Speaker 1: Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
Speaker 1: My guest today is David Ryper. David, there's a Mickey
Speaker 1: Thomas Starship and you're the Jefferson Starship. Explain to me
Speaker 1: what's going on here.
Speaker 2: Oh okay, that sounds a bit confusing. Okay, So there
Speaker 2: was a Jefferson Starship and that was Paul Cantner. Actually,
Speaker 2: Paul Kntnor, Grace Slick and I were starting it kind
Speaker 2: of because we we were what was left of Jefferson,
Speaker 2: part of what was left of Jefferson Airplane when they
Speaker 2: decided not to be Jefferson Airplane anymore. And we had
Speaker 2: recorded a couple of albums and we thought we need
Speaker 2: to go out on the road, and we didn't know
Speaker 2: what to call it. And so I'm going way back
Speaker 2: to the beginning here.
Speaker 1: So well, actually I'd like to go back to the beginning. Leader, Okay,
Speaker 1: let's just talk.
Speaker 2: I gotcha right now.
Speaker 1: My understandings, there's two acts, and why are the two
Speaker 1: acts and what is the difference?
Speaker 2: Okay. Paul Kantner restarted Jefferson's Starship in the nineties after
Speaker 2: it was did not exist for the for the for
Speaker 2: the five last five years of the eighties, it became Starship.
Speaker 2: But then at the end of that Starship ceased to exist.
Speaker 2: So Paul thought, well, a fine time, just restart and
Speaker 2: do what I want to do, what I've always loved
Speaker 2: to do, So we restarted Jefferson Starship. So Mickey Thomas
Speaker 2: was the lead singer in Starship. He wanted something to do.
Speaker 2: So I do not know anything for a fact here.
Speaker 2: I assume that he so going against all the legal
Speaker 2: things he managed to I guess he could call it
Speaker 2: Starship featuring Mickey Thomas or Mickey Thomas's Starship, and they
Speaker 2: would let him do that. But meanwhile, there's this other
Speaker 2: Jefferson Starship that was existing with Paul Kantner right along
Speaker 2: the way, and this band is what is left. We
Speaker 2: were all in the final version of Jefferson Starship when
Speaker 2: Paul passed away in twenty sixteen.
Speaker 1: Okay, if I go to see Jefferson Starship and you
Speaker 1: do many gigs on the road, what material am I
Speaker 1: going to hear?
Speaker 2: Stuff from the whole Jefferson Starship, airplane even Starship era.
Speaker 2: We'll do it all, Okay, I don't know whether you're
Speaker 2: actually going to hear every single song we ever did.
Speaker 2: That would be impossible, but yeah, we do it from
Speaker 2: all the eras.
Speaker 1: And do you do the same set every night when
Speaker 1: you have like a run of dates or do you
Speaker 1: vary it up?
Speaker 2: We vary it up. I mean that all depends on
Speaker 2: what we're doing, meaning what Okay, Well, say we were
Speaker 2: going out opening up for bt O and UH and
Speaker 2: Uh Marshall Tucker and so we only had a half
Speaker 2: hours being the opening band for this last little bit,
Speaker 2: and so we just had it. We did do the
Speaker 2: same set there because we picked the songs, the songs
Speaker 2: that they thought that the audience would have to hear.
Speaker 2: So we fit squeeze seven songs into a half an hour.
Speaker 2: So it's pretty good.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm interesting because it's a big catalog and I'm
Speaker 1: familiar with it. What are the sevens I could guess,
Speaker 1: But what are the seven songs people have to hear?
Speaker 2: Well? I don't know this. This are the ones we
Speaker 2: came up with that we could fit, we could piece
Speaker 2: together that would would work. Okay, what did we do?
Speaker 2: We did find your way back? We did miracles. Then
Speaker 2: we did Nothing's going to stop us now? And we
Speaker 2: did uh why rabbit and we did. We built this city,
Speaker 2: and we did Jane, and then we did Somebody to Love.
Speaker 2: If we were lucky, it had ended before thirty minutes.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're eighty six years old, Yeah, soon to turn
Speaker 1: eighty seven. What is keeping you on the road.
Speaker 2: These people that are in the band right now, that
Speaker 2: we get along so well, and the whole thing. When
Speaker 2: Paul passed away, we said, well, now what are we
Speaker 2: going to do? We love each other so much, and
Speaker 2: Grace and Grace Slick decided that she thought she thought
Speaker 2: the band should go on, and she and she had
Speaker 2: the key to the highway, so she gave us the license.
Speaker 1: Well, you've been doing this for sixty almost years at
Speaker 1: almost sixty. What is the difference going out at eighty
Speaker 1: as opposed to twenty six?
Speaker 2: Well, I can move around a little better back when
Speaker 2: I was twenty six. I'm a little slower, I say,
Speaker 2: I don't know. I can still sing knock on wood.
Speaker 1: Let me ask questions a little. A lot of people
Speaker 1: don't live to eighty six. There are people who are
Speaker 1: totally spried Cochin and able into their nineties. Their acts
Speaker 1: on the road today in their late seventies were on
Speaker 1: the road and can't sing. I guess what I'm saying
Speaker 1: is so many people are plagued by health proms. You're
Speaker 1: obviously talking to me, But you've lived so long. Is
Speaker 1: it because the luck of the genes? Or is it
Speaker 1: because you take such good care of yourself? What explains
Speaker 1: your spryness.
Speaker 2: I go with the former, the luck of the genes,
Speaker 2: because I haven't particularly taken very good care of myself.
Speaker 2: I mean, I do, you know, I do go to
Speaker 2: the gym and work out now to to keep my
Speaker 2: you know, my you know, my self, you know, torso safe,
Speaker 2: you know, keep it in shape. But other than that,
Speaker 2: I mean I try to eat a sensible diet, and
Speaker 2: not that I don't have any problems I have. I
Speaker 2: have a I have an artificial heart valve, you know,
Speaker 2: but it seems to be working.
Speaker 1: Since where you know, you're doing great. It's like my
Speaker 1: doctor says, all of his patients who lived to ninety
Speaker 1: have had at least one bout of cancer. Have you
Speaker 1: had cancer?
Speaker 2: I just had a couple of lymph nodes that had
Speaker 2: ever removed, But knock on wood, I don't have any now.
Speaker 1: So what pills do you take every day? And how
Speaker 1: many pills.
Speaker 2: Oh, I take about I don't know, two, three, four,
Speaker 2: about five six pills twice a day something like that.
Speaker 1: Okay, there are a lot of people who say, I
Speaker 1: don't want to take pills, and going back to my
Speaker 1: doctor again, is you take the pills. They're going to
Speaker 1: keep you alive. They're doing things. You have a viewpoint
Speaker 1: on the pills at all.
Speaker 2: Well, my only only thing I can I can fathom
Speaker 2: is that they are keeping me alive because I ain't dead.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: Okay, how old did your parents live to?
Speaker 2: Mom made it to ninety two and dad made it
Speaker 2: to eighty eight.
Speaker 1: Okay, not the same in my family. But you do
Speaker 1: have good genes. Okay, when you live to eighty six,
Speaker 1: a lot of friends pass away before you do. How
Speaker 1: do you metabolize that? How do you cope with it?
Speaker 2: You have to accept it? And I don't know. I've
Speaker 2: I tend to accept that. The universe, I'm not I'm
Speaker 2: not sure the law of conservation of energy, you know,
Speaker 2: if if it exists, it's going to exist in another
Speaker 2: form somehow, nothing disappears, you know, it's either mass or
Speaker 2: it's energy, and and so I don't know. I don't know.
Speaker 2: I have yet to find out, I suppose. Okay, So
Speaker 2: if I find out I've forgotten.
Speaker 1: Other than your bandmates, do you have a best friend
Speaker 1: someone you can call or if some of those people
Speaker 1: passed away and you've had to switch to another person.
Speaker 2: A lot of them passed away, sure, most of them.
Speaker 1: Wow, Okay, let's go back to the beginning. So where
Speaker 1: are you from originally?
Speaker 2: Well? I was born in Boston, And what did would
Speaker 2: your parents do for a living in Boston? My dad
Speaker 2: came from a fairly wealthy family and it was right
Speaker 2: in the in the during the depression, so they seem
Speaker 2: to have kept him in Harvard for the whole depression.
Speaker 2: And when I was born, I think I think he
Speaker 2: had he has four Harvard degrees, so it makes me
Speaker 2: think that he couldn't figure out what else to do
Speaker 2: and he ended up being an attorney. I think he
Speaker 2: was working for the New England Dairy Farmers or something.
Speaker 2: He was their attorney.
Speaker 1: Then how do you meet your mother? What was her story?
Speaker 2: They were both from Cincinnati and they I don't know,
Speaker 2: they ran into each other and I and I believe
Speaker 2: dad's college roommate married my mom's sister.
Speaker 1: So okay, So how long did you live in Boston?
Speaker 2: Only until I was about this Second World War? My
Speaker 2: dad went in the Navy and my mom went back
Speaker 2: to live with their parents in Cincinnati.
Speaker 1: Okay, do you have any memories of that era?
Speaker 2: Yeah? I few still linger tell me, Oh, I remember,
Speaker 2: you know, saving saving cans and things like that for
Speaker 2: for for the war effort. Yeah. Uh. And terrible stories
Speaker 2: that came back being Jewish RADI stories came back, you know.
Speaker 1: So the war ends, then what happens?
Speaker 2: Uh? I was I end up? I end up? Uh?
Speaker 2: My dad was an in the Attu Island for most
Speaker 2: of the war, just the Boer War he called it.
Speaker 2: Nothing ever happened. And then the then before he got discharged,
Speaker 2: they stationed it in North Carolina, and I'd had one
Speaker 2: to the second grade in North Carolina. And then when
Speaker 2: he got discharged, we moved back to Cincinnati, which is
Speaker 2: where I stayed until I moved out here in nineteen
Speaker 2: fifty nine.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're living in Cincinnati. You have brothers and sisters,
Speaker 1: two brothers and a sister. Yes, And where are you
Speaker 1: in the hierarchy.
Speaker 2: I'm the oldest, the oldest.
Speaker 1: All the hopes and dreams were in you.
Speaker 2: They're all still here. I don't know whether his hopes
Speaker 2: and dreams. I thought he thought he was going to
Speaker 2: get a doctor or a lawyer or something.
Speaker 1: What have your siblings been up to? What would their
Speaker 1: lives look like?
Speaker 2: My brother was an advertising art director for all of
Speaker 2: his life, and I know he's kind, but they're all
Speaker 2: into They're all into music a little bit. I mean
Speaker 2: he plays viola and string quartets, as did eye when
Speaker 2: I was in high school.
Speaker 1: But okay, you're going to school, what kind of kid
Speaker 1: and what kind of student? Were you?
Speaker 2: Terrible? I didn't get along with my father. He expected
Speaker 2: me to hit the books. Because I think I've looked.
Speaker 2: I kind of learned that that he uh he didn't
Speaker 2: do well in school, but he got into Harvard anyway,
Speaker 2: and he and then he learned to buckle down and
Speaker 2: get things done, thus the four Harvard degrees. But uh
Speaker 2: so he wanted me to and I completely revolted it,
Speaker 2: and I must I do not remember doing this on purpose,
Speaker 2: but I did terribly in high school. He really wanted
Speaker 2: me to go to Harvard, but there was no way
Speaker 2: that I was. I couldn't make myself do homework. But
Speaker 2: I was very interested. I was playing in the orchestra.
