About those famous musicians…

A silly Facebook meme asked what famous musicians we’ve met. There were so many, I couldn’t choose. I liked Allegra Broughton’s (Solid Air) idea of telling the backstories of how we met. Much more interesting than a vanilla list.

After I posted a partial list, someone asked me how come I’d met so many musicians, I said mostly it came down to time and place. Many nearly famous rock musicians played at our high school assemblies and political rallies (Class of 1970—we made the 6 o’clock news when we shut down the Marin County draft board). From the Tubes, Moby Grape, Talking Heads, Country Joe to John Cipollina. So we thought hobnobbing with musicians was normal. 

After the Summer of Love, when utopia began to sour, and society as we knew it had the DTs, the rock musicians and hangers-on began to flee the Haight in San Francisco for Marin County, they invaded our tiny little valley. We all had to learn to live with each other, which was an uneasy compromise. Old redneck school met hippiedom. It was not love at first sight. And I was not at all starstruck. If anything, I was angry that our valley had been invaded. 

The influx of new people stretched and tore the warp and weft of our bucolic valley. And when Tam school district took away our buses (too expensive, they said), we had to hitchhike in order to get to school. We demonstrated, we walked to and from school—but it was 17 miles each way! I was exhausted. I took up hitchhiking. And the only folks that would stop to pick us up were the rock musicians. Never the ranchers who even knew us. No solidarity there.

I grew up in west Marin so I met many of the musicians while I was hitchhiking home to Forest Knolls. I thumbed rides with Van Morrison, Jesse Colin Young, Sons of Champlin (our main lid connection), Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and of course, Janis—many of them lived on my road. Carlos Santana was always good for a ride. Janice never stopped for us, but then she only had a two-seater Porsche. She always braked for young men hitchhiking.

Linda Ronstadt, Grace Slick, most of Jefferson Airplane, Maria Muldaur all lived in nearby hamlets at one time or another. When Jefferson Airplane moved to Woodacre, they hung a model biplane that was featured on one of their albums from an oak tree.

I met many, if not all of the Grateful Dead—both living and dead, Micky Hart was a neighbor both in Forest Knolls, and later in Forestville—we boarded his girlfriend’s horse. Later, poor Jerry Garcia was in rehab at Forest Farm Camp, renamed Serenity Farm, so we saw him dawdling down the hill to the little grocery store in Forest Knolls to get his daily fix of Häagen-Dazs, or Ben & Jerry’s Cherry Garcia ice cream, right before he died.

Bobby Darin was a very good friend of my mom’s. I tried to play If I were a Carpenter for him on my Palamino Pony guitar. He was not impressed, I was 12, but he showed me an E minor progression chord I was having trouble with. I met Pete, Mike & Peggy Seeger at several venues. I must’ve been radiant with joy because after one concert in Grass Valley, Mike Seeger came up to me and gave me a huge bear hug, and wept on my shoulder. Ramblin’ Jack Elliott used to hang out in downtown Forest Knolls. He liked watching all the girls on horseback. I was one of them.

Bio Notes for Brian Kervin

For all you North Bay folks, Neil O"Neill and Maureen Hurley will be on the air live reading poetry (and music) on The Learnin' Kirven Show April 6th, from 4-6 pm at KWMR West Marin Community Radio  at 90.5 FM Point Reyes Station, and 89.9 FM Bolinas kwmr.org (live stream). Maureen will be reading poems of place, growing up in West Marin, highlights of our upcoming CPITS' 50-year anniversary, West Marin kids to read their poems. Neil will talk about coming to Marin in the 1970s, Ross Valley Players, his 30-year gig with Bread & Roses, and play some music.

I began to write Brian some bio notes and it got out of hand. Bloggy material, it is.

Hitching in Marin during late 60s, early 70s

When I was a teenager, I bought my guitar stings from Van Morrison's mother at Caledonia Records in Fairfax.

It was worth the bother to get there as she'd make us a cuppa tea with shortbread. I was round-eyed—she sounded like my grannie but was from the north of Ireland. I looked for horns. We shared a name in common: Violet—but her fingernails and mouth were little scarlet wounds circling her cigarette.

Mr. Morrison, in his tweeds, was sitting on a stool, puffing away on his pipe, smiling at us from afar. Meanwhile one of Van's songs—maybe it was Gloria—was blaring on KFRC's Top Ten. I was learning Pastures of Plenty, and Cottenpicking—they chastizing me for not having a guitar case for such a valuable guitar.

One time she was shop-sitting for a friend at Amazing Grace Music, an old gas station cum music store on a tiny wedge of land between the Miracle Mile (Red Hill Ave.) and San Anselmo Avenue in San Anselmo. It was much farther out of the way for me so I rarely went there, but I had a Martin and I needed some Martin strings.

