Berkeley and East Bay Rock Concerts July-September 1966 (Berkeley IV)

This post continues a project listing the major Berkeley and East Bay rock concerts from 1965 to 1969, and is part of our Berkeley Music Project. Previous posts have been

• Berkeley I: October-December 1965
• Berkeley II: January-March 1966
• Berkeley III: April-June 1966
  

This post lists rock concerts from July to September 1966.

Our interest is in rock bands who played the Fillmore or Avalon during this period. I have tried to define this as broadly as possible, generally including bands who at least wanted to play the Fillmore (even if they didn’t), but I have generally shied away from pop acts. I have included some comments about the bands and venues, where relevant, but they are not exhaustive. I have assumed that anyone who actually reads this knows about, say, The Doors or Bill Graham.

In order to keep the scope of these posts plausible, I have generally refrained from listing shows that only featured local "garage" bands made up of mostly High School students, even though some of them had fairly substantial followings. I have also consciously excluded the popular groups who played teenage dances throughout the East Bay (for Bill Quarry and others) as those scenes have been fairly well documented.

Venues include, but are not limited to

•    Berkeley Community Theater
•    Provo Park, Berkeley
•    Harmon Gym , UC Berkeley
•    Pauley Ballroom, UC Berkeley
•    Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley
•    Oakland Auditorium, Oakland
•    Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland

I have also included events at nearby Maple Hall in San Pablo and The Rollarena in San Leandro when there was a meaningful headliner, but the list is not exhaustive for those two venues. The list does not include performances at East Bay clubs, which we are covering in other lists (currently we have completed The Jabberwock, The Questing Beast, The New Orleans House and The Freight and Salvage, with more to come). Scholars who are more focused on the posters, handbills and more site-specific information about the venues should look on the Berkeley Art page.

Like all scholarship, this project is an ongoing work in development. This information is the most accurate available to us at this time.  Parties with corrections, insights, information or recovered memories should Comment or Email.

Berkeley and East Bay Rock Concerts July-September 1966
The San Francisco Underground rock explosion that would lead to "The Summer of Love" was rolling full speed ahead in San Francisco. However, although Berkeley and East Bay hippies made up a significant portion of the audience at the Fillmore and the Avalon, the absence of a viable rock venue in Berkeley meant that with the University of California on Summer break, there were only intermittent rock concerts in the East Bay, mostly at San Leandro's Rollarena, 18 miles south of the UC Campus.

July 3-4, 1966 ASUC 9th Annual Berkeley Folk Music Festival
The Berkeley Folk Festival had been a popular annual event since 1958, but for 1966 one of the headline acts was a rock band, namely the Jefferson Airplane. At this distant remove, the Jefferson Airplane seem to be peripheral to folk music.  However, that was not the view of either Paul Kantner or manager Mathew Katz.  Kantner had been an aspiring folksinger in Venice Beach and San Jose, and specifically sought out a female singer to give his band Weavers-like harmonies.  Jorma Kaukonen, though more focused on blues guitar, was well-known in local folk circles, so the Airplane would have felt very comfortable at a Folk Festival.  Manager Katz, meanwhile, had originally tried to peddle the Airplane to booking agents as a “FoJazz” band. The Airplane thus became the first electric rock group to play the Berkeley Folk Festival.

Festival Highlights
>>July 3, 1966  Pauley Ballroom, UC Berkeley Jefferson Airplane, Rabbi Shlomo Carlebach, Alice Stuart Thomas, The Gypsies “Special Gypsy Fiddle Program” (afternoon)
The Airplane’s role in the Gypsy Fiddle Program remains unknown.

>>July 3, 1966  Pauley Ballroom, UC Berkeley  Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and The Fish, Greenbriar Boys    “Dance Happening” (evening)
Pauley Ballroom was a low-ceilinged room in the second floor of the Student Union.  While well-situated, the room was designed for visiting lecturers, and the low ceilings insured horrible sound for electric music. Country Joe and The Fish, Berkeley's newly-electric folk rock band, had also been established folk musicians. This Pauley event was an implicit concession that the Berkeley audience wanted a Fillmore style show to go along with the workshops and panel discussions of the Festival.

>>July 4, 1966   Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley Pete Seeger, Jefferson Airplane, Robert Pete Williams, Greenbriar Boys, Alice Stuart Thomas, Sam Hinton, Charley Marshall, Phil Ochs, John Fahey, others (afternoon finale with all performers)
In the early 1960s, college age folk musicians had split into various camps, amongst them those who liked commercial folk music like the Kingston Trio, and those who were ‘serious’ about folklore and accurate reproductions of original musical styles.  The latter camp was more into jazz, more pretentious and more into drugs and for the most part leaped into long-haired rock and roll with both feet. There was still a viable folk scene for East Coast bands like the Greenbriar Boys, but California folk music abruptly disappeared in a haze of feedback and funny smelling smoke.

Pete Seeger had been the folksinger most upset by Bob Dylan’s electric performance at Newport the previous year, but I do not know whether he cared that he was ‘co-headlining’ with a rock band full of used-ta-be folkies.  Electric rock acts were becoming more and more common at college folk festivals in any case.

July 22, 1966  Rollarena, San Leandro  Love
Since AM radio differed throughout the country, San Francisco radio often played quite different songs than were popular elsewhere.  As a result, groups like Love (who were on the charts with “My Little Red Book”) sometimes headlined teen shows at the Rollarena, even though they were a progressive Underground band from the Sunset Strip. Without eyewitness accounts, its hard to say whether Love came off well or poorly to the suburban audience.

