What was the Avalon Ballroom?
The Avalon Ballroom was a hall made famous by The Family Dog. The Family Dog moved there after being pushed out by Bill Graham from the Fillmore.
The head of this organization was Chet Helms. He hithchiked from Texas to San Francisco with Janis Joplin after hearing her sing in 1963. Later he would go on to manage her band Big Brother And The Holding Company.
Originally Chet was a Civil Rights activist who went to San Francisco in 1962 to live as a poet. He promoted gigs at a coffee house on the Haight and introduced Janis to the folk music crowd when she arrived. When Chet started the Family Dog he brought in Rock Scully and Danny Rifkin who were trying to manage the Grateful Dead.
The first "Tribal Stomp" was held at the Fillmore Auditorium. When Bill Graham saw the money being made he hopped onto the scene. It then became Big Business versus Hippie Virtue. Chet let people in for free, took drugs and hung out. Bill was brash, enterprising, and formed a monopoly on the Haight.
Avalon's spirits rising
Restored music hall holds the city's past
Joel Selvin, Chronicle Staff Writer
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle
The ghost of Janis Joplin hides in the corners of the Avalon Ballroom, where she played her first show with Big Brother and the Holding Company in June 1966. It was the first place she was ever a star. For more than 30 years, it has been hidden behind the walls of a movie theater called the Regency.
But all the ghosts of the Avalon have been freed with the ballroom's reopening this year in the hands of a young hippie entrepreneur not even born when a dissolute Joplin, already far from her happy, girlish glory days at the Avalon, died at age 29 alone in a Hollywood motel in 1970.
Steve Shirley, 31, grew up named Morning Spring Rain with the Hog Farm commune, unrepentant hippies who live outside Laytonville in Mendocino County. He rented the Avalon last October for a trial run and immediately booked the current edition of Big Brother and the Holding Company. "It was symbolic that I had them in there," he said
Shirley first heard that the historic hall might be available from Stanley Mouse, the psychedelic poster artist who with his partner Alton Kelley produced most of the famous posters for the Avalon during its first incarnation and is about as far from a real estate agent as you can get.
(An original Avalon Ballroom poster by Stanley Mouse, 1966)
In January, Shirley took over the master lease to the balconied jewel box of a ballroom perched above Sutter Street at Van Ness Avenue and has since presented an increasing schedule of thriving shows from hip-hop rockers Spearhead, a thrash/metal festival with Judas Priest vocalist Rob Halford, famed funkateers P-Funk and reggae man Buju Bantn.
Punk rock sensations AFI chose the Avalon over the Warfield for their hot- ticket showcase dates next Saturday and Sunday, and Bill Graham Presents rented the hall from Shirley for the occasion.
Other forthcoming shows at the Avalon include Motorhead, the Sons of Champlin and a Jimmie Vaughan-John Mayall double-bill. The Graham people have also rented the room again for a show next month with punkers NOFX.
Mouse, who designed a poster for the Spearhead show, attended the March performance. "I'm sitting there selling my posters," Mouse said. "I'm having flashbacks. I used to dance over here. I used to stand over there. It was amazing."
The escalator that took movie patrons to the Regency II remains, but all the facades that had been installed have been torn out. Everything has been painted wedding cake white and the floors are covered with thick carpeting. The stage now fills one side of the room, instead of the corner. But reach the top of the stairs and there it is, back in at least some of its former glory, the Avalon Ballroom.
"We went up to the dressing room, which was exactly the same place," said Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew. "We thought about everything that happened. We were afraid to look, but couldn't not look. Everything's real slick -- you can see the skylight, which I'm not sure I even knew was there in the old days. "
In 1966, after splitting his brief partnership with Bill Graham, Texan transplant Chet Helms rented the ballroom, originally opened as the Puckett Academy of Dance in 1911, for $800 a month.
For the next two years, Helms presented Dionysian revels every weekend featuring bands all but unknown outside certain neighborhoods in San Francisco. They all had funny names such as the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Daily Flash, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. Before long, the Avalon Ballroom was known around the world as the crucible of the new San Francisco rock.
