Not all those places had an impact on the music, but the ones that did have stories worth telling. Tall, bearded, and with hair to his shoulders before it was a hippie standard, Helms was a messiah-like figure with a religious view of music that he was hell-bent on preaching. After putting on a few shows with a little help from Bill Graham, Helms broke out on his own and, while working with a local commune called the Family Dog, secured permits to rent the Avalon Ballroom, a former dance hall on Sutter.
From January to March of '69 , Helms booked bands of all stripes at the Avalon, including psychedelic rock pioneers like the 13th Floor Elevators and Captain Beefheart and almost-forgotten-by-then blues musicians like Bo Diddley and Buddy Guy.
He gave Moby Grape and the Steve Miller Band their first big breaks, and -- like the Fillmore -- every show was advertised with eye-catching, multi-colored psychedelic posters that now go for hundreds of dollars. Helms relocated Family Dog Productions to a space on the Great Highway, and other promoters who tried to book the hall afterward could never recreate the same vibe.
Today, the Regency Ballroom, a live music venue right next door, is often mistaken for the Avalon. In actuality, the old Avalon is now an office space -- and, for a brief time, the shell of the Avalon served as living quarters for the cast of MTV's The Real World.
He then found a former pizza place in the Marina, signed a lease, and, before opening, enlisted some friends to paint a gigantic mural of the four horsemen on the wall. Balin later said he opened the Matrix so he could start a band and have a place to play. That band turned out to be the Jefferson Airplane, and they were the first group to play the club. On opening night, a publicist convinced local jazz critic Ralph Gleason to come to the show. An early Matrix regular was gonzo journalist Hunter S.
One huge bonus for bands playing the Matrix was the high-quality recording setup used to capture performances. But many tapes never saw the light of day, like the recording of fuzz-rock legends Blue Cheer, who played the club once as a six-piece.
According to the band's Leigh Stephens, the Matrix recording convinced the group that they needed to pare down to a trio. For a short time it hosted live bands, but now only DJs provide the tunes. Chet Helms used this large rental hall for a few shows, as did many activists raising funds for various causes -- the end of marijuana prohibition, for instance, or sexual liberation. Edgar Hoover" not a genuine celebration of the former head of the F. There are some heaven-sent lineups that happened at the California Hall -- a fundraiser for the Sexual Freedom League is a standout, which featured the Doors, Captain Beefheart and the 13th Floor Elevators.
I remember bands playing their first show there and breaking up afterward. What the hall is remembered more for are non-musical activities. In , the " Council on Religion and the Homosexual ," which brought together gay men and religious leaders, tried to host a Mardi Gras-themed drag party at the hall to raise funds. When that failed, officers stood outside the hall and took pictures of attendees in an attempt to intimidate them. Some of the ministers from the event held a press conference the next day and described the police as being like the Gestapo.
San Francisco Police attracted more bad press at California Hall decades later in , when they held a graduation party for new recruits at the Rathskeller, a restaurant in the basement. During the party, a shy recruit was handcuffed to a chair and made to receive a blowjob from a prostitute.
Still, whenever a new music scene popped up in the city, as punk did in the '80s, its bands would hold shows at the California Hall. U2 played there in King won over some of their first white audiences here. And the music plays on, in a building more than a century old.
That alone, for me, made the auditorium a more compelling destination than the T-shirt shops and hippie haunts of Haight-Ashbury.
But the auditorium is also part of a larger, long-running drama — complete with an unsolved killing — that few out-of-towners know. When I saw my first Fillmore show last year the Wood Brothers , a bluesy folk band , I learned that the auditorium had been built as a dance hall in , converted into a skating rink in the s, then reconverted to hold dances and concerts. The headliners this time were Ibeyi , Paris-based year-old twins whose first album was released in They bounded onto the stage, grinning widely, in matching beige and white jumpsuits, like Afro-Parisian astronauts.
It was surprisingly small, about 15 feet square, full of mirrors and cabinets. Biancalana, whose parents roller-skated in this building in the s, has worked in the hall for 34 years. The downstairs walls are filled with historic photos, including a racy portrait of Janis Joplin near the bar. And he explained about the apples.
The auditorium, now managed by the entertainment corporation Live Nation, stages more than shows a year. The Fillmore neighborhood, part of a historically working-class area known as the Western Addition, has been known for more than years for its ethnically mixed population, including many Japanese American families. But after Japan bombed Hawaii and the U.
Meanwhile, African Americans moved in as shipbuilding and other military operations increased in the Bay Area. Sites and sounds: Visit iconic music venues throughout the country ». Many city leaders, however, were calling the neighborhood a ghetto and laying plans for decades of demolition and redevelopment. In the midst of this turmoil, an African American entrepreneur named Charles Sullivan leased the dance hall, renamed it the Fillmore Auditorium, opened it to audiences of color and brought in James Brown, Ike and Tina Turner and Little Richard, who arrived with a young Jimi Hendrix as a sideman.
For me, the Fillmore story began in late , when the San Francisco Mime Troupe subleased the venue for a fundraiser that featured the very young Jefferson Airplane and five guys who had just changed their name from the Warlocks to the Grateful Dead. This was big. So he quit the troupe, subleased the Fillmore from Sullivan and quickly earned a reputation for making canny musical choices and driving a hard bargain.
But Graham built up the Fillmore concert operation, then took over booking the venue after Sullivan was shot to death in , a crime that was never solved. With these shows from through early , Graham made something new — the modern rock concert. Cream came to play. LSD was legal in California until late Then Martin Luther King Jr. In , Graham, who had been working to revive the venue, was killed in a helicopter crash.
Nowadays it stands at the convergence of three evolving neighborhoods, which are mostly tourist friendly. One is the Fillmore District, a mixed bag that includes two Michelin-starred restaurants and several vacant storefronts, all within a block of the theater. After Graham died in a helicopter crash in , those close to him decided to carry out his final wish to retrofit and reopen the original Fillmore, which required much structural work.
The Fillmore reopened on April 27, , with the band The Smashing Pumpkins playing an unannounced surprise show, and Primus playing the first official reopening show the following night.
The Fillmore has once again become a San Francisco hot spot with frequent shows. For a standard show, the capacity of the Fillmore is 1, guests. Live Nation has recently begun a campaign to expand the Fillmore "brand" by changing the names of a number of established clubs it owns around the U.
The Fillmore Charlotte opened in June A Fillmore in the Washington, D. The Fillmore was also well known for its psychedelic concert posters by artists who in the s included Wes Wilson and Rick Griffin. Copies of the night's poster are given to fans free of charge as they exit selected, sold-out shows. A chronological collection of these posters is on display in the mezzanine level of the auditorium today. Other traditions are carried on to this day at the Fillmore in San Francisco.
One is a large tub of free apples for concert goers positioned near the entrance. Another is a "greeter" who welcomes each guest as they enter with: "Welcome to the Fillmore! John Handy Quintet did not play. Invaders, V. Love, Sons Of Adam, Charlatans. Heavenly Blues Band were scheduled but did not play. Quicksilver, San Andreas Fault Finders. Lights: Elias Romero Light Show. The 13th Floor Elevators were contractually blocked from performing. September 23 and 24, as well as September 30 and October 1 the Friday and Saturday night shows were scheduled for Winterland, and the September 25 and October 2 Sundays were Fillmore afternoon shows.
However, due to riots in the Fillmore district, the October 1 Friday show was rescheduled from Winterland to the Fillmore, but was still only attended by a few hundred people. Stokely Carmichael spoke. Afternoon Show. Lights: Headlights.
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