Big Brother and the Holding Company history, part 25: January to June 2013

The 11-13 January Autograph show Los Angeles

Laurie Jacobson Elise Piliwale Lauren Dow

Jimmy McNichol had the table next to ours.

Karen Lyberger

Porky’s

Jon Provost (Timmy from Lassie)

Jimmy McNichol and Elise Piliwale

Laurie Jacobson

Ellyn Laurie

Elise Wainani Piliwale

Jimmy McNichol and his sweet mother, the only one who managed to bring an Airedale to the show.

I loved this couple, Valerie Dugan and her attorney.

This artist has a strong, interesting style but no idea of how to do a likeness. Peter looks like Ron Howard.

23 January 2013 Interview for PBS at our old house in Lagunitas.

Amy Berg, Alex Rodriguez and Olivia Fougeirol

Julie Haas

David Niehaus

Here I am rehearsing in this same room forty-seven years ago.

Rita Bergman and I lived in this little cabin out back. The Sons of Champlin later used it for firewood. Thank you, Sons. Well, at least they didn’t cut the redwoods down. I’m going to write about your using my cabin for your firewood.

Elise Piliwale and Bjorn Berg

Olivia Fougeirol

Bjorn

Katelyn

Jenna

24 February 2013 Benefit for Slick Aguilar Great American Music Hall San Francisco

We arrive at two in the afternoon to load an amp in there and get a hotel room.

There was Adrian, already standing in line, happy as could be.

It was so good being with Elise. We loved being in San Francisco for recreation, even though she had worked at St. Francis all night the night before and all night this evening too. I walked her to work right from the gig, after we watched a bit of the Oscars. This was a sweet moment.

The equipment people are already hard at work. This is supposed to be an acoustic gig, but I saw a lot of amplifiers going in there.

The Great American Music Hall is a beautiful place. I believe that Boz Scaggs owns it now. We have played there many times over the years and every time was good.

After loading in, Elise and I walked up Polk Street and looked at the sights.

This is Polk and Pine from our hotel window. In the 1960s, I spent a lot of time at this intersection, because a friend of mine had a clothing store and the Palms nightclub was right across the street… all at this same intersection.

Prairie Prince and Donnie Baldwin were kind enough to propel the band this evening, or as Donnie put it, to add some “color.”

Soundcheck

She was taking a lot of photographs.

Country Joe was the Master of Ceremonies.

Marty Balin sounded so good. His voice is better than ever and his songs are interesting.

Min Min Anderson, helpful and sweet as always.

We’re doing this for Slick and sending him positive thoughts.

I’ve known Keith for so long. We’ve seen each other for about five minutes a time over the last thirty years. He has a great sound on the sax and he played with Tommy Castro for a long time.

I love Darby Gould. She sings so well, she’s a professional, she’s good natured, and, darn it, she’s just a beautiful woman.

This looks like a Frans Hals portrait, doesn’t it? Chris Smith played keyboards with us and he did a great job.

The way the gig looked: Chris Smith, Sam Andrew, Darby Gould, Prairie Prince, Donnie Baldwin, Peter Albin

Old friend Snooky Flowers. Snooky and I were in the Kozmic Blues Band.

I’ve played with Peter Albin for forty-eight years.

We signed a guitar for the benefit auction.

Steve Keyser’s version of Darby and me.

Pete Sears

Great American Music Hall is right next door to this place.

The view from our hotel room.

And a little later…

Next morning, after Elise got off work, we had a little breakfast.

She orders for us.

Then I have an interview at Merle Saunders’ Fenix in San Rafael.

This is for German television with “autor” Claus Bredenbrock who asks intelligent, thoughtful questions.

Sol does the sound for the interview.

1 March 2013 San Diego and Tijuana

There was a very interesting exhibit of board games at the airport.

Elise found us a beautiful hotel, the Westgate, in downtown San Diego.

This was across the street from where I did Love, Janis in 2001.

That’s where I met Kacee Clanton, Sam Monroe, Beth Hart and many other good people. I shot this photo of Kacee in front of a building that doesn’t exist anymore.

It all changes fast. I tried to look for a hotel that my grandfather managed about the time I was born. It was in the old Fox Theatre building, which is no longer there either.

This block is now the Copley Symphony Hall building. My grandfather’s hotel is in there somewhere, but I couldn’t find it.

I used to draw this statue every day when I lived in San Diego twelve, thirteen years ago.

The statue is a copy of an Etruscan motif and it was made and cast in Florence.

Randal Myler wrote and directed Love, Janis, and we all had a good time doing the show.

Especially because Amelia Campbell was doing the “speaking” Janis. She has such a gift for comedy that every line got a laugh. It was like watching Friends.

Elise and I walked up to Balboa Park.

I visited this place with my mother when I was five or six. I’m trying to catch a carp here. Early version of multitasking.

We went to Tijuana then, and Elise and I decided to go this time too.

Tijuana has its arch qualities.

And a tinselly temporariness.

Are you coming or am I going?

The green room for a mariachi band on the corner.

The Mexicans are a very artistic people.

Trompe l’oeil a la mexicana.

22 March 2013 interview at eight in the morning on Friday Sonoma California

I drove up to Sonoma, the original capital of California, to do an interview with Mayor Ken Brown of the Bear Flag Party.

Donna was there and it was fun to talk to her and Ken about a gig that Big Brother would play on 20 April, Marijuana Day, at the Sebastiani Theatre.

Kurt Krauthamer and Roy Blumenfeld put this gig together for Sonoma and Kurt played harmonica with us on I Need A Man To Love.

Ken Brown belongs to the Bear Flag Party which refers to a period of revolt by American settlers in the Mexican territory of Alta California against Mexico.

