From 2016 Self Authoring

3.1 Vipers at the Fillmore

I was enrolled in school when I got back from the summer trip cross country, but I didn’t pass any classes. The Vipers played some parties on campus. I went up to Kesey’s with Norman just as Ginsburg, Cassidy, and Orlovsky pulled into the driveway. Bill Graham rented the Fillmore Auditorium for the night of December 10 for his second benefit for the SF Mime Troop. We heard about the event, called Graham, got a same day audition, and played first, as people filed in. It became a historic night because it was the first event Graham ever held at the Fillmore, and it was the first time the Warlocks revealed their new name, the Grateful Dead. I had a hard time keeping my pedal clamped onto the bass drum. When we finished we took my drums out to the car. It took a second trip back to get the ride cymbal and high hat. When we got back to car it was empty. We had left it unlocked and all my drums were gone. I had no drum set for the next year.

3.2 The Acid Test December 18, 1965

Eight days after the Fillmore gig was the Acid Test at the Big Beat club near Palo Alto. Having taken LSD on two occasions at Esalen, and being familiar with the emerging scene, I was planning to, and did, drink the Kool Aid. More than 50 years later, it’s a little difficult to conjure up such an unusual event without immersing myself in contemporary descriptions, but one thing comes to mind. If the Esalen LSD trips were a major plunge into an initiatory process, they were individual and somewhat solitary. The Palo Alto Acid Test was a communal initiation, stepping into another world together. This was the night that, among other things, for better or for worse, I entered fully into the LSD counterculture.

3.3 On stage on acid July 16, 1967

The third and final night of our first major gig at the Fillmore, I decided to take LSD before we left for the gig. I don’t remember telling any one. I wrote about it for the 1998 Memoir class. That version has become the only version I have access to. It’s safe to say that was the apex and nadir of my career as a rock musician. In retrospect it’s hard to appreciate the frame of mind that generated that choice.

3.4 Up close and personal with rock legends

I had colorful and fun backstage experiences with Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison, and fairly frequent encounters with members of the Grateful Dead both before and after the band formed. I was invited to join Captain Beefheart’s Band, and invited by Big Momma Willie Mae Thornton to sit in with her, although I declined both. I spent a day in Steve Miller’s house while the band rehearsed. I had very stoned brief conversations with Eric Burden, Jack Cassidy (Jefferson Airplane bassist), Barry Goldberg (Paul Butterfield organist), and Buddy Miles (Jimi Hendrix drummer).

3.5 Monday Night Class

Living on Blake St. In Berkeley, with the Phoenix. Walking up to Telegraph every day to hang out and browse in the back room annex at Moe’s, which came to be called Shambhala. I was actively seeking a spiritual path. Started reading Gurdjieff’s big book. Looking for a group to become involved with. Tom Hart went to MNC and invited me to come with him. I wrote about my first meeting in my Antioch portfolio. Suffice it to say I was totally hooked into the community and remained so for almost 3 years.

3.6 The Caravan and the Farm

When the Caravan returned I went to see them at Sutro Park on Sunday February 7, 1971. Stephen announced they would leave for Tennessee the following Sunday. If you wanted to come along, show up. I did. A spectacular cross country Caravan of 54 reconverted school buses. Clearing the way with machetes onto the first farm. Peyote meetings and bonfire when we landed. Working with large harvesting and carpentry crews. My apprenticeship with Peter Hoyt building the sorghum mill. Leaving to follow my inner voice. Vowing that whatever I did next I would choose for the long haul and hang in when the going got tough.