There certainly would have been other local acts on the bill, but they are unknown to me.

July 29, 1966 Rollarena, San Leandro  Jefferson Airplane, Soul Venders, System of Soul
The Jefferson Airplane were on the verge of splitting with their manager, Mathew Katz.  Most of the disputes were about money.  However, one very real issue was that Katz wanted the increasingly successful Airplane to follow the path to stardom blazed by the likes of Paul Revere and The Dave Clark Five.  Needless to say, Messrs Kantner and Balin did not share this goal, and were determined to become successful as serious artists, like Bob Dylan.

This gig sums up the crossroads that the Airplane had reached.  Although no account or tape of this show survives (to my knowledge), it is clear that the photogenic, tuneful Airplane could have moved over to the Teen circuit quite easily.  Remember that Paul Revere and The Raiders were still appearing weekly on ABC-tv’s Where The Action Is, and many areas had local ‘Shindig’-like TV shows (Shindig itself had been canceled).  Nonetheless, save for a few exceptions like this one the Airplane steadfastly focused on the Fillmore and “serious” shows.   

System of Soul and The Soul Venders were Oakland “teen” bands.

August 26, 1966 Rollarena, San Leandro The Yardbirds, The Harbinger Complex, Peter Wheat & The Breadmen, The Just VI 
This show was presented by Bill Quarry’s Teens And Twenties, and featured a Friday night show (August 25) at San Francisco’s Carousel Ballroom (two years before Bill Graham moved the Fillmore there and called it the Fillmore West).

For a teen show, this was actually quite an inspired booking.  The Yardbirds were a popular British Invasion band, but unlike some British bands the Yardbirds were genuinely special.  This lineup featured Jeff Beck on lead guitar.  The great single “Over Under Sideways Down” had been released in the US in June 1966 and was a big AM hit.  Producer and bassist Paul Samwell-Smith, a key component of the Yardbirds sound, had left the group to become a producer (he would later have big hits producing Cat Stevens).  Replacing him on bass was veteran British session guitarist Jimmy Page. There was a general idea that Page would ultimately switch with rhythm guitarist Chris Dreja, but there had been no time to rehearse.

After a performance at Catalina Island on August 23, the next night in Monterey was canceled, and then Jeff Beck became quite ill.  With no time whatsoever to rehearse, Page took over lead guitarist duties for the Yardbirds on Friday night at the Carousel, with Dreja switching to bass.  Although Beck rejoined soon after, he only stayed a few more months.  Page remained the Yardbirds lead guitarist until the band broke up in July 1968. Its remarkable that Page's Yardbirds debut as lead guitarist came at the future location of the Fillmore West.

The Carousel bill from the night before was repeated at The Rollarena on Satrurday, August 26. The Harbinger Complex and Peter Wheat and The Breadmen were both from Fremont and were punky garage-rock bands.  Both of them released a few singles (Harbinger Complex on Mainstream, The Breadmen on Amber).  The lead singer of The Harbinger Complex was reputedly asked to leave his Fremont high school as a result of causing too many teenage pregnancies.

September 6, 1966 Finnish Brotherhood Hall, Berkeley Wildflower
The Finnish Brotherhood Hall was a tiny building on 1970 Chestnut, just off University. The Wildflower probably had a bit of a following of their own by this time, and could try and headline a small hall.

September 11, 1966 Tilden Park, Berkeley  Blues Project, Country Joe & The Fish
The Blues Project were playing at The Matrix all week, but this was an afternoon show.  Tilden Park was the big city park in Berkeley, in the Berkeley Hills, and regularly used for folk shows.  However, this is the only rock show that I know of at this venue. 

September 13, 1966 Finnish Brotherhood Hall, Berkeley Wildflower

September 17, 1966 Pauley Ballroom, UC Berkeley Quicksilver Messenger Service, Loading Zone
By mid-September, school was back in session, or close to it, and activities started up again in campus buildings. This show at Pauley Ballroom was on a Saturday night. An eyewitness reports that it was poorly attended. At this point, while Quicksilver Messenger Service had a sterling (and well-deserved) underground reputation from the Fillmore and Avalon, they would have been merely a rumor to most students.

September 23, 1966 Rollarena, San Leandro  13th Floor Elevators, Staton Brothers, Elements of Sound
The 13th Floor Elevators were from Austin, TX, and after a pot bust and a hit single they had relocated temporarily to the Bay Area. Since the Elevators had an electrifying effect even on people used to seeing the likes of Quicksilver and The Airplane at the Fillmore, its difficult to comprehend how they may have appeared to a teen audience in the suburbs.  Roky Erikson certainly took as much acid as anyone in San Francisco, and was an intense, weird guy by any standard.  The mystical, intense aspect of the Elevators was plausible at the Fillmore or the Avalon, but very far from a roller rink, so it’s an intriguing question how the band was received in the suburbs.

Staton Brothers and Elements of Sound were both local bands.

September 24, 1966 Veteran’s Memorial Hall, Oakland Deed of Shame, The Friendly Stranger, Motley Crew, Iron Butterfly
This quite obscure gig has nonetheless received a certain amount of attention for having its boxing style poster reproduced in Paul Grushkin's book The Art Of Rock. This gig featured the first known out-of-town gig by the then San Diego based Iron Butterfly.  Veteran’s Memorial Hall, at 200 Grand Avenue, was a tiny hall (capacity a few hundred) across from Children’s Fairyland in Lake Merritt. The venue had been used occasionally for “teen” dances featuring local bands.

Deed of Shame and Motley Crew are unknown to me, although I have seen a photo of the Motley Crew (spelled Mottley Crew in the photo caption) and they may be a Richmond High band.  The poster says “A Beautiful Thing”, but this appears to be the name of the dance (or the promoter), not a band. The Iron Butterfly, then called The Palace Pages, had opened for the Friendly Stranger in the San Diego area, and had been so impressed with the “psychedelic’ vibe that they changed their name. This presumably accounts for an unknown San Diego band appearing at obscure Bay Area venues.

 

The Oakland Veterans Memorial Building, at 200 Grand Avenue, as it appeared in August 2009

September 30, 1966 California Hall Deed of Shame, Universal Joint, Friendly Stranger
Another “A Beautiful Thing” show. As the rock market expanded, the relatively tiny Veterans Memorial Auditorium, with poor parking and far from Berkeley, was shunted aside as a rock venue. To my knowledge it was not used for rock shows after 1966. The building has subsequently been refurbished, and continues to be used for local community events.

Next: East Bay Rock Concerts October-December 1966

Berkeley and East Bay Rock Concerts April-June 1966 (Berkeley III)

This post continues a project listing the major Berkeley and East Bay rock concerts from 1965 to 1969, and is part of our Berkeley Music Project. Previous posts have been

• Berkeley I: October-December 1965
• Berkeley II: January-March 1966

This post lists rock concerts from April to June 1966.

Our interest is in rock bands who played the Fillmore or Avalon during this period. I have tried to define this as broadly as possible, generally including bands who at least wanted to play the Fillmore (even if they didn’t), but I have generally shied away from pop acts. I have included some comments about the bands and venues, where relevant, but they are not exhaustive. I have assumed that anyone who actually reads this knows about, say, The Doors or Bill Graham.

In order to keep the scope of these posts plausible, I have generally refrained from listing shows that only featured local "garage" bands made up of mostly High School students, even though some of them had fairly substantial followings. I have also consciously excluded the popular groups who played teenage dances throughout the East Bay (for Bill Quarry and others) as those scenes have been fairly well documented.

Venues include, but are not limited to

•    Berkeley Community Theater
•    Provo Park, Berkeley
•    Harmon Gym , UC Berkeley
•    Pauley Ballroom, UC Berkeley
•    Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley
•    Oakland Auditorium, Oakland
•    Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland

I have also included events at nearby Maple Hall in San Pablo and The Rollarena in San Leandro when there was a meaningful headliner, but the list is not exhaustive for those two venues. The list does not include performances at East Bay clubs, which we are covering in other lists (currently we have completed The Jabberwock, The Questing Beast, The New Orleans House and The Freight and Salvage, with more to come). Scholars who are more focused on the posters, handbills and more site-specific information about the venues should look on the Berkeley Art page.

Like all scholarship, this project is an ongoing work in development. This information is the most accurate available to us at this time.  Parties with corrections, insights, information or recovered memories should Comment or Email.

Berkeley and East Bay Rock Concerts April-June 1966

April 1, 1966 Harmon Gym, UC Berkeley Jefferson Airplane, The Skins
April 2, 1966 Harmon Gym, UC Berkeley Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Exiles 
Delano Grape Strikers Benefit
I have had to make some assumptions about these shows, as they are usually listed as “April 1-2 Jefferson Airplane/Skins/Quicksilver/Exiles.” I believe it is the way I have it here, however. Unraveling the Berkeley concerts is complicated by the full schedule of rock shows in San Francisco. The Jefferson Airplane were headlining the Fillmore on Friday night (April 1), Saturday night (April 2) and Sunday afternoon (April 3). The Quicksilver Messenger Service were co-billed with the Airplane at the Fillmore on Friday night, and playing a different benefit at the nearby Geary Temple (at 1859 Fillmore) on Saturday night.

There are at least two different circulating handbills that I know of (above), and possibly more. Its remarkable enough that the Airplane were headlining two shows in Berkeley and San Francisco on the same night, but I find it impossible to believe that both Fillmore acts on Friday night were also playing Berkeley--who was going to be playing the Fillmore? That is why I have interpreted the ad to mean that the big Underground bands (the Airplane and Quicksilver) would highlight one show each night.

Even as early as April 1966, Bill Graham would not have wanted his headline act (the Airplane) playing Berkeley without his imprimatur, and Graham’s involvement is tipped by the listing of The Skins. The Skins was an informal name for three conga drummers Graham hired to play between sets (they included lightshow man Jerry Abrams and jazz musician Ulysses Crockett). I assume Graham saw the Airplane’s benefit show as publicity for the Fillmore shows, and given how few people would have actually heard the Airplane, this was very shrewd.

My assumption is that on Friday night, the Airplane played early in Berkeley, while Quicksilver and probably another band opened the Fillmore. The Airplane would have made it over to the Fillmore in ample time for their first set, probably around 10pm.

Meanwhile, Quicksilver could have played in the middle of the Saturday night Harmon Gym show, still leaving them plenty of time to get over to Geary Temple to participate in the Benefit, which probably went until at least 2am. Both events probably had additional performers, as well as speakers, since Cesar Chavez's UFW strike in Delano, CA was an important political cause in Berkeley.

April 6, 1966 Oakland Auditorium Arena, Oakland Paul Revere and The Raiders, Harbinger Complex, English Shillings, Peter Wheat and The Breadmen, The Baytovens, Wm Penn and His Pals
This show was presented by Bill Quarry’s Teens N Twenties Presents and MC’d by KYA dj Johnny Holliday. Quarry usually presented local bands at smaller venues, but periodically he had a big event. Paul Revere and The Raiders were a hugely popular band at the time, appearing almost weekly on ABC-TV's show Where The Action Is. The supporting groups were almost all East Bay “garage” bands popular at Quarry’s dances. The exception was Wm Penn and His Pals, a Paul Revere-styled South Bay band featuring organist Gregg Rolie, later in Santana and Journey.



April 9, 1966  Veterans Memorial Hall, Berkeley The Loading Zone, The Answer
“Trip A-Go-Go”
The Veterans Memorial Hall was a fairly small downtown auditorium at 1931 Center, (between Shattuck and Grove and near the High School). The Loading Zone were an Oakland-based "psychedelic soul" band, perhaps the first. The Answer was a band of Berkeley High School students.

April 15, 1966 Harmon Gym, UC Berkeley Clifton Chenier, Mance Lipscomb, Lighning Hopkins, Muddy Waters and His Chicago Blues Band featuring Otis Spann & James Cotton
Parts of this show were released on an album on Arhoolie Records, featuring Chenier and Lipscomb (who recorded for Arhoolie), from a tape for campus station KAL-fm.

April 15, 1966 The Bear’s Lair, UC Berkeley Bethlehem Exit, The Answer, The Exiles
“Trip Dance”

April 16, 1966 Harmon Gym, UC Berkeley  Butterfield Blues Band, Jefferson Airplane
This was a Bill Graham show. This bill was playing the Fillmore, but instead of a Saturday night Fillmore show, the bill played at Berkeley’s Harmon Gym instead. This may have been a concession to the synagogue next door to the Fillmore.

April 24, 1966 North Field, UC Berkeley Country Joe And The Fish, Malvina Reynolds, Wildflower, Dan Paik, Chris Selsor, Gothic Cathedral Jug Band, Bethlehem Exit
Robert Scheer For Congress Benefit
Bob Scheer was the anti-Vietnam war candidate, running in the Democratic primary. I’m not sure where North Field was. Knowing UC Berkeley, I’m sure it’s a building now.

May 6, 1966 Wurster Hall, UC Berkeley Latin All-Stars, John Handy, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Bethlehem Exit
“Beaux Arts Ball.”
Wurster Hall was the newly-constructed building for the Department of Architecture. The current configuration of the building would not support a dance/concert. However,  I think the building was not fully utilized at the time, so the open architecture of the interior could simulate a ballroom environment.


The Beaux Arts Festival was a week long Arts Festival at the University, and the Friday Night Ball was the culminating event.

May 7, 1966 Harmon Gym, UC Berkeley  Grateful Dead, Jaywalkers, Billy Moses Blues Band
“Peace Rock 3”
The Dead’s performance was reviewed in the UC Berkeley student newspaper (The Daily Cal) by one Jann Wenner, who went on to found Rolling Stone magazine the next year. This was a benefit for The Vietnam Peace Day Committee.  A peculiarity of Berkeley student events was though they were run as commercial enterprises (bands were paid, etc), since University funds were used, no profit could be made by the students, so a charity always had to be designated.

The Charlatans and Great Society opened along with Billy Moses Blues Band (The Charlatans were also playing the Avalon, but they could have played both shows). The Great Society were a Palo Alto based group featuring the inimitable Grace Slick on vocals and keyboards.

The Jaywalkers featured guitarist Charlie Cockey. Billy Moses Blues Band is unknown to me.

May 12, 1966 Pauley Ballroom, UC Berkeley Blues Project
Robert Scheer For Congress Benefit
Pauley Ballroom was a moderate sized Ballroom with a very low ceiling, on the second floor of the new Student Union building on Bancroft and Telegraph (the Bear's Lair was in the Basement). It overlooked both Upper and Lower Sproul Plaza. Student groups apparently could reserve the Ballroom for a relatively token fee, so many events were put on there, even if it doesn't sound that great when the music is loud. Pauley Ballroom has a capacity of several hundred at most.

The Blues Project, from Greenwich Village, were performing around California at this time.

May 14, 1966 Veterans Memorial Hall, Berkeley  Grateful Dead, Final Solution
Berkeley was a principal source of attendees at the Fillmore and Avalon (for obvious reasons), but despite continued efforts no suitable rock venue was ever established in Berkeley. Ironically, the failure to find a suitable venue in Berkeley helped insure the vitality of the San Francisco ballroom scene. Since Harmon Gym was a University facility, it could never take on status as a regular venue (bad sound and poor parking notwithstanding), and the same was true of the Berkeley Community Theater, located at the High School.

The Veterans Hall was (and is) a tiny hall in downtown Berkeley, and bands like The Dead were already too big for this venue, even by this early date. The Final Solution were a San Francisco State band, well connected to the scene and led by Ernie Fosselius. Well regarded by their peers, if undanceable, they were quite embarrassed years later when they figured out why Holocaust survivor Bill Graham only booked the band one time at the Fillmore. Fosselius went on to become a filmmaker, best known for some animated features he created in the early 1970s for Sesame Street.

