Big Brother and the Holding Company, part eight. 1990-1992

Posted on May 27, 2012 by J L tagged.

1990-1992 Riches Untold, Wealth Beyond The Dreams of Avarice.

I had to find a place to hide all my money.

You’re not going to take that seriously, are you ? OK, here’s a joke: Did you hear about the musician who won the lottery ? She played gigs until the money ran out.

More truth than poetry in that one.

Michel Bastian and I did a lot of gigs together in Big Brother and also in The Sam Andrew Band.

24 May 1990 Chi Chi Club San Francisco

Elise Piliwale.

John Cipollina Nick Gravenites Pete Sears Ed Pearlstein took this photograph.

25 May 1990 River Theatre Guerneville California

James always called me “mon jumeau malveillant,” or, when he spoke English, “my evil twin.”

Der Übelzwilling.

Geminus maleficus papae.

El gemelo malvado.

La cattiva gemella.

James very modestly called himself Saint James.

In the 1960s, he called himself The Archfiend of the Universe, a much more interesting appellation, not more accurate, just more interesting.

Joe Tate and Maggie Catfish.

26-27 May 1990 Caspar Inn Caspar California

28 May 1990 Live Wire Grass Valley California

14 February 1991 Sam Andrew Band Paramount Theatre Seattle This is a beautiful old theatre.

Our guitar player on this gig was Mick Taylor, and he did a great job. Veronica Vitti came and sang beautifully.

The stupendous Rob Moitoza played bass and Chris Leighton was on drums.

When Chris plays, I always feel like a Klieg light went on somewhere. It’s like, “OK, we’re in the big time now.”

23 March 1991

23 April 1991 I-Beam San Francisco

Kristina Kopriva, marevelous violinist, singer

21 May 1991

1 June 1991 The Cannery San Francisco

20 July 1991 I-Beam San Francisco

2 August 1991 Anna Bananas Honolulu

Elise’s aunt Shirley Piliwale’s stage name was Varoa Tiki. She was a very good singer and she played every instrument.

Silver Piliwale is Elise’s grandfather. Many places in Hawaii are named Piliwale after him.

27 September 1991 The Queens of Denial Seattle

Icepack Jackson and David Cohen. Icepack, you’re looking good. What is that ? A G 9 suspended ?

24 October 1991 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Cleveland Ohio

Janis.

Nothing like misspelling a performer’s name on a poster. It does make it extra collectible, I suppose.

I once saw John Cipollina’s name misspelled on a PROMO photograph.

25 October 1991

Todd Bolton.

7 November 1991 I-Beam San Francisco

In Tacoma with Chad Quist who did some beautiful playing with us, especially on the Hold Me CD.

Cheryl Little Deer made this business card.

Elise Piliwale with Sheba.

13 April 1992 Sam Andrew Band White Rabbit Austin

16 April 1992

23 April 1992

5 May 1992 Michel Bastian

12 May 1992

9 October 1992

One Family Festival Golden Gate Park San Francisco

28 November 1992 An invitation.

4 December 1992 Linda, an old friend of ours, introduced us to her husband at this event.

So, to celebrate the occasion, I threw a party at The Troubadour.

Adolfito de la Parra was the drummer. Goio Villanueva took this photograph.

Larry Taylor played bass.

Mark Riley. And just to show you that he’s not always that serious, he also plays with hairstyles.

Our old road manager John Byrne Cooke came back for this one, and he made everything run smoothly.

John’s friend Debbie Green, seen here with Eric Anderson, invited us to stay at her house. I hope to do some playing with Debbie one of these days.

Lotus Mahon was with me this weekend which made everything extra special.

Linda and David LaFlamme came to the party. Elise and I were once at the Fillmore with some friends of ours, Marion and Christo, both physicians, and when It’s a Beautiful Day began their set, Marion started to cry. Their music meant so much to her.

Lester Chambers was there with his brothers.

Deborah Morrison sang back up with us.

Robby Krieger played.

Carl Gottlieb was there…

… and Howard Hessman.

And a cast of thousands.

Willie Chambers.

Darby Slick was there. Hey, he wrote a book and a song.

And she sang it.

Peter Albin playing my guitar. John Byrne Cooke took this photograph.

31 December 1992 Pescadero California This was a fun gig. We had Peter on bass and Spencer Dryden on drums.

Rich Kirch played guitar.

Peter Albin and James St. Pell.

They weren’t there. Well, maybe in spirit, because a lot of their friends were there.

A lot of her friends were there also, asking the eternal question: Can a blue man sing the whites ?

Kathi McDonald.

Thank you and I’ll see you next week.

__________________________________________________________________________

Big Brother history, part eight, 1990 – 1992

Posted on May 24, 2012 by J L tagged.

Watching

1990 – 1992

This is the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park 1895. The Museum still looked a lot like this when I first visited there in 1960.

1990-1992

Michel Bastian and I did a lot of gigs together in Big Brother and also in The Sam Andrew Band.

24 May 1990 Chi Chi Club San Francisco

Elise Wainani Piliwale.

25 May 1990 River Theatre Guerneville California

James Gurley always called me mon jumeau malveillant, or, when he spoke English, my evil twin. When he broke out into German, I became der Übelzwilling.

James very modestly called himself Saint James.

In the 1960s, he called himself The Archfiend of the Universe, a much more interesting appellation, not necessarily more accurate, just more interesting.

26-27 May 1990 Caspar Inn Caspar California

Photo: Polly Belinda Rendall

28 May 1990 Live Wire Grass Valley California

Tara Coyote-Finch

Peter Albin

14 February 1991 Sam Andrew Band Paramount Theatre Seattle This is a beautiful old theatre.

Our guitar player on this gig was Mick Taylor, and he did a great job. Veronica Vitti came and sang beautifully.

The always inventive Rob Moitoza played bass and Chris Leighton was on drums.

When Chris plays, I always feel like a Klieg light went on somewhere. It’s like, “OK, we’re in the big time now.”

23 March 1991

23 April 1991 I-Beam San Francisco

21 May 1991

Once when we were playing Piece of My Heart (Pizza My Heart?) in Lake Arrowhead, California, Eric Burdon came in, sat in the front row and ordered a pizza to be delivered. Here he is talking to an old friend of mine.

1 June 1991 The Cannery San Francisco

20 July 1991 I-Beam San Francisco

2 August 1991 Anna Bananas Honolulu

Elise’s aunt Shirley Piliwale’s stage name was Varoa Tiki. She was a very good singer and she played every instrument.

Silver Piliwale is Elise’s grandfather. Many places in Hawaii are named Piliwale after him.

The Queen of the Nile

27 September 1991 The Queens of Denial Seattle

24 October 1991 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Cleveland Ohio

Nothing like misspelling a performer’s name on a poster. It does make it extra collectible, I suppose.

