Comments on: Entheogens… steal your face

By: Tom Shugart

Tom Shugart — Fri, 18 May 2007 19:44:01 +0000

I’m on Hannah’s side on this one. A friend of mine was one of Graham’s top executives (after the early days when Graham’s operations morphed into a large enterprise). He would say exactly what Hannah says. Anyway, I’m posting my take on it in my blog today.

By: Frank Paynter

Frank Paynter — Fri, 18 May 2007 12:29:42 +0000

Hannah, he may not have been self-important, but he SEEMED self-important, often blustering around shouting at people and behaving willfully. I didn’t know him at all, just observed some of that apparently rude and overly assertive behavior in public.

Annie, while you were in San Rafael I was in San Anselmo in a little house on Scenic up the hill from Center Boulevard. The Dead did a benefit concert for the Fairfax/San Anselmo Children’s Center around then. It was a great concert but it was time-boxed… only a few hours of music, two short sets. It’s one of the few concerts in my recollection where they seemed to be “working” rather than playing. I think it might have been because they were TOO close to home.

By: hannah

hannah — Fri, 18 May 2007 07:08:23 +0000

No, no, no, Frank…Bill Graham was not self-important….he was a tragic figure and much of the scene would not have happened without him. I knoweth of what I speak, having lived in his house (Masada) and all.
But—thanks for the memories….

By: annie

annie — Fri, 18 May 2007 05:26:42 +0000

Wow, your memories take me back, Frank.
I was born and raised in the city-my ‘hood was North Beach/Telegraph Hill, mostly. But my dad spent a few of the good years in the Haight. The city was something special. I caught shows primarily at Winterland, Berkeley Community Theatre, The Keystone(s), and so on.
What’s weird is, I recall the pool hall in what was then the seedy part of San Rafael. It was on the corner, and had big glass windows…? I lived in S.R. for a time in 79-80. Lived just up from downtown above Mission San Rafael. A different place, then. (Like most of this state!)

By: Frank Paynter

Frank Paynter — Fri, 18 May 2007 04:15:33 +0000

It was a good time to be young in the Bay Area. rents were affordable, nightlife was all around… I got there a few years after the wave crested in the summer of 1967, but that’s me. I’ve always been a little slow on the uptake.

That place on Cole was like a hundred little corner dives in that era of whole grain sandwiches with avocado, tomatoes and sprouts. In 1971 I lived near the corner of California and Divisadero. There was a little coffee shop on the corner. Five or six years later I was listening to live music there. Those places were always turning over… Kulcha!

That place in San Rafael was on 4th street toward the freeway, not far from the GG Transit bus stop. There was a time when that part of San Rafael was a mixed working class neighborhood. before they paved it with gold, I guess.

By: Tom Shugart

Tom Shugart — Fri, 18 May 2007 03:08:38 +0000

Boy, Frank, you just about covered ‘em all! I think I may have done permanent damage to my eardrums at the Matrix–the place where I heard the Airplane for the first time, with the singer who preceded Grace Slick. I can’t remember her name, but she’s sort of the Pete Best of female rock singers.

The only name of those jazz clubs that comes back to me is the Both/And. Like a lot of folks, I got so wrapped up in the rock scene that my jazz fervor began to taper off.

It makes me laugh to think of a dangerous bar in Marin. These days that’s a non sequitur. Can’t help you out on that one. The place on Cole I totally missed out on. I guess you were more plugged in than I was.

By: fp

fp — Thu, 17 May 2007 19:08:20 +0000

Oh yes. I was there. The Matrix, Keystone Korner, Great American Music Hall, Keystone Berkeley, Freight and Salvage, Winterland, The Fillmore, Longshoreman’s hall, Bill Graham running around as self important as Dave Winer… remember The Family Dog out by Playland at the beach? I think that’s where I heard the Dead live for the first time. The places that are escaping my memory are the little jazz clubs in the Sunset where you could hear people like McCoy Tyner and/or Bobby Hutcherson, the places in Marin like the Sweetwater… there was a pool hall in San Rafael that was close to dangerous when I lived there but had gone totally upscale by the nineties when I returned for a visit. What was its name I wonder?

When I lived on Frederick Street there was a little coffee qua sandwich shop down around the corner on Cole where Elvin Bishop and his ilk would set up to play on any old evening. Can’t remember the name of the place but I could find it for sure.

Those were good times and if we had the web then, we’d still have had the good times, I’m convinced of it.

By: Tom Shugart

Tom Shugart — Thu, 17 May 2007 18:34:42 +0000

Screw clicking on the Rottweiler. I’m hittin the video. Frank, you old devil. You sure know how to stroke the nostalgia buttons. That early Dead video made my day.

You were out here, weren’t you, back in the days of the old Fillmore upstairs over Boas Pontiac–with the Hell’s Angels providing security and the Airplane frequently teaming up with Jerry, PigPen, Bob et al?

Of course, as Krassner (or whomever) points out, your memory of same may be a bit blotted out . Mine should be, given the ingested substances, but those evenings were too riveting to ever forget. It wasn’t about being stoned. As Morford is so right in pointing out, it was the connectedness.

I wonder, if the internet had been around in those days, would we have had the passion for the connections that we formed at those affairs?

By: Zo

Zo — Thu, 17 May 2007 08:42:04 +0000

Frank! I didn’t realize until just this moment that I have been awarded the Good Blogkeeping Seal, or is it a Certificate, of Incivility!

I mean, the highly sought-after Seal! What an honor. First, I want to thank all the little people, without whom.

By: Bruce

Bruce — Wed, 16 May 2007 18:24:56 +0000

was this before or after I posted about Green Teams, which is also synchronistic with the Morford piece?