May 23, 1967 Lower Sproul Plaza, UC Berkeley, Berkeley, CA: Country Joe & The Fish ('67 Berkeley V)

Oakland Tribune Wednesday May 24, 1967

Band Cools Off Draft Protesters
BERKELEY--Draft protesters appearing at a noontime rally at the University of California campus yesterday more than met their match in the big sound of rock 'n' roll music. 

In fact, it really wasn't much of a contest.

Country Joe and the Fish, a Berkeley rock band, snared a crowd of 2,000 on the Lower Plaza, while Resistance To the Draft, a group from the U.C. Medical Center in San Francisco, mustered a scant 25 listeners.

Making matters worse for the protestors, the band played so loudly you couldn't hear the speeches.

Electric Music For The Mind And Body by Country Joe & The Fish, released by Vanguard Records in May 1967. The concert shots were from The Barn in Scotts Valley, with the Magic Theater light show in the background

May 23, 1967 Lower Sproul Plaza, UC Berkeley, CA: Country Joe and The Fish (Tuesday) free concert
A Wire Service story about Country Joe & The Fish's performance in UC Berkeley's Lower Sproul was picked up by a number of daily papers. The Oakland Tribune headline said “Band Cools Off Draft Protesters.” The Long Beach Independent-Press-Telegram (May 24, 1967) gleefully reported “Folk-rock music outdrew an anti-war rally on the Berkeley campus by about 40 to 1.”

Most of the protests at UC Berkeley, an almost daily occurrence in the 1960s, took place in Sproul Plaza, at the center of campus. A newly constructed area just below Sproul, known as Lower Sproul Plaza, had a variety of student services including the Bear’s Lair Café and other amenities. Lower Sproul would have been fairly new in May 1967.

Even when I attended Berkeley in the later 1970s, it was common for the University to encourage loud noontime rock concerts in Lower Sproul, and it was widely believed (with some justification) that this was to discourage protests in Sproul Plaza itself, since they would largely be drowned out. The Country Joe & The Fish appearances may be one of the first instances of a Lower Sproul concerts defusing a protest in Upper Sproul. 

The Berkeley rock universe in 1967 was pretty different than most places. It bore some relationship to the nearby San Francisco rock scene, but it was still its own animal. Playing for free was an essential part of success, not just to establish credibility but to make new, paying fans. In that respect, free concerts in Berkeley were a forerunner of the conventions of making music on the internet 40 years later. This post will take a narrow, rather than broad, look at Country Joe & The Fish's May 23, 1967 performance on Lower Sproul Plaza, and how it illustrated the larger issues surrounding live music in Berkeley.

Ron Reister photo of Dr King speaking on May 17, 1967. This is Sproul Plaza ("Upper Sproul"). The Student Union is in the background. Pauley Ballroom is on the second floor, rear and to the right. Lower Sproul is behind and below it, but not visible

Sproul Plaza vs Lower Sproul
Articles and histories of protest at the University of California at Berkeley always mention Sproul Plaza. Sproul Plaza is the paved, central area of the UC Campus, built in the 1950s as a pavilion-like entrance to the classroom areas of the University. Sproul Plaza, named for former Chancellor Robert Gordon Sproul (1930-52), is right in front the administration building, Sproul Hall. Sproul Hall is on Bowditch Street, abutting the intersection of Bancroft and Telegraph Avenues. Telegraph Avenue extends Southwards, away from campus. It is the "main drag" of campus life, with pizza, record stores, espresso joints, clothing shops and all the other essentials of a large state University.

Berkeley's Free Speech Movement had reached a crisis in Fall 1964, and all the action centered around Sproul Plaza. One of the principal issues was whether UC students had the right to use Sproul Plaza to assemble and protest. The University tried to ban speakers in Sproul Plaza, but it didn't go well. Sproul Plaza got in the National news, and the plaza became a regular venue for protest. The University, by objecting to the Free Speech Movement, accelerated the very phenomenon they were trying to stop. Sproul Plaza became a destination. When Martin Luther King, Jr spoke at UC, he spoke in Sproul Plaza, the fulcrum of the Free Speech Movement.

The Saturday, May 22, 1965 SF Chronicle ran a photo of Lower Sproul, with the smug caption "At least one co-ed slept in Lower Sproul Plaza during speeches." They reported that crowds between 20 and 7,000 heard the speeches (crowds varied as classes started and ended)

If you actually attend or work at UC Berkeley, however, "Sproul" has a broader meaning. The main plaza, where Mario Savio and Dr King spoke, is known as "Sproul Plaza" or sometimes "Upper Sproul." Down a staircase to the West of Sproul Plaza is an entirely different pavilion, known as "Lower Sproul." Lower Sproul is surrounded on four sides by huge concrete sixties buildings: the cafe (the Golden Bear), the student union building (now the MLK building), Eshlemann Hall (holding student offices) backing on to Bowditch, and Zellerbach Auditorium (the 2000-seat hall on the West side of Lower Sproul). In general UC usage, "Sproul" encompasses both the upper and lower Sproul, as in "we can meet at Sproul after class." 

