April 22, 2021 • 33 mins
When Janis Joplin died in 1970 at the age of 27, she was at the height of her musical powers and her rock ‘n roll fame. That summer she headlined a cross-country tour of Canada, during which she taught her old compatriots in the Grateful Dead some new tricks. They were tricks she had learned herself over the years: at dead-end gigs in Chicago, in the intimidating halls of Jefferson High, and at the far-out rock shows of Austin’s most-wanted. These stories and more on the Season 3 premiere of the 27 Club.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
The twenty seven Club is a production of I Heart
Radio and Double Elvis. Janice Joplin died at the age
of and she lived the life unlike any other. I
can give you twenty seven reasons why that statement is true.
Nine would be the day she spent riding the rails
on a cross country tour of Canada with a hodgepodge
(00:21):
of rock and roll bands and some unexpectedly illicit treats.
Another four would be the number of weeks she spent
two thousand miles from home with no money, no safety net,
and no plane ticket back to where she belonged while
the gritty city of Chicago ate away at her hippie dream.
Ten more would be the number of girls she passed
backstage at the film Wore as they desperately waited in
(00:43):
line for a bathroom tryst with a certain headlining act.
And four would be the number of years she had
left to live when she fled her home state of
Texas for San Francisco for the last time, inspired by
on stage outlaws and encouraged by a car full of
excitable weeks, all totally on this our first episode of
(01:06):
season three, Illicit Treats, The School of hard knocks, bathroom
trips and Janice Joplin walking a winding path for liberation,
UM Jake Brennan and this, this is the seven Cloth
(01:41):
m July. Somewhere in the wilds of the Great White North.
Phil Lesh bass player for the Grateful Dead Crand is
to look out the door of the small room aboard
(02:02):
the Canadian National Railway train. He heard noises coming from
the hallway, banging, moaning, growling, a mangled, incomprehensible voice, like
words have been thrown in a warring blender. And set
on liquefied Phil Crane his neck as long as it
could stretch, and squinted his eyes from behind his oversized glasses.
(02:23):
I couldn't believe what he saw. There was some sort
of multi headed hydro or a scraggly mutt cerberus itself,
just lumbering along, losing its balance, drooling, snarling, snorty, banging
from wall to wall. As the train rocketed through another
stretch of lonesome Canadian countryside, got closer and closer to
phills from him, and he started to panic. He was alone,
(02:45):
and he wasn't about to step out into the corridor
with some unidentified subterranean creature from Hell, closing the gap
between his six ft plus lanky frame in certain death.
And then the creature made a sound that he recognized.
I need a lobotomy, it said, and one of those
trademark California hippie drawls. Phil squinted his eyes tighter and
(03:10):
then took his glasses off and rubbed his face with
the back of his fist. Glasses back on his face,
he looked back out to the corridor. Was it Could
it be ship? It wasn't some hell spawn, canine or
silthering serpent. After all, it was his band mate, Jerry Garcia,
shoulder to shoulder with Rick Danko, bassist for the band.
(03:30):
They were crawling on all fours like a couple of
goddamn lunatics, which of course they were. Phil shook his
head to ward off the huge headache he could feel
coming from a mile away. He cursed the three gallon
bottle of Canadian Club that they were all drinking from
the night before. This must be a drunk felt like,
Phil thought, water logged, heavy headed, nauseous, blurry being stuck
(03:54):
on a moving train, and it wasn't helping. He was drunk, wasted,
but alcohol wasn't the grateful that's made attraction oodles of
Osley's finest tabs from the depths of the San Franciscan
acid factory. Now that that was more their speed. This
booze business ship. That was a different trip altogether. They
all drank so much on this Canadian tour that they
(04:15):
ran out of alcohol and had to make an unscheduled
stop in Saskatode, some tiny liquor store that was like
a mirage come to life. They passed the hat around,
slapped eight hundred dollars down on the counter, and bought
the place out. Phil Jerry and the rest of the dead.
We're getting a crash course and getting ridiculously hammered courtesy
of whatever this tiny Saskatoine outpost had on its shelves.
(04:37):
And it was all her fault. She had got them drunk.
She passed a bottle around, She told them to drink up.
She was armed with her hip flask in one hand
and a handle of Southern Comfort in the other. You
planned on having a relationship with that glass. She yelled,
the long red feather boa and her hair flapping and waving.
It was each friendly, and so you don't sip whiskey
(04:58):
in the morning, you knock at all back. Buck off
with that hippie bullshit. Sipping is for happy hour man,
drink up. It was her fault. Her Janis Joplin, the
high priestess of the Bay Areas scene the world were
revoiced behind Big Brother in the Holding Company, then the
Cosmic Blues Band and now the Full Tilt Boogie Band,
the Countercultures, Queen Pearl in the Flesh, the Raspy Throate
(05:22):
at Raw, genuine blues singer for the Psychedelic Age. Janie
was headlining this tour through Canada. She and her band
were paid seventy grand by promoters to lead the charge
the thing they called the Festival Express, a k a.
Woodstock on wheels. The groups didn't just play shows throughout
the vast expanse of Canada during the summer. They also
(05:43):
rode together on a locomotive consisting of twelve cars, two
bar cars, and a luxurious dining car. It was a
lineup that included not only the Dead and the Band,
but also Buddy Guy, New Riders of the Purple Sage,
and Delaney and Bonnie, and the tour was a surefire hit.
But it was plagued from the beginning. Their first stop, Montreal,
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was canceled before they even arrived, and the show was
scheduled on the same day as Saint Jean Baptiste, and
the city feared that it was too much of a
good thing. Vancouver, which was supposed to be their final stop,
was canceled before the train left the station. Concert promoters
couldn't come to an agreement with the city on a location.
Crowds throughout the country boxed at the ticket prices, which
(06:27):
ranged from eight bucks in advance up to sixteen bucks
at the door. Kids had gotten into Woodstock for free
the year before, so why not now? Why not Canada?
Outside the Toronto show, kids handed out leaflets encouraging people
to boycott. They demanded that the show be free. They
accused the bands of price gadging. They rushed the gates,
climbed the fences, hauled themselves up on top of the
(06:48):
roofs of nearby buildings to avoid paying to get inside.
The ticketless mob grew to strong. Canadian police on a
horseback swarmed the grounds and attempted to keep the peace.
Everyone gets so nervous, and they sent Jerry Garcia out
to negotiate. Jerry stepped up to the mic and pleaded
with the fans to keep their cool. Just give us
a half hour of coolness while we figured this out,
(07:09):
he asked, and true to his word, thirty minutes later,
festival organizers came back to the stage and announced the
free show that the bands would play the next day
in Coronation Park. The near riotous masses were pleased. The
whole tour was over and a little over a week
it may have had more lows than highs. And the
(07:30):
one high that everyone could rely on, however, was Janice.
Janice was always a high, no matter what city they
were in, no matter how drunk she'd got them all
the night before, she'd whined her right leg out, bring
it back suspended in the air. Her drummer, Clark Pierson
would watched that leg like a hawk, and then she'd
kicked her leg out in front of her and the
band on que would rocket and the cry Baby, the Garnet, Mims,
(07:51):
R and B classic that she made her own over
and over again. Every night. The dead loved to watch
Janie performed from the wings, This specially Ron pig Pen mccernin,
who was still in love with her. But what the
dead didn't like was when Janice got them drunk and
they weren't a beer band man. She said she was
trying to liberate them, set them free, pull them off
the same old trip they've been taken for years, and
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put them on a different trip from once, a different track,
head towards a new destination. Destination trunk. But the dead
had more than a few tricks up their sleeves. They
were highly skilled in the fine arts of dosing and revenge.