Speaker 2: I was playing, you know, in high school. I played
Speaker 2: violin and viola and the orchestra and string quartets. It
Speaker 2: was pretty good for a high school guy. But I
Speaker 2: wasn't prodigy or anything.
Speaker 1: Where did the music come from? There was there music
Speaker 1: in the house.
Speaker 2: Constantly he played. They played classical music, and he liked
Speaker 2: He liked Benny Goodman, he liked Lewis Armstrong and all
Speaker 2: the Broadway hits. They were always playing and we could
Speaker 2: sing them all, you know, all the kids.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're of an age you could remember the birth
Speaker 1: of rock and roll. Can you tell me your first
Speaker 1: experience of hearing Rocket eighty eight or Rock around the Clock?
Speaker 1: And you know, did you like it? Did you dislike it?
Speaker 2: I did like it, but it was so frowned upon
Speaker 2: in my house. I mean, I could not get a guitar.
Speaker 2: I really wanted a guitar, but I could never I
Speaker 2: never bought one until I had moved to San Francisco,
Speaker 2: and I was by about almost twenty two, I think,
Speaker 2: before I bought my first guitar.
Speaker 1: Okay, you graduate from high school, then what do you
Speaker 1: do in Cincinnati?
Speaker 2: I went to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.
Speaker 1: And did you graduate?
Speaker 2: No? I I changed my major every semester.
Speaker 1: How many years did you go to Miami?
Speaker 2: I got three and a half. I think I got
Speaker 2: I had one hundred and twenty units, but they were
Speaker 2: all in different places, and it had taken me another
Speaker 2: three years to graduate to get a major. And I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I'm going to end up being an English major, and
Speaker 2: what am I going to do with that, you know?
Speaker 2: And so I just I spent the whole time kind
Speaker 2: of trying. First thing, my father said, you got to
Speaker 2: be a scientist or or you know, or something, because
Speaker 2: science is what's coming, you know. And so I try
Speaker 2: and I failed. That is so I spent most of
Speaker 2: my time screwing around, acting in place in the drama department,
Speaker 2: but I took no classes in drama and singing and
Speaker 2: singing in the choir and the and the Menscale club.
Speaker 2: But I took no classes in music, even though I
Speaker 2: had been recruited there by the head of the viola
Speaker 2: department when I played viola in high school to go
Speaker 2: there to study music. But music was nothing a good
Speaker 2: Jewish boy was supposed to do unless you were David,
Speaker 2: you know. Unless you were pick one, you hooty menu
Speaker 2: and I don't know.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're there in Miami. I assume on your
Speaker 1: father's dollar.
Speaker 2: Right, absolutely wasting every penny of it.
Speaker 1: Okay, how do you decide to drop out? And what
Speaker 1: does your father say?
Speaker 2: Oh? We we ended up not talking mostly, you know.
Speaker 2: I rebelled and I married the Catholic girl, my Catholic
Speaker 2: girlfriend from college, and we got married and we just
Speaker 2: knuck out of town and moved to San Francisco.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's back up. Tell me about meeting this woman
Speaker 1: and getting married.
Speaker 2: I don't know things happened.
Speaker 1: How'd you decide to get married?
Speaker 2: Oh? I don't know. That part is pretty doesn't remain
Speaker 2: with me very much anymore.
Speaker 1: Okay. How long were you married to that woman?
Speaker 2: Until a year after we got to San Francisco.
Speaker 1: Okay, so you're with this woman? Why san Francisco.
Speaker 2: I know when I was about a teenager, all of
Speaker 2: us piled in a car and shrove all through the
Speaker 2: United States. And when we came into San Francisco one summer, right,
Speaker 2: all of us in the car. They come around on
Speaker 2: the US one oh one coming into San Francisco, and
Speaker 2: it was just about sunset. The fog was coming in
Speaker 2: the sky was pink. It was the most beautiful thing
Speaker 2: I'd ever seen. And we probably had the best dinner
Speaker 2: I've ever had. And I just thought in my head,
Speaker 2: I'm going to live here and somehow, And so that's
Speaker 2: why I probably picked that. And also, I mean there
Speaker 2: was the beat Nicks were out here, and I kind
Speaker 2: of I was interested in that. And I was interested
Speaker 2: in folk music, although I had didn't have a guitar yet,
Speaker 2: but I was. I was always listening to it and
Speaker 2: singing it. And I was a big peat Seeger fan,
Speaker 2: and I love the Weavers.
Speaker 1: And so, okay, you're talking to your new wife, what
Speaker 1: is your pitch and what is the dream of what's
Speaker 1: going to happen once you get to San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Think most of us was getting out of Cincinnati because
Speaker 2: she wasn't having a good time there either. She wanted
Speaker 2: to get away from her mother and I wanted to
Speaker 2: get away from my father.
Speaker 1: Although, okay, you get to San Francisco, what are you
Speaker 1: living on?
Speaker 2: I tried to I had a little a little inheritance
Speaker 2: that I already had. It came from my grandparents, I think,
Speaker 2: so I went through that pretty quick. But I was
Speaker 2: supposed to have a job at a I don't know,
Speaker 2: some trucking company, but it turned out not to be
Speaker 2: there when I got there. So I think I worked
Speaker 2: for a pawn shop in Oakland until I got a
Speaker 2: job with the Southern Pacific Railroad in their main office
Speaker 2: in San Francisco, and because I liked trains, but after
Speaker 2: I got there, I learned that that they didn't really
Speaker 2: like trains. They like money. And so I worked my
Speaker 2: way up and I was a freight rate analyst, but
Speaker 2: I was a but back up a little bit. The
Speaker 2: wife disappears, and I have no idea where she's gone.
Speaker 1: A little bit slower. You go to work one day
Speaker 1: and you come home she's not there.
Speaker 2: She's not there, and no sign of her. The cops
Speaker 2: haven't heard anything.
Speaker 1: Is there stuff going?
Speaker 2: No? Some of it? Okay, you know, it's not like
Speaker 2: you know. I have no idea what happened. And the
Speaker 2: only thing I could think of to do was I
Speaker 2: went out and bought a guitar and I started to
Speaker 2: learn how to play guitar, and eventually I found her.
Speaker 2: Some I think I was driving through Golden Gate Park
Speaker 2: and I saw her, and I ran over to he
Speaker 2: and say, hey, what's going on? And she came back
Speaker 2: and she was pregnant.
Speaker 1: Pregnant with someone else's baby.
Speaker 2: Someone else's baby.
Speaker 1: Okay. Just to get the timeline straight, how long after
Speaker 1: she had disappeared did you run into it?
Speaker 2: Oh? Matter of weeks?
Speaker 1: Okay, So she had already found somebody else. You were
Speaker 1: oblivious if.
Speaker 2: It wasn't with them anymore. She wanted to come back.
Speaker 1: Oh, and you said.
Speaker 2: I said, I'm a nice guy. I said, well, okay,
Speaker 2: but meanwhile, I'm gonna do what I'm going to do.
Speaker 2: So I was, I was playing the guitar, and I
Speaker 2: was okay.
Speaker 1: Just to get to the end of her story first,
Speaker 1: you think I can. Did she move back, did she
Speaker 1: have the baby? How long much longer did you live together?
Speaker 2: She did have the baby, and I don't know because
Speaker 2: then I turned into a folks singer. So I first,
Speaker 2: I'm working for the Southern Mississi Southern Pacific, and I'm
Speaker 2: playing and I'm playing on weekends and and and our
Speaker 2: week nights whenever at the folk at the folk clubs
Speaker 2: on hot night and andy knights, you know, And so
Speaker 2: I'm listening to people that are up there, and I say, well,
Speaker 2: if they could do that, I can certainly do that.
Speaker 2: So I get up there and sing, and I saw, uh,
Speaker 2: there was a note on the on the bulletin board
Speaker 2: said wanted folk singers for Peace to travel through Mexico
Speaker 2: all the way down to Central and South America, with
Speaker 2: bringing nothing with us but living with the people and
Speaker 2: to spread peace and happiness and brotherhood. And I said
Speaker 2: that sounds very interesting, and so I got in touch
Speaker 2: with the guy. He ended up being a Vietnam vet
Speaker 2: who was definitely anti war. And this other there was
Speaker 2: a girl named Sandy Rudin, little Jewish girl who knew
Speaker 2: lots lots of folk songs and wanted to do it.
Speaker 2: And I did it, and we were the three. And
Speaker 2: I actually talked to Southern Pacific into giving me a
Speaker 2: leave of absence. I was a freight raided analyst by then,
Speaker 2: and I got permission.
Speaker 1: Okay, Africa, a little lightning round? Yeah you or did
Speaker 1: you not raise that child?
Speaker 2: I didn't.
Speaker 1: Okay, what year did all this happen that you went
Speaker 1: took the leave of absence and went on the folks
Speaker 1: singing tour?
Speaker 2: Probably nineteen sixty two?
Speaker 1: Okay, So this guy had been to Vietnam early when
Speaker 1: most people weren't even aware of it. Yeah, well right, okay,
Speaker 1: just to go back to something you said earlier. Okay, Now,
Speaker 1: most people today are unfamiliar with Beatniks. They don't even
Speaker 1: remember Dobie Gillis and the Energy Krebs. So can you
Speaker 1: give us a few words about Beatnicks?
Speaker 2: Oh, I don't know North Beach, I don't know Allen Ginsberg,
Speaker 2: Jack Carrouac. They're playing bongos and the New Lank You know,
Speaker 2: everybody's a cat, you know. Can you dig it? Poetry
Speaker 2: recitals in coffeehouses?
Speaker 1: To what degree? Was it limited to San Francisco? Was
Speaker 1: it a completely you know, it's totally different today with
Speaker 1: the Internet, etc. But yeah, what did people in Ohio
Speaker 1: know about Beatniks or what was going on in San Francisco?
Speaker 1: If anything?
Speaker 2: I on the road by Jack Carrouac, I mean, and
Speaker 2: I don't know. I just knew they were there, and
Speaker 2: I knew there was a lot of jazz being played there,
Speaker 2: and you know, and I don't know. Okay, that wasn't
Speaker 2: really the reason I picked it. I picked it because
Speaker 2: it was just so beautiful.
Speaker 1: Okay, And what exactly was your motivation to buy guitar
Speaker 1: and play music.
Speaker 2: That was the big mystery. I don't know. I had
Speaker 2: always wanted one, and I never did it. And so
Speaker 2: I said, well, screw all this stuff that's supposed to
Speaker 2: be happening in my life. I'm going to do what
Speaker 2: I want to do, you know. So I went and
Speaker 2: bought the guitar and got a bunch of sing out
Speaker 2: music and started learning learning how to how to play
Speaker 2: and fingerpick and stuff. And it came pretty naturally to
Speaker 2: me having played, you know, a strange instrument before.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now you're on this tour with the woman
Speaker 1: in the Vietnam veteran down to Mexico. Tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, we go down to a folk club and
Speaker 2: I don't know. We went and we figured out a
Speaker 2: way to take the train to Mexico ally, get and
Speaker 2: go across from Calexico to Mexico ally and take the
Speaker 2: third third class train to Mexico City. That's what our
Speaker 2: and so we missed. We missed the train. We just
Speaker 2: missed it when we got there. So we had to
Speaker 2: stay overnight. You couldn't stay in the station. They wouldn't
Speaker 2: stay in the station, and through the miracle of miracles,
Speaker 2: the guard for the station said, you can stay in
Speaker 2: the back of my pickup trucks. I had a panel
Speaker 2: truck panel truck, and so he let us. He was
Speaker 2: really friendly and you're nice and and this is about
Speaker 2: all that we found in Mexico when we were there,
Speaker 2: people that were very friendly. So anyway, we eventually again
Speaker 2: on the train the next day, and we have very
Speaker 2: little money, and all we're eating is like what what
Speaker 2: the vendors are selling at every stop, you know, liketo, potato, tacos,
Speaker 2: you know things. And we and by the time we
Speaker 2: got to mexic Go City, I think we had twelve
Speaker 2: pesos between three of us. But we managed to get
Speaker 2: to the American Friends Service Committee and told them what
Speaker 2: we were doing for peace, and that they gave us
Speaker 2: some people that we could talk to at the University
Speaker 2: of Mexico and people at people places we could possibly
Speaker 2: stay and and and we went out and we started
Speaker 2: went there, met some people, met met an art student
Speaker 2: who was impressed with what we were doing, and people
Speaker 2: took us seriously and it was kind of amazing. And
Speaker 2: Uh offered us that we could stay at his house
Speaker 2: and sleep on. We were sleeping on the floor, but
Speaker 2: you know, it was some place to stay. And we'd
Speaker 2: go out in the daytime and and and sit up
Speaker 2: in applaza somewhere and leave our guitar cases opens and
Speaker 2: sing and people actually three paytos, and and you know,
Speaker 2: I guess, I guess we were okay, I don't know.
Speaker 2: We found a kosher restaurant when sang in Mexico City
Speaker 2: and sang there because she she we knew how aneguila
Speaker 2: and that's you know, anyway, that worked too. And and
Speaker 2: one day a somebody asked us to come sing. What'd
Speaker 2: you come and sing at our meeting? Because they liked
Speaker 2: how we sounded. So so okay, we'll come and sing
Speaker 2: at your meeting and go to the meeting. And it's
Speaker 2: none of us really spoke Spanish except for restaurants, right,
Speaker 2: and so but we could understand uh uh because the
Speaker 2: speaker was was screaming young even period is smooth and
Speaker 2: things like that, and so so well we went along
Speaker 2: with it, you know, and we got up and we
Speaker 2: compared peach Cheeger to peach Cheeger's problem with the government,
Speaker 2: to the muralist Hiciros, who was in jail as a
Speaker 2: political prisoner at the time, and and we're saying, if
Speaker 2: I had a hammer, you know, went across fairly well.
Speaker 2: And then we went back and back to the other
Speaker 2: thing is I smoked pot for the first time in
Speaker 2: Mexico City too. I remember somebody was, okay, keep telling
Speaker 2: the story, which is pretty important in my life. Actually,
Speaker 2: I'm sure it was. Anyway, So so anyway, we go
Speaker 2: back to the to the artist's house, wake up in
Speaker 2: the morning to banging on the doors, and it's the
Speaker 2: Federal Federal Allays and apparently that was the guy that
Speaker 2: was yelling yanker imperialless was the Cuban ambassador. And they
Speaker 2: drag all of us down down the headquarters, questioned us
Speaker 2: all day, put us in a jail overnight, wake us
Speaker 2: up in the morning, put us in the car, and
Speaker 2: drive us directly up to an amor An Airlines flight.
Speaker 2: Put us on the plane, and somehow we were in
Speaker 2: first class eating mangoes for breakfast. And I don't but
Speaker 2: they send us to San Antonio. I guess it was
Speaker 2: the first plane out. I don't know.
Speaker 1: Okay, so now you're in San Antonio.
Speaker 2: Now we're in San Antonio and Sandy's we're all furious
Speaker 2: about well, what did we do? We sang a song.
Speaker 2: You know this is this is wrong. We got to talk.
Speaker 2: We have to do something about this. Well, Sandy's college
Speaker 2: roommate was Lyndon Johnson's person, personal secretary, personal attorney, I
Speaker 2: mean so, and he's up in Austin. So we hitchhike
Speaker 2: up to Austin and while she's looking for for her
Speaker 2: for her roommate's father, which never really turned turned out
Speaker 2: too much. Michael, Michael Gramleck was this guy's name. And
Speaker 2: we go to the to the student union where the
Speaker 2: the Folk Alliance is is having, you know, their their
Speaker 2: weekly meeting, and with we sing some songs and trade thing.
Speaker 2: And there's this girl with the autoharp and long hair
Speaker 2: and she's singing this beautiful loud voice and she's doing
Speaker 2: Irish murder ballads. And we said, but you know, you're
Speaker 2: really great. He says. There is a scene that's happened
Speaker 2: up in San Francisco. If you want to come out, man,
Speaker 2: feel free into the friend that was standing there with her, Uh,
Speaker 2: feel free to I mean you can stay in our
Speaker 2: sofa until you find something to do it. You really
Speaker 2: could go somewhere, and and then we then we went
Speaker 2: back to San Francisco, and they did and they showed up. Well.
Speaker 2: The girl was Janis Joplin and the guy was Chet Hilms,
Speaker 2: who opened the Avalon Ballroom, and and Chet used to say,
Speaker 2: if Freiburg hadn't been deported to Mexico, maybe none of
Speaker 2: this would happen.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Okay, So now you're back in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: you go back to work for the railroad for.
Speaker 2: A short amount of time untill I just couldn't take it.
Speaker 2: And I met this we had. I met this girl
Speaker 2: named Mikaela, who we seemed to bond and make could
Speaker 2: sing very well together. I mean she she was left handed,
Speaker 2: so that makes it really good for right handed and
Speaker 2: left handed guitar players to play on one mic, because
Speaker 2: you don't get in any others way like Lennon and mcartney,
Speaker 2: you know. Anyway, So we had worked up a bunch
Speaker 2: of songs, and we had a bunch of stupid, silly,
Speaker 2: funny pattern that went along with it, and we were
Speaker 2: going over with the audiences and in the folk clubs,
Speaker 2: and we managed to little tour and we made it
Speaker 2: down to San Jose and I met a guy that
Speaker 2: was playing good banjo and stuff and loved to smoke
Speaker 2: pot named Paul Cantner, and he was just hanging out
Speaker 2: at the at the folk Club. He was still going
Speaker 2: to San Jose State, I think at the time, and
Speaker 2: I and I stayed at his house whenever we played there,
Speaker 2: and we stay up all night smoking and picking. And
Speaker 2: we worked our way down to Los Angeles and to
Speaker 2: Pasadena at the ice House, and we played there, and
Speaker 2: the manager decided he would he would manage us and
Speaker 2: find us gigs. And this had to be sixty three
Speaker 2: because I was there when JFK was was it. Yeah,
Speaker 2: you always remember that. Of course she remembers everywhere there
Speaker 2: were We were right right. But he managed to get
Speaker 2: us out on a tour of various clubs, you know,
Speaker 2: st all over Christmas Week that was Lovely Oklahoma, Chicago, Detroit,
Speaker 2: and we ended up playing at the bottom Line in
Speaker 2: New York City. I think we followed Woody Allen actually,
Speaker 2: and we did our little spiel and he had got
Speaker 2: people record company people to come. What was his name,
Speaker 2: I forgetting who is the doors producer? Paul was Paul
Speaker 2: Rothchild and he was electure records, and he was there
Speaker 2: and he called. He gave us a phone call, and
Speaker 2: we went in, went in to see him in his
Speaker 2: office and he says he told us, he actually told
Speaker 2: us this. He says, let me tell you, folks, songs
Speaker 2: are not going to last much longer than this new
Speaker 2: group from England. I said, what group from England? He
Speaker 2: said to Beatles, He says, they're never going to make it.
Speaker 2: He says, but I could get you in one like
Speaker 2: the new Christie minstrels, maybe these big things. Maybe I
Speaker 2: could get you guys in one of those. What would
Speaker 2: you think of that? And we thought about it and said, well,
Speaker 2: I don't know. Maybe. And I hadn't heard the Beatles yet.
Speaker 2: And we're driving down and we're driving down to Washington,
Speaker 2: DC for our last East Coast thing, and the Beatles
Speaker 2: come on. The I Want to Hold Your Hand comes
Speaker 2: on and it knocked us out. What was he talking about?
Speaker 2: You know? And uh? And that was just funny things
Speaker 2: that happened. And when we got to Denver on our
Speaker 2: way home, the Beatles played on Ed Sullivan and we
Speaker 2: saw that and I could see this was done. And
Speaker 2: Michaela and her husband when they got married. He was
Speaker 2: playing bass with us. It's called David Michaela with Bob
Speaker 2: Conker on bass and wit you know, really schlocky, but
Speaker 2: they laughed at it. He made the face at the
Speaker 2: right time, they'd laugh. So they when they got married,
Speaker 2: they stopped smoking pot and thought that I should too,
Speaker 2: and it wasn't going to happen. Their sense of humor changed.
Speaker 2: So and so, and I got there, and I just
Speaker 2: got back to San Jose and hooked up with Paul
Speaker 2: and he had a little like communal thing in the house.
Speaker 2: And I stayed there and we decided we were going
Speaker 2: to go to La and see if we could be
Speaker 2: folked to it. That might be fun. But and so
Speaker 2: we got down there and with the help of the girl,
Speaker 2: the secretary of the man, the guy at the Bob
Speaker 2: I think his name is Bob Shane, that the manager
Speaker 2: of the ice house in Pasadena. She was she but
Speaker 2: Laurie I think her name is Laurie Spring. And she
Speaker 2: helped us find a place to live and actually ended
Speaker 2: up sharing it with us because she needed a place
Speaker 2: to And it was in Venice, like four doors from
Speaker 2: the beach, which is pretty good but not conduced it
Speaker 2: to and and the whole. I mean that time was
Speaker 2: not the time to be forming a folk group. It
Speaker 2: was a time to be forming a rock and roll band.
Speaker 2: And David Crosby I had run into him there and
Speaker 2: in uh at the ice House when his was Les
Speaker 2: Baxter's Balladeers. It was the folk group he was in.
Speaker 2: He and his brother were in it. And we just vibe,
Speaker 2: says to tout know that we both we know we
Speaker 2: must both must have smoked so and so I was
Speaker 2: fast friends with him from then on. So and he
Speaker 2: would come by our place while he's bumming around, and
Speaker 2: he still didn't And Jim Jim, it was Jim McGuinn
Speaker 2: who was who was playing Beatles songs in the bar
Speaker 2: outside at the Troubadour all night long and for me
Speaker 2: trying to form a band. And but meanwhile we're living there.
Speaker 2: And Dino Valenti, who was a singer, folks singer that
Speaker 2: I had met in San Francisco when I was singing
Speaker 2: with MICHAELA and stuff. And he comes by and he
Speaker 2: has this a lead sheet for this song called Pride
Speaker 2: of Man, which by Hamilton Camp and uh, and he
Speaker 2: gives it to me because he doesn't he didn't read
Speaker 2: music and he couldn't figure it out. So anyway, so
Speaker 2: that that was just it ended up being quick still
Speaker 2: or messenger service first first single, I believe anyway, that's
Speaker 2: jumping around a little bit.
Speaker 1: No, that's perfect. I just got a question. Yeah, did
Speaker 1: you know when he was Jet Powers before he was
Speaker 1: Dino Valente?
Speaker 2: No, he was always Dino Valenti. I mean I knew
Speaker 2: that he was Jet Power. I learned that from him.
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, he hung up. He was the
Speaker 2: kind of guy. I mean, if you could do something
Speaker 2: for him, he'd be your friend, you know, and so
Speaker 2: I could drive him. I just kind of was interested
Speaker 2: in him because he was he was such a all
Speaker 2: out guy. I mean, you know when he's singing, man,
Speaker 2: you're stomping and you know, and I said, well that
Speaker 2: that's a hell of an act. That and I probably
Speaker 2: learned a little bit about singing, and I learned about
Speaker 2: a lot of things not to do, you know. But
Speaker 2: he wrote some pretty damn good songs.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're living in Venice with Paul Canner and the
Speaker 1: woman Dino Valenti comes through. What's the next step for you?
Speaker 1: After that?
Speaker 2: Uh, shortly after that, we figured out this isn't working, yea,
Speaker 2: and moved back to San Jose and with somebody who
Speaker 2: had opened up the what was it called the off
Speaker 2: Stage was the folk club in San Jose and had
Speaker 2: taken it over and wondered if we would help him
Speaker 2: run it, and so, okay, there's something to do. So
Speaker 2: we did that, and we stayed, you know, in this
Speaker 2: in the Santa se area for a while and did
Speaker 2: that and tried to make that work, and it ultimately
Speaker 2: went the way of all the folk clubs and and
Speaker 2: so we ended up moving to the city and we
Speaker 2: were kind of, I don't know, we might have dealt
Speaker 2: a little a little pot just so we had some
Speaker 2: to smoke, but it definitely didn't make us any money.
Speaker 2: But one day I'm driving in San Francisco. We moved
Speaker 2: into a flat in the Fillmore district, right across from
Speaker 2: one of the biggest notorious badass tenement thing as you
Speaker 2: could imagine. And I was driving around and I turned
Speaker 2: made a left turn and I didn't realize it was
Speaker 2: it was after four o'clock and there's no left turns,
Speaker 2: and I make the left turn and I get busted.
Speaker 2: The guy looks fine, pot under the seat, and I
Speaker 2: go off to jail and a girlfriend I had bailed
Speaker 2: me got my bail out, and and I felt, God,
Speaker 2: what am I going to do? Man? I don't want
Speaker 2: I don't want to call attention by if I live
Speaker 2: with these people, it might hurt them because I never
Speaker 2: consider getting arrested, right, you know, because I don't know.
Speaker 2: I was naive. I guess was this pot dude? Man,
Speaker 2: you have a good time note anybody you know? Yeah,
Speaker 2: But they were serious about it. So so I thought, well,
Speaker 2: I'll get a straight job, and so I look good,
Speaker 2: maybe they'll be. So I got a job at a
Speaker 2: freight forwarding company and I moved out, and after a
Speaker 2: couple of couple of about a month of paychecks, I
Speaker 2: managed to get a place in Merin County, and the
Speaker 2: little house in San Quentin Village overlooked the Sandrafell Bridge.
Speaker 2: And I go to work and I do my my
Speaker 2: letters and forums and stuff and hating it every second,
Speaker 2: and go back across the bridge every night, get stoned
Speaker 2: and get out my twelfth drink and figure out how
Speaker 2: to play all the Beatles songs you know, and sing
Speaker 2: them at the time of my voice to the Sandrafell Bridge.
Speaker 2: You know. And I did that for like a month,
Speaker 2: two months, you know, And one day there's a knock
Speaker 2: on the door and it's a friend, a loose friend
Speaker 2: called Otis, and he says, hey, you got any pot,
Speaker 2: And I said, sure, I got some seeds and stems.
Speaker 2: Come on in, you know, and I said, here, help yourself.
Speaker 2: And by the way, listen to this, I said. So
Speaker 2: I had an audience for me. So I sang them
Speaker 2: all the Beatles songs. And he was just sitting there
Speaker 2: and look at visioning and saying, and he says, he says,
Speaker 2: okay about the pot, He said, can I get you?
Speaker 2: Can I get ten dollars worth? And I said, look,
Speaker 2: I don't think this is ten dollars worth here, man,
Speaker 2: it's just mostly sees. Take it all, forget it, you know.
Speaker 2: And he says, no, no, no, no, take five. I said,
Speaker 2: well take it anyway. I'll take the five. Okay. He
Speaker 2: leaves and the next day there's a knock on the door.
Speaker 2: The next night and it's the state narcotics officer and
Speaker 2: the sheriff and the district attorney, and apparently they were
Speaker 2: trying to he told he told them that I was
Speaker 2: his dealer and I had never sold him anything, you know,
Speaker 2: And I said, and the ten dollar bill was marked
Speaker 2: five dollar bill was his, so they couldn't get me
Speaker 2: on sales. But they arrested me for possession and they
Speaker 2: found seeds in the trunk of my car, which made
Speaker 2: them to confiscate my car, took me off to jail,
Speaker 2: and I and I I couldn't ask the girlfriend for
Speaker 2: anymore bail. And I, you know, I probably had enough
Speaker 2: money coming to me from my last paycheck from from
Speaker 2: from the place to pay to pay them on. But
Speaker 2: nobody to hunt to, nobody that had any property enough
Speaker 2: that would, you know, to guarantee it. And so I
Speaker 2: was stuck there. I was sat in there for thirty
Speaker 2: days and Paul comes and visits me.
Speaker 1: Wait, wait, before Paul visits you, what's it like being
Speaker 1: a nice Jewish boy in jail.
Speaker 2: In Santrafel, California. It was not any real big deal.
Speaker 2: I mean, it wasn't nice or anything, you know, And
Speaker 2: it was It wasn't in the beautiful new building that
Speaker 2: they have out there. It was in the old courthouse
Speaker 2: in the middle of Santafel. And I kind of probably
Speaker 2: went back to the Civil War as far as I
Speaker 2: know when it was a built but and and so
Speaker 2: I don't know if they made They took me out
Speaker 2: of the general population, made me a trustee. So I
Speaker 2: was sitting. I don't know why they did that, because
Speaker 2: be a trustee, you're supposed to be convicted of something.
Speaker 2: And I hadn't even gone to trial yet, so anybody
Speaker 2: but I was there, you know, with I don't know
Speaker 2: the elite people, I guess of the jail. And Paul
Speaker 2: comes to visit me and he notices there's a little
Speaker 2: hole in the ancient window and he slides a little
Speaker 2: joint through there. And meanwhile I was telling me, me
Speaker 2: and Marty Ballad are getting it. We're going to put
Speaker 2: a band together, which is what all of us were
Speaker 2: thinking about, because we had all bought, you know, electric
Speaker 2: instruments because we knew that was where we had to
Speaker 2: go if we wanted to sing anywhere. And he says, he, well,
Speaker 2: that's that's really great. So what And he says, I
Speaker 2: think we're going to call it Jefferson Airplane. And I
Speaker 2: didn't ask him what that meant, but I said, that's perfect,
Speaker 2: and he said, yeah, I would be able. I hope
Speaker 2: you get out of here soon I said, well, I
Speaker 2: don't know, I trust I will and uh. And so
Speaker 2: shortly thereafter they I had to go to a court appearance,
Speaker 2: and they decided, well, if you're not going to get bail,
Speaker 2: we don't want to get stuck feeding you for two years.
Speaker 2: So they you don't look dangerous, so they just let
Speaker 2: me out of my own recognizance and they i'me out
Speaker 2: in the streets, and some friends had gotten my guitar
Speaker 2: and everything from the house, and my check was there,
Speaker 2: but of course I lost my job, and and so
Speaker 2: I'm there and I MC John Chippolina and Jimmy Murray
Speaker 2: and I were already trying kind of had the idea
Speaker 2: that Dina was looking to form a band. I think
Speaker 2: he through Dino could probably it was just loosely. I
Speaker 2: had met him and and they and I don't know,
Speaker 2: and we were hanging out. I had no place to stay.
Speaker 2: I was sleeping on people on girls floors and stuff,
Speaker 2: you know, anywhere I could sleep, and Dino was in jail,
Speaker 2: so we had to do something else. So we said, well,
Speaker 2: let's I guess we'll have our own band, you know.
Speaker 2: And so we were hanging out in the park and
Speaker 2: saucelito and pick and sing, and you know a lot
Speaker 2: of people were doing that. And there was this guitar
Speaker 2: player named Skip came down and and we played with
Speaker 2: him and said this, this could work, This could work
Speaker 2: because Jim he fit in pretty well, good looking kid,
Speaker 2: he and he played nice guitar and sang really well.
Speaker 2: So we took Paul up. Marty Ballen was opened had
Speaker 2: opened the Matrix Club in San Francisco where the Jefferson
Speaker 2: Airplane rehearsed, and Paul and Marty said, you know, you
Speaker 2: guys come over and practice here sometimes if you get
Speaker 2: something together. And so we went over there with a
Speaker 2: guy named Casey who was a jazz drummer. We just
Speaker 2: got some big sticks. That's the thing that you could play,
Speaker 2: you know, rock and roll, And we bought Skip over
Speaker 2: and we tried to tried to do some stuff and
Speaker 2: it wasn't really working too well. And Marty walked in
Speaker 2: and he said to Skip, do you play drums? He said,
Speaker 2: I played snare drum in high school. I played snare
Speaker 2: drum in the high school band. And he said, you're
Speaker 2: Jefferson Airplane's new drummer, and he was Skip Spence, Skip spence. Yep, next,
Speaker 2: what next? What's going to happen? Is all of a sudden,
Speaker 2: that first bust is going to come up for trial,
Speaker 2: and so I have and I go over there and
Speaker 2: they find me guilty and sentenced me to a sixty
Speaker 2: day sentence in San Bruno Prison in San Francisco, and
Speaker 2: I have two weeks to get my stuff together and
Speaker 2: turn myself in at police orcer headquarters in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: And so John and Jimmy and I are turning to
Speaker 2: fair what are we going to do? And I said, well,
Speaker 2: it's only sixty days, so I get I'll get out
Speaker 2: of there probably, and if I behave well, I'll get
Speaker 2: out a little earlier than that. So I'll see you laters.