Dusty Springfield and Ronnie Spector

How many Cokes have you drunk in your life? Can you imagine anything worse for you? Loaded with sugar and other harmful ingredients. Empty calories.

25 October 1991

Todd Bolton.

7 November 1991 I-Beam San Francisco

In Tacoma with Chad Quist who did some beautiful playing with us.

Especially on the Hold Me CD.

Cheryl Little Deer made this business card.

Elise Piliwale with Sheba.

13 April 1992 Sam Andrew Band White Rabbit Austin

16 April 1992

23 April 1992

12 May 1992

9 October 1992 One Family Festival Golden Gate Park San Francisco

28 November 1992 An invitation.

4 December 1992 Linda, an old friend of ours, introduced us to her husband at this event.

So, to celebrate the occasion, I threw a party at The Troubadour.

Adolfito de la Parra was the drummer.

Larry Taylor played bass.

Mark Riley played guitar. And just to show you that he’s not always that serious, he also plays with hairstyles.

Our old road manager John Byrne Cooke came back for this one, and he made everything run smoothly.

Lotus Mahon was with me this weekend which made everything extra special.

Linda and David LaFlamme came to the party.

Lester Chambers was there with his brothers.

Deborah Morrison sang back up with us.

Robby Krieger played.

Carl Gottlieb was there…

… and Howard Hessman.

And a cast of thousands.

Willie Chambers.

Darby Slick was there. Hey, he wrote a book and a song. Well, many songs actually.

Peter Albin playing my guitar. John Byrne Cooke took this photograph.

31 December 1992 Pescadero California This was a fun gig. We had Peter Albin on bass and Spencer Dryden on drums.

Rich Kirch played guitar.

Peter Albin and James St. Pell.

with Kathi McDonald. Can a blue man sing the whites ?

Some people have made a career out of playing nothing but the pentatonic scale.

Alton Kelley, square deal, always real.

Thank you and I’ll see you next week.

____________________________________________________________

Big Brother and the Holding Company, part seven. 1978-1989

Posted on May 20, 2012 by J L tagged.

1978-1989 The Crash Test Dummy Goes Into Research and Development.

Big Brother crashed in 1972 or 1973. I was the only original member in it for a long time, and finally Kathi and I decided that it was time for a break.

My girlfriend Carol Cavallon decided to move back to the East Coast and attend Windham College in Putney, Vermont.

I went with her and we lived in a little cabin in Grafton, near where this schoolhouse stands.

We ultimately decided to live in Manhattan, first on the Upper East Side with her parents who were wonderful people.

Later, Carol and I moved to 278 West 11th Street between West 4th and Bleecker Streets. I lived in that apartment longer than I have lived anywhere else. The loudest sound I heard all day long was children playing in the gardens out in back, which was good because it was time for some serious study.

8 April 1973 Pablo Picasso died after a long lifetime of reinventing himself.

I went to the New School for Social Research over on Twelfth Street. I had always read music, but I mainly played by ear and wrote music intuitively. Now I wanted to study composition formally.

Frank Wigglesworth, winner of the Prix de Rome, taught me counterpoint, the art of putting two or more independent melodies together so that you can hear them all at the same time. James Gurley and I had done this by trial and error, of course, notably on Summertime and Hall of the Mountain King, but generally throughout our playing.

The top line is the fixed song, the cantus firmus, the original melody, and then you learn how to put a second melody with the first, one note against one note.

Then, you move on to two notes against one… (I see a “mistake” here, but this is just an example.)

Then you learn to put four notes against one and so on until you arrive at a fugue with complex rhythms and four or five voices.

I used two classic works to learn counterpoint: One was Fux’ 1725 treatment Gradus ad Parnassum. (In 1994, Big Brother was to go to Moscow to play an event called Steps To Parnassus, a translation of this title.) Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and many other composers used Fux’ book in their contrapuntal practice.

The second book I profited from in the study of counterpoint was by Knud Jeppeson who interpreted Fux and put him in a historical context. Just looking at this book takes me back to that intense time of study. I wrote hundreds of exercises in this discipline. This was a lot of fun and very educational. Something like three dimensional chess perhaps. Or four dimensional, because time, rhythm is also an essential part of this technique.

The rules for counterpoint are like the rules of perspective in art. They can be a principal or an ancillary study. Some artists, some composers, will make counterpoint and perspective their main focus. Two of those come to mind: J.S. Bach and M.C. Escher.

In 1975, I met Laura Gomez and my motto that year became “Alive in ’75.” I love Laura. She is a very interesting person.

And I wish I would have been a better person for her. Laura and her daughter.

I was writing a lot of cereal music at this point, inventions, fugues, string quartets, a symphony that I heard performed exactly once. (Too bad it wasn’t in the Royal Albert Hall where I could have at least heard it twice.) Sometimes it was cereal music, sometimes it was serial music and sometimes it was traditional music. Snap, crackle, pop.

4 February 1974 Café Wha ? Hey, I’m on the same bill with Richie and Yoko. David Amram, serious composer, showed up and played flute on this gig.

Recording at Atlantic.

1975 Dickie and Donnie. Can you feel the love ? Donnie was known as Rumstud during the early reign of George W. Bush, that is, until he was made a nonperson after the reëlection. Dickie is still with us, commenting on all the ways that everyone else is screwing up now, after he had done so well in his time. Smirking, shirking, jerking.

4 July 1976 The tall ships came sailing into the Hudson and I was there on a pier mere blocks from my apartment enjoying the spectacle along with thousands of other people. This was such a great Bicentennial.

I talked to Ahmet Ertegun about joining Atlantic but Big Brother was in limbo at this time.

25 July 1977 There was a blackout in New York City. I walked the streets enjoying the silence. I could actually hear conversations four or five floors above me. It made me feel as if I were living a hundred years earlier. There was a camaraderie during this emergency, despite all the alarmist stories one hears.

17 September 1978 Mstislav Rostropovich performed at The White House. The violoncello is such a great instrument, tremendous range and a beautiful sound and he played it so well.

1 October 1978 Tribal Stomp Greek Theatre Berkeley

Judy Davis and Patrisha Vestey worked hard on this event.

Look at that phone. You did something called “dialing” with it.,

The Tribal Stomp was a big deal. I had been living in New York for ten years. Now I was coming home.

Big Brother and the Holding Company would start playing again.

We could work with Kathi McDonald and Nick Gravenites and continue some of the good ideas we began after Janis left.

So, imagine my surprise when everyone said good bye and so long after the gig.

They were all going back to their private lives.

James was going back to the desert. Peter was going back to his model shop.

There was no interest in doing Big Brother again.

I had finished my life and left my apartment on the East Coast. Now what to do ?

I had to learn how to paint, sculpt, play the saxophone and do a variety of other activities to keep busy for the next eight years. Keith Haring did this painting.