May 20, 1966 Rollarena, San Leandro Neil Diamond, The Spyders, The Harbinger Complex, Mack and The Uptowners, The Epics  
Bill Quarry's TNT presented Neil Diamond, backed by a local group, The Spyders.  Apparently, Diamond was picked up at the airport by promoter  Quarry, spent a day rehearsing with The Spyders,and was paid $1000. The flyer says “Direct From New York!!! Singing his hit ‘Solitary Man.’” The next night (Saturday May 21) Diamond played Frenchy’s in Hayward where he was backed by the other band on the bill, The Mothers (really). Diamond flew back East after the weekend.

May 21, 1966 Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley Lovin’ Spoonful, Charlatans, Syndicate Of Sound
The Greek Theater was a faux “Greek” Theatre nestled on a hillside at Hearst St and Gayley Rd, on the Berkeley campus, that seated about 8700.  The sound was beautiful and the site was perfect.  The University allowed occasional rock shows in the 60s and early 70s, mostly on Sunday afternoons, but otherwise prevented shows from taking place.  Ironically, this perfect East Bay dance-concert venue was there all along, but UC Berkeley for its own reasons chose to limit access.  The Grateful Dead triumphantly returned to the venue in 1981 and the Greek Theater became a major Bay Area rock venue throughout the 80s.

Sometime in 1966, probably around the time of this show, Lovin Spoonful guitarist Zal Yanofsky was busted in San Francisco for marijuana possession.  The police let him go after he gave up his dealer, who was a member of The Committee.  Yanofsky, a Canadian, was afraid of getting deported and losing his chance at stardom.  Word got around the underground rapidly, however, and Lovin Spoonful was no longer invited to play the Fillmore and The Avalon, and in fact they never played either venue.

Although the Spoonful's records remained successful, it would turn out that the road was the only place for bands to make money.  When Lovin Spoonful was cut out of the nascent underground touring scene, their chance to establish themselves as ‘artists’ like the Airplane or the Blues Project was destroyed.  Zal Yanofsky left the Spoonful once the story broke publicly in Spring, 1967, but the damage had already had been done.  The underground was now strong enough to not only make bands, but also to finish them.

May 27, 1966 Rollarena, San Leandro Them, Peter Wheat and The Breadmen, Canadian Fuzz
Van Morrison and Them were on the typical mid 60s “British Invasion” tour, appearing as headliner on top of numerous local bands.  Them were small change compared to the Dave Clark Five or The Animals, much less the Beatles or the Stones. Nonetheless, Them were very popular in California and were revered by many young musicians, since their immortal “Baby Don’t Please Don’t Go”/”Gloria” single in November 1964. That record had been shockingly raw for 1964 radio.

Van Morrison’s success in the 1970s has left fans with an image of an insular, brooding crooner.  However, in 1966 not only were Them popular as wild rockers with songs like “Gloria” and “Mystic Eyes”, but Van had come out of Irish “Showbands”, which were quite the opposite of Celtic mysticism.  Reports from every city on the 1966 American tour not only tell of how great Van’s singing and music were, but his wild James Brown-style showmanship as well.  The showstopper for Them was a high-octane version of Bobby Blue Bland’s “Turn On Your Lovelight.” Bill Quarry reminisces (in Bruce Tahsler’s book) that Them’s performance had the biggest crowd ever to see a show at the Rollarena, and fans were lined up at 3:00 pm when Quarry’s staff pulled in to set up the show.

Everything changed for Van after this show, in an alley behind the venue, when Van bumped into 19-year old Janet (Planet) Rigsbee, his future wife and the world’s Brown-Eyed Girl.  She had gone to see the show, and was trying to get backstage to meet him afterwards. 

Peter Wheat and The Breadmen were the KYA ”house band”, which suggests that this may have been a KYA sponsored event.  The Canadian Fuzz were apparently actually Canadians who lived in California.

May 28, 1966  Community Theater, Berkeley Simon & Garfunkel

June 26, 1966  Oakland Auditorium Arena, Oakland  Them, The Association, The Grass Roots, The Baytovens, The Wildflower, The Harbinger Complex, William Penn and His Pals
Leander Productions Presents
This was another big "Teen" show, featuring a wide variety of groups playing brief sets. Note, however, that Oakland's psychedelic Wildflower were on the bill along with various teen bands. The Grass Roots were Fillmore and Avalon regulars (for complicated reasons), and Them would play some historic shows at the Fillmore a few days after this event. So while this Oakland Auditorium show was in many ways typical of teen rock shows throughout the country, the migration of rock music from radio "entertainment" to Fillmore-style "Art" was already happening.

Next: East Bay Concerts July-September 1966

Berkeley and East Bay Rock Concerts January-March 1966 (Berkeley II)

This post continues a project listing the major Berkeley and East Bay rock concerts from 1965 to 1969, and is part of our Berkeley Music Project. Our first entry listed rock concerts in Berkeley and the East Bay from October to December 1965. This post lists rock concerts from January to March 1966.

Our interest is in rock bands who played the Fillmore or Avalon during this period. I have tried to define this as broadly as possible, generally including bands who at least wanted to play the Fillmore (even if they didn’t), but I have generally shied away from pop acts. I have included some comments about the bands and venues, where relevant, but they are not exhaustive. I have assumed that anyone who actually reads this knows about, say, The Doors or Bill Graham.

In order to keep the scope of these posts plausible, I have generally refrained from listing shows that only featured local "garage" bands made up of mostly High School students, even though some of them had fairly substantial followings. I have also consciously excluded the popular groups who played teenage dances throughout the East Bay (for Bill Quarry and others) as those scenes have been fairly well documented.