Mrs. Morrison made Van give me a ride home. Van the Man in the van was not pleased. He was seriously bent out of shape by the request so I was terrified to speak to him. And it was a long ride home held in utter silence. I lived far from town—way out in Forest Knolls, and he lived even farther out in Inverness.

Violet Morrison was a chanteuse in Northern Ireland

There was no bus service out to The Valley so it was either thumb, or shank's mare. Van the Man drove a van. I had no real idea who he was at the time... I was so fecking shy I couldn't talk to him even if I wanted to.

It seems that every rock musician from the 60s moved out to West Marin—sort of a fallout from the Haight. West Marin was invaded by the likes of the Sons of Champlin, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane—to name a few. 

They saw us kids hitching home every day—to us, it was merely an alternate bus service. We didn't think twice that these guys were famous. The road out to The Valley was long and winding, and in those days, people generally stopped for hitchikers.

---

Jesse Colin Young, who also lived in Inverness, was much easier to talk to than Van. He had cute little kids who took swimming lessons with ze French Mrs. Zettl who lived half way up Arroyo Road—so I got a ride almost all the way home from Jesse.

Carlos Santana was silent like Van—absolute mauna. He had a nice Mercedes with fawn leather seats though... One morning, I was still half-asleep, hitching into Drake High School (emphasis at that point was on getting high), Carlos pulled over to offer me a lift.

It was pretty early so Carlos might not have been awake either. He was pulling pretty hard on both his coffee mug and a joint. He looked half-dressed—like he just rolled out of bed. I remember being a little shocked that he wore those baggy string pants. Them string pants were riding dangerously low on Carlito's hips as I recall....

Carlos moved into my friend Lindy Young's place on Tamal Road (right up from Linda Gregg's place—where Jerry Garcia later died) and he had horses too—that was our common ground. I don't remember much else—other than I got to school on time.

Got a ride from decopage artists Larry Fuentes and Dickens Bascom too. Dickens' art car had an entire Remington typewriter that still worked glued to the trunk of his Fort Falcon. The sides and fins were lined with worn out sneaker bottoms—like fish scales. Poetic justice.

My College of Marin classmate David Best copied Dickens Bascom and Larry Fuentes' art-cars and came up with some amazing art-cars of his own—and made a career of it. I loved the flocked chia seed Cadillac punctuated with mirror shards and a water buffalo head hood ornament that he used to park at Micky McGowan's Unknown Museum in Mill Valley.

The Unknown Museum, (founded ca. 1974—but I think it was earlier than that) which closed its doors in 1989, was something to behold with all its repurposed Americana detritus as iconography—the ultimate recycler's wetdream.

David told me that at night the deer came down to graze on the car. Mickey the cobbler had a Fiat stuffed with Disney toys and Barbie dolls.The Fiat didn't run, but David's Caddy did—I sat in it with David and talked until the cows came home, but never got a real ride in it. So I guess it doesn't count. Somewhere I have the slides... fodder for another blog.

COMING OF AGE IN AQUARIUS (Summer of Love) long v.

I grew up on Turtle Island. I was an unwilling player during the revolutionary birth ot the 60's and the Summer ot Love. Some ot it had to do with age, or lack ot it on my part. I was 14 and uptight. Half of my friends ran away to the Haight Ashbury and the other half practiced making their necks as red as the necks of their blue-collar parents'.

My mother turned me on with green oatmeal cookies. Actually, it was an accident. We were at her gay friend's house in Larkspur having dinner. A friend, Sue Williams and I helped ourselves to the big cookie jar. We couldn't understand why they made such a fuss, and wouldn't let us have any more health food chocolate chip cookies loaded with that weird green shit. Ugh!

Why were they watching us so oddly as we corn-braided and beaded each other's long hair, danced, and wove peace symbols on the shoebox we converted to a finger loom? My mother went along with my frenzied creative urges before I fell into a narcoticised dreamstate while Janis wailed and crooned on the stereo:

Take it!
Take another little piece of my heart
now baby
you know you got it
if it makes you feel good

A life size poster of Grace Slick wrapped in an American flag sung to me from the wall and the air filled with visual debris.

Micaela and I crashed parties on The Charles Van Dam ferry boat stuck in the Sausalito mud at an angle that almost rivaled that of the Spreckles House. Jean Varda's geometric blue and red paintings nailed to the curved ferryboat wall, defied horizon and plum-line logic. 