19 April 1980 Snooky Flowers and I formed a band with a gay man Joey Amoroso who called himself Pearl.

Pearl had more than a little in common with Louis XIV.

19 April 1980 Pearl Heart Oakland Auditorium

Playing with Frank Alsing from the Pearl band.

Pearl, who was very flamboyant, sang Janis’ songs in the same key that Janis did, something that very few of the Big Brother singers have achieved since.

1980 We played the Gay Day Parade at the Civic Center. I played clarinet in one of the gay day parades up in Seattle, but this one in San Francisco was a whole other thing.

We played on a stage right in front of City Hall.

July 1980 I also performed with a band called Little Bumps Garden at The Haight Street Fair. Jym Fahey Lenny Kobiela

16 February 1981 Homesick for the Apple thinking about those lox, er, locks, and that love.

November 1981 Bringing home the pumpkin.

Sculpting some very large heads.

1982 Release of a new coin in the United Kingdom. Obverse of the Half Sovereign valued at £ 100-150. Beautiful design, isn’t it ?

And the reverse.

I was practicing the saxophone wherever I could. You have to play saxophone loud to learn it. With almost every other instrument there are ways to play quietly. With an electric guitar you can simply leave it unplugged and practice to your heart’s content. Even with a trumpet, you can mute it. Drummers can work with practice pads. Not saxophone. You can stuff a sock in the bell, but that’s about it and it won’t make it much quieter. You simply have to blow into it with passion and dedication for it to work. So saxophonists are notorious for playing in some strange places.

Sonny Rollins practiced on the Brooklyn Bridge. It’s perfect because the traffic seems to filter out the mistakes, and no one is complaining about the noise. It’s a bit like singing in the shower.

Trying, and usually failing, to take some decent photographs.

Playing saxophone seriously, scales, arpeggios, memorizing Charlie Parker solos.

This was a long saxophone meditation and it introduced me to some great players besides the masters whom I knew well.

Players like Joe Henderson, Jack Montrose, Dexter Gordon, James Moody, Mel Martin and Cannonball Adderly who played with technical proficiency and intense emotion.

1985.

I started making assemblages and hope to get back to that some day.

I decided to form a group of musicians to play some of these three or four hundred ballads and jump tunes from the 1920s, 30s, 40s that I was memorizing on the saxophone.

In time, this became The Sam Andrew Quartet and we played small clubs all over the Bay Area.

I had the opportunity to hire musicians who were a lot better than I was, good experience for similar activity later with Big Brother.

I learned that if you get the gig, you can get the musicians and the audience.

1985 Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, Theo van den Boogaard was doing some amazing graphic work and I became a fan.

The Sam Andrew Quartet slowly morphed into The Sam Andrew Band and I switched between saxophone and guitar for a while. We played all over the USA, including many places where Big Brother would later play.

People seemed to like what we were doing.

Snooky Flowers, Peter Walsh, Robin Sylvester, Scott Matthews. This was a good outfit. Snooky and I had been playing together since The Kozmic Blues Band.

1985 They’re ALL cults, aren’t they ? Even television. Television seems like the biggest cult of all.

Now THIS, this is a cult.

I was still sculpting, painting and photographing.

I depicted everything in sight, and some things out of sight.

Not “finding myself,” but creating myself.

I have to give a hand to George Bernard Shaw for the insight that one can take hold and change one’s life and not merely accept a given destiny.

21 March 1985 There began to be rumblings of a coming change.

Let’s see, how can I get Big Brother and the Holding Company together again?

I know. I’ll build a rehearsal studio.

They’ll get a good laugh out of that.

1986 Then it happened. An agent called and asked if we would like to play again. The occasion was a special anniversary, the Summer of Love.

The Summer of Love was always a rather suspect phrase.

They used to sell Love Burgers on Haight Street. I wonder how the cows felt about that. Did they feel all that Love ?

1986 Michel Bastian with Peter and James.

20 August 1987 Cotati Cabaret Cotati California

27 August 1987 New George’s San Rafael California

I loved her singing, and her mom’s, and her aunt’s. In fact, I used to rehearse down the hall from Dionne Warwick in New York.

29 August 1987 Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco Our new singer’s name is Michel. That’s the name she likes and that she was born with.

Rehearsing for the Fillmore. Yes, once upon a time we actually rehearsed. Well, most of us anyway.

2 September 1987 WOW Hall Eugene Oregon I told her that Michel was French for Michael, so she changed it to Michelle for a while.

3 Septembeer 1987 Pine Street Theatre Portland Oregon But she is Michel Bastian. She has a warm gospel voice right out of Oakland.

4 September 1987 Seattle Center Exhibition Hall Seattle

5-6 September 1987 Alaska State Fair Borealis Theatre

9 September 1987 Parker’s Seattle

12 September 1987 Twentieth Anniversary Summer of Love Polo Fields San Francisco

24 September 1987 Sweetwater Mill Valley California

17 October 1987 The OMNI Oakland California

I was once playing saxophone in this club with a cordless set up and I wandered off the stage out into the traffic at this intersection, blowing away. That was fun.

20 October 1987 The Church San Francisco Sam Andrew Band, Texas division. Lips played bass. Gloria Meehan sang backing vocals. Good band.

9 December 1987 Palace of Fine Arts San Francisco

12 December 1987 Cotati Cabaret Cotati California

1988 With my brother Dan in Austin.

19 February 1988 Catalyst Santa Cruz

21 May 1988 Golden Gate Park San Francisco

8-19 June 1988 I wish I could have been in Bologna for this event.

22 July 1988 The Backstage Seattle

23 July 1988 Pine Street Theatre Portland Oregon

7 August 1988 Molson Park Barrie Ontario

8 September 1988 Alice’s Champagne Palace Homer Alaska The Kenai Peninsula is a beautiful, beautiful place.

18 November 1988 “Living in Seattle is like being married to a beautiful woman who is sick all the time.” Herb liked that.

19 January 1989 Port Arthur Texas

20 January 1989 Rockefeller’s Houston

27 January 1989 Psychedelic Summer of Love Universal Amphitheatre Universal City California I was trying to chat up Debbie Harry at this gig and a very persistent fan came between us. The moment was lost.

April 1989 Luther Burbank Center for the Arts Santa Rosa California

23 April 1989 IBeam San Francisco Michael Dolgushkin did this poster.

22 April 1989 Club Lingerie Hollywood Vala Cupp Michel Bastian

Sam Andrew Band Washington chapter KK Ryder Mark Riley Todd Zimberg

7 June 1989 Rexville Grange Washington

Bainbridge Island Washington

27 July 1989 Great American Music Hall San Francisco

1989 In Beijing, momentous changes were occurring. The “Gate of Heavenly Peace,” Tienanmen, was an odd name for that place, that day.