An August 2009 photo of The Bear's Lair, just below Pauley Ballroom on the 2nd floor. The photo is taken from the back of Lower Sproul, near the cafe (Zellerbach is behind the camera to the right)

Lower Sproul was put together in the mid-sixties. Zellerbach Auditorium was the last piece, opening in 1968.  In 1967, the area that is now Zellerbach was a mostly grass softball field. Still, Pauley Ballroom, which was on the second floor of the Student Union building, and The Bear's Lair, the coffee shop/beer joint below it, had been functioning since the early 60s. But I think that Lower Sproul only became a "place" in about 1965, and was built up the next few years. 

A flyer for the San Jose Be-In, at a practice field across from Kelly Park (at 10th and Alma) on May 14, 1967. Bands included Country Joe & The Fish.

Folksingers were a common site at protests, so they were common in Sproul Plaza. Joan Baez, already a popular recording star, sang on the steps of Sproul Plaza in 1964. If there was a microphone and a speaker for speeches, a folksinger with a guitar could make an appearance too. Rock music was a different thing. Rock bands have multiple amplifiers, they need good power sources, and then the microphones needed to have amplification as well. During the infamous Sproul Plaza "Teach-In" on October 15, 1965, Joe McDonald had played solo in the morning at Lower Sproul. In the afternoon, on Upper Sproul, an ur-version of Country Joe & The Fish played, but the band played acoustic, "jug-band" style. 

The Grateful Dead had initiated the practice of playing for free in the park, to publicize a paying gig in the evening. They began doing this in Vancouver (on August 5, 1966), but had brought the practice back to San Francisco. 1966, the Dead had regularly played at Speedway Meadows in Golden Gate Park, and at "The Panhandle," a grassy area in the Haight-Ashbury (between Oak and Fell) that adjoined the Park. Country Joe & The Fish may, in fact, have been the first electric band to play the Panhandle in August, 1966. 

Bands in Berkeley started playing for free in the main City Park, which the hippies called Provo Park (actually it was named Constitution Park). It was unsanctioned, but the city couldn't really stop them. Bands also played for free in Upper and Lower Sproul Plaza, often as part of a protest or rally. There were rallies and protests every week in Sproul, sometimes every day, so there were plenty of opportunities. If someone brought a generator, an electric band could plug in and play a little bit. It was how Berkeley bands got known. It wasn't cynical, since every band member was opposed to the Vietnam War or in favor of civil rights, so they were supporting righteous causes when they played.

The Human Be-In at Golden Gate Park on January 14, 1967 was an attempt to merge Berkeley politics with Fillmore music. It made free concerts A Thing, but those concerts drowned out--sometimes literally--efforts to organize political action. Hippies loved the idea of afternoon music for free in sunny California, but they didn't really want to hear a speech about The War. There had been Be-Ins up and down the West Coast. Country Joe & The Fish had performed at one in Vancouver (March 26) and one in San Jose (May 14). 

The back cover of Electric Music For The Mind And Body, the May 1967 Vanguard Records debut of Country Joe & The Fish

Electric Music For The Mind And Body-Country Joe & The Fish (Vanguard Records May 1967)
Country Joe & The Fish had "gone electric" in early 1966. The band played any and every venue in Berkeley, since they were about the first rock band anyway. They had also self-released a self-produced EP, sold at Moe's Books on Telegraph Avenue, so they were the first Berkeley band to record, too. They were also the first Berkeley band to play The Matrix, then first to play the Avalon and the first to play The Fillmore. It goes without saying that they were popular in Berkeley. As recently as February 1967 Country Joe & The Fish had played Lower Sproul.

By May 23, however, things had changed. Vanguard Records had signed Country Joe & The Fish in December 1966, and the band had spent January 1967 recording. In early May, Vanguard released the band's debut album, Electric Music For The Mind And Body. The album was one of the first albums released by a band from the Fillmore/Avalon scene, and it was an instant psychedelic classic. The song "Not So Sweet, Martha Lorraine" was being played on Top 40 radio. The world's first underground FM rock radio station, KMPX-fm, was live 24/7 in the Bay Area. KMPX (106.9) was the first station to broadcast album tracks. Electric Music For The Mind And Body was one of those albums.

The Los Angeles Times published a picture of fans dancing to the New Delhi River Band in Lower Sproul on June 4, 1967. The caption smugly notes "Free Speech Movement has to switched to dance movement on Sproul Plaza." Incidentally, this is the only known photo of the New Delhi River Band in concert.

 On May 23,  2,000 or more rock fans had shown up to see Country Joe & The Fish in Lower Sproul. The band probably had the foresight to bring a few more amps than they had in the past, so they were probably louder than before. The net result? A rally encouraging UC students to resist the draft was drowned out. The conservative Oakland Tribune, which hated all the hippies anyway, crowed about it (above). To some it seemed just desserts, long-haired hippies foiling a protest by other long-haired hippies. Country Joe & The Fish would not play another free concert in Lower Sproul. Whether or not Joe and Barry thought they'd been tricked into undermining a protest that they agreed with, the band was suddenly too large to play a free concert on campus anyway. 

The Runaways were opening for Quicksilver at Keystone Berkeley on April 30, 1976. They played Lower Sproul Plaza that afternoon. They were the first professional band I saw that was my own age. 