On the last night of the tour and Calgary, the
Dead made Janice a birthday cake, told him it wasn't
(08:34):
for her birthday. Her birthday was back in January when
she turned seven. Whatever, the cake was the thing, but
it wasn't just any cake. Sure, it was made from flour, eggs, milk,
and sugar, the usual, but it had a secret ingredient,
the grateful Dead special ingredient. And they laced the cake
with enough LSD to send Ken Kesi to the moon
and back and offered Janice up a big slice. Here
(08:57):
you go, Janice. They told her no hard feel things
about getting a drunk thing, and Janice took a big
bite of the acid cake well the dead attempted to
muffle their laughs. A member of the Calgary Police Department
happened by, and they offered him a slice too. It's
Janice's birthday, they exclaimed, even though it wasn't, and the
cop couldn't say no. Before the slice kicked in, Janice
(09:18):
looked around at the motley crew of musicians, rhodies, manager's friends, lovers, pranksters.
They were her people. She was one of them. None
of them would ever think of leaving her, doing it wrong,
or ridiculing her, unlike those who had done her wrong
over the years. Janice Joblin was sitting on top of
the world. She was far away from the pain of
Port Arthur, the desperation of Chicago. But before long, this
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train would run on the track, the tour would end,
and Janice would be back in larks Were and back
to reality. And Janice didn't know it at that moment
as she took another bite. It was the last birthday
cake she'd ever eat, in the last tour of the
Canadian countryside she'd ever take. She'd never see Toronto again,
or wouldn't her Calgary In just three months time, Janice
(10:03):
Joplin will be dead. Peter Alban was the first one
(10:35):
to notice the sweater. It was Kashmir. It was conspicuous
that sweater. It was August in Chicago, and who wore
a Kashmir sweater in August in Chicago. But even more
conspicuous was the fact that Peter had never seen that
sweater on Janice Chop him before. She didn't even strike
him as a Kashmir sweater kind of gal. And yet
there she was, reclined in her seat, laughing her huge, unbridled,
(10:57):
defall laugh, tapping free the ash at the end of
her cigarette, throttling the neck of a near empty bottle
of Soco, wearing that fucking cashmere sweater. She certainly didn't
bring it with her On the flight from San Francisco
to Chicago. Their band big brother in the holding company,
had flown into O'Hare with next to nothing besides their
gear and the clothes on their backs, no suitcases overflowing
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with extra pairs of shirts, no money in their pockets,
no place to stay. They didn't even have a manager anymore,
just a jet plane in the rear view, a jet
plane that took them halfway across the country and dumped
them in the middle of the Windy City for a
month long residency at a cloud called Mother Blues on
North Wells and the heart of Old Town. Mother Blues,
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of course, that was Peter remembered Mother Blues. That was
where we saw the cashmere sweater. It was draped over
the back of a chair in the Rain Blues apartment.
Loraine Blue, and the woman who owned Mother Blues, the
woman who was Mother Blues and whose apartment next door
to the club doubled as a rooming house for the
musicians who passed through and the street kids who never left.
And they called her Blue. She was legendary in Old Town,
(12:03):
mythical even. They said she divorced her husband and went
into business to support her kids. And so now X
wasn't exactly coming through in the Provider department, And they
said she poured the concrete of the building herself, right
in the very spot where the rising moon had once
stood before it suspiciously went up in flames. And they
said she raised four hundred kids in that apartment next
door to the club, the club that bore the name
(12:23):
that everyone called her. And like a hard boiled Chicago
blue song, Lorraine Blue was tough caring but careful, kind
but skeptical. She took one look at Janis and the
boys when they blew into town, and they're petruly stink
and loose California lingo wafting from every armpit and moth
that she thought, what the fuck is with these California hippies?
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Chicago would be the band's wake up call, and Lorraine
Blue would do the dialing. Peter knew that Janis had
stolen the sweater. He was sure of it. One minute
it was in the apartment, in the next it was
wrapped around Janie's body. And whether it belonged Blue or
one of the four children who came in went it
didn't matter. They couldn't afford to fund this up to
make enemies. They were already making enemies, looking the way
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they looked, talking the way they talked, and they were
close enough to the edges. It was no money, no prospects,
no crowds, and no way to get back home. The
residency was all they had, even if the promoter had
given up hope and had stopped paying them regularly, Even
if they had to hire a girl slathered in day
glow paint and glitter and wearing a seran rap turban
and leotard to dance provocatively while they played, just to
(13:27):
get asses off the streets and inside the way Peter
figured it. But they started lifting stuff that wasn't there.
It started making a bigger scene than the one they
made by simply rolling in the town. They could jeopardize
the whole thing, and then they'd be on the street
on their houses. San Francisco was a long way down, sure,
a big brother in the Holding Company were a big
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deal in their hometown. They were one of the big
bands leaving the charge in the San Francisco scene, a
scene that included the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane.
But it was the summer of nineteen sixty six and
that's seen had an open wide just yet. So Chicago
was a hard cell. People looked at them funny, made
comments about their long hair and the way they dressed,
and the band thought it would be different than it
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wouldn't be an uphill battle, but it was a huge
uphill battle, and the hill was a goddamn mountain. Chicago
didn't know Dick about Big Brother in Chicago didn't care
about Big Brother either. Chicago was mecca for the blues.
You can get knee deep in it there, Muddy Wolf,
Buddy God, Jimmy Read, John Lee Hooker, that my namesakes
Little Walter Jacobs and a lotis rush, but I degress,
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and no one taking a one way flight from San
Francisco in August of nineteen sixty six wanted to get
knee deep in Chicago blues more than Janice Job. All
the other female singers in San Francisco were on a
Joan Bias trip, folksing social protesters. But Janice was Bessie
Smith and a sea of Jones. She sang the blues
like she had lived the blues like she lived the
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raw nerves of each line, and she had lived it.
She lived in towns that didn't want her, surrounded by
people who rejected her, called her name, was looked down
on her, even in San Francisco, the very place that
she was helping to put on the musical map. She
was a woman in a man's man's world, a booze
guzzling beat nick in a hotbed of acid heads. She'd
been used in, duped lied to, and victimized. She came
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from a Texas oil town, Port Arthur, there was as
conservative as she was liberal as backwards as she was progressive.
She had to succeed, She had to put the past
in the rear view mirror. She made her way back
to San Francisco a failure. Then it was only a
matter of time before she wound up back in Port
Arthur again, busted and broke, and for all she knew,
it would be the last chance she had blown Chicago
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liberation didn't come easy. Chicago wasn't a big, friendly jam
session where she and the boys rubbed elbows with the
guys with names like Muddy and Sunny Boy and Slim
and Wolf. Chicago was a slog. Chicago was playing your
guts O for a few drunk town he's gathered around
the bar. Chicago was getting raised eyebrows and condescended comments
from passers by on the street. Chicago was getting a
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coveted review in a local paper only to be called ugly.
Chicago was not hit, not hitting the way that Janice
and the gang were hitting. Chicago was hostile. Chicago was Hatersville.
Chicago was the real world that looked at California like
its own separate universe of nuts and flakes, and the
Chicago wasn't enough now our own bandmates wanted to get personal.
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Peter wanted a big confrontation with Janice. She knew it.