Speaker 2: But meanwhile, I took some acid on the day night
Speaker 2: before I had to turn myself in and met a
Speaker 2: girl named named Tangerine who I'd known, and we had
Speaker 2: a really good time. And as I'm turning myself in,
Speaker 2: I'm still stone quite a bit. And the door I
Speaker 2: take to take the elevator up from the ground floor
Speaker 2: to the to the jail floor, and I pushed the
Speaker 2: jail button and the door closes, and then it opens
Speaker 2: and nobody's there. I said, I push it again. The
Speaker 2: door closes and then it opens. Nobody's there. What am
Speaker 2: I If it does it again, I'm going to take
Speaker 2: that as an omen and just leave. I push the button,
Speaker 2: it closes and it goes up. And so that's and
Speaker 2: on on the TVs in the jail there there's the
Speaker 2: Turtles playing Ellinorgy. You're looking swell. So I don't know
Speaker 2: as little as I didn't know that drummer was getting anyway,
Speaker 2: So off the sand, off to San Bruno, and they
Speaker 2: want me to cut my hair or else I'll have
Speaker 2: to stay with the gay guys. And I said, well,
Speaker 2: probably I should have stayed with the gay guys. But
Speaker 2: I cut my hair, and and somehow, because I seemed
Speaker 2: kind of harmless, they made me a trustee again and
Speaker 2: I could I could lock myself and when they're in
Speaker 2: a free time, then I had I had a cell
Speaker 2: that look look was right, so you could see the
Speaker 2: TV set, the one TV set for everybody right was there.
Speaker 2: And so but they locked you in to that, I said,
Speaker 2: well that looked like a plus to me, to be
Speaker 2: locked in, not being able to talk, you know, in
Speaker 2: interact with anybody else, and so I did that. And
Speaker 2: uh and in forty five days I got out and
Speaker 2: they had took me back, raced me at at city Hall.
Speaker 2: Had to go up and see my my uh, probation guy,
Speaker 2: and but he was not he was out to lunch.
Speaker 2: So I had had to come back in two hours.
Speaker 2: So John Chippolina and Jimmy Murray were picking me up,
Speaker 2: you know, and and uh, and they told me that
Speaker 2: they found two They found two guys from merced Or
Speaker 2: they thought he were for mer said or, I don't know,
Speaker 2: modesto and a drummer and another guitar player. And and
Speaker 2: I think that we could have a band with them,
Speaker 2: and I said great. And so we all smoked a bunch.
Speaker 2: Finally got to smoke a little pot. Well, yeah, that
Speaker 2: was what that was what I did every day and
Speaker 2: not in jail though, But and uh, so I go
Speaker 2: up and he says, he says, you know, the probation
Speaker 2: officer says, I know there's nothing wrong with pot. I
Speaker 2: know it should be legal, but it isn't. So I
Speaker 2: wanted you to understand, to take it more seriously. So
Speaker 2: I gave you this little sentence so you so you'd understand.
Speaker 2: So so just stay away from that stuff. I said,
Speaker 2: oh yeah, I'll never get to touch a stone out
Speaker 2: of my mind. But and so I go back down
Speaker 2: and it's Gary Duncan and Greg Alamore, the other guys
Speaker 2: from for Quicksellar Messenger Service. We start practicing and the
Speaker 2: basement of some a girl, a girl's house named after
Speaker 2: her name was Chris Brooks, and so she thought she'd
Speaker 2: be our manager or whatever, and and that's and so
Speaker 2: we get it together and we come up with the
Speaker 2: Quicksilver Messenger Service thing because John Okay, Gary Duncan, and
Speaker 2: Gregor mare Elmore or virgos born on the seventh of September,
Speaker 2: John Chipley and I were virgos born on the same day,
Speaker 2: twenty fourth of August. And Jimmy Murray, who he didn't
Speaker 2: really last all the way to Soil. We made the records,
Speaker 2: but there's too much work for him. I think he
Speaker 2: was a Gemini, and we all had the ruling planet
Speaker 2: of Mercury, which is quicksilver, and he's the mess So
Speaker 2: we all came and it was me or Murray something
Speaker 2: I came Quicksilver Messenger Service. That seems ridiculous, but it
Speaker 2: sounded good to us. So there we are.
Speaker 1: Okay, you got the band together, when do you start
Speaker 1: playing out? How does it end up that you end
Speaker 1: up getting a record deal.
Speaker 2: It took us a long time, a really long time,
Speaker 2: but the committee gave us our first gig. You remember
Speaker 2: the company, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Howard Hessemen. Yeah, well I
Speaker 2: knew Howard. I was an old buddy from when he
Speaker 2: was a folks when I was a folcusinger. I used
Speaker 2: to sleep on his floor every now, you know. And
Speaker 2: he was a bartender at at the at the coffee
Speaker 2: gallery for his day gig. And uh so anyway, uh so,
Speaker 2: they I think they gave us one hundred bucks to
Speaker 2: come play their Christmas party and that was fairly successful.
Speaker 2: And they said, we wondered if we'd record a version
Speaker 2: of the Star Spangled Banner. And we found somebody and
Speaker 2: we did that, and we moved to Marine County somehow
Speaker 2: with in an old shack in Larkspur. No longer there.
Speaker 2: It's all built up into nice things now. And we
Speaker 2: just played all day and night, smoked and played, smoked
Speaker 2: and played, you know, and had some some hippie hippie
Speaker 2: managers that brought us lots of health food. You know,
Speaker 2: all in one cereal and lots of you know, organic honey,
Speaker 2: and we had food to eat and and we we got,
Speaker 2: we got. We started getting gigs at the Avalon and
Speaker 2: I met my first my next wife there, which was
Speaker 2: Julia Dreyer, who was known as Girl, and she was
Speaker 2: hanging with us too. And there's lots of stories.
Speaker 1: Okay, you're living in Larkspur.
Speaker 2: It's gonna get too detailed.
Speaker 1: The hippies are giving you, you know food, What are
Speaker 1: you living on? You know, you don't know. You don't
Speaker 1: have a regular job, no straight job.
Speaker 2: We got occasional gigs and people would help us.
Speaker 1: I don't know what was going through your mind.
Speaker 2: That this was really fun when we played, you know,
Speaker 2: and they didn't have a I had never played bass before,
Speaker 2: but somebody had to and so since I had played
Speaker 2: twelve string, I don't know what that had to do
Speaker 2: with it, but I played bass, and so I was
Speaker 2: figuring that out and we played. We learned a bunch
Speaker 2: of songs, folks songs, but Pride to Man among them,
Speaker 2: and it all sounded good. We started playing at the
Speaker 2: fillmore in the Avalon, and we got a pretty good following.
Speaker 1: Okay, a little bit slower. You remember the opening in
Speaker 1: the film, wore the opening of the Avalon and what
Speaker 1: that was like?
Speaker 2: Not particularly No.
Speaker 1: Okay, Then let me ask you another one. How about
Speaker 1: Ken Keezy the Mary Prankster's Acid. Was that something that
Speaker 1: was on your radar?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh yeah, we were well that had to
Speaker 2: be on everybody's radar if you were anywhere in San Francisco.
Speaker 2: Sure I knew knew all of those guys. I mean
Speaker 2: we were all buddy, I mean we all came to
Speaker 2: see each other play The Grateful Dead and Greick Silver
Speaker 2: and Airplane and a Big Brother and Holding Company where
Speaker 2: they're there, Hello Janis again, thank you? Okay.
Speaker 1: First band to have a hit out of the San
Speaker 1: Francisco scene was the Jefferson Airplane in sixty seven. So
Speaker 1: did you feel left downery feel if they can make it?
Speaker 1: We can make it?
Speaker 2: But everybody thought they could make it. But I don't know.
Speaker 2: We're playing and we have a We have a manager
Speaker 2: who was an astrologer. His name was Amber Ambrose Hollingsworth.
Speaker 2: And as soon as he became our manager, he somehow
Speaker 2: managed to find a Volkswagen convertible and all of a
Speaker 2: sudden he was wearing the latest clothes from you know,
Speaker 2: from the Los Angeles hippies were wearing and we to
Speaker 2: call behind back. We were calling Ambrose Hollywood, you know.
Speaker 2: But that was too bad. But unfortunately he got into
Speaker 2: this accident that left him paralyzed, driving driving over the
Speaker 2: driving over the bridge. And a and a friend of
Speaker 2: and a friend of a guy named Ron Polti who
Speaker 2: is the friend friend of Nick Gravinidis who played with uh,
Speaker 2: Mike Bloomfield and the Electric Flag. Okay, he's from the
Speaker 2: Chicago the Chicago guys. He did. He decides he'd like
Speaker 2: to be our manager, and they said, well, what do
Speaker 2: you need? He said, I think at that point we
Speaker 2: were living in a house that was right in the
Speaker 2: middle of Mill Valley, which was right out in the
Speaker 2: open and terrible place to try to rehearse or anything.
Speaker 2: And so we want to have a hot we want
Speaker 2: to be on a farm with with the barn we
Speaker 2: can practice in. And in a week he had us
Speaker 2: in a barn we could practice it in Olema, which
Speaker 2: is out of near Point Ray Station. And the Grateful
Speaker 2: Dead had had what used to be a children's summer
Speaker 2: camp in Lagunitas, not you know, down the road from
Speaker 2: where we were, and they moved in there for the
Speaker 2: summer and they were practicing there. And so one day
Speaker 2: we were cleaning some pot in a big bowl, and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden we hear a bunch of whooping
Speaker 2: outside and it's grateful dead dressed like Indians. It's because
Speaker 2: we were the cowboys living on the ranch and they
Speaker 2: the war Path come in and attack us, and so
Speaker 2: we all thought that was really funny, and get around
Speaker 2: and everybody gets gets stoned, and yaki aka yaka, that's funny, okay.
Speaker 2: And then they go home. And meanwhile Dino was there.
Speaker 2: He wasn't in the band, but he's hung with us
Speaker 2: a bunch, and he said, you know what we should do.
Speaker 2: We should practice up Elijah was a wooden Indian and
Speaker 2: sing this song. And then when they're playing at the
Speaker 2: fillmore dress up in cowboy things with bandanas over our
Speaker 2: faces and guns and tie them to their amps in
Speaker 2: Saint Elijah was a wooden Indian. And everybody thought that's
Speaker 2: a wonderful idea. I don't know why they thought that,
Speaker 2: but it ended up getting us busted again, because you know,
Speaker 2: I mean, John Chippolina had ancient some ancient rifles that
Speaker 2: were most of them were let it up, but they
Speaker 2: were just collectors items, you know. He liked old things
Speaker 2: and so that was part of it. So we had
Speaker 2: a panel truck that was our equipment truck and quotes,
Speaker 2: and so we dragged off. We get to to the
Speaker 2: fillmore and the airplane's going over and so Grateful Dead
Speaker 2: aren't quite on yet and so we had to say, okay.
Speaker 2: So we throw all the stuff in the back of
Speaker 2: the truck and there's smoke, a few joints, and all
Speaker 2: of a sudden there's door open. Front door opens it
Speaker 2: and there's a revolver pointing it and we thought it
Speaker 2: was probably one of the other guys with the phony gun.
Speaker 2: Look at no, it's real and it was the police.
Speaker 2: Uh oh. And they grabbed me and girl and Jimmy
Speaker 2: Murray out of the back that we were the eyes
Speaker 2: that were there. Throw us in the back of the policeman. Well,
Speaker 2: they're going to search the truck. And I had some
Speaker 2: joints in my pocket, but Jimmy had stashed it under
Speaker 2: his gig stuff under something and then the truck, which
Speaker 2: is the wrong thing to do, but he did. And
Speaker 2: he said they're going to find joints in there, man,
Speaker 2: and they're going to find it. And I said, well, well,
Speaker 2: everybody's got to help me. We got to eat all
Speaker 2: we got to eat all the spots. So we eat
Speaker 2: all the pot because they had they had Jimmy Or
Speaker 2: he was six foot four, so they handcuffed him, but
Speaker 2: girl and me they didn't handcuff because we were they
Speaker 2: didn'tren't worry too much about us, and so we did that.
