Very characteristic view of John and Janis.   I can hear them talking.

11 November 1968   Ridge Tech Arena      Braintree     Massachusetts

12 November 1968  Jersey City  New Jersey     Hey, we finally got rid of that messy “Big Brother and the Holding Company” part altogether.

14 November 1968          Hartford     Connecticut

In Hartford, I visited Mark Twain’s very interesting home as I do every time I go there.

15 November 1968    Hunter College   New York City   I was seething with anticipation. I thought maybe Sparta, Corinth, Mycenae and Athens had decided to sponsor us.

But, then, I realized. Oh, it’s just Animal House, a lot of fraternities and sororities. Well, OK. It was a fun gig. I love Hunter College.

16 November 1968     State University of New York     Stony Brook

23 November 1968      Houston Music Hall    Houston   Texas

24 November 1968       Coliseum     Dallas

26 November 1968     Denver Auditorium        Denver

29 November 1968    Eagles Auditorium     Seattle

30 November 1968     Pacific Coliseum   Vancouver     British Columbia

1 December 1968  Family Dog Benefit      Avalon Ballroom      San Francisco

2 December 1968

Bobby Neuwirth, serious artist, good songwriter, fellow traveler, intelligent, witty court jester. He wrote Mercedes Benz with Janis and Michael McClure.

18 December 1968     One of the first, if not THE first, rehearsals of The Kozmic Blues Band with Michael Bloomfield and Nick Gravenites presiding.

Mike was a consummate musician, gifted and highly intelligent.

Next time you’re in a restaurant, turn over the salt or pepper shaker and take a look. Very often there’s a tiny B there, B for Bloomfield. Mike’s father was a multimillionaire.

Al Kooper and Mike had a great idea. They would make an album and hire Norman Rockwell to do the cover. I wish I would have thought of that.

Robert Crumb did our Cheap Thrills album cover, of course, but, then, for our other albums we could have had Mr. Rockwell do one, Al Hirschfeld (the line king) do another, and David Levine do a third. Well, maybe next time. Anyway, I loved working with Michael and Nick at those early Kozmic Blues Band rehearsals.

In fact, when I did the guitar part on Little Girl Blue at the Black Rock in New York, Michael was right by my side guiding me through the chord changes.

He was always helpful, lavish with praise and very supportive. Mike did the slide solo on One Good Man, but didn’t credit himself. Maybe because of contractual obligations elsewhere ?

When Dylan went electric at Newport, Michael Bloomfield was the main man. One of the great scholars of the guitar. What can I say ? I miss the guy.

In the 1950s, the Cedar Tavern in Manhattan was the artists’ watering hole.

The drinks were cheap and it was close to lofts and studios. Jackson Pollock was there. Willem de Kooning, Lee Krasner, everybody from that abstract expressionist scene was there, really. I was in the Cedar Tavern once and said  the word “divisive,” rhyming it with “dismissive,” and the most beautiful woman whirled around on her stool and said, “That’s the first time I ever heard any one pronounce that correctly.” (To this day, I’m not sure how to pronounce “divisive” and say it differently each time, but each time, you may be sure, I think of that beautiful woman.)

Le Roi Jones, as he was known then, and Diane Di Prima, probably my favorite beat poet, in The Cedar Tavern.

Carl Solomon, Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Allen Ginsberg, typical denizens of The Cedar Tavern.

Mickey Ruskin founded Max’s Kansas City at 213 Park Avenue South (Seventeenth Street) which, despite the higher prices and the greater distance from the painters’ lofts, became the artists’ locale for the 1960s as The Cedar Tavern was for the 1950s. Big Brother and the Holding Company went often to Max’s and I practically lived there in the 1970s, because I actually lived in a loft quite close by on Twentieth Street, just down the block from Danny Fields. Mickey cashed my checks and put up with a lot of nonsense from me. I used to sit at the bar and draw the sculptures. Here is Mickey Ruskin (right) with John Chamberlain.

Dorothy Dean always sat by the door at Max’s. She was the guardian of the gates. She told me once or twice that she had danced The Tennessee Waltz in Tennessee with Tennessee Williams.

Dorothy was once a fact checker at The New Yorker, a fact that impressed me greatly. She hung out with a lot of gay men, but she hated the term “fag hag,” so called herself a fruit fly.

Dorothy was one of The Factory people and she was in several Warhol films. Here she is inspecting Norman Levine while being serenaded by Eric Anderson.

I liked the clientèle at Max’s, even the ones who weren’t as notorious as these characters below. Andy Warhol held court in the back room of the restaurant. Tim Buckley was a great guy, just like his son in many ways.

Debbie Harry, already quite beautiful, was frequently our waitress and she was a good one.

Lenny Kaye did his time at Max’s. He had roughly the same relationship with Patti Smith that I had with Janis Joplin.

Lenny is soulful, very intelligent, writes books, teaches at Rughers, I believe, and is just an all around good man.

Danny Fields, an “executive at Elektra,” as he is often billed, has been a kind of  PR man for Max’s since it opened. Danny brought Jim Morrison to the restaurant, and he introduced Iggy Pop to David Bowie there. Here Danny is with Tammy Faye Starlight.

And somewhat earlier with Nico from The Velvet Underground.

Many people at Max’s were quite well known and many were not, but all were interesting. It was quite a scene. Some of the people in this photograph are: David Bowie, Danny Fields (hey, Danny, where are you now?), Robert Mapplethorpe, Jim Morrison (peeing in a bottle), Lou Reed, Patti Smith. I’m there too. I think I see Lenny Kaye. We’re not posing. This is a typical Max’s scene out on the sidewalk on a summer night. David Bennett Cohen is there.

It’s funny what you remember about a place. I’ll bet that everyone who went to Max’s remembers the little bowls of dried garbanzo beans (chick peas). Everyone ate them like candy while they talked. Very salty, so of course they needed washing down with something.

And now a thank you to Donna Patterson and Anthony Edman for your help on this history. It is much appreciated. Donna is trying to be anonymous, so don’t remember her, OK?

Ant Knee, thank you always for being a good friend.

Part Six next week.         See you then.

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

____________________________________________________________________

Big Brother and the Holding Company, part three. July to December 1967

Well, hello, everybody !

July to Decmber 1967

This is the continuing story of Big Brother and the Holding Company.

The third of twenty-five chapters.

1 July 1967     Avalon Ballroom    Quicksilver      Mount Rushmore      Horns of Plenty

“Big Brother and the Holding Company ?”        How did you get a name like that ?

2 July 1967         Mount Tamalpais          Marin County, California.

I remember I had a hard time driving down off that mountain after this gig. We had a 1955 Cadillac hearse which was unwieldy anyway, and I didn’t know Marin County yet, and especially Mount Tamalpais, so I had a fun time negotiating all those curves, peaks and valleys.

Anyway, on a beautiful spring day in 1965, Chet Helms held in his hands two legal tablets full of quirky, eccentric, purposefully puerile names.

Names like Tom Slow and his Sarcastic Grand Mo. Or Big Bother and the Folding Company. Or Country Schmo and The Knish. Or Quicksliver Military Service.

4-6 July 1967         Fillmore              Bo Diddly        Big Joe Williams

7-8 July 1967    Circle Star Theatre     San Carlos    California

Theatres in the round can be quite tricky. Westbury Music Fair on Long Island is another one. When they begin revolving there is a slight jerk that you should be ready for.

On one legal tablet, Chet had the name “Big Brother,” no doubt prompted by a recent reading of  Orwell.

14-15 July 1967               Continental Ballroom grand opening.

20-21 July 1967  Avalon Ballroom  Mount Rushmore   On another legal tablet page, Chet had the words “The Holding Company.”

Holding ? Why Holding ?

23 July 1967   Straight Theatre    San Francisco  Grand Opening  Freedom Highway    The Phoenix    Wildflower    Grateful Dead

Mount Rushmore  Quicksilver Messenger Service   New Salvation Army Band   Mother Earth  Country Joe and The Fish   The Charlatans   Blue Cheer

28-30 July 1967     California Hall      San Francisco

“Holding” was slang at that time for “possessing,” as in, “Hey, man, are you holding any drugs ?”

31 July 1967                     Haight Ashbury Free Clinic Benefit

8 August 1967  Denver Dog   Denver    Colorado  A band at this event played Bye, Bye, Baby. The guitar player even copied my mistakes. First time I heard that.

10 August 1967  Kaiser Dome San Bernardino   So, on one yellow tablet Chet had “Big Brother” and on the other he had “the Holding Company.”

11-12 August 1967  Continental Ballroom   Santa Clara   California          ”Big Brother ?”         “Holding Company ?”

13 August 1967  Avalon Ballroom    ”Big Brother” was big government. “”Holding Company” was corporate government. Corporations weren’t people yet.

16 August 1967  Golden Gate Park       The Supreme Court was still an honorable institution.

Sharrie Gomez and I doing a Macy’s ad.

24-27 August 1967           Avalon Ballroom              Bo Diddly        Bukka White        The Salvation Army Banned

28 August 1967  Lindley Meadow   Golden Gate Park          ”Big Brother ?”     “Holding Company ?”      Very political.

Country Joe and The Fish were a political group, but their name was non political. They should have had our name and we should have had theirs.

Country Janis and The Fish would have been perfect.

We were not “political” at all in the Berkeley sense. We were political just by being who we were. Our politics were non proselytizing, spiritual, private.

Joe MacDonald had a difficult time understanding this then and he may still.

So…       “Big Brother ?”      ”The Holding Company ?”  For a group of people like us ?

We had a shoot in Sausalito at the Heliport with Irving Penn, master of photography, another not overtly yet intensely political artist.

This is the way Irving Peen’s portrait of us and the Grateful Dead looks on the walls of The National Portrait Gallery, London.

1-3 September 1967     Straight Theatre    Haight Ashbury             San Francisco.

4 September 1967   La Dolphine Estate  Debutante Party   Burlingame  California

6 September 1967

8-9 September 1967  Family Dog  Denver

You probably cannot see that Janis and I are committing some kind of nefarious act over there under the tree.

Talk about truth in advertising.

15 September 1967  Canceled.      Anyway, so Chet put the names together. Big Brother and the Holding Company.

James Gurley said, “Hey, how is a name that long going to fit on a marquee or a record label ?”

And I thought, “You mean there’s going to be a marquee… and a record label ?”

September 16, 1967     Monterey Jazz Festival     T-Bone Walker   B. B. King   Richie Havens   The Clara Ward Singers    Afternoon Blues Show

T-Bone Walker was my guitar hero when I was 14, him and Charlie Christian, so I was very excited to see him here.

19-24 September 1967       Golden Bear       Huntington Beach   California with Big Mama Thornton.

5  October 1967   The Matrix  San Francisco     James Gurley’s question was prescient. Big Brother and the Holding Company has always been a difficult fit.

On marquees, on record labels, on book titles, philosophically, spiritually… a difficult fit.