Aftermath
I arrived at UC Berkeley as a freshman in Fall 1975. There were concerts in Lower Sproul on more Fridays than not. Over my four years, I saw lots of great bands at noon, on my way to class. Among them were Merl Saunders' Aunt Monk, The Runaways, Talking Heads, the B-52s, Elvin Bishop and many others. When I arrived, my older sister, a senior at the time, assured me that the administration liked free concerts in Lower Sproul because they drowned out any protests in Sproul Plaza. Was that really a nefarious policy? Was there a secret committee (akin to the Dwinelle Hall Space Committee--those who know, know) noting the upcoming rallies, and checking the Keystone Berkeley schedule to see if the Runaways were available that day?

Probably not. Sproul Hall had its own agenda, certainly, but the idea that there was a master plan that wasn't budget related seems unlikely. Now, I'm sure there were some members of Administration who didn't object to the conflict, but at the same time there were probably faculty who objected to the loud rock music more than the protests. Around 1978, I was watching a pretty good band in Lower Sproul--a Nevada County band called Carrie Nation, kinda sounded like the Allman Brothers--and organizers of a rally in Sproul took over the stage and remonstrated with the students to come upstairs and join their rally. The band was friendly, but the crowd wasn't interested. I'm surprised it didn't happen more often, but by 1978 live rock music was ascendant at lunchtime in Lower Sproul Plaza. 

For the next episode in the '67 Berkeley series (Berkeley and East Bay Concerts, April-June 1967), see here

For the previous episode in the '67 Berkeley series (New Orleans House Performers List, April-June 1967 1967)

For the Berkeley, Oakland and East Bay Rock History Navigation Tracker, see here

Chicken On A Unicycle

 

 

 

 

Fresh Fish Only, A Berkeley Bag

You can tell that Joe & the Fish are a Berkeley band when you see them on stage playing their electric music; Dave swaying with his mouth open and his glasses off, jerking his head back and forth; Barry grimacing, contracting and stretching his body during his long lead electric runs, head lost in a myriad of new sounds and gadgets; Paul bending his body in sections and having fits of rhythmic enthusiasm with the tambourine; John looking so Lower East Side cool while he does beautiful drumming; Bruce innocently playing the bass while joy and dismay alternate on his face; and Joe yelling and singing, stamping his feet, and smiling thru the music when he wants to signal something to the rest of the band.

They're a warm open band, not a hard rock group, and they radiate the Berkeley hip-innocence when they play. You can tell how the performance is going by watching the light show of emotions flickering across their faces, especially Joe's, because he is learning to talk where there are no words, and uses his face to communicate with the band and his friends in the audience.

They give the impression of an unfreaked acidhead taking an outdoor trip in summer flowers amazed warm sun shining works out, amused when it doesn't, because nothing serious ever goes wrong, and things work out unexpectedly fine often.

Collectively they have no stage presence at all. Even more than the Spoonful, who radiate the same vibes, they are a collection of people in undistinguished clothing making a music which catches them half by surprise.

Obviously they don't believe the audience exists, for they strike poses and tell jokes in cowboy dialects, or start convoluted explanations of the evolution of a song, but forget and wander off mike or lapse into incoherence before they finish explaining that they "used to play folk music but now they don't, kinda, Roy, get it?" Stage presence will come, most likely, and with it stylized uniforms and the whole scene, and we're lucky to see it happens. They're real enough now that a chick can come up out of the audience and be a go-go girl for a couple of pieces without everyone getting upset, Perhaps some of you saw what happened to the Spoonful when Zal got kissed at UC.

The band tells me that they are going to make it, and certainly have the potential to ride the charts and have people pay $5 and glad of it to see them, but I can't help wonder if it will happen. Country Joe and the Fish are not, despite their talk, a business corporation nor a music making machine. They have just used the bread that comes with making it as an excuse to permit themselves to buy the equipment they wanted to so they could make serious music.

This seriousness about the music is going to be their worst hang-up if they want to get to the charts. If they did some serious practicing they could tighten up their arrangements and produce a commercial sound, but the problem is in the content. Like any artists they reflect the realities around them, and the realities in Berkeley are not the same as the image blown thru the mass media. Instead of "I Want to Hold Your Hand" they have the "Bass Strings" or the "Dope Song" as it is called. This is strictly an underground song, as are several of the others, like the protest material (Joe wrote the Vietnam Rag and recently one of the band was attacked in the Jabberwock by a drunk marine) and Joe wants to write some serious songs about sex.

Which is not to say that they don't have some commercial songs. "Sad and Lonely Times" would make Sonny and Cher so glad, and the flipped out stuff like "Happiness is a Porpoise Mouth" could make it, just as Dylan in disguise can make it, but it's difficult to say whether make the band could be happy only publicly doing half of what they know.

Anyway, a couple of months after they have formed they have already an identity of their own, and are the most potentially exciting and significant group on the whole Bay rock scene, even tho they may have to settle for a jazz size audience. What they need now is practice and an audience. If you have a where a loud rock band can Play for several hours a day, call the band at the Jabberwock. If you have a Thursday evening, go and see them there.

This nifty article first appeared in ED Denson's column The Folk Scene in the Berkeley Barb (Vol 2, No 23, June 10, 1966).