Speaker 2: And then they ship us off the tail overnight and
Speaker 2: we're out first thing in the morning, and uh and
Speaker 2: they are they arrest once again. They found pot in
Speaker 2: this in this vehicle. They're gonna confiscate it and sell it.
Speaker 2: And the guy that owned the owned the owned the
Speaker 2: van said, if they try to toe that, I never
Speaker 2: I never really fastened the drive shaft in, so it's
Speaker 2: going to fall out. And so I don't think they're
Speaker 2: never going to be able to sell it. And so okay,
Speaker 2: And so meanwhile there's this lawyer named Brian Rohan. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you've come across.
Speaker 1: I used to email from him. Yeah before he passed away, yep, yeah,
Speaker 1: yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: And uh so he decided he represented us and got
Speaker 2: us out immediately immediately and decided they were going to
Speaker 2: make an example of it, and they were going to
Speaker 2: try the truck and every vehicle that came across their desk.
Speaker 2: They were going to make them go to you know,
Speaker 2: they're going to fight it as long as they could
Speaker 2: and make it cost so much money for them for
Speaker 2: them to do that they'd stop it. And at worked
Speaker 2: they did stop confiscating us. So anyway, so one day
Speaker 2: we went went out went to the to the to
Speaker 2: the the auction for the cars for the state at
Speaker 2: Saint Quentin, actually right outside Saint Quentin, and there was
Speaker 2: there was the van with the drive shaft in the back,
Speaker 2: and we bought back for fifty bucks and a guy
Speaker 2: put the drive shaft back in drove away. So anyway,
Speaker 2: Little Tails, I'm remembering much too much.
Speaker 1: No no, no, no, no, no, it's all good. This is cold.
Speaker 1: How does the band ultimately get a record deal with Capitol?
Speaker 2: I think the president came by and saw us one
Speaker 2: night when we played at a fair gig, and he
Speaker 2: liked us. But it was just like nineteen six, I
Speaker 2: mean we were really late. I mean this was sixty
Speaker 2: seven and we still hadn't signed you know, right, And
Speaker 2: he said, we'll think about it, And meanwhile, Monterey Pop
Speaker 2: is happening, and we get invited to it, even though
Speaker 2: we had didn't have any record or anything. But so
Speaker 2: far as San Francisco was concerned, I mean, people would
Speaker 2: come to see us just as much as they'd go
Speaker 2: see the Big Brother or Jefferson Airplane or the Dead
Speaker 2: or anything, because they all liked us as much as anything,
Speaker 2: you know what I mean, that was all equal in
Speaker 2: San Francisco. But go out in the road, well that
Speaker 2: was another thing. So we'd have to have a record
Speaker 2: for that. So we realized we better do this sometime
Speaker 2: and so but meanwhile we did get to go to Monterey.
Speaker 2: That was probably the best festival that ever happened. I think,
Speaker 2: best one I ever saw.
Speaker 1: Okay, and then how do you end up getting signed
Speaker 1: and making the first album?
Speaker 2: Then he went for it and gave us a pretty
Speaker 2: good deal. Apparently it was not smooth sailing, of course,
Speaker 2: because it was Quicksilver Messengers, But we went down and
Speaker 2: recorded with the same Nick Nick Nick Gravin. I just
Speaker 2: wanted to do it. And Harvey Brooks, who was the
Speaker 2: bass player, well really famous bass player, played on all
Speaker 2: the Bob del and stuff, and he.
Speaker 1: Played in al Cooper in Super Session Harvey's.
Speaker 2: Two and he was it was in the Electric Flag.
Speaker 2: Was really close to our managers, you know. I think
Speaker 2: he gave him the flag that had an electric thing,
Speaker 2: and that was the elect caused the name to happen,
Speaker 2: the Electric Flag. Okay, So anyway, where was I? Okay?
Speaker 2: So he and Harvey Brooks are trying to do it,
Speaker 2: get us do it, and we had this long song
Speaker 2: that we wanted to get on the albums called the Fool.
Speaker 2: And I had written the words when I apparently when
Speaker 2: I was high on acid, because when I woke up
Speaker 2: in the morning that after the acid chip, I looked
Speaker 2: at my typewriter and there were the words. I must
Speaker 2: have typed it out, and I said, this sounded like me, So,
Speaker 2: you know, very very hippish, very very very one world,
Speaker 2: you know. And we had the song, this bunch of
Speaker 2: changes that we were turning into a very big thing,
Speaker 2: and when we played it, it got a lot of
Speaker 2: a lot of very good reactions. So we tried to
Speaker 2: do that and it went pretty good, except for the
Speaker 2: long one. Because Gary decided he had been We've been
Speaker 2: watching how the Beatles did things one track at a time,
Speaker 2: and he wanted to do it that way, and it
Speaker 2: just when we heard the final result, we said no,
Speaker 2: we got to do it live, play it all at once,
Speaker 2: and we had complete commit The contract was good because
Speaker 2: we could do whatever we really wanted to do, so
Speaker 2: we could we didn't have to put it out until
Speaker 2: we were done with it. But Harvey said, I've spent
Speaker 2: enough time on this. I have other things I have
Speaker 2: to do, so he left it with Nick and I
Speaker 2: think there was a jazz critic named Pete Welding who
Speaker 2: ended up being the nominal co producer with Nick Revenitis.
Speaker 2: But anyway, so we went back and we actually rehearsed
Speaker 2: it in the studio a couple of months that figured
Speaker 2: out how we really wanted to do it, and played
Speaker 2: it on the road a bit, and then went back
Speaker 2: and finished the record and it finally came out in
Speaker 2: sixty eight, which is really late.
Speaker 1: Okay, so the record gets good reviews, what's your experience
Speaker 1: being in the band? Does it? Does sales meet your expectation?
Speaker 1: Or you're disappointed there's not a hit? What happens there?
Speaker 2: Yeah, there wasn't. Actually the only actual hit was was
Speaker 2: the full really, but it was too long to be
Speaker 2: to be really get played on the radio, so and
Speaker 2: it couldn't have been and it couldn't be edited down
Speaker 2: to anything because it wasn't a pop song. It was
Speaker 2: this big production. And anyway, Gary Duncan was when we
Speaker 2: went out on the road, he started he started shooting methodrym,
Speaker 2: which was disastrous. He's got completely completely paranoid, you know,
Speaker 2: and everybody was against him and played okay, played too
Speaker 2: many notes, but you know, uh, and he ended up
Speaker 2: quitting the band right after we had recorded live in
Speaker 2: at the Fillmore East and the Fillmore West. What was
Speaker 2: going to be our We were going to record a
Speaker 2: live album for the next thing, and he decides he's
Speaker 2: gonna he's gonna quit, and so well we decided, well
Speaker 2: we want to record one last thing. So we had
Speaker 2: one last session and we go into the studio. We
Speaker 2: played our song that turned out to be called Calvary.
Speaker 2: But the guy had an idea for the for the title,
Speaker 2: and he was watching us there. He was going to
Speaker 2: make the album cover and he said, well, see that,
Speaker 2: nobody's talking to each other and it's all and Duncan's
Speaker 2: fucked up and you know, and he said, wow, it
Speaker 2: looks like Happy Trails to me, and uh, oh yeah,
Speaker 2: a good name for the album. Okay, I you know,
Speaker 2: I refuse to get negative because he's gonna leave. Something's
Speaker 2: going to happen. I don't know. He shouldn't leave because
Speaker 2: he was he was a great rhythm guitar player and
Speaker 2: a great and a great lead guitar player too, and
Speaker 2: he was really good and and he was kind of
Speaker 2: like the machine of the band. But we're going to
Speaker 2: have to do something, and so he leaves, and so
Speaker 2: it was left for us to finish the album without him,
Speaker 2: and so we did. We finished the Calvary song and
Speaker 2: uh recorded Happy Trails with Greg Ellenmore singing the only
Speaker 2: only song he's ever sung just as a joke at
Speaker 2: the end, and uh, and we end up with the
Speaker 2: who Do You Love Sweet? On the first side and
Speaker 2: with the combination of the beginning was from the New
Speaker 2: York Fillmore, the middle part was from San Francisco Fillmore,
Speaker 2: where the whole audience in the band and everybody and
Speaker 2: anywhere within blocks was all stoned on acid. And the
Speaker 2: end I believe we probably might have used the Fillmore East,
Speaker 2: but maybe not maybe maybe at all. At the mid
Speaker 2: midway part has shifted to San Francisco, and it took
Speaker 2: up the whole first side, and it was the biggest
Speaker 2: selling record you made.
Speaker 1: How on the third album does Dino Valente come in
Speaker 1: and Nicky Hopkins.
Speaker 2: Well it was Dino didn't come in the third album
Speaker 2: was the fourth album? Okay, Nicki came in on the
Speaker 2: third right, Well, they quit on New York. They played
Speaker 2: their last gig on Gary played his last gig on
Speaker 2: New Year's Eve and ended up coming back the next
Speaker 2: New Year's Eve. So we had a year. I don't Nicki.
Speaker 2: Nicki was in town. I think he'd played with on
Speaker 2: Steve Miller's album. Then he played on Jefferson Airplanes album
Speaker 2: and we had one we were coming up next at
Speaker 2: Wally Hyder's. And he had a very an affinity with
Speaker 2: John Chippelina. He really they were really hit it off.
Speaker 2: They were if you want to go to stop astrologically,
Speaker 2: he was. He was the obsolete opposite of me and John.
Speaker 2: He was born on February twenty fourth, which is exactly
Speaker 2: six months apart. So anyway, they were they were very
Speaker 2: much alike. Hell, they both collected things and I don't
Speaker 2: know that. They just they became. So he decided he
Speaker 2: joined Quicksilver. So we made this album with NICKI.
Speaker 1: How did you feel about him joining? How did you
Speaker 1: feel about the album.
Speaker 2: Got him joining? Yeah, he saved us, he said, I
Speaker 2: never I never got very happy about the songs I
Speaker 2: sang on that album. But there there are people that
Speaker 2: love them. But I don't quite understand. But but everybody
Speaker 2: tells it. It's everybody. Every singer is his own worst,
Speaker 2: worse critic, you know. So I'll never be satisfied with anything.
Speaker 1: So okay, the next album, Dino comes in, how does
Speaker 1: he get into the band?
Speaker 2: Came back the next next year, but I wanted to
Speaker 2: get Gary back in the band, and Dino came with him. Well,
Speaker 2: he said, I know that's going to be trouble because
Speaker 2: Dino has to run things. I mean, he doesn't know
Speaker 2: anything else. He can't cooperate with anybody. So I knew
Speaker 2: him by then and said, well, oh well, let's see
Speaker 2: what happens. So the first thing was that we're gonna
Speaker 2: We're gonna record an album in Hawaii. That sounded like
Speaker 2: a wonderful thing to do because he wanted to go
Speaker 2: to Hawaii. I guess, I don't know. There was no
Speaker 2: real studio that we could record them and over there.
