David Freiberg

Of Quicksilver Messenger Service and Jefferson Starship. He just turned 87, but he's still out on the road. He's been there and done that, from Ohio to San Francisco and beyond!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:08):
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome back to the Bob Left Sets podcast.
My guest today is David Ryper. David, there's a Mickey
Thomas Starship and you're the Jefferson Starship. Explain to me
what's going on here.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Oh okay, that sounds a bit confusing. Okay, So there
was a Jefferson Starship and that was Paul Cantner. Actually,
Paul Kntnor, Grace Slick and I were starting it kind
of because we we were what was left of Jefferson,
part of what was left of Jefferson Airplane when they

(00:47):
decided not to be Jefferson Airplane anymore. And we had
recorded a couple of albums and we thought we need
to go out on the road, and we didn't know
what to call it. And so I'm going way back
to the beginning here.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
So well, actually I'd like to go back to the beginning. Leader, Okay,
let's just talk.

Speaker 2 (01:06):
I gotcha right now.

Speaker 1 (01:09):
My understandings, there's two acts, and why are the two
acts and what is the difference?

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Okay. Paul Kantner restarted Jefferson's Starship in the nineties after
it was did not exist for the for the for
the five last five years of the eighties, it became Starship.
But then at the end of that Starship ceased to exist.
So Paul thought, well, a fine time, just restart and

(01:37):
do what I want to do, what I've always loved
to do, So we restarted Jefferson Starship. So Mickey Thomas
was the lead singer in Starship. He wanted something to do.
So I do not know anything for a fact here.
I assume that he so going against all the legal
things he managed to I guess he could call it

(01:58):
Starship featuring Mickey Thomas or Mickey Thomas's Starship, and they
would let him do that. But meanwhile, there's this other
Jefferson Starship that was existing with Paul Kantner right along
the way, and this band is what is left. We
were all in the final version of Jefferson Starship when

(02:19):
Paul passed away in twenty sixteen.

Speaker 1 (02:24):
Okay, if I go to see Jefferson Starship and you
do many gigs on the road, what material am I
going to hear?

Speaker 2 (02:31):
Stuff from the whole Jefferson Starship, airplane even Starship era.
We'll do it all, Okay, I don't know whether you're
actually going to hear every single song we ever did.
That would be impossible, but yeah, we do it from
all the eras.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
And do you do the same set every night when
you have like a run of dates or do you
vary it up?

Speaker 2 (02:54):
We vary it up. I mean that all depends on
what we're doing, meaning what Okay, Well, say we were
going out opening up for bt O and UH and
Uh Marshall Tucker and so we only had a half
hours being the opening band for this last little bit,

(03:15):
and so we just had it. We did do the
same set there because we picked the songs, the songs
that they thought that the audience would have to hear.
So we fit squeeze seven songs into a half an hour.
So it's pretty good.

Speaker 1 (03:31):
Okay, I'm interesting because it's a big catalog and I'm
familiar with it. What are the sevens I could guess,
But what are the seven songs people have to hear?

Speaker 2 (03:40):
Well? I don't know this. This are the ones we
came up with that we could fit, we could piece
together that would would work. Okay, what did we do?
We did find your way back? We did miracles. Then
we did Nothing's going to stop us now? And we
did uh why rabbit and we did. We built this city,

(04:06):
and we did Jane, and then we did Somebody to Love.
If we were lucky, it had ended before thirty minutes.

Speaker 1 (04:14):
Okay, you're eighty six years old, Yeah, soon to turn
eighty seven. What is keeping you on the road.

Speaker 2 (04:25):
These people that are in the band right now, that
we get along so well, and the whole thing. When
Paul passed away, we said, well, now what are we
going to do? We love each other so much, and
Grace and Grace Slick decided that she thought she thought
the band should go on, and she and she had

(04:45):
the key to the highway, so she gave us the license.

Speaker 1 (04:49):
Well, you've been doing this for sixty almost years at
almost sixty. What is the difference going out at eighty
as opposed to twenty six?

Speaker 2 (05:04):
Well, I can move around a little better back when
I was twenty six. I'm a little slower, I say,
I don't know. I can still sing knock on wood.

Speaker 1 (05:17):
Let me ask questions a little. A lot of people
don't live to eighty six. There are people who are
totally spried Cochin and able into their nineties. Their acts
on the road today in their late seventies were on
the road and can't sing. I guess what I'm saying
is so many people are plagued by health proms. You're

(05:37):
obviously talking to me, But you've lived so long. Is
it because the luck of the genes? Or is it
because you take such good care of yourself? What explains
your spryness.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
I go with the former, the luck of the genes,
because I haven't particularly taken very good care of myself.
I mean, I do, you know, I do go to
the gym and work out now to to keep my
you know, my you know, my self, you know, torso safe,
you know, keep it in shape. But other than that,

(06:17):
I mean I try to eat a sensible diet, and
not that I don't have any problems I have. I
have a I have an artificial heart valve, you know,
but it seems to be working.

Speaker 1 (06:30):
Since where you know, you're doing great. It's like my
doctor says, all of his patients who lived to ninety
have had at least one bout of cancer. Have you
had cancer?

Speaker 2 (06:40):
I just had a couple of lymph nodes that had
ever removed, But knock on wood, I don't have any now.

Speaker 1 (06:49):
So what pills do you take every day? And how
many pills.

Speaker 2 (06:53):
Oh, I take about I don't know, two, three, four,
about five six pills twice a day something like that.

Speaker 1 (07:05):
Okay, there are a lot of people who say, I
don't want to take pills, and going back to my
doctor again, is you take the pills. They're going to
keep you alive. They're doing things. You have a viewpoint
on the pills at all.

Speaker 2 (07:18):
Well, my only only thing I can I can fathom
is that they are keeping me alive because I ain't dead.
You know.

Speaker 1 (07:27):
Okay, how old did your parents live to?

Speaker 2 (07:30):
Mom made it to ninety two and dad made it
to eighty eight.

Speaker 1 (07:34):
Okay, not the same in my family. But you do
have good genes. Okay, when you live to eighty six,
a lot of friends pass away before you do. How
do you metabolize that? How do you cope with it?

Speaker 2 (07:50):
You have to accept it? And I don't know. I've
I tend to accept that. The universe, I'm not I'm
not sure the law of conservation of energy, you know,
if if it exists, it's going to exist in another
form somehow, nothing disappears, you know, it's either mass or

(08:14):
it's energy, and and so I don't know. I don't know.
I have yet to find out, I suppose. Okay, So
if I find out I've forgotten.

Speaker 1 (08:28):
Other than your bandmates, do you have a best friend
someone you can call or if some of those people
passed away and you've had to switch to another person.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
A lot of them passed away, sure, most of them.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
Wow, Okay, let's go back to the beginning. So where
are you from originally?

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Well? I was born in Boston, And what did would
your parents do for a living in Boston? My dad
came from a fairly wealthy family and it was right
in the in the during the depression, so they seem
to have kept him in Harvard for the whole depression.

(09:10):
And when I was born, I think I think he
had he has four Harvard degrees, so it makes me
think that he couldn't figure out what else to do
and he ended up being an attorney. I think he
was working for the New England Dairy Farmers or something.
He was their attorney.

Speaker 1 (09:26):
Then how do you meet your mother? What was her story?

Speaker 2 (09:29):
They were both from Cincinnati and they I don't know,
they ran into each other and I and I believe
dad's college roommate married my mom's sister.

Speaker 1 (09:44):
So okay, So how long did you live in Boston?

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Only until I was about this Second World War? My
dad went in the Navy and my mom went back
to live with their parents in Cincinnati.

Speaker 1 (10:03):
Okay, do you have any memories of that era?

Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yeah? I few still linger tell me, Oh, I remember,
you know, saving saving cans and things like that for
for for the war effort. Yeah. Uh. And terrible stories
that came back being Jewish RADI stories came back, you know.

Speaker 1 (10:33):
So the war ends, then what happens?

Speaker 2 (10:39):
Uh? I was I end up? I end up? Uh?
My dad was an in the Attu Island for most
of the war, just the Boer War he called it.
Nothing ever happened. And then the then before he got discharged,
they stationed it in North Carolina, and I'd had one

(11:02):
to the second grade in North Carolina. And then when
he got discharged, we moved back to Cincinnati, which is
where I stayed until I moved out here in nineteen
fifty nine.

Speaker 1 (11:13):
Okay, you're living in Cincinnati. You have brothers and sisters,
two brothers and a sister. Yes, And where are you
in the hierarchy.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
I'm the oldest, the oldest.

Speaker 1 (11:23):
All the hopes and dreams were in you.

Speaker 2 (11:25):
They're all still here. I don't know whether his hopes
and dreams. I thought he thought he was going to
get a doctor or a lawyer or something.

Speaker 1 (11:34):
What have your siblings been up to? What would their
lives look like?

Speaker 2 (11:38):
My brother was an advertising art director for all of
his life, and I know he's kind, but they're all
into They're all into music a little bit. I mean
he plays viola and string quartets, as did eye when
I was in high school.

Speaker 1 (11:54):
But okay, you're going to school, what kind of kid
and what kind of student? Were you?