She could feel it coming, the way he was looking
at her, and the accusatory questions he was dropping like
b He wanted to have it out with her about
the stupid cashmere sweater that probably didn't really belong to
anyone anyways. She could tell it was coming, the lecture
of the public flogging, the way all the guys in
the band would occasionally take a moment to dress her down,
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the girl in the crew. She was only the fucking
lead singer. Man, Yeah, I took that stupid sweater, she
told me, loud enough so that the rest of the
band could hear. Her laugh was like a nervous punctuation.
She wanted to end the conversation move on to more
pressing matters at hand, but she also recognized how wound
up and anxious the whole band was at the moment.
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She hadn't forgotten about the offer that Paul Rothschild from
Electra Records had made her, not the band, not big brother,
but just her before they left San Francisco for Chicago.
Peter hadn't forgotten either, no one in the band had
No one could forget that. Rothschild came directly to Janice,
behind all of their backs, to coax her away from
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Big Brother and the holding company in order to become
the new member of a big blue supergroup he was
putting together. It was exactly what she was looking for,
an opportunity to get free, but it was a big gasque.
It meant leaving behind the very group that had put
her name on the San Franciscan Math, and with Big Brother,
she was part of a group, a member of a gang.
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The guys and Big Brother weren't her backing band. They
were equals, for better or for worse. She told the
band she would think about it, do this Chicago thing
right out Big Brother a little longer, because on Sundays
she couldn't imagine ever being without them. But on other days,
days when they were stuck two thousand miles away from
home with no money and no one had turned to
(18:06):
days when she had to endure the third degree from
the bass player for swiping a goddamn cashmere sweater off
the back of a lonely chair in the rain Blues department.
Some days, being without the band was all she could
think about. Then she could truly be fraid. We'll be
(18:27):
right back after this word, word word. The line outside
the bathroom was at least ten girls teeth, some had
flowers in their hair, others had flowers painted on their faces.
Some more long hair and long dresses, some more tinted
glasses and beaded headbands. Some seemed to float like visions,
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and sheer gowns that sprouted wings when they spread their
arms out to the side. In the bathroom, door would
open and one of the girls would walk out, a
look of bliss or shock across her face, stuck there
with sweat and lust, a look that pulsated in time
with the rapid heart palpitations she was experiencing. The next
girl online would seek into the bathroom, and the door
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would shot slowly behind her, and the whole thing would
start up again. A man's voice, a woman's voice, some
light banging, followed by excessively loud banging moans, groans, a deep,
manished victory cry, complimented by a high pitched, ecstatic squeal.
The girls in line outside the bathroom turned to each
other in mine, blushed and giggled, ran their fingers in
(19:31):
between their knuckles to calm their nerves, and they scanned
around the hallway to make sure they weren't going to
get busted by some rent to car. As soon as
the sounds beyond the door subsided, they would all turn
to face the bathroom once more, eyes wide. A hush
fell over the group. Then they strained to hear something,
anything from inside the bathroom that would continue to feel
the visuals they concocted inside their heads, and they waited
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for that door to swing wide open once more. It
would be there turn soon. It was June seven at
the Film War in San Francisco, and though the Jimmie
Hendrix experience had just wrapped up the last of their
six nights the hippest of hippie auditoriums, the real place
to be was backstage, and the rumors spread quickly throughout
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the audience as they made their awkward shuffle on mass
towards the exits in the house public address system mushering
three thousand out into the indifferent San Francisco evening with
the music of the Blues Mangoose as soundtrack, and the
backstage opportunity was whispered from the ear to ear, girl
to girl, some had dates on their arm and tried
not to seem too disappointed when they laughed off the
(20:35):
rumor and kept a steady course for the exit. But
those who were intrigued stopped in their tracks, verified that
the information was valid, and then scanned the auditorium for
the most direct route to the secret destination backstage. The
line never seemed to get shorter or longer. Every time
a girl will go into the bathroom, another would appear,
eyes darting around out of breath, like she had just
(20:57):
scaled a prison fence to freedom. As this it and
my here did anyone see me? All ten girls in
line were surprised when around the corner came Big Brother
in the Holding Company, one of the bands that had
opened the show that night. The girls didn't immediately recognize
the guys in the band. They all looked like just
other nondescript hippie guys from any number of up and
coming bands. Long hair, thick, mutton shops jeans. It was Janice.
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They recognized. Janice was their city's new star, and they
all gasped when they saw her flank by. These four
could be anybody san fran Dus, but didn't care to
leave the line. They couldn't lose their place. Janie had
a bottle in one hand and a smoke and the other.
She never left home without them. If there was a
Janis Droplin action figure, the accessories would be a bottle
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on a smoke. What's going on here, Janice shouted at
the girl's waiting in line, who in turn. We're trying
to get Janice's attention from where they stood. What's the action, ladies.
One of the girls in line, tall blonde, a thick
Paisley headman keeping her pigtails in place, spoke up. Jimmie
Hendricks is in there, she said, excitedly. He's handing out
quickies as fast as he can. Yeah, I know, the
(22:02):
girl piped up. You want in, Miss Choplin. We'll let
you cut the line. Cut the line, Miss Joplin. Janie's
response echoed down the backstage hallway, a laugh so genuine
and resounding that it began low at the bottom of
her belly and bounced its way up through her chest
and throw, and arrived with such confidence and clarity that
it literally threw her head back. It was a smoker's laugh,
(22:24):
a drinker's laugh, the laugh of a prankster. The guys
and Big Brother tapped each other on the arms, had
their own little private chuckles, like hey, can you get
a load of that question, Like Janis Joplin is gonna
wait in line for Jimmie Hendricks. Janis and the boys
kept on walking right past the bathroom, past a lot
of girls, and know the exit door. Janice hoped that
the laugh had been loud enough but masculating enough that
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Jimmy heard it through all the panting and moaning that
was surely bouncing around the bathroom tile, loud enough to
knock his mail ego down a peg. Janice didn't have
time for that. Ship didn't have time to wait in
line so that a rock god, a fabled sex god,
could find time to make her another notch on his bedroost. Sure,
Jennis found liberation in sex, but she did it in
her way. She caught the shots. She didn't wait patiently
(23:09):
in some line of submissive bimbos. She'd rather be the
one in the bathroom making the line of submissive mail
bimbos wait their goddamn turn. She'd fought against type her
entire life. At Thomas Jefferson High School in Port Arthur,
she took shipped from rednecks like Jimmie Johnson, Yes that
Jimmie Johnson, who called her a slut in a horror
(23:30):
just because she was different. She wasn't a blockhead like
the rest of them. The jocks would toss pennies at
her when she walked by in the hallway, and when
she stood up for herself when she came back at
them with a loud funk, all of your motherfucker's. She
was the one who got in trouble. And then when
she did start hanging out with the boys, the progressive
boys who were just as vocal about political and social
(23:50):
issues as she was, the slut and horror insults came
rushing back. She found no reprieve in college either, where
she was voted ugliest man on campus, not even woman
ugliest man. That ship's harsh. Now, Janice and her band,
big brother in the holding company, we're opening for Jimmie Hendricks,
and she was having the last laugh. She was calling
(24:11):
the shots. Those ship kickers back in Port Arthur were,
no doubt apoplectic, which suited her just fine. What would
they say if they saw her now saw her? Janice Choplin,
the low self esteem kid with bad acne and a
red hot temper if they saw her taking a hot
ship rock star to bed. Take Jim Morrison, for example,
She took Jim Morris into bed because she wanted to
(24:32):
do it. She made it happy, she seduced him. But
one night, after the Doors played the film More, Janice
went to dinner with the band, and when they wound
up back at her apartment, Janice was brazen about it too.