Speaker 2: So we're going to build it. And Capitol had given
Speaker 2: us an eight track to work with, and so the
Speaker 2: plan was made. I wasn't very big part of that,
Speaker 2: but the plan was made. There was this old boy
Speaker 2: scout ranch way out in the out Holai Eva on Oahu,
Speaker 2: out for a bunch of cane fields, and it was
Speaker 2: a boy scout ranch and they had a big, nice,
Speaker 2: big room and enough places for everybody to stay, and
Speaker 2: it was pretty cheap. It only had one drawback. It
Speaker 2: didn't have electricity, but we say, oh well we'll get it.
Speaker 2: We'll get a generator. You know, no problem, they have generators.
Speaker 2: And so we get we get over there, everybody comes
Speaker 2: over and every every and Dino is really happy. You know,
Speaker 2: he's going to live it up. Man. We're in a
Speaker 2: big time band, man, you know. And so everybody gets
Speaker 2: a convertible and and we get there and they cannot
Speaker 2: get a good ground on that, on that anywhere on
Speaker 2: the property they keep there. They couldn't get the ground.
Speaker 2: So you record something and going that'd be a huge
Speaker 2: buzz on everything. And they couldn't get it ground It
Speaker 2: took him two weeks to get it grounded. Right. So
Speaker 2: we're sitting there renting cars, and we sit there and
Speaker 2: waste two weeks. We have a rented beautiful grand piano,
Speaker 2: and you know, and what was going to be the
Speaker 2: it was it was really the kind of the living area,
Speaker 2: you know, in the living room area, and we built,
Speaker 2: we had a we had a little little control room,
Speaker 2: and it was it would work fine. And eventually it
Speaker 2: did work okay, And but it was crazy Dena wouldn't
Speaker 2: let any wives go over there. That he made the rules. See,
Speaker 2: no wives were allowed to go with us.
Speaker 1: So that album is known for fresh air. Have another
Speaker 1: hit of fresh Air? Yeah, you know it ends up
Speaker 1: being a different band now with Dino in it.
Speaker 2: Yes it does. And I kind of knew that, but
Speaker 2: I don't know. I didn't. I didn't want to be
Speaker 2: in that band without Gary. And then, as it turns out,
Speaker 2: before we left Hawaii, Ron Poulte our manager, Quiz, Tohn
Speaker 2: Ceppelina Quiz and Nicki Quitz, and I say, well, if
Speaker 2: I quit, there won't be any I don't want to be,
Speaker 2: you know, And so I say I'll stick around for
Speaker 2: a year. If nothing happens, I'm out of here. I mean,
Speaker 2: if I'm not doing something, you know, and nothing happened.
Speaker 2: I mean we we got another album probably out of
Speaker 2: some of the stuff that the next one that came out,
Speaker 2: I think it had what About Me on it, right,
Speaker 2: which was which was a pretty good song. I like
Speaker 2: that song. I like to sing that song. That's a
Speaker 2: good song. But I could see nothing was happening anyway.
Speaker 2: I ended up Mike, excuse another pot bust is coming up.
Speaker 2: So they always ends up good though, you know, first
Speaker 2: one ended up I had, I got the band.
Speaker 1: Yeah, what happened with the second boss?
Speaker 2: It was dismissed Byron Rohan got it dismissed. So I
Speaker 2: never but you know, it got me out of the
Speaker 2: job where I was wasting my time. Really, you know,
Speaker 2: it wasn't going to help me get anywhere or do
Speaker 2: anything that I could do. I could end up being
Speaker 2: a clerk for the rest of my life. But I
Speaker 2: really wanted to sing and play, you know. So it
Speaker 2: put me into Quicksilver. Actually, and and this next one
Speaker 2: handily gets me out of Quicksilver.
Speaker 1: So now you don't have a band. What's the plan?
Speaker 2: Well, that was an entertaining bus too, but that gets
Speaker 2: boring talking about bus, so let's get that. Uh. First
Speaker 2: thing I did was I got out my base wanted
Speaker 2: to play a little bit. So there's this band called
Speaker 2: the Asa Cups that a girl, all girl band, and
Speaker 2: they had another and they had formed a different thing,
Speaker 2: and they wanted to wonder if I'd played bass because
Speaker 2: their bass player had stopped them. So I just did
Speaker 2: it for a couple of few months, and I started
Speaker 2: hanging out with Mickey Hart from the From the Dead.
Speaker 2: He hadn't ranch in Nevado, that's you know, you know,
Speaker 2: a couple of miles away from me, and I started
Speaker 2: hanging with him. He was making his his first solo album,
Speaker 2: and so I hung with him and sang a bunch
Speaker 2: of songs and helped helped engineer. Started thinking of me
Speaker 2: being an engineer, but I did engineer whole tower of
Speaker 2: power horn session. So so you know, I was just
Speaker 2: started hanging with him and you know, and singing, singing
Speaker 2: a bunch of the songs on his album and playing
Speaker 2: a bunch of the stuff. And there was a song
Speaker 2: called And meanwhile, over in San Francisco, Crosby was making
Speaker 2: his his album if I, if I could only remember
Speaker 2: my name, And and that was turning into a group
Speaker 2: thing too, because everybody, you know, all all a lot
Speaker 2: of the dead, and Paul and Grace and I were
Speaker 2: over there for a lot of the sessions, just just
Speaker 2: just to hang and watch out and see if there's
Speaker 2: anything we could do. And there was a whole thing
Speaker 2: called the what they call it, where everybody like Crosby, Nash,
Speaker 2: Phil Lesh, Paul, Grace, Me, Crosby, course Jerry Garcia would
Speaker 2: be there and we'd all just hang out, be jamming
Speaker 2: on songs. And I mean, I learned how to play
Speaker 2: that song, the Grateful Dead song, the Loser. He was
Speaker 2: writing that at that point. So he was playing that,
Speaker 2: and we ever teaching to everybody, and we were all
Speaker 2: playing that, and every bit of it was recorded on
Speaker 2: two tracks, and it was called the Paro the Planet
Speaker 2: Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra, the PAO tapes, and that
Speaker 2: got out as an underground thing. So these long long
Speaker 2: jams on on one song or so anyway, So that
Speaker 2: was happening, and so I was hanging out with Paul
Speaker 2: and Grace a lot, and I heard this one song,
Speaker 2: I heard them singing on it. Would sound really good.
Speaker 2: It's called Blind John the guitar player, and they could
Speaker 2: sing on it if they if they wanted to, and
Speaker 2: said you want to sing it? So they said sure,
Speaker 2: So we brought him over to Mickey's and they we
Speaker 2: sang the background vocals and Grace actually I saw her,
Speaker 2: said I heard, I heard a piano part for that,
Speaker 2: she played the piano. And shortly after we finished Mickey's album,
Speaker 2: Marty left the airplane and Paul and Grace asked me
Speaker 2: to come and sing the harmonies and be the other
Speaker 2: other guy singer because they had to be two guys
Speaker 2: and a girl. And so that got me into Jefferson.
Speaker 1: Airplane, okay, and Jefferson the Airplane that ultimately disintegrates.
Speaker 2: Right, So meanwhile, there's there's some time off after after
Speaker 2: all the touring for they were touring uh Long John Silver,
Speaker 2: I think that was the name of the album, right,
Speaker 2: But Paul and Grace both owed Narcia record, so the
Speaker 2: first one ended up being Baron von told Booth and
Speaker 2: the Chrome Nun, which is credited to Paul, Grace and
Speaker 2: me because we just got together and put it to
Speaker 2: you know, got it together, and everybody else in San
Speaker 2: Francisco because Jerry Garcia is on it, and Mickey Hart's
Speaker 2: on it, you know, Yorman jack Aer on it, you know,
Speaker 2: everybody's it. And that that was pretty good. And then
Speaker 2: then Grace O had had one called Manhole and it
Speaker 2: was the same thing. You know, we used the Great
Speaker 2: San Francisco Wealth of Musicians and we did that one,
Speaker 2: and then we had had to figure out what are
Speaker 2: we going to do? And Pete Sears was was was
Speaker 2: up playing get Nick doing a Kathy m MacDonald album in
Speaker 2: the same in another studio at Wally Hyder's, and I
Speaker 2: coveted him when I first saw him. He was playing
Speaker 2: with John Schippolina's band after he left Quicksilvery, and there
Speaker 2: was a guy named Jim McPherson and him that played
Speaker 2: both played keyboards and bass, and so they switched back
Speaker 2: and forth, and I thought that would be great because
Speaker 2: I would love to be in a band with him
Speaker 2: because he played them both beautifully, you know, and he
Speaker 2: was and so I brought I hinted it Paul and Grace,
Speaker 2: you know, to meet this guy. So I brought him
Speaker 2: over and he played jammed a little blue song which
Speaker 2: Grace turned into Better Lie Down I think on her
Speaker 2: album and and they got to know him, which is
Speaker 2: very good. And so when it came time what are
Speaker 2: we going to do? How are we going to get
Speaker 2: to band together? And said, well, and what are we
Speaker 2: going to call it? Well, you know, you know that
Speaker 2: you know about Paul's blows against the empire, had it
Speaker 2: was who the cast was, who played the players? Where
Speaker 2: he called it the Jefferson Jefferson Starship Crew. So he
Speaker 2: had already had the name. It seemed obvious that that's
Speaker 2: what we should let the name turn into. And everything
Speaker 2: went that way. And so when Pete Didget, I think
Speaker 2: he was playing with a Rod Stewart album in England,
Speaker 2: and when when that was over, he came back and
Speaker 2: we went on the first tour without him because he
Speaker 2: was finishing that record. But he came back and was
Speaker 2: on all the all the Jefferson Starship albums.
Speaker 1: Okay, the first one, Dragonfly. There's one successful track, Caroline,
Speaker 1: sung by Marty, but Marty isn't in the band. How
Speaker 1: does that work? And how does Marty end up in
Speaker 1: the band.
Speaker 2: Well, that's how he ended up in the band, I think,
Speaker 2: because because he didn't like what was happening between Yorman
Speaker 2: and Jack and Paul and Grace, and nobody wanted to
Speaker 2: do what he wanted to do. I think, what's just
Speaker 2: sing Marty ballance songs, you know, And and that worked
Speaker 2: that he could still write with with Paul and so
Speaker 2: I assume that's why why he agreed to come back
Speaker 2: and do Red Octopus with us.
Speaker 1: Red Octopus is a gigantic success with Miracles. Did you
Speaker 1: guys know it was going to be so big?
Speaker 2: I could feel. I never wanted to think about, oh,
Speaker 2: this is going to be really big or anything like that.
Speaker 2: I just wanted but I knew that that one from
Speaker 2: the moment we played it in the studio. I mean,
Speaker 2: because we rehearsed it and it was a lot of fun.
Speaker 2: When we played it in the studio, every everybody did
Speaker 2: exactly the right thing. That was like that was like
Speaker 2: a magical one to me.
Speaker 1: Okay, this is the first time you've been making music
Speaker 1: for years, but this is the first time you've been
Speaker 1: involved with something that is commercially successful.
Speaker 2: He yeah, And.
Speaker 1: Was your life now different? Were you making any money?
Speaker 1: It was a big band and you didn't write the hit,
Speaker 1: but you were on the album. How did it all
Speaker 1: work out?
Speaker 2: For you worked that great, I thought. I mean, I
Speaker 2: mean we had a song, I think song on the
Speaker 2: album that it wasn't a hit, but it got played.