18-19 August 1989 Wetlands New York City

4 October 1989

26 November 1989 Earthquake Benefit Kaiser Auditorium Oakland

Downstairs at The Fez under Time, New York City, with David Peel, Dorothy Rothschild and Lenny Kaye.

The Four Stooges at four in the morning. New York City

See you next week. Sam Andrew.

Big Brother and the Holding Company.

________________________________________________________________________________________

Big Brother history, part seven, 1972 to 1989

Posted on May 16, 2012 by J L tagged.

1972-1989

I only have eyes for you.

Big Brother crashed in 1972 or 1973. I was the only original member in it for a long time, and finally Kathi McDonald and I decided that it was time for a break.

Some of the grim events of the late sixties began to be repeated in a minor key in the seventies. In 1968, there were those horrible assassinations. In the 1970s, Lynette Squeaky Fromme (Manson family) and Sara Jane Moore (SLA) make an attempt on Gerald Ford. Instead of Viet Nam, there’s the failed Mayaguez rescue operation. In place of the Moratorium to End the War, we had Chevy Chase on Weekend Update.

My girlfriend Carol Cavallon decided to move back to the East Coast and attend Windham College in Putney, Vermont.

I went with her and we lived in a little cabin in Grafton, near where this schoolhouse stands.

Later, we moved to Manhattan, first on the Upper East Side with her parents who were wonderful people.

Later, Carol and I moved to 278 West 11th Street between West 4th and Bleecker Streets. I lived in that apartment longer than I have lived anywhere else in my life.

The loudest sound I heard all day long was children playing in the gardens out in back, which was good because the time had come for serious study.

I went to the New School for Social Research over on Twelfth Street. I had always read music, but I mainly played by ear and wrote music intuitively. Now I wanted to study composition formally.

Frank Wigglesworth, winner of the Prix de Rome, taught me counterpoint, the art of putting two or more independent melodies together so that you can hear them all at the same time.

James Gurley and I had often played two different melodies over the same harmonic background but we had done this by trial and error, of course, notably on Summertime and Hall of the Mountain King, but generally throughout our playing. I now began a classical study of this technique.

The top line is the fixed song, the cantus firmus, the original melody, and then you learn how to put a second melody with the first, one note against one note.

Then, you move on to two notes against one… (I see a “mistake” here, but let it pass.)

Then you learn to put four notes against one and so on until you arrive at a fugue with complex rhythms and four or five voices.

I used two classic works to learn counterpoint: One was Fux’ 1725 treatment Gradus ad Parnassum. (In 1994, Big Brother were to go to Moscow to play an event called Steps To Parnassus, a translation of this title.) Haydn, Mozart, Beethoven and many other composers used Fux’ book in their contrapuntal practice.

The second book I profited from in the study of counterpoint was by Knud Jeppesen who interpreted Fux and put him in a historical context. Just looking at this book takes me back to that intense time of study. I wrote hundreds of exercises in this discipline.

This was a lot of fun and very educational. Something like three dimensional chess perhaps. Or four dimensional, because time, rhythm, is also an essential part of this technique.

The rules for counterpoint are like the rules for perspective in art. They can be a principal or an ancillary study. Some artists, some composers, will make counterpoint and perspective their main focus.

Two of these counterpoint/perspective masters come to mind: J.S. Bach and M.C. Escher.

In 1975, I met Laura Gomez and my motto that year became “Alive in ’75.”

Laura and her daughter.

I was writing a lot of music at this point, inventions, fugues, string quartets, a symphony that I heard performed exactly once. (Too bad it wasn’t in the Royal Albert Hall where I could have at least heard it twice.)

Sometimes I wrote cereal music, sometimes it was serial music and sometimes it was traditional music. Snap, crackle, pop.

I knew a lot of characters in New York. Ronny Sunshine was one of them. Here he is photo bombing the Pope.

4 February 1974 Café Wha ? Ronny put me on the same bill with Richie and Yoko.

David Amram, serious composer, showed up at the Wha? and played flute with me on this gig.

Recording at Atlantic.

1 October 1978 Tribal Stomp Greek Theatre Berkeley

Judy Davis and Patrisha Vestey worked hard on this event.

Look at that phone. You did something called “dialing” with it. Patrisha Vestey.

The Tribal Stomp was a big deal. I had been living in New York for ten years. Now I was coming home.

Big Brother and the Holding Company would start playing again.

We could work with Kathi McDonald and continue some of the good ideas we began after Janis left.

So, imagine my surprise when everyone said good bye and so long after the gig. They were all going back to their private lives.

James was going back to the desert. Peter was going back to his model shop.

There was no interest in doing Big Brother again.

I had finished my New York life and left my apartment on the East Coast. Now what to do ?

I had to learn how to paint, sculpt, play the saxophone and do a variety of other activities to keep busy for the next eight years.

19 April 1980 Snooky Flowers and I formed a band with a gay man Joey Amoroso who called himself Pearl.

Pearl had more than a little in common with Louis XIV.

19 April 1980 Pearl Heart Oakland Auditorium

Playing with Frank Alsing from the Pearl band.

Pearl was very flamboyant. He sang Janis’ songs in the same key that Janis did, something that very few of the Big Brother singers have done since. Pearl was a natural contralto.

1980 We played the Gay Day Parade at the Civic Center.

I played clarinet in one of the gay day parades up in Seattle, but this one in San Francisco was a whole other thing. We played on a stage right in front of City Hall to thousands of people.

July 1980 I also performed with a band called Little Bumps Garden at The Haight Street Fair. Jym Fahey Lenny Kobiela

I miss New York.

November 1981 Bringing home the pumpkin.

I begin to sculpt some very large heads.

I was practicing the saxophone wherever I could. You have to play saxophone loud to learn it. With almost every other instrument there are ways to play quietly. With an electric guitar you can simply leave it unplugged and practice to your heart’s content. Even with a trumpet, you can mute it. Drummers can work with practice pads. Not saxophone. You can stuff a sock in the bell, but that’s about it and it won’t make it much quieter. You simply have to blow into it with passion and dedication for it to work, so saxophonists are notorious for playing in some strange places.

So, I practiced anywhere I could that wouldn’t bother anyone.

Empty buildings were good.

Lots of space, natural reverb, freedom.

Playing saxophone seriously, scales, arpeggios, memorizing Charlie Parker solos.

This was a long saxophone meditation and it introduced me to some great players.

Players like Joe Henderson, Jack Montrose, Dexter Gordon, James Moody, Mel Martin and Cannonball Adderly who played with technical proficiency and intense emotion.

I loved Cannonball, his technique, his sense of humor, his precision, his soulfulness, everything about him. Still love him.

I started making assemblages and hope to get back to that some day.

I decided to form a group of musicians to play some of these three or four hundred ballads and jump tunes from the 1920s, 30s, 40s that I was memorizing on the saxophone.