In the middle of the after party, guys in the
doors mingling with guys from Big Brother, and there's Jim's
girl Pam being shy on the edge of the couch.
In the middle of it all, Janice decided to take
Jim back to her room for a romp in the sheets,
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and hey, if Pam wanted him so bad, you could
put a fight. It was janice version of the Jimmy
Hendrick's quickie line. No guy told her what to do,
no girl did either, And after they'd done the deed
and Pam had run off sobbing, Janie rolled over in
bed to see Jim laying there with a dumb grin
on his face, a grin so big and dumb that
it looked painted on Jim thought he was a bad boy,
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but Janis knew the truth. She knew Jim was just
a dumbass poser who only wanted to be a bad boy,
not to mention a laws he lay. The real bad
boys were inspiring. They were creative, they were magnetic, They
were outlaws without being outlandish, and they could often be found.
Of all places in Texas, the Bulkan Gas Companies small
(26:01):
tableaus of liquid were morphing into a large scale visual stimulus.
The colors were swimming around the band members corduroy pants
and chelsea boots and velvet suit jackets as a house
gear on stage. For some of the audience, the band
didn't even need to be playing. The trippy visuals were enough.
The puffs of grass and tabs of LSD made everything entertaining.
(26:22):
You could be entertained all night by whatever appeared in
front of you, as long as you were cool about it.
Kept another down low because even though this was Austin
in the year nineteen sixty six, Austin was still in Texas,
and Texas was still a long ways away from embracing
the Burgin and counterculture movement. The band knew it, and
they were living proof. There were none other than the
(26:44):
thirteenth Floor Elevators, and they were playing shows under the
radar while on bail. The Elevators dared to challenge the
status quo of Texas, and the Rednecks of Texas responded.
Texas was terrified on them. The psychedelic rock groups threatened
the moral fabric of a odd, fearing American state, and
so Texas would hunt down the Elevators, led by the
(27:04):
eighteen year old Rocky Erricks, and arrest them, broadcast the
bus on local television, and make them the enemy of
the old fashioned conservative values. It was a few months earlier,
in January of nineteen sixty six, when the raid happened.
The band was hanging out at Tommy Hall's place, talking
about their latest rehearsal, arguing over which covers they'd include
(27:24):
and they're set that week while taking big tokes of
killer grass. Tommy was the group's electric drug player, the
first and best of his kind, a musical role he
had invented and then used to set the Elevators apart
from everyone else frat bands like The Wig, the Baby Cakes,
and The Fabulous Chevels. The Elevators miked up Tommy's old
(27:44):
clay whiskey jug and he would blow these propulsive, ghostly
notes that sounded like transmissions from another planet. Tommy was
demonstrating some of the new moves he'd created, these double
notes that he'd get what he flipped his tongue is
he tutored on the drug's top. When the door was
flung open Austin police, then the vice squad was inside,
warrant held high for all the sea. They found two
(28:07):
pounds of marijuana inside, and then even more when they
searched the apartments of other band members, including Rockies. The
band spent the night at the Travis County Jail before
being released on a thousand dollar bond. And now they
made their moves with stealth, one eye over their shoulder
and near to the ground. Rock shows as Guerrilla Warfare
in nineteen sixty six, Texas and the band appeared out
(28:30):
of nowhere in the particular night and assembled their gear
quickly and with surgical precisions so precisely, in fact, that
no one in the crowd would have guessed they had
all dropped acid on the drive over, and the audience
couldn't help but stare at the giant I hovering above
the pyramid that was painted on John Ike Walton's kick
drum and all seeing Eye, the eye of Providence. The
(28:50):
eye hypnotized one person in particular, Janis Chopolin. Janis was
on the bill that night as well, just like a
conservative Texas square that everyone back home wanted her to be. Dour,
black dress and all she sang lonesome covers of Buffy
sat Marie's Code and Ray Charles Is drowned in my
own tears. She had escaped Texas once, already a poetic
(29:13):
journey to the promised land of liberation way out in California,
but it was a bummer trip. She returned to her
hometown of Port Arthur, defeated and skinny, and with a
meth habit to threaten to kill her. But she knew
that Port Arthur was just as deadly for her shooting
meth in San Francisco. So it was a relief when
she enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin and
crawled out of her oppressive hometown once more. In Austin,
(29:37):
she fell in with the like minded crowd of beat
Nix artists and musicians, the Long Hairs that would radicalize
Texas from the inside out. She brought her guitar to therapy.
Her music was her therapy, and played shows at folk
clubs in Houston and Austin. And then she saw Rocky
at the Methodist Student Center Auditorium, standing tall, hair short,
(29:58):
looking as respectable as the vice squad wanted him to be.
But underneath that facade, Rocky was an outlaw. They were
all outlaws. She saw the eye of Providence and she
was under its spell. And then Rocky sang his voice,
sharp and raw, shrieking and screeching, and she was under
a spell. And just like the thirteenth floor elevators carried
(30:18):
out from the Methodist Student Center Auditorium on the wind,
Janice would let herself be carried off by a car
full of hippies who had driven all the way from
San Francisco just to find her her old friends. She
had Helms was putting together a band and thought Janice
would be perfect as a singer, so perfect that she
had personally sent a few of his finest freaks on
a road trip to track her down. It was like
(30:40):
it was faded, like she had been set up to
witness Rocky and his band, only to then be transported
back to the West Coast, where she could become exactly
what she had just witnessed in Texas, be an outlaw, scream,
screech and wail, but do it far away from Texas,
where the world wasn't ready for that kind of freedom,
the freedom to sing what you wanted, be who you wanted,
(31:01):
and live how you wanted. In this time, she was
determined that she wouldn't go back home again. She told herself,
she wouldn't run into the same problems she had experienced before.
There was a revolution happening out west, a revolution with
electric kool aid and Hell's Angels and be ins and lovings.
A revolution that beckoned to her, called her to its
(31:22):
center stage, where she could leave all the pain behind.
In San Francisco, she could be set free. I'm Jake Brennan,
and this is the twenty seven Club, all right. This
(31:46):
episode of The seven Club is brought to you by
disgrace Land, the award winning music and true crime podcast
that I also housed. Disgrace Land is available only on
the free Amazon Music to hear tons of insane stories
about your favorite musicians getting away with murder and think
very badly. Nirvana, Prince Jerry Lee Lewis, The Grateful Dead,
The Rolling Stones, Cardi B and many many more. Go
(32:06):
to Amazon dot com slash disgrace Land, or if you
have an Echo device to say hey Alexa play the
disgrace Land podcast. The twenty seven Club is hosted and
co written by me Jake Brennan. Zeth Wandi is the
lead writer and co producer Matt Voting and mixes the show.
Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spraaker and Henry Lenetta.
(32:27):
The twenty seven Club is produced by myself for Double
Elvis and partnership with I Heart Radio. Sources for this
episode are available at Double Elvis dot com on the
twenty seven Club series page. The twenty seven Club is
released weekly every Thursday. Our previous season's on Jimmy Hendricks
and Jim Morrison are available for you to binge right
now wherever you get your podcasts. Then if you like
(32:48):
what you here, please be sure to find and follow
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subscribe to club on social media and we'll pick two
(33:08):
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to get out there and spread the word of A
seven Club, and you talk to me per usual on
Instagram and Twitter at disgrace Land Rockabilly. What's Up year
(33:30):
is
The twenty seven Club is a production of I Heart
Radio and Double Elvis. Janice Joplin died at the age
of and she lived the life unlike any other. I
can give you twenty seven reasons why that statement is true.