6 October 1967  The Ark   Sausalito   California

7 October 1967      Avalon Ballroom             See ?  The version below might fit us a bit bother, I mean, better.

8 October 1967             Santa Clara Fairgrounds              Santa Clara          California

13-14 October 1967     Eagles Auditorium      Seattle   This engagement was also canceled, I believe, and we played at The Ark instead.

To make the name Big Brother and the Holding Company fit on a poster, we have to squeeze it, so that our name is smaller. Boo, hoo.

15-16 October 1967                Avalon Ballroom

20 October 1967           Contra Costa College     San Pablo    California

27 October 1967   Cal State    Hayward    California

28 October 1967        McNear’s Beach             San Rafael         California

28-29 October 1967       Peacock Country Club            San Rafael

31 October 1967   Trip Or Freak  Hallowe’en Ball    Winterland    San Francisco

2-3 November 1967      Fillmore          San Francisco            Richie Havens

?  November 1967           Golden Bear Club            Huntington Beach          California

4 November 1967           Winterland             San Francisco           Richie Havens    Pink Floyd

4 November 1967    The Ark          Baltimore Steam Packet       Moby Grape

13 November 1967         Avalon Ballroom             Grateful Dead        Quicksilver Messenger Service

16 November 1967           Cubist stock certificate.

Lisa Law took this one in San Geronimo Valley not far from where I am sitting now.

This event never happened.  In any year.      I wish it would have.

23-25 November 1967     The Family Dog presents Thanksgiving Turkey Strut and Trot at The Avalon.

24 November 1967   California Hall           San Francisco

25 November 1967          Avalon Ballroom           Mount Rushmore

1 December 1967   The Matrix    San Francisco    Sandy Bull    Dan Hicks

2 December 1967

14-17 December 1967                      Whisky-A-Go-Go                    Hollywood

17 December 1967

18 December 1967             California Hall

19 December 1967       Shrine Auditorium      Los Angeles    We became acquainted with Connie and Renee Pappas somewhere along here.

They were good friends and the next time we played the Golden Bear or the Shrine, they had a party for us at their house.

20 December 1967            Whisky-A-Go-Go              Hollywood

22 December 1967             Turlock Fairgrounds             Turlock           California

25 December 1967                   Sokol Hall                Christmas Party

26-31 December 1967                    Winterland              San Francisco

31 December 1967

Happy New Year !

Part four next week. See you then.

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company   Alain Bertrand painted this.   Notice the billboard down the street to your left.

     Alain, je te remercie mille fois. My good friend.

______________________________________________________________________________________

Big Brother and the Holding Company, part one. 1965-1966

1965 – 1966

Since I was 14 or so, I have been in one kind of a musical group or another. Guitar groups.

Vocal groups.

The Cool Notes              Okinawa                  Japan.

At the University of San Francisco I played trumpet, saxophone and a lot of typewriter, because I edited the literary magazine.

Things were coalescing.

We were listening to Skip James, Ma Rainey, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Victoria Spivey, Mance Lipscomb, Bessie Smith, Mississippi John Hurt, LaVern Baker, Joe Turner.

           And Peter Albin was playing like John Lee Hooker.

Big Brother and the Holding Company             1965-2012    …and counting…                Golden Anniversary soon.      This is our history.

Peter and I started playing as Big Brother in this house… 1090 Page Street          San Francisco.            1965.

The image below might be the earliest photograph we have of all of our friends. See anyone you know there ? If you know everyone there, call me immediately.

People I know in this photograph: Peter Albin, Sam Andrew, Rita Bergman, Mike Ferguson, Dave Getz, Martin Gorak, Hongo Gurley, James Gurley, Nancy Gurley,  Phil Hammond, Chet Helms, Lori Helms, Dan Hicks, David Homage, George Hunter, Janis Joplin, Alton Kelley, Mortimer Lindner (veterinarian),  James Moylanin, Richie Olsen, Paula Preston, Sancho (the family dog), Mike Wilhelm.

Chet Helms, our big brother.

Our first promotional photograph. We are in the cable car barn.       San Francisco, 1966.

        Chet Helms, Sam Andrew, Peter Albin, Chuck Jones, James Gurley.

November 1965               We play a gig on Clement Street, but we are not called Big Brother yet.

Later in November 1965           We play in the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park as Big Brother and the Holding Company.

     Mike Ferguson and Lynn Hughes.

10 January 1966                We held auditions at The Matrix on Fillmore Street, San Francisco.

15 January 1966             Our first public performance.        Open Theatre              Berkeley.

      Lynn Hughes actually auditioned for us at one point. Here she is with Jesse Cahn.

21-23 January 1966             Longshoreman’s Hall               San Francisco

12 February 1966                Fillmore Auditorium              San Francisco

19 February 1966

     George Conger, Ritchie Olsen, George Hunter.

26 February 1966                  The Family Dog at the Fillmore.

Darby Slick wrote this. I was TEACHING the lesson. Jerry Garcia and I were both guitar teachers at this point.

Chet Helms and James Gurley in one of Herb Greene’s beautiful photographs.

One of our glamour poses. Not glamor, glamour, please.

1=6  March 1966                The Matrix      Chet was our brother and the Matrix was our mother.

12 March 1966                    The Matrix

18-20 March 1966                Fillmore Auditorium        San Francisco

     

19 March 1966         The Firehouse

     James Gurley.