Venues include, but are not limited to

•    Berkeley Community Theater
•    Provo Park, Berkeley
•    Harmon Gym , UC Berkeley
•    Pauley Ballroom, UC Berkeley
•    Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley
•    Oakland Auditorium, Oakland
•    Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland

I have also included events at nearby Maple Hall in San Pablo and The Rollarena in San Leandro when there was a meaningful headliner, but the list is not exhaustive for those two venues. The list does not include performances at East Bay clubs, which we are covering in other lists (currently we have completed The Jabberwock, The Questing Beast, The New Orleans House and The Freight and Salvage, with more to come). Scholars who are more focused on the posters, handbills and more site-specific information about the venues should look on the Berkeley Art page.

Like all scholarship, this project is an ongoing work in development. This information is the most accurate available to us at this time.  Parties with corrections, insights, information or recovered memories should Comment or Email.

Berkeley and East Bay Rock Concerts, January-March 1966

In 1966, Berkeley concerts were a mixture of popular folk and pop acts and small, strange underground events of uneven quality. Almost any available hall or room that could be rented was tried at one time or another for a rock venue.

January 14, 1966 Open Theater, Berkeley The Loading Zone
January 15, 1966 Open Theater, Berkeley  Big Brother & The Holding Company
Open Theater Benefit

The Open Theater was an experimental theater group in Berkeley, on 2976 College Avenue (at Elmwood). The troupe did shows that would now be called ‘Performance Art’, with light shows and music.  They auditioned to perform at Mother’s (at 430 Broadway in San Francisco), but Tom Donahue declared that they had “too much nudity” for Broadway. The Open Theater, while well-regarded, was never financially successful, and so they began to put on musical events.

The Loading Zone were based on East 14th Street in Oakland, and were a white group playing R&B music with psychedelic lead guitar. They were a rare band that played both East Bay soul venues and Bay Area psychedelic ballrooms.  Big Brother and The Holding Company were a San Francisco band managed by local scenemaker Chet Helms. One of the nude performers at the Open Theater had been Chet Helms housekeeper.

Helms had been putting on Wednesday night events in the basement, and the band of residents played in the basement. Chet Helms invited neighbor Bill Ham (from 1839 Pine and the Red Dog ) to put on light shows, and groups like the nascent Big Brother performed. At the ‘rent parties,’ visitors contributed what they could. Peter Albin’s parents owned the rooming house at 1090 Page, and his older brother Rodney managed the building.

The Open Theater performance was Big Brother and The Holding Company’s first advertised show, where the public was invited.  The band’s lineup was James Gurley (guitar), Sam Andrew (guitar, vocals), Peter Albin (bass, vocals) and Chuck Jones (drums).

January 28, 1966 Open Theater, Berkeley Congress Of Wonders, Ned’s Mob
January 29, 1966 Open Theater, Berkeley Loading Zone
Congress of Wonders were a comedy trio who were a regular part of The Open Theater. Ned’s Mob are unknown to me.

Februrary 25, 1966 Community Theater, Berkeley The Byrds, The Dillards
The show was billed as a ‘Byrds Bash.’ It was a benefit to raise money for The Board of Control Treasury (supposedly $1000 was raised, according to Byrds chronologist Christopher Hjort). The Byrds had their original 5-piece lineup with Gene Clark. Their second album Turn, Turn, Turn had been released in December, 1965 and the single reached Number 1 soon after.

The Dillards, a bluegrass group from Missouri, whose exceptional chops had made them modestly successful in Hollywood (they were best known as ‘The Darling Family’ on The Andy Griffith Show), had electrified their bluegrass sound. They played electric instruments, like The Byrds, and had Dewey Martin on drums. Shortly after these shows, they would dispense with Martin’s services (he would join the newly formed Buffalo Springfield) and return to a more traditional bluegrass format.

March 25, 1966 The Bear’s Lair, UC Berkeley The Wildflower, Bethlehem Exit, Frantic Folk-Kick
The Bear’s Lair was a coffee shop in the basement of the Student Union building at Bancroft and Telegraph. Shows were presented there intermittently. The show also featured movies from “Kesey’s Trip” and “Sassy Sophie from El Cid” (presumably a burlesque dancer). Wildflower were an Oakland band, formed at the California College of Arts and Crafts, and Bethlehem Exit were a Los Altos band, formed at Foothill College. I’m not clear whether “Frantic Folk-Kick” was a band or the theme of the event—probably the latter.

March 25, 1966  Harmon Gym, UC Berkeley  Jefferson Airplane, Mystery Trend, Morning Fog
“Vietnam Day Committee Peace Trip”
Harmon Gym was the UC Berkeley basketball venue. By modern standards, it was quite small, only holding a few thousand people. It has since been replaced by a much larger structure with the same name at the same location.

The poster for this show bills it as a ‘Rock & Roll Dance Benefit.’  It must have been University sanctioned, and almost certainly University funded student entertainment. The Airplane’s willingness to play gigs at Berkeley accompanying political events endeared them to Bay Area college students.  Political commitment was something that separated San Francisco bands from ‘straight’ entertainers.

California colleges (and probably most or all American colleges and universities) could not legally allow student events to profit, formally speaking. As a result, any excess funds had to be dedicated to some charity. That is why all UC concerts at the time generally list a non-profit beneficiary on the poster. Its a reasonable assumption that all the bands got paid, and its not at all certain that much (or any) money was necessarily raised for the designated charity.