Nine would be the day she spent riding the rails
on a cross country tour of Canada with a hodgepodge
(00:21):
of rock and roll bands and some unexpectedly illicit treats.
Another four would be the number of weeks she spent
two thousand miles from home with no money, no safety net,
and no plane ticket back to where she belonged while
the gritty city of Chicago ate away at her hippie dream.
Ten more would be the number of girls she passed
backstage at the film Wore as they desperately waited in
(00:43):
line for a bathroom tryst with a certain headlining act.
And four would be the number of years she had
left to live when she fled her home state of
Texas for San Francisco for the last time, inspired by
on stage outlaws and encouraged by a car full of
excitable weeks, all totally on this our first episode of
(01:06):
season three, Illicit Treats, The School of hard knocks, bathroom
trips and Janice Joplin walking a winding path for liberation,
UM Jake Brennan and this, this is the seven Cloth
(01:41):
m July. Somewhere in the wilds of the Great White North.
Phil Lesh bass player for the Grateful Dead Crand is
to look out the door of the small room aboard
(02:02):
the Canadian National Railway train. He heard noises coming from
the hallway, banging, moaning, growling, a mangled, incomprehensible voice, like
words have been thrown in a warring blender. And set
on liquefied Phil Crane his neck as long as it
could stretch, and squinted his eyes from behind his oversized glasses.
(02:23):
I couldn't believe what he saw. There was some sort
of multi headed hydro or a scraggly mutt cerberus itself,
just lumbering along, losing its balance, drooling, snarling, snorty, banging
from wall to wall. As the train rocketed through another
stretch of lonesome Canadian countryside, got closer and closer to
phills from him, and he started to panic. He was alone,
(02:45):
and he wasn't about to step out into the corridor
with some unidentified subterranean creature from Hell, closing the gap
between his six ft plus lanky frame in certain death.
And then the creature made a sound that he recognized.
I need a lobotomy, it said, and one of those
trademark California hippie drawls. Phil squinted his eyes tighter and
(03:10):
then took his glasses off and rubbed his face with
the back of his fist. Glasses back on his face,
he looked back out to the corridor. Was it Could
it be ship? It wasn't some hell spawn, canine or
silthering serpent. After all, it was his band mate, Jerry Garcia,
shoulder to shoulder with Rick Danko, bassist for the band.
(03:30):
They were crawling on all fours like a couple of
goddamn lunatics, which of course they were. Phil shook his
head to ward off the huge headache he could feel
coming from a mile away. He cursed the three gallon
bottle of Canadian Club that they were all drinking from
the night before. This must be a drunk felt like,
Phil thought, water logged, heavy headed, nauseous, blurry being stuck
(03:54):
on a moving train, and it wasn't helping. He was drunk, wasted,
but alcohol wasn't the grateful that's made attraction oodles of
Osley's finest tabs from the depths of the San Franciscan
acid factory. Now that that was more their speed. This
booze business ship. That was a different trip altogether. They
all drank so much on this Canadian tour that they
(04:15):
ran out of alcohol and had to make an unscheduled
stop in Saskatode, some tiny liquor store that was like
a mirage come to life. They passed the hat around,
slapped eight hundred dollars down on the counter, and bought
the place out. Phil Jerry and the rest of the dead.
We're getting a crash course and getting ridiculously hammered courtesy
of whatever this tiny Saskatoine outpost had on its shelves.
(04:37):
And it was all her fault. She had got them drunk.
She passed a bottle around, She told them to drink up.
She was armed with her hip flask in one hand
and a handle of Southern Comfort in the other. You
planned on having a relationship with that glass. She yelled,
the long red feather boa and her hair flapping and waving.
It was each friendly, and so you don't sip whiskey
(04:58):
in the morning, you knock at all back. Buck off
with that hippie bullshit. Sipping is for happy hour man,
drink up. It was her fault. Her Janis Joplin, the
high priestess of the Bay Areas scene the world were
revoiced behind Big Brother in the Holding Company, then the
Cosmic Blues Band and now the Full Tilt Boogie Band,
the Countercultures, Queen Pearl in the Flesh, the Raspy Throate
(05:22):
at Raw, genuine blues singer for the Psychedelic Age. Janie
was headlining this tour through Canada. She and her band
were paid seventy grand by promoters to lead the charge
the thing they called the Festival Express, a k a.
Woodstock on wheels. The groups didn't just play shows throughout
the vast expanse of Canada during the summer. They also
(05:43):
rode together on a locomotive consisting of twelve cars, two
bar cars, and a luxurious dining car. It was a
lineup that included not only the Dead and the Band,
but also Buddy Guy, New Riders of the Purple Sage,
and Delaney and Bonnie, and the tour was a surefire hit.
But it was plagued from the beginning. Their first stop, Montreal,
(06:05):
was canceled before they even arrived, and the show was
scheduled on the same day as Saint Jean Baptiste, and
the city feared that it was too much of a
good thing. Vancouver, which was supposed to be their final stop,
was canceled before the train left the station. Concert promoters
couldn't come to an agreement with the city on a location.
Crowds throughout the country boxed at the ticket prices, which
(06:27):
ranged from eight bucks in advance up to sixteen bucks
at the door. Kids had gotten into Woodstock for free
the year before, so why not now? Why not Canada?
Outside the Toronto show, kids handed out leaflets encouraging people
to boycott. They demanded that the show be free. They
accused the bands of price gadging. They rushed the gates,
climbed the fences, hauled themselves up on top of the
(06:48):
roofs of nearby buildings to avoid paying to get inside.
The ticketless mob grew to strong. Canadian police on a
horseback swarmed the grounds and attempted to keep the peace.
Everyone gets so nervous, and they sent Jerry Garcia out
to negotiate. Jerry stepped up to the mic and pleaded
with the fans to keep their cool. Just give us
a half hour of coolness while we figured this out,
(07:09):
he asked, and true to his word, thirty minutes later,
festival organizers came back to the stage and announced the
free show that the bands would play the next day
in Coronation Park. The near riotous masses were pleased. The
whole tour was over and a little over a week
it may have had more lows than highs. And the
(07:30):
one high that everyone could rely on, however, was Janice.
Janice was always a high, no matter what city they
were in, no matter how drunk she'd got them all
the night before, she'd whined her right leg out, bring
it back suspended in the air. Her drummer, Clark Pierson
would watched that leg like a hawk, and then she'd
kicked her leg out in front of her and the
band on que would rocket and the cry Baby, the Garnet, Mims,
(07:51):
R and B classic that she made her own over
and over again. Every night. The dead loved to watch
Janie performed from the wings, This specially Ron pig Pen mccernin,
who was still in love with her. But what the
dead didn't like was when Janice got them drunk and
they weren't a beer band man. She said she was
trying to liberate them, set them free, pull them off
the same old trip they've been taken for years, and
(08:13):
put them on a different trip from once, a different track,
head towards a new destination. Destination trunk. But the dead
had more than a few tricks up their sleeves. They
were highly skilled in the fine arts of dosing and revenge.