The Revolt was initially proclaimed in Sonoma on June 14, 1846. Though participants declared independence from Mexico, they failed to form a functional provisional government. Thus, the “republic” never exercised any real authority, and it was never recognized by any nation. In fact, most of Alta California knew nothing about it. The revolt lasted 26 days, at the end of which the U.S. Army arrived to occupy the area.

Once the leaders of the revolt knew the United States was claiming the area, they disbanded their “republic” and supported the U.S. federal effort to annex Alta California.

Sonomans are very conscious of being “the first Californians,” and they take great pride in their town and in the Sebastiani Theatre.

9 April 2013 Today is Elise’s birthday and she has a Director of Staff Development seminar in Lodi, California.

We get a motel near downtown and I walk there everyday to visit the library.

Lodi is an interesting city, named for a town in Italy, a lot of grapes grown here.

We have Elise’s birthday dinner at this place. We were trying to find oysters, but not a lot of seafood this far inland.

The train runs through the middle of town and you can feel Lodi’s agricultural past here.

I like the old downtowns of places like this.

Every morning before going to the library to study I have a double espresso at Tillie’s coffeeshop.

Peace.

There’s a science museum for children at Sacramento and Locust, an interesting place.

Elise and I listen to our hearts beating on this instrument.

We had a wire recorder when I was ten or so. It used the exact reel spool on the left.

So, this is what it looks like inside a computer.

It was interesting watching the kids play with things like this gyroscope.

I was studying technology in China while we were in Lodi, so exhibits like this caught my eye. The Chinese invented a belt drive like this.

Malia and Brett. It was quite a coincidence to see them. Brett framed a lot of my paintings in San Rafael.

The kids stormed through the place.

Elise and Brett

Malia and Maya

Elise doing science.

Brett has a big family.

We see this billboard after we leave the museum. That’s my old buddy Joel Hoekstra on the left.

Goodbye, Lodi.

20 April Big Brother and the Holding Company Sebastiani Theatre Sonoma California

Kristina Rehling and Tom Finch getting their harmonies together.

Michael J. Fox, Esquire, public defender, San Francisco, came to our rehearsal. He lives just down the hill from Kristina’s mother, Lynn Giovanniello.

Lynn plays bass viol with the San Francisco Symphony, the Marin Symphony and numerous ensembles in the Bay Area. She is an excellent sight reader, of course, but also has soul and can jam with the best of them.

Mother and daughter. They play string quartets with other daughters. I first knew Kristina as a violinist.

Sandi and Freddie Herrera. Freddie used to own the Keystones. We worked for him many times.

Sonoma is a beautiful place. The drive from Sonoma to my house in San Geronimo has to be one of the most beautiful in the world. 116 West to Petaluma D Street and then to Nicasio Valley, gorgeous.

Roy Blumenfeld and Elise Piliwale. Roy is getting ready to tour with the Blues Project again.

Steve Keyser took this one.

And this.

30 May Cutting Room NYC

We show up at The Cutting Room on 44 East 32nd Street, and there is Sam Cutler, who will read from his book and tell stories about the old days.

I start signing things right away.

I used to know a guitarist named Josh Kessler, hmmm. I would have asked him to sit in if I had run across him.

Chealsea Dawn is helping Sam with his book and other merchandise. She’s doing some research on Buddy Miles and I promised I would help her.

The Cutting Room is a beautiful place with lots of art, the lighting is good, the people are good, it’s just a great place to play.

Elliot Newhouse, an excellent photographer, is there and I catch him in his identity as Dr. Newhouse.

Ben Nieves played very well on this and all of the gigs.

I walk around and try to see what I can see.

Right before our set, in a typical act of kindness, Ben, observing that I am ill, hands me a huge vitamin pill. Little did I know that it was also “high energy,” which means, I hope, caffeine. I swallowed it whole with no water and it went halfway down my gullet and lodged there. The place was so hot that, two songs into the set, after the pill and the extreme heat, I had to sit down… first time ever in sixty plus years of playing, and we still had a great musical conversation. Dr. Newhouse took this photograph which looks very colorful and rather Renaissance like.

Lisa Mills has sung with me for a long time, but she sounded better than ever on this gig. I think she’s just getting started and she started very well.

31 High Note 136 Broadway Avenue Amityville Long Island

Next day we set out in our van to drive from Staten Island to Amityville, Long Island, which is out there a ways in more ways than one.

There was no green room, so we sat on couches and chairs near the bar for the eight hours until our set began. Such is the life of a musician.

We took plenty of walks and kept up our high spirits.

I should have just rented a motel in this town, which would have been cheaper in the long run than spending on meals and other passtimes.

1 June 2013 The Crossroads 78 North Avenue Garwood New Jersey

Garwood was a charming town, slightly gentrified, reminding me of villages in Connecticut or Ross or Larkspur here in Marin County, California.

We played a late night set here. All of the music on these four gigs was good. The band coalesced and Lisa sang so well.

2 June 2013 The Dugout Bar 1614 Forest Avenue Staten Island

Kerry Kearney came to play with us here, and sounded very good on bottleneck guitar as well as the standard model.

Ann Sullivan, Kerry’s manager, fanned us in the extreme heat of Staten Island.

Good feelings, happy times.

Awards time.

Flying home from Newark to San Francisco.

29 July 2013 Fur Peace Ranch Pomeroy, Ohio

Our honeymoon cabin…

Jorma signed my set lists.

It meant a lot to me to see Jorma thriving and prospering after all these years. John Hurlbut wrote this question and Jorma asked it. Peter Albin and I liked it that we were here with someone who has figured so largely in our history.