March 25, 1966 Oakland Auditorium Arena, Oakland Kingston Trio, We Five
We Five were a Bay Area folk-rock group who shared management with The Kingston Trio.

March 26, 1966 Harmon Gym, UC Berkeley Bill Cosby, Ian and Sylvia
The next night was more typical student entertainment. Bill Cosby was a hip, if straight comedian. A local group called Womenfolk may have replaced Ian and Sylvia on the bill.

Next: East Bay Rock Concerts April-June 1966

Berkeley and East Bay Rock Concerts October-December 1965 (Berkeley I)

This post begins a project listing the major Berkeley and East Bay rock concerts from 1965 to 1969, and is part of our Berkeley Music Project. This post is focused on the first rock concerts in the East Bay in later 1965.

Our interest is in rock bands who played the Fillmore or Avalon during this period. I have tried to define this as broadly as possible, generally including bands who at least wanted to play the Fillmore (even if they didn’t), but I have generally shied away from pop acts. I have included some comments about the bands and venues, where relevant, but they are not exhaustive. I have assumed that anyone who actually reads this knows about, say, The Doors or Bill Graham.

In order to keep the scope of these posts plausible, I have generally refrained from listing shows that only featured local "garage" bands made up of mostly High School students, even though some of them had fairly substantial followings. I have also consciously excluded the popular groups who played teenage dances throughout the East Bay (for Bill Quarry and others) as those scenes have been fairly well documented.

Venues include, but are not limited to

•    Berkeley Community Theater
•    Provo Park, Berkeley
•    Harmon Gym , UC Berkeley
•    Pauley Ballroom, UC Berkeley
•    Greek Theatre, UC Berkeley
•    Oakland Auditorium, Oakland
•    Oakland Coliseum Arena, Oakland

I have also included events at nearby Maple Hall in San Pablo and The Rollarena in San Leandro when there was a meaningful headliner, but the list is not exhaustive for those two venues. The list does not include performances at East Bay clubs, which we are covering in other lists (currently we have completed The Jabberwock, The Questing Beast, The New Orleans House and The Freight and Salvage, with more to come). Scholars who are more focused on the posters, handbills and more site-specific information about the venues should look on the Berkeley Art page.

Like all scholarship, this project is an ongoing work in development. This information is the most accurate available to us at this time.  Parties with corrections, insights, information or recovered memories should Comment or Email.

East Bay Rock Pre-History: 1965
In the fall of 1965, the first rumblings of the psychedelic rock underground were felt in San Francisco. The initial Family Dog event was held at Longshoreman’s Hall in San Francisco on October 16, 1965. Berkeley and San Francisco had been linked closely for about 100 years, and this was no exception. The first marks of pyschedelia were visible in 1966 as well.

October 30, 1965  Harmon Gym, UC Berkeley  Larry Hankin/Jefferson Airplane
This show was bassist Jack Casady’s first show with the Airplane, replacing Bob Harvey. Casady considered the Airplane unprofessional and unrehearsed.  Harmon Gym was the UC Berkeley basketball arena (the current Harmon Gym is at the same location, but its a new, much larger facility).

The University of California had a substantial budget for student entertainment, and enterprising students could get on the appropriate school committees and invite who they wanted.  Folk and jazz artists played Harmon Gym regularly, and the Airplane were probably considered a "folk" act. Larry Hankin was a featured player at The Committee, and he was the headliner. The poster says “Presented by Local 1570, AFT”.

November 5, 1965  2000 Life Sciences Building, UC Berkeley  The Fugs/Allen Ginsberg/Country Joe and The Fish
Presented by The Pretentious Folk Front
Transient members of the Instant Action Jug Band played their first show where admission was charged outside of their home base, the Jabberwock.  They were billed as Country Joe and The Fish, since the name was somewhat identifiable as a result of the Rag Baby record. Barry Melton played electric guitar in public for the first time, and Richard Saunders played bass. Barry recalls We played with Richard, as a trio, for a number of gigs in that period including, but not limited to, a gig in the City at the Coffee Gallery and at least one, if not two, at the Cabale (Ed: it would be called the Questing Beast at this time).

Berkeley was a hotbed of activism and excitement, but there were no gigs outside of coffee shops.  The Pretentious Folk Front was a joke organization of ED Denson and others created for the sole purpose of getting access to a University venue, using bassist Richard Saunders (then a student) as a front man.  2000 LSB was a 300-seat lecture hall well-known to Berkeley students. Unlike San Francisco, Berkeley lacked any unused ballrooms or easily available commercial buildings, so campus venues were initially the most likely candidates for rock concerts.

The Fugs were a political New York folk-rock group who sang songs like “Kill For Peace”.  Their members included future author Ed Sanders (Helter Skelter) and the infamous Tuli Kupferberg, and their touring ensemble included Holy Modal Rounder Steve Weber (as well as drummer Ken Weaver). The Fugs were doing a tour of college campuses and other political hotspots. Allen Ginsberg was the legendary Beat poet, of course, and regularly appeared at political events.

November 27, 1965  Peter Voulkos Studios, Berkeley Mystery Trend
Peter Voulkos was an artist in Berkeley, and this event was more like a private party at his studio on 1306 3rd Street (at Gilman). 3rd Street, now a trendy shopping district, was a largely deserted industrial area near the San Francisco Bay. The Mystery Trend (named after a mis-heard Bob Dylan lyric) featured artist/musician Ron Nagle, among others.