On the last night of the tour and Calgary, the
Dead made Janice a birthday cake, told him it wasn't
(08:34):
for her birthday. Her birthday was back in January when
she turned seven. Whatever, the cake was the thing, but
it wasn't just any cake. Sure, it was made from flour, eggs, milk,
and sugar, the usual, but it had a secret ingredient,
the grateful Dead special ingredient. And they laced the cake
with enough LSD to send Ken Kesi to the moon
and back and offered Janice up a big slice. Here
(08:57):
you go, Janice. They told her no hard feel things
about getting a drunk thing, and Janice took a big
bite of the acid cake well the dead attempted to
muffle their laughs. A member of the Calgary Police Department
happened by, and they offered him a slice too. It's
Janice's birthday, they exclaimed, even though it wasn't, and the
cop couldn't say no. Before the slice kicked in, Janice
(09:18):
looked around at the motley crew of musicians, rhodies, manager's friends, lovers, pranksters.
They were her people. She was one of them. None
of them would ever think of leaving her, doing it wrong,
or ridiculing her, unlike those who had done her wrong
over the years. Janice Joblin was sitting on top of
the world. She was far away from the pain of
Port Arthur, the desperation of Chicago. But before long, this
(09:41):
train would run on the track, the tour would end,
and Janice would be back in larks Were and back
to reality. And Janice didn't know it at that moment
as she took another bite. It was the last birthday
cake she'd ever eat, in the last tour of the
Canadian countryside she'd ever take. She'd never see Toronto again,
or wouldn't her Calgary In just three months time, Janice
(10:03):
Joplin will be dead. Peter Alban was the first one
(10:35):
to notice the sweater. It was Kashmir. It was conspicuous
that sweater. It was August in Chicago, and who wore
a Kashmir sweater in August in Chicago. But even more
conspicuous was the fact that Peter had never seen that
sweater on Janice Chop him before. She didn't even strike
him as a Kashmir sweater kind of gal. And yet
there she was, reclined in her seat, laughing her huge, unbridled,
(10:57):
defall laugh, tapping free the ash at the end of
her cigarette, throttling the neck of a near empty bottle
of Soco, wearing that fucking cashmere sweater. She certainly didn't
bring it with her On the flight from San Francisco
to Chicago. Their band big brother in the holding company,
had flown into O'Hare with next to nothing besides their
gear and the clothes on their backs, no suitcases overflowing
(11:19):
with extra pairs of shirts, no money in their pockets,
no place to stay. They didn't even have a manager anymore,
just a jet plane in the rear view, a jet
plane that took them halfway across the country and dumped
them in the middle of the Windy City for a
month long residency at a cloud called Mother Blues on
North Wells and the heart of Old Town. Mother Blues,
(11:40):
of course, that was Peter remembered Mother Blues. That was
where we saw the cashmere sweater. It was draped over
the back of a chair in the Rain Blues apartment.
Loraine Blue, and the woman who owned Mother Blues, the
woman who was Mother Blues and whose apartment next door
to the club doubled as a rooming house for the
musicians who passed through and the street kids who never left.
And they called her Blue. She was legendary in Old Town,
(12:03):
mythical even. They said she divorced her husband and went
into business to support her kids. And so now X
wasn't exactly coming through in the Provider department, And they
said she poured the concrete of the building herself, right
in the very spot where the rising moon had once
stood before it suspiciously went up in flames. And they
said she raised four hundred kids in that apartment next
door to the club, the club that bore the name
(12:23):
that everyone called her. And like a hard boiled Chicago
blue song, Lorraine Blue was tough caring but careful, kind
but skeptical. She took one look at Janis and the
boys when they blew into town, and they're petruly stink
and loose California lingo wafting from every armpit and moth
that she thought, what the fuck is with these California hippies?
(12:45):
Chicago would be the band's wake up call, and Lorraine
Blue would do the dialing. Peter knew that Janis had
stolen the sweater. He was sure of it. One minute
it was in the apartment, in the next it was
wrapped around Janie's body. And whether it belonged Blue or
one of the four children who came in went it
didn't matter. They couldn't afford to fund this up to
make enemies. They were already making enemies, looking the way
(13:05):
they looked, talking the way they talked, and they were
close enough to the edges. It was no money, no prospects,
no crowds, and no way to get back home. The
residency was all they had, even if the promoter had
given up hope and had stopped paying them regularly, Even
if they had to hire a girl slathered in day
glow paint and glitter and wearing a seran rap turban
and leotard to dance provocatively while they played, just to
(13:27):
get asses off the streets and inside the way Peter
figured it. But they started lifting stuff that wasn't there.
It started making a bigger scene than the one they
made by simply rolling in the town. They could jeopardize
the whole thing, and then they'd be on the street
on their houses. San Francisco was a long way down, sure,
a big brother in the Holding Company were a big
(13:49):
deal in their hometown. They were one of the big
bands leaving the charge in the San Francisco scene, a
scene that included the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane.
But it was the summer of nineteen sixty six and
that's seen had an open wide just yet. So Chicago
was a hard cell. People looked at them funny, made
comments about their long hair and the way they dressed,
and the band thought it would be different than it
(14:10):
wouldn't be an uphill battle, but it was a huge
uphill battle, and the hill was a goddamn mountain. Chicago
didn't know Dick about Big Brother in Chicago didn't care
about Big Brother either. Chicago was mecca for the blues.
You can get knee deep in it there, Muddy Wolf,
Buddy God, Jimmy Read, John Lee Hooker, that my namesakes
Little Walter Jacobs and a lotis rush, but I degress,
(14:31):
and no one taking a one way flight from San
Francisco in August of nineteen sixty six wanted to get
knee deep in Chicago blues more than Janice Job. All
the other female singers in San Francisco were on a
Joan Bias trip, folksing social protesters. But Janice was Bessie
Smith and a sea of Jones. She sang the blues
like she had lived the blues like she lived the
(14:51):
raw nerves of each line, and she had lived it.
She lived in towns that didn't want her, surrounded by
people who rejected her, called her name, was looked down
on her, even in San Francisco, the very place that
she was helping to put on the musical map. She
was a woman in a man's man's world, a booze
guzzling beat nick in a hotbed of acid heads. She'd
been used in, duped lied to, and victimized. She came
(15:14):
from a Texas oil town, Port Arthur, there was as
conservative as she was liberal as backwards as she was progressive.
She had to succeed, She had to put the past
in the rear view mirror. She made her way back
to San Francisco a failure. Then it was only a
matter of time before she wound up back in Port
Arthur again, busted and broke, and for all she knew,
it would be the last chance she had blown Chicago
(15:36):
liberation didn't come easy. Chicago wasn't a big, friendly jam
session where she and the boys rubbed elbows with the
guys with names like Muddy and Sunny Boy and Slim
and Wolf. Chicago was a slog. Chicago was playing your
guts O for a few drunk town he's gathered around
the bar. Chicago was getting raised eyebrows and condescended comments
from passers by on the street. Chicago was getting a
(15:58):
coveted review in a local paper only to be called ugly.
Chicago was not hit, not hitting the way that Janice
and the gang were hitting. Chicago was hostile. Chicago was Hatersville.
Chicago was the real world that looked at California like
its own separate universe of nuts and flakes, and the
Chicago wasn't enough now our own bandmates wanted to get personal.
(16:18):
Peter wanted a big confrontation with Janice. She knew it.
She could feel it coming, the way he was looking
at her, and the accusatory questions he was dropping like
b He wanted to have it out with her about
the stupid cashmere sweater that probably didn't really belong to
anyone anyways. She could tell it was coming, the lecture
of the public flogging, the way all the guys in
the band would occasionally take a moment to dress her down,
(16:42):
the girl in the crew. She was only the fucking
lead singer. Man, Yeah, I took that stupid sweater, she
told me, loud enough so that the rest of the
band could hear. Her laugh was like a nervous punctuation.