1 April 1966          Harmon Gymnasium           Berkeley          Delano Grape Strikers Benefit

2 April 1966

2 April 1966                  Geary Temple

4-6 April 1966                  Matrix

9 April 1966                                       Longshoreman’s  Hall.

       

29-30 April 1966                     Avalon Ballroom

Peter Albin learning his craft.

6 May 1966

6 May 1966

It was a big thrill to see our name in the San Francisco Chronicle.

13-14 May 1966                 Red Dog Saloon                  Virginia City             Nevada

21 May 1966                  Muir Beach                 Marin County

That was fun, to be finding our way, not sure of where we were going.

Janis was a trouper. She was a real musician and she supported the band as much as we supported her.

         

21 May 1966                     Avalon Ballroom

27-28 May 1966                Red Dog Saloon            Virginia City               Nevada

Hairy ?

30 May 1966                  Winterland                San Francisco

3-4 June 1966            Avalon Ballroom

10-11 June 1966                  Red Dog Saloon                  Virginia City

     Janis and Dorothy Joplin.

19 June 1966               Timothy Leary Benefit at the St. Francis Hotel             San Francisco

24-25 June 1966  Avalon Ballroom  Janis Joplin’s first engagement with Big Brother unless Chet made a special place for her at the Avalon on 10 June. I can’t remember.

We did all kinds of gigs. This one was for our friend Dennis Nolan.

Dennis drew this poster.   One of my favorites.

I’ve done a few paintings of this band.

1 July 1966                            Fillmore Auditorium               San Francisco

Rodney Albin, another big brother. Rodney once asked us to turn down… at gunpoint. The only way you can make guitar players turn down, despite an old joke that says otherwise.

2 July 1966              Monterey Fairgrounds

8-9 July 1966                   Red Dog Saloon            Virginia City

14 July 1966                  Fillmore

15-16 July 1966                This one didn’t happen.

                          

Nancy Gurley and her son Hongo who grew to be a fine man. Nancy was a free spirit.

22 July 1966

Lisa Law did some plein air photography of  Big Brother out in the San Geronimo Valley of Marin County.

                

28 July 1966                 California Hall                   San Francisco

29-30 July 1966                Garden Auditorium          Pacific National Exhibition         Vancouver       British Columbia

29-30-31 July 1966

Ken Babbs in control at The Trips Festival.

Playing in Golden Gate Park.     It always seemed to be sunny and blue.

2-3-4- August 1966                    Losers South

5-6 August 1966        Avalon Ballroom

       Sancho, often misspelled “Soncho,” put his pawprint on this poster.

Keeping an eye on things at The Mojo Navigator which was the first psychedelic rock magazine.

7 August 1966               with Grateful Dead, Grass Roots, Sunshine, Jook Savages, PH Phactor, Si Perkoff Jazz Quintet, San Francisco Mime Troupe.

                                 

12 August 1966    afternoon show in the Park.

12-13 August 1966           Avalon Ballroom

Figuring out what we’re going to do when we sign with Mainstream Records.

Chicago !                 Our first big road trip. We were there from 25 August to 19 September 1966.

16 September 1966      Chicago Sun Times

I saw Howlin’ Wolf, Junior Wells, Muddy Waters, and a lot of other good people up close and personal. Wolf said to me, “You have more soul than I have on my shoe.” First time I heard that expression.

                                    

19 September 1966

Stanley Mouse did this beautiful work on my guitar.

23-24 September 1966              Avalon Ballroom.        Wolf canceled this gig, so Grass Roots replaced him.

Another beautiful work by Dennis Nolan.

6 October 1966        The Ark      Sausalito, California.       We also played in Golden Gate Park that afternoon.

The Ark              Sausalito, California

The Charles van Damme, alias, The Ark a few years later.

7-8 October 1966             Avalon Ballroom          Sutter and Van Ness, San Francisco, California.

13-14 October 1966

15-16 October 1966

Backstage in our elegant dressing room.

22 October 1967                  Winterland              San Francisco

On one of our pilgrimages to Fritz Maytag’s Anchor Steam Brewery in San Francisco.

We played 1-6 November 1966 at The Matrix.

and 4 November 1966 at The Ark, Sausalito.

Drinking Champagne and being happy backstage.

The artists then were so exuberant and industrious that they would often do two, three or four posters for the same event. The creative juices were flowing.

11 November 1966               We taped a “POW” TV show in San Francisco and played the Trip Room in Sacramento.

We always had a lot of fun at Sokol Hall which was right down the street from 1090 Page where Peter and I started the band.

12 November 1966          Sokol Hall       739 Page Street         San Francisco.

Peter Albin wears satin.

13 November 1966   Avalon Ballroom

19 November 1966               The Barn          Scotts Valley            Santa Cruz

23 November 1966          California Hall    625 Polk Street       San Francisco, California.

                                   

25-26 November 1966            The Avalon Ballroom             Isn’t this a beautiful poster ?

3 December 1966                  Wilbur Hall       Stanford University      A Happening in the Wilburness

9-10 December 1966            Avalon Ballroom

 

16-17 December 1966              Winterland          San Francisco

18 December 1966           We played the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles.

25 December 1966               We had a Christmas party at our house in Lagunitas. Lisa Law took this photograph of us by the kitchen door.

26 December 1966                The Ark          Sausalito

27 December 1966                  Avalon Ballroom

31 December 1966              Kezar Pavilion        Golden Gate Park

Next week, part two. See you then !

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

___________________________________________________________________________

April Fools.

