44 years ago this month - Quicksilver Messenger Services self-titled debut album released in May, 1968. It reached #63 on the Billboard 200 Top LPs chart... Quicksilver may have lacked the longevity of peers like the Grateful Dead and Santana, but they were one of the finest bands to come out the Bay Areas improvisatory acid rock scene in the 60s. The twin guitars of John Cippolina and Gary Duncan made for the kind of spontaneous sonic dreamscapes that marked the finer examples of the genre. Like that of its San Francisco brethren, the bands early repertoire consisted largely of long pieces with extended instrumental passages, allowing for plenty of interplay between the musicians. The 12-minute jamfest The Fool is a good example of this seminal groups dynamic energy as captured on this debut album. ____________________________________________________ THE FOLLOWING IS FROM DIFFERENT SOURCED ARTICLES WAITING FOR DINO Dino Valente, having made a transcontinental hike from Greenwich Village, where hed achieved a charismatic coffeehouse reputation as a distinctive 12-string folkie song and dance man at the turn of the Sixties, arrived via a fruitless year in Los Angelesto start afresh in the folk haunts of San Franciscos gaudy North Beach district. A couple of years later, with little more than a local following, a few unissued tracks in the can at Autumn Records and an ache to investigate some of the areas the Beatles had opened up, he fell in with a couple of shady young characters who appear to have been helping to make ends meet by making certain scarce and beneficial herbs available to a wider public ... these were Jim Murray, Gemini looner extraordinaire, and John Cipollina an ex-real estate agent who felt it was too late to go back now. This was 1964. Inevitably, they set about forming a group. Dino not only had a head full of ideas, he was one of the few guys on the scene who had a manager - Tom Donahue, who owned Autumn Records and a club in the city called Mothers. So we knew that if we played with Dino, wed have a place to stay, Well start our rehearsals tomorrow Dino told us, but the next day, before we had played a note together, Dino was busted right here in Sausalito and taken to jail. Well, Jim and I sat around thinking that hed be out real soon - we were told that hed be out on Tuesday, then we were told Thursday, then the following Tuesday, then maybe ... you know. Well, that went on for a year and a half! Jim and I, meanwhile, were waiting for his release and sleeping on this chicks floor - no, we werent even doing that; we were sleeping up on Mount Tamalpais in a 54 Plymouth that I had at the time. Not long after Dino was put inside, we met a friend of his, David Freiberg, whod just got out of jail himself ... and because he was a friend of Dinos and had just got out, we took him into the group, or what was trying to become a group. He played 12-string and was getting around as a folksinger, but he wanted to play bass, so I loaned him one that I had in the trunk of my car and he started hanging out with us, learning to play bass and singing real good. The group at this time (64/65) was Jim Murray on vocals and harmonica, David Freiberg on bass and vocals, a local guy called Casey Sonoban on drums, Skip Spence on rhythm guitar and vocals, and me on lead guitar, and we were rehearsing at the Matrix, a club in San Francisco that the Jefferson Airplane had part ownership of. They were letting us use it. Well, one day Marty Balin came up to Skip, who was standing there with his acoustic guitar around his neck, and asked him if hed ever played drums before - and Skip told him about this marching band he was in at his high school. So he was rolled into the Airplane around the same time as Casey left ... he was crazy, and far more at home with congas than behind a set of drums - in fact, he was conga player in the original line-up of Copperhead. The three of us that were left began to look for a new guitarist and drummer and ran across Gary Duncan and Greg Elmore who had been in a group called the Brogues, which had broken up because the service had drafted one guy and another had disappeared without trace. They were living in a basement at 52 Water Steet, a crazy little alley in North Beach, and my Plymouth happened to break down out in front - the clutch went - so we had to stay the night, but we ended up staying there for 4 months. What a crazy street that was; a bunch of neighbours had got together and had painted this long fiery dragon which stretched right down the street ... this was the early days of psychedelia - right? Lots of LSD, no money, and lots of living off the street, which, coming from a good family, was very strange to me ... but this is Fat City and you can always get a meal or a place to stay - and you could pick up any hitch-hiker and theyd give you some grass. Dino was eventually released from the State Pen, so Quicksilver Messenger Service was finally ready to deliver - but for some reason, Dino was a little wary of Greg and Gary and he wasnt entirely convinced that his re-joining would be a good idea. As it happened, all this conjecture was unnecessary - he was only out for 2 days before he was busted again and returned to jail. Assuming that fate had ruled out any participation by Dino, the quintet set about rehearsal once more, and their first gig was to play at a Christmas party organised by the Committee, a local satirical group. These guys came down to our basement and said theyd give us something to smoke if we gave them a rock n roll version of The Star Spangled Banner - the Charlatans were originally going to do it, but had evidently backed out. We thought what the hell? Weve got no reputation to harm, so well do it. We went and recorded it to their satisfaction and they thought we were good enough to play at their Christmas party ... they offered us 200 dollars to do it. Wow, we all said, give it to us now, give it to us! So they did - even though it was only October ... and we took the money and moved out of our Water Street basement, into a houseboat in Larkspur, up in Marin County. THE BAND WITH MUD ON ITS BOOTS We moved into the houseboats not long before the authorities condemned them, burnt them down and filled in the quay area ... but we lived out that winter on the water. We didnt work much either ... the first job we had was in December (1965), so we practiced through October and November ... and we burned everything we could get our hands on to keep warm. It was bitterly cold up there, but the boat had this oil drum with a hole cut out of it and a stove-pipe coming out of the top, and we got that thing absolutely red hot every night. In fact, we ended up burning about a third of the houseboat in an effort to keep warm. I had a really bad case of pneumonia at the time, and one wall of the room I slept in was totally useless - it had this huge hole in it and when the tide came in, it almost poured right onto the bed ... it was really low life in some ways, but we had a lot of fun. Like I say, it was pretty cold living up there on the mud and the water, and the boat would get lashed by the rain and the wind - so we burned up whatever we could find ... fences, anything .. alls fair in that sort of situation. Anyway, we moved out of there pretty quick after wed burnt down a neighbours boat - some kind of fight had developed ... and then our boat got burned too - Im sure I cant remember all the circumstances. We moved back down to Mill Valley and met Ron Polte, who became our manager. This was after wed been through about half a dozen other managers - the first of them had got busted and put in jail for three years, the next two were brothers who were health food fanatics - they kept us well fed and healthy for about three months, then the next one was a mad astrologer from Chicago. Anyway, we got this 3 storey house in Mill Valley - a Victorian insane asylum or something, complete with a ghost. We had a pretty good time there but never rehearsed because it was right in the middle of town. This was 1966, when people across America were beginning to drift into the San Francisco area, and we became fairly well known as the band that lived a block and a half from the bus depot in Mill Valley ... so theyd just take a bus and come looking for us. As a result, the cops were always in and out of the house looking for the 14 year old chicks! All this time, we were slowly gaining a reputation in the Bay Area and by the middle of 1966 wed become quite a legend; we were the first band on the scene in the country, and the City people looked up at us because wed lived on the houseboats and were the only band who walked around with mud on their boots ... everybody used to make a big deal out of that for some reason. After a few months, the restrictions of living in a town, albeit a small one, began to make themselves felt and to escape a growing notoriety they went north once more - this time to an 88 acre ranch at Point Reyes Station, some 25 miles north-west of Frisco. Gary Duncan and I went straight out and bought cowboy hats - if we were going to live on a ranch, wed do it in style. Then I b[r]ought out my collection of guns and we b[r]ought out all these pretty girls who loved horses, because we had plenty of horses ... 40 to 70 head running around our property all the time. Next, I went out and got a wolf - a real Northern McKenzie timber wolf; it was the largest of the litter and its father was 224 pounds and seven and a half feet long. Id been studying wolves really intensely for along time, about eight years, and had become some kind of an authority on them, so I thought that Id get one now that I had a big enough place to keep it. This period, the ranch period you could call it, saw Quicksilver Messenger Service at the height of its insanity, but the record companies had begun to take an interest in us and were watching us closely - even though we hadnt the slightest intention of signing with anybody. We had developed a great mystique because we were so weird and because wed chosen to live way out in the wilderness. The only bands living out there in the San Geronimo Valley were us and the Grateful Dead, who had a summer camp up there - Camp Lagunitas for Boys and Girls. They had a swimming pool there, and arts and crafts things, but what they really got into was archery ... and they went into this big Red Indian trip as a result. So we were 7 or 8 miles away acting out our cowboy fantasies while the Dead were whooping it up with their bows and arrows ... and we inevitably got into this Cowboys and Indians riff. Apart from the Dead, the only other person we used to see was this guy called Jim Jensen who I lived in a deserted bakery up there, but then Dino got out of jail again and moved in