She wanted to end the conversation move on to more
pressing matters at hand, but she also recognized how wound
up and anxious the whole band was at the moment.
(17:02):
She hadn't forgotten about the offer that Paul Rothschild from
Electra Records had made her, not the band, not big brother,
but just her before they left San Francisco for Chicago.
Peter hadn't forgotten either, no one in the band had
No one could forget that. Rothschild came directly to Janice,
behind all of their backs, to coax her away from
(17:24):
Big Brother and the holding company in order to become
the new member of a big blue supergroup he was
putting together. It was exactly what she was looking for,
an opportunity to get free, but it was a big gasque.
It meant leaving behind the very group that had put
her name on the San Franciscan Math, and with Big Brother,
she was part of a group, a member of a gang.
(17:45):
The guys and Big Brother weren't her backing band. They
were equals, for better or for worse. She told the
band she would think about it, do this Chicago thing
right out Big Brother a little longer, because on Sundays
she couldn't imagine ever being without them. But on other days,
days when they were stuck two thousand miles away from
home with no money and no one had turned to
(18:06):
days when she had to endure the third degree from
the bass player for swiping a goddamn cashmere sweater off
the back of a lonely chair in the rain Blues department.
Some days, being without the band was all she could
think about. Then she could truly be fraid. We'll be
(18:27):
right back after this word, word word. The line outside
the bathroom was at least ten girls teeth, some had
flowers in their hair, others had flowers painted on their faces.
Some more long hair and long dresses, some more tinted
glasses and beaded headbands. Some seemed to float like visions,
(18:48):
and sheer gowns that sprouted wings when they spread their
arms out to the side. In the bathroom, door would
open and one of the girls would walk out, a
look of bliss or shock across her face, stuck there
with sweat and lust, a look that pulsated in time
with the rapid heart palpitations she was experiencing. The next
girl online would seek into the bathroom, and the door
(19:09):
would shot slowly behind her, and the whole thing would
start up again. A man's voice, a woman's voice, some
light banging, followed by excessively loud banging moans, groans, a deep,
manished victory cry, complimented by a high pitched, ecstatic squeal.
The girls in line outside the bathroom turned to each
other in mine, blushed and giggled, ran their fingers in
(19:31):
between their knuckles to calm their nerves, and they scanned
around the hallway to make sure they weren't going to
get busted by some rent to car. As soon as
the sounds beyond the door subsided, they would all turn
to face the bathroom once more, eyes wide. A hush
fell over the group. Then they strained to hear something,
anything from inside the bathroom that would continue to feel
the visuals they concocted inside their heads, and they waited
(19:54):
for that door to swing wide open once more. It
would be there turn soon. It was June seven at
the Film War in San Francisco, and though the Jimmie
Hendrix experience had just wrapped up the last of their
six nights the hippest of hippie auditoriums, the real place
to be was backstage, and the rumors spread quickly throughout
(20:14):
the audience as they made their awkward shuffle on mass
towards the exits in the house public address system mushering
three thousand out into the indifferent San Francisco evening with
the music of the Blues Mangoose as soundtrack, and the
backstage opportunity was whispered from the ear to ear, girl
to girl, some had dates on their arm and tried
not to seem too disappointed when they laughed off the
(20:35):
rumor and kept a steady course for the exit. But
those who were intrigued stopped in their tracks, verified that
the information was valid, and then scanned the auditorium for
the most direct route to the secret destination backstage. The
line never seemed to get shorter or longer. Every time
a girl will go into the bathroom, another would appear,
eyes darting around out of breath, like she had just
(20:57):
scaled a prison fence to freedom. As this it and
my here did anyone see me? All ten girls in
line were surprised when around the corner came Big Brother
in the Holding Company, one of the bands that had
opened the show that night. The girls didn't immediately recognize
the guys in the band. They all looked like just
other nondescript hippie guys from any number of up and
coming bands. Long hair, thick, mutton shops jeans. It was Janice.
(21:21):
They recognized. Janice was their city's new star, and they
all gasped when they saw her flank by. These four
could be anybody san fran Dus, but didn't care to
leave the line. They couldn't lose their place. Janie had
a bottle in one hand and a smoke and the other.
She never left home without them. If there was a
Janis Droplin action figure, the accessories would be a bottle
(21:42):
on a smoke. What's going on here, Janice shouted at
the girl's waiting in line, who in turn. We're trying
to get Janice's attention from where they stood. What's the action, ladies.
One of the girls in line, tall blonde, a thick
Paisley headman keeping her pigtails in place, spoke up. Jimmie
Hendricks is in there, she said, excitedly. He's handing out
quickies as fast as he can. Yeah, I know, the
(22:02):
girl piped up. You want in, Miss Choplin. We'll let
you cut the line. Cut the line, Miss Joplin. Janie's
response echoed down the backstage hallway, a laugh so genuine
and resounding that it began low at the bottom of
her belly and bounced its way up through her chest
and throw, and arrived with such confidence and clarity that
it literally threw her head back. It was a smoker's laugh,
(22:24):
a drinker's laugh, the laugh of a prankster. The guys
and Big Brother tapped each other on the arms, had
their own little private chuckles, like hey, can you get
a load of that question, Like Janis Joplin is gonna
wait in line for Jimmie Hendricks. Janis and the boys
kept on walking right past the bathroom, past a lot
of girls, and know the exit door. Janice hoped that
the laugh had been loud enough but masculating enough that
(22:46):
Jimmy heard it through all the panting and moaning that
was surely bouncing around the bathroom tile, loud enough to
knock his mail ego down a peg. Janice didn't have
time for that. Ship didn't have time to wait in
line so that a rock god, a fabled sex god,
could find time to make her another notch on his bedroost. Sure,
Jennis found liberation in sex, but she did it in
her way. She caught the shots. She didn't wait patiently
(23:09):
in some line of submissive bimbos. She'd rather be the
one in the bathroom making the line of submissive mail
bimbos wait their goddamn turn. She'd fought against type her
entire life. At Thomas Jefferson High School in Port Arthur,
she took shipped from rednecks like Jimmie Johnson, Yes that
Jimmie Johnson, who called her a slut in a horror
(23:30):
just because she was different. She wasn't a blockhead like
the rest of them. The jocks would toss pennies at
her when she walked by in the hallway, and when
she stood up for herself when she came back at
them with a loud funk, all of your motherfucker's. She
was the one who got in trouble. And then when
she did start hanging out with the boys, the progressive
boys who were just as vocal about political and social
(23:50):
issues as she was, the slut and horror insults came
rushing back. She found no reprieve in college either, where
she was voted ugliest man on campus, not even woman
ugliest man. That ship's harsh. Now, Janice and her band,
big brother in the holding company, we're opening for Jimmie Hendricks,
and she was having the last laugh. She was calling
(24:11):
the shots. Those ship kickers back in Port Arthur were,
no doubt apoplectic, which suited her just fine. What would
they say if they saw her now saw her? Janice Choplin,
the low self esteem kid with bad acne and a
red hot temper if they saw her taking a hot
ship rock star to bed. Take Jim Morrison, for example,
She took Jim Morris into bed because she wanted to
(24:32):
do it. She made it happy, she seduced him. But
one night, after the Doors played the film More, Janice
went to dinner with the band, and when they wound
up back at her apartment, Janice was brazen about it too.
In the middle of the after party, guys in the
doors mingling with guys from Big Brother, and there's Jim's
girl Pam being shy on the edge of the couch.