1 April 2012

But if you had been able to anticipate the grand march of human progress and poetic feeling by fifty years, and asked her to sing

You made me love you, I didn’t want to do it. I didn’t want to do it,

she would have asked a policeman to remove you to a third class carriage.      (George Bernard Shaw, writing about his mother).

 

Lord, what fools these mortals be.

     1090 Page Street         San Francisco

     This was what it cost to see Peter Albin and me play in 1965.

When I first walked into 1090 Page Street in the spring of that year, these are the lines that I declaimed from the staircase down into the Victorian gloom of the foyer:

Whan that Aprille with his shoures soote

The droghte of Marche hath perced to the roote,

And bathed every veyne in swich licour,

Of which vertu engendred is the flour;

Whan Zephirus eek with his swete breeth

Inspired hath in every holt and heeth

The tendre croppes, and the yonge sonne

Hath in the Ram his halfe cours y-ronne,

And smale fowles maken melodye,

That slepen al the night with open ye,

So priketh hem nature in hir corages:

Than longen folk to goon on pilgrimages.

What do you want ? I had been an English major and was now studying linguistics in graduate school at UC Berkeley.

When this prologue is pronounced more or less the way it would be spoken in the fifteenth century, the rhythm and the music of the lines can be overwhelming.

In 1582, Charles IX, king of France, introduced the Gregorian Calendar into his country, and New Year’s Day was moved from 1 April to 1 January.

Many people, even in France, only learned of this change years later. Some are still not sure about it.

The first day of April seems like a far better time to start a new year than the first day of January.

Actually, to me, the first day of September would be best. This is the beginning of the year in many cultures.

The people who were too ignorant or too stubborn to accept 1 January as the  new new year were labeled “fools” by everyone else and were mocked with fool errands, fool invitations and fool parties.

The butts of these pranks were called “poissons d’avril,” April fish.

A young fish is easily caught.

So, on the first of April, it was common to hook a paper fish on the back of someone as a joke.

  You think he noticed it ?

In the 18th century, this lovely custom reached England, and was introduced into the American colonies by the English and the French. Here is a visual and literal pun on “poison” (poison) and “fish” (poisson).

Below is a ticket to see the “washing of the lions,” something that never happened, so this is an April fools trick in earnest.

In Scotland they take “butts” of jokes literally, so April Fools is devoted to spoofs involving the buttocks and is called Tally Day.

The origins of the “Kick Me” sign can be blamed on the Scots.

In Rome, this holiday was called Festival of Hilaria and it celebrated the return of the god Attis on 25 March, which was also called Roman Laughing Day. Hilaria was also called Cybele.

Another Hilaria in South America: OK, children, tell this pupil Aldo what are the requirements for being a congresswoman? To be Peruvian by birth and older than 25.

The Huli Festival in India comes on 31 March and is a celebration of Spring. People play jokes on each other and smear colors on their friends.

Perhaps because the cold winter is ebbing and the beautiful spring is springing, in many cultures there are lighthearted feasts around this time. One of them is the Jewish Purim which fell on 7 March this year at sundown.

Queen Esther Palin… April Fools !

Japanese style:

Things that happened on April first:

On 1 April 527, Flavius Petrus Sabbatius Justinianus became the emperor of Byzantium (Constantinople, Istanbul), the eastern part of the Roman Empire.

In 1578 on April first, William Harvey discoverer of the circulation of the blood, was born.

The ruins of Pompei were found on 1 April 1748.

On April Fools Day 1778, so the story goes, a New Orleans businessman Oliver Pollock created the $ symbol.

Another possible and much more interesting and ancient origin of the dollar sign is a kind of map made by the Phoenicians of the Pillars of Hercules. This was the Greek name of the promontories on the entrance to the straits of Gibraltar. When the Lebanese traders sailed by these eminences on their way out into the giant Atlantic ocean, the map they made of their threading the pillars was like a dollar sign. The Phoenicians were nothing if not a commercial race, so they took this map to heart.

King Ferdinand was able to make Gibraltar part of the Spanish estates in 1492 and he adopted the symbol of the pillars of Hercules. Later, King Charles V used it in his coat of arms and the symbol in combination with two hemispheres was printed on coins made of the silver and gold that was brought from America by the counquistadores. These coins then spread to America and Europe and the symbol adopted as a currency symbol.

Edmond Rostand who wrote Cyrano de Bergerac was born 1 April 1868.

Paul Gauguin the painter left Marseilles for Tahiti on 1 April 1891.

One fool that should have been kept in jail: 1 April 1924 Hitler was sentenced to five years labor, but General Ludendorff, a coconspirator in the Munich Putsch was acquitted. Herr Schickelgruber used his jail time to write a book.

Louis Marx introduced the Yo-Yo on April Fools 1929, the same day that Luis Buñuel released Un Chien Andalou. By the way, “yoyo” spelled backwards is “oyoy.”

Some other YoYos.

On 1 April 1930, the film Der Blaue Engel (Blue Angel) premiered in America.

Jimmy Cliff first saw the beautiful light of Jamaica on 1 April 1948.

 

Hey, it looks as if he is playing my Hummingbird… and right handed too.

Big Brother and the Holding Company played a Delano Grape Strikers Benefit on 1 April 1966 with The Great Society and Quicksilver Messenger Service.

     Three Slicks.

1 April 1967, we played at The Avalon Ballroom with The Charlatans and Blue Cheer.

April Fools Day 1973, John and Yoko perpetrate the hoax that they are having dual sex change operations.

2003, April first, Big Brother and the Holding Company play at Musiktheater Rex, Lorsch, Germany.

The President playing Peoria.

Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.                   George Bernard Shaw.