December 3-4, 1965 Community Theater, Berkeley Bob Dylan
The Berkeley Community Theater at 1930 Allston (at Mivia) was a 3,500 seat auditorium. It was both a civic building and part of the Berkeley High School campus. It was regularly available for rent, but its public function insured that it could never be any sort of permanent venue, as it had no concessions or parking, and generally insisted on a curfew of 11:00 pm or midnight.

Bob Dylan brought his electric band to Berkeley, where he was enthusiastically received (unlike on the East Coast).  Dylan played an acoustic set and then a 40 minute electric set backed by The Hawks, who would become The Band some years later (although session drummer Bobby Gregg had temporarily replaced Levon Helm). The electric set of December 4 circulates as a bootleg (often called Long Distance Operator).

December 30, 1965  Oakland Auditorium Arena, Oakland Beach Boys, The Turtles, Jackie Lee, others
The Oakland Auditorium Arena was at 10 Tenth Street, and had been the main venue for Oakland events since it was built in 1913. The Arena had a capacity of about 7000. Everyone from Buffalo Bill to Elvis Presley had appeared there. The Beach Boys were a huge act, and the Turtles were popular as well. This would have been a typical, if high profile, rock show at the time.

The Turtles had already headlined in the East Bay, at a "Teen" dance club headquartered at the Golden Gate Fields horse track in Albany, but Teen "Go-Go" dances were a slightly different animal than rock concerts.

December 31, 1965 Rollarena, San Leandro Peter Wheat and The Breadmen, Emeralds
One of the principal promoters of Teen shows in the East Bay (and indeed the whole Bay Area) was Bill Quarry.  He promoted many shows in the East Bay, and a fair share in San Francisco, usually under the name Teens and Twenties (TNT).  The typical teen show had a headline act with hit on the radio, and several local acts in support.

One of Bill Quarry’s main East Bay venues was The Rollarena, a roller skating rink in San Leandro (10 miles south of Oakland) at 15721 East 14th Street.  Roller skating rinks, like ballrooms, were left-over bits of architecture that could be converted for use by rock and roll (and in some cases were converted ballrooms in the first place).  Many roller skating arenas had terrible sound and were not remembered fondly by musicians or fans.  Many British Invasion bands played shows like these throughout the United States, supported by local acts.

Quarry had been booking and promoting shows at various smaller halls around the East Bay (including Carpenter’s Hall in Hayward), but established an agreement to promote shows at the Rollarena in San Leandro on Friday nights, starting on New Year’s Eve 1965/66. The Rollarena was a skating rink most of the week, and Quarry’s staff took it over at 5 pm on Friday nights and converted it to a concert venue, and broke it down after midnight. Groups played ‘dances’ every weekend, sometimes headlined by popular out-of-town acts.

Next: East Bay rock concerts January-March 1966

New Orleans House Performance List August 1969

We have created an extensive list of performers at Berkeley's New Orleans House from the years of 1966 to 1969. However, we still have some periodic gaps. As a result of some research I have been doing, I now have a list of performers at the New Orleans House for August 1969, and I am presenting it here without comment.

August 1-2, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA Phoenix, Freedom Highway

August 3, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA Fourth Way

August 5-6, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA Maximum Speed Limit

August 8-9, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA Sons Of Champlin, South Bay Experimental Flash

August 10, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA The Fourth Way

August 13-14, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA The Crabs
August 13-14, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA The Crabs, Congress Of Wonders

August 17, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA The Fourth Way

August 19-21, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA Sea Train

August 22-23, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA Elvin Bishop, Mother Bear

August 24, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA Fourth Way

August 27-28, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA Mendelbaum

August 29-30, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA Loading Zone, Fast Bucks

August 31, 1969 New Orleans House, Berkeley, CA The Fourth Way

We will add these to the full list when the opportunity presents itself.

September 16, 1969 - Hot Tuna at the New Orleans House, 1505 San Pablo Avenue, Berkeley, CA

In September 1969 Hot Tuna were scheduled for a three day run at Berkeley's New Orleans House. Jorma and Jack, as billed were joined on harmonica by local denizen Will Scarlett on harmonica and support was provided by the all-girl band the Ace of Cups (on the 16th) and the redoubtable Mt. Rushmore (on the 17th the 18th) who were concluding their career at that time.

The tape box shown above is in the ownership of Jeff Gold or Record Mecca. Jeff has it up for sale at present at what is a remarkably low fee - particulary given that is an alternate mix given to Ralph J Gleason.

The New Orleans House was located at 1505, San Pablo in West Berkeley. Kitty Griffin, the proprietor, taught handicapped children by day across the street and ran the club at night. The club was open from August 1966 to 1975 as a restaurant and music venue, shifting quickly from the traditional jazz that gave it its name to a rock venue. While the New Orleans House always had a diverse mixture of music, including blues and zydeco, its principal focus was on rock. Rock bands playing original music dominated the bookings, and there was usually a light show on weekends. Bands that were 2nd or 3rd on the bill at The Fillmore or The Avalon would headline at the New Orleans House, and newer bands would get their start there also. Since the concept of “Roots” or “Americana” had not yet been invented, the New Orleans House was known as a “Music” club. In the mid 70s, the new Orleans House briefly becomes West Dakota.

The first night was the basis for the first Hot Tuna album, with Jorma and Jack playing acoustic along with Will Scarlett on harmonica. The show was advertised as Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassidy [sic] recording for RCA. The favourite remains the tribute to the recently late Steve Mann - Mann's Fate.