In the middle of it all, Janice decided to take
Jim back to her room for a romp in the sheets,
(24:55):
and hey, if Pam wanted him so bad, you could
put a fight. It was janice version of the Jimmy
Hendrick's quickie line. No guy told her what to do,
no girl did either, And after they'd done the deed
and Pam had run off sobbing, Janie rolled over in
bed to see Jim laying there with a dumb grin
on his face, a grin so big and dumb that
it looked painted on Jim thought he was a bad boy,
(25:16):
but Janis knew the truth. She knew Jim was just
a dumbass poser who only wanted to be a bad boy,
not to mention a laws he lay. The real bad
boys were inspiring. They were creative, they were magnetic, They
were outlaws without being outlandish, and they could often be found.
Of all places in Texas, the Bulkan Gas Companies small
(26:01):
tableaus of liquid were morphing into a large scale visual stimulus.
The colors were swimming around the band members corduroy pants
and chelsea boots and velvet suit jackets as a house
gear on stage. For some of the audience, the band
didn't even need to be playing. The trippy visuals were enough.
The puffs of grass and tabs of LSD made everything entertaining.
(26:22):
You could be entertained all night by whatever appeared in
front of you, as long as you were cool about it.
Kept another down low because even though this was Austin
in the year nineteen sixty six, Austin was still in Texas,
and Texas was still a long ways away from embracing
the Burgin and counterculture movement. The band knew it, and
they were living proof. There were none other than the
(26:44):
thirteenth Floor Elevators, and they were playing shows under the
radar while on bail. The Elevators dared to challenge the
status quo of Texas, and the Rednecks of Texas responded.
Texas was terrified on them. The psychedelic rock groups threatened
the moral fabric of a odd, fearing American state, and
so Texas would hunt down the Elevators, led by the
(27:04):
eighteen year old Rocky Erricks, and arrest them, broadcast the
bus on local television, and make them the enemy of
the old fashioned conservative values. It was a few months earlier,
in January of nineteen sixty six, when the raid happened.
The band was hanging out at Tommy Hall's place, talking
about their latest rehearsal, arguing over which covers they'd include
(27:24):
and they're set that week while taking big tokes of
killer grass. Tommy was the group's electric drug player, the
first and best of his kind, a musical role he
had invented and then used to set the Elevators apart
from everyone else frat bands like The Wig, the Baby Cakes,
and The Fabulous Chevels. The Elevators miked up Tommy's old
(27:44):
clay whiskey jug and he would blow these propulsive, ghostly
notes that sounded like transmissions from another planet. Tommy was
demonstrating some of the new moves he'd created, these double
notes that he'd get what he flipped his tongue is
he tutored on the drug's top. When the door was
flung open Austin police, then the vice squad was inside,
warrant held high for all the sea. They found two
(28:07):
pounds of marijuana inside, and then even more when they
searched the apartments of other band members, including Rockies. The
band spent the night at the Travis County Jail before
being released on a thousand dollar bond. And now they
made their moves with stealth, one eye over their shoulder
and near to the ground. Rock shows as Guerrilla Warfare
in nineteen sixty six, Texas and the band appeared out
(28:30):
of nowhere in the particular night and assembled their gear
quickly and with surgical precisions so precisely, in fact, that
no one in the crowd would have guessed they had
all dropped acid on the drive over, and the audience
couldn't help but stare at the giant I hovering above
the pyramid that was painted on John Ike Walton's kick
drum and all seeing Eye, the eye of Providence. The
(28:50):
eye hypnotized one person in particular, Janis Chopolin. Janis was
on the bill that night as well, just like a
conservative Texas square that everyone back home wanted her to be. Dour,
black dress and all she sang lonesome covers of Buffy
sat Marie's Code and Ray Charles Is drowned in my
own tears. She had escaped Texas once, already a poetic
(29:13):
journey to the promised land of liberation way out in California,
but it was a bummer trip. She returned to her
hometown of Port Arthur, defeated and skinny, and with a
meth habit to threaten to kill her. But she knew
that Port Arthur was just as deadly for her shooting
meth in San Francisco. So it was a relief when
she enrolled in the University of Texas at Austin and
crawled out of her oppressive hometown once more. In Austin,
(29:37):
she fell in with the like minded crowd of beat
Nix artists and musicians, the Long Hairs that would radicalize
Texas from the inside out. She brought her guitar to therapy.
Her music was her therapy, and played shows at folk
clubs in Houston and Austin. And then she saw Rocky
at the Methodist Student Center Auditorium, standing tall, hair short,
(29:58):
looking as respectable as the vice squad wanted him to be.
But underneath that facade, Rocky was an outlaw. They were
all outlaws. She saw the eye of Providence and she
was under its spell. And then Rocky sang his voice,
sharp and raw, shrieking and screeching, and she was under
a spell. And just like the thirteenth floor elevators carried
(30:18):
out from the Methodist Student Center Auditorium on the wind,
Janice would let herself be carried off by a car
full of hippies who had driven all the way from
San Francisco just to find her her old friends. She
had Helms was putting together a band and thought Janice
would be perfect as a singer, so perfect that she
had personally sent a few of his finest freaks on
a road trip to track her down. It was like
(30:40):
it was faded, like she had been set up to
witness Rocky and his band, only to then be transported
back to the West Coast, where she could become exactly
what she had just witnessed in Texas, be an outlaw, scream,
screech and wail, but do it far away from Texas,
where the world wasn't ready for that kind of freedom,
the freedom to sing what you wanted, be who you wanted,
(31:01):
and live how you wanted. In this time, she was
determined that she wouldn't go back home again. She told herself,
she wouldn't run into the same problems she had experienced before.
There was a revolution happening out west, a revolution with
electric kool aid and Hell's Angels and be ins and lovings.
A revolution that beckoned to her, called her to its
(31:22):
center stage, where she could leave all the pain behind.
In San Francisco, she could be set free. I'm Jake Brennan,
and this is the twenty seven Club, all right. This
(31:46):
episode of The seven Club is brought to you by
disgrace Land, the award winning music and true crime podcast
that I also housed. Disgrace Land is available only on
the free Amazon Music to hear tons of insane stories
about your favorite musicians getting away with murder and think
very badly. Nirvana, Prince Jerry Lee Lewis, The Grateful Dead,
The Rolling Stones, Cardi B and many many more. Go
(32:06):
to Amazon dot com slash disgrace Land, or if you
have an Echo device to say hey Alexa play the
disgrace Land podcast. The twenty seven Club is hosted and
co written by me Jake Brennan. Zeth Wandi is the
lead writer and co producer Matt Voting and mixes the show.
Additional music and score elements by Ryan Spraaker and Henry Lenetta.
(32:27):
The twenty seven Club is produced by myself for Double
Elvis and partnership with I Heart Radio. Sources for this
episode are available at Double Elvis dot com on the
twenty seven Club series page. The twenty seven Club is
released weekly every Thursday. Our previous season's on Jimmy Hendricks
and Jim Morrison are available for you to binge right
now wherever you get your podcasts. Then if you like
(32:48):
what you here, please be sure to find and follow
the twenty seven Club on the I Heart Radio app,
Apple podcast, or wherever you give shows. And if you
like to what a free twenty seven Club poster designed
by the man himself, Nate gonzae Us, then leave a
review for twenty seven Club on Apple Podcasts or hashtag
subscribe to club on social media and we'll pick two
(33:08):
winners each week and announce them on the Double Elvis
Instagram page that's at double Illness. Give that a phone
to get out there and spread the word of A
seven Club, and you talk to me per usual on
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(33:30):
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