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Terrible? I didn't get along with my father. He expected
me to hit the books. Because I think I've looked.
I kind of learned that that he uh he didn't
do well in school, but he got into Harvard anyway,
and he and then he learned to buckle down and

(12:22):
get things done, thus the four Harvard degrees. But uh
so he wanted me to and I completely revolted it,
and I must I do not remember doing this on purpose,
but I did terribly in high school. He really wanted
me to go to Harvard, but there was no way

(12:43):
that I was. I couldn't make myself do homework. But
I was very interested. I was playing in the orchestra.
I was playing, you know, in high school. I played
violin and viola and the orchestra and string quartets. It
was pretty good for a high school guy. But I
wasn't prodigy or anything.

Speaker 1 (13:03):
Where did the music come from? There was there music
in the house.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
Constantly he played. They played classical music, and he liked
He liked Benny Goodman, he liked Lewis Armstrong and all
the Broadway hits. They were always playing and we could
sing them all, you know, all the kids.

Speaker 1 (13:27):
Okay, you're of an age you could remember the birth
of rock and roll. Can you tell me your first
experience of hearing Rocket eighty eight or Rock around the Clock?
And you know, did you like it? Did you dislike it?

Speaker 2 (13:43):
I did like it, but it was so frowned upon
in my house. I mean, I could not get a guitar.
I really wanted a guitar, but I could never I
never bought one until I had moved to San Francisco,
and I was by about almost twenty two, I think,
before I bought my first guitar.

Speaker 1 (14:04):
Okay, you graduate from high school, then what do you
do in Cincinnati?

Speaker 2 (14:09):
I went to Miami University in Oxford, Ohio.

Speaker 1 (14:14):
And did you graduate?

Speaker 2 (14:18):
No? I I changed my major every semester.

Speaker 1 (14:24):
How many years did you go to Miami?

Speaker 2 (14:26):
I got three and a half. I think I got
I had one hundred and twenty units, but they were
all in different places, and it had taken me another
three years to graduate to get a major. And I thought, well,
I'm going to end up being an English major, and
what am I going to do with that, you know?

(14:48):
And so I just I spent the whole time kind
of trying. First thing, my father said, you got to
be a scientist or or you know, or something, because
science is what's coming, you know. And so I try
and I failed. That is so I spent most of
my time screwing around, acting in place in the drama department,

(15:09):
but I took no classes in drama and singing and
singing in the choir and the and the Menscale club.
But I took no classes in music, even though I
had been recruited there by the head of the viola
department when I played viola in high school to go
there to study music. But music was nothing a good

(15:29):
Jewish boy was supposed to do unless you were David,
you know. Unless you were pick one, you hooty menu
and I don't know.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Okay, so you're there in Miami. I assume on your
father's dollar.

Speaker 2 (15:50):
Right, absolutely wasting every penny of it.

Speaker 1 (15:53):
Okay, how do you decide to drop out? And what
does your father say?

Speaker 2 (15:59):
Oh? We we ended up not talking mostly, you know.
I rebelled and I married the Catholic girl, my Catholic
girlfriend from college, and we got married and we just
knuck out of town and moved to San Francisco.

Speaker 1 (16:16):
Okay, let's back up. Tell me about meeting this woman
and getting married.

Speaker 2 (16:21):
I don't know things happened.

Speaker 1 (16:25):
How'd you decide to get married?

Speaker 2 (16:29):
Oh? I don't know. That part is pretty doesn't remain
with me very much anymore.

Speaker 1 (16:39):
Okay. How long were you married to that woman?

Speaker 2 (16:42):
Until a year after we got to San Francisco.

Speaker 1 (16:45):
Okay, so you're with this woman? Why san Francisco.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
I know when I was about a teenager, all of
us piled in a car and shrove all through the
United States. And when we came into San Francisco one summer, right,
all of us in the car. They come around on
the US one oh one coming into San Francisco, and
it was just about sunset. The fog was coming in

(17:14):
the sky was pink. It was the most beautiful thing
I'd ever seen. And we probably had the best dinner
I've ever had. And I just thought in my head,
I'm going to live here and somehow, And so that's
why I probably picked that. And also, I mean there
was the beat Nicks were out here, and I kind

(17:34):
of I was interested in that. And I was interested
in folk music, although I had didn't have a guitar yet,
but I was. I was always listening to it and
singing it. And I was a big peat Seeger fan,
and I love the Weavers.

Speaker 1 (17:48):
And so, okay, you're talking to your new wife, what
is your pitch and what is the dream of what's
going to happen once you get to San Francisco.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
Think most of us was getting out of Cincinnati because
she wasn't having a good time there either. She wanted
to get away from her mother and I wanted to
get away from my father.

Speaker 1 (18:09):
Although, okay, you get to San Francisco, what are you
living on?

Speaker 2 (18:15):
I tried to I had a little a little inheritance
that I already had. It came from my grandparents, I think,
so I went through that pretty quick. But I was
supposed to have a job at a I don't know,
some trucking company, but it turned out not to be

(18:39):
there when I got there. So I think I worked
for a pawn shop in Oakland until I got a
job with the Southern Pacific Railroad in their main office
in San Francisco, and because I liked trains, but after
I got there, I learned that that they didn't really
like trains. They like money. And so I worked my

(19:03):
way up and I was a freight rate analyst, but
I was a but back up a little bit. The
wife disappears, and I have no idea where she's gone.

Speaker 1 (19:15):
A little bit slower. You go to work one day
and you come home she's not there.

Speaker 2 (19:19):
She's not there, and no sign of her. The cops
haven't heard anything.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
Is there stuff going?

Speaker 2 (19:30):
No? Some of it? Okay, you know, it's not like
you know. I have no idea what happened. And the
only thing I could think of to do was I
went out and bought a guitar and I started to
learn how to play guitar, and eventually I found her.
Some I think I was driving through Golden Gate Park

(19:51):
and I saw her, and I ran over to he
and say, hey, what's going on? And she came back
and she was pregnant.

Speaker 1 (19:59):
Pregnant with someone else's baby.

Speaker 2 (20:01):
Someone else's baby.

Speaker 1 (20:03):
Okay. Just to get the timeline straight, how long after
she had disappeared did you run into it?

Speaker 2 (20:10):
Oh? Matter of weeks?

Speaker 1 (20:12):
Okay, So she had already found somebody else. You were
oblivious if.

Speaker 2 (20:17):
It wasn't with them anymore. She wanted to come back.

Speaker 1 (20:20):
Oh, and you said.

Speaker 2 (20:22):
I said, I'm a nice guy. I said, well, okay,
but meanwhile, I'm gonna do what I'm going to do.
So I was, I was playing the guitar, and I
was okay.

Speaker 1 (20:37):
Just to get to the end of her story first,
you think I can. Did she move back, did she
have the baby? How long much longer did you live together?

Speaker 2 (20:48):
She did have the baby, and I don't know because
then I turned into a folks singer. So I first,
I'm working for the Southern Mississi Southern Pacific, and I'm
playing and I'm playing on weekends and and and our
week nights whenever at the folk at the folk clubs

(21:09):
on hot night and andy knights, you know, And so
I'm listening to people that are up there, and I say, well,
if they could do that, I can certainly do that.
So I get up there and sing, and I saw, uh,
there was a note on the on the bulletin board
said wanted folk singers for Peace to travel through Mexico

(21:32):
all the way down to Central and South America, with
bringing nothing with us but living with the people and
to spread peace and happiness and brotherhood. And I said
that sounds very interesting, and so I got in touch
with the guy. He ended up being a Vietnam vet
who was definitely anti war. And this other there was

(21:55):
a girl named Sandy Rudin, little Jewish girl who knew
lots lots of folk songs and wanted to do it.
And I did it, and we were the three. And
I actually talked to Southern Pacific into giving me a
leave of absence. I was a freight raided analyst by then,
and I got permission.

Speaker 1 (22:16):
Okay, Africa, a little lightning round? Yeah you or did
you not raise that child?

Speaker 2 (22:24):
I didn't.

Speaker 1 (22:25):
Okay, what year did all this happen that you went
took the leave of absence and went on the folks
singing tour?

Speaker 2 (22:33):
Probably nineteen sixty two?

Speaker 1 (22:36):
Okay, So this guy had been to Vietnam early when
most people weren't even aware of it. Yeah, well right, okay,
just to go back to something you said earlier. Okay, Now,
most people today are unfamiliar with Beatniks. They don't even
remember Dobie Gillis and the Energy Krebs. So can you
give us a few words about Beatnicks?

Speaker 2 (23:00):
Oh, I don't know North Beach, I don't know Allen Ginsberg,
Jack Carrouac. They're playing bongos and the New Lank You know,
everybody's a cat, you know. Can you dig it? Poetry
recitals in coffeehouses?

Speaker 1 (23:22):
To what degree? Was it limited to San Francisco? Was
it a completely you know, it's totally different today with
the Internet, etc. But yeah, what did people in Ohio
know about Beatniks or what was going on in San Francisco?
If anything?

Speaker 2 (23:39):
I on the road by Jack Carrouac, I mean, and
I don't know. I just knew they were there, and
I knew there was a lot of jazz being played there,
and you know, and I don't know. Okay, that wasn't
really the reason I picked it. I picked it because
it was just so beautiful.

