We got in to San Francisco a day early so that everyone could get some rest
and see the sights before the Fillmore gig... we all kind of went our
separate ways, with Scott staying with his wife and her sister... Beau, Nej,
and the Crew went downtown on the CalTrain... and John, Debbie, Pete and I
went into town in John's ride to get some dinner...
We ate at a place called "The Thai Stick"...
... yeah, I know...
The food was really good though... Deb had not really had Thai food before so
I turned her and John on to Tom Ka, a spicey coconut milk-based soup... and
after dinner we went down to the Fisherman's Wharf (which was blessedly
vacant at that hour) and watched the sea lions hump for awhile... that and we
investigated the self-cleaning public toilet...
For my people back in Chicago, listen to THIS...
They have these pay toilets out here in this town that "self-sanitize" after
every use...
... supposedly...
They look like a permanent outhouse around triple the size of a Port-O-San
and armored like a Brinks truck... Pete had read a "News of the Weird" blurb
about one of these things going haywire and hosing down a "patron"... We were
all intrigued so Debbie and Pete volunteered to investigate while John and I
waited out of harm's way, ready to notify the Port Authority (or the
Port-O-San Authority, as it were)...
I could see it all going down...
"Pardon me, Sgt. Stool... but one of your Bowel Shelters has sanitized two of
our friends for our protection!"
"I'm sorry but I have no power in this outfit and our Commanding Officer is
out of town... I think you oughta talk to Major Dump, he's #2 in charge..."
OK, it was a cheap poop joke. So sue me.
The "cost of the ride" was twenty-five cents, and when we arrived infront of
this Phantom Toll Booth there were already two or three guys standing
around... after a short wait the door slid open like the Orgasmatron in
"Sleeper" and this big guy steps out declaring "I'd sooner crap in my pants
and let it run down my leg than park my ass on THAT thing!" to a rousing
chorus of grunts, laughs, and general guy-reaction to a well-delivered
vulgarian proclamation... being a card-carrying member myself, this was
enough testimony for ME... but Debbie was determined and Pete was up for any
sort of adventure, so we waited around for the thing to go through it's paces
after the door closed...
There was a sort of loud hissing, which was reassuring, followed by some
vaguely mechanical sounds and more hissing. The whole process took around a
minute or so, which was the first disadvantage I could see...
... what if it were the middle of the crowded tourist-type day and you were
there at Fisherman's Wharf with the wife and three kids to get a tour of
Alcatraz (which the wife and kids have NO interest in seeing "but it's
HISTORY!" says Dad, like he's trying to make a proctological exam sound like
fun... sorry, my memories of childhood creeping in), and suddenly one of the
kids has to go "tinkies"... there's gotta be a line for-EVER if this thing
has to go through it's paces after every single use...
Once it had finished making noises Debbie put her quarter in, the door slid
open, and we saw what all this technology had contributed to the pursuit of
cleaner public Defication-Stations...
There was excrement smeared on the floor and on the walls.
Seems someone else REALLY wanted to see how well it worked... but not to be
deprived, Deb and Pete stepped in and the door closed... John and I exchanged
raised eyebrows...
Immediately, there's a woman's recorded voice giving instructions on the use
of the facility... loud enough for John and me to hear from a
more-than-respectable distance, which would sort of be embarrassing if you
ask me...
"Gee thanks... never used a TOILET before..."
But anyway, the voice tells you how to extend the seat (it retracts into the
wall during cleaning and "stand-up use"), change the seat cover (it shuffles
the plastic cover until a new section covers the seat), how to activate the
sink (pass your hand under it), the dryer ( pass your hand under it), flush
(blessedly, you DON'T have to pass your hand under it), and how to get out
when you're done... in fact, the entire message takes longer to run than most
people are going to spend in this contraption... but just so you're aware,
the voice also informs you that you have a maximum of twenty minutes in the
Mecha-Toidie before (we assumed) it opened the door and exposed your
comprimised kiester to the public or you got steam-cleaned with your pants
around your ankles.
I won't dwell on this any longer, but suffice it to say that our friends were
returned unscathed and with minor psychic scarring from the experience...
neither of them USED the thing, by the way...
We walked back to John's van and took a spin around town, up and down various
insanely sloped streets... of course there was the obligatory drive-by at 710
Ashbury and 2400 Fulton, and then we went back to the hotel for some sleep.
The day of the gig I went into town with Beau, Rob, Dino, Nej, and Hazdra to
hack around the Haight... we got some pizza and poked around the head shops
and stuff... imagine that... lots of places selling bongs in
Haight-Ashbury... and we met up with Uncle Ray!!!
Ray was coming out for the show at the Fillmore and was also taking care of
some business while in town and we hooked up with him around lunch... he told
Beau about the flight from South Dakota (where he was visiting family)...
"We had to dump our fuel out over the ocean because the landing gear wouldn't
come down and we were gonna have to belly-land... had us in the 'Kiss Your
Ass Good-Bye' pose and everything... and the attendants were chanting 'Brace
For Impact!', I was scared, man... and then the plane touched down and we had
WHEELS... the whole plane went nuts with joy!"