I will see you again on 8 April when the first chapter of my history of Big Brother and the Holding Company will appear.  All the best to you.

Sam Andrew.

Big Brother and the Holding Company

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Hermosa means Beautiful.

28 March 2012

                      Pam Swarz, originally from Buffalo, but now a Phoenician.       

 

Elise and I went to Arizona last week at the behest of our friend Peggy Pettigrew Stewart a glass artist who practices in Scottsdale.

                   

Peggy rang the gong and we came running. We were to do an event together at The Hermosa Inn, a very beautiful place. We are so happy to be there.

                

The idea was to have dinner at The Hermosa Inn and then talk about Peggy’s glass work and my shady past with Big Brother and the Holding Company.

                  

I went out walking near the Hermosa Inn and came upon this nameless street, the first one I have ever seen. I mean, I have seen roads with no name but never a road that had a sign saying “road without name.”

Arizona is beautiful, of course, and there are interesting forms everywhere, but especially at the Hermosa Inn.

                                   

The day before our event, we went to the Musical Instrument Museum a little north of Phoenix.

              I used to go to the Metropolitan Museum in New York and I loved their musical instrument collection.

But the Musical Instrument Museum in Arizona might be the largest in the world. It is simply an amazing place to view wonderful musical instruments.

                                Kalimbas. Thumb pianos.

Ian Smith and his gang came out and did a beautiful job of explaining the museum to us.

     Erin Kozak, Pam Swarz, Sandra Keely, Ian, Sam, Elise, Karen Farugia, Peggy Pettigrew Stewart, Cullen Strawn.

With Karen and Erin. These folks were so kind and knowledgeable.

             Poor April Salomon caught the flu that I had earlier last week and couldn’t be with us.

Elise Piliwale is showing me how to ring the gong, a skill she learned from her noble ancestors on Hawaii.

Bill DeWalt, seen here with Sylvia, runs the whole show at the Museum. Great to be with such interesting people.

                                                   

Now it’s Wednesday 21 March and Peggy, Pam and I start thinking about our event at the Hermosa Inn tonight.

                                                 

First, Peggy talks about her glass process and shows some examples.

 

                  

We talk to everyone about how we are going to do a project together.

    Pam Swarz and Tom Curzon.           Elisha Greenleaf.

      Stephanie Norton.         Elisha, Elise, Pam and Stephanie.

I was going to play, and Cindy even brought me a guitar, but we all just talked instead, which was better actually.

                                            

Elise and Lance were adoring us from afar.

And probably wishing that they were far away.

I told the long tale of Big Brother and the Holding Company, illustrated version:

                                          

There were a lot of questions. People seemed to enjoy the evening.

                                        Peggy is doing some really interesting things with glass.

The evening was magical, really, and very Arizonan in its way.

                                          

The next day Elise and I went to Sedona.

                               

There must be a LOT of iron in Sedona. Everything is red.

            

Shadows are lengthening; it’s getting late.

                                                 

Time to think about starting for home.

This was a fun trip to Arizona. We’ll see you soon.

Sam Andrew

                                      

Big Brother and the Holding Company

                        

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Starfinder and Larry the Hat at The Sweetwater.

Monday 12 March 2012

Monday night in Mill Valley, California.

Tony Saunders and  Starfinder Stanley in the green room at the new Sweetwater.

Everything felt right. The vibes (and vibes are very important in California), the vibes were right. Pete Sears, Inez Garcia and Kurt Huget.

We were all there to celebrate the release of Owsley Stanley’s Carousel CD. Robert Altman always in good spirits.

This man is a star, so Starfinder should find him. I don’t know who he is, but he’s a star.

Joli Valenti turned in a great set, and then Lynn Asher, Peter Albin, Terry Haggerty, Kurt Huget, Paul Revelli and I did Down On Me, Bobby McGee, Call On Me and Piece of My Heart.

The beautiful Elise and the not so bad looking either Jesse.

Alzara Getz and Lynn Asher. Lynn did such a good job of singing.

Elise Piliwale and Peter Albin.     You have to walk across the stage in front of the band to get to the dressing room. Good planning.

This was such a great night. Thank you to everyone, but especially to Larry Lautzker (Larry the Hat) and Starfinder Stanley for making it happen.

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

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Chime Children

22 January 2012

 

Alan Merril wrote I Love Rock and Roll… and then he retired. He’s truly a gifted singer and a good friend.

J.K. Rowling’s books, targeted for their sorcery, were banned by some American libraries and burned in some cases. Shame, shame. You are the followers of Qin Shi Huang, Diocletian, Savonarola, the Nazis, Republican senator Joseph McCarthy and other ignorant book burners throughout history. Have you learned nothing? Of course not. You are book burners.

With Susan Zelinsky.

La bellissima Arianna Antinori, Roman by birth, and now she lives in Vicenza.

Ben Nieves, a real, true musician, born that way, and has studied since.

Lani from New Orleans, love you, Lani.

Herb Caen, what is there to say? He was Mr. San Francisco for fifty years, even though he was a suburban kid from Sacramento.

He did what he called “three dot journalism” EVERY DAY for years and years. Item, item, hoosegotta item?

Carmine and Kacee, Hawaii.

Chad Quist, a Berklee product, although I knew him before he went to Berklee and he was very good then.

Cher and Gregg Allman in their funky southern phase.

Cher in her earlier Sonny and Bob chapter.

Don Graham with Chloe, who was our singer that night, but she has since moved on, with Joel Hoekstra, to the Trans Siberian Orchestra.