We sneaked into the captain's brig that served as a loft and watched the party below us carry on. While our parents were turning on and dropping out, we ran wild in the streets. Sneaking off to the Avalon. Fillmore. Winterland. Sometimes finding our parents there before us. My mother was very hip and my reverse rebellion kept me straighter than most of my friends.

The drug experimentation blossomed in kalidascopic exponentials. Crazy people got crazier. My mother checked out all Ken Kesey's acid tests. Took me to the Panhandle. Parties and concerts in Golden Gate Park. The Be-in. Magic Mountain of Marin. Clouds of incense roiling out of the Psychedelic Shop. People sleeping in doorways. Crash pads with wal-to-wall bare mattresses, sinks filled with putrid dishes, mountains of rotting garbage, incense and patchouli oil made me wary of acid and hard drugs.

Various rock groups divided up the San Geronimo Valley like musical mafias. Jefferson Starship hung a model bi-plane from a bay tree in Woodacre. The Grateful Dead were mostly encamped in Forest Knolls, while Big Brother and the Holding Company took over the barracks at Barbano's summer camp on Arroyo Road. Mrs. Barbano rented the dorms to them, but after her daughter was killed by a car in Mexico— something to do with dope; Mr. Barbano shot himself in the head. Walking home from school, I remember him all white and red as if asleep on the gurney as they wheeled him into the ambulance.

Most afternoons, when the shadows grew long and chill settled into the gulch, the hills reverbrated with the distorted screaming of electric guitars. My friend Micaela quit coming home from school, dropped acid with the musicians at Barbano's instead, and I felt betrayed by this.

We ran from one end of the San Geronimo Valley to the other searching for dope. And the rock stars were our best bet. Most of the musicians never got out of bed until afternoon—that was the time to score, and hang out for a jam session. Bill Bowan, the drummer for the Sons of Champlain, always had grass and there was even an abandoned van parked at Dead Man's Curve in Lagunitas for lovers in search of a bed. John McBride often took advantage of that pad on wheels.

It wasn't just the rock stars who moved into the San Geronimo Valley. Those fleeing from the Haight. From LA, or New York, everybody began to migrate westward like lemmings to the sea. 

House of Richard took over the old dance hall in Forest Knolls. I sold my first chain crocheted caps there, and in exchange, bought hay for my horse. Richard told me how the border police, looking far dope, tore apart their VW van after a textile buying trip in Mexico. Even the tires were removed from the rims. The disciples of the Summer of Love moved to the Valley enmasse. 

COMING OF AGE IN AQUARIUS

COMING OF AGE IN AQUARIUS

"If you remember the '60's you weren't really there."
— Robin Williams

I was an unwilling player during the birth of the 60's and the Summer of Love. Some of it had to do with age, or lack of it on my part. I was 14 and uptight. It was an accident but my mother turned us on with green cookies. We couldn't understand why they made such a fuss, and wouldn't let us have any more cookies loaded with weird green stuff. Why were they watching us so oddly as we corn-braided and beaded each other's hair and wove peace symbols on an improvised shoebox the finger loom? Janis Joplin wailed and crooned on the stereo:

Take it!
Take another little piece of my heart
now baby

A life size poster of Grace Slick wrapped in an American flag sung to me from the wall and the air filled with visual debris. We crashed parties on The Charles Van Dam ferry boat, sunk rakishly in the Sausalito mud. Varda's geometric blue and red paintings nailed to the wall defied horizon and plum-line logic. The drug experimentation blossomed in kalidascopic exponentials. Crazy people got crazier. My mother checked out Ken Kesey's acid tests. Clouds of incense roiling out of the Psychedelic Shop. People sleeping in doorways. Crash pads with bare mattresses and sinks filled with rotting garbage, reeking of incense and patchouli oil.

Big Brother and the Holding Company took over the barracks at Barbano's summer camp on Arroyo Road. After Barbano's daughter was killed by a car in Mexico— something to do with dope; Mr. Barbano shot himself in the head. Walking home from school, I remember him all white and red as if asleep in the ambulance.

Most afternoons when the shadows grew long and chill settled into the gulch, the hills reverbrated with the distorted screaming of electric guitars. My friend Micaela quit coming home, dropped acid at Barbano's, or hung out at one of the Grateful Dead pads instead, and I felt betrayed by her abandonment.

We ran from one end of the San Geronimo Valley to the other—searching for dope. And the rock stars were our best bet. It wasn't just the rock stars who moved into the Valley. Those fleeing from the Haight, or New York. We all dealed.

At The House of Richard, once the old dance hall in Forest Knolls, Richard himself, told me how the border police tore apart their VW van looking for dope after a textile buying trip in Mexico. Even the tires were removed from the rims.