I don't often say this, but I'd like to thank whatever rules this universe
for not taking Ray and the other good people on that flight away from us...
We finished bong shopping (actually, most uf us ended up in a music store
messing with the tools of our trade) in the Haight and went back to the hotel
to get cleaned up... then it was back into the van and off to the Fillmore
for sound check!
We got a bit lost on the way to the venue and left turns just aren't done out
here so we ended up circling around the area and pulling up right where we
should be. When I first walked into the hall I was speechless, and it only
got worse from there...
From Load-In to Idiot Check (making sure you don't leave, say, a mic or guitar
behind at the end of the night), the people at the Fillmore took such
unbelievable care of us that the whole experience will probably reign as one
of the Greatest Gigs Ever in my book, even though the general band opinion
after the show was that it wasn't our most stellar performance... we were a
bit nervous, I can tell you... not like a "Puking Nervous" but I think we
were all a bit too intent on the show and therefore we were all a bit stiff
for the first set, myself especially.
There was some speculation as to if any Bay Area luminaries were going to
show up... we already had one confirmed celebrity - David Gans, host of the
Grateful Dead Hour had been in touch with us via email to say he would be out
after his own show at another area club... so we were finally going to meet
him, hopefully...
We had sent him tapes and CDs of DSO way back in the "early days" before the
band had evolved to what it is now, and quite frankly the tapes were full of
somewhat shoddy performances (which were all we had to rush out at the time
as I recall because for some reason we thought he might want to play some of
it), and so I think everyone was eager for him to hear how we sound lately...
sort of a hippie "How Ya Like Me Now?"
We managed to get to the Fillmore about twenty minutes before the house sound
crew so we had some time to look around... I got started puting my mics up
and Pete met with Tim the house lighting director to get his end of the
production under way...
A quick story about Tim the LD:
After the load-out at the end of the night Rob, Dino, and I were standing
around with Tim, Eric the house soundman, and Bill (a great stagehand) and
Tim asked if we had time for a quick couple of stories about stuff in the
Fillmore...
Fishing the van keys out of my pocket and jingling them I said "Sure... Beau
ain't goin' anywhere fast..."
So Tim led us out into the lobby of the hall where there was a huge
semi-silouetted photo of Bill Graham back in the early days of the Fillmore
leaning against the door jam of the very door next to the picture we were
looking at (does that make sense?) and Tim pointed out a knot in the wood of
the jam over the door in the picture and pointed it out on the same jam
today, sighting the consistancy of Bill Graham and the house he built, even
after the renovation and re-opening... the second was up at the top of the
stairs to the balcony where a picture hangs on the wall of The Who onstage at
Winterland from 1976. The picture was taken during the finale of the show
from the balcony in back of the stage and Pete Townshend had thrown his
guitar into the air, HIGH over the stage... at least fifteen feet up... and
he's looking at it with this amazing smile on his face... and Tim pointed out
that if you notice, every eye is on that floating guitar. Townshend had this
picture in his home for a long time and when he moved or something of that
nature he had no room for this rather large photo, so he gave it to Bill
Graham and it was hung in the Fillmore... years later Townshend was doing his
solo tour and noticed the date of the show when the picture was taken...
His daughter's birthday.
The third story he told us involved some of the early poster art which
surrounds the dining area upstairs (where the food, by the way, is some of
the best I've had all tour, folks)... three posters in particular...
One of the early artists Graham employed, Wes Wilson, got a bit miffed about
the money Graham was paying him to produce posters (seeing as how his wife
was pregnant) and asked him for more money... Graham being notoriously tight
refused, so the next poster Wes did for Graham had his naked wife with her
hand out, ostensibly gesturing for money as a sly statement... the next
poster he did (after asking for more money and again being refused) was of
his naked wife, looking more pregnant and an even more prominent hand out,
palm up... the third and final piece in the "series" was done after another
refusal for more cash and so Wilson did a poster... AGAIN with his naked
pregnant wife, again with her hand out, but this time Wilson blended a
swastika into the artwork very near the name of the hall on the poster. The
posters were printed and put up while Graham was out of town, but after he
got out of the airport he was driving home and saw the poster and his eyes
reportedly went directly to the Nazi symbol...
... being a Holocaust survivor, Bill was not pleased to an explosive
extent... Wes Wilson, I would imagine, found work elsewhere after that
stunt... and I believe the poster was for a Dead show, oddly enough...
He also pointed out a run of shows with Pink Floyd where they headlined the
first week and opened the following weeks "making probably enough money for a
bag of weed and crashing in the Haight... when's the last time you saw a band
stay in town for three weeks?"
"We'd love to." I said.
Tim took the time to give us that last little personal touch telling us those
stories and it rounded out my night.
SPEAKING OF WHICH:
I didn't really get the sound check I wanted due to the band members going in
different directions (excitable boys that we are), but I've been in that
position before... I spent the better part of the first half of the first set
working on the PA and I felt flustered and not entirely in control, to be
truthful... for the first time in a long string of gigs I felt out of it and
part of that was fueled by the fact that I had seen first sets where the band
had come out swingin', and I didn't really get that feel this time... this is
not to say that the first set sucked or anything, though... FAR from it...