Reverend Gary Davis: Twas Brillig

Friday 25 February 1966
Little Theater, Berkeley (Florence Schwimly Little Theatre): Rev Gary Davis
Jabberwock, 2905 Telegraph Avenue, Berkeley: Wry Catchers, Ale Ekstrum, Country Joe and the Fish, Paul Armstrong, Dan Paik. Unscheduled: Rev Gary Davis (nominally a benefit to raise the $1100 bail for Bill Ehlert and Bill Tolman who were busted for possession of pot on February 23 and had been held at Santa Rita County Prison)
ED Denson from the Berkeley Barb (Vol 2, No 9: March 4, 1966): Last Friday the Rev. Gary Davis came to Berkeley and gave his third (Brillig-sponsored) concert here during the present folk revival. It is likely to have been his last, and those who went to see the Byrds instead missed a chance to see an unforgettable, even unbelievable performance.
Two years ago Artesian Productions was destroyed by its double bill of the Rev. and Jimmy Reed, and the Brillig experience may do the same for it. I attended both, and can say that through no fault of its own Brillig managed to put on a better show, or lesser disaster, depending upon your point of view.
But as a promotion which was to be the springboard for later i concerts the whole idea was suicidal from the beginning, for the persistence in Berkeley's folk mind of the memory of the Artesian show was a crippling handicap.
The inexperience of Brillig, a front group for the Jabberwock, combined with the malevolence of nature to ensure that almost every thing went wrong. The publicity photo used on the poster was terrible, the Byrds were booked into the adjacent Community Theater on the same night and for some reason the date of the Davis concert was not changed, the flu epidemic hit hard, and the evening of the concert it rained.
As a final blow Bill Elhert, the active agent of Brillig, was busted two days before the performance in what appears to be one of the shabbiest political busts for grass that the narcos have pulled. These little things add up, and the only blessing is that the concert was a one-night stand for it seems unlikely that five of the 130 who showed up for the first night would have come back for a second.
GOOD START
The show limped off to a good start; although Elhert understandably preoccupied, had neglected to discover how to operate the sound equipment or house lights, and the first few minutes contained some unexpected fluctuations in these, especially when the building manager gave a hand by turning the volume higher than the Byrds could have stood. Davis was singing well, however, and the audience showed no signs of restlessness.
The Rev. has been called the best living folk guitarist, and in his style he is. His voice, while rough and cracked after a lifetime of street singing, has a power unrivalled among the living blues singers, and the sheer force of his performance covers any imperfections and laves you spellbound.
For the first 45 minutes that he sang it was one of the best performances I have attended. The songs were for die most part simple but like most religious folk songs filled with a vivid imagery that has a cumulative effect on the audience. They seemed to sink deeper and deeper, and the spell was not broken by Gary's poor harmonica playing, or Elhert's foolish attempt to get the audience to clap in time to the music,
FATAL ERROR
Then the' fatal mistake of the evening was made. Elhert called an intermission.
Two things occurred during the next 15 minutes which set the stage for final catastrophe. The Byrds concert got out which released hordes of young chicklets who kept thinking that they could find the Byrds by coming though the Davis concert. This also released the critics for the Chronicle and the Examiner, both of whom after being told of the first half seemed well disposed towards the second half and waited to see the Rev.
The gods were having their little joke, however, for the Rev. had caught cold during his 3-day stay in Berkeley prior to the performance. During the initial few songs he had stopped to wipe his nose every now and then, and now in the intermission he dosed himself liberally with his folk medicine: Seagram’s 7 with a lot of peppermint candy in it. By the time he hit the stage again he was getting high. Gary has a way of tantalizing the audience when he is drunk, because he almost begins to play and then thinks of something he wants to say. It seems like he must play in a moment and that moment is pushed further and further down the evening. It rapidly became evident what was going to happen, and my mind began to blow, so my memories may be a little confused in their order, but as I recall the second half of the show Gary launched into a long sermon/conversation about men and women.
NO MUSIC, NO WHISKEY
Elhert paced around and finally in an attempt to get the Rev. to sing came out through the curtains on stage, to scattered applause, and whispered to Gary that no music, no whiskey. Infuriated, the Rev. tried to smash his guitar over Ehlert’s head, muttering that nobody could talk to him that way. After a long tableau during which time no one moved much, Davis realized he was on stage and pretended it was a joke.
As the sermon continued Gleason fled, and 10 minutes later Elwood joined him, asking that it be recorded that the Examiner outlasted the Chronicle.
No sooner was he out of the door then Gary began to sing. He sang a long blues called “She's Funny That Way" which alternates sex with inconclusive verses and is repetitious. It went on for a long time. After some more talking, he sang it again.
By this time the audience was yelling for him to sing gospel, and two hippies were especially vocal. He invited them to come up and help him sing, which one did. That was the high point of the second half, until the guy got tired of making repartee between the lines and went back to the audience. Gary talked some more about pistols, sin and sex, and finally tried to get the audience to sing along with him, which at length part of it did.
Surprisingly few people left, and those that did probably were misled by the advertising into expecting a serious performance or real gospel singing with no side excursions. They looked very unhappy. Towards the end of the evening Gary began to sing again, and whoever was working the lights changed the colors as the Rev. changed chords. It was a nice psychedelic touch, and the Rev. and the lights got two encores.
AND THEN
After the concert Gary was visited in his dressing room by a few fans and discovering some chicks among them he lectured on girls should give a man What He Needs, and how about it, at which point they left. At last the Seagram's was gone and the slow progress toward the waiting car began.
Having gotten up the Rev. got into a head butting contest with one of the people leading him, and with one thing and another it was a half hour before he got to the car.
Later that evening he turned up much drunker singing sloppy blues at the Jabberwock.
I enjoyed the evening very much but I wouldn't have paid to see it, and would not go again for free. The amusing part was the total collapse of everybody's expectations this rapidly transcends being painful and just becomes outrageously funny. The tragedy is that the Rev. Gary Davis is a gifted performer capable of some of the best music of any of the living folk musicians. Instead the audience is treated to a sideshow which Is degrading to the artist, and for the most part a drag.
This is true of others besides the Rev when they perform, and normally comes from an almost total misunderstanding of the situation. In the Rev’s case he simply has not adapted to being an artist for audiences more sophisticated than those on the street corners of Harlem, and the problem is made much worse by the encouragement given to him to continue his burlesque and Uncle Toming by the younger hippies.
Quite naturally the blame in the end must fall upon the promoters who are afraid to tell the performer what they expect, or worse yet; don't realize what they should expect. - Ed Denson

