f all the bands that made up the mid- ‘60s San Francisco scene, the Wild Oflower may have been the perfect conglomeration of Haight Street expecta- tions. Combining the streamlined, jet-age folk-rock sound of Takes Off-era Jefferson Airplane, jammy aspects of the Grateful Dead, the pretty harmonies of Sopwith Camel and the We Five, bluesy numbers like Quicksilver Messenger Service and Big Brother & the Holding Company, and the folk punk of the Harbinger Complex, the Wild- flower were not some cheap imitation of these groups. They were contemporaries of them, sharing smoky nightclubs and ball- room stages from day one. And though they were there from the beginning, were courted and trotted out with the best of them, the Wildflower never landed “the big one,” and thus, sadly and unfairly, have remained but a footnote in San Francisco music history. The Wildflower was born in a time before the whole world knew about San Francisco and the fun its denizens were having. The Beat scene of North Beach had been slowly evolving into some- thing new. The area around Haight and Ashbury, near where the universities were, was a low- rent paradise filling up with creative young people, recently untethered from their families and ready to try just about anything. But as more and more people arrived to take part in the celebration, things started to take a turn. By the time Surre- alistic Pillow hit the racks at Magic Flute, ex- ploitative articles declaring the Haight a hippy haven filled the pages of mainstream rags like Look and Life. People began piling into the City by the busload and things quickly became messy and overcrowded. “Not since the California Gold Rush had San Francisco been flooded with such a large group of outsiders carrying dreams and little else,” wrote Pam Tent in her Cockettes memoir Midnight at the Palace (2004). Listening to Love is the Song We Sing, Rhino Record’s recently released history of the Bay Area rock scene, you can actually hear the dissolu- tion of the fraternity. Things get horny and more bombastic post-‘67. For the most part harmo- nies go out the door in favor of scorching leads and caterwauling vocals. By 1969 the best days of San Francisco were way behind it. If you want to hear what it sounded like in the good ol’ days, dig up a copy of Mainstream Records’ With Love: A Pot of Flowers compilation LP. Not only is it a great time capsule of the Bay Area scene before the major labels came in and turned the Sum-

Issue 29 Ugly Things 121 mer of Love into the bummer above, but it’s was happening below the corporate music radar. also the best place to hear the Wildflower in their He had turned me on to Sandy Bull and Ravi prime. Shankar the previous year and now he had the newest releases from them, but more impor- FOLKY BEGINNINGS tantly, he had the entire Byrds album. I had only heard the single up until then and what I heard ike pretty much all of the San Francisco from his stereo defined the path I was to take. Lgroups, the Wildflower took root in a coffee- Back at art school, I was having a hard time house. The coffeehouse scene of the Peninsula concentrating. The music was more important may not have been as widely heralded as the than anything visual. There was energy in the Village scene three thousand miles to the east, new forms of song that was emerging. Not so but it definitely spawned its fair share of memo- much with art. I was actually visualizing the rable players. Within these dingy haunts, from music in my head; organizing tones into colors, San Jose up to Belmont, the guys and gals who notes into strokes. I had actually expressed this would go on to form some of the most influen- to one of my more sympathetic instructors and tial rock groups of all time got their start pluck- he encouraged me to pursue this. ing solo or in loosely organized combos like the There was this guy I vaguely knew from my Black Mountain String Band, the Faux Pas, and hometown on the Peninsula, who was going to the Southgate Singers. CCAC. A red haired folkie who had a reputation of getting in your face. His mother had actually Stephen Ehret: The coffeehouse scene was been my Latin tutor during my sophomore year the only thing that was happening back in high school and the most I really knew of then. From The Tangent in Palo Alto and the him was his mother yelling at him all the time Orpheus’ Children, Eilleen Gammill and Off Stage in San Jose, to the Gaslight in San for terrorizing his siblings. “Stephen! Stephen, Stephen Ehret, ca. 1963. (Photo: Peter Albin) Mateo and the Coffee Gallery, Coffee & Confu- you leave (fill in the blank) alone!” I knew he sion and the Drinking Gourd in San Francisco, John Jennings: I started off in rock, moved played 12-string and had been in the folk music something was happening. We didn’t know what into folk and moved back into rock. I was in a scene at College of San Mateo. We had friends in it was, but it was happening. bunch of folk groups while in high school. I common. So I found out where he lived and first started playing Duane Eddy tunes on the made the trek down the hill to see him. all and outgoing, Stephen Ehret caught the guitar and singing Everly Brothers songs. The Stephen lived with his girlfriend and former folk bug in 1962 while a student at the Col- T Ventures were a huge influence as well. Later, in singing partner, Eilleen, in a small apartment not lege of San Mateo, just a few miles south of San high school, I got turned on to Joan Baez, New far from the campus. I brought all my new Francisco. Taking up the guitar, he formed a duo Lost City Ramblers, Pete Seeger, etc. Simulta- records down for him to hear. We had the Byrds, called Orpheus’ Children with his then girlfriend, neously I was listening to Lightning Hopkins, the second Sandy Bull release, the Stones (Out Eilleen Gammill. “We were into a more contem- Sonny Terry and Brownie McGee as well as a of Our Heads had come out the year before) and porary folk sound than the traditionalists like huge amount of classical music (my girlfriend at the Beatles. I had a really crappy guitar my dad Peter Albin and Jerry Garcia,” Ehret remembers. the time was a world class cellist). Later, in col- had bought for me, a Sears Roebuck Silvertone, “We played throughout the San Francisco pen- lege, it was the Stones and the Beatles, Sandy a real log, but Stephen and I jammed to Sandy insula and North Beach at clubs like Coffee & Bull, and finally the Byrds pushed me over the Bull’s extended raga-esque version of “Memphis” Confusion and the Off Stage in San Jose, where edge. Peter Albin and I played together as Peter & and the world was good. But I had to get a better we did a gig with Ron McKernan (Pig Pen) pre- the Wolves while we were at College of San instrument. Grateful Dead. Basically [it was] just 12-string Mateo. And Bob Jones, the lead guitarist for We Somewhere in there the topic of starting a guitar and two vocals but later Michael Riggs Five, and I were best friends while we were at band came up. That was the only excuse I needed joined us. Michael was a guy who had a stand University of San Francisco in 1963/64. to blow all my savings on some equipment. I up bass when nobody had a bass... no one was had become enamored of Chris Hillman’s bass using electric.” 1 GROWING playing on the Byrds release as well as Bill Wyman’s playing on all the Stones records. So Michael McCausland (poet and Wildflower n 1965, Ehret and Jennings found themselves buying a bass was paramount. And of course an lyricist): You two were the West Coast Ian and Istudying art together at the California College amplifier was needed. And no one really had an Sylvia or Richard and Mimi Fariña. Dylan thought of Arts and Crafts in Oakland. It was there that electric guitar so that was needed, and of course Fariña was his only competition and he had the the seeds of the Wildflower sprouted. an amplifier for that. So began the first of many hots for Mimi—who didn’t? Just like [everyone treks downtown to Leo’s Music, where the in- did] for Eilleen. JJ: September 1965, I’ve escaped my family struments were free, all you had to do was sign again. Living in a basement room in the Oakland your name. Now that my savings were gone I n late 1963, Stephen, Eilleen and Mike hills, I’m starting my junior year of college as a needed a plan to recoup my investment. And I I Riggsteamed up with Charlie Ewers and Ray freshman at California College of Arts and Crafts; know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the sub- Vigil as the Southgate Singers, and in 1964 Ehret just a little humiliating but I’m out of the house ject of playing as a group came up with the in- helped organize the College of San Mateo Folk at least. Big things were happening: my friends tention of learning some cover songs and play- Festival where they shared the stage with such from the University of San Francisco (where we ing the frat parties over at Cal. At that time, it future luminaries as Jerry Garcia and his Black had all spent our freshman year) had just re- was Stephen and I and a guy named Gaeton that Mountain String Band, the Liberty Hill Aristo- leased their first single, “You Were On My Mind,” we both knew from the beatnik scene on the crats with Peter Albin (pre-Big Brother & the and it was getting big radio play; Bob Dylan had Peninsula, but we needed some one who could Holding Company), folk legend Jesse “Lone Cat” just gone electric, and the Byrds released “Mr play drums. Stephen said the guy upstairs might Fuller (who wrote “San Francisco Bay Blues” Tambourine Man.” My music world was rocked be interested and that is when I met Tommy and the Dead-staple “Beat It on Down the Line”), and was rocking. Being a musician of sorts and a [Ellis]. and the Town Criers (featuring later-Airplaner veteran of a few bands, both R&B and folk, I was Marty Balin). In attendance was future-Wild- in sonic heaven. I really needed to play and hook Tom Ellis: We were all going to art school at flower bassist John Jennings. Jennings hung up with some players. CCAC and the art, music, poetry, writing, dance with a musical crowd in college and was a mem- I didn’t know many people in the East Bay. I and all were in the midst of an awakening, but ber of an R&B styled group called Peter & the had a friend of a friend who lived in Berkeley on also an upheaval. The herald sounded and Wolves, the Peter in this case being the Peter up the other side of the UC campus. He was some- within a very short span (less than a year) the on stage with Aristocrats. thing of an audiophile and so, seeking compan- idea that all we did was an expression of art... ionship, I sought him out, negotiating the unfa- what we wore, what we ate, what we did with miliar streets on my Vespa. He had a state of the 1. Not the same Michael Riggs as the Laguna Beach surfer who our days... and how we played together, became became Bhagavan Das! art audio system and all the latest vinyl in what a hippie manifesto. And as the music started to