with us. Hed decided to go his own way as a solo, but sometimes he came to gigs with us and played and sang as part of the band ... in fact some of those gigs were recorded - The Quicksilver Messenger Service with Dino Valente. Anyway, our rivalry with the Grateful Dead culminated in two of Quicksilver being put in jail. THE QUICKSILVER/DEAD FEUD We had gone to San Francisco to get the Dead, because they had come and got us real bad. We had this roadie who wasnt too good at carrying equipment, so we turned him into a cook - and every night all of the people living on the ranch, the group and the roadies and the friends and the girls, wed all gather together to eat. We I lived in six different buildings spread around the ranch, but every evening wed come together to dine and then smoke ourselves silly until we passed out! Well, the Dead knew we did this, and they figured that the best time to catch us off guard was in our after-dinner relaxation. You see, Id had this big argument with Jerry Garcia; we spent hours arguing the relative merits of cowboys and Indians ... it was at a Musicians Union meeting, in fact. For a laugh, a lot of us had decided to attend a Union meeting and these old straights who ran the Union almost collapsed; theyd never seen such a bunch of longhaired musicians before ... and there were so many of us; people from the Airplane, the Charlatans, the Dead, Quicksilver, the Mystery Trend, the Great Society, Big Brother ... it was just a whole gang of us, and these guys werent ready for us at all - it was a really funny evening. Anyway, Garcia was saying things like Cowboys are lame, Indians are much hipper, nobody loves cowboys anymore but Indians are groovy because theyre into flowers and stuff ... you guys are nowhere. He was saying it all in fun, but he was giving me a hard time, so I said Yeah? Well our band says that the Grateful Dead eats shit. We got into this slanging match until all these straight musician guys were cowering in the corners ... we were really digging it, but we made out that our tempers were fraying and we started to get really hot under the collar, shouting and stuff. When 1 got home that night, I told the other guys that we ought to go and get the Dead for saying that cowboys arent as cool as Indians, and they said yeah, lets get em, but then we got stoned and forgot all about it. A couple of nights later, wed just finished eating and we were all swacked out as usual, when suddenly theres all this whooping and hollering ... the dogs were barking like crazy, my wolf was howling, and we didnt know what was going on. Then suddenly the door bursts open and the entire Grateful Dead family crash in on us, whooping and shouting, all in feathers and warpaint, all high on acid, all crazy. Well, they got us real bad; they were all over us before we even realised what was happening - brandishing tomahawks and firing arrows into the walls ... you never saw anything I Ike it in your life. Needless to say, our egos were well and truly crushed and ground into the dirt because the Dead were all going around saying that our band eats shit Dino was with us at the time and being part Indian, he took it rather more personally than was intended - but anyway, we made up our minds that the Dead were not going to be allowed to get away with it ... no chance. Two weeks later, the Dead were due to play the Fillmore, sharing the bill with the Airplane, and thats where we reckoned wed get them. The plan was for us to wear all our cowboy gear, masks and guns and take over the stage during their set ... we knew it wouldnt be difficult because the Dead were always out of their heads in those days. For those two weeks we rehearsed solidly, harder than we ever had before, until wed perfected a 15 minute version of Kaw Liga was a Wooden Indian, which we intended to play at the Fillmore to humiliate them. Then we went out and bought cap guns, because we wanted to make a bit of noise as well as brandishing real guns ... we were going to frighten the piss out of them; wait till theyd finished their first song and strike, knowing theyd be too spaced out to resist. We called Bill Graham, explained what we were going to do, and he said it was cool and promised not to tell a soul, and we let Gleason in on it too ... but that was it - no-one else would know who these masked men were! We were going to grab them and handcuff them to their speaker cabinets, because they had got these huge things that Owsley had got for them, with big handles ... can you imagine how dramatic it was going to be??? Garcia and his gang being handcuffed and chained at gunpoint and watching us play Kaw Liga on their instruments! Then theyd know that cowboys were cooler than Indians after all! Everything was taken care of ... everything except the X factor. The Fillmore was in a predominantly Black, ghetto area of San Francisco, and earlier that day some young kid had broken a jewellers window, grabbed something and run - and this cop arrived on the scene, pulled his .357 Magnum and yelled halt or I fire ... well, he fired and hit this kid right in the back of his head. The velocity of the bullet just about took his head off, and the whole neighbour hood went nuts about it ... the tension of the entire area just tightened up to breaking point. And we arrived a few hours later, knowing nothing of what had happened ... maybe you can imagine the effect of half a dozen freaks suddenly appearing outside the Fillmore with masks and guns. The cops were on us before wed moved ten feet. Our protestations were useless, of course; they didnt want to know it was a joke - they were in no mood for joking. We tried to explain that we were going into the Fillmore to play, and that this was our stage gear, but they wouldnt believe that we were anything less than hippie revolutionaries bent on capitalising on the indignation of the Black population. As soon as we realised that it was no use, we tried to disperse but they got Jim Murray and David Freiberg and threw them in the tank with all these Blacks who were feeling real hostile towards any whites because theyd heard about the shooting of the kid. Everything was explained in the end, but David and Jim werent released for 3 days - and we never got the Dead after all ... in fact, we eventually did, but Im not going to talk about that. [The version of this article printed in ZigZag 38 includes an additional section: Gunfight at Point Reyes Station here.] DONAHUES OUT TO LUNCH When we first started and were living in that basement on Water Street, we used to call up Tom Donahue, and say listen, youre Dinos manager and Dino says were his band - so what can you do for us? But Valenti was in jail and Donahue didnt even want to speak to us - so every time we called, there would be all this mumbling and then his secretary would say hes out to lunch. Well, we called him practically every day for 3 months, but no matter what time it was, he was always out to lunch. So, after a while, the penny dropped and wed all walk around chanting Donahues out to lunch ... Donahues out to lunch ... it became a real big catchphrase around the house. They decided they didnt need a record contract anyway; it might interfere with their policy of uninterrupted enjoyment ... but when some of their friends started cutting albums, they were keen to see what happened. The Airplane signed with RCA and all the other bands in the area began to watch them real close, to see what would happen. The Airplane were really taking off locally; Matthew Katz was handling their affairs, they had the Matrix, they wrote and played good stuff, they packed out the Fillmore whenever they went there, and their reputation was really spreading out across the country - by word of mouth, I suppose, and through the underground press. So they really had it right there ... but all of a sudden, when they started recording, they were walking around with long faces. Then the Dead signed, and the same thing happened ... they werent nearly as much fun. And all the groups were being urged to go out on tour, promoting their albums over as much of the country as they could cover - and nobody ever seemed to be playing around town anymore ... the scene was breaking up, But we were still around, and we werent about to sign up and leave the area, so we got all the gigs we could handle. In fact, Quicksilver holds the record for the number of gigs played at the Avalon; 75 nights I think it was. So whilst we were up there on our ranch, fooling around and having good times, we were always capable of getting ourselves together to come into the city and play our arses off. We shared the bill with so many different people; everyone from Howling Wolf to the Doors - but we got more money than any of them, even though we hadnt got an album out or anything. So we stayed around ... never did too much travelling, except up and down the state. Whilst their manager, Ron Polte, was assessing the various record company offers, sending them back with clauses amended in red ink and making outrageous demands, he negotiated a one-off deal with United Artists, which involved Quicksilvers appearance in a film called Revolution, a pot-boiler about the underground, and their contributing two tracks to the soundtrack album. Ive never seen the film, says Cipollina. I missed it when it came to town, but maybe itll come on television someday ... doubt it though - it wasnt too hot from what I hear. Anyway, the band was a 5 piece in the film, but by the time we came to cut the two songs for the album, Jim Murray had left and we were down to four. So if you can find somewhere where Revolution is playing, youll see us as we were back in that summer of 67 ... some summer. Quicksilver do two tracks on the album; Buffy Sainte Maries Codine and their adaptation of the old folker Babe Im gonna leave you ... both superb. Sad but true, the album is now deleted but if you come across a copy, grab it fast, because it constitutes an essential fragment of the San Francisco jigsaw. WHATS AN 8-TRACK? I remember when we actually did sign; we were really depressed afterwards ... we were walking around with gloomy expressions saying we finally did it ... never mind, it was fun while it lasted. Mind you, we held out until we got a really good deal; Ron Polte is a genius - Im still glad to say hes my friend and Id never consider signing anything without asking his advice. Not only did they get a load of money, they got unprecedented freedoms in terms of material, presentation and studio time. Also, we made Capitol provide 8-track facilities for our use ... almost unheard of in those days of 4-track studios. It was the first time Capitol had ever seen an 8-track, and theyd said whats an 8-track? So we said we dont know, but we hear theyre really groovy, so weve got to have one! This first album, Quicksilver Messenger Service, was started at the beginning of December 1967 with Nick Gravenites and Harvey Brooks producing (they just told us what to do and we did it), and Pete Welding was subsequently roped in to help mix the tracks down. According to Cipollina, the album was a lot of fun ... and some parts are pretty good I think. Such delicate understatement! A little unsteady in places, certainly subdued ... but still magnificent. Setting new standards for twin guitar interplay, Gary Duncan and John Cipollina trade rhythm and lead roles - Duncans full bodied, more mellow tone contrasting with the ringing density of Cipollinas solid Gibson. Listen to Gold And Silver and youll hear it all. The albums happy atmosphere, I feel, stems from the obvious fact that they recorded it basically for themselves and their friends (whoever wanted to listen) ... no compromise, no pandering to commercial considerations - just 4 musicians playing their hearts out. What more could you ask? ... but this was only an indication of their power and quality. And thats where we leave the story. Quicksilver Messenger Service (album) went on to record a commercially disastrous and peculiar single, Bears, and then the monumentally classic Happy Trails before commencing on the tortuous and lengthy slide into oblivion. But enough of that. It should be time to turn the record over again and play Pride of Man. __________________________________________________ ORIGINAL ROLLING STONE REVIEW Quicksilvers initial and long-awaited excursion into the primordial clear light of San Francisco isnt quite what was expected, due to the production staff headed by the Electric Flags Nick Gravenites and Harvey Brooks. The Quicksilver Messenger Service dont sound quite the same since theyve heard the Flag and Mike Bloomfield, late arrivals on the San Francisco scene. As a result, most of the album cuts (only six altogether) come across sounding like the Electric Flag, minus their blues-loyal predication and Buddy Miles, doing straight rock. An exception to the general tone of the album is Quicksilvers interpretation of folk-rock (remember?) singer Hamilton (Bob) Camps Pride of Man. This is an unusual number for them to have done, but its really a better version than Camps original. Another rock group, Clear Light, started off their album with a folk-oriented cut, Tom Paxtons Mr Blue, which they butchered unmercifully. Not so this version of Pride, which the Quicksilver carry off admirably. The song itself has some surprisingly profound lyrics: Oh God/Pride of man/Broken in the dust again. The first inkling of the Flag influence is evident on Light Your Windows, which is spaced by some obvious Bloomfieldian guitar breaks. John Cipollina is an excellent guitarist and his susceptibility to Bloomfields techniques is understandable, and, since he plays so well, readily acceptable. The guitar on Dinos Song wanders in and out of a Kaukonen, Garcia and Bloomfield-like garden of sounds, supporting a strong vocal of simple but intensely reflective lyrics endeavoring to explain that All I ever wanted to do was know you/And maybe hope you could know me too. Gold And Silver is (whether intended or not) a rock arrangement of Dave Brubecks Take Five. Cipollinas guitar excursions are singularly evocative of Paul Desmonds sax changes. They manage to get away from the Take Five theme a bit by going into some Vanilla Fudgish, sluggish tempo drags which develop into a takeoff reminiscent of the Flags Another Country, even adding some fluttery, tinkly sounds a la Country Joe & the Fish. Nick Gravenites composition, Its Been Too Long, is done in typical Flag style. The vocal is as close a duplication of Gravenites singing as it could possibly be. Its a great piece, though, from its raw, Albert King intro, to a campy whoa whoa whoa Dion imitation and old 50s R&R fade out. The Fool takes up most of Side Two but, unfortunately, not very justifiably. It starts out carefully, waiting for the guitar to move out, spaced by some beautiful bass runs which cut into some hard-rock movements only to be lost in a series of impotent semi-buildups. Some very handsome guitar phrasing sneaks through but whatever good it does winds up buried halfway through the track. It digresses into some disappointing, ineffable routines, including a guitar-growling sequence, followed by a Claptonesque wah-wah pedal ritual. But with the addition of the vocal it picks up somewhat — the words are intoned in a middle-eastern, Hebrew cantor-like quaver. It closes out with some Yardbird Still Im Sad declensions, culminating in an organ-anchored Bach-Procol Harum denouement. Its inevitable that a group will absorb a certain measure of influence from other bands — and the Quicksilver Messenger Service emerged on record as a composite of influence, from their overbearing Flag-derived arrangements to a number of other easily identifiable characteristics. But, incredibly, their formula works. They have a good, even, remarkably honest sound. Theirs is a much finer record debut than the Grateful Deads. The only problem seems to be a lack of original direction, something that will be impossible to locate anywhere but in their own individual musical sense. ~ BrryGifford (Ju, 1968)
Posted on: Sat, 10 May 2014 02:11:55 +0000
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