Unscheduled, Reverend Gary Davis plays (drunk on Seagram's 7 with peppermint candy) at the Jabberwock later in the evening. The Reverend Gary Davis had played the "Brillig" presented show at the Little Theater, Berkeley (Florence Schwimly Little Theatre) earlier in the evening. Whilst visiting Berkeley, the Reverend stayed with members of Country Joe and the Fish in Mrs Sherrill's adjacent apartment building on Russell Street. Barry Melton recalls the visit of the good Reverend.

In the early days of Country Joe and the Fish, me and most of other guys in the band lived next door to "The Jabberwock," a folk music nightclub in Berkeley. The club was owned by a big, friendly guy named Bill "Jolly Blue" Ehlert. The Jabberwock was only a postage-stamp sized place, so when Jolly Blue got an offer to do a Reverend Gary Davis show, he decided to promote it in the Berkeley Community Theatre. We were all in awe of "Rev" and it was decided that while he was in Berkeley, he would stay in our house. I remember he stayed there several days, as we sat about the kitchen playing music hour by hour. I think he'd played the "Ash Grove" down in L.A. and had dead time between playing there and playing in Berkeley--this was in late 1966 or early 1967.
And, by the way, Easy Ed's quote from Jerry Garcia expressing the belief that Rev had nothing to do with San Francisco psychedelia is stone wrong. The Rev DID participate in the psychedelic aspect of the San Francisco scene, at least to a limited degree while staying at our house.
Because I was the band's lead guitar player and--I believe--the guy in the band most in awe of Rev, I surrendered my room and bed for Rev to stay in. Things were fine for the first few days he was there: We'd wait for him to get up in the morning, cook him breakfast, take him on whatever errands he had to do, etc., and sit around, smoke, and play music all day and into the night. It was easy to forget that Rev was blind as we sat around the kitchen table, listening to his songs and stories hour after hour. Then the night of the big concert came and, as was the long-standing musical custom, the Rev was paid in cash at the conclusion of the gig. He brought me with him to collect the money and made me read off the denomination of each bill was it was counted into his hand, and I remember him stashing the larger portion of his money into the sound hole of his Gibson J-200, while leaving some travelling money rolled up in his pockets.
Well, the next morning I woke up and remember having to go into my room to get some clothes or something out of my chest of drawers. I was very quiet, as I could hear Rev snoring and didn't want to wake him. Well, I got whatever it was and I was headed toward the door when I heard in a commanding voice,"Don't move or you're dead!". I turned around to see Rev with a .38 revolver in his hand pointed in my general direction, but sort of moving around so as to cover a wider target area. I remember screaming something to the effect of, "No--don't shoot." Rev replied, "One wrong move and you're dead." Well, then I started talking a mile a minute..."Rev, it's me, it's Barry, don't shoot Rev...I was only getting something from my chest of drawers..." Finally, Rev said, "Is that you, Barry?" The incident was soon over, and I had escaped with me life. I guess, from his perspective, it must have been kind of weird to be alone, blind, on the road 3,000 miles from home and rooming with a bunch of lunatic young musicians many years his junior. But to this day, the picture of Reverend Gary Davis that sticks in my mind the most is early in the morning, half-awake and blind as a bat, with a .38 in his hand pointed in my general direction. It was one of the most frightening moments of my life. I'll never forget it.

Fish For First Hip Fair

Happiness is a Porpoise Mouth. The First Annual Hippy Fair, and Dance-Festival will be held 8 pm Saturday evening in Hearst Gym on the Cal Campus, the sponsoring Pretentious Folk Front announces.

No problems are anticipated from university authorities despite the controversial nature of several of the featured attractions. The event will provide the campus community a chance to see what the hip artists are currently up to.

The Festival is a benefit for Country Joe and the Fish who have lost two weeks work because alcoholic club owners have cancelled their engagements. Fear of risking the Fish's performances was the reason given.