I had the opportunity to hire musicians who were a lot better than I was.

I learned that if you get the gig, you can get the musicians and the audience.

The gig comes first and everything else will flow from that. It took me a long time to learn this. I thought that if you practiced real hard and seriously, then the gigs would come to you. Uh, uh. You get the gig and practice on the gig.

The Sam Andrew Quartet slowly morphed into The Sam Andrew Band and I switched between saxophone and guitar for a while.

We played all over the USA, including many places where Big Brother would later play.

People seemed to like what we were doing.

Snooky Flowers, Peter Walsh, Robin Sylvester, Scott Matthews.

This was a good outfit, maybe the best ever.

Relaxed, swinging, accurate, sympathetic vibrations. Great players.

I was still sculpting, painting and photographing.

Not “finding myself,” but creating myself.

Let’s see, how can I get Big Brother and the Holding Company together again?

I know. I’ll build a rehearsal studio.

They’ll get a good laugh out of that.

1986 Then it happened. An agent called and asked if we would like to play again.

The occasion was a special anniversary, the Summer of Love.

The Summer of Love was always a rather suspect phrase.

It smacked of commercialism.

They used to sell Love burgers on Haight Street as attested in this Baron Wolman shot.

I wonder how the cows felt about those Love burgers. Did they feel all that Love ?

Anyway, we decided not to play that Summer of Love gig, but it started us to thinking, Maybe we should get together again.

20 August 1987 Cotati Cabaret Cotati California

27 August 1987 New George’s San Rafael California

I loved her singing, and her mom’s, and her aunt’s. In fact, I used to rehearse down the hall from Dionne Warwick in New York.

29 August 1987 Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco Our new singer’s name is Michel. That’s the name she likes and that she was born with.

2 September 1987 WOW Hall Eugene Oregon

3 Septembeer 1987 Pine Street Theatre Portland Oregon She is Michel Bastian. She has a warm gospel voice right out of Oakland.

4 September 1987 Seattle Center Exhibition Hall Seattle

5-6 September 1987 Alaska State Fair Borealis Theatre

9 September 1987 Parker’s Seattle

12 September 1987 Twentieth Anniversary Summer of Love Polo Field Golden Gate Park San Francisco

24 September 1987 Sweetwater Mill Valley California

17 October 1987 The OMNI Oakland California

I was once playing saxophone in the Omni with a cordless set up and I wandered off the stage out into the traffic at this intersection, blowing away. That was fun.

20 October 1987 The Church San Francisco

Sam Andrew Band, Texas division. Lips played bass. Gloria Meehan sang backing vocals. Good band.

9 December 1987 Palace of Fine Arts San Francisco

12 December 1987 Cotati Cabaret Cotati California

1988 With my brother Dan in Austin.

19 February 1988 Catalyst Santa Cruz

21 May 1988 Golden Gate Park San Francisco

22 July 1988 The Backstage Seattle

23 July 1988 Pine Street Theatre Portland Oregon

7 August 1988 Molson Park Barrie Ontario

8 September 1988 Alice’s Champagne Palace Homer Alaska

The Kenai Peninsula is a beautiful, beautiful place.

18 November 1988 “Living in Seattle is like being married to a beautiful woman who is sick all the time.”

Herb liked that.

19 January 1989 Port Arthur Texas

20 January 1989 Rockefeller’s Houston

27 January 1989 Psychedelic Summer of Love Universal Amphitheatre Universal City California I was trying to chat up Debbie Harry at this gig and a very persistent fan came between us.

The moment was lost.

April 1989 Luther Burbank Center for the Arts Santa Rosa California

With Joe Healey

23 April 1989 IBeam San Francisco

Michael Dolgushkin did that poster.

22 April 1989 Club Lingerie Hollywood with Vala Cupp and Michel Bastian

Sam Andrew Band Washington chapter KK Ryder Mark Riley Todd Zimberg

7 June 1989 Rexville Grange Washington

Bainbridge Island Washington

27 July 1989 Great American Music Hall San Francisco

18-19 August 1989 Wetlands New York City

26 November 1989 Earthquake Benefit Kaiser Auditorium Oakland

Downstairs at The Fez under Time, New York City, with David Peel, Dorothy Rothschild and Lenny Kaye.

The Four Stooges at four in the morning. New York

Sam Andrew

_______________________________________________________________________

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

Posted on May 13, 2012 by J L tagged.

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 history, part six, 1969 to 1972

Posted on May 9, 2012 by J L

1969 to 1972

Big Brother is watching you.

December 1968 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.

2-3 February 1969

9 February 1969 Franklin Pierce College

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.

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.

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

Suzy Creamcheese took me out to Hampton Court and gave me the royal tour.

29 June 1969 Terrace Ballroom Salt Lake City

20 July 1969 Snooky Flowers and I watched this event live on television at the Chelsea Hotel, NYC.

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

The Palace Hotel still looks much like this.

25 August 1969

27 August 1969 Saratoga

17 October 1969 Austin

On the road again.

18 October 1969 Hemisphere Arena San Antonio

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

With Janis and Richard Kermode.

Richard came out of that Hammond B3 jazz scene in Buffalo. He was a good musician.

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.

Saint Ignatius Church, Fulton & Parker (Stanyan), San Francisco

29 December 1969 Geary Theatre 415 Geary Boulevard San Francisco

I’ve done this many times. Turning the cable car around so it can head back up the hill.

Janis said, “I don’t look good in this photo, but I’m putting it on the album cover just for you.”

And now begin the 1970s, which Gary Trudeau called “a kidney stone of a decade.”

I used the 1970s to go back to school and learn some technique, but there is no denying that those years were an intermission between the high flying 60s and the conservative, athletic, jingoistic 1980s. Photo: Anthony Edman

7 February 1970 Encore Theatre Burlingame California

13 February 1970 Pepperland San Rafael California

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

27 February 1970 Alaskaland Civic Center Fairbanks Alaska

5-7 March 1970 Keystone Korner San Francisco

They had some wonderful shows at the Keystone, which was right across the alley from the North Beach police department.

13-14 March 1970 New Orleans House Berkeley

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

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

Hey, there’s John McFee.

Alex Call was the singer in this band. Huey Lewis was the harmonica player. I always liked John McFee who is now a Doobie Brother.

The owner of the Lion’s Share, Mike Considine, didn’t like to advertise, so there are very few posters and handbills from this venue.

James Gurley

4 April 1970 Fillmore West Janis joined us for this one.

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 Mike Finnegan David Shallock Nick Gravenites We had a GOOD band.

Greg ‘Cornholio’ Douglass

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

The 1970s were a time of molting, of lying in wait. There didn’t seem to be any guiding theme, so I kept my head down and studied.

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 Big Brother 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, 23 May 1970 Keystone Korner San Francisco

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.