Speaker 1 (24:00):
Okay, And what exactly was your motivation to buy guitar
and play music.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
That was the big mystery. I don't know. I had
always wanted one, and I never did it. And so
I said, well, screw all this stuff that's supposed to
be happening in my life. I'm going to do what
I want to do, you know. So I went and
bought the guitar and got a bunch of sing out
music and started learning learning how to how to play
and fingerpick and stuff. And it came pretty naturally to

(24:29):
me having played, you know, a strange instrument before.

Speaker 1 (24:33):
Okay, so now you're on this tour with the woman
in the Vietnam veteran down to Mexico. Tell me about that.

Speaker 2 (24:39):
Yeah, okay, we go down to a folk club and
I don't know. We went and we figured out a
way to take the train to Mexico ally, get and
go across from Calexico to Mexico ally and take the
third third class train to Mexico City. That's what our

(25:02):
and so we missed. We missed the train. We just
missed it when we got there. So we had to
stay overnight. You couldn't stay in the station. They wouldn't
stay in the station, and through the miracle of miracles,
the guard for the station said, you can stay in
the back of my pickup trucks. I had a panel

(25:25):
truck panel truck, and so he let us. He was
really friendly and you're nice and and this is about
all that we found in Mexico when we were there,
people that were very friendly. So anyway, we eventually again
on the train the next day, and we have very
little money, and all we're eating is like what what

(25:48):
the vendors are selling at every stop, you know, liketo, potato, tacos,
you know things. And we and by the time we
got to mexic Go City, I think we had twelve
pesos between three of us. But we managed to get
to the American Friends Service Committee and told them what
we were doing for peace, and that they gave us

(26:11):
some people that we could talk to at the University
of Mexico and people at people places we could possibly
stay and and and we went out and we started
went there, met some people, met met an art student
who was impressed with what we were doing, and people
took us seriously and it was kind of amazing. And

(26:35):
Uh offered us that we could stay at his house
and sleep on. We were sleeping on the floor, but
you know, it was some place to stay. And we'd
go out in the daytime and and and sit up
in applaza somewhere and leave our guitar cases opens and
sing and people actually three paytos, and and you know,
I guess, I guess we were okay, I don't know.

(26:57):
We found a kosher restaurant when sang in Mexico City
and sang there because she she we knew how aneguila
and that's you know, anyway, that worked too. And and
one day a somebody asked us to come sing. What'd

(27:20):
you come and sing at our meeting? Because they liked
how we sounded. So so okay, we'll come and sing
at your meeting and go to the meeting. And it's
none of us really spoke Spanish except for restaurants, right,
and so but we could understand uh uh because the
speaker was was screaming young even period is smooth and

(27:42):
things like that, and so so well we went along
with it, you know, and we got up and we
compared peach Cheeger to peach Cheeger's problem with the government,
to the muralist Hiciros, who was in jail as a
political prisoner at the time, and and we're saying, if

(28:03):
I had a hammer, you know, went across fairly well.
And then we went back and back to the other
thing is I smoked pot for the first time in
Mexico City too. I remember somebody was, okay, keep telling
the story, which is pretty important in my life. Actually,
I'm sure it was. Anyway, So so anyway, we go

(28:28):
back to the to the artist's house, wake up in
the morning to banging on the doors, and it's the
Federal Federal Allays and apparently that was the guy that
was yelling yanker imperialless was the Cuban ambassador. And they
drag all of us down down the headquarters, questioned us

(28:50):
all day, put us in a jail overnight, wake us
up in the morning, put us in the car, and
drive us directly up to an amor An Airlines flight.
Put us on the plane, and somehow we were in
first class eating mangoes for breakfast. And I don't but
they send us to San Antonio. I guess it was

(29:11):
the first plane out. I don't know.

Speaker 1 (29:14):
Okay, so now you're in San Antonio.

Speaker 2 (29:16):
Now we're in San Antonio and Sandy's we're all furious
about well, what did we do? We sang a song.
You know this is this is wrong. We got to talk.
We have to do something about this. Well, Sandy's college
roommate was Lyndon Johnson's person, personal secretary, personal attorney, I
mean so, and he's up in Austin. So we hitchhike

(29:39):
up to Austin and while she's looking for for her
for her roommate's father, which never really turned turned out
too much. Michael, Michael Gramleck was this guy's name. And
we go to the to the student union where the
the Folk Alliance is is having, you know, their their

(30:01):
weekly meeting, and with we sing some songs and trade thing.
And there's this girl with the autoharp and long hair
and she's singing this beautiful loud voice and she's doing
Irish murder ballads. And we said, but you know, you're
really great. He says. There is a scene that's happened

(30:22):
up in San Francisco. If you want to come out, man,
feel free into the friend that was standing there with her, Uh,
feel free to I mean you can stay in our
sofa until you find something to do it. You really
could go somewhere, and and then we then we went
back to San Francisco, and they did and they showed up. Well.

(30:48):
The girl was Janis Joplin and the guy was Chet Hilms,
who opened the Avalon Ballroom, and and Chet used to say,
if Freiburg hadn't been deported to Mexico, maybe none of
this would happen.

Speaker 1 (31:03):
I don't know. Okay, So now you're back in San Francisco,
you go back to work for the railroad for.

Speaker 2 (31:17):
A short amount of time untill I just couldn't take it.
And I met this we had. I met this girl
named Mikaela, who we seemed to bond and make could
sing very well together. I mean she she was left handed,
so that makes it really good for right handed and
left handed guitar players to play on one mic, because

(31:37):
you don't get in any others way like Lennon and mcartney,
you know. Anyway, So we had worked up a bunch
of songs, and we had a bunch of stupid, silly,
funny pattern that went along with it, and we were
going over with the audiences and in the folk clubs,
and we managed to little tour and we made it
down to San Jose and I met a guy that

(32:02):
was playing good banjo and stuff and loved to smoke
pot named Paul Cantner, and he was just hanging out
at the at the folk Club. He was still going
to San Jose State, I think at the time, and
I and I stayed at his house whenever we played there,
and we stay up all night smoking and picking. And

(32:23):
we worked our way down to Los Angeles and to
Pasadena at the ice House, and we played there, and
the manager decided he would he would manage us and
find us gigs. And this had to be sixty three
because I was there when JFK was was it. Yeah,

(32:47):
you always remember that. Of course she remembers everywhere there
were We were right right. But he managed to get
us out on a tour of various clubs, you know,
st all over Christmas Week that was Lovely Oklahoma, Chicago, Detroit,
and we ended up playing at the bottom Line in

(33:10):
New York City. I think we followed Woody Allen actually,
and we did our little spiel and he had got
people record company people to come. What was his name,
I forgetting who is the doors producer? Paul was Paul
Rothchild and he was electure records, and he was there

(33:33):
and he called. He gave us a phone call, and
we went in, went in to see him in his
office and he says he told us, he actually told
us this. He says, let me tell you, folks, songs
are not going to last much longer than this new
group from England. I said, what group from England? He
said to Beatles, He says, they're never going to make it.

(33:56):
He says, but I could get you in one like
the new Christie minstrels, maybe these big things. Maybe I
could get you guys in one of those. What would
you think of that? And we thought about it and said, well,
I don't know. Maybe. And I hadn't heard the Beatles yet.
And we're driving down and we're driving down to Washington,

(34:16):
DC for our last East Coast thing, and the Beatles
come on. The I Want to Hold Your Hand comes
on and it knocked us out. What was he talking about?
You know? And uh? And that was just funny things
that happened. And when we got to Denver on our
way home, the Beatles played on Ed Sullivan and we

(34:40):
saw that and I could see this was done. And
Michaela and her husband when they got married. He was
playing bass with us. It's called David Michaela with Bob
Conker on bass and wit you know, really schlocky, but

(35:02):
they laughed at it. He made the face at the
right time, they'd laugh. So they when they got married,
they stopped smoking pot and thought that I should too,
and it wasn't going to happen. Their sense of humor changed.

(35:24):
So and so, and I got there, and I just
got back to San Jose and hooked up with Paul
and he had a little like communal thing in the house.
And I stayed there and we decided we were going
to go to La and see if we could be
folked to it. That might be fun. But and so

(35:47):
we got down there and with the help of the girl,
the secretary of the man, the guy at the Bob
I think his name is Bob Shane, that the manager
of the ice house in Pasadena. She was she but
Laurie I think her name is Laurie Spring. And she
helped us find a place to live and actually ended

(36:08):
up sharing it with us because she needed a place
to And it was in Venice, like four doors from
the beach, which is pretty good but not conduced it
to and and the whole. I mean that time was
not the time to be forming a folk group. It

(36:28):
was a time to be forming a rock and roll band.
And David Crosby I had run into him there and
in uh at the ice House when his was Les
Baxter's Balladeers. It was the folk group he was in.
He and his brother were in it. And we just vibe,

(36:49):
says to tout know that we both we know we
must both must have smoked so and so I was
fast friends with him from then on. So and he
would come by our place while he's bumming around, and
he still didn't And Jim Jim, it was Jim McGuinn
who was who was playing Beatles songs in the bar

(37:09):
outside at the Troubadour all night long and for me
trying to form a band. And but meanwhile we're living there.
And Dino Valenti, who was a singer, folks singer that
I had met in San Francisco when I was singing
with MICHAELA and stuff. And he comes by and he

(37:31):
has this a lead sheet for this song called Pride
of Man, which by Hamilton Camp and uh, and he
gives it to me because he doesn't he didn't read
music and he couldn't figure it out. So anyway, so
that that was just it ended up being quick still
or messenger service first first single, I believe anyway, that's

(37:57):
jumping around a little bit.

