#34690 - 01/28/10 12:52 AM
Rabbit! Rabbit!
[Re: MatthewJ1]
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Michael A.Aquino
veteran member
Registered: 09/28/08
Posts: 1247
Loc: San Francisco, CA, USA
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Dr. Aquino if you state that you saw Airplane or Hendrix or The Dead at the Fillmore than I shall be terribly jealous.
Back before the Fillmore, actually, when the action was at the Matrix in the Marina - interestingly just across the street from the historic "6" art gallery, where the famous Ginsberg public reading of "Howl" occurred in 1955. Must be the neighborhood. Marty Balin owned the Matrix, and the Airplane came together as its "house band", but it was very amorphic & experimental. Grace was originally with another of the bands there, the Great Society, then went over to the Airplane. My family later bought the Matrix from Balin and leased it to the Pierce Street Annex, but it took me years to collector-place some of the memorabilia, backdrops, and murals still stored there. I sold the building to the PSA in 1986, and today it is once again "The Matrix", but nothing like its original self.
The Fillmore & the Avalon weren't my cup of tea: too impersonal, too much psychological distance between performers & audiences. Not to mention the strange mixed aroma of sandalwood, jasmine, musk, and did I mention hemp? But I think most native San Franciscans will tell you that they began to distance themselves from the Bill Graham-era commercialism about the time Scott McKenzie began inviting everyone in. 
Am also into Hunter Thompson’s coverage of the 72 presidential election.
Way back before then, in the early 60s, he was a caretaker at Esalen, which I guess is where things started to get funky, or Gonzo as the case may be, and he went after first the Hells Angels, then Las Vegas, then Richard Nixon. There's a moral there somewhere.  I last saw Hunter at UCSB around 67-68, I think it was, and was never quite certain how much of his Uncle Duke persona was an act for the fun of it. He was, of course, an extremely competent and hard-working journalist.
_________________________
Michael A. Aquino
[On Ignore: Dan_Dread, 6Satan6Archist6, Caladrius, MindFux]
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#34727 - 01/28/10 09:53 AM
Re: Rabbit! Rabbit!
[Re: Michael A.Aquino]
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Jake999
senior member
Registered: 11/02/08
Posts: 2174
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The Fillmore & the Avalon weren't my cup of tea: too impersonal, too much psychological distance between performers & audiences.
I know exactly what you mean. I spent most of the early 70's overseas, came back for a 3 year tour at Travis during the mid 70's then back to Europe. But during the time I was in California then, it was a choice. You COULD go to the Fillmore, or another venue in the area to hear great music, OR you could enjoy the outdoor concerts even more and be part of "the scene" with the people, the music and all that went with that. I was probably in the minority of clean and sober people at the events.
And that carried on all the way from the great days of Janis Joplin with the Full Tilt Boogie Band or Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jimi Hendrix, The James Gang, Butterfield Blues Band, Chambers Brothers, etc., all the way up to the Day On The Green series of concerts with the 80's groups at various arenas in the Bay Area. The music was good in the box, but GREAT in the open air.
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Bury your dead, pick up your weapon and soldier on.
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#34747 - 01/28/10 04:55 PM
Highway 101 Revisited
[Re: MatthewJ1]
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Michael A.Aquino
veteran member
Registered: 09/28/08
Posts: 1247
Loc: San Francisco, CA, USA
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My one and only encounter with Bob Dylan was terrifying.
New Year's Eve, around 65-67 can't remember specifically. I was at a party of a sound-system genius in Palo Alto who was a pioneer in the use of mica. In his living room he had two mica-covered towers which acted as unbelievable speakers but would fry you if you touched them. Anyway BD was also there, and somewhere in Palo Alto is a commemorative toilet seat whose underside we all signed. 
Later in the evening we were admiring our host's Shelby 427 Cobra - a very rare car in those days - and he invited BD to take me for a ride. Wow! Except that he took the thing out onto the Bayshore Freeway and floored it. Cobras go much faster than the 65mph speed limit. This was around midnight on new year's eve, and the CHP was out en masse. I knew we were going to get stopped, and because he was a big star nothing would happen to him, but I was going to be stomped. Miraculously we got back safely and uninterruptedly. Talk about a mixed-metaphor experience.
_________________________
Michael A. Aquino
[On Ignore: Dan_Dread, 6Satan6Archist6, Caladrius, MindFux]
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