Helms also managed Big Brother and the Holding Company and, when the band decided the group needed a female vocalist, Helms summoned an old friend from Austin named Janis Joplin.
But Helms lacked Graham's capitalist instincts. He was a hippie zealot with a missionary's dedication. Although the Avalon was known as a far more authentic alternative to Graham's more commercial Fillmore Auditorium operation -- Joplin once famously earned Graham's ire by saying the Fillmore was "a place where sailors go to get laid" -- Helms' business ultimately foundered. By November 1968, after the city pulled his sound permits, he was looking elsewhere for a place to throw his shows.
Another group of would-be rock impresarios took over the room for a few shows the next year, but live music hasn't been heard in the Avalon since Iron Butterfly was on the charts. In fact, the fictitious business name "Avalon Ballroom" long ago expired, and Nob Hill Hotel owner Rudy Columbini took out a new license a while back and briefly used the name for a dance hall in one of his buildings three years ago. He gave the license to landlord Scott Robertson, an old friend.
Shirley, who lives in Cave Junction, Ore., with his pregnant wife and their young child, promotes his concerts primarily on his Web site (http://www.morningspringrain.com/). "He's got the youth," said Hog Farm tribal elder Wavy Gravy. "He finds them on the Internet. That's where they hang out. He speaks their language."
Shirley is not an experienced promoter. He is still figuring out small details like advance ticket sales, box-office staffing, advertising and publicity. A catering company operates the bar. His house manager previously worked on the catering crew of the Hog Farm's annual PigNic. "Every show, I learn something new," Shirley said.
But Shirley does have the spirit. He put together a loose-knit house band, the Avalon All-Stars, that features former members of the Jerry Garcia Band, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, and others. Sheets cover the side wall for the psychedelic light show. A curtain helps dampen the room's bright sound. He acknowledges the spiritual role of Helms, who runs an old-school downtown art gallery. "He comes in from time to time," said Shirley. "He's got a standing welcome."
E-mail Joel Selvin at jselvin@sfchronicle.com
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle
What was the Avalon Ballroom? |
The Avalon Ballroom was a hall made famous by The Family Dog. The Family Dog moved there after being pushed out by Bill Graham from the Fillmore.
The head of this organization was Chet Helms. He hithchiked from Texas to San Francisco with Janis Joplin after hearing her sing in 1963. Later he would go on to manage her band Big Brother And The Holding Company.
Originally Chet was a Civil Rights activist who went to San Francisco in 1962 to live as a poet. He promoted gigs at a coffee house on the Haight and introduced Janis to the folk music crowd when she arrived. When Chet started the Family Dog he brought in Rock Scully and Danny Rifkin who were trying to manage the Grateful Dead.
The first "Tribal Stomp" was held at the Fillmore Auditorium. When Bill Graham saw the money being made he hopped onto the scene. It then became Big Business versus Hippie Virtue. Chet let people in for free, took drugs and hung out. Bill was brash, enterprising, and formed a monopoly on the Haight.
|
Avalon's spirits rising
Restored music hall holds the city's past
Joel Selvin, Chronicle Staff Writer
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle
The ghost of Janis Joplin hides in the corners of the Avalon Ballroom, where she played her first show with Big Brother and the Holding Company in June 1966. It was the first place she was ever a star. For more than 30 years, it has been hidden behind the walls of a movie theater called the Regency.
But all the ghosts of the Avalon have been freed with the ballroom's reopening this year in the hands of a young hippie entrepreneur not even born when a dissolute Joplin, already far from her happy, girlish glory days at the Avalon, died at age 29 alone in a Hollywood motel in 1970.
Steve Shirley, 31, grew up named Morning Spring Rain with the Hog Farm commune, unrepentant hippies who live outside Laytonville in Mendocino County. He rented the Avalon last October for a trial run and immediately booked the current edition of Big Brother and the Holding Company. "It was symbolic that I had them in there," he said
Shirley first heard that the historic hall might be available from Stanley Mouse, the psychedelic poster artist who with his partner Alton Kelley produced most of the famous posters for the Avalon during its first incarnation and is about as far from a real estate agent as you can get.