Speaker 1 (37:58):
No, that's perfect. I just got a question. Yeah, did
you know when he was Jet Powers before he was
Dino Valente?

Speaker 2 (38:07):
No, he was always Dino Valenti. I mean I knew
that he was Jet Power. I learned that from him.
I mean, you know, he hung up. He was the
kind of guy. I mean, if you could do something
for him, he'd be your friend, you know, and so
I could drive him. I just kind of was interested
in him because he was he was such a all

(38:27):
out guy. I mean, you know when he's singing, man,
you're stomping and you know, and I said, well that
that's a hell of an act. That and I probably
learned a little bit about singing, and I learned about
a lot of things not to do, you know. But
he wrote some pretty damn good songs.

Speaker 1 (38:44):
Okay, you're living in Venice with Paul Canner and the
woman Dino Valenti comes through. What's the next step for you?
After that?

Speaker 2 (38:54):
Uh, shortly after that, we figured out this isn't working, yea,
and moved back to San Jose and with somebody who
had opened up the what was it called the off
Stage was the folk club in San Jose and had
taken it over and wondered if we would help him

(39:15):
run it, and so, okay, there's something to do. So
we did that, and we stayed, you know, in this
in the Santa se area for a while and did
that and tried to make that work, and it ultimately
went the way of all the folk clubs and and

(39:38):
so we ended up moving to the city and we
were kind of, I don't know, we might have dealt
a little a little pot just so we had some
to smoke, but it definitely didn't make us any money.
But one day I'm driving in San Francisco. We moved

(39:59):
into a flat in the Fillmore district, right across from
one of the biggest notorious badass tenement thing as you
could imagine. And I was driving around and I turned
made a left turn and I didn't realize it was

(40:19):
it was after four o'clock and there's no left turns,
and I make the left turn and I get busted.
The guy looks fine, pot under the seat, and I
go off to jail and a girlfriend I had bailed
me got my bail out, and and I felt, God,

(40:41):
what am I going to do? Man? I don't want
I don't want to call attention by if I live
with these people, it might hurt them because I never
consider getting arrested, right, you know, because I don't know.
I was naive. I guess was this pot dude? Man,
you have a good time note anybody you know? Yeah,

(41:05):
But they were serious about it. So so I thought, well,
I'll get a straight job, and so I look good,
maybe they'll be. So I got a job at a
freight forwarding company and I moved out, and after a

(41:25):
couple of couple of about a month of paychecks, I
managed to get a place in Merin County, and the
little house in San Quentin Village overlooked the Sandrafell Bridge.
And I go to work and I do my my
letters and forums and stuff and hating it every second,

(41:48):
and go back across the bridge every night, get stoned
and get out my twelfth drink and figure out how
to play all the Beatles songs you know, and sing
them at the time of my voice to the Sandrafell Bridge.
You know. And I did that for like a month,
two months, you know, And one day there's a knock

(42:08):
on the door and it's a friend, a loose friend
called Otis, and he says, hey, you got any pot,
And I said, sure, I got some seeds and stems.
Come on in, you know, and I said, here, help yourself.
And by the way, listen to this, I said. So
I had an audience for me. So I sang them

(42:30):
all the Beatles songs. And he was just sitting there
and look at visioning and saying, and he says, he says,
okay about the pot, He said, can I get you?
Can I get ten dollars worth? And I said, look,
I don't think this is ten dollars worth here, man,
it's just mostly sees. Take it all, forget it, you know.
And he says, no, no, no, no, take five. I said,

(42:52):
well take it anyway. I'll take the five. Okay. He
leaves and the next day there's a knock on the door.
The next night and it's the state narcotics officer and
the sheriff and the district attorney, and apparently they were

(43:13):
trying to he told he told them that I was
his dealer and I had never sold him anything, you know,
And I said, and the ten dollar bill was marked
five dollar bill was his, so they couldn't get me
on sales. But they arrested me for possession and they

(43:39):
found seeds in the trunk of my car, which made
them to confiscate my car, took me off to jail,
and I and I I couldn't ask the girlfriend for
anymore bail. And I, you know, I probably had enough
money coming to me from my last paycheck from from

(44:02):
from the place to pay to pay them on. But
nobody to hunt to, nobody that had any property enough
that would, you know, to guarantee it. And so I
was stuck there. I was sat in there for thirty
days and Paul comes and visits me.

Speaker 1 (44:22):
Wait, wait, before Paul visits you, what's it like being
a nice Jewish boy in jail.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
In Santrafel, California. It was not any real big deal.
I mean, it wasn't nice or anything, you know, And
it was It wasn't in the beautiful new building that
they have out there. It was in the old courthouse
in the middle of Santafel. And I kind of probably
went back to the Civil War as far as I
know when it was a built but and and so

(44:49):
I don't know if they made They took me out
of the general population, made me a trustee. So I
was sitting. I don't know why they did that, because
be a trustee, you're supposed to be convicted of something.
And I hadn't even gone to trial yet, so anybody
but I was there, you know, with I don't know

(45:12):
the elite people, I guess of the jail. And Paul
comes to visit me and he notices there's a little
hole in the ancient window and he slides a little
joint through there. And meanwhile I was telling me, me
and Marty Ballad are getting it. We're going to put

(45:33):
a band together, which is what all of us were
thinking about, because we had all bought, you know, electric
instruments because we knew that was where we had to
go if we wanted to sing anywhere. And he says, he, well,
that's that's really great. So what And he says, I
think we're going to call it Jefferson Airplane. And I

(45:55):
didn't ask him what that meant, but I said, that's perfect,
and he said, yeah, I would be able. I hope
you get out of here soon I said, well, I
don't know, I trust I will and uh. And so
shortly thereafter they I had to go to a court appearance,
and they decided, well, if you're not going to get bail,

(46:19):
we don't want to get stuck feeding you for two years.
So they you don't look dangerous, so they just let
me out of my own recognizance and they i'me out
in the streets, and some friends had gotten my guitar
and everything from the house, and my check was there,
but of course I lost my job, and and so

(46:45):
I'm there and I MC John Chippolina and Jimmy Murray
and I were already trying kind of had the idea
that Dina was looking to form a band. I think

(47:07):
he through Dino could probably it was just loosely. I
had met him and and they and I don't know,
and we were hanging out. I had no place to stay.
I was sleeping on people on girls floors and stuff,
you know, anywhere I could sleep, and Dino was in jail,

(47:28):
so we had to do something else. So we said, well,
let's I guess we'll have our own band, you know.
And so we were hanging out in the park and
saucelito and pick and sing, and you know a lot
of people were doing that. And there was this guitar
player named Skip came down and and we played with
him and said this, this could work, This could work
because Jim he fit in pretty well, good looking kid,

(47:52):
he and he played nice guitar and sang really well.
So we took Paul up. Marty Ballen was opened had
opened the Matrix Club in San Francisco where the Jefferson
Airplane rehearsed, and Paul and Marty said, you know, you
guys come over and practice here sometimes if you get
something together. And so we went over there with a

(48:16):
guy named Casey who was a jazz drummer. We just
got some big sticks. That's the thing that you could play,
you know, rock and roll, And we bought Skip over
and we tried to tried to do some stuff and
it wasn't really working too well. And Marty walked in

(48:37):
and he said to Skip, do you play drums? He said,
I played snare drum in high school. I played snare
drum in the high school band. And he said, you're
Jefferson Airplane's new drummer, and he was Skip Spence, Skip spence. Yep, next,

(48:59):
what next? What's going to happen? Is all of a sudden,
that first bust is going to come up for trial,
and so I have and I go over there and
they find me guilty and sentenced me to a sixty
day sentence in San Bruno Prison in San Francisco, and

(49:21):
I have two weeks to get my stuff together and
turn myself in at police orcer headquarters in San Francisco.
And so John and Jimmy and I are turning to
fair what are we going to do? And I said, well,
it's only sixty days, so I get I'll get out
of there probably, and if I behave well, I'll get

(49:44):
out a little earlier than that. So I'll see you laters.
But meanwhile, I took some acid on the day night
before I had to turn myself in and met a
girl named named Tangerine who I'd known, and we had
a really good time. And as I'm turning myself in,

(50:08):
I'm still stone quite a bit. And the door I
take to take the elevator up from the ground floor
to the to the jail floor, and I pushed the
jail button and the door closes, and then it opens
and nobody's there. I said, I push it again. The
door closes and then it opens. Nobody's there. What am

(50:32):
I If it does it again, I'm going to take
that as an omen and just leave. I push the button,
it closes and it goes up. And so that's and
on on the TVs in the jail there there's the

(50:53):
Turtles playing Ellinorgy. You're looking swell. So I don't know
as little as I didn't know that drummer was getting anyway,
So off the sand, off to San Bruno, and they
want me to cut my hair or else I'll have

(51:14):
to stay with the gay guys. And I said, well,
probably I should have stayed with the gay guys. But
I cut my hair, and and somehow, because I seemed
kind of harmless, they made me a trustee again and
I could I could lock myself and when they're in

(51:35):
a free time, then I had I had a cell
that look look was right, so you could see the
TV set, the one TV set for everybody right was there.
And so but they locked you in to that, I said,
well that looked like a plus to me, to be
locked in, not being able to talk, you know, in

(51:57):
interact with anybody else, and so I did that. And
uh and in forty five days I got out and
they had took me back, raced me at at city Hall.
Had to go up and see my my uh, probation guy,

(52:21):
and but he was not he was out to lunch.
So I had had to come back in two hours.
So John Chippolina and Jimmy Murray were picking me up,
you know, and and uh, and they told me that
they found two They found two guys from merced Or

(52:41):
they thought he were for mer said or, I don't know,
modesto and a drummer and another guitar player. And and
I think that we could have a band with them,
and I said great. And so we all smoked a bunch.
Finally got to smoke a little pot. Well, yeah, that
was what that was what I did every day and

(53:04):
not in jail though, But and uh, so I go
up and he says, he says, you know, the probation
officer says, I know there's nothing wrong with pot. I
know it should be legal, but it isn't. So I
wanted you to understand, to take it more seriously. So
I gave you this little sentence so you so you'd understand.

(53:27):
So so just stay away from that stuff. I said,
oh yeah, I'll never get to touch a stone out
of my mind. But and so I go back down
and it's Gary Duncan and Greg Alamore, the other guys
from for Quicksellar Messenger Service. We start practicing and the

(53:50):
basement of some a girl, a girl's house named after
her name was Chris Brooks, and so she thought she'd
be our manager or whatever, and and that's and so
we get it together and we come up with the

(54:11):
Quicksilver Messenger Service thing because John Okay, Gary Duncan, and
Gregor mare Elmore or virgos born on the seventh of September,
John Chipley and I were virgos born on the same day,
twenty fourth of August. And Jimmy Murray, who he didn't

(54:32):
really last all the way to Soil. We made the records,
but there's too much work for him. I think he
was a Gemini, and we all had the ruling planet
of Mercury, which is quicksilver, and he's the mess So
we all came and it was me or Murray something

(54:52):
I came Quicksilver Messenger Service. That seems ridiculous, but it
sounded good to us. So there we are.

Speaker 1 (55:00):
Okay, you got the band together, when do you start
playing out? How does it end up that you end
up getting a record deal.

Speaker 2 (55:09):
It took us a long time, a really long time,
but the committee gave us our first gig. You remember
the company, Yeah, yeah, yeah, Howard Hessemen. Yeah, well I
knew Howard. I was an old buddy from when he
was a folks when I was a folcusinger. I used
to sleep on his floor every now, you know. And

(55:29):
he was a bartender at at the at the coffee
gallery for his day gig. And uh so anyway, uh so,
they I think they gave us one hundred bucks to
come play their Christmas party and that was fairly successful.
And they said, we wondered if we'd record a version

(55:52):
of the Star Spangled Banner. And we found somebody and
we did that, and we moved to Marine County somehow
with in an old shack in Larkspur. No longer there.
It's all built up into nice things now. And we
just played all day and night, smoked and played, smoked

(56:17):
and played, you know, and had some some hippie hippie
managers that brought us lots of health food. You know,
all in one cereal and lots of you know, organic honey,
and we had food to eat and and we we got,

(56:42):
we got. We started getting gigs at the Avalon and
I met my first my next wife there, which was
Julia Dreyer, who was known as Girl, and she was
hanging with us too. And there's lots of stories.

Speaker 1 (57:03):
Okay, you're living in Larkspur.

Speaker 2 (57:07):
It's gonna get too detailed.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
The hippies are giving you, you know food, What are
you living on? You know, you don't know. You don't
have a regular job, no straight job.

Speaker 2 (57:16):
We got occasional gigs and people would help us.

Speaker 1 (57:19):
I don't know what was going through your mind.

Speaker 2 (57:24):
That this was really fun when we played, you know,
and they didn't have a I had never played bass before,
but somebody had to and so since I had played
twelve string, I don't know what that had to do
with it, but I played bass, and so I was
figuring that out and we played. We learned a bunch

(57:45):
of songs, folks songs, but Pride to Man among them,
and it all sounded good. We started playing at the
fillmore in the Avalon, and we got a pretty good following.

Speaker 1 (57:56):
Okay, a little bit slower. You remember the opening in
the film, wore the opening of the Avalon and what
that was like?

Speaker 2 (58:05):
Not particularly No.

Speaker 1 (58:06):
Okay, Then let me ask you another one. How about
Ken Keezy the Mary Prankster's Acid. Was that something that
was on your radar?

Speaker 2 (58:15):
Oh yeah, oh yeah, we were well that had to
be on everybody's radar if you were anywhere in San Francisco.
Sure I knew knew all of those guys. I mean
we were all buddy, I mean we all came to
see each other play The Grateful Dead and Greick Silver
and Airplane and a Big Brother and Holding Company where

(58:36):
they're there, Hello Janis again, thank you? Okay.

Speaker 1 (58:41):
First band to have a hit out of the San
Francisco scene was the Jefferson Airplane in sixty seven. So
did you feel left downery feel if they can make it?
We can make it?

Speaker 2 (58:57):
But everybody thought they could make it. But I don't know.
We're playing and we have a We have a manager
who was an astrologer. His name was Amber Ambrose Hollingsworth.

(59:20):
And as soon as he became our manager, he somehow
managed to find a Volkswagen convertible and all of a
sudden he was wearing the latest clothes from you know,
from the Los Angeles hippies were wearing and we to
call behind back. We were calling Ambrose Hollywood, you know.

(59:44):
But that was too bad. But unfortunately he got into
this accident that left him paralyzed, driving driving over the
driving over the bridge. And a and a friend of
and a friend of a guy named Ron Polti who
is the friend friend of Nick Gravinidis who played with uh,

(01:00:08):
Mike Bloomfield and the Electric Flag. Okay, he's from the
Chicago the Chicago guys. He did. He decides he'd like
to be our manager, and they said, well, what do
you need? He said, I think at that point we
were living in a house that was right in the
middle of Mill Valley, which was right out in the
open and terrible place to try to rehearse or anything.

(01:00:32):
And so we want to have a hot we want
to be on a farm with with the barn we
can practice in. And in a week he had us
in a barn we could practice it in Olema, which
is out of near Point Ray Station. And the Grateful
Dead had had what used to be a children's summer

(01:00:54):
camp in Lagunitas, not you know, down the road from
where we were, and they moved in there for the
summer and they were practicing there. And so one day
we were cleaning some pot in a big bowl, and
all of a sudden we hear a bunch of whooping
outside and it's grateful dead dressed like Indians. It's because

(01:01:17):
we were the cowboys living on the ranch and they
the war Path come in and attack us, and so
we all thought that was really funny, and get around
and everybody gets gets stoned, and yaki aka yaka, that's funny, okay.
And then they go home. And meanwhile Dino was there.

(01:01:38):
He wasn't in the band, but he's hung with us
a bunch, and he said, you know what we should do.
We should practice up Elijah was a wooden Indian and
sing this song. And then when they're playing at the
fillmore dress up in cowboy things with bandanas over our

(01:02:01):
faces and guns and tie them to their amps in
Saint Elijah was a wooden Indian. And everybody thought that's
a wonderful idea. I don't know why they thought that,
but it ended up getting us busted again, because you know,

(01:02:21):
I mean, John Chippolina had ancient some ancient rifles that
were most of them were let it up, but they
were just collectors items, you know. He liked old things
and so that was part of it. So we had
a panel truck that was our equipment truck and quotes,

(01:02:44):
and so we dragged off. We get to to the
fillmore and the airplane's going over and so Grateful Dead
aren't quite on yet and so we had to say, okay.
So we throw all the stuff in the back of
the truck and there's smoke, a few joints, and all

(01:03:05):
of a sudden there's door open. Front door opens it
and there's a revolver pointing it and we thought it
was probably one of the other guys with the phony gun.
Look at no, it's real and it was the police.
Uh oh. And they grabbed me and girl and Jimmy

(01:03:26):
Murray out of the back that we were the eyes
that were there. Throw us in the back of the policeman. Well,
they're going to search the truck. And I had some
joints in my pocket, but Jimmy had stashed it under
his gig stuff under something and then the truck, which
is the wrong thing to do, but he did. And

(01:03:46):
he said they're going to find joints in there, man,
and they're going to find it. And I said, well, well,
everybody's got to help me. We got to eat all
we got to eat all the spots. So we eat
all the pot because they had they had Jimmy Or
he was six foot four, so they handcuffed him, but
girl and me they didn't handcuff because we were they
didn'tren't worry too much about us, and so we did that.

(01:04:08):
And then they ship us off the tail overnight and
we're out first thing in the morning, and uh and
they are they arrest once again. They found pot in
this in this vehicle. They're gonna confiscate it and sell it.