122 Ugly Things Issue 29 play out on the radio— Human Be-In. Some Beat-era poets, like David rock ‘n roll, Motown, Meltzer, formed their own rock bands (in his British sounds, Bob case the Serpent Power) and set their prose to Dylan—Stephen and I music so the kids could dance to it. Others col- were looking at each laborated more informally as Richard Brautigan other and thinking did with Mad River. Some bands even kept lyri- “Why not?” So we got cists on the payroll. Robert Hunter was basically some equipment— a member of the Grateful Dead, though his place funky stuff—and got was at a desk rather than on the stage. The Wild- permission from the flower had a similar arrangement. Though the school to use one of the guys for the most part shared songwriting duty, rooms to practice in at they collaborated early on with their teacher night. That was the Michael McClure and even more so with their start of it. friend Michael “Spike” McCausland, who was, for all intensive purposes, a member of the group JJ: I remember goof- and wrote many of their heavy, heavy lyrics. ing around Stephen’s apartment with the THE MATRIX new equipment. I can remember the first am- he Matrix had been a pizza parlor on Fillmore plified note I played on Tnear Lombard in the City’s Marina district until Marty Balin, in August of 1965, got some my new St George bass The Wildflower, ca. early 1966 (a pawn shop special) investors to put in enough bread to start up a and being blown away by the loudness and deep- tilt frame so you could aim the sound into outer nightclub. Auditions were held for bands and ness of it. That was love at first listening. Of space. soon the walls throbbed to the sounds of newly- course that same volume made practicing there ith their new amps and a lot of youthful formed groups like the PH Phactor Jug Band, a problem. So a deal was struck with CCAC that Wenthusiasm, the Wildflower quickly gradu- Great!! Society!!, and a pre-Janis Joplin Big if we could use one of the studios at night for ated from college town frat parties to playing real Brother & the Holding Company. As the bar did practicing, we would play at a school event, sorta life clubs in the City. brisk business in beer and wine, the groups becoming the school mascot band. Our line-up played a couple sets a night on a low stage that at that time was Tommy on drums, Gaeton on TE: Within what seemed like only weeks, we looked out onto a small dance floor and a mural harmonica (which he was just learning but had were playing somewhere every weekend and of the four horsemen of the apocalypse that a huge desire to play), Stephen on 12-string gui- making a few dollars, and going to school in the someone had painted on the opposite wall. The tar, and me on electric 6-string or bass. I had also days, and drawing up posters for gigs at night. club was billed as a venue for “folk-rock” to dif- recruited one of my old roommates from my The first was at a blues club down a dark hall- ferentiate it from the more established coffee- CSM days, Teddy Schneider, to sing and play way on Fillmore in the city. That was real, but house scene over the hill in North Beach. The tambourine and bongos. There was also this guy, somehow so were we… we did what we played booking was eclectic and sometimes included Lee, who was to play lead guitar but I think he and sounded like, and it was not like anybody comedians and blues acts—one of the earliest actually knew less about guitar than either else’s sound. gigs was Balin’s own group, Jefferson Airplane, Stephen or I. But our desire was strong and that, opening for Lightnin’ Hopkins. it turns out, made all the difference. hat differentiated the Wildflower’s sound Though not their first San Francisco gig So here we are at our first real rehearsal, with Wfrom some of the other up-and-coming (they’d played another club on Fillmore, The all the equipment set up and we can play loud, groups definitely had something to do with their Sunset Strip, a couple weeks earlier), it was here sort of. Now we are looking at each other. “What heavily mystical and mind-groping lyrics. One at the Matrix that the Wildflower was properly will play? What do we know?” Big dose of reality of the first songs the group wrote—“Baby introduced to the San Francisco scene on Febru- here. We don’t really know anything, but hey, Dear”—featured words penned by none other ary 6, 1966. we look good. So I am suggesting “Walkin’ the than pretty-big-poet-at-the-time Michael Dog,” like how the Stones do it on the first al- McClure who happened to be Ehret’s professor TE: The Matrix was a neat little club, at least bum. Easy chords, just standard blues progres- at CCAC. Pretty handy to have such a worldly as far as we knew. They never turned up the sion “and you, Teddy, know all the words.” I wordsmith forking over verse like “Vision blouse lights, so it could have been a total rotten dive, play the lead licks on the guitar and another branch honey lip, Down inside that glowing slip, but it looked great in the dark. That said, it was definitive moment arrives: No one wants to play Baby Dear I love your boots, Lace beam space a odd room to play, kinda like playing in a rail- bass, but I’m the only one who knows how the and turquoise ear, Rainbow neon toes in there, road car, with a tiny little stage at the back far lead goes. So what to do? “I can show you what Down inside your leather boots” to a bunch of right in the room, a long bar running down one to play on the guitar. Give me the bass; I’ll play twenty-year-olds. it.” Gaeton never did gig with us. Actually after “Michael was my literature teacher,” Ehret that first rehearsal at CCAC he realized that he describes. “He was there all the time.” didn’t have any musical ability immediately avail- able and gracefully bowed out. A POET, I KNEW IT he lineup solidified in late 1965 with Ehret Ton rhythm guitar, Lee Chandler on lead gui- f San Francisco calls to mind hippies and tar, Tom Ellis on drums, John Jennings on bass, Ibridges, the only other native institution that and Teddy Schneider as percussionist. The sing- could make up the triumvirate would have to be ing duties were shared by everyone. Next up poetry. The influence of the Beats who had was getting some better gear. settled in the hilly, ramshackle neighborhood of North Beach, and specifically the City Lights TE: All we wanted was new equipment, for bookstore, crept stealthily into the local college the new Standell amps had just hit town and and teen scenes at first. By 1966 the store spon- every bellbottomed, longhaired, little rat-faced sored an appearance by Russian poet Andryy hippy in town had to get down to the candy Voznesensky at the Fillmore where City Lights store to see them. So after signing our life’s fu- owner Lawrence Ferlinghetti read translations ture work effort on a 10-page contract, we now of his poems and Jefferson Airplane performed proudly owned two new Standell 100 watt-2/15 (though not at the same time!). Poets like Lenore Michael McLure, John Jennings and wife towers and a Vox Super Beatle that even had a Kandel and Allen Ginsberg were big draws at the Karen backstage at the Matrix, 1966. Issue 29 Ugly Things 123 side, and errant tables scattered throughout. We barely fit on the stage. And with our master percussionist Teddy, at six-feet something tall and half as wide, we squeezed the five of us as best we could and pointed our Standell-Vox amps at the ceiling and howled at the moon. Of course, the sound hit the ceiling bounced over the bar, hit the floor and came right up and slammed into the guitars creating almost immediate chaos and feedback... but, that’s OK... it’s rock ‘n’ roll! Now we were stylin’ with new amps, new ve- lour shirts, with flowers of course, and our new hi-heeled boots and pegged polka dot pants— San Francisco’s answer to the British invasion! Stephen’s 12-string filling out the spaces in the sky; John’s bass thumping through and driving the band; Tom bangin’ the traps; Teddy on bon- gos and tambourine and singing blues; with Michael’s Gibson guitar playing lead... the night is flying. 2

SE: We would start out with “Baby Dear,” “Jump In,” “Please Come Home,” and the rest of the songs that you can hear now on the CD, with some covers like “Chimes of Freedom,” or The Wildflower, 1966. L to R: Tom Ellis, John Jennings, Stephen Ehret, Michael Brown. “Feel A Whole Lot Better,” an original instru- mental called “362 Hudson Street,” and end with playing guitars and sitars and you could come a jam version of a song I wrote with Michael OVER THE BRIDGE and go during those marathons and sit in with McClure called “Introit,” which we have no re- them for a few hours, go sleep or eat whatever, E: Late afternoon on the Bay Bridge was a cordings of. come back and sit in again. Then they’d run out joy to behold, the sun easing down behind T of steam or smack or... after about three days. JJ: Actually we started out doing covers and the city and the reds and yellows sparkling along the waterfront. The Golden Gate turning blaz- gradually added original songs until that was the ventually, the Wildflower began to feel the ing red as the fog of the evening formed out bulk of our material. Any live show would have westward pull, probably in part because they there past the Farallon Islands in the distance. E “Eight Miles High” and any number of Dylan, were tired of commuting. “From the get go, we Alcatraz, a dark shadow on the water and the tip Byrds or what-have-you covers in the set list. I were a San Francisco band,” admits Tom Ellis. of Mt Tamalpais lifted over Marin and the North remember jamming like crazy to “2120 South “We never were an East Bay band, because we side of the Bay... all a giant beacon shouting WEL- Michigan Ave.” But our first love was to the were part of the SF sound and it surrounded us, COME as we pushed on across the water. original songs. just as we expressed and assimilated it. So as the SF scene exploded into the day, so did we—some- erkeley and its next-door neighbor Oakland, MM: They did do one Dylan cover that I re- times with amazing beauty—and other times where CCAC is located, are connected to San member—“Tomorrow Is a Long Time.” B just as awkward and stumbling as a gold coast Francisco proper by the Bay Bridge. Only a couple drunk.” The first to move to the City was John miles apart the two metropoli have evolved with TE: As evening progressed, the other bands Jennings, who moved in with girlfriend when marked distinctions. It really is a tale of two and groupies not gigging that night would make her parents went on extended vacation. The oth- cities. You might say San Francisco has more of their way in to check out the floor action, the ers soon followed. unattended girls, the out-of-town straights, the a “sensual” reputation, while the East Bay’s is more “cerebral.” In the ‘60s it was in the East occasional real superstar, and have a beer; nod to JJ: When I was living at my future wife’s par- Bay that master Indian sarodist Ali Akbar Khan the band; and hit the street. We would crash ents house in the Avenues in SF (they were in had set up his school, where the protest move- though four or five sets, jamming to make the Europe at the time), after a late breakfast I would ment was born, and where there was a pretty tunes stretch out of the little three minutes jingles walk through Golden Gate Park to the Richmond high level of intellectual experimentation going and immediately hit the bar between sets. By District, to Teddy’s house where we would prac- on. The City on the other hand, was more known the end of the night we could usually manage to tice all afternoon. At night we’d get wrecked and for its black-clad Beats, its rough and tumble make enough dough (after paying up the bar either go hear other bands or just hang out. Sorta neighborhoods, and its late-night jazz scene. tab) to buy a tank of gas to get back across the like what folks do nowadays. I remember that bridge—an easy ride at 2AM, and tomorrow we when we were really poor, I’d bake chocolate SE: Things were happening in the East Bay. will get up and do it again… and who was the chip cookies and Spike (Michael McCausland) Sandy Bull was experimenting with Eastern little gal with the lace-up boots, and feathers and I would go to the Park and sell cookies and melodies that helped change the nature of rock and embroidered headband that Michael went poems. That was fun, avoiding the police and solos; Terry Riley with electronic loops and off with after the gig? Guess we find out to- all. There were quite a few stoned-on-acid days sounds that you can hear in the music of The night. in there as well. Who; Country Joe & the Fish were into psyche- Michael Brown: Try to remember the name delic movements like “Section 43.” We were play- ing with rambling jams and feedback. There was of the young lady next to you as you wake up. IN THE CITY Go make coffee and bring it back to bed. Actu- a great musical experimentation that came across ally get up an hour or so later, annoy your room- from the Cal and CCAC area to San Francisco n the City the Wildflower found themselves mates into waking up or not, make or go get and influenced the mix that was taking shape at Isurrounded by a slew of other bands. For ev- breakfast. Find a place to make some music or the time. ery well-known rock group that would go on to hang out at a music store or the Berkeley cam- find fame and fortune in the music business, pus or Golden Gate Park. Go to rehearsal or to a MB: An over simplification would be that the there were three dozen aspiring combos—groups gig or get high. Start all over again. East Bay, early on, paid more attention to the like the Hedds, Friendly Strangers, Allmen Joy, east Indian ragas that lent themselves to the and Freedom Highway—all making the rounds “acid rock.” The West Bay had more blues, e.g. of the auditoriums, ballrooms and nightclubs. 2. Ellis is referring to Michael Brown, who replaced Lee Chandler the Fish vs Quicksilver. I had a roommate, Mark, Immediately upon arrival, the Wildflower somewhere around this time. See “In the City.” who would spend literally days with Sandy Bull jumped headlong into the whirling scene. They

124 Ugly Things Issue 29 met aspiring promoter Bill Gra- hind the stage was this large box, covered with ham—looking to augment his milk glass, housing dangling cut glass mobiles Mime Troupe gravy by throw- on rotating motors with colored lights all around ing rock concerts—and were that reacted to the music we were playing… low booked into the lineup of his notes were deep indigo to high notes which were very first production at a run- orange and yellow… it was amazing… a light down auditorium in the ghetto show that was shaped by the songs being called the Fillmore on February played.” 3 12, 1966. Promoted as a benefit for the Democratic Congres- JJ: There seems to be some confusion as to sional Candidates’ Vietnam how this gig came about. I think that [our man- Study Group, Peace Rock, as the ager] Bill Belmont initially got us in the door. All event was called, advertised the I know for sure is that we had to audition for Wildflower at the top of a bill somebody out at Muir Beach. I remember Big including the Mystery Trend, Brother was there too. Maybe the Santana Blues Quicksilver, Our Lost Souls, Band too. Shortly after that, we heard that we and Big Brother. More groups were added later, tually the dance class charade was lifted and the got the gig, alternating weekends with Big including the Grateful Dead. nightspot continued unimpeded for two more Brother. Teddy was still playing with us that The show offers began to come in quickly. years showcasing groups like Kaleidoscope, Mad summer and we used his van, and later Tom’s Talent was in great demand as more and more River, Clover, and Indian Headband. van, to get us up there as the rest of us had no entrepreneurs took advantage of the multitude Whether it was to raise money to fight for vehicles, except Stephen who had a hopped up of abandoned ballrooms and began throwing permits or to rehab the building, the Straight Honda 305 that was in pieces in his kitchen. concerts. The Wildflower appeared a couple Theater held a fundraising concert at the Avalon nights with Sopwith Camel and the Amazing Ballroom on May 19 featuring the Grateful Dead, he shows at the Red Dog happened only on Charlatans at the old converted Firehouse on the Outfit, the Wildflower, and their friend and Tthe weekends, so during the week the group Sacramento Street before it got torn down. There professor, poet Michael McClure. would head back to San Francisco to see their was a Merry Prankster-related event at the Bear’s girlfriends, take care of business, and play gigs. Lair on the UC Berkeley campus on March 25 SE: It was a benefit for the Straight Theater A big one that summer occurred at the Oakland with The Wildflower and the Bethlehem Exit. A and may have been the first Avalon gig. Anyway Auditorium where the Wildflower got to open month later the band returned to Berkeley, for we had these Standell Amps that were the big- for Them... well, they got to open for the Asso- an outdoor show on campus with Country Joe gest you could get at the time and we figured we ciation who was opening for the Grassroots... & the Fish, Malvina Reynolds, and the Gothic were going to out-do the Dead. So we set up on Anyway, it was a big show with over 5,000 people Cathedral, and in May they participated with the stage and they looked huge. Then they showed in attendance according to Mike Shapiro, whose Charlatans, Electric Train, Don Garrett, and the up and Stanley Owsley was doing their sound band William Penn & His Pals were also on the Final Solution in “an extended house party” on and he had a rack of hi-fi amps and a Voice of the bill (along with the Baytovens and the Harbin- Folsom Street that was supposed to be a benefit Theater speaker for each guy. When Phil hit the ger Complex). Great as it was to be an idolized, for something or another. bass you hardly heard anything, but the ground citified rock band, after a week of recovery, visit- The first fissure appeared around this time shook. So much for outdoing the Dead. ing, and rehearsing, the guys would be itching when lead guitarist Lee Chandler left the group to get back to Virginia City. to pursue an acting career in Los Angeles [his most notable appearance would be in the AIP RED DOG SALOON JJ: One trip up there we were coming up the biker flick Cycle Savages with Bruce Dern and mountains out of Lake Tahoe and the back door Casey Kasem]. His replacement was guitarist n the summer of 1966, the Wildflower landed of the van flew open and the two Standel amps Michael Brown, who the guys had known from Ia summer-long residency that would change slid out onto the freeway. So we stopped and the Peninsula folk group, the Faux Pas. their lives and literally nearly blow their minds. put them back in and continued on. We’d leave Chandler’s departure actually turned out to be a The Red Dog Saloon sat creakily on the main on Friday morning and get to Virginia City in good thing, as Brown was a much more experi- street of Virginia City, a tiny and remote ex-min- time for dinner, set up and play that night and enced lead player. With Brown on board the rest ing town on the eastside of the Sierra Nevada. A Saturday night. of the Spring of ’66 was spent gigging at the group of folks from San Matrix [a couple times with the Outfit featuring Francisco—Mark a pre-Manson Family Bobby Beausoleil]; playing Unobsky, Don Works, out at Muir Beach with Big Brother, Quicksilver, and Chan “Travus T the Charlatans, the Carpetbaggers, and the Erec- Hipp” Laughlin—started tor Set; and rehearsing new material. booking bands there in the summer of 1965 and invited the Charlatans to BIRTH OF THE STRAIGHT play a six week residency followed by regular PH n May of 1966 the management of the Straight Phactor Jug Band ITheater on Haight Street was planning some shows. major renovations, including installing a 5,000- The summer was square foot dance floor with the intention of such a success (thanks putting on concerts there. The only hitch was in part to the Stanley that the city wouldn’t give the venue a dancehall Owsley-supplied acid) permit. The management skirted the issue by that they decided to do advertising the events as “dance classes” and it again the following hiring local rock bands to assist modern dancers year. This time the like Caitlin Huggins and Ann Halprin with their groups slated to perform were the Wildflower The people there were great. The food was top routines. “Caitlin led the first public ‘dance class’ and Big Brother (still no Janis!) on alternating drawer. The drugs were unending. I had an in- at the Straight by inviting the audience/class to weekends, with the Final Solution joiing in later credibly sweet affair with one of the waitresses warm up and then led some stretches and brief in the summer. The gigs were legendary with (who Teddy pointed out, totally out classed me… exercises in dance improvisation,” writes Reg E great San Francisco groups, general lawlessness, Williams, one of the theater’s founders. “She and even a prototype Bill Ham light show. “The then suggested that the class practice improvi- Red Dog had this color-sound translator and I’ve 3. Check out the DVD Rockin’ the Red Dog for the whole story, sation to the music of the Grateful Dead.” Even- including some nice, ’65-‘66 Super-8 footage of PH Phactor, Final never seen another,” remembers Stephen. “Be- Solution, Charlatans, and yes, the Wildflower.

Issue 29 Ugly Things 125 I think he was jealous). It was really hard By now Stephen had completed lost it... like a to stay in tune, instrumentally. This was very bad trip, and was now immersed in halluci- before the advent of tuning machines nations—more lizards and such—so we man- and had to be done by ear. After copious aged to get a call into an ambulance and sent consumption of whatever, we all heard him off down the hill from Virginia City to emer- different things and things differently. gency in the Carson City. What a night. The The audience was a real mixed bag. weekend crashed to an end. We packed the gear Some hippy/beatnik types, but mostly the next day, not a whole lot of smiles… then tourists from Reno out to sample some late in the day, they brought Stephen back to of the Wild West. We provided the wild the Dog... food poisoning! Not even a bad drug part. I remember Stephen getting busted trip. The Wildflower conquers all—even the bad by the local sheriff for strapping on a BB pizza.” pistol that looked real and walking around town. The constabulary wasn’t JJ: It was a strange, wild, and surreal experi- really happy to see this long red-haired ence and the parts that I remember, floating freak walking round their town heeled, around in an alien soup with pieces sometimes if you know what I mean. After much surfacing, seem very unbelievable until I ask discussion they let him go but told him Stephen and he affirms that piece and then adds he couldn’t wear it anymore. Eilleen, Stephen and Tom backstage at the one of his own that makes my morsel of insan- I remember spending our days at a Matrix, 1966. ity almost bland and banal. I can say with all place called American Flats, an abandoned certainty that it was a high point in my con- silver ore processing plant out in the middle of campout—not too private at all—but, hey, we sumption of substances of all kinds, except al- the desert. It had a great little creek running weren’t there to sleep, we were there to play our cohol. through it so there was this small green belt in music... and party and have a good time and get the midst of the sagebrush, creosote, and tum- high and... who knows? We set up our stuff, got bleweeds. We took quite a bit of acid there and a meal, and headed down to the saloon. The BACK IN TOWN would come back to the Red Dog for the Satur- night was jumpin’; the band was cooking; the day night show well primed. All in all it was a bottles were breaking; the locals were fighting; pon their return to San Francisco, the fun summer. We would hear stories about Big the sheriff was frowning; the bar maids were UWildflower jumped right into a week-long Brother when we showed up on Friday night; grinning; the drummer was grooving... until residency at the Matrix in August of ‘66. They I’m sure they told Wildflower stories to Big Stephen got sick, and then everything shifted to continued writing, rehearsing, and basically set- Brother on the turnaround. plastic and melted. tling in to the routine of being Haight-Ashbury Sometimes that’s OK, we are men, we know rock musicians. Musically the group’s playing SE: But by far the most memorable and cos- what we are doing, and we can handle it. But improved by leaps and bounds and their harmo- mic event happened the weekend when Virginia somehow the fog just never cleared. The night nies got tighter and more complex. Their shows City has an annual event called “Clamper’s Day” dissolved and between broken guitar strings and became increasingly psychedelic as the once (E Clampus Vitus is a fraternal organization dedi- with Stephen no longer able to stand, the last short tunes became drawn out and “Easternized.” cated to the study and preservation of Western set looked and sounded like the train wreck it Heritage) when the redneck locals all dress up in was. So we drifted out of the Red Dog and headed SE: We weren’t really into the traditional In- red shirts and start drinking in the morning and off like lost barflies. We put Stephen in his cot, dian music, only its influence on rock… like continue all day until, by the time we were to go which at six-feet plus his feet dangled out over Ravi Shankar’s long classical piece at Monterey on, they were pretty well gone and the Red Dog the ends, then the weirdness really got going. which everyone thought was a killer jam… and was packed—and they had guns and knives. My girlfriend and I managed to find an hour of the sound of the sitar with its undertone drone. When we arrived they were rowdy as hell and fun and friends back at the Red Dog so we headed were threatening to grab us and cut our hair and late night back to the hotel across the street and JJ: We improvised a lot; more I think than who knows what else—it was actually pretty up a very steep and long set of stairs from the most bands at the time. Blues was really big scary. Some how we managed to get up on stage lobby which was about the size of the broom around then and there was a lot of soloing, you and start playing and a truly magical thing hap- closet in the back hall. We started to bunk down know, guitar heroes and all. But we would do pened… somehow the music transformed the next to Stephen, when he sat straight up, looked stuff that was a precursor to Phish shows with situation and… they loved us… so by the end of at us, and started shouting at us to get the liz- ensemble improvising around the framework of the set they were our friends, buying us drinks ards off the ceiling. Uh-oh… last time we checked a song. We never knew where it was going or and being our buddies for the rest of the week- the lizards were in the badlands outside of how it would turn out. Pretty ballsy, but we end… and the long-haired-hippy thing disap- town... So we laid him back peared into cosmos. down—by this time he was burn- ing up—we gave him some wa- TE: They liked the music, and decided to stick ter—not a big help back in those around for the next set, and by the end of the days—and we went off to find a night everyone was so toasted that the war was bed to crash in. We found an called off, and we were just part of the program empty room across the hall and (except for the long hair, beads, braids, fell into bed… then the cowboy bellbottoms, and patchouli oil). So rolling into who rented the room showed up. the Red Dog for the third time seemed pretty Now by this time it is 4:00 in the cozy and familiar. Virginia City is always a bit of morning and he is toast. We peeked a surprise when you hit the edge of town. A from behind the covers; he put restored old mining town, all the buildings are on the light; saw us and gave a out of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, di- “god-damn hippies” and rect from central casting—tall skinny hotels, the stumbled back out the door, bank, the saloons—just hanging on the side of a missed the first step on that tall hill and scattered small wood houses dotting stairway, and tumbled all the way the rough landscape—few trees, just rocks and to the bottom, cursing and sky—looks the same as it did in 1850. Now, this cussing the entire trip. We pan- trip we decided to bring some of the wives and icked and ran after him, but, at girlfriends so the cars and van were crowded and the bottom, he picked himself up the little rooms the Red Dog got us at the hotel and stumbled back out into the were filled with cots and laid out almost like a night. John, Tom and Stephen at the Fillmore, September 1966.

126 Ugly Things Issue 29 “In the beginning there was a lot of friendship between groups. I think when the record deals started happening it got more serious and competitive.”

around naked, but we didn’t have much interac- tion besides playing gigs together. I ran into him at Safeway a while back and reintroduced my- self and then again recently at Tizka Salon where we were getting our hair cut.

MB: The genuine friendships still last, others fade away. The Wildflower at the Fillmore, 1966. SE: At first there was this great musical fam- were young and didn’t know any better. MB: The music scene was very neighborly at ily, but by the Summer Of Love the recording first. I was friends with Terry from the Sopwith industry had gotten its grubby fingers into the n September the group was invited back to Camel, Sam and Peter from Big Brother and Barry scene and that was pretty much the end of the Ithe Fillmore by Bill Graham first for a benefit from the Fish. One of the things we did was jam “Love.” Then the dark cloud of competition was show for the Both/And featuring Elvin Jones, together. I carried a guitar almost everywhere cast upon the innocence. Jefferson Airplane, the Great Society, and the looking to make music. So did a lot of others. Dead, and then a week later to open two nights We’d trade licks, show each other chords or scales for the Byrds. That first night with LA’s finest or songs. I remember Barry Melton showing me they got to put their aforementioned experimen- his version “Georgia.” He was jazzed at the ar- WHATEVER IT IS tation to work. rangement he’d put together so he taught it to n late September 1966, the Wildflower received me. Terry from the Camel showed me a blues Isome bad news. Drummer Tom Ellis decided MB: I remember opening for the Byrds at the scale that covered a multitude of songs that to continue his education at CCAC and left the Fillmore and we were asked to extend our set weren’t just blues. Sam had a close friend who group. His position was filled by a talented young because they were late. The tune I remember wasn’t in a band, but should have been because black guy named Larry Duncan. On the DVD lasting a while was an original instrumental called he was a wonderful guitarist, and he and Sam, documentary of the early San Francisco scene, “362 Hudson Street,” named after the band and I played together. Out of these sessions ideas Rockin’ The Red Dog, there’s black and white house address in Oakland. After our set we were for songs would show up. Super-8 footage of the group rehearsing at the in the green room when the Byrds finally show Straight Theater around this time. In it, a very up. I asked McGuinn what happened and he SE: I remember at one gig, George Hunter of cool-looking and spectacled Duncan plays jazz- said “What? Nothing happened. We’re late? So the Charlatans being real drunk and barfing on style on a pearlescent kit with what looks like a what.” I knew Jimmy before he became Roger, the front row—the origins of punk perhaps. We flower made out of marijuana leaves painted on so I expected something different. Oh well. An- did several gigs with the Sopwith Camel. I’m his kick drum.4 Ehret can be seen playing his other night, I remember at the Fillmore, the still friends with Peter Kramer [the Camel’s Rickenbacker twelve-string wearing a wide- audience was all the way out to the beach and singer] and we get together often and talk shop. striped turtleneck sweater a la Jerry Garcia. A the last rows were being washed away by the Very memorable, though, was the time we bearded Teddy shakes his tambourine in a short- waves, but that’s another story. were invited to play for the Dead at a party they sleeved flowered shirt and beads while Michael were having at Oolampali in Marin where they and John rock out on hollow bodies. Though were renting this huge estate that is now a state the footage was filmed without sound, the film’s THE OTHERS park. After the complimentary dose I looked directors synched it up nicely with the studio around at this amazing Bacchanal. Pig Pen was version of “Baby Dear.” n this new Mecca for aspiring musicians there in a jeep with a bunch of girls and a shotgun Iwas pretty much always someone playing which he was firing over his head as he drove SE: The movie of us rehearsing at the Straight somewhere. On their off nights they guys would through the hilly grass… there was some dis- was filmed by Bill Belmont, I believe. There’s a go watch other groups, just as the other groups turbance with George Hunter pulling a pistol quick shot of [Straight Theater owner] Reggie would do for them. At first it was like one big and chasing Jerry Garcia around… but as we [E. Williams] blowing harp with us. 5 happy family. stood out on the patio playing, with the Dead and the Charlatans sitting around, I remember hough the group was able to get back in JJ: I seem to remember a lot of camaraderie in how self conscious I became, being stoned as I Tmusical shape pretty quickly with their new the early years. Most of us in bands came out of was, and trying to remember how to play and drummer, the worst part about the personnel the SF Peninsula music scene or the East Bay stay in tune with all of them watching… some- shakeup was that it showed instability, some- Berkeley scene and knew each other. Peter Albin how none of that mattered and all were enter- thing not very becoming of an entertainment and I went to high school and junior college tained and a good time was had, to say the least… act. together and played together during those years. and on the way home Eilleen told me we were SE: [Grateful Dead managers] Rock Scully and Garcia and Pigpen came out of the Palo Alto beat- going to have our first daughter, Flower. nik world. And when it all came together in the 4. “It’s actually the Pennsylvania hex sign for Love,” explains City, I remember how amazed we all were that JJ: In the beginning there was a lot of friend- Ehret—a six pointed rosette of blue and green petals with red there were so many of us. It was a pretty friendly hearts balanced between them. Beginning in the late 1800s, Penn- ship between groups. I think when the record sylvania German farmers painted such symbols on their barns scene with just a little taste of competition. deals started happening it got more serious and for good luck. This one “symbolizes lasting love for you and love competitive. I do remember hanging with the for your fellowman.” SE: We knew the Charlatans, Quicksilver, Dead at the Ashbury Street house, and later we 5. It seems the footage was from two separate rehearsals as Sopwith Camel, Big Brother, etc, from gigs at the did spend some time with the Youngbloods. Schneider suddenly appears in a plain-colored button-down and Red Dog Saloon. We met Signe Anderson and at one point Ehret switches to bass. The footage may have actu- the Airplane at Matrix gigs and Moby Grape at ally come from a film called A San Francisco Hard Day’s Night by SE: I remember going over to Phil [Lesh]’s Ernie Fosselius, who, before becoming infamous for his Star Wars the Ark in Sausalito where the Dead were re- house back in the day and his girlfriend walking spoof Hardware Wars, played with Mother Earth and the Final hearsing at the Heliport down the road. Solution.

Issue 29 Ugly Things 127 with a large restaurant booth. When Sara got more into Tibetan Buddhism she would house Karmapa and other high visiting Lamas and later had it painted with ten Tibetan colors.

COMING IN TO LOS ANGELEES t was at Estribou’s pad that the band was Iintroduced to Bobby Shad, a well-known blues and jazz producer and the owner of Mainstream Records. Shad was in town scoping talent and hoping to cash in on this new happening West Coast scene. He put out the word and held a huge cattle call at Golden State Recorders, while conducting some more intimate auditions at Estribou’s place. Ehret remembers seeing Big Brother & the Holding Company, the Dead, and the Harbinger Complex all laying down tracks The Wildflower at the Whatever It Is festival, San Francisco State, September 30, 1966. there. According to Alec Palao, Estribou recorded dozens of sessions with local groups there, in- Danny Rifkin were going to manage us and we ENTER ESTRIBOU cluding the Process Church-affiliated Black were going to tour with the Dead, opening for Swan. In September of 1966 Shad invited the them until Tom decided to go back to school and ometime in the Fall of 1966 the group fell in Wildflower down to Los Angeles to record some we had to regroup, adding Larry Duncan on Sa Haight Street character by the name of Gene tracks. drums. Back then personnel changes meant the Estribou who was a friend of their manager Bill end for the most part so they dropped us. Belmont.6 Young, charming, and independently SE: As the SF sound became more media fa- wealthy, Estribou was a dabbler in all sorts of mous, the record companies saw that there were f the band was discouraged by this, they didn’t creative ventures. He produced local bands, ran bands to sign and money to be made. No one Ishow it. All phasers were set on smile as they a biofeedback company, collected art, played gui- except the Airplane had a record deal. Bobby Shad climbed the stage at San Francisco State College tar, partied with Andy Williams, and traveled of Mainstream Records, recovering from his pay- for the first day of the Whatever It Is festival on between homes in Hawaii, Vancouver, and his ola convictions, blew into town and set up audi- September 30. Organized by Whole Earth Cata- endlessly under-construction dream Big Sur tions for just about every band he could lay his logue-founder Stewart Brand and sponsored by dream house. But music was Estribou’s primo hands on. He used Gene Estribou’s place for the the school’s Experimental College, the three-day concern. He equipped his home studio with a 4- auditions and it was pretty funny to see all the “spontaneous” event featured performances by track recorder and started his own vanity label musicians we knew lining up for their time in the SF Mime Troupe, the Grateful Dead, the Only called Scorpio Records.7 the studio. Alternative & His Other Possibilities (featuring a An accomplished guitarist himself, Estribou Anyway, he liked what he heard from us, recently-widowed Mimi Fariña), the Final Solu- released his own split LP in ’65 with banjo player signed us up for a year, and flew us down to LA tion, Universal Parking Lot, San Andreas Fault, and future-Serpent Power member Jean-Paul to record four songs with the promise of a full and the Committee, a group of political satirists Pickens. Intensifications, as it was titled, was album down the road, if everything worked out. founded by Howard Hesseman and others. very much in the vein of the stuff Takoma was I believe we recorded at Western Studios, some “The Congress of Wonders performed their putting out at the time (Robbie Basho in par- big studio on Sunset, anyway, and he produced John Lennon readings in one gallery, the Dead ticular). 8 us. Apparently he tried to get us in the studio and a band called the Universal Parking Lot played Of course nobody would probably remember for a full album while we were on an East Coast in another where there was an exhibit of elec- Estribou if it wasn’t for the only other Scorpio tour later that summer. The connection was tronic art from the Museum of Modern Art,” release, a 45 that happens to be the first Grateful never made and neither was the album. Our one- writes Charles Perry in his book Haight Ashbury Dead record. “Stealin’” b/w “Don’t Ease Me In” year contract with Mainstream ended without (1984). “Bill Ham did a light show in the women’s was pressed from sessions the fledgling band us hearing anymore from him… until he re- gym; in the men’s gym there was a novelty called recorded in 1965 at Estribou’s home studio. leased A Pot of Flowers, and the single of “Baby a Sensory Awareness Seminar, conducted by a “Gene had been recording the Dead who were Dear” and “Wind Dream,” which he neglected to member of the psychiatric research group in Big living there in the early stages,” tells Chip promote. Sur calling itself the Esalen Foundation. Ron Weitzen, who palled around and played music Boise had assembled probably the largest public with Estribou, the Minstrel Cycles (with East n A Pot of Flowers “Baby Dear” and “Wind display ever of his Thunder Machines.” Bay folkie Paul Arnoldi), and later, the Felicity ODream” appear along with two other Wild- Facility. “Then they were signed by Warners and flower numbers, “Coffee Cup” and “Jump In.” JJ: I recall Stewart Brand being there and toss- Gene felt snubbed but shrugged it off.” “Baby Dear” was Shad’s choice for a hit and it ing around a giant Earth ball during the music. graces the A-side of the group’s only single. The Also Ron Boise had a kinetic sculpture there Chip Weitzen: Gene’s mansion was some- song sounds a little bit like Love’s “You I’ll Be that made noise... seemed like it was in the cen- where around six stories high, across from a Following,” plugging along with great tremelo- ter of the hall and had people swarming over it. park on the hill in the Haight. It had been owned ey guitar and Jennings’ hooky bass line. As usual It was a poor man’s Trips Festival, but the vibe by a Spreckels sugar magnate. When Gene and the vocals are what set the Wildflower apart. was good and I think we had a good time. [his wife] Sara bought it they converted the Though it’s hard to describe exactly what makes upstairs ballroom to a recording studio. The base- ven then-fugitive Ken Kesey showed up, ment housed a large wine cellar, next floor up a 6. Belmont also helped manage Country Joe, was involved in Eparking his psychedelic bus blatantly in the full wood and metal shop where Gene made Grateful Dead business, and was working for the Rolling Stones guitars, and a large stash of kona koa wood and as equipment manager during Altamont. He still works in the middle of campus. After watching the Dead per- jazz department of Fantasy Records. form he marched up to the campus radio station a lab where Owsley had been making acid—across to conduct an “Acid Test” that was broadcast the street were usually parked some Feds. Next 7. Not to be confused with the OTHER Bay Area Scorpio imprint floor up was a rec. room with a large pool table. that put out records by the Golliwogs/early-Creedence Clearwater over the entire campus. Tapes of this event ex- Revival and the pre-Blue Cheer, Group “B.” ist, but alas, no Wildflower music is on them. Never saw anyone play pool on it maybe be- cause of the 100 lb ivory elephant tusk lying in 8. Intensifications was actually a joint release with MEA (Master- the middle. The studio featured a custom speaker ing Enlightenments Arts), a Marin County-based label owned by Bill Loughborough and Henry Jacobs and best known for releas- on one side—some ten feet in diameter. But the ing a series of Alan Watts records in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s. kitchen was the real hangout—very industrial The album was reissued by Locust on CD.

128 Ugly Things Issue 29 them so unique, it’s most likely because there Ehret expands on the are elements in them of youthful Hanna Barbera, situation simply. Beau Brummelly cartoon daydreams mixed in “Marilyn Colberg was our with Sunday school-style choruses sung in fan club president.” surfer accents, or something like that. December saw the loss of bongo-playing Teddy SE: [Bob Dylan’s manager] Albert Grossman Schneider, who jumped [later] became interested in one of our songs ship and was not re- that was becoming popular at our East Coast placed, leaving the Wild- gigs, “Baby Dear,” but because Bobby Shad had flower as a four piece. It the publishing and wanted a big piece of the was this lineup that action, he dropped it. plugged along into 1967 with a weeklong run at ind Dream” is the prettiest one of the batch, the Ark in Sausalito with Wand Shad’s choice for the single’s flip. the Freudian Slips, Morn- Maybe he was hoping for another “Hello, Hello”? ing Glory, and Old Gray Though it is very drama class in its sentiment Zipper; participated in the and must have absolutely killed it with girls, This Is It event in Oak- “Wind Dream” is far from sappy. It’s 12-string land with the Immediate heavy and trrrrrippppy. What’s he missing? His Family, Living Children, girl or his mind? and a [pre-Steppenwolf] The Wildflower with new drummer Larry Duncan (left). Sparrow; and returned to MM: I think if Stephen’s “Wind Dream” had their old stomping been pushed at that time it might have been a ing Chris listen and critique. We basically just grounds in Berkeley for a few nights at the Finn- big hit. That’s a great love song. If I may say so, rehearsed and then went down to record. ish Brotherhood Hall near campus at Chestnut nobody was writing songs like ours back then JJ: I remember driving down Sunset Boule- and University. For three nights in January the and nobody sounded like the Wildflower in the vard and not being impressed. It was way differ- Wildflower appeared there with Country Joe & SF scene. ent than the Bay Area—much bigger, more su- the Fish and John Fahey. perficial. hen there’s “Jump In,” with its kinetic stop- SE: I remember them carrying John Fahey on Tand-start energy. This is tuff California ga- stage ‘cause he was really drunk but he sat down rage folk at its finest. Dig the great spy-theme LOVE PAGEANTS AND and played good. bass runs and bright-as-day, chiming produc- tion. And those vocals! “Coffee Cup” starts off TEENAGE FAIRS n between bands, the promoters screened films with two mid-tempo chords and Teddy mean- ctober 6, 1966 was big day in San Francisco. Iby Robert Nelson, specifically his Confessions dering along on his bongos, filling in the back- OAn official act by the California Legislature Of A Black Mother-Succuba (1965) and the con- ground almost like Tommy Hall’s jug did. Brown’s outlawed the sale and possession of LSD. While troversial Oh Dem Watermelons (1965), which snaky guitar line and pensive vibe give the song lawmakers celebrated, most kids were probably was made for the SF Mime Troupe’s satire “A an eerie, spiritual feel—a haunting and delicate mourning at the Love Pageant held that day in Minstrel Show, or Civil Rights in a Cracker Bar- catechism wafting in through the fog. With it’s the Panhandle of Golden Gate Park. On hand to rel.” Nelson was also known for filming perfor- cryptically pantheistic message beginning with cheer them up were the Wildflower, Big Brother, mances by the Grateful Dead and the “The mountain’s calling whispering” and end- the Dead and the Electric Chamber Orkustra Wildflower’s exemplar, poet Michael McClure. ing with “Believing is the essence,” “Coffee Cup” (Beausoleil’s post-Outfit combo). According to is sorta the 2001-A Space Odyessey of mid-‘60s Ehret, the band was interviewed by a local news n February the Wildflower settled into a week folk rock. station during the event, but no one can re- Iat the Matrix with visiting New Yorkers the member which one.9 Blues Project and then returned again in March, MM: “Coffee Cup” is really a neat piece of writ- Other gigs that month included a weekend this time for five nights supporting the Doors, ing. Tommy captures something, communicates run at the Matrix sandwiched between engage- not yet huge as it was a few weeks before their something that is almost impossible to do. This ments by Jefferson Airplane and Big Brother, as single “Light My Fire” hit the charts. 10 is the anthem of idealism we really believed in, well as short jaunts to play for students at UC no matter what our faults, and I think it holds Davis, Stanford University, and Sequoia High SE: I remember them as the band without a up and I don’t think it’s corny. It really escapes School in Redwood City. At an October gig at the bass player and a guy in leather pants. Everyone that trap. Steppenwolf—an old folk venue on San Pablo was like what? Not for long! Avenue in Berkeley that advertised “Beer, wine, SE: I think Tom explains it pretty well in the people, candles, madness, conversation and nterestingly this was not the band’s first brush lyrics to “Coffee Cup.” more…”—the Wildflower did their thing along- Iwith Morrison and company. A couple weeks side the Drongos, Blue House Basement, and before, according to historian Corry Arnold, the JJ: We kinda looked at Tibetan Buddhism in a the Second Coming Doors were booked into a two-week stand with very superficial way. Stephen got turned on to Around this time lead-Merry Prankster Ken the Peanut Butter Conspiracy at a topless joint the Lobsang Rampa books and we all read them. Kesey got popped for outstanding pot-related on Sacramento Street called (uncreatively) the I got into some culty Japanese Buddhist thing warrants in San Francisco. His bus was pulled Whisky A-Go-Go. After a couple nights of sparse for a very short while. I think pantheism says it over on the Bayshore Freeway and the cops crowds, the disappointed Doors bailed out and well. We were pretty pagan back then. chased him down an embankment and tackled were replaced by the mor popular Wildflower. him. In his Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test (1967) Crowds were not an issue at the 1967 Oak- hough they must have been stoked at how Tom Wolfe goes to interview Kesey at the San the recordings turned out, the guys didn’t T Mateo County sjail where he was being held. 9. Incidentally also attending the event was Merry Prankster really hit the town to celebrate. The band was in Wolfe describes the scene in the waiting room as Cathyrn “Beauty Witch” Casamo, who was along on the Prank- Los Angeles for such a short time that they didn’t being similar to the stage door scene at the Mu- sters’ infamous bus trip through the Southwest until her clothes- even play out live or catch any local groups. shedding episode at writer Larry McMurty’s house in Houston sic Box Theatre. Friends and hangers-on were earned her a new nickname—Stark Naked. Ehret and Casamo waiting around to see what would happen. weren’t introduced that day, but their paths crossed again a de- SE: It was a fast trip and we didn’t get out “There was also a little roundfaced brunette cade later and the two spent most of the ‘80s as a blissful couple until Casamo passed away at an untimely age. “She was the origi- much. We stayed up in the hills, at Michael named Marilyn,” wrote Wolfe. “[She] told me nal flower child,” recalls Ehret fondly. Sortin’s (a friend of Michael Brown) house up she used to be a teenie grouper hanging out with in the hills and Chris Hillman lived downstairs. a rock ‘n’ roll group called The Wild Flowers.” 10. One of these shows was recently issued on CD by Rhino. Won- I remember working on the harmonies and hav- der if they recorded the Wildflower too?

Issue 29 Ugly Things 129 State [and also at the UC Berkeley Extension Center] to standing-room-only classes. I went to a class at his insistences because Ken Kesey was going to be showing some of his fifty-hour film. The Fluxfest was his first attempt at di- recting. I was helping him with this effort. I tried to set up some circus animals—elephants, etc— to wander around and smell like elephants. It didn’t happen but I ended up making fog on a fog machine. I think he created pure flux—mu- sic by the Wildflower, lots of nudity on stage, lots of flux including lots of power outages.

JB: Anna Halprin’s Dancers were in flesh-col- ored body stockings...

WB: We began with a series of activities in the spirit of other Fluxfest “happenings.” A new car was covered with 50 lbs. of jam, and a woman began dancing on it. Thousands of marshmal- lows were passed out, and people threw them, creating a visual popcorn popping. The San Fran- cisco Mime Troupe did their piece, “Bodies,” in the nude. A few other similar events took place. Then a group began reading constitutions of various countries. However, the sound was bad, and people became very impatient. The drum- The Wildflower at the Teenage Fair, Oakland, February 1967. mer for Quicksilver began playing a rhythm to L to R: Jennings, Ehret, Duncan, Brown. keep things from exploding, and that led into a land Teenage Fair later that month. Though the sic or ever saw them again but there was a line in more or less conventional rock concert. idea had originated in Los Angeles in the early one of their songs that my friend Tim liked a lot. ‘60s, the phenomena of the Teenage Fair quickly At some point in a song one of them said, “It’s SE: They had a bowl of free acid punch in the spread to the rest of the country. Booths were just another trip. . .” Tim used to say that some- rotunda at Longshoreman’s Hall. I got pretty high set up to display all sorts of things teenagers times later in life when we were tripping and on it. Michael says there was also acid ice cream. drooled over, from custom cars and surfboards we’d crack up at our little in joke. I still think to mod clothes and musical instruments. To a about those magic days of youth when the music constant barrage of the latest sounds blaring from was all that mattered. LIVERPOOL USA multiple stages, teens were encouraged to squan- der as much of their allowances as possible be- n April 8 the group was invited along with fore curfew. IN FLUX Othe Grateful Dead and Quicksilver into the “I got catalogs from Hagstrom, Sunn, Haynes, studios of KPIX-TV in San Francisco to perform Fender and Vox,” recalls Paul Honeycutt, then a n March 31, 1967 the Wildflower performed live on a new television program. fourteen-year-old music fan from Hayward. Oat an extravaganza called the Fluxfest held “There were head shop items like buttons and at the Longshoreman’s Hall. The Fluxfest was SE: This was a TV show, The Maze, subtitled rubber stamps, posters, incense, oils, trip toys the brainchild of one Jeff Berner—an associate Liverpool USA, that we did with the Quick and and the like. We hung out and checked out the of dancer Anna Halprin and a member of both the Dead. We did “Please Come Home” live in girls and the bands. We also got a flyer for an the SF Mime Troupe and Fluxus International— the studio. The bands lip synced to live-in-stu- album called Freak Out by The Mothers of In- and artist Larry Baldwin, also of Fluxus. The dio cuts (The Dead did “Cream Puff War, QMS vention.” event was seen as a sort of sequel to the previ- “Pride of Man”), then we each did a version of The Fair showcased local up-and-coming ous year’s Trips Festival, with “various interna- “Walkin’ Blues” and they inter-cut among each groups as well as the big names from The City. tional conceptual artists and psychedelic hap- of our versions. Tapes of the audio are around Honeycutt and his friends had gone to the fair penings.” To a live soundtrack provided by the to see Hayward band SPECTOR who’d earned a Wildflower, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and slot on the big stage after winning some local the Flux Orchestra, the audience grooved on battle of the bands, but he was most impressed films, projections, and performances by the by the Wildflower’s set. Mime Troupe. The posters for the event (de- signed by Rick Griffin’s wife Ida) described it as PH: The Wildflower were the band that ap- “A Strange Evening of Experimental Events.” pealed to me. Especially their guitarist/singer. He had long red hair (I had curly red hair and wished Wahhab (Larry) Baldwin: I chose Wildflower my hair was straight) and played a Rickenbacker simply as a backup band after Quicksilver Mes- 360-12 through a Vox Royal Guardsman, my senger Service. I had never heard them before then dream amp and guitar rig. This guy was but needed someone, and I think they came to everything I wanted to be. I guess they’d be con- me by word of mouth. sidered a jangle band these days, and I think they played some Byrds covers (“Bells of Jeff Berner: This was the very first European- Rhymney,” maybe?) Other things I remember style “happening” on the West Coast. There were was that their drummer was black. We thought 2,000 people in the audience. It was a huge suc- that was cool. We had to be back to get a ride cess. There was a big article about it in the SF home with my Dad, so we didn’t get to stay to Chronicle in advance of the event. hear the San Francisco bands scheduled to play later. I think both the Dead and Airplane and Chip Weitzen: Jeff was a character—very aca- maybe Moby Grape played over the course of demic in a surreal way. He taught a class called the weekend, but we missed ‘em. I don’t think I “Astronauts of Inner Space”—his favorite ever heard another note of the Wildflower’s mu- theme—as part of the experimental collage of SF

130 Ugly Things Issue 29 check. And third, “this night was the first theat- were climbing in and about it... and maybe some- rical use of a laser beam in a show in front of the where inside was a sound man or two, but that public. The laser made by the Stanford Death was only the center of the strangeness, as the Ray faculty was housed in a WW2 Ammo can crowd around it was swirling in a clockwise caul- but Alec Palao and I have been trying to find the and projected a ruby ray the size of a pencil eraser dron of movement... dancing, running, crawl- video for years with no luck, and we’ve tried when it hit the stage. I preset the red spot super- ing, sliding in a vortex of mini-tornados all some- everything. It’s much sought after.10 imposing it on Phil’s bass amp on-light upstage how moving around the room together... Please and during Neal’s rap started to jiggle it around note... I was a coherent (straight) observer, for he show kicks off with the Wildflower ab ‘til the audience notices then panning it to Neal’s we had just happened on the room and were Tsolutely tearing through a revved-up ver- ‘Bare Greek Torso’ place the glowing Ruby ray more involved and interested in our equipment sion of their song “Please Come Home.” Over a like a jewel in his belly button. Noticing the roar and our set up than our mental health! The menacing barrage of thump drums, a simple, of laughter you can hear him say to the band finally got set up and we played and played four-note fuzz guitar pattern evolves into a wild psychedelized crowd ‘I knew I should have worn and the swirl in the hall became part of the band lead section as the group ponders in harmony, more paisley.’” On live tapes you can hear Jerry and the lights and the heat of the night merged “Where is all this summer sunshine coming saying, “Stay tuned for the Wildflower” at the into the best part of what the San Francisco from?” Absolutely crucial listening this. After end of the Dead’s set scene was about in the early days... the music the dust settles, critic Ralph Gleason interviews and the band and the dance were all one thing... Jerry Garcia (with band mates Phil Lesh and Bob SE: I remember playing with the Dead, I think not a concert, but an interplay of spirits, con- Weir giggling in the background). The “Walkin’ it was opening night at the Straight, and they nected by light, music, dance and emotion. Blues” segment is particularly interesting. The just played this long space jam while Neal Cassady Dead have a real dirty groove with Pig Pen sing- did a stream of consciousness rap on the mic ing and blowing harp, while Quicksilver let Gary (one of the first rap songs, perhaps?) for a whole RECORDING SESH Duncan to the helm to vent over some chicken- set… and I remember Richie Havens sitting in scratch soloing. The Wildflower’s take has the middle of the floor (not onstage) with an or most of the infamous Summer of Love in Michael Brown on lead vocals channeling acoustic guitar and the whole audience in a circle F1967 the Wildflower wasn’t even there. Canned Heat’s Alan Wilson and wraps up with around him… and Janis throwing her Southern They’d hit the road on a solo East Coast Tour to more of that distorted lead-work. It should be Comfort bottle at James Gurley and yelling at Philadelphia, Washington DC, New York, Bos- noted that both the Dead and Quicksilver had him for “playing the last song in the wrong ton, and Cleveland. Before they left however, been playing “Walkin’ Blues” as part of their sets key”… and being nervous as hell before we went they participated in a large music festival in Mill for at least a year prior to this. For The Wild- on and then jamming like there was no tomor- Valley and then headed into Gene Estribou’s stu- flower it was a new occurrence and they hold row once we got going. dio to record with their new drummer. their own like champs. “We had never played it The Festival of Growing Things was a two- before that time,” recalls Ehret. “But jeez, it’s a TE: Back last year when we were recording day free-for-all at the Mt Tamalpais Outdoor 12-bar blues. . . how hard is that?” the 40 Years in the Blink of an Eye, Stephen and Amphitheatre in Marin County that featured the I stopped one evening and were watching the cream of the Bay Area crop at the time. The first Stones’ video of their tour with the “Big Bang” day, July 1, saw the Wildflower performing along- GETTING STRAIGHT stage, and there was a portion that was filmed in side Quicksilver Messenger Service, Blue Cheer, Buenos Aires, where the crowd was singing and Sandy Bull, Congress of Wonders, the Charla- fter a year of work, the Straight Theater was dancing to the music in a total downpour and tans, Freedom Highway, Melvin Q Watchpocket, Afinally ready for its christening in late June the heat of the dance and the movement created Ace of Cups, Jerry Yester’s Lamp of Childhood, of 1967. The opening of the new venue actually a rising cloud of steam that engulfed the soccer Hugh Masakela, and Mount Rushmore. The next lasted three nights, with appearances by Quick- stadium they were in—and my mind flashed day featured many of the same acts along with silver, Mount Rushmore, Mother Earth, Salva- back to a night in San Francisco when the flower Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country tion Army Banned, the Charlatans, Blue Cheer, children hit upon the same space and lifted the Joe & the Fish, the Steve Miller Blues Band, and and Freedom Highway. Even Jimi Hendrix dance from a concert to an out of body experi- Phoenix. The event was the put on by a local dropped by to check it out. ence. It was sometime in ‘67 at the Straight character named Ambrose Hollingsworth, a On the opening’s last night, July 23, The Wild- Theater, and when we arrived to setup and play wheelchair-bound occultist who at one point flower played along with the Dead, Big Brother, for the evening the place was already teeming managed Quicksilver and the Ace of Cups and and Phoenix. According to Reg E Williams, the with people... and the chairs of the old theater wrote astrology for the underground paper The show was special for a couple reasons. One, it had been stripped away leaving a huge dance Oracle. All attendees were apparently given a free was the last Dead show before Mickey Hart floor... but, in the middle of the floor a platform packet of seeds. joined, so only one drummer. Two, the night had been erected, and upon that was what looked Later at Estribou’s, the sessions resulted in a was made famous by Neal Cassady rapping in to me a strange tower of wood and cloth and half dozen or so songs put down on tape, most front of the Grateful Dead during the live sound lights and metal poles and flags and wires and of which, unfortunately, have since disappeared. chimes and banners of which no two points formed a right angle... organic and messy, but SE: I believe we recorded “Please Come Home,” 10. To get an idea of what the show might have sorta looked like, beautiful in its chaos. “Of Planets, Mirrors and Man,” “What Once check YouTube for Big Brother and the Holding Co. performing Was,” and a lot that I don’t remember. We have three songs on a 1966 show called “Come Up the Years,” that lasted The tower rose above the floor about 25 feet just three episodes on the Bay Area station KQED. and people and dogs and other strange creatures two cuts and are still trying to get a hold of any

Issue 29 Ugly Things 131 up. We had our thin little mod clothes from Town Squire. What’s wrong with that picture? “We toured ‘back East’ during the Summer This was significant because I: a) caught the worst cold in my life. of Love and therefore missed it. But it was b) realized I hated touring. c) got my first train ride. OK. I heard it was overrated anyway.” d) found out that long train trips are cool only if you have a lot of cash or packed a huge lunch. e) developed an intense dislike for restaurant of the other cuts with out much success. I heard food. a story from Alec Palao that the tapes fell off the truck or something. SE: I remember playing with the Youngbloods in a giant soccer arena in Edmonton, Canada, hat exists is a semi-acoustic re not being able to hear anything except myself Wcording of “Of Planets,” an epic harmony and watching the other guys’ hands to make madrigal like nothing any other San Francisco sure we were playing together… nobody had band was doing, except maybe Harper’s Bizarre monitors in those days. if they worked the Ren Faire circuit instead of the dancehalls. Ehret’s simple yet evocatively omewhere along the way Youngbloods lead timeless picking pattern combined with Stone Poneys… and the owner taking us up to Sguitarist Jerry Corbitt struck upon the idea McCausland’s Delphian lyrics (“Signatures on his place and getting us stoned on DMT. that he wanted to get the Wildflower a record walls of great proportion, Promises of jade like deal. So immediately upon their return to Cali- Caesar’s bed, Often hides the sound of love’s fter a weeklong run at the Trauma in Phila fornia, the group went into Coast Recorders with distortion, Beliefs that lifeless lies control each Adelphia with the Mandrake Memorial, the Corbitt at the helm. man”) are the perfect recipe for incense smoke Wildflower were called to New York City to meet observing. “What Once Was” is a more straight- with impresario Albert Grossman who’d been SE: Jerry was trying to get a record deal, pri- forward, disconsolate, mid-tempo number with hearing good things about the group’s East Coast marily with Vanguard, with him producing us. complex harmonies (feel that soaring chorus!) shows. “The audiences had been going really He worked with us for a while and was setting and Byrdsy twelve-string accents—a solid crazy for ‘Baby Dear,’” remembers Ehret. up and directing our rehearsals. Jerry was living Jennings and Ehret collaboration that shows the “Grossman wanted in on it but the stuff with in Inverness [in rural Marin County] as were group was determined and focused despite their [Bobby] Shad was too complicated. We were un- the rest of the Youngbloods. I was also living recent lineup changes. der a year contract with Mainstream.” Next stop out there at the time and spent time hanging Then, before the tapes even stopped spinning, was Boston. As they were getting ready to play out with Jerry (mostly) and Jesse [Colin Young] Ehret, Brown, Jennings, and Duncan packed up at the Boston Tea Party with Willie Alexander’s and Dave Fason, their road manager. I’m not sure what gear they could carry aboard a passenger band the Bagatelle, the newish drummer Larry who paid for the recording. I believe Jerry had an plane and headed out into the great unknown. Duncan flipped out and disappeared. arrangement with Coast Recorders and he cov- ered it. We recorded two songs, “How Fast,” and SE: As we were setting up he laid his drums we did another recording of “Baby Dear.” ON TOUR out neatly across the stage and then he was f the last session at Estribou’s resulted in J: We toured “back East” during the Summer gone. We heard he got arrested and put in a reserved and pensive tunes, the Coast session of Love and therefore missed it. But it was mental institution but at the time we had no I J brought out a completely different side of The OK. I heard it was overrated anyway. idea where he went. Wildflower. Unfortunately all that remains is an acetate of a song called “How Fast.” But what a SE: In DC we played with Natty Bumpo. In MB: They put him in a state institution some- recording it is. On it the band wears their musi- Boston we played with the Bagatelle. If I remem- where upstate. cal preferences on their sleeves. From its Air- ber correctly in NY we played with the MC5. We plane-style, staccato intro under a distorted Re- were very well received everywhere and the local SE: We called our manager and he called bands were very friendly. It seemed like the SF Tommy [Ellis] who had just graduated from scene was a magical thing to everyone. CCAC. He flew out from California. We played the first set without a drummer and then JJ: It was strange because everyone had these Tommy came right in and started playing after preconceptions of what it was like in SF and having been gone for a year. what an SF band should be like, as if we were some superhuman party animals with limitless capacity for drug consumption, all the answers CANADA AND THE YOUNGBLOODS to the cosmic questions, and infinite tolerance ack in the City the group began hanging out for their neediness to be cool in our eyes. Is that Bmore and more with their new friends the a little harsh? Well, I remember coming back Youngbloods, performing with the recently from that tour very confused as to who I was transplanted New Yorkers and Magic Fern at the because of all the time spent with people who California Hall. A few more shows at the Straight wanted me to be what they thought I should be. followed with Paul Arnoldi, Marlowe, the Sec- ond Coming, and Charlie Musselwhite. Then it SE: We played in Washington DC the week was back on the road, this time to Canada in after Jimi Hendrix and they had his broken Strat support of the Youngbloods. The day after Christ- on the wall. We had the best PA and the other mas 1967 the new-old Wildflower lineup played bands asked if they could use it too. I remember the Retinal Circus event in Vancouver with the our road manager bribing the baggage guy 20 United Empire Loyalists and then again on the bucks (a lot of money in those days) at the Bos- 28th in Edmonton, Alberta with the ton airport to put our equipment on the plane to Youngbloods, Pretty Broos, and Graeme & the Cleveland because we couldn’t afford to pay the Wafers. The audiences absolutely loved them. fee and getting away with it… something that JJ: It was in the middle of winter and of course could never happen today… and the plane seem- being from San Francisco we were significantly ing to struggle to lift off. Playing at La Cave in under-dressed for the circumstance. All the lo- Cleveland the week after Linda Ronstadt and the cals were wearing fur-lined parkas with the hoods Retinal Circus, Vancouver.

132 Ugly Things Issue 29 volver guitar line, to its aggressive “Of Planets, Mirrors, and Man,” “Please Come Neil Young-inspired raga lead, Home,” and “Coffee Cup,” along with unheard- Stephen Stills twang, and overall unless-you were-there numbers like “Ancient Moby Grapeishness, “How Fast” is Blue” and the aforementioned “On Even Red” basically what you wished more (here with a rich neo-‘60s arrangement). There’s records sounded like back then. Had a complete and glowing review of the CD in the this collaboration continued, teen- last issue, but let’s just say that if the Wild- age heads worldwide would’ve been flower can sound this good in 2008, just imag- singing the praises of one of the ine how mind-blowing they must’ve been back best San Francisco albums ever. in the heyday. What remains the most striking about the JJ: I remember being blown away Wildflower throughout all this is the writing. by Buffalo Springfield when they Sure the playing is top-notch, innovative as hell, played at the Avalon. They had just and all that, but the craft of the songwriting is released their first album and they pretty, uh... beyond. It’s impressive too, as the were the greatest live band I had group, at least by 1967, performed just about heard up to that point. But then I solely songs they had written, as opposed to was pretty high on acid so that groups like Quicksilver, Big Brother, and the Dead might have had something to with who incorporated a lot of covers in their live it. sets. Aside from their unique sound and atten- tion to harmonic detail, this is what set the Wild- SE: My favorite band was Moby flower apart from their peers. Perhaps it was a Grape. Too bad they got busted way to keep things in the family. back then because they should have made it big time. MM: If the Wildflower had done covers, I wouldn’t have had anything to do. The Wildflower, 1968. END TIMES ichael Brown has a slightly different view for pot together, which unfortunately ended my of it. “Our music was more interesting,” n February 21, 1968 the group participated M career with Wildflower. he declares. “More challenging, more complex, Oin a big Family Dog show at the Avalon Ball- more pertinent, more lyrical, more... Well, you room with the Blues Project, Siegal Schwall, Lee n the hazy aftermath, Ehret began work on a get the message, it was ours.” Michaels, the Youngbloods, and the Sons of recording studio at the legendary Project One Champlin. Sometime around this they also re- I at 10th and Howard in SF. The process was docu- SE: I remember having a conversation with turned to the Straight Theater to perform with mented in Alton Everest’s book: How to Build a Jerry Garcia about this very thing—to cover or Mother Earth and Blue Cheer. Small Budget Recording Studio From Scratch. not to cover—and I was explaining how we were When the studio was completed in 1970, a new creating our own sound-story and had come to SE: I remember playing at the Western Front version of the Wildflower began to sprout there. the place where we had enough original material with Blue Cheer. Tom had brought his girlfriend A returning Brown brought in Roger Cruz, an- to perform without covers and he said, strangely and her little daughter. When Blue Cheer hit other veteran of the San Francisco Hair cast, to enough, “If you’re going to do covers, you have their first note she peed her pants, they were so replace Jennings on bass. Ellis came back in on to do them better than the original and if you loud. I remember the drummer nailing down drums and the new band recorded several “un- can do them better than the original, you can his drums and cymbal stands and them blowing plugged” two-track recordings in 1971 under write your own song.” Anyway, we wrote our up amps. Then there was a gig we did in with Ehret’s aegis. own song. • them LA out somewhere amidst the desert and Songs like “Across the Aging Sea” and “Gali- oil fields that I don’t remember. Michael told me lee” show a stripped down and more rural, mel- THANKS TO: Stephen Ehret, Tom Ellis, John we went outside when they started playing be- low approach, definitely influenced by the Jennings, Michael Brown, Michael cause they were so loud and Tom remembers Youngbloods and the “cooling off” period going McCausland, Peter Albin, Chip Weitzen, Jeff how trashed the audience left the place after the down at the time. A couple of the other num- Berner, Wahhab Baldwin, Susan Neri, Alec gig was over. bers—“Poorboy” and “Over by the Courthouse” Palao, Reg E. Williams, Jackie Greene, Phil can be imagined adapted into Wildflower (the Lesh, Mike Shapiro, Ross Hannan, and Corry he Wildflower did their last run at the Ma old Wildflower anyway) numbers with a little Arnold. trix in early November of 1968. Club listings T polishing. The best of the lot is definitely “On show Jerry Garcia and friends playing earlier that Even Red,” a catchy tune in a new direction week, and Harvey Mandel, and Johnny Winter sounding here like a late Byrds, Springfield, or later. Gone were the days of the homegrown Corvettes demo. The only live appearance by this Mystery Trends and Final Solutions. In were short-lived lineup happened April 24, 1971 at the surname supergroups and superstars. Things the Family Dog on the Great Highway with a were definitely changing in San Francisco and Country Joe-less Fish, Cat Mother, and El Topo the era of the good old-fashioned folk rock group soundtrackers Shades of Joy. was clearly on the wane. The Wildflower foundered and finally breathed its last when Michael Brown decided acting was more his bag and joined the cast of Hair, then INTO THE NOW franchising out from New York to other cities. n 2008 the core of the Wildflower—John Soon thereafter, John Jennings got busted for IJennings, Michael Brown, Tom Ellis, and possession of marijuana. By quitting the band, Stephen Ehret—reformed with the addition of getting a straight job, and going back to school Felix Bannon on lead guitar and Robert South he was able to convince the judge to let him off on keyboards. They went into the studio to once The Wildflower’s CD, 40 years in the Blink with just probation. and for all make the album they never got to of an Eye, can be ordered by visiting http:// make back then. The result was 40 Years in the www.thewildflower-sf.com/ JJ: Terry Wilson, who played drums with the Blink of an Eye, made up entirely of songs the An official CD reissue of With Love: A Pot Charlatans after Mike Ferguson left, was my band had written and performed between 1965 of Flowers is forthcoming from Big Beat housemate at our storefront out at Ocean Beach. and 1969. It’s an amazing set. Within its digital Records with new tell-all liner notes by Alec We hung out quite a bit and eventually got busted grooves we’re treated to re-recorded versions of Palao.

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