Selections will be screened from the group's in-progress film "How I Stopped the War", a documentary of their triumphant progress from Market Street to Pax Pisces during the recent Peace Demonstrations. Country Joe will perform.

The SF Mime Troupe, itself involved in socially provocative events lately, will bring their bodies east of the Bay for dancing and skits of social interest. Individual improvisers of choreography will also perform, as will the Haight-Ashbury Neighborhood Agit-Prop Truck Theatre.

Early in the evening Berkeley's own Cleanliness and Godliness Skiffle Band will do some takes by arrangement with the Jabberwock. Several films will be shown, a former Fug will construct a six-foot gods-eye on stage, and the first campus showing of the paintings of the controversial Russian artist Gershon Ikovsky Gershovitz will be opened.

All hip, craftsmen, artists, and artisans are invited to display their work, bringing blankets or whatever showcase they feel suitable. If you are one of the above and wish to participate contact the Front Festival Committee at their temporary office phone 548-1513. Donations at the door, $2.

The Cleanliness & Godliness Skiffle Band in 1967

Kaahwump! And Crowd Says Aaah

Piano Drop: Duvall, Washington - April 28, 1968

Oooooh!—Kaahwump!—Aah!" Those are the sounds a crowd and an uptight piano' make when a helicopter dumps the piano from a height of 200 feet.

More than 3,000 people, many of them flowered, beaded and longhaired hippies paid $1 and gathered in an isolated grassy ravine near here underneath sunny and warm Sunday skies to watch "the piano drop."

A musical underground group called Country Joe and the Fish, provided music while the crowd waited for the helicopter.

When the time came, spectators, children and several dogs were shooed back from the area where the piano would drop.

The helicopter soared overhead. The piano dropped, the crowd went 'Oooooh!", the piano went "Kaahwhumpl", shattered and the crowd went "Aaah!."

The whole thing was a benefit for a listener-sponsored FM radio station, KRAB, in Seattle, 40 miles west of the "piano drop" area.

Piano dropped from helicopter in Duvall and thousands turn out to see it on April 28, 1968

On April 28, 1968, nearly 3,000 spectators flock to Larry Van Over's farm in Duvall to see (hear?) a piano drop from a helicopter. Duvall is located in King County northeast of Seattle.
Van Over, better known as "Jug" for his musicianship as a member of the Willowdale Handcar jug band, had recently heard a recording on KRAB-FM of a piano being destroyed by sledge hammers. Finding the aural experience disappointing led to the speculation (most likely fueled by certain psychoactive chemicals) about dropping a piano from a building, or better yet, a helicopter, and what that drop might sound like.

Van Over enlisted the aid of Paul Dorpat (b. 1938) at Helix. A benefit "Media Mash," co-sponsored by KRAB and Helix, had already been scheduled for April 21, with performances by Country Joe and the Fish among others. The Piano Drop was hooked on as a free premium the following Sunday.

Larry tracked down an old upright piano, moved it to his farm, and contracted a helicopter service out of Boeing Field. The pilot didn't quite get the point, but he had moved pianos with his helicopter before. Having successfully not dropped pianos, he saw no special problem in doing the opposite. As Larry later recalled, "There were a number of Newton's laws that the pilot neglected to consider."

Assured of the feasibility of musical strategic bombing, Larry calmly dropped acid on Sunday afternoon and climbed into the helicopter to guide the pilot out to his farm in Duvall. It was sunny and clear. As the helicopter passed Woodinville, Larry and the pilot noticed that the traffic below was getting heavier and heavier. "Gee, there are a lot of people out today," Larry commented over the engine's roar.

By the turnoff to Larry's farm, he and the pilot realized that they had not been observing mere Sunday drivers. The roads around the farm were a parking lot - and then they saw a wall-to-wall carpet of humanity covering the drop zone. Instead of the 300 participants he expected, the pilot estimated at least 10 times as many people filled the countryside below. At that moment, Larry got that special, tinny taste in his mouth indicating that his mental altimeter had exceeded the helicopter's.

"No way, no way, no way," the pilot muttered with mounting conviction as he set the helicopter down next to the awaiting piano. "What exactly is your apprehension here?" Larry asked innocently.

"They're not going to get out of the way," the pilot explained.

"They'll move, man, they'll move," Larry pleaded with that persuasive power only true evangelists and zonked-out lunatics can muster. "Trust me, man, it'll be like the Red Sea all over again!"

For whatever reason -- curiosity, fear of not getting paid, or a contact high -- the pilot relented. "Okay, but they gotta give me plenty of room, or no drop."

The pilot hitched the piano to a special harness and lifted off. He approached the target, a platform of logs, from an altitude of at least 150 feet. The machine hove into view and the crowd, as Larry had predicted, parted and retreated to a respectful distance.

The pilot brought his machine to a halt mid-air, but bodies in motion tend to remain in motion, and the 500-pound piano dragged the helicopter forward. The pilot panicked and hit the harness release, but nothing happened. He then hit the emergency cable release, and the piano snapped free.

It described a lazy arc through the bright spring sky, overshot the target by several yards, struck the soft earth, and imploded with a singularly unmusical whump. "A piano flop," Paul Dorpat later dubbed it.