(01:04:31):
And the guy that owned the owned the owned the
van said, if they try to toe that, I never
I never really fastened the drive shaft in, so it's
going to fall out. And so I don't think they're
never going to be able to sell it. And so okay,
And so meanwhile there's this lawyer named Brian Rohan. I

(01:04:53):
don't know if you've come across.

Speaker 1 (01:04:54):
I used to email from him. Yeah before he passed away, yep, yeah,
yeah yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:04:58):
And uh so he decided he represented us and got
us out immediately immediately and decided they were going to
make an example of it, and they were going to
try the truck and every vehicle that came across their desk.
They were going to make them go to you know,
they're going to fight it as long as they could
and make it cost so much money for them for

(01:05:20):
them to do that they'd stop it. And at worked
they did stop confiscating us. So anyway, so one day
we went went out went to the to the to
the the auction for the cars for the state at
Saint Quentin, actually right outside Saint Quentin, and there was

(01:05:41):
there was the van with the drive shaft in the back,
and we bought back for fifty bucks and a guy
put the drive shaft back in drove away. So anyway,
Little Tails, I'm remembering much too much.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
No no, no, no, no, no, it's all good. This is cold.
How does the band ultimately get a record deal with Capitol?

Speaker 2 (01:06:16):
I think the president came by and saw us one
night when we played at a fair gig, and he
liked us. But it was just like nineteen six, I
mean we were really late. I mean this was sixty
seven and we still hadn't signed you know, right, And
he said, we'll think about it, And meanwhile, Monterey Pop

(01:06:41):
is happening, and we get invited to it, even though
we had didn't have any record or anything. But so
far as San Francisco was concerned, I mean, people would
come to see us just as much as they'd go
see the Big Brother or Jefferson Airplane or the Dead
or anything, because they all liked us as much as anything,
you know what I mean, that was all equal in

(01:07:01):
San Francisco. But go out in the road, well that
was another thing. So we'd have to have a record
for that. So we realized we better do this sometime
and so but meanwhile we did get to go to Monterey.
That was probably the best festival that ever happened. I think,

(01:07:21):
best one I ever saw.

Speaker 1 (01:07:25):
Okay, and then how do you end up getting signed
and making the first album?

Speaker 2 (01:07:30):
Then he went for it and gave us a pretty
good deal. Apparently it was not smooth sailing, of course,
because it was Quicksilver Messengers, But we went down and
recorded with the same Nick Nick Nick Gravin. I just
wanted to do it. And Harvey Brooks, who was the
bass player, well really famous bass player, played on all

(01:07:55):
the Bob del and stuff, and he.

Speaker 1 (01:07:56):
Played in al Cooper in Super Session Harvey's.

Speaker 2 (01:07:59):
Two and he was it was in the Electric Flag.
Was really close to our managers, you know. I think
he gave him the flag that had an electric thing,
and that was the elect caused the name to happen,
the Electric Flag. Okay, So anyway, where was I? Okay?
So he and Harvey Brooks are trying to do it,

(01:08:21):
get us do it, and we had this long song
that we wanted to get on the albums called the Fool.
And I had written the words when I apparently when
I was high on acid, because when I woke up
in the morning that after the acid chip, I looked
at my typewriter and there were the words. I must

(01:08:43):
have typed it out, and I said, this sounded like me, So,
you know, very very hippish, very very very one world,
you know. And we had the song, this bunch of
changes that we were turning into a very big thing,
and when we played it, it got a lot of
a lot of very good reactions. So we tried to

(01:09:04):
do that and it went pretty good, except for the
long one. Because Gary decided he had been We've been
watching how the Beatles did things one track at a time,
and he wanted to do it that way, and it
just when we heard the final result, we said no,
we got to do it live, play it all at once,

(01:09:26):
and we had complete commit The contract was good because
we could do whatever we really wanted to do, so
we could we didn't have to put it out until
we were done with it. But Harvey said, I've spent
enough time on this. I have other things I have
to do, so he left it with Nick and I
think there was a jazz critic named Pete Welding who

(01:09:50):
ended up being the nominal co producer with Nick Revenitis.
But anyway, so we went back and we actually rehearsed
it in the studio a couple of months that figured
out how we really wanted to do it, and played
it on the road a bit, and then went back
and finished the record and it finally came out in

(01:10:11):
sixty eight, which is really late.

Speaker 1 (01:10:14):
Okay, so the record gets good reviews, what's your experience
being in the band? Does it? Does sales meet your expectation?
Or you're disappointed there's not a hit? What happens there?

Speaker 2 (01:10:28):
Yeah, there wasn't. Actually the only actual hit was was
the full really, but it was too long to be
to be really get played on the radio, so and
it couldn't have been and it couldn't be edited down
to anything because it wasn't a pop song. It was
this big production. And anyway, Gary Duncan was when we

(01:10:49):
went out on the road, he started he started shooting methodrym,
which was disastrous. He's got completely completely paranoid, you know,
and everybody was against him and played okay, played too
many notes, but you know, uh, and he ended up

(01:11:13):
quitting the band right after we had recorded live in
at the Fillmore East and the Fillmore West. What was
going to be our We were going to record a
live album for the next thing, and he decides he's
gonna he's gonna quit, and so well we decided, well
we want to record one last thing. So we had

(01:11:34):
one last session and we go into the studio. We
played our song that turned out to be called Calvary.
But the guy had an idea for the for the title,
and he was watching us there. He was going to
make the album cover and he said, well, see that,

(01:11:56):
nobody's talking to each other and it's all and Duncan's
fucked up and you know, and he said, wow, it
looks like Happy Trails to me, and uh, oh yeah,
a good name for the album. Okay, I you know,
I refuse to get negative because he's gonna leave. Something's

(01:12:16):
going to happen. I don't know. He shouldn't leave because
he was he was a great rhythm guitar player and
a great and a great lead guitar player too, and
he was really good and and he was kind of
like the machine of the band. But we're going to
have to do something, and so he leaves, and so
it was left for us to finish the album without him,

(01:12:38):
and so we did. We finished the Calvary song and
uh recorded Happy Trails with Greg Ellenmore singing the only
only song he's ever sung just as a joke at
the end, and uh, and we end up with the
who Do You Love Sweet? On the first side and

(01:13:02):
with the combination of the beginning was from the New
York Fillmore, the middle part was from San Francisco Fillmore,
where the whole audience in the band and everybody and
anywhere within blocks was all stoned on acid. And the

(01:13:22):
end I believe we probably might have used the Fillmore East,
but maybe not maybe maybe at all. At the mid
midway part has shifted to San Francisco, and it took
up the whole first side, and it was the biggest
selling record you made.

Speaker 1 (01:13:38):
How on the third album does Dino Valente come in
and Nicky Hopkins.

Speaker 2 (01:13:45):
Well it was Dino didn't come in the third album
was the fourth album? Okay, Nicki came in on the
third right, Well, they quit on New York. They played
their last gig on Gary played his last gig on
New Year's Eve and ended up coming back the next
New Year's Eve. So we had a year. I don't Nicki.
Nicki was in town. I think he'd played with on

(01:14:08):
Steve Miller's album. Then he played on Jefferson Airplanes album
and we had one we were coming up next at
Wally Hyder's. And he had a very an affinity with
John Chippelina. He really they were really hit it off.
They were if you want to go to stop astrologically,
he was. He was the obsolete opposite of me and John.
He was born on February twenty fourth, which is exactly

(01:14:31):
six months apart. So anyway, they were they were very
much alike. Hell, they both collected things and I don't
know that. They just they became. So he decided he
joined Quicksilver. So we made this album with NICKI.

Speaker 1 (01:14:52):
How did you feel about him joining? How did you
feel about the album.

Speaker 2 (01:14:56):
Got him joining? Yeah, he saved us, he said, I
never I never got very happy about the songs I
sang on that album. But there there are people that
love them. But I don't quite understand. But but everybody
tells it. It's everybody. Every singer is his own worst,

(01:15:19):
worse critic, you know. So I'll never be satisfied with anything.

Speaker 1 (01:15:24):
So okay, the next album, Dino comes in, how does
he get into the band?

Speaker 2 (01:15:32):
Came back the next next year, but I wanted to
get Gary back in the band, and Dino came with him. Well,
he said, I know that's going to be trouble because
Dino has to run things. I mean, he doesn't know
anything else. He can't cooperate with anybody. So I knew

(01:15:52):
him by then and said, well, oh well, let's see
what happens. So the first thing was that we're gonna
We're gonna record an album in Hawaii. That sounded like
a wonderful thing to do because he wanted to go
to Hawaii. I guess, I don't know. There was no

(01:16:14):
real studio that we could record them and over there.
So we're going to build it. And Capitol had given
us an eight track to work with, and so the
plan was made. I wasn't very big part of that,
but the plan was made. There was this old boy
scout ranch way out in the out Holai Eva on Oahu,

(01:16:40):
out for a bunch of cane fields, and it was
a boy scout ranch and they had a big, nice,
big room and enough places for everybody to stay, and
it was pretty cheap. It only had one drawback. It
didn't have electricity, but we say, oh well we'll get it.