My wife Elise Wainani Piliwale is Hawaiian. Here she is with Grant Jacobs, Richard Hundgen, and a photographer who has a lovely smile.

Colin and Wayne, the equipment managers that we had at that time, forty years ago, decided to jump ship and become Hawaiian. They are there still and doing very well.

And of course our President was born in Honolulu 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… like Fox News.

President Obama went to Punahou High School.

Jonelle DeNike is Hawaiian and she went to a Catholic high school in Honolulu.

10 June 1970 Kahului Armory Maui Hawaii

Also called the Pu’unene Armory.

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 played a lot of different songs. This was probably our most adventurous period for repertoire.

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 with the Full Tilt Boogie Band

It was something else to have Big Brother and Full Tilt in that same small airplane coming back from San Diego.

The airlines used to lay off the flight attendants when they got married or reached a certain age. This was so they wouldn’t have to give them seniority and the pay that goes with it.

17 July 1970 Love Valley Festival Love Valley North Carolina

31 July 1970 Phoenix Veterans Coliseum Arizona

2 August 1970 Lion’s Share San Anselmo California

6 August 1970 Peace Festival Shea Stadium Flushing Meadows New York

I need you, darling, like the fish needs the sea. Please don’t take your sweet, sweet love from me.

George Frayne, one of my favorite people. Good artist too.

13-15 August 1970 Fillmore West San Francisco Commander Cody

18-19 August 1970 The Matrix San Francisco

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 Hotel Hollywood A British writer, Howard Sounes, just interviewed me from the very room. He mentioned all of the scrawlings on the bedroom closet wall.

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

The 1970s began this way. The USA, up to this time a manufacturing giant, always expanding and growing, now became a service economy devoted to finance and collecting information, analyzing, digesting, contracting. Self help books proliferated, the computer began to become important.

American society turned inward after the tumultuous events of the 1960s.

23 October 1970 Basin Street West

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. Lots of stories of past glories.

Margaret Gurley

27-29 October 1970 The Matrix

With James Gurley, David Shallock, Nick Gravenites, Dave Getz and Peter Albin

30 October 1970 46th Street Rock Palace Brooklyn

Photo: Baron Wolman

2 November 1970 Harding Theatre Divisadero Street San Francisco

6 November 1970

20-21 November 1970 Winterland San Francisco

5 December 1970 The Birmingham Palladium Detroit

We looked everywhere for this white SG standard.

We all signed this one. I was with Carol Cavallon when I bought this guitar on 48th Street across the street from Manny’s in New York. Photo: Anthony Edman

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

All right, we’re heading into the rough waters of the 1970s now.

Strange, hard, weird times.

17 January 1971 Syria Mosque University of Pittsburgh

18-19 January 1971 Ungano’s

20 January 1971 Capitol Theatre Port Chester New York

With Carol Cavallon in Putney Vermont

29-30 January 1971 The names El Monte and El Segundo always make 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 very 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 with Kathi McDonald.

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

25 March 1971 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.

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

Think about some of the things that had happened to usher in the 1970s. The Watts riots in 1965, the Republican triumph in the 1966 midterms, the Newark riots, the 1968 campaign, the assassinations, Chicago, Nixon winning by the largest landslide ever in 1972, the Manson family, Kent State, the construction workers’ riot, George Romney, George Wallace, George McGovern, Nelson Rockefeller. The nation was exhausted, afraid and began to retrench and turn to the right.

26 April 1971 Sonoma

7 May 1971 California Hall San Francisco

17 May 1971 New Monk

21 May 1971 Keystone Korner San Francisco

28 May 1971 Selland Arena Fresno California with B.B. King and Elvin Bishop

10 June 1971 Fox Theatre Long Beach

9 July 1971 Harlingen Texas

August 1971 Release of How Hard It Is. The title is significant.

We had a great B3 player on this album, 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.

9 October 1971 Monterey Fairgrounds with Clover who were lucky enough to have John McFee on the guitar.

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

12 November 1971 Winterland

9-11 December 1971 Inn of the Beginning Cotati California

30 January 1972 Curtis Hall Tampa Florida with 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 with the 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

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 with Blue Oyster Cult. These guys were fun to hang with. They were hysterically funny.

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

July 1972 Miami Spirit

22 July 1972 Marine World Redwood City California

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 with 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 he writes great songs.

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

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.

See you next week?

Sam Andrew

__________________________________________________________

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

Posted on May 6, 2012 by J L tagged.

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 history, part five, July to December 1968

Posted on May 1, 2012 by J L

July-December 1968 Big Brother is watching you.

Watching you.

Thinking about Chet Helms.

5 July 1968 Concord Coliseum Concord California

The Concord Coliseum began as a grocery store. Then it was a holy hall of harmony,

and now it has become a Petco. O tempora, O mores.

6 July 1968 Santa Rosa Fairgrounds Santa Rosa California

La Combinación de los Dos

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

Combination of the Two

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

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.

David Richards holding our attention with one of his great stories. He painted my guitar and Janis’ Porsche.

27 July 1968 Newport Folk Festival Newport Rhode Island

John Byrne Cooke took this one at Newport.

We had always dreamed about attending this event…

…and now we’re playing it.

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.

Gerde’s Folk City

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.

One Stop Shopping: Get your mind expanded and your check cashed.

9 August 1968 Kiel Auditorium St. Louis

10 August 1968 Forest Park St. Louis

14 August 1968 Indiana Beach Monticello Indiana

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 Their art will last longer than what we did. We see the aulos player on the Greek vase, but we don’t hear her music.

After we played Pasadena, we hopped in a limousine, and the fans piled on top. I was afraid we would be crushed.

15 September 1968 Rose Bowl Pasadena

Henry Diltz’ photo of Sally Mann

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. ”The toils of the law,” is such a great way to phrase that.

4 October 1968 Public Hall Cleveland Little did I realize then that Cleveland would loom large in the Big Brother legend. 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 Monsieur Gurley

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

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, but 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

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 I visit Mark Twain’s very interesting home 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 at this Pan Hellenic event.

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 rehearsal of The Kozmic Blues Band with Michael Bloomfield as music director.

Mike was a consummate musician, gifted and highly intelligent.

Al Kooper and Mike had an idea. They would make an album and hire Norman Rockwell to do the cover. I wish I would have thought of that, but I would have tried to come up with a story in the image, since that’s the way that Norman Rockwell works. Al and Michael were just portrayed as a duo in the final cover. Rather static and not taking advantage of Rockwell’s brilliant narrative painting style. They should have tried for some kind of story.

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. These guys were all for hire, just as I was/am. They would have felt proud and connected to do a Big Brother cover, and we would have felt even more proud and connected to be associated with such great artists.

Well, maybe next time. Anyway, I loved working with Michael 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 Electric.