The crowd was not disappointed and let loose a collective "Far out!" as it surged toward the remains of the piano. By the time Larry pushed his way to the piano's impact crater, not a stick, wire, ivory, or scrap of felt remained. "They devoured it," he recalled. The last he saw of the instrument was its steel harp being loaded into a VW microbus by two hippies.

As Country Joe and the Fish fired up their amplifiers, somebody said, "Hey, let's do that again," and so was born the idea for the Sky River Rock Festival and Lighter Than Air Fair, which took place later that year.

Sources:
AP Article “Piano Drop”
Walt Crowley, Rites of Passage: A Memoir of the Sixties in Seattle (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1995), 110-112, 255.

Solon Faces Banana Treat

The following article first appeared in the Berkeley Barb Volume 4, Number 10 (Issue 91, May 12-18, 1967).

(Mr. Thompson of New Jersey asked and was given permission to extend his remarks at this point in the Record and to include extraneous matter.)

Mr. Thompson of New Jersey. Mr. Speaker, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration recently launched an investigation or banana peel smoking.

This was very good news to me, since I have been extremely concerned over the serious increase in the use of hallucinogenics of youngsters. Apparently, it was not enough for this generation of thrill seekers to use illicit LSD, marijuana, and airplane glue. They have now invaded the fruit stand.

The implications are quite clear. From bananas it is a short but shocking step to other fruits. Today the cry is "Burn, Banana, Burn." Tomorrow we may face strawberry smoking, dried apricot inhaling or prune puffing.

What can Congress do in this time of crisis? A high official in. the FDA has declared: Forbidding the smoking of material from banana peels would require congressional legislation. As a legislator, I feel it my duty to respond to this call for action. I ask Congress to give thoughtful consideration to legislation entitled, appropriately, the Banana and Other Odd Fruit Disclosure and Reporting Act of 1967. The target is those banana smoking beatniks who seek a make believe land, "the land of Honalee," as it is described in the peel puffers' secret psychedelic marching song, "Puff, The Magic Dragon."

Part of the problem is, with bananas at 10 cents a pound, these beatniks can afford to take a hallucinogenic trip each and every day. Not even the New York City subway system, which advertises the longest ride for the cheapest price, can claim for pennies a day to send its passengers out of this world.

Unfortunately, many people have not yet sensed the seriousness of this hallucinogenic trip taking. Bananas may help explain the trancelike quality of much of the 90th Congress proceedings. Just yesterday I saw on the luncheon menu of the Capitol dining room a breast of chicken Waikiki entry topped with, of all things, fried bananas.

An official of the United Fruit Co. daring to treat this banana crisis with levity, recently said: The only trip you can take with a banana is when you slip on the peel.

But I am wary of United Fruit and their ilk, because, as the New York Times pointed out, “United stands to reap large profits if the banana smoking wave catches on."

United has good reason to encourage us to fly high on psychedelic trips. And consequently, I think twice every time I hear that TV commercial: "fly the friendly skies of United."

But let me get back to what Congress must do. We must move quickly to stop the sinister spread of banana smoking. Those of my colleagues who occasionally smoke a cigarette of tobacco would probably agree with the English statesman who wrote: The man who smokes, thinks like a sage and acts like a Samaritan.

But the banana smoker is a different breed. He is a driven man who cannot get the banana off his back.

Driven by his need for bananas, he may take to cultivating bananas in his own backyard. The character of this country depends on our ability, above all else, to prevent the growing of bananas here. Ralph Waldo Emerson gave us proper warning: Where the banana. grows, man is ... cruel.

The final results are not yet in, however, on the extent of the banana threat. An FDA official has said that. .judging from the four years of research needed to discover peyote's contents; it will probably take years to determine scientifically the hallucinogenic contents of the banana. We cannot wait years, particularly when the world's most avid banana eater, the monkey, provides an immediate answer.

We can use the monkey as a laboratory, seeing what effects bananas have on him. The FDA says it cannot tell if a monkey has hallucinogenic kicks; they think not. The problem, I feel, is seeing the monkey munch in its natural habitat. To solve this dilemma, I propose the Peel Corps, necessarily a swinging set of young Americans capable of following the monkey as he moves through the forest leaping from limb to limb.

On the home front, I am requesting the President to direct the Surgeon General to update his landmark report on smoking and health to include a chapter on banana peels. In the meantime Congress has a responsibility to give the public immediate warning. As you know, because of our decisive action with respect to tobacco, cigarette smoking in the United States is almost at a standstill. This is because every package of cigarettes that is sold now carries a warning message on its side.

Therefore, I propose the Banana. Labeling Act of 1967, a bill to require that every banana bear the following stamp, "Caution: Banana Peel Smoking May Be Injurious to Your Health. Never Put Bananas in the Refrigerator."

There is, of course, one practical problem with this legislation: banana peels turn black with age. At that point, the warning sign becomes unreadable. It may be necessary, as a consequence, to provide for a peel depository, carefully guarded to protect the public from aged peels. I am now requesting of the Secretary of the Treasury that, given the imbalance of the gold flow, some of the empty room at Fort Knox be given over to such a peel depository.