(01:17:03):
We'll get a generator. You know, no problem, they have generators.
And so we get we get over there, everybody comes
over and every every and Dino is really happy. You know,
he's going to live it up. Man. We're in a
big time band, man, you know. And so everybody gets
a convertible and and we get there and they cannot

(01:17:26):
get a good ground on that, on that anywhere on
the property they keep there. They couldn't get the ground.
So you record something and going that'd be a huge
buzz on everything. And they couldn't get it ground It
took him two weeks to get it grounded. Right. So
we're sitting there renting cars, and we sit there and

(01:17:47):
waste two weeks. We have a rented beautiful grand piano,
and you know, and what was going to be the
it was it was really the kind of the living area,
you know, in the living room area, and we built,
we had a we had a little little control room,
and it was it would work fine. And eventually it

(01:18:08):
did work okay, And but it was crazy Dena wouldn't
let any wives go over there. That he made the rules. See,
no wives were allowed to go with us.

Speaker 1 (01:18:23):
So that album is known for fresh air. Have another
hit of fresh Air? Yeah, you know it ends up
being a different band now with Dino in it.

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):
Yes it does. And I kind of knew that, but
I don't know. I didn't. I didn't want to be
in that band without Gary. And then, as it turns out,
before we left Hawaii, Ron Poulte our manager, Quiz, Tohn

(01:18:55):
Ceppelina Quiz and Nicki Quitz, and I say, well, if
I quit, there won't be any I don't want to be,
you know, And so I say I'll stick around for
a year. If nothing happens, I'm out of here. I mean,
if I'm not doing something, you know, and nothing happened.

(01:19:22):
I mean we we got another album probably out of
some of the stuff that the next one that came out,
I think it had what About Me on it, right,
which was which was a pretty good song. I like
that song. I like to sing that song. That's a
good song. But I could see nothing was happening anyway.

(01:19:42):
I ended up Mike, excuse another pot bust is coming up.
So they always ends up good though, you know, first
one ended up I had, I got the band.

Speaker 1 (01:19:56):
Yeah, what happened with the second boss?

Speaker 2 (01:20:00):
It was dismissed Byron Rohan got it dismissed. So I
never but you know, it got me out of the
job where I was wasting my time. Really, you know,
it wasn't going to help me get anywhere or do
anything that I could do. I could end up being

(01:20:20):
a clerk for the rest of my life. But I
really wanted to sing and play, you know. So it
put me into Quicksilver. Actually, and and this next one
handily gets me out of Quicksilver.

Speaker 1 (01:20:43):
So now you don't have a band. What's the plan?

Speaker 2 (01:20:49):
Well, that was an entertaining bus too, but that gets
boring talking about bus, so let's get that. Uh. First
thing I did was I got out my base wanted
to play a little bit. So there's this band called
the Asa Cups that a girl, all girl band, and
they had another and they had formed a different thing,

(01:21:09):
and they wanted to wonder if I'd played bass because
their bass player had stopped them. So I just did
it for a couple of few months, and I started
hanging out with Mickey Hart from the From the Dead.
He hadn't ranch in Nevado, that's you know, you know,
a couple of miles away from me, and I started
hanging with him. He was making his his first solo album,

(01:21:32):
and so I hung with him and sang a bunch
of songs and helped helped engineer. Started thinking of me
being an engineer, but I did engineer whole tower of
power horn session. So so you know, I was just
started hanging with him and you know, and singing, singing
a bunch of the songs on his album and playing

(01:21:54):
a bunch of the stuff. And there was a song
called And meanwhile, over in San Francisco, Crosby was making
his his album if I, if I could only remember
my name, And and that was turning into a group
thing too, because everybody, you know, all all a lot

(01:22:16):
of the dead, and Paul and Grace and I were
over there for a lot of the sessions, just just
just to hang and watch out and see if there's
anything we could do. And there was a whole thing
called the what they call it, where everybody like Crosby, Nash,

(01:22:36):
Phil Lesh, Paul, Grace, Me, Crosby, course Jerry Garcia would
be there and we'd all just hang out, be jamming
on songs. And I mean, I learned how to play
that song, the Grateful Dead song, the Loser. He was
writing that at that point. So he was playing that,

(01:22:57):
and we ever teaching to everybody, and we were all
playing that, and every bit of it was recorded on
two tracks, and it was called the Paro the Planet
Earth Rock and Roll Orchestra, the PAO tapes, and that
got out as an underground thing. So these long long
jams on on one song or so anyway, So that

(01:23:21):
was happening, and so I was hanging out with Paul
and Grace a lot, and I heard this one song,
I heard them singing on it. Would sound really good.
It's called Blind John the guitar player, and they could
sing on it if they if they wanted to, and
said you want to sing it? So they said sure,
So we brought him over to Mickey's and they we
sang the background vocals and Grace actually I saw her,

(01:23:45):
said I heard, I heard a piano part for that,
she played the piano. And shortly after we finished Mickey's album,
Marty left the airplane and Paul and Grace asked me
to come and sing the harmonies and be the other

(01:24:05):
other guy singer because they had to be two guys
and a girl. And so that got me into Jefferson.

Speaker 1 (01:24:12):
Airplane, okay, and Jefferson the Airplane that ultimately disintegrates.

Speaker 2 (01:24:23):
Right, So meanwhile, there's there's some time off after after
all the touring for they were touring uh Long John Silver,
I think that was the name of the album, right,
But Paul and Grace both owed Narcia record, so the
first one ended up being Baron von told Booth and
the Chrome Nun, which is credited to Paul, Grace and

(01:24:46):
me because we just got together and put it to
you know, got it together, and everybody else in San
Francisco because Jerry Garcia is on it, and Mickey Hart's
on it, you know, Yorman jack Aer on it, you know,
everybody's it. And that that was pretty good. And then
then Grace O had had one called Manhole and it

(01:25:07):
was the same thing. You know, we used the Great
San Francisco Wealth of Musicians and we did that one,
and then we had had to figure out what are
we going to do? And Pete Sears was was was
up playing get Nick doing a Kathy m MacDonald album in
the same in another studio at Wally Hyder's, and I

(01:25:30):
coveted him when I first saw him. He was playing
with John Schippolina's band after he left Quicksilvery, and there
was a guy named Jim McPherson and him that played
both played keyboards and bass, and so they switched back
and forth, and I thought that would be great because
I would love to be in a band with him

(01:25:50):
because he played them both beautifully, you know, and he
was and so I brought I hinted it Paul and Grace,
you know, to meet this guy. So I brought him
over and he played jammed a little blue song which
Grace turned into Better Lie Down I think on her
album and and they got to know him, which is

(01:26:14):
very good. And so when it came time what are
we going to do? How are we going to get
to band together? And said, well, and what are we
going to call it? Well, you know, you know that
you know about Paul's blows against the empire, had it
was who the cast was, who played the players? Where

(01:26:37):
he called it the Jefferson Jefferson Starship Crew. So he
had already had the name. It seemed obvious that that's
what we should let the name turn into. And everything
went that way. And so when Pete Didget, I think
he was playing with a Rod Stewart album in England,

(01:26:58):
and when when that was over, he came back and
we went on the first tour without him because he
was finishing that record. But he came back and was
on all the all the Jefferson Starship albums.

Speaker 1 (01:27:12):
Okay, the first one, Dragonfly. There's one successful track, Caroline,
sung by Marty, but Marty isn't in the band. How
does that work? And how does Marty end up in
the band.

Speaker 2 (01:27:24):
Well, that's how he ended up in the band, I think,
because because he didn't like what was happening between Yorman
and Jack and Paul and Grace, and nobody wanted to
do what he wanted to do. I think, what's just
sing Marty ballance songs, you know, And and that worked

(01:27:44):
that he could still write with with Paul and so
I assume that's why why he agreed to come back
and do Red Octopus with us.

Speaker 1 (01:27:55):
Red Octopus is a gigantic success with Miracles. Did you
guys know it was going to be so big?

Speaker 2 (01:28:04):
I could feel. I never wanted to think about, oh,
this is going to be really big or anything like that.
I just wanted but I knew that that one from
the moment we played it in the studio. I mean,
because we rehearsed it and it was a lot of fun.
When we played it in the studio, every everybody did

(01:28:26):
exactly the right thing. That was like that was like
a magical one to me.

Speaker 1 (01:28:31):
Okay, this is the first time you've been making music
for years, but this is the first time you've been
involved with something that is commercially successful.

Speaker 2 (01:28:42):
He yeah, And.

Speaker 1 (01:28:46):
Was your life now different? Were you making any money?
It was a big band and you didn't write the hit,
but you were on the album. How did it all
work out?

Speaker 2 (01:28:55):
For you worked that great, I thought. I mean, I
mean we had a song, I think song on the
album that it wasn't a hit, but it got played.
Actually I played the the intro that the we're gonna
look at the beginning was mine. So that's kind of

(01:29:17):
the first hook.

Speaker 1 (01:29:20):
So the next album is successful, not as successful as Redoctopus,
almost nothing could be right. And then you know the
band starts, you know, switching into something different. Okay, yeah,
tell me about that.

Speaker 2 (01:29:39):
Oh what was that Kevin Beamish? Right?

Speaker 1 (01:29:47):
Will you make another record? And that is nowhere near
as successful? When's the change? Ron Nevison comes in? You
write the same gene you're on that album. Yeah, but
ron Nevison is is about Lucy Goosey, like San Francisco. No, no,
So how did you feel about all that?