Kerouac On the Road. Cassidy at the wheel. Timothy Leary and Baba Ram Dass floated into town. Alan Watts was staying with a former Jesuit brother at the Heart Sutra House. There was no time for recording history. In Mary Mackey's English class at Drake High School (emphasis on high), we studied the lyrics on the Revolver album. We tried another high. Someone issued a warning that morning glory seeds were coated with poison. Heavenly Blues turned deadly. A friend in the slammer for dealing. Rumor of another petty dealer turning up dead in an oil barrel in the San Rafael canal for double-crossing a dope dealer. Hendrix dead. Joplin dead. Bobby dead. The vets. All those dead coming home in boxes.

We traded Zap Comix for dope. The school narc married red-headed Kelly, a friend of mine. My art teacher Warren Fairbanks (who went to school with my mom), married my classmate Rachel and moved to Bolinas. No one else bothered to get married. We watched light shows at the Fairfax Pavillian. Everybody's made Time Magazine as the first health food store in the US.

Things got hopping on the Bolinas Mesa. Lots of writers climbing aboard Turtle Island. Gary Snyder talked about this place as if he owned it; I thought I could write like him. What's the big deal? So I began my apprenticeship.

Moulton's store in Forest Knolls burned down and there wasn't much to downtown except hang outside the Valley Tavern, or at the train platform. The same was true about Lagunitas. Some say, the boy who set his own house on fire, killing two younger brothers, torched this building too. Some say he burned down all the historic wooden buildings in The Valley.

Tensions rose. Old Man Bevans, out gardening on the old railroad bed between Castro and Sir Francis Drake Blvd at Arroyo Road, went vigilante and stuck his rake through one Hell's Angel's tire spokes. When the Angel got done with Old Man Bevans there wasn't much left to hospitalize. Everyone started selling out. Land was subdivided. Dairies went under. One could feel the change in the wind.

Gurus and TM moved to Marin. Then, the EST graduates. Most of us moved on and became ex-patriot. I moved from Forest Knolls to Forestville. Little did Lew Welch know when he wrote "The Song Mt. Tamalpais Sings," that there was nowhere else left for us to go. It was no longer a question of need. Houses desecrated the sides of the goddess, Mt. Tarn. Ken Kesey, the Merry Prankster headed north to greener pastures.

Life magazine ran pictures of the war in full color, they're still etched in my mind like shadows of Hiroshima. My mother checked in and out of mental wards like they were revolving doors. She wanted me to read One Flew Over the Cukoo's Nest so I could understand shock therapy. I waited in hospital wards with wax-yellowed and green tile floors with curved corners for my mother to make her grand entrance in a blue hospital gown and paper slippers.

One pill makes you whiter

And one pill makes you small 

The ones that mother gives you 

Don't do anything at all

On the 20th anniversary of the Summer of Love, I'm working with the crazies at Napa State Hospital. The inmates have their poems memorized. I can't remember any of my poems all the way through. I meet a friend of my mother's, Sally Lacy, an inmate, who raised an eyebrow, and wants to know what I'm doing in a place like this. It's like a 60's time capsule here. Do I tell them that of all the artists, poets are the most often institutionalized? Depending upon how one looks at it— maybe it's those who are locked up who are closer to poetry. The nuthouses are breeding poets. The trickster Coyote has holes in his pockets.

The Summer of Love wore down like a bad trip. Vietnam. Reagan brought out the National Guard at People's Park; brothers and sisters fell. As we marched, we shielded our faces from the FBI who took photographic aim from the top of the Zim's Drive-in tower in San Rafael. Zim Boy grinning down at us and waving.

People moved to the country and joined communes like Limelighter Lou Gottleib's Morning Star Ranch in Sonoma, or moved to the Eel River. Some went back to the land and raised families. Most cut off their hair, bought suits and joined the rat race. Jerry Rubin. Yuppies. Baby boomers, baby carrots and raduccio.

Bitter vets returned home and were treated like aliens from another planet. John Lennon gunned down in New York by some crazy wanting fame, and 20 years later, we like to think a revolution is brewing. Punk rock. The children conceived during that Summer of Love have come of age in an era of violence and apathy. And Lew Welch, with a gun to his head, walking off into the wilderness for the last time because there was no way left to remind the planet of its smoky gentleness. Turtle Island is shaking again. In what form will the revolution take this time around?

6/1987
added 6/17

More S o L

• COMING OF AGE IN AQUARIUS (Summer of Love) long v....
• COMING OF AGE IN AQUARIUS

Summer of Love, etc.
A revamp from an earlier post from 2013, 'Tween Worlds

A related blog post: Ken Kesey