As with any revolutionary reform movement, I expect the forces of opposition to be quite strong. One only has to look at the total lack of Federal law or regulation relating to bananas to realize the banana lobby's power. We have regulations on avocados, dates, figs. oranges, lemons, pears, peaches, plums and raisins. But bananas have slipped by unscathed.

What we need across the length and breadth of this great land is a grassroots move to ban the banana, to repeal the peel. Howard Johnson's can survive with only 27 flavors. And what is wrong with an avocado split? I will only breathe easier when this country, this land we love, can declare, "Yes, we have no bananas; we have no bananas today."

CONGRESSIONAL RECORD April 19, 1967

Bill Ehlert's Oregano

The following article was published in the May 20, 1966 (Volume 2, Number 20) of the Berkeley Barb. It is a story about the Jolly Blue Giant, or simply Jolly, Bill Ehlert who was the owner of the Jabberwock - a coffee house on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley.

Sadly Bill passed away in October 2007, but he did tell me that he never got his can or oregano back.

“Pot” Bust beat With “Lie” Test

Bill Ehlert, owner of the Jabberwock coffee house, passed a "lie detector" test on Tuesday. Charges of possession of marijuana were dropped the next day.

Ehlert told Barb he was asked a number of questions about possession, use, and sale of marijuana. Then he was asked whether he had knowledgeable possession of an envelope of fresh-cut marijuana. He told them "No".

"The polygraph and its operator both said I was telling the truth, which I was," Ehlert said. The polygraph measured his respiration and blood-pressure.

The "possession" charges were made on February 23, after the Jabberwock management called the police.

"I had left the Jabberwock about 2 a.m., and left William Tallman alone to clean up. Around 3 a.m. Tallman pounded on my door and said three cats were at the Jabberwock smoking pot, and wouldn't leave" Ehlert said.

"I went back with Tallman and we asked them to leave .They wouldn't. I signaled Tallman to call the police. When the police arrived, I placed the three under citizen's arrest.

"The police searched them and found roaches in their possession and in the ashtrays where they were sitting," he said. "The police looked for a stash on the premises, and left.

"Then Tallman and I discovered a pan and strainer with fresh debris. We called the police again, they returned, and searched again. This time they found another strainer with old, dried debris, and a pan with 20 or 30 seeds and a cigarette roller in it. We were arrested.

"Later, at the jail, they told us they'd found an envelope of raw, fresh-cut weed in plain sight on the floor of the main room. Ehlert paused in his narration. Then he said, "Oh yes, and they confiscated a five-pound can of .oregano-which I still haven’t gotten back.

Wooden boxes in Chinatown and the bumper sticker ...

From the hand of Country Joe McDonald as published in the first and only copy of the Intergalactic Fan Club magazine Fish Rapper in May 1967. Joe and Janis Joplin were courting at the time.

Janis and I went out to see this movie, and it turned out that she thought that it was a big drag and I thought it was groovy. She said that she would stay and watch the rest of the movie and then we could go around and get some of those wooden boxes in China town, so I said OK. We went down to China town, it was about 1:30; I dropped Janis off when she saw a bunch of boxes and told me to stop. She ran out and started looking there and I asked her what to do with the car, she said to take it and park it. I started driving around and I went all around the block and I couldn't find a place to park. I got mad 'cause I couldn't find a parking place and double parked it on the corner, stopped the car and left it there. I went over to see what Janis was doing and she was still hunting around for boxes. She was fucking around with the boxes. I looked back over and saw there was a cop car over there by the car. I knew that they were going to get me for parking the car right there. So I went back and just walked over and got inside the car and drove off, you know. I figured that if they were going to do anything they would go ahead and do it.

They followed me around the corner and I pulled over and they pulled up behind me. They asked me if I knew that my car had rolled down the hill and I said "No, that I didn't know that," because it hadn't rolled down the hill.

They said, "oh, well, you were double parked."

They checked the car and they said there was a tail light out. No, they didn't see the tail light, oh yeah, they did see the tail light. So they got me for the tail light and then they saw this Fuck Communism bumper sticker that I had on the back. Two patrolmen come walking by on the beat, they talked to the two cops that were in the car and then pretty soon another cop car pulls up and it's got in it this like lieutenant person who comes over and says, "how’s everything going?" and smiles at me. I said, "just fine." He goes over and talks to the guy and gets out a book and they look it up to see what to do about the sticker. Then they have a photographer come in. They decided that its got to be photographed, but I have a choice, I can either take it off or leave it on and they'll photograph it and send our pictures to the D.A. and if he wants to press charges against me he'll do it. I said well ok, we'll do that. They photographed it and this lieutenant person or sergeant left. Then one of the cops knelt down beside the car and looked at me and said, "you know I wouldn't want my children to see a word like that." I just listened and then he said sort of to himself, "of course they're not old enough to read yet."

Then I was stopped another night. We went down to get some more boxes and got stopped on the freeway by the highway patrol for a tail light being out and they cited me for outraging the public decency, by having the Fuck Communism bumper sticker.

There appears to be a ruling, something about topless dancers, that makes it ok to have a Fuck Communism bumper sticker, and our lawyer is appealing it in court now. It will probably be dropped.

I took the car in to get the tail light fixed in Berkeley and the cop told me that if I didn't already have a ticket for that bumper sticker he’d arrest me on the spot.