In the 1950s, the Cedar Tavern in Manhattan was the artists’ watering hole. The drinks were cheap and it was close to the 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 one time 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 had 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. Too bad Tennessee Ernie Ford wasn’t involved, then they could have had a Tennessee to the fourth power.

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 glorious as these characters. 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 Rutgers, I believe, and is just an all around good man.

Danny Fields, an “executive at Elektra,” as he is often billed, was 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.

Very salty, so of course they needed washing down with something.

See you next week?

Sam Andrew James Gurley John Byrne Cooke

__________________________________________________________

Big Brother and the Holding Company, part four. January to June 68

Posted on April 29, 2012 by J L tagged.

This is the story of Big Brother and the Holding Company. This is the part where we go up, up, up.

January to June 1968

Linda McCartney took this photograph when she was Linda Eastman and a dear friend of mine.

We became vegetarians together. That way we wouldn’t eat each other.

Not for our health, as Isaac Bashevis Singer might say, but for the health of the chickens.

5 January 1968 Rainbow Ballroom Fresno California

6 January 1968 Sacramento State College Steve Brown captured this lovely image of Janis. I think she liked him.

12 January 1968 Shrine Auditorium Los Angeles

13 January 1968 Barnes Park Bandshell Monterey Park California

16-21 January 1968 Golden Bear Club Huntington Beach California I always liked playing here.

25 January 1968 Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco

26-27 January 1968 Winterland San Francisco John Byrne Cooke, son of Alistair Cooke, Spanish major at Harvard, was our estimable road manager and good friend.

I don”t want to say that John is tall, but here he is hovering over Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Mimi Fariña and Joan Baez.

John writes western novels, he’s a photographer, and he introduced us to a whole new world when we went East in 1967.

He is now writing a book about his days with Janis in Big Brother, the Kozmic Blues Band and Full Tilt.

John took this photograph of Debbie Green and Mimi Fariña.

Albert Grossman, the schvitzing Svengali, our manager, the gray cloud, and now he’s gone.

28 January 1968 Avalon Ballroom San Francisco

Chet and Lori Helms with Bill Graham. Bill is doing the talking. Imagine that.

2 February 1968 The Cheetah Los Angeles

3 February 1968 Earl Warren Showgrounds Santa Barbara

9 February 1968 Santa Clara County Fairgrounds Santa Clara California

10 February 1968 Community Concourse Exhibit Hall San Diego

16 February 1968 Palestra Philadelphia A “palestra” was originally a wrestling school in Greece (palaistra). In Italian, the word now means “gymnasium.”

17 February 1968 Anderson Theatre New York City

Elliott Landy took some very sweet photographs of nearly everyone at that time.

The lower East Side was a magic place to be in those days.

This restaurant was right next door to where we played.

Colors, smells, enthusiastic people who were personal, direct and kind, rather the opposite of the stereotype of New Yorkers.

Ukrainian easter eggs, Afghan coats, secondhand shops, it was like a giant bazaar.

23-24 February 1968 Psychedelic Supermarket Boston I walked into a store in Boston, asked for yoghurt and the grocer almost spat at me.

25 February 1968 Rhode Island School of Design Providence Rhode Island Yes, folks, there was a time when yoghurt was seen as exotic.

I lived in Paris 1962-1964 and a friend there was feeding yoghurt (“yaourt”) to his baby. First time I tasted it. Delicious. Tastier then… and there.

1-2 March 1968 The Grande Ballroom Detroit Michigan

Back in New York, in Albert Grossman’s office listening to what we did at The Grande. One of those moments of truth.

Bill Graham becomes the king of New York.

8 March 1968 Fillmore East opens. Linda made this poster.

We were living in the Chelsea Hotel, once home of Mark Twain, Eugene O’Neill, Thomas Wolfe and many other heroes of our youth.

William Burroughs lived there. So did Brendan Behan, O. Henry, Virgil Thomson, Larry Rivers, Charles Bukowski, Patti Smith and let’s not forget Sid and Nancy.

Jane Fonda lived there. So did Julie Christie. I visited each of them there. We were just friends. Coworkers, really.

9 March 1968 Wesleyan University Middletown Connecticut Janis is playing Combination of the Two.

15-17 March 1968 Electric Factory Philadelphia I always loved Philadelphia. The people I met there seemed very soulful. Still do.

Visiting the Columbia Records vault, New York City. Lots of treasure there.

And recording at the Black Rock. Columbia Recording Studio. I once did a session here at seven in the morning.

The Black Rock is at 52nd Street and Sixth Avenue.

I was very excited to be on this street and I walked west at night, hearing the ghosts of Monk, Bird, Diz, Bud Powell, Bill DeArengo, Milt Jackson, J.C. Heard, Ray Brown.

I walked 52nd Street whistling the tune they wrote and played here. That middle part is something else.

22-24 March 1968 The Cheetah Chicago

2-6 April The Generation New York City B.B. King inspired us this night with his sacred words and music.

7 April 1968 Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with B.B. King, Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield, Joni Mitchell.

10 April 1968 Anaheim Convention Center

Tuning, always tuning. In the Renaissance they said that if a lute player lived to be eighty, he would have spent sixty years tuning. That’s about right

11 April 1968 We play Summertime on ABC-TV Hollywood Palace.

11 April 1968 Fillmore Auditorium with Booker T and the MGs and Iron Butterfly.

12-13 April 1968 Winterland San Francisco Now we’re home with our friends, practiced, proficient, professional and prone to perilous propensities.

Don’t ask me what that means. Well, actually, I know what it means, but am loathe to elucidate.

This gig at Winterland was recorded.

14 April 1968 Carousel Ballroom

19 April 1968 Selland Arena Fresno

20 April 1968 University of California Santa Barbara

24 April 1968 Straight Theatre San Francisco

26 April 1968 Foothill College Los Altos California

27 April 1968 San Bernardino California

1 May 1968 College Field Chico State College Chico California Chico is close to Paradise. I bet Donna Patterson can come up with a better line than that.

2 May 1968 Carousel Ballroom San Francisco

1968 3-4 May The Shrine Expo Center Los Angeles

3-5 May 1968

3-6 May 1068

10 May 1968 Cal-Poly State University San Luis Obispo California

11 May 1968

12 May 1968 San Fernando Valley State College Northridge California

15 May 1968

Fairly typical set list at this time.

16 May 1968 This doesn’t look like one of James’ usual guitars.

17 May 1968 Freeborn Hall University of California at Davis

18 May 1968 Santa Clara County Fairgrounds Santa Clara Northern California Folk Rock Festival

This was a special gig, quite memorable.

Sunny, beautiful day, Janis relaxed and happy, sitting in the grass with me and the other children.

19 May 1968 Civic Auditorium Pasadena James singing Easy Rider. “And I will even buy you some cardboard fruit.”

21 May 1968 Bermuda Palms San Rafael California I used to play saxophone in this building with a big band.

24-26 May 1968 Carousel Ballroom with the Clara Ward Singers. Five errors ? Dave, Janis, Sam, James and Peter. That was easy.