Speaker 2 (01:30:07):
I thought he did a great job actually, but he
had his own problems, but he got it done. I mean,
you know, I wasn't the only writer. I mean I
started the song and my friend Jim McPherson and I
wrote that wrote the melodies and the changes and the words.
I mean, he helped me with the words. Basically I

(01:30:28):
had the melody and the changes, but Craig came up
with that great rock arrangement, so that's the CASEO and
Paul came up with the intro, so that was his
little lick at the beginning. So that's so they each
got's points on it.

Speaker 1 (01:30:44):
So okay, then there's another album, you know with ron
Nevisin where Craig writes the hit find Your Way Back. Yeah,
And how does Nicky Thomas get in the bed?

Speaker 2 (01:30:58):
Well, he was in the band for when Grace left.
He was he sang Jane, didn't he right?

Speaker 1 (01:31:07):
But how did you find him? How were you? He
was working with Elvin Bishop. How did he end up
in your band?

Speaker 2 (01:31:12):
Well, Marty and Grace both quit and Paul and I
agreed with him, said said he thought we needed a
new lead singer, so we started auditioning people and we
had Jane. So it kind of seemed like the person
that sang Jane best was gonna was going to be
the guy. And uh, I don't know quite remember how

(01:31:39):
he be came who talked him into coming in?

Speaker 1 (01:31:46):
Okay, how do you ultimately leave?

Speaker 2 (01:31:51):
Well, there's a few albums before I know, we'll tell
you the story. Uh. He brought in Peter wolf Right,
who was the most. If anybody's around and you need
keyboards played, it'd have to be him, because he was
a genius and he was he was great. But I

(01:32:14):
don't know, I was doing less. I was doing much less.
You know. I'd sing and maybe I'd get to play
a little keys or something here, or play a little bass.
And it felt like they were going more towards being
a corporate kind of band, you know what I mean,
where they're going to say, Okay, we'll sit here and

(01:32:35):
we'll listen to people's songs and we'll pick the songs
we're going to do, which is what it turned into
after I left and Paul left, and so you know,
and it was trying of it was moves to pull
push Paul out, you know, because nobody wanted to do
his crazy songs or anything, you know, and I kind

(01:32:56):
of like Paul's crazy songs. Some of them were really good.
And uh, but I also have a hard time quitting band.
Says well, I noticed I should have quit Quick Sliver
before I did, and I probably should have quit this one.

Speaker 1 (01:33:12):
Well how did it add? Did they push you to
you jump?

Speaker 2 (01:33:15):
Oh? They pushed, they pushed, But I saw it coming.
I mean I could. I could tell by all the
contracts that were being signed and things like that. Oh,
people could be fired from the band. Okay yet da
yeah yeah, yeah yeah, I said, I said, SKay them,
now they can fire me. So I expected it. I
expected because I wasn't doing anything and I and I

(01:33:36):
was thinking about getting out myself, you know, So that
just made it final. So you know, I didn't take
it that hard. Actually, and you know, if I if I,
if I hadn't been it didn't get out of it,
I probably never would have met my wife. Now went
the magnificent Linden Imperial and uh and so I was

(01:34:03):
quite happy about it.

Speaker 1 (01:34:04):
Actually, okay, you're out of the band. What are you
going to do for money?

Speaker 2 (01:34:10):
Oh, I'll screep it up somehow, you know, I had
some money anyway, pushed it put away and so I
don't know, I went. I started. I hung out with
Gary Duncan again, who seemed to be reasonable again. And
actually that's how I met Linda. You know. I got

(01:34:31):
a phone call and he says, hey, David, I got
this chick singer coming coming around and I need to
do some background vocals and and because the ones that
are on there. Man, the girls got too screwed up
and I can't use any of it. He says, Okay,
I'll come over. And so I ended up picking up
this chick singer at the bus stop and bringing them

(01:34:53):
over to it to his studio, and it was Linda
Imperial and h just like falling off a lall we're saying,
I think four did four background four songs, backgrounds topped
a bottom in one day and it was beautiful.

Speaker 1 (01:35:11):
Okay, Well, how long did it last with the marriage
with the woman you met at the film bore?

Speaker 2 (01:35:18):
Oh? Julia, Well, I have a beautiful daughter with her.
Jessica girl, Yeah, girl, girl, Julie, Julia. We got divorced,
very dignified. I mean it was it was easy. We
all just got together and said, well what do we have?

(01:35:38):
We have this house? Okay, you want me to buy
your half of it? And she said that sounds really good.
So I bought her half of the house. I don't
think her lawyer liked it, but she insisted that's all
she wanted.

Speaker 1 (01:35:53):
Okay, at this late date, do you get any royalties.

Speaker 2 (01:35:59):
From what?

Speaker 1 (01:36:00):
From records? Songs? Sure enough to live on.

Speaker 2 (01:36:09):
Close?

Speaker 1 (01:36:10):
Oh that's good, that's good. So the way you tell
the story is you were kind of bumping around and
he said I want to I kind of want to
do this, and you were kind of falling into things.
Is that an accurate description or were you really aggressive?
Has got a bad connotation, But were you more like, well, geez,

(01:36:32):
I kind of want to do this. You know, I
met this guy. This guy seems to be going somewhere.
You know, if we look back, what was it like?

Speaker 2 (01:36:41):
I didn't really think about it like that. I think
I wanted to go. I wanted I wanted to be
in a band where everybody respected each other and and
and you know, and I don't think I ever found
one it till I was in the one that I'm
in now, because that feels great, It's absolutely great.

Speaker 1 (01:37:07):
And then, you know, if you weren't living in San Francisco,
you were hearing about the hate ashbery, you were hearing
about drugs, hearing about Summer of Love. What was your
take on all of that?

Speaker 2 (01:37:20):
Oh yeah, that was kind of a mistake. I mean,
nothing lasts forever. I mean, you can't come out and
find and as soon as it hit the I saw
somebody like like guys in Vietnam, looking at the Quicksilver

(01:37:40):
Messenger service, uh album on in Time on Times, Time
Magazine's cover or something like that. And once once you're
in Time magazine or stuff like that, it's all over
because because it can't it can't be the same. Everybody's
going to want to come out and see. It has

(01:38:00):
to be turned into a one way I mean, yeah,
it has to be turned into a one way street
because there's too many, too much traffic and you know,
everybody's coming out to see the hippies who went to
Meriton County last year.

Speaker 1 (01:38:12):
You know, So before it got all the publicity, was
it a dream? Was it great.

Speaker 2 (01:38:21):
For Yeah, for a few months, I'd say maybe six,
but you know it it's you know, it wasn't that
cut and dried. But for the first year it was
fine until it got really big. And then when it
gets really big, it's it's too big to I mean,
San Francisco couldn't hold all that.

Speaker 1 (01:38:43):
So being a folks singer, yeah, seeing everything, what do
you see in today's world? So he can do There
was a thought back in the sixties music could change
the world. How do you feel about today's world and
can it be changed by music? Does it even need changing.

Speaker 2 (01:39:04):
It certainly seems like it needs changing, but it could help.
I don't think it could do it. I don't think
any one thing could change. People have to change, and
are they going to I don't know. But all you
can do is try.

Speaker 1 (01:39:24):
Well, would you consider yourself an old hippie you never
sold out, or how do you view yourself?

Speaker 2 (01:39:33):
I don't know. I kind of sold out. I made
money doing stuff, But yes, I still agree I haven't changed.

Speaker 1 (01:39:41):
It sounds to me like you kind of made money
by accident.

Speaker 2 (01:39:45):
Well, I was in the right place at the right time,
I must admit. I mean that's part of it. But
you have have some talent and and I still have
values and and I know that people in our band

(01:40:09):
do that when we have now really do and we're
trying trying to change things. But all we can all
we can do is is is singing and and and
so that people are all just people, man, They're all
just people, and they ain't that much different anywhere you go.

(01:40:34):
And anybody that tells you any different is trying to
get something.

Speaker 1 (01:40:40):
So what do you want to be remembered for? Don't
need to be remembered. I don't know that's a basic question.
Maybe you don't care.

Speaker 2 (01:40:53):
I don't know. I want to remember for a guy
that did the did the right thing for as he could.
I don't know. That's the kind of all I can
ask for.

Speaker 1 (01:41:07):
And you still are in contact with the beat people.
You're out on the road with Jefferson Starship, but all
the other people from San Francisco band, some you were in,
some you weren't, who are still alive, which is a
big thing. Is there still a community you still talk
to them, or is basically everybody's doing their own thing.

Speaker 2 (01:41:27):
Well, unfortunately, I'm the only time I ever see any
old friends is that it's somebody else's funeral. But I'm
just trying to to make it to be positive through
what's happening now, and that's hard.

Speaker 1 (01:41:47):
The heavy lift. Okay, David, you've belistening to David Freiburg,
who was there when it all happened in San Francisco
and you know him of course from Quicksilver Jefferson Starship
Still Jefferson Starship. I want to thank you for taking
this time to speak with my audience. Got back until
next time. This is Bob left six

Speaker 2 (01:42:28):
H