(An original Avalon Ballroom poster by Stanley Mouse, 1966)
In January, Shirley took over the master lease to the balconied jewel box of a ballroom perched above Sutter Street at Van Ness Avenue and has since presented an increasing schedule of thriving shows from hip-hop rockers Spearhead, a thrash/metal festival with Judas Priest vocalist Rob Halford, famed funkateers P-Funk and reggae man Buju Bantn.
Punk rock sensations AFI chose the Avalon over the Warfield for their hot- ticket showcase dates next Saturday and Sunday, and Bill Graham Presents rented the hall from Shirley for the occasion.
Other forthcoming shows at the Avalon include Motorhead, the Sons of Champlin and a Jimmie Vaughan-John Mayall double-bill. The Graham people have also rented the room again for a show next month with punkers NOFX.
Mouse, who designed a poster for the Spearhead show, attended the March performance. "I'm sitting there selling my posters," Mouse said. "I'm having flashbacks. I used to dance over here. I used to stand over there. It was amazing."
The escalator that took movie patrons to the Regency II remains, but all the facades that had been installed have been torn out. Everything has been painted wedding cake white and the floors are covered with thick carpeting. The stage now fills one side of the room, instead of the corner. But reach the top of the stairs and there it is, back in at least some of its former glory, the Avalon Ballroom.
"We went up to the dressing room, which was exactly the same place," said Big Brother guitarist Sam Andrew. "We thought about everything that happened. We were afraid to look, but couldn't not look. Everything's real slick -- you can see the skylight, which I'm not sure I even knew was there in the old days. "
In 1966, after splitting his brief partnership with Bill Graham, Texan transplant Chet Helms rented the ballroom, originally opened as the Puckett Academy of Dance in 1911, for $800 a month.
For the next two years, Helms presented Dionysian revels every weekend featuring bands all but unknown outside certain neighborhoods in San Francisco. They all had funny names such as the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, the Daily Flash, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band. Before long, the Avalon Ballroom was known around the world as the crucible of the new San Francisco rock.
Helms also managed Big Brother and the Holding Company and, when the band decided the group needed a female vocalist, Helms summoned an old friend from Austin named Janis Joplin.
But Helms lacked Graham's capitalist instincts. He was a hippie zealot with a missionary's dedication. Although the Avalon was known as a far more authentic alternative to Graham's more commercial Fillmore Auditorium operation -- Joplin once famously earned Graham's ire by saying the Fillmore was "a place where sailors go to get laid" -- Helms' business ultimately foundered. By November 1968, after the city pulled his sound permits, he was looking elsewhere for a place to throw his shows.
Another group of would-be rock impresarios took over the room for a few shows the next year, but live music hasn't been heard in the Avalon since Iron Butterfly was on the charts. In fact, the fictitious business name "Avalon Ballroom" long ago expired, and Nob Hill Hotel owner Rudy Columbini took out a new license a while back and briefly used the name for a dance hall in one of his buildings three years ago. He gave the license to landlord Scott Robertson, an old friend.
Shirley, who lives in Cave Junction, Ore., with his pregnant wife and their young child, promotes his concerts primarily on his Web site (http://www.morningspringrain.com/). "He's got the youth," said Hog Farm tribal elder Wavy Gravy. "He finds them on the Internet. That's where they hang out. He speaks their language."
Shirley is not an experienced promoter. He is still figuring out small details like advance ticket sales, box-office staffing, advertising and publicity. A catering company operates the bar. His house manager previously worked on the catering crew of the Hog Farm's annual PigNic. "Every show, I learn something new," Shirley said.
But Shirley does have the spirit. He put together a loose-knit house band, the Avalon All-Stars, that features former members of the Jerry Garcia Band, Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, and others. Sheets cover the side wall for the psychedelic light show. A curtain helps dampen the room's bright sound. He acknowledges the spiritual role of Helms, who runs an old-school downtown art gallery. "He comes in from time to time," said Shirley. "He's got a standing welcome."
E-mail Joel Selvin at jselvin@sfchronicle.com
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle
