The Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia in Santa Cruz County (Revised)

[this is a substantial revision of an earlier post]

On April 24, 2008, the Grateful Dead announced the gift of their archives to the University of California at Santa Cruz Special Collections Library. The archive includes all the non-musical material accumulated by the Dead over the years, from contracts to fan letters, and it will not only provide a major insight into an important California cultural phenomenon in the second half of the 20th century, it will end up being really helpful to the likes of me. Rotating displays of some of the material will apparently be regularly on display at McHenry Library at UCSC.

The Grateful Dead and UC Santa Cruz were always like minded entities, despite a lack of formal connection. Wikipedia summarizes the pre-history of UCSC by saying "the formal design process of the campus began in the late 1950s, culminating in the Long Range Development Plan of 1963." The same might be said of The Grateful Dead. Since the Dead and UCSC were both founded in 1965, they have both been devoted to different ways of doing things, whether dispensing with grades (which UCSC did not give until 1997) or refusing to play a song the same way twice. In honor of the Archive, this post will trace the limited appearances of The Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia and other Grateful Dead members in Santa Cruz County.

The City of Santa Cruz and its University are isolated from the rest of the Bay Area by mountains, cliffs and the Pacific Ocean. Thus it had remained economically isolated until the last few decades, and part of Santa Cruz's charm was its insularity. This meant, however, that major rock shows were few and far between.

The Grateful Dead in Santa Cruz County
The Grateful Dead were booked in Santa Cruz County twice, and they were definitely in Santa Cruz County at least twice, but whether they played twice remains obscure.

November 27, 1965 Ken Babbs Ranch, Soquel: Acid Test
There was an Acid Test at Ken Babbs' house in the Santa Cruz Mountains, written about in Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. By all accounts, the Grateful Dead-who were still probably called The Warlocks, depending on who you believe--were there but did not perform, unless they did. So, to summarize, the Grateful Dead or The Warlocks were there and did or did not perform, probably.

(the poster for the Grateful Dead concert at Cabrillo College Stadium, Aptos, CA on September 2, 1967. Thanks to Ross for the scan. The show most likely did not take place)

September 2, 1967 Cabrillo College Football Field, Cabrillo Junior College, Aptos, CA
Benefit for SCA Santa Cruz
Grateful Dead/Canned Heat/The Leaves/Andrew Staples/Sons of Champlain (sic)/New Delhi River Band/Second Coming/New Breed/BFD Blues Band/Gross Exaggeration/Yajahla/Tingle Guild/People/Jaguars/Art Collection/Morning Glory/Ben Frank’s Electric Band/New Frontier/Chocolate Watch Band/The Other Side/E-Types/Mourning Reign/Imperial Mange Remedy/Omens/Ragged Staff/Talon Wedge & Others.

This two-day Festival (Saturday and Sunday September 2-3) over Labor Day weekend, with music from 3-12 pm each day, is widely known because the poster for it appeared in Paul Grushkin's book The Art Of Rock. The "beneficiary", SCA Santa Cruz, is now unknown to me, but the wording suggests that this was a campus sponsored event (which had to be not-for-profit). The bands listed above were spread out over the two days. The Dead would have been booked to play on Saturday September 2, as they had another gig (at Rio Nido Dance Hall) on September 3. The Dead, Canned Heat,  and San Jose's own Chocolate Watch Band were the big names. The other booked acts were an interesting mixture of mostly South Bay bands, including David Nelson and The New Delhi River Band.

However, intriguing as all this sounded, I looked into it at some length and I don't believe the event ever took place. I talked to a number of old South Bay types, none of whom recalled it. While it's impossible to prove a negative, one member of a band booked at the event (the E-Types) did not recall it either, and he played Cabrillo many times back in the day, so I think this is one of those events that was planned but never happened. 

Cabrillo College (at 6500 Soquel Drive in Aptos) was just 9.1 driving miles from the UCSC Campus Entrance, and Cabrillo is definitely in the UCSC zone, but I have a feeling that this event was planned and then scuttled by whatever powers-that-be were able to do so. More's the pity. Anyone with additional information is encouraged to Comment or email me.

September 24, 1983 Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds, Watsonville, CA: Grateful Dead
During this period, the Grateful Dead and Bill Graham Presents were experimenting with different venues around California. While the site was pleasant, and the afternoon weather was great as always, the facility lacked the parking to manage thousands of Deadheads arriving at once, and the venue was somewhat overwhelmed, in the genial pleasant way that Deadheads used to do such things. Still, the band played well, and that's what matters. Nonetheless, I do not recall this venue being used for a major act again, I think mainly due to the parking situation.

The Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds in Watsonville (at 2601 East Lake Avenue) are about 21 miles from the entrance to the UCSC campus. As far as I know, this is as near as the Grateful Dead performed to UCSC, unless someone can make a clear-headed case for the Acid Test (good luck with that).

The Barn, Scotts Valley-no, sorry
Due to a 1999 article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, there is a suggestion floating around the internet that the Grateful Dead played The Barn in Scotts Valley between 1966 and 1968. The Barn was Santa Cruz County's unique link to psychedelic culture, linked to the Pranksters and many other interesting people. Sad to say, fascinating as the history of The Barn actually is, the Grateful Dead never played there (for the record, the article says bands like the Dead, Quicksilver and Big Brother played there, but only the last two actually did).

Jerry Garcia and other Grateful Dead Members in Santa Cruz County
As Jerry Garcia increased his extra curricular activities outside of the Grateful Dead in the 1970s and 80s, he came to play Santa Cruz a few times. This coincided with the rise in Santa Cruz's population and economic profile, because of the University and its proximity to Silicon Valley. On a smaller scale, the same process occurred with other Grateful Dead members.

The Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium at 307 Church Street, as it appeared in 2011

October 5, 1973 Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz: Old And In The Way/Ramblin' Jack Elliott/Bruce Frye
Old And In The Way was a bluegrass band in which Jerry Garcia played banjo and sang. It was not "his" band, but he was so much more famous than the other musicians that Old And In The Way are remembered as Jerry Garcia's bluegrass band. This show was one of their last, and the other band members were Peter Rowan, David Grisman, Vassar Clements and John Kahn.

An old list compiled by Dennis McNally had a projected show at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium on Friday, October 5. The band was also scheduled to play outdoors at Sonoma State College in Humboldt two days later (Oct 7). The Sonoma show was canceled, due to bad weather, but a show in San Francisco at The Boarding House was held the night after (October 8), and recorded for the band's groundbreaking 1975 album.  For various reasons the Civic show had dropped on and off various lists; I know the whole story, but its very wonky and boring to explain the whole thing, so I'm sparing everyone. However, you can now read the account of an eyewitness, who not only has a copy of the flyer,  but recalls that the show was broadcast on KUSP-fm .

The Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium at, 307 Church Street, is an excellent Art Deco style building that was completed in 1940. As Santa Cruz rose in importance, more and more performers started using the friendly little 2,000 capacity hall for warm up shows, or shows on off nights. Garcia played the venue several times in later years. The Civic is just 2.1  miles to the UCSC Campus Entrance, and that is as close as Garcia got to performing on the UCSC campus.

February 16, 1975 Margarita's, Santa Cruz: Kingfish
Margarita's was a new rock club in Santa Cruz, which was starting to show signs of growth from the University and the early impact of Silicon Valley. Margarita's was at 1685 Commercial Way, near Highway 1, where Soquel Drive turns into Soquel Avenue, near where Moe's Alley is today. Margarita's was about 5.7 miles from the entrance to UCSC. Bob Weir and Kingfish opened the club in a low-key fashion on a Sunday night. 

February 21, 1975 Margarita's, Santa Cruz: Good Ole Boys
This show had been a mystery for many years. David Nelson and Frank Wakefield had a bluegrass group, and Garcia produced their album (Pistol Packin Mama).  I learned about this date from Dennis McNally's list, but it seemed an oddity, and I doubted its provenance. However, a fellow blogger not only recalled Margarita's, he attended the show and describes it in some detail.

For this show, the Good Ole Boys were a quartet, with David Nelson on guitar, Frank Wakefield on mandolin, Garcia on banjo and Pat Campbell on bass. Garcia sang no lead vocals. There was a sparse crowd.  In 1975, while Garcia and the Dead were extremely popular in Santa Cruz, the city itself was still far enough from the Bay Area mainstream that Garcia could play a stealth gig without the club being swarmed.

March 7, 1975 Crown College Dining Commons, UCSC, Santa Cruz: Kingfish
I recently learned that the first performance of an active member of the Grateful Dead on the UCSC campus was Bob Weir and Kingfish performing at the Crown College Dining Commons on March 7, 1975. My source is a sure thing--he booked the show--and he promises to Reveal All, so I will link to the revelations when they appear.

A long lost poster for Keith & Donna & Friends at Kresge Town Hall, Kresge College, University of California at Santa Cruz, on May 11, 1975. (scan courtesy of JGBP; recconstruction thanks to JGMF)

May 11, 1975, Kresge Town Hall, UCSC, Santa Cruz: Keith and Donna and Friends/Eric Andersen
Another recent discovery was an early performance by Keith and Donna Godchaux's band at Kresge College a few months after Kingfish's appearance at Crown. This was an early lineup of the Keith and Donna band, with Tom Donlinger on drums instead of Bill Kreutzmann. Folk-rocker Eric Andersen was Bob Weir's neighbor, which is how he came to write some lyrics for "Weather Report."

I have written about the implications of this booking elsewhere. In any case, following on the Kingfish appearance, Keith and Donna were the other active members of the Dead to play on the UC Santa Cruz campus itself.

June 7, 1975 Margarita's, Santa Cruz, CA: Kingfish

An ad for Keith and Donna at Margarita's (h/t CryptDev)

June 20-21, 1975, Margarita's, Santa Cruz: Keith and Donna
Bill Kreutzmann had joined the Keith And Donna band by this time.

The poster for the Jerry Garcia Band shows at the Del Mar Theater in Santa Cruz on October 8, 1975

October 8, 1975 Del Mar Theatre, Santa Cruz: Jerry Garcia Band with Nicky Hopkins
The Del Mar Theatre is at 1124 Pacific Avenue. The theater opened on August 14, 1936. By the 1970s the theater was not in great shape, and the operators started filling out weekends with rock shows. Quite a few good shows were held there in the 1970s. The theater probably seated about 900.

This was one of the earliest shows by the newly organized Jerry Garcia Band, with the great pianist Nicky Hopkins joining stalwart bassist John Kahn and drummer Ron Tutt. Tutt also drummed for Elvis Presley, and the Garcia Band's touring schedule was limited to dates when Elvis Presley and The Grateful Dead were not performing. Due to the small size of the venue, the group played both early and late shows without an opening act.

The Jerry Garcia Band played the Del Mar Theatre twice more before it became a multiplex in 1978. The venue (still a movie theater, now refurbished), is 2.3 miles from the UCSC Campus Entrance.

The Del Mar Theater on 1124 Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz, as it appeared in 2011

February 26, 1976 Del Mar Theatre, Santa Cruz: Jerry Garcia Band
Grateful Dead pianist Keith Godchaux had replaced Hopkins, and his wife Donna had joined as vocalist.

Spring 1976, New Riverside Szechuan Restuarant, Santa Cruz: Robert Hunter and Roadhog
The New Riverside, opened in the early 70s,  introduced Szechuan cuisine to Santa Cruz. It was on the site of the Riverside hotel at 600 Riverside Avenue. There were sometimes performances in the "Back Room," and an eyewitness recalls a three-set show by Robert Hunter and Roadhog, including Hunter dancing on a table.

(Santa Cruz artist Jim Phillips's poster for the Del Mar August 19, 1976 shows)

August 19, 1976 Del Mar Theater, Santa Cruz: Jerry Garcia Band
Link Wray apparently opened one of the Del Mar shows, but I'm not sure which one.

December 16-17, 1977 Crossroads Inn, Santa Cruz: Robert Hunter and Comfort
The Crossroads Inn was at the Old Sash Mill complex, the site of a long ago sawmill at 303 Potrero. The Old Sash Mill was at the intersection of Highway 9 and Highway 1 (River and Mission for you locals), hence the name 'Crossroads.' I don't know exactly when it opened or closed, but I do know that Neil Young's mystery band The Ducks played there during this period. To some extent, the Crossorads may have tried to pick up the slack caused by the disappearance of Margarita's as a venue.

I don't know which building in the Old Sash Mill the Crossroads may have been in. Anyone researching this critical issue is advised to stop in to the excellent Storrs Winery Tasting Room in the same complex. The Old Sash Mill is about 2.5 miles from the entrance to the UCSC campus.

Robert Hunter and the band Comfort were in the process of recording an album that was never released. They were an excellent live band with excellent original material, and its a shame the wide world never got a better look at them.

February 19, 1978 Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz: Jerry Garcia Band/Robert Hunter and Comfort
Parts of this concert were recently released as part of the archival live cd Jerry Garcia Band: Bay Area 1978 on Grateful Dead Records.  Robert Hunter and Comfort opened the show.

The Catalyst, at 1011 Pacific Avenue in Santa Cruz, as it appeared in 2011

March 30-31, 1979 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz: Reconstruction
Reconstruction was Jerry Garcia's jazz-funk excursion with Merl Saunders. From 1979 onwards, Jerry Garcia regularly played a circuit of larger Bay Area nightclubs, and The Catalyst in Santa Cruz became a regular stop. The Catalyst had opened somewhat earlier, as a coffee shop in the St. George Hotel at 833 Front, but it didn't start booking rock bands until it moved down the street in late 1978 to a converted bowling alley. The Catalyst, at 1011 Pacific Avenue, was the site of many fine Garcia shows for the next decade.  The Catalyst is 2.3 miles from the UCSC Campus Entrance.

Jerry Garcia played Santa Cruz 13 more times. For complete notes, see The Jerry Site.

May 27, 1979 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz: Reconstruction
February 7, 1980 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz: Jerry Garcia Band
January 18, 1981 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz: Jerry Garcia Band
January 29, 1981 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz: Jerry Garcia Band
April 21, 1981 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz: Jerry Garcia Band
June 25, 1981 Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz: Jerry Garcia Band with Phil Lesh
February 2-3, 1982 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz: Jerry Garcia Band
October 13, 1982 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz: Jerry Garcia Band
January 18, 1983 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz: Jerry Garcia Band
March 5, 1983 Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz: Jerry Garcia Band
October 16, 1985 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz: Jerry Garcia and John Kahn (early and late shows)
February 24, 1987 Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz: Jerry Garcia Band

Appendix: Other Performances
September 18, 1980 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz: Bobby And The Midnites
Bob Weir and Bobby and The Midnites made their Bay Area debut at the Catalyst on September 18, 1980. I have written about that run of shows elsewhere, as well as about the history of Bobby And The Midnites. Bobby And The Midnites also played the Catalyst on August 10, 1983 and August 11, 1984.

May 20, 1983 Dining Commons, Porter College, UCSC: The Dinosaurs
From 1982 through 1984, Robert Hunter was a member of The Dinosaurs. Other members of the band were John Cipollina (ex-Quicksilver), Barry "The Fish" Melton, Peter Albin (ex- and future Big Brother) and Spencer Dryden (ex-Airplane, ex-NRPS). Without trying, the group sounded like an old San Francisco psychedelic band, because that was who they were. Hunter was with the group when they played the Dining Commons at Porter College (College V for old-time Banana Slugs) on the UCSC Campus. There may have been a poster for this event. (Hunter and The Dinosaurs also played three shows at The Catalyst: Oct 14 '83, Feb 4 '84 and May 26 '84).

Jefferson Airplane Footnote
The Jefferson Airplane don't have an archive, to my knowledge, and it wouldn't be as interesting as the Grateful Dead's in any case. Nonetheless, just in case, the Jefferson Airplane played the UCSC "Spring Thing" dance two years in a row: first at the Cocoanut Grove on May 14, 1966, and then on May 11, 1967 at the  Cowell-Stevenson dining hall, right before a show at the Civic.


View Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia in Santa Cruz in a larger map

David Nelson and The New Delhi River Band, Fall 1966 (Nelson II)

A poster by 'Machine Studio' for The New Delhi River Band performance at The Barn, in Scotts Valley, on Friday, October 14, 1966

The New Delhi River Band were founded in Palo Alto, CA in the Summer of 1966. They were one of the first psychedelic blues bands formed in the South Bay--though of course not the very first--, and they had a significant following in the South Bay underground. The group is usually remembered today, if at all, for being the first rock band for future New Riders of The Purple Sage David Nelson and Dave Torbert. Since the band never released any recordings, however, and the venues where they thrived are lost in the mists of time, the New Delhi River Band is just a ghost.

Despite substantial efforts by the group in 1967, The New Delhi River Band never succeeded outside of their South Bay turf, and the members moved on to other pursuits. My research seems to suggest, however, that they were an interesting and popular band in the little universe of the South Bay underground in 1966 and 1967, and their story makes a great case study on how regional bands help shape scenes while getting left behind themselves—the story of The New Delhi River Band stands for the tale of every cool local long haired band in 1966 and 1967 who never got big past the County Line, living on as a fond, hazy memory of their fans.

David Nelson was one of Jerry Garcia's best friends, and Nelson's career presents an interesting counterpoints to Garcia's. The Grateful Dead were the South Bay's first psychedelic blues band, of course, and the New Delhi River Band's ups and downs shed light on different ways in which the Dead were both fortunate and special. By the time Nelson and Garcia reconnected in 1969 with the New Riders of The Purple Sage, Nelson had had his own odyssey, far less legendary than Garcia's but fascinating nonetheless. This post will be part of a series on the hitherto lost history of the New Delhi River Band.

In a 21st century interview for RD Records, drummer Chris Herold recalled

NDRB was a really fine band. Some very fond memories of the formative time. We were one of the first white blues bands, probably THE first in the Bay Area. We were Butterfield Blues Band fans and it showed in our music. We also drew from all the old greats Robert Johnson, Willie Dixon, Lightnin' Hopkins, Muddy Waters . . . the list goes on. The band members were: Sweet John Tomasi (vocals and harmonica), Peter Sultzbach (lead guitar), David Nelson (rhythm guitar), Dave Torbert (bass) and me [Chris Herold] on drums.”

David Nelson played a critical role in Jerry Garcia's career, both before the Grateful Dead and during their existence. After the New Delhi River Band ended in early 1968, Nelson re-appeared in Garcia's universe at the end of 1968, participating in the Aoxomoxoa sessions (although probably not appearing on the record). More importantly, Nelson, along with Garcia and John Dawson, was a founding member of the New Riders Of The Purple Sage, Garcia's first extra-curricular band. In subsequent decades, Nelson made all sorts of great music, with and without Garcia, and continues to do so in both the revitalized New Riders and the David Nelson Band.

This chronology would not have been possible without the dedicated efforts of Ross Hannan, Chris Recker, the late Russell Towle and David Nelson. Anyone with additional information, insights, corrections or recovered memories (real or imagined) is urged to Comment or email me.

Recap: The Formation Of The New Delhi River Band
Part I of the New Delhi River Band story reviews how David Nelson was a bluegrass musician in Palo Alto, just like his friend Jerry Garcia. The arrival of the Beatles and LSD electrified the tiny community of bohemian musicians, and the hitherto acoustic Nelson started to get interested in plugging in. By mid-1966, Nelson and his Channing Avenue housemate Carl Moore had joined forces with a Los Altos band called Bethlehem Exit, and hatched the idea of The Outfit. The Outfit was intended to be a sort of permanent Trips Festival in sleepy little Palo Alto, with a venue, a band and a light show all called The Outfit. According to Nelson, there was only one show, a memorable mini-Acid Test in June 1966 graced by Neal Cassady himself, but the enterprise never got any further.

The Outfit venue withered, but out of its ashes arose two light shows, one of them still called The Outfit, and also the New Delhi River Band. After some early gigs that even I have not been able to trace, the band rose to the surface in the South Bay in August of 1966. The New Delhi River Band opened for Roy Head, Van Morrison and Them and The Doors at a club called Losers South in San Jose. The New Delhi River Band also started to play at a mysterious, legendary venue in the Santa Cruz Mountains called The Barn. We pick up the story in October, 1966, as The Barn starts to rise to prominence in the still-tiny hippie scene of the South Bay.

A map of the location of The Barn (from the Oct 14' 66 poster above). The configuration of Highway 17 and Scotts Valley has completely changed, and no trace of The Barn remains. The site is now the parking lot of The Baymonte Christian School

Fall 1966: The Barn, Scotts Valley, CA
In the 20th Century, when a form of music was new, it generally needed a new venue to express itself. New music, by its nature, would not fit in with established commercial interests, so without a new place to play, new music would remain obscure. Whether it was be-bop in the 1940s or rock in the 60s, groundbreaking music was usually associated with a specific location. For the most famous bands, their musical birthplaces are famous as well: The Cavern Club in Liverpool was the foundation of The Beatles, and the Fillmore was the launching pad for the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and the other San Francisco bands.

Around the country, and even around the English speaking world, a thousand psychedelic flowers bloomed as the locally adventurous musicians became the featured attraction at the local ballroom. Thus the Boston Tea Party, the Trauma in Philadelphia, the UFO Club in London, the Grande Ballroom in Detroit and numerous others are enshrined in local or even national legend, thanks to the bands that played there. After the Filmore, but before all of those, however, there was The Barn in Scotts Valley, and that was where the New Delhi River Band found its home and cemented their fuzzy legend as the anchors of the South Bay underground.

The Barn, known as 'The Fillmore of The Mountains," was only open from mid-66 through mid-68, and indeed it was closed during much of that time as well. What little information is available on The Barn mostly comes from our site, and what is posted there is fairly outdated. By the Fall of 1966, the New Delhi River Band would become the "House Band" of The Barn, whatever exactly that meant. After The Barn closed, it disappeared without a trace. I can recall being at the Foothill College radio station in 1975 and reading Pete Frame's New Riders Family Tree (promulgated as part of a Columbia Records promo package), and finding out about both The New Delhi River Band and The Barn for the first time. The Barn was located in Scotts Valley, less than 8 years and 30 minutes from where I was standing when I first read about it (Moody Road in Los Altos), and it was as if it had never existed at all.

Eric Nord, proprietor of a string of coffee houses that included the famous Hungry I in San Francisco and the Sticky Wicket in Aptos (in Southern Santa Cruz County), had opened a coffee house and art gallery in a converted dairy barn in Fall, 1965. Scotts Valley was about 15 miles from the Santa Cruz coast, nestled in the the Santa Cruz Mountains, between Santa Cruz and San Jose. Scotts Valley was an isolated mountain town at the time, not even yet an incorporated community, and the residents did not take kindly to the sort of beatniks who visited the coffee shop. While the coffee house closed in early 1966, to the dismay of the locals, it was taken over by a Santa Cruz psychiatrist, Dr. Leon Tabory.  Tabory started presenting rock shows in the relatively cavernous upstairs part of the structure, which had hitherto been used for square dances and basketball games. The Barn rapidly coalesced from a “Performance Space” to the “Fillmore Of The Mountains.”  Some of the San Francisco bands played there, and it appears that guest appearances by famous musicians who were in the area were not unknown.  The Barn is remembered fondly by anyone who ever attended or played there, but memories are very fuzzy (why, do you think?).

Tabory (1925-2009) was a remarkable man whose story is too much to tell in this context. Tabory had been Neal Cassady's prison psychiatrist. After testifying to help defend a Prankster (Peter Demma) in an obscenity case, he focused on the idea that people needed a 'performance space' to express themselves.  The earliest known rock show at The Barn is May 22, 1966, with Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band, but it may have begun before that. In any case, by Summer 1966 The Barn had become the hip place to hang out in the South Bay on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. 

[For an updated view of the history of The Barn, see my post here]

I now know, however, that Tabory got his insight into how The Barn should operate from visiting The Outfit. Whether or not Tabory ever went to the Fillmore or Avalon is unclear, but in any case he would not likely have gone on his own, as he was considerably older than most of the bohemians. It appears he went to The Outfit through his connection with Neal Cassady. Tabory hired Gayle Curtis and Paul Mittig to do the light shows at The Barn, and they named themselves The Magic Theater. A local Santa Cruz artist, Joe Lyzowski, painted psychedelic murals on the walls of The Barn. Carl Moore and others at Channing Avenue continued to operate as a free lance light show called The Outfit after Curtis and Mittig left.

Its important to remember that in Summer and Fall 1966, long hair, weed and the blues were pretty Underground commodities. Outside of the Haight Ashbury and the vicinity of Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, such people weren’t welcome. One of the very few safe, fun places in the South Bay to go for adults who aspired to that was The Barn. The reach of The Barn extended well beyond its nearest residents, to Southern Alameda County and other parts of the Bay Area. Teenagers who couldn't get into bars and were a long way from Berkeley or San Francisco found a welcoming hangout in tiny Scotts Valley, even if the community itself was highly suspicious of the visitors. South Bay bohemians, Merry Pranksters, future South Bay hippies, Gypsy Joker bikers, members of the Family Dog and other fringe characters knew that they had a safe haven on weekends at the converted Dairy Barn off Granite Creek Road. The New Delhi River Band became regular performers at the hippest place outside of San Francisco, and they are fondly (if somewhat fuzzily) remembered by all who saw them there.

Future New Delhi River Band and Kingfish drummer Chris Herold playing in The Good News, along with guitarist Tim Abbott and keyboardist Bob Stephens, somewhere in the South Bay in 1966. Note the pop-art clothes, optimized for the strobe light. Photo clipped from a long forgotten newspaper, courtesy of Tim Abbott.

The New Delhi River Band and The Good News
The history of the New Delhi River Band has only been alluded to a few times over the years, and what little information there is about the group has mostly come from a single item on the 1974 Pete New Riders of The Purple Sage Family Tree, promulgated as promotional material for Columbia Records for Brujo. The Frame Tree lists the New Delhi River Band's lineup as follows:

Sweet John Tomasi-vocals, harmonica
Peter Sultzbach-lead guitar
David Nelson-guitar
Dave Torbert-bass
Chris Herold-drums

However, several years of determined research on my part has shown that Torbert and Herold did not join the NDRB until October of 1966 at the earliest, and probably not until November. I know that the initial bass player for The Outfit, at least in rehearsal, was one Austin Keith, and Nelson rather surprisingly told me that they had tried out John Dawson as the bass player, too, but he only lasted one gig, because (as Nelson put it) "he wasn't really a bass player." When I was fortunate enough to get a chance to speak to Nelson about this subject, I asked him how Dave Torbert came into the New Delhi River Band, and I got an equally surprising answer.

Nelson told me "Chris Herold, our drummer, was in a Redwood City blues band called The Good News, and he played with Torbert, and that's how he came into the group." This revelation caused me to look into the history of The Good News--I am nothing if not thorough--and when I unraveled that story, it became clear that The Good News were an active live band until the end of October 1966, so even if Herold and Torbert were temporarily in both bands, they could not have really joined NDRB on a permanent basis until October, so there must have been at least one other bassist and drummer, and possibly several, up until then. Given the importance of Torbert and Herold to the whole saga, however, a brief review of the history of The Good News is worthwhile.

White blues bands with a rock edge were forming all over the Bay Area, and indeed the United States and England. The Grateful Dead had been perhaps the first in the South Bay and Palo Alto, but a few more followed shortly after. Redwood City was two towns North of Palo Alto (nearer to San Francisco), and The Good News were the first white blues band to come out of Redwood City. Formed in late 1965, probably in the wake of the debut Butterfield Blues Band album, by 1966 they were gigging steadily up and down the El Camino Real and the South Bay. By mid-66, the Good News' lineup was

Chris Herold-drums,
Dan Hess- Bass,
Bob Stephens- Keyboards, Sax, Harmonica, Vocals
Tim Abbott- Lead Guitar and Vocals  
Dave Torbert-Lead Vocals and Guitar.

Although The Good News mostly played local teen clubs and dances (for the complete story as I know it, see my post about the history of The Good News), besides the emphasis on straight-up blues, they distinguished themselves by having pop-art stage clothes and a light show. It appears that the Good News light show was mainly a strobe light, but for South Bay teen clubs it was still a brave step into the brave new world.

The Good News had started to get a South Bay following, and there was enough buzz about them that they got to open a show at the Fillmore on the weekend of October 22 and 23, 1966. Although The Good News were not on the poster--the opening act usually wasn't--they played along with Captain Beefheart, the Chocolate Watch Band (San Jose's finest) and The Great Pumpkin (from Oregon). The Good News played well enough that they were asked back to the Fillmore, according to guitarist Tim Abbott, but by that time they had already broken up. That places the demise of The Good News to shortly after October 23, and from that we can reasonably assume that Herold and Torbert had moved over to the New Delhi River Band at that point.

My own theory has been that drummer Herold was sort of moonlighting in the New Delhi River Band, possibly without the awareness of other members of the group. The still mysterious bass player must have dropped out, so Torbert was brought over and converted from guitar, a common enough scenario in the 1960s. Even if Torbert and Herold were planning to defect, they wouldn't have missed out on a Fillmore gig, but if they thought their chances were better with the New Delhi River Band, it explains why the Good News broke up shortly after the Fillmore shows. For now, I am assuming that Herold and Torbert joined the New Delhi River Band in October 1966, but it's not impossible that Herold had at least played a few shows before that (update: I have since found out, from David Nelson himself, via David Gans, that originally the New Delhi River Band had no drummer at all. Chris Herold apparently played a few shows, and then joined full time. John Dawson played one show at The Barn, possibly October 14. Nelson played "Beaumont Rag" on his guitar to impress Torbert. It seems to have worked).

Guitarist Tim Abbott, my principal source for the history of The Good News, recalls that they played The Barn at one point, but he can no longer recall if they were booked or just sitting in. My own suspicion is that they played one of the Thursday night shows for locals, possibly with the New Delhi River Band, or at least with some of the members present. That would explain how Herold connected with the NDRB. In any case, after The Good News broke up, Abbott ended up in the Chocolate Watch Band, and ultimately reunited with Torbert and Herold a few years later in a group called Shango in 1968, but that is getting ahead of the story (Abbott currently owns a recording studio in Campbell, and he's still in the Chocolate Watch Band, and they are still San Jose's best group).

New Delhi River Band Performance History, Fall 1966
 October 1966
The New Delhi River Band's first notable shows seem to have been at a place called Losers South, at 1500 Almaden Road in San Jose, opening for Roy Head, Van Morrison and Them and The Doors. In between they played some considerably more obscure places, that even I have not yet been able to pin down. However, I do know that band members were hanging out at The Barn as early as August. I believe they must have played enough shows at The Barn, whether on Thursday night 'local night' or opening for relatively higher profile groups, that they became a sort of attraction at The Barn by October of 1966.

The other significant event in October took place on October 6. LSD was made illegal by the state of California on that day--it's quite incredible to realize that Acid Tests were a fully legal enterprise up until that time. Granted, publicity attracted the police, who would bust longhairs for weed, speed or expired car registration, but LSD itself was not illegal until October 6. A rally of sorts was held in the Panhandle in the Haight Ashbury, on the edge of Golden Gate Park (between Fell and Oak). The Grateful Dead, Big Brother and The Holding Company and Bobby Beausoleil's Orkustra peformed on the back of a flatbed truck, and much to everyone's amazement, thousands of people showed up. Although Chris Recker was unable to go (for a reason he no longer recalls), he remembers that the Channing Avenue crowd, including Nelson, went to the event and came home buzzing with--among other things--the realization that there were like-minded pockets of free thinkers all over the Bay Area. Suddenly it seemed like the new world was just around the corner, and I do not think it was a coincidence that the New Delhi River Band, along with many other local groups, started to look on their musical careers with a new seriousness.

October 14, 1966: The Barn, Scotts Valley: New Delhi River Band/Michael Finch/The Magic Theater
The first public trace of the New Delhi River Band was in issue #9 of the legendary Haight Ashbury fanzine Mojo Navigator (the publication date of the typed, mimeographed 'zine was October 17, 1966).  The actual wording was “a place called ‘The Barn’ in Scotts Valley near Santa’s Village which has been putting on some weekly happenings lately with the New Delhi River Band and a couple of others.”  Since we have a poster (up top) we are certain of Friday, October 14. The wording implies that the band had played there regularly, and I'm inclined to think that they might have played Friday, October 7 as well.

The New Delhi River Band appears to have played many of their 1966 gigs at The Barn.  They may have even acted as a sort of “house band” although that is difficult to determine from this distance.  In general, I think that meant that the New Delhi River Band played most Friday nights at The Barn, and sometimes other nights as well (I think the Thursday events were strictly a Summer of '66 phenomenon). The Barn was the kind of place where fans just showed up, since there were few other options, and a 'name' headliner wasn't actually required. According to people who went to The Barn regularly, it was a magical period, where the few longhairs in the South Bay got together to hang out, college students, bikers, artists and high school kids from Fremont all felt that brief flash of solidarity that a scene gives you.

Michael Finch appears to have been the opening act. Its possible that he played downstairs, in the coffee shop part of the venue, while the headliners played upstairs. The Magic Theater was the name of the light show company resident at The Barn. The principals of The Magic Theater were Paul Mittig and Gale Curtis, from the Channing Avenue house.  There was a third partner in The Magic Theater as well, whose name remains uncertain, but he was a sort of business manager and wasn't really part of the creative team. The Flowers, who headlined on Saturday, October 15, were another South Bay nascent psychedelic band. Chris Recker recalled them, but can't remember anything about where they were based.

October 28-29, 1966: The Barn, Scotts Valley: New Delhi River Band/The Magic Theater
November 6, 1966: The Barn, Scott Valley, CA: Sons Of Eternity
There is a surviving poster of these shows. Possibly this is one of the events referred to in Mojo Navigator #9. 

[update 20230513: the poster has been retrieved and added. The Sons Of Eternity, performing "The Sounds Of Eternity,' were apparently a commune that had a Don Buchla "Thunder Machine." Retired UCSC Professor Ralph Abraham has described such a show, although whether it was this one is unclear]

According to some eyewitnesses, people from the Family Dog and the Grateful Dead 'family' were regulars at The Barn as well, although they were careful to point out that these did not include Chet Helms nor any actual Dead band members. It does assure us, however, that The Barn was definitely a critical outpost for the still fledgling Bay Area psychedelic rock underground. Around this time, Ken Kesey and His Merry Pranksters had largely returned from Mexico, and the notorious bus Furthur was permanently parked outside The Barn, much to the chagrin of local Scotts Valley residents. A description of a Prankster 'performance' at The Barn from around November 11, 1966, can be found in Tom Wolfe's Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, giving one of the few relatively contemporary accounts of The Barn.

November ?, 1966:  The Experimental Building, Stanford University New Delhi River Band/Medoy Forest Indians
This date is approximated from a poorly scanned handbill, and some details are very hard to determine. In Fall 1966, there were a number of interesting shows at Stanford University, but by 1967 such events were limited exclusively to Frost Amphitheatre on Saturday afternoons for the next few decades. For a brief period in the 1966-67 school year, the sprawling, then mostly empty Stanford campus was subject to some peculiar events that were probably pretty interesting, if anyone could retain a coherent memory.

One eyewitness (Greg Troll) does remember this gig fondly, if vaguely, though he thinks it was Spring ’67, and an April 8, 1967 event at the same place is known, so perhaps the band played there twice. I can't figure out where the 'Experimental Building' might have been. I do know there was a lot of construction on the Stanford campus at the time, and some underused buildings may have been ripe for unauthorized activities.

The Medoy Forest Indians were a long-gone Native American tribe from the region. I can't say for certain exactly what the reference might have been.

November 18-19, 1966: The Barn, Scotts Valley Big Brother and The Holding Company/New Delhi River Band/Mercy Street Blues Machine
Peter Albin of Big Brother distinctly recalled these shows. Nelson and Peter Albin had been friends as South Bay teenagers, and indeed Albin had been with Nelson when he first met Jerry Garcia in Kepler's Book's in Menlo Park. I asked Albin if he recalled Big Brother playing The Barn, and he was kind enough to recollect:

For sure in November of 66 because we borrowed a VW double-cab pick-up from our landlady of the Argentina House in Lagunitas (we lived there between July 66 & January 67). We had problems with the truck.  It was a rainy weekend and all the truck had to protect our equipment in the back was a sort of covered-wagon sort of affair which allowed water to collect in the bed of the truck.  On the way back, we either blew the engine or transmission (I can't remember which) that we had to get repaired. So we didn't make much money that weekend. One of the times we played the Barn was with the New Delhi River Band, and another time was with the Congress of Wonders. 

Since the other Big Brother date at The Barn was February 25, 1967, and the NDRB were playing elsewhere, this seems to be the weekend they played together. Nelson and Albin had played folk festivals around the South Bay in the previous two years; now they were both playing loud, electric blues.

The Barn was a two-story structure, with the main performance space (which was also a basketball court) upstairs. The downstairs was a sort of coffee shop, but sometimes there were performers there as well. The Mercy Street Blues Machine, also known as The Hershey Gumbo Band, was a sort of free jazz/performance art ensemble put together by Chris Recker and a partner (Ralph Sanders). Due to their association with the New Delhi River Band, they performed at various shows with the NDRB at The Barn, including for certain one of the nights Big Brother played, since Recker recalls an encounter with a friendly but mystified Janis Joplin. Chris Recker has told me the whole, unvarnished story of The Mercy Street Blues Machine, but it is too 60s and too unbelievable to tell in part, so I will save the entire story for a blog post on another occasion.

November 25, December 2, December 9, 1966: The Barn, Scotts Valley New Delhi River Band
JGMF found a note in the November 21, 1966 SF Chronicle where Ralph Gleason proclaims that the NDRB will play every Friday Night at The Barn. This confirms what we had previously inferred.

A Joe Lyzowski poster for The Barn in Scotts Valley, featuring The New Delhi River Band (Fri Dec 16) and The Anonymous Artists Of America (Sat Dec 17)

December 16, 1966: The Barn, Scotts Valley New Delhi River Band
From what evidence we have, the New Delhi River Band seems to have had a regular Friday night booking at The Barn throughout the Fall of 1966. Without evidence to the contrary, I have to guess they played just about every Friday night, and some of the Saturday nights too. I'm not yet aware of non-Barn gigs in the Fall of '66, save for the Stanford show, the date of which is uncertain. However, while I expect there must have been some non-Barn shows, the truth was that there were few 'underground' places in the South Bay for electric bands to play in 1966. That would change dramatically within the next few months, however.

December 31, 1966: The Barn, Scotts Valley, CA New Delhi River Band/Anonymous Artists of America
From the evidence I have, it seems that the regular Friday night booking at The Barn at the end of 66 and the beginning of 1967 was held by the New Delhi River Band, and Saturday nights were covered by The Anonymous Artists Of America. The Anonymous Artists of America lived in a commune in La Honda called Rancho Diablo. When the Merry Pranksters abandoned the Santa Cruz Mountains, they gave much of their equipment to the AAA. One of the members of the group was Sara Ruppenthal Garcia, Jerry Garcia’s soon-to-be ex-wife.

The AAA was a very strange sounding group, by their own admission not very good at the time, but they were definitely way out there. Their story, too, is a strange and complicated '60s story that defies reality, so I will refrain from telling it all. Nonetheless, the Anonymous Artists had a Palo Alto genesis as well, and Sara had been Nelson's roommate in Waverley Street just a year earlier. With Kesey's bus parked outside The Barn, and two bands with folkie Palo Alto roots holding down the fort each weekend, the Santa Cruz Mountains were becoming a significant outpost for bohemian psychedelia, a title the area retains to this day.

On New Year's Eve 1966, the Grateful Dead, the Jefferson Airplane and Quicksilver Messenger Service had headlined an all-night extravaganza at the Fillmore Auditorium, about which only the foggiest of memories survive. However, although San Francisco was the center of the psychedelic rock explosion, things were breaking out all over. 16 months earlier, Jerry Garcia had been living in Waverley Street in Palo Alto and playing South Bay dives with the Warlocks, and now the Grateful Dead were headlining a sort of concert that literally hadn't existed then. That very same night, two of his former Waverley Street roommates (one of them his ex-wife), were headlining a similar, if smaller event just 75 miles to the South. No doubt the event at The Barn went on very late as well, but there are not even fragmentary records of the event.

By the end of 1966, the New Delhi River Band seemed to be following a path carved out by the Grateful Dead. The band was playing it's own brand of blues, it was the anchor attraction at it's own venue, and the group members were becoming professional musicians while seeming to conform to no previous model for the music industry. Those few who recall The Barn from this period recall it intensely and fondly, and the New Delhi River Band's driving blues were the soundtrack to a magical time in the Santa Cruz Mountains.

the next installment of the history of the New Delhi River Band can be seen here

•  

September 2, 1967 Cabrillo College Football Field, Aptos, CA: Grateful Dead/Canned Heat/others (Canceled?)

The poster for a rock festival at the football field at Cabrillo College, Aptos, CA on September 2-3, 1967

Both the Grateful Dead and the University of California at Santa Cruz were founded in 1965, after many years of planning, so UCSC made a suitable home for the band's archives. I have written at length elsewhere about the Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia's various appearances in Santa Cruz County between 1967 and 1987. The nearest that the Grateful Dead themselves got to the campus, however, as a performing entity at least, appears to have been their very first performance in the County. According to a well-circulated poster the Dead headlined a rock festival at Cabrillo College, just a few miles from the UCSC campus, on September 2, 1967. Since the Grateful Dead played Rio Nido the next two days (September 3 and 4), and those dates are fairly well confirmed, everyone, and most especially me, has presumed that the Dead headlined the first day of the Cabrillo College "Magic Music" Festival, on Saturday September 2.

I have always romanticized this event, entranced by the idea of the Grateful Dead headlining an outdoor show at the tiny Cabrillo stadium. Sadly, however, I am now leaning towards the conclusion that the show never took place. I would be delighted to be wrong, but difficult as it is to prove a negative, I can find no evidence that the show actually occurred, and I find it difficult to fathom that such a seemingly remarkable event in the history of Santa Cruz County rock music in the 1960s would pass by thoroughly unremarked.

[Update 2: thanks to the invention of the Internet, another researcher has found a newspaper listing from the August 29, 1967 Santa Cruz sentinel that the event was canceled].
Commenter Steve Hathaway tells us

It was indeed cancelled. The Tuesday August 29, 1967 edition of the Santa Cruz Sentinel has a short article headlined "No 'Rock' Festival At Cabrillo." Full article:
Contrary to information being circulated on handbills, the Magic Music Festival will NOT be held at Cabrillo College September 2 and 3. The performances of the rock and roll bands has not been authorized by the college, according to Cabrillo officials.
Hope that puts it to rest. BTW, I have one of the handbills and have posted images of it and the article at:http://www.45worlds.com/memorabilia/item/nc490994us 

What Is Known About The Event?
The "Magic Music Festival" is only known from a poster that appeared in Paul Grushkin's book The Art Of Rock. Since The Art Of Rock preceded the internet, posters published in that book were a principal source of original research for show lists, not least because the excellent reproductions allowed much of the fine print to be read. However, AOR (as it is known), was appropriately enough about the Art of rock posters, rather than as a sourcebook for archival research. As a result, many fine posters of canceled or re-scheduled shows were published there without comment, since the purpose of the book was not to document events. As a result, publication of a poster in that book indicates nothing about whether the event occurred.

The poster itself says

2 Days And Nights Of Magic and Music
Dancing On The Green
Lights By STP
Arts Crafts Lights Color Sound Displays
Sat Sun Sep 2-3 
3-12 PM
Cabrillo College Stadium
Tickets $2.50 At The Door

The bands listed are

Grateful Dead, Canned Heat, Leaves, Andrew Staples, Sons of Champlain (sic), New Delhi River Band, Second Coming, New Breed, Bfd. Blues Band, Gross Exaggeration, Yajahla tingle Guild, People, Jaguars, Art Collection, Morning Glory, Ben Frank's Electric Band, New Frontier, Chocolate Watch Band, Other Side, E types, Mourning Reign, Imperial Mange Remedy, Omens, Ragged Staff, talon Wedge, & Others.

The entire event sounds deeply logical. September 2 and 3, 1967 was the Saturday and Sunday of Labor Day Weekend. The Monterey Pop Festival had just happened an hour South of Santa Cruz a few months earlier, and the Cabrillo College Football Field was larger than any facility at the newly opened University of California at Santa Cruz (and may still be, as the UCSC Banana Slugs do not play football to my knowledge). There were three bands of the status to headline the Fillmore or Avalon, namely the Dead, Canned Heat and the Chocolate Watch Band, as well as a number of popular local hippie and hip rock groups.

It's worth noting, however, that all that is known about this event is that there was a poster published in the Art Of Rock. To my knowledge, every other reference to this show stems ultimately from this poster. Almost all the groups on the poster are the sort of hip band favored by collectors, archivists and 60s scholars like myself, and various websites, blog posts and articles in magazines like Cream Puff War or Ugly Things have covered these groups in some detail, as even the most casual google search will reveal. Yet I have been unable to find a single reference to this show actually happening--no band remembers opening for the Dead or Canned Heat at Cabrillo, nobody recalls a drug bust or LSD freakout or meeting their girlfriend at what would otherwise be a memorable event in Santa Cruz County. I realize it's impossible to prove a negative proposition, but am I supposed to believe that the first and still biggest rock event in Santa Cruz County happened at the end of the Summer Of Love and left nary a trace?

To give just one example, I looked again at the history of Talon Wedge, the last band mentioned on the poster. At the time, Talon Wedge was a Cream-styled heavy blues band in Santa Cruz. By 1969 they had evolved into a terrific band called Snail, who ruled Santa Cruz County bars and clubs for many years. Snail even released two underrated albums (Snail and Flow) in the late 1970s, and future Elvin Bishop and Jerry Garcia Band drummer Donnie Baldwin was a member of the band for a large part of that time. A great site called Garage Hangover has a great overview of Talon Wedge and early Snail, and includes a copy of the poster, but nothing is ever mentioned about the show. An absolutely amazing Comment thread recaps the entire history of Snail, with many of the members of the band and their friends weighing in with great, detailed memories. Yet among all 53 Comments, not a single one recalls an outdoor show opening for the Dead. If the show had been held, would none of the Santa Cruz teenagers remember it?

The Poster
A closer look at the poster suggests that it was a preliminary poster for a planned event, but the event itself was not close to occurring. Whether the poster was printed long in advance of the show, or whether the poster was just wishful thinking by an ambitious promoter remains unknown at this time. However, a number of things stick out about the poster. First of all, while the poster says "Cabrillo College Stadium," there is no map, no indicator of what city Cabrillo College was in and no directions of how to get there. It's one thing for a poster of a school dance to have no "directions" (the students know where the gym is), but this is a regional rock festival. Cabrillo is easy to get to, but shouldn't it say "Park Avenue exit off Highway 1, six miles South of Santa Cruz?" or something to that effect.

Also, the bands are listed in some kind of random order. Once a two-day event gets close to happening, prospective patrons want to know who will be playing what day. A poster that just listed the bands would have to have been a promotional item pushing an event some time off in the future. The band listing is why I think that the poster was published in mid-Summer, anticipating a Monterey Pop-like event that never actually happened. I have done considerable research on the 60s rock history of Santa Cruz County, with respect to The Barn in Scotts Valley, the New Delhi River Band and a variety of other tributaries. As a result, I have been in contact with a lot of people from that time, and not a one has mentioned this event, even when I specifically asked them about it, so I just can't buy that the event actually occurred.

Some Speculation
The Monterey Pop Festival took place on the weekend of June 16-18, 1967. Although the event did not really make economic sense, as all the bands played for free, a flurry of similar events were promoted up and down the West Coast over the next 18 months. I have to think some enterprising promoter thought that the Santa Cruz area would make a good candidate, given a resort area on Labor Day weekend. Cabrillo College would not have been in session until after Labor Day, so some College functionary may have given a provisional OK to use the football field.

Cabrillo College was a junior college that had opened in Aptos in 1959. It was the first institution of Higher Education in Santa Cruz County. It was a lively, interesting place, and had a well regarded Music Festival, featuring 20th Century composers, that started in the early 1960s. The campus itself is in a beautiful setting that most resorts would envy. It was a forward looking place and would not have been inherently hostile to a rock show presented on its campus.

However, Santa Cruz County was considerably smaller and less populated than it was today, and the "hippie" population was still tiny and not well liked (as opposed to now, where the opposite is the case). No rock concert (of the paying variety) had ever been held on the Cabrillo campus, to my knowledge. I can't imagine that the college would have tolerated a giant, Monterey Pop event on the sleepy little campus. The local roads and parking lots would have been completely overwhelmed. If the two-day festival was ever a serious proposition, I think it got shot down long before it came anywhere near fruition. All that remained was a poster of what might have been.

The Carl Connelly Stadium at Cabrillo College, June 2011

Having come to the mournful conclusion that the Cabrillo show never took place, I decided to look at the facility as it stands today. The venue is now called The Carl Connelly Stadium. While I'm sure that the stadium did not have artificial turf as it does today, the location of the stadium on the site (see photo above) indicates that it could not have been bigger or significantly different that it is today. As is typical of Junior College athletic fields, there are almost no bleachers. There were almost certainly fewer buildings in those days, so there may have been considerably more room to allow people to dance and watch the show, but it is not a large site. I have to think that after the size of Monterey Pop became known, any willingness on the school's part to host such an event evaporated. More's the pity.

Please Prove Me Wrong!
I normally write blog posts with the intention of being right, but I'd much rather be wrong in this case. I would love it if after I posted this, some close personal friend of the Yajahla Tingle or someone would chime in with memories of the event, whether or not the Grateful Dead played. It would still be the first outdoor rock concert of any size in Santa Cruz County, and almost all the bands have their share of fans. So here's to hoping against all the evidence that maybe there was an outdoor concert overlooking the Pacific Ocean on Saturday, September 2, 1967, even if all the evidence points in the other direction.

Updates: I May Actually Be Wrong--Hooray!

Ross weighs in with a listing from the Berkeley Barb from that week. He is confident that the event occurred, and the listing hints that the event may have been a one day affair. It says "Dead, Staples, 2nd Coming, Morning Glory, Canned Heat, 8 more: Cabrillo College, Santa Cruz, 3pm-midnite, $2.50 benef LMN, SPAR, others, info Pat Sullivan, 1838 W. Bayshore Rd, Palo Alto."

I do not know what organizations "LMN" and "SPAR" represent, but all campus events would have had to benefit some outside organization (students could not use a college facility on a for-profit basis). Whomever Pat Sullivan may have been--hey, maybe he's a reader!--that is the first indication of a promotional entity behind the event. West Bayshore was a sleepy residential part of Palo Alto, so the address was probably just the promoter's house.

It's great to be wrong--now to look for some eyewitnesses...

Update 2: I spoke to soon. As quoted above, commenter Steve Hathaway found a notice in the Santa Cruz Sentinel  of August 29, 1967 that the show was canceled, because the college had not approved the two-day rock and roll performance. A Santa Cruz-area musician (Larry Hosford of the E-Types) told me that he had played dances on that field, but I suspect this event was far larger than the school was willing to countenance.

The Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia in Santa Cruz County 1965-1987

(the poster for the Grateful Dead concert at Cabrillo College Stadium, Aptos, CA on September 2, 1967. Thanks to Ross for the scan)

Update: This post has been substantially updated, with new and more accurate information

On April 24, 2008, the Grateful Dead announced the gift of their archives to the University of California at Santa Cruz Special Collections Library. The archive includes all the non-musical material accumulated by the Dead over the years, from contracts to fan letters, and it will not only provide a major insight into an important California cultural phenomenon in the second half of the 20th century, it will end up being really helpful to the likes of me. Rotating displays of some of the material will apparently be regularly on display at McHenry Library at UCSC.

The Grateful Dead and UC Santa Cruz were always like minded entities, despite a lack of formal connection. Wikipedia summarizes the pre-history of UCSC by saying "the formal design process of the campus began in the late 1950s, culminating in the Long Range Development Plan of 1963." The same might be said of The Grateful Dead. Since the Dead and UCSC were both founded in 1965, they have both been devoted to different ways of doing things, whether dispensing with grades (which UCSC did not give until 1997) or refusing to play a song the same way twice. In honor of the Archive, this post will trace the limited appearances of The Grateful Dead and Jerry Garcia in Santa Cruz County.

The City of Santa Cruz and its University are isolated from the rest of the Bay Area by mountains, cliffs and the Pacific Ocean. Thus it had remained economically isolated until the last few decades, and part of Santa Cruz's charm was its insularity. This meant, however, that major rock shows were few and far between.

The Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead were in Santa Cruz County three times, and played at least two of them.

November 27, 1965 Ken Babbs Ranch, Soquel Acid Test
There was an Acid Test at Ken Babbs house, written about in Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. By all accounts, the Grateful Dead-who were still probably called The Warlocks, depending on who you believe--were there but did not perform, unless they did. So, to summarize, the Grateful Dead or The Warlocks were there and did or did not perform, probably.

September 2, 1967 Cabrillo College Football Field, Cabrillo Junior College, Aptos, CA
Benefit for SCA Santa Cruz
Grateful Dead/Canned Heat/The Leaves/Andrew Staples/Sons of Champlain (sic)/New Delhi River Band/Second Coming/New Breed/BFD Blues Band/Gross Exaggeration/Yajahla Tingle Guild/People/Jaguars/Art Collection/Morning Glory/Ben Frank’s Electric Band/New Frontier/Chocolate Watch Band/The Other Side/E-Types/Mourning Reign/Imperial Mange Remedy/Omens/Ragged Staff/Talon Wedge & Others.

This was a two-day Festival (Saturday and Sunday September 2-3) over Labor Day weekend, with music from 3-12 pm each day. The "beneficiary", SCA Santa Cruz, is now unknown to me, but the wording suggests that this was a campus sponsored event (which had to be not-for-profit). The bands listed above were spread out over the two days. The Dead most likely played on Saturday September 2, as they had another gig (at Rio Nido Dance Hall) on September 3. The Dead, Canned Heat,  Butterfield Blues Band and San Jose's own Chocolate Watch Band were the big names. The others were an interesting mixture of mostly South Bay bands (update: I have since learned there was an LA band called BFD Blues Band, so I believe they played and not Butterfield).

This two-day "rock festival' was the only major outdoor event at Cabrillo College, suggesting that whatever happened, it did not go down too well with the powers that be. Nonetheless, Cabrillo College (at 6500 Soquel Drive in Aptos) was just 9.1 driving miles from the UCSC Campus Entrance, so at least when the band turned South on Highway 1 they were pretty close to Campus.

September 24, 1983 Santa Cruz County Fairgrounds, Watsonville, CA
During this period, the Grateful Dead and Bill Graham Presents were experimenting with different venues around California. While the site was pleasant, and the afternoon weather was great as always, the facility lacked the parking to manage thousands of Deadheads parking at once, and the venue was somewhat overwhelmed, in the genial pleasant way that Deadheads used to do such things. Still, the band played well, and that's what matters. Nonetheless, I do not recall this venue being used for a major act again, I think mainly due to the parking situation (note: earlier I had this as October 24, not September, due to brain fade).

The Barn, Scotts Valley-no, sorry

Due to a 1999 article in the Santa Cruz Sentinel, there is a suggestion floating around the internet that the Grateful Dead played The Barn in Scotts Valley between 1966 and 1968. The Barn was Santa Cruz County's unique link to psychedelic culture, linked to the Pranksters and many other interesting people. Sad to say, fascinating as the history of The Barn actually is, the Grateful Dead never played there (for the record, the article says bands like the Dead, Quicksilver and Big Brother played there, but only the last two actually did).

Jerry Garcia
As Jerry Garcia increased his extra curricular activities outside of the Grateful Dead in the 1970s and 80s, he came to play Santa Cruz a few times. This coincided with the rise in Santa Cruz's population and economic profile, because of the University and its proximity to Silicon Valley.

October 6, 1973 Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz Old And In The Way
Old And In The Way was a bluegrass band in which Jerry Garcia played banjo and sang. It was not "his" band, but he was so much more famous than the other musicians that Old And In The Way are remembered as Jerry Garcia's bluegrass band. This show--if it took place--would have been one of their last, and the other band members would have been Peter Rowan, David Grisman, Vassar Clements and John Kahn.

An old list compiled by Dennis McNally has a projected show at the Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium on Saturday, October 6. The band was also scheduled to play outdoors at Sonoma State College in Humboldt the next day. The Sonoma show was canceled, due to bad weather, but a show in San Francisco at The Boarding House was held the night after (October 8), and recorded for the band's groundbreaking 1975 album. I have been unable to confirm whether or not the Santa Cruz show actually happened (for various reasons this show has dropped on and off various lists; I know the whole story, but its very wonky and boring to explain the whole thing, so I'm sparing everyone).

The Santa Cruz Civic Auditorium at, 307 Church Street, is an excellent Art Deco style building that was completed in 1940. As Santa Cruz rose in importance, more and more performers started using the friendly little 2,000 capacity hall for warm up shows, or shows on off nights, and whether or not Old And In The Way actually played this show, Garcia played the venue several times in later years. The Civic is just 2.1  miles to the UCSC Campus Entrance, as close as Garcia got to campus.

February 20-21, 1975 Margareta's, Santa Cruz Good Ole Boys
This is another mystery. David Nelson and Frank Wakefield had a bluegrass group, and Garcia produced their album (Pistol Packin Mama). There is a chance Garcia played this gig, although its unlikely, and in any case I don't even know where Margareta's was.

June 20-21, Kresge Town Hall, UCSC, Santa Cruz Keith and Donna
A BASS Tickets ad lists "Keith and Donna, S. Cruz Jun 20-21." A Commenter went to one of the shows, and reported that it was at Kresge Town Hall. Kresge Town Hall is the principal auditorium for Kresge College, which has (per the website) a maximum capacity of 616 standing. To my knowledge, this was the only time that members of the Grateful Dead performed on the UCSC campus [updated].

October 8, 1975 Del Mar Theatre, Santa Cruz Jerry Garcia Band with Nicky Hopkins
The Del Mar Theatre is at 1124 Pacific Avenue. The theater opened on August 14, 1936. By the 1970s the theater was not in great shape, and the operators started filling out weekends with rock shows. Quite a few good shows were held there in the 1970s. The theater probably seated about 900.

This was one of the earliest shows by the newly organized Jerry Garcia Band, with the great pianist Nicky Hopkins joining stalwart bassist John Kahn and drummer Ron Tutt. Tutt also drummed for Elvis Presley, and the Garcia Band's touring schedule was limited to dates when Elvis Presley and The Grateful Dead were not performing. Due to the small size of the venue, the group played both early and late shows without an opening act.

The Jerry Garcia Band played the Del Mar Theatre twice more before it became a multiplex in 1978. The venue (still a movie theater, now refurbished), is 2.3 miles from the UCSC Campus Entrance.

February 26, 1976 Del Mar Theatre, Santa Cruz Jerry Garcia Band
Grateful Dead pianist Keith Godchaux had replaced Hopkins, and his wife Donna had joined as vocalist.

(Santa Cruz artist Jim Phillips's poster from the Del Mar)

August 19, 1976 Del Mar Theater, Santa Cruz Jerry Garcia Band

February 19, 1978 Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz Jerry Garcia Band/Robert Hunter and Comfort
Parts of this concert were recently released as part of the archival live cd Jerry Garcia Band: Bay Area 1978 on Grateful Dead Records.  Garcia songwriting partner Robert Hunter opened the show with his band Comfort.

March 30-31, 1979 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz Reconstruction
Reconstruction was Jerry Garcia's jazz-funk excursion with Merl Saunders. From 1979 onwards, Jerry Garcia regularly played a circuit of larger Bay Area nightclubs, and The Catalyst in Santa Cruz became a regular stop. The Catalyst, at 1011 Pacific Avenue, was the site of many fine Garcia shows for the next decade.  The Catalyst is 2.3 miles from the UCSC Campus Entrance.

Jerry Garcia played Santa Cruz 13 more times. For complete notes, see The Jerry Site.
May 27, 1979 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz Reconstruction
February 7, 1980 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz Jerry Garcia Band
January 18, 1981 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz Jerry Garcia Band
January 29, 1981 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz Jerry Garcia Band
April 21, 1981 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz Jerry Garcia Band
June 25, 1981 Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz Jerry Garcia Band with Phil Lesh
February 2-3, 1982 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz Jerry Garcia Band
October 13, 1982 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz Jerry Garcia Band
January 18, 1983 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz Jerry Garcia Band
March 5, 1983 Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz Jerry Garcia Band
October 16, 1985 The Catalyst, Santa Cruz Jerry Garcia and John Kahn (early and late shows)
February 24, 1987 Civic Auditorium, Santa Cruz Jerry Garcia Band

Appendix
There were a few performances in Santa Cruz County by members of the Grateful Dead in the 70s. I have recently discovered, via a Commenter, that the Keith and Donna Band, with Bill Kreutzmann, played the UCSC Campus. Keith and Donna played Kresge Town Hall, the Kresge College auditorium (capacity 616) on June 20 and 21, 1975. This was probably some sort of end-of-quarter event, as finals would have been a week or two earlier. To my knowledge, these Keith and Donna shows are the only appearances on the UCSC campus by active members of the Grateful Dead.

Jefferson Airplane Footnote
The Jefferson Airplane don't have an archive, to my knowledge, and it wouldn't be as interesting as the Grateful Dead's in any case. Nonetheless, just in case, the Jefferson Airplane played the UCSC "Spring Thing" dance two years in a row: first at the Cocoanut Grove on May 14, 1966, and then on May 11, 1967 at the  Cowell-Stevenson dining hall.

Map

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