Danny Dastrup at Aroma Café. There was a big hole in our lives when Danny moved on, as we knew he would.

Dava’s lower half. And her upper half is even better, but we’re not going to see it today.

David Peters is in Uganda now, filming in Ginga, helping people become better, as he is wont to do.

Don’s party.

And, then, a little later in the evening…

Dylan.

Eartha Kitt and James Dean in a dance class. Now, you don’t see that every day.

You are what you think.

Engrid Whisenant, scholar, partisan, Renaissance woman, PhD.

Ezio Guaitamacchi, Italian talk show host, researcher, media personality.

Franco, Szilvia and Veronica.

Fred lives across the street from where I paint.

George Michalski and Chet Helms. George has the money and Chet has the time.

Szilvia when she was a beautiful baby.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound. Don Aters took this photo.

Amazing Grace, how sweet that face.

Musicians on the big island, Hawaii.

Szilvia, all grown up.

… and her beautiful friends.

Jackie and Steve.

Jane and Freddie.

Janis and James.

Joel Hoekstra.

Jennifer, the goddess, Espinoza.

She can really sing.

She’s 18 now.

Not bad looking either.

She’d be a good model for a Madonna.

Jimi in Little Richard’s band.

With Bobby Womack and Wilson Pickett.

Quanked: overpowered by fatigue. From Anglo-Saxon cwanian, to be weary or faint, and cwencan, to quench.

Chirology: the art of conversing with the hands or fingers.

Pythonic: pretending  to foretell future events; from pythoness, the female or priestess who gave oracular answers at Delphi.

Things to say while driving:

Thou damned tripe-visaged rascal. Thou clay-brained guts, thou knotty-pated fool, thou whoreson, obscene, greasy tallow-catch.

Lifelode: the leading of one’s life (Middle English). So much prettier and apt than lifestyle, isn’t it?

Gommacks: tricks, mischief, foolery, from Gaelic guaineach, giddy, sportive, frolicking.

Millefleurs: a perfume distilled from flowers of different kinds; formed on the French eau de millefleurs. The equivalent Italian millefiori is a glass sculpture.

Ensorcell: to enchant, bewitch, fascinate. Adapted from French ensorceler, from sorcier, sorcerer.

I wrote many songs with Kim Nomad. Only now are some of them being recorded. She has a beautiful way of singing.

Kristina Kopriva and Liam Hanrahan.

(Book title, 1672)

New Instructions unto Youth for Their Behavior: A Discourse upon Some Innovations of Habits and Dressing, Against Powdering of Hair, Naked Breasts, Black Spots, and Other Unseemly Customs.

Lucubrator: a person who studies by night, or by candlelight.

La Città della Pieve, Umbria, Italia.

Linda LaFlamme.

This was fun.

Snickersneeze: a term without meaning used to frighten children, “I’ll snickersneeze you, if you don’t.”

When at Niagara Falls, I was escorting a young lady with whom I was on friendly terms. She had been standing on a piece of rock, the better to view the scene, when she slipped down

and was evidently hurt. “Did you hurt your leg much?” She turned from me, evidently much shocked, “The word ‘leg’ is never mentioned before ladies. I am not so particular as some people are,

for I know those who always say ‘limb’ of a table, or ‘limb’ of a pianoforte.”   I then recalled seeing a pianoforte in a “seminary for young ladies” whose four legs had been dressed by prudish

residents in modest little trousers with frills at the bottom.”          Frederick Maryatt, English army captain, 1837.

Lunarian: an inhabitant of the moon.

“I abroad with my wife and little Betty Mitchell…to show them a play, The Chances…The whole play pleases me well, and most of all the sight of many fine ladies, among others

my Lady Castlemayne and Mrs. Middleton. The latter of the two hath also a very excellent face and body, I think. Thence by coach to the New Exchange, and there laid out money,

and I did give Betty Mitchell two pairs of gloves…I was troubled with my pain, having got a bruise on my right testicle, I know not how. But this I did make good use of to make my wife

shift sides with me, and I did come to sit avec Betty Mitchell, and there had her hand which elle did give me very frankly, and did hazer whatever I voudrais avec la, which did plaisir

me grandement, and so set home with my mind mighty glad.”                            Samuel Pepys          5 February 1667.

Navvy: a toiler, principally with a spade, short for navigator, but a navigator of the land, day laborers without benefit of bulldozers, backhoes, computers.

Chantepleure: she that sings and weeps both together.

Napiform: having the shape or appearance of a turnip (Latin napus, turnip).

Bezaubernde: German, bewitching, charming, ensorcellating.

Norton and Lisa Buffalo. Norton was a prince among men and a real musician. Lisa is a high quality person, and I wish her well.

Shana rhymes with Anna, Savannah, or, if you’re loose, with Shannon. Kat rhymes with “Who dat?”   Naturally.

A missed opportunity. To paint a portrait is a knack I possess, which many artists, far better than I, lack. I painted hers, but then was asked to do it again for a fee, and I could not.

When money is involved, I immediately lose interest, if you’ll pardon the expression.

Shrumpsed:  beaten in games.  I’m sure Rachel could shrumps me anytime in any game.

Fragor: a strong or sweet scent.

Saltation: the act of dancing or jumping.

Sasha and her beau.

Dowsabell: a common name in sixteenth-century poetry for a sweetheart, especially for an unsophisticated country girl.

The word means “sweet and beautiful,” from French douce et belle.