The show was 9/3/88 from the Capitol Centre in Landover, Maryland... a show
that Scott had particularly fond memories of... he told us the story on the
way to San Francisco:
"...So I had driven half-way across the country to get to this show, and it
was the beginning of the second set and I'm dancing ecstatically to the new
tune (at the time), "Foolish Heart"... in the aisle of course... and this
security guy comes up real fast and grabs me by the arm... marches me out of
the aisle... so I figured 'He's just movin' me out of the aisle' and before I
knew it he had shoved me out a door and slammed it behind me... I had been
kicked out of the show - without my stuff, nothing... only time it ever
happened..."
We all groaned. "Wow Scott... what'd you do?"
"What COULD I do? So I hung out in the parking lot with some people waiting
for my friends, and when everyone came out after the show I was like 'So
what'd they play?' and everyone was all starry-eyed (cops a dazed expression)
'They played a double encore of "Saturday Night" and then they played
"Ripple" for the first time in about fifteen years... it was amazing!' ... I
had been thrown out of the show of the year!!!"
Woof.
So what was doin' in the first set, you ask? The show opened with "Let The
Good Times Roll" which was good for getting the vocals together followed by a
pretty jammin' "Stranger" which this bunch is usually hard-pressed to mess
up... the "Rooster" with Brent verse was well received, with Scotty getting a
good cheer for his organ work and "Peggy O" let me tune the system a little
bit more but I STILL wasn't totally happy with the mix yet... and to finish
out the set I'm always up for a late 80's "Birdsong"...
At the break I went up to the band room and there sitting on the couch was
Dennis McNally, publicist and official historian for the Grateful Dead... this
was the first moment of actual contact between "us and them", and we all drank
in the moment quietly... listening to Dennis tell stories about the Dead and
answering questions with great humor. I felt a bit like a rookie but I asked
him to sign my tour laminate and he did, dating it "8/6/99 Filmore"... we also met
his wife Susanna Millman, who's photography has been featured in Rolling Stone
among other places... they both were extremely warm and had wonderful things
to say about what we were doing (or at least how we were doing it), and we
found out from Lanny, a new friend of the band's that he stayed until pretty
much the end of the show, missing the elective... but I guess he doesn't stay
like that very often. Another supreme compliment in our eyes...
David Gans showed up and met the band, asking "So what show is it you're
doing tonight?"
Scott, without missing a beat, looked at David and said "I can't divulge that
information."
There was a moment of silence and then I couldn't help myself and I broke out
laughing as did everyone else, to which David added "Well, if I can't
guess..." prompting even more laughter...
THIS WAS UNREAL!!! Here we were talking with people we had only read about or
heard from a distance!!! I felt energized, like I could do anything... and I
wasn't alone... the band got a dose of it too...
When the band went back onstage, the six-hundred plus people got to their
feet cheering and that was all we needed...
Hazdra tore into "Box of Rain", following that with huge scooping bass on
"Victim or the Crime"... I had pushed the PA around finally by the end of
"Box" to where I liked it and "Victim" just swept the room... I got a rush...
THIS was the Dark Star Orchestra I knew and loved! "Foolish Heart" was an
infectious shuffle, complete with somewhat odd arrangement (we listened to
the tape of the second set several times in the days before the gig), and a
fairly out-there "Eyes" was another highlight before "Drumz"...
"Goin' Down The Road Feelin' Bad" came sailing out of "Space" - This is
another tune I feel close to lately, especially while on the road... "I Need
A Miracle" followed, and you could tell the new drummers hadn't played this
one with us yet... still, they pulled it off for the most part, and all was
forgiven with a beautiful "Morning Dew", John giving one of the more personal
performances of the song that I've seen... very reverential given the venue,
building to a thunderous explosion of energy that left a slight vaccuum in
the hall as the band left the stage, just like any good building-leveling
force does...
The encore of "Saturday Night" and "Ripple" were great, right down to John
forgetting words and having to mumble part of a verse earning him a big cheer
from the audience... after the show was announced Scott delivered a blazing
"Hey Pocky Way" before the traditional "Greensleeves" was played and the
house lights came up...
What can I say? It was fantastic. I cleaned up my gear and walked through the
place with my video camera, filming the posters on the walls and winding up
infront of a picture of Dick Latvala...
It was the last video I shot in the Fillmore... the picture of Dick seated at
a desk, a big shit-eating grin on his face that says "I've got the GREATEST
job in the world!"... and after I shut the camera off I stood looking at him
and knowing a little of what he must have felt... and I sent out my thoughts
to him, wishing he could have come out to see us as we had been told he was
planning... wishing him a miracle...
That night most of us got the news that Dick had passed away...
Tell Jerry we miss him, will ya Dick? Thanks for the tapes... peace.
COMING SOON: Good Food And A More Relaxed DSO In Santa Cruz, Bubbles And
Bubbleheads, and Rob's "Cycler's Calves" Heat Up The Locals... See Ya!!!