31 May 1968

9 June 1968 Whisky-A-Go-Go Hollywood

Always so much going on at The Whisky.

13 June 1968 Fillmore Auditorium

14-15 June 1968 Winterland San Francisco

16 June 1968 Fillmore Matrix Benefit

22-23 June 1968 Carousel Ballroom

Owsley Stanley put us on tape many times. SONY has just released his recording of this engagement.

24 June 1968 Burlingame Country Club Burlingame California

26-29 June 1968 Denver

Part five next week. I love you all, you know that, right ? OK, just making sure.

Sam Andrew

_________________________________________________________________________________

Big Brother history, part four, January to June 1968

Posted on April 26, 2012 by J L tagged.

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

January to June 1968

Linda McCartney took this photograph when she was Linda Eastman. Linda and I and quite a few other people became vegetarians at this time, not for our health, as Isaac Bashevis Singer might say, but for the health of the chickens.

Hey, I get to be Kermit the Frog.

5 January 1968 Rainbow Ballroom Fresno California

6 January 1968 Sacramento State College Steve Brown captured this lovely image of Janis.

12 January 1968 Shrine Auditorium Los Angeles

13 January 1968 Barnes Park Bandshell Monterey Park California

16-21 January 1968 Golden Bear Club Huntington Beach California

25 January 1968 Fillmore Auditorium San Francisco

26-27 January 1968 Winterland San Francisco John Byrne Cooke, son of Alistair Cooke. John studied Romance Languages at Harvard. He was our estimable road manager and has remained a good friend.

I don’t want to say that John is tall, but here he is hovering over Joni Mitchell, Judy Collins, Mimi Fariña and Joan Baez.

John writes western novels, he’s a photographer, he sings Louvin Brothers songs and he introduced us to a whole new world.

John is now writing a book about his days with Janis in Big Brother, the Kozmic Blues Band and Full Tilt.

John took this photograph of Debbie Green and Mimi Fariña.

28 January 1968 Avalon Ballroom San Francisco

We’re playing Oh, Sweet Mary.

Chet and Lori Helms with Bill Graham. Bill is doing the talking. Imagine that.

2 February 1968 The Cheetah Los Angeles

3 February 1968 Earl Warren Showgrounds Santa Barbara

9 February 1968 Santa Clara County Fairgrounds Santa Clara California

10 February 1968 Community Concourse Exhibit Hall San Diego

16 February 1968 Palestra Philadelphia

A palestra was originally a wrestling school in Greece (palaistra). In Italian, the word now means gymnasium.

17 February 1968 Anderson Theatre New York City

This restaurant was right next door to where we played so we spent a lot of time there.

Tastes, feelings, colors, smells, enthusiastic people who were personal, direct and kind, the people we encountered were the opposite of the stereotype of New Yorkers.

Ukrainian easter eggs, Afghan coats, secondhand shops, it was like a giant bazaar.

23-24 February 1968 Psychedelic Supermarket Boston I walked into a store in Boston, asked for yoghurt and the grocer almost spat at me. Yes, folks, there was a time when yoghurt was seen as exotic, something that only a Democrat would eat.

25 February 1968 Rhode Island School of Design Providence Rhode Island

I lived in Paris 1962-1964 and a friend there was feeding yoghurt (yaourt) to his baby. First time I tasted it. Delicious. Tastier then… and there. We often had it with meals in the student cafeteria at the Sorbonne.

1-2 March 1968 The Grande Ballroom Detroit Michigan

8 March 1968 Fillmore East opens. Linda Eastman (McCartney) made this poster.

We were living in the Chelsea Hotel.

Jane Fonda lived in the Chelsea at that time. So did Julie Christie.

Combination of the Two

9 March 1968 Wesleyan University Middletown Connecticut

15-17 March 1968 Electric Factory Philadelphia

22-24 March 1968 The Cheetah Chicago

2-6 April The Generation New York City

7 April 1968 Honoring Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. with Jimi Hendrix, Buddy Guy, Richie Havens, Paul Butterfield. B.B. King inspired us that night with his sacred words and music.

10 April 1968 Anaheim Convention Center

11 April 1968 We play Summertime on ABC-TV Hollywood Palace.

11 April 1968 Fillmore Auditorium with Booker T and the MGs and Iron Butterfly

12-13 April 1968 Winterland San Francisco

14 April 1968 Carousel Ballroom

19 April 1968 Selland Arena Fresno

20 April 1968 University of California Santa Barbara

24 April 1968 Straight Theatre San Francisco

26 April 1968 Foothill College Los Altos California

27 April 1968 San Bernardino California

1 May 1968 College Field Chico State College Chico California

2 May 1968 Carousel Ballroom San Francisco

1968 3-4 May The Shrine Expo Center Los Angeles

3-6 May 1968

10 May 1968 Cal-Poly State University San Luis Obispo California

Sam Berdofsky drew this poster for our gig in Santa Rosa.

11 May 1968

12 May 1968 San Fernando Valley State College Northridge California

15 May 1968

Fairly typical set list at this time.

16 May 1968 That doesn’t look like one of James’ usual guitars.

17 May 1968 Freeborn Hall University of California at Davis

18 May 1968 Santa Clara County Fairgrounds Santa Clara Northern California Folk Rock Festival

This was a special gig, quite memorable. The weather was beautiful and there was a spirit of togetherness.

19 May 1968 Civic Auditorium Pasadena James singing Easy Rider. “And I will even buy you some cardboard fruit.”

21 May 1968 Bermuda Palms San Rafael California One dollar seemed to be the going rate for these Angels affairs. Would be about $10 now.

I used to play saxophone in this building with a big band.

Five errors ? Dave, Janis, Sam, James and Peter. That was easy.

24-26 May 1968 Carousel Ballroom with the Clara Ward Singers

31 May 1968

9 June 1968 Whisky-A-Go-Go Hollywood

13 June 1968 Fillmore Auditorium

14-15 June 1968 Winterland San Francisco

16 June 1968 Fillmore Matrix Benefit

22-23 June 1968 Carousel Ballroom

Owsley Stanley put us on tape many times. SONY released his recording of this engagement.

24 June 1968 Burlingame Country Club Burlingame California

26-29 June 1968 Denver

Janis Joplin

See you next week?

Sam Andrew

___________________________________________________

Big Brother and the Holding Company, part eight. 1990-1992

Big Brother history, part eight, 1990 – 1992

Big Brother history, part seven, 1972 to 1989

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

Big Brother history, part six, 1969 to 1972

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

Big Brother history, part five, July to December 1968

Big Brother and the Holding Company, part four. January to June 68

Big Brother history, part four, January to June 1968

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