Today is the birthday of William Smith, an English admiral who compiled the rich and varied glossary of nautical terms Sailor’s Word Book, 1867. His famous grandson Robert Baden-Powell

founded the British Boy Scouts in 1908.

One of Admiral Smith’s words was “mallemarocking,” the visiting and carousing of seamen in the Greenland ships. This word came from the Dutch “mallemarok,” a foolish woman,

a tomboy, from “mal,” foolish and “marok,” adaptation of the French “marotte,” an object of foolish attention.

Carfuddle: to discompose, to rumple, synonymous with carfuffle, to disorder. Also spelled kerfuffle.

Susan Zelinsky and Ruby who has grown to look exactly like her mother.

Galericulate: covered, as with a hat. (Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, 1755)

Lycanthropia: January was called wolf month because people are always wont in that month to be more in danger of being devoured by wolves than in any other.

Just last week the first wolf in a hundred years crossed into California. We welcome this creature now and wish him well. Some of us do anyway.

Szilvia.

Drury: gallantry, courtship, love, delight (from the French drue, a mistress). I have often walked Drury Lane in London.

In the days before motels and hotels, travelers often stayed anywhere they could, and sometimes slept in the same bed as their hosts. Husbands and parents  frequently permitted these guests

to “bundle” with their wives and daughters. Prudent mothers gave daughters approaching the bundling age a “courting-stocking” completely covering the girl’s body from the waist downwards,

with room for both legs within it. Such stockings were often heirlooms.

Veronica Farnetani and Andrea Zurli. I met them in Umbria.

Vicki is from South Africa. Her accent is soft and beautiful, just as she is.

Wassail Eve, also known as Twelfth Night was the evening when the Three Wise Men came.

“Wassail” was derived from the 13th century Norse toast Waes hail. (Be thou healthy.)

Crazling: a person affected with a craze or mania.

 

See you next week !

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

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Minden, Nevada.

15 January 2012

We have black bamboo in our yard, and Elise took some to her friend Yukiko Neibert who specializes in ikebana. Yukiko created this beautiful work of art using our bamboo.

Yukiko’s floral design studio is in Kentfield, California.

Big Brother and the Holding Company played in Minden, Nevada, on Friday  13 January 2012.

(Minden, oil on panel, work in progress)

Minden, Nevada, is 4,721 feet high. You can always feel that elevation when you try to sing a high note. It can be difficult to get enough air.

Two thousand, eight hundred and thirty six people live in Minden, which is named after a town in North Rhine-Westphalia.

This is one of the top spots in the world for non powered flight. Buoyed by thermals, gliders have sailed here for a thousand miles. You can see why. Minden is in the Carson Valley between two rather ambitious sets of mountains.

The Minden Inn was a favored hangout for people like Jean Harlow and Clark Gable.

The best way to get to Minden is to take Highway 50, at Sacramento, around the bottom of Lake Tahoe. It is really a beaufiful way to go. Some years past, Elise and I drove to Salt Lake City using this same route. It’s the high desert and is most interesting.

This is the Carson Valley Improvement Club where we played. A very interesting place, part community center, part theatre, and all fun.

When Stefanie and I arrived in Minden, Karen Lyberger and Peter Albin were regaling the crowd with true, very detailed accountrs of the counterculture in San Francisco, 1965-1970.

So we sat down and told some lies too. Never let the facts get in the way of a good story. Somebody said that.

Then, Donna Patterson took Stefanie and me to a magic place for another interview.

Donna set up the camera and Stefanie interviewd me about Big Brother’s 1968 performance at The Carousel Ballroom, which Owlsey Stanley recorded.

In March 2012, SONY is going to release the concert that Owsley recorded, and they wanted us to talk about him and the Carousel.

Becky Soderman was there in that Douglas County Library setting, and her intelligence and forthrightness were most welcome.

We had a good gig that night. We played Down On Me, Combination of the Two, I Need A Man To Love, Save Your Love, Call On Me, Blindman, Summertime, Bo’s Bio, Turtle Blues, Bobby McGee,

It’s Cool, Hold Me, Women Is Losers, Piece of My Heart and Ball & Chain.

Or… as we put it in Big Brother shorthand:

Stefanie loaned me her Mesa amplifier (again). I love it. I have to get one. Well, I already have a (very heavy) Mesa Boogie, but it is nowhere near as good as Stefanie’s.

Stefanie could be a star.

On our last day in Minden, Stefanie needed to see some friends who had just had a baby, Ramses. She left me at a Century Mall, or something like that. There were some VERY interesting people here.

And even horses.

 

The Farns: John Farnsworth, always a funny, fey, fantastic, formidable personage. I wish he could have been in Minden with us.

I went to see the film Joyful Noise.

Joyful Noise was all  gospel music.

Now, you know this music is always going to open your heart and inspire your mind… and that’s putting it mildly.

Keke is such a great singer, and she is a beautiful woman.

I loved this film. The plot line is somewhat conventional, but, the music? The singing? Beyond belief. Just so good and so revealing of the divine truth of music.

This was a bit of a Juliet and Romeo story. Jeremy Jordan, who once was the understudy for Rock of Ages, a musical in which my friend Joel Hoekstra excels, is a good vocalist with a real feel.

So, now Stefanie comes to pick me up at the cinema, and we leave for home.

West on highway 80 out of Reno.

Sitting in the dark night, heading home.

Traveling can be educational.

We reach Donner Summit, a place where people truly suffered not so long ago.

I have traveled this way, a guitar and a bag, since I was eighteen.

I’m so relieved. See you next week?

Sam Andrew

Big Brother and the Holding Company

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