Speaker 2: Actually I played the the intro that the we're gonna
Speaker 2: look at the beginning was mine. So that's kind of
Speaker 2: the first hook.
Speaker 1: So the next album is successful, not as successful as Redoctopus,
Speaker 1: almost nothing could be right. And then you know the
Speaker 1: band starts, you know, switching into something different. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: tell me about that.
Speaker 2: Oh what was that Kevin Beamish? Right?
Speaker 1: Will you make another record? And that is nowhere near
Speaker 1: as successful? When's the change? Ron Nevison comes in? You
Speaker 1: write the same gene you're on that album. Yeah, but
Speaker 1: ron Nevison is is about Lucy Goosey, like San Francisco. No, no,
Speaker 1: So how did you feel about all that?
Speaker 2: I thought he did a great job actually, but he
Speaker 2: had his own problems, but he got it done. I mean,
Speaker 2: you know, I wasn't the only writer. I mean I
Speaker 2: started the song and my friend Jim McPherson and I
Speaker 2: wrote that wrote the melodies and the changes and the words.
Speaker 2: I mean, he helped me with the words. Basically I
Speaker 2: had the melody and the changes, but Craig came up
Speaker 2: with that great rock arrangement, so that's the CASEO and
Speaker 2: Paul came up with the intro, so that was his
Speaker 2: little lick at the beginning. So that's so they each
Speaker 2: got's points on it.
Speaker 1: So okay, then there's another album, you know with ron
Speaker 1: Nevisin where Craig writes the hit find Your Way Back. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And how does Nicky Thomas get in the bed?
Speaker 2: Well, he was in the band for when Grace left.
Speaker 2: He was he sang Jane, didn't he right?
Speaker 1: But how did you find him? How were you? He
Speaker 1: was working with Elvin Bishop. How did he end up
Speaker 1: in your band?
Speaker 2: Well, Marty and Grace both quit and Paul and I
Speaker 2: agreed with him, said said he thought we needed a
Speaker 2: new lead singer, so we started auditioning people and we
Speaker 2: had Jane. So it kind of seemed like the person
Speaker 2: that sang Jane best was gonna was going to be
Speaker 2: the guy. And uh, I don't know quite remember how
Speaker 2: he be came who talked him into coming in?
Speaker 1: Okay, how do you ultimately leave?
Speaker 2: Well, there's a few albums before I know, we'll tell
Speaker 2: you the story. Uh. He brought in Peter wolf Right,
Speaker 2: who was the most. If anybody's around and you need
Speaker 2: keyboards played, it'd have to be him, because he was
Speaker 2: a genius and he was he was great. But I
Speaker 2: don't know, I was doing less. I was doing much less.
Speaker 2: You know. I'd sing and maybe I'd get to play
Speaker 2: a little keys or something here, or play a little bass.
Speaker 2: And it felt like they were going more towards being
Speaker 2: a corporate kind of band, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: where they're going to say, Okay, we'll sit here and
Speaker 2: we'll listen to people's songs and we'll pick the songs
Speaker 2: we're going to do, which is what it turned into
Speaker 2: after I left and Paul left, and so you know,
Speaker 2: and it was trying of it was moves to pull
Speaker 2: push Paul out, you know, because nobody wanted to do
Speaker 2: his crazy songs or anything, you know, and I kind
Speaker 2: of like Paul's crazy songs. Some of them were really good.
Speaker 2: And uh, but I also have a hard time quitting band.
Speaker 2: Says well, I noticed I should have quit Quick Sliver
Speaker 2: before I did, and I probably should have quit this one.
Speaker 1: Well how did it add? Did they push you to
Speaker 1: you jump?
Speaker 2: Oh? They pushed, they pushed, But I saw it coming.
Speaker 2: I mean I could. I could tell by all the
Speaker 2: contracts that were being signed and things like that. Oh,
Speaker 2: people could be fired from the band. Okay yet da
Speaker 2: yeah yeah, yeah yeah, I said, I said, SKay them,
Speaker 2: now they can fire me. So I expected it. I
Speaker 2: expected because I wasn't doing anything and I and I
Speaker 2: was thinking about getting out myself, you know, So that
Speaker 2: just made it final. So you know, I didn't take
Speaker 2: it that hard. Actually, and you know, if I if I,
Speaker 2: if I hadn't been it didn't get out of it,
Speaker 2: I probably never would have met my wife. Now went
Speaker 2: the magnificent Linden Imperial and uh and so I was
Speaker 2: quite happy about it.
Speaker 1: Actually, okay, you're out of the band. What are you
Speaker 1: going to do for money?
Speaker 2: Oh, I'll screep it up somehow, you know, I had
Speaker 2: some money anyway, pushed it put away and so I
Speaker 2: don't know, I went. I started. I hung out with
Speaker 2: Gary Duncan again, who seemed to be reasonable again. And
Speaker 2: actually that's how I met Linda. You know. I got
Speaker 2: a phone call and he says, hey, David, I got
Speaker 2: this chick singer coming coming around and I need to
Speaker 2: do some background vocals and and because the ones that
Speaker 2: are on there. Man, the girls got too screwed up
Speaker 2: and I can't use any of it. He says, Okay,
Speaker 2: I'll come over. And so I ended up picking up
Speaker 2: this chick singer at the bus stop and bringing them
Speaker 2: over to it to his studio, and it was Linda
Speaker 2: Imperial and h just like falling off a lall we're saying,
Speaker 2: I think four did four background four songs, backgrounds topped
Speaker 2: a bottom in one day and it was beautiful.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well, how long did it last with the marriage
Speaker 1: with the woman you met at the film bore?
Speaker 2: Oh? Julia, Well, I have a beautiful daughter with her.
Speaker 2: Jessica girl, Yeah, girl, girl, Julie, Julia. We got divorced,
Speaker 2: very dignified. I mean it was it was easy. We
Speaker 2: all just got together and said, well what do we have?
Speaker 2: We have this house? Okay, you want me to buy
Speaker 2: your half of it? And she said that sounds really good.
Speaker 2: So I bought her half of the house. I don't
Speaker 2: think her lawyer liked it, but she insisted that's all
Speaker 2: she wanted.
Speaker 1: Okay, at this late date, do you get any royalties.
Speaker 2: From what?
Speaker 1: From records? Songs? Sure enough to live on.
Speaker 2: Close?
Speaker 1: Oh that's good, that's good. So the way you tell
Speaker 1: the story is you were kind of bumping around and
Speaker 1: he said I want to I kind of want to
Speaker 1: do this, and you were kind of falling into things.
Speaker 1: Is that an accurate description or were you really aggressive?
Speaker 1: Has got a bad connotation, But were you more like, well, geez,
Speaker 1: I kind of want to do this. You know, I
Speaker 1: met this guy. This guy seems to be going somewhere.
Speaker 1: You know, if we look back, what was it like?
Speaker 2: I didn't really think about it like that. I think
Speaker 2: I wanted to go. I wanted I wanted to be
Speaker 2: in a band where everybody respected each other and and
Speaker 2: and you know, and I don't think I ever found
Speaker 2: one it till I was in the one that I'm
Speaker 2: in now, because that feels great, It's absolutely great.
Speaker 1: And then, you know, if you weren't living in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: you were hearing about the hate ashbery, you were hearing
Speaker 1: about drugs, hearing about Summer of Love. What was your
Speaker 1: take on all of that?
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that was kind of a mistake. I mean,
Speaker 2: nothing lasts forever. I mean, you can't come out and
Speaker 2: find and as soon as it hit the I saw
Speaker 2: somebody like like guys in Vietnam, looking at the Quicksilver
Speaker 2: Messenger service, uh album on in Time on Times, Time
Speaker 2: Magazine's cover or something like that. And once once you're
Speaker 2: in Time magazine or stuff like that, it's all over
Speaker 2: because because it can't it can't be the same. Everybody's
Speaker 2: going to want to come out and see. It has
Speaker 2: to be turned into a one way I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: it has to be turned into a one way street
Speaker 2: because there's too many, too much traffic and you know,
Speaker 2: everybody's coming out to see the hippies who went to
Speaker 2: Meriton County last year.
Speaker 1: You know, So before it got all the publicity, was
Speaker 1: it a dream? Was it great.
Speaker 2: For Yeah, for a few months, I'd say maybe six,
Speaker 2: but you know it it's you know, it wasn't that
Speaker 2: cut and dried. But for the first year it was
Speaker 2: fine until it got really big. And then when it
Speaker 2: gets really big, it's it's too big to I mean,
Speaker 2: San Francisco couldn't hold all that.
Speaker 1: So being a folks singer, yeah, seeing everything, what do
Speaker 1: you see in today's world? So he can do There
Speaker 1: was a thought back in the sixties music could change
Speaker 1: the world. How do you feel about today's world and
Speaker 1: can it be changed by music? Does it even need changing.
Speaker 2: It certainly seems like it needs changing, but it could help.
Speaker 2: I don't think it could do it. I don't think
Speaker 2: any one thing could change. People have to change, and
Speaker 2: are they going to I don't know. But all you
Speaker 2: can do is try.
Speaker 1: Well, would you consider yourself an old hippie you never
Speaker 1: sold out, or how do you view yourself?
Speaker 2: I don't know. I kind of sold out. I made
Speaker 2: money doing stuff, But yes, I still agree I haven't changed.
Speaker 1: It sounds to me like you kind of made money
Speaker 1: by accident.
Speaker 2: Well, I was in the right place at the right time,
Speaker 2: I must admit. I mean that's part of it. But
Speaker 2: you have have some talent and and I still have
Speaker 2: values and and I know that people in our band
Speaker 2: do that when we have now really do and we're
Speaker 2: trying trying to change things. But all we can all
Speaker 2: we can do is is is singing and and and
Speaker 2: so that people are all just people, man, They're all
Speaker 2: just people, and they ain't that much different anywhere you go.
Speaker 2: And anybody that tells you any different is trying to
Speaker 2: get something.
Speaker 1: So what do you want to be remembered for? Don't
Speaker 1: need to be remembered. I don't know that's a basic question.
Speaker 1: Maybe you don't care.
Speaker 2: I don't know. I want to remember for a guy
Speaker 2: that did the did the right thing for as he could.
Speaker 2: I don't know. That's the kind of all I can
Speaker 2: ask for.
Speaker 1: And you still are in contact with the beat people.
Speaker 1: You're out on the road with Jefferson Starship, but all
Speaker 1: the other people from San Francisco band, some you were in,
Speaker 1: some you weren't, who are still alive, which is a
Speaker 1: big thing. Is there still a community you still talk
Speaker 1: to them, or is basically everybody's doing their own thing.
Speaker 2: Well, unfortunately, I'm the only time I ever see any
Speaker 2: old friends is that it's somebody else's funeral. But I'm
Speaker 2: just trying to to make it to be positive through
Speaker 2: what's happening now, and that's hard.
Speaker 1: The heavy lift. Okay, David, you've belistening to David Freiburg,
Speaker 1: who was there when it all happened in San Francisco
Speaker 1: and you know him of course from Quicksilver Jefferson Starship
Speaker 1: Still Jefferson Starship. I want to thank you for taking
Speaker 1: this time to speak with my audience. Got back until
Speaker 1: next time. This is Bob left six
Speaker 2: H