THE FAMILY DOGS PRESENTS

THE FAMILY DOGS PRESENTS

Like starlight, ages old as we see it, rapping with Chet Helms of the Family Dog recalls the scene half a decade old, before the Haight flowered and the Avalon bloomed. The Dog was one of the original “families” or tribes in the city, formed if nothing else to throw killer parties and get off the street.

Until then, about Oct. ‘65, there hadn’t been any real group gatherings, and Chet and Ellen Castelli of the Family wanted to do something for entertainment and economic sustenance. So they did environmental light shows in California Hall. But Ellen split and the hall gig died.

The scene has come a long way--from Gary Snyder’s Zen and Gracie Slick’s Grate Society amid pre-aware plastic to the gaudy, very hip psychedelic dungeons of L.A. to the whining speed & spare change laments of Haight St. ‘68. And vet it rebirths ready aged, a resolutely visionary phoenix.

Throughout the creative chaos, Frisco floats eternal. The electric kool-aid culture was acid-tested here, its pulse steady to a 4/4 bedrock rythm. Colors flowing, a psychedoolie schoolbus or three still winds about the city’s hills, for like a sugar cube on the urban tongue, Haight Ashbury dissolved into the surrounding boroughs of the Bay area (a freek for your block today).

Bill Tjfaham was then just starting a ballroom with a commercial approach, i.e., rock and roll concerts and a few lights. Chet took alternate weekends at the ballroom, with the S.F. Mime Troupe and theft freewheeling stage satire, commedia del Arte. But Spring ‘66 saw hassles between Graham and Helms resulting in Chet’s move to the Avalon, where after a series of partners during the changeover to rock music and satire, the group was incorporated under the name Family Dog.

Psychedelic posters were BORN when the Dog announcements (They were the first wigged out concert to employ Stan Miller better known as Mouse) which quickly became fixtures in first San Fransisco and later the entire country. Geometric Moire patterns, black lite colors, day glo madness, all became part of the West coast ethos.

The Avalon was the polarity of the Fillmore--the Dog concentrated on local bands, mixing high energy S.F. groups like the Airplane and Grateful Dead with them. The Fillmore aimed at large crowds based on the drawing power of emerging big time groups like Hendrix and later Gream and Traffic.

Enthused with Ballroom success in S.F., the Dog opened a ballroom in Denver that incorporated the best of both halls on the coast. It ran until mid-March of ‘67, when police and other local harassment became too heavy. Chet believed he layed too much (in terms of stars, the Denver scope was much larger) on ‘em too soon.

And back on the Pacific edge, the scene had changed too. The wailing buzzing tones of experimentation and innovation gave way to a tightly controlled sound. Slowly, the relaxed lower-energy Avalon’s crowds waned, until in April of this year, the doors closed, a debt-ridden demise.

Dreams never really end though, specially in S.F., where things have a way of working out. “A bunch of long haired, groovy investor/students got together bread and incorporated under Assoc. Rubber Dog,” Chet smiled “and so here we come again.”

“Here” is Family Dog on the Great Highway (that runs along the Pacific beach) a converted dance hall in the amusement park. The seaside location is ideal for a great number of reasons; it muffles the noise of the bands, a real problem at the old Avalon, there’s acres of free parking, and most of all, its a spiritual uplift and relaxing to leave the hall to go to the beach. Walking out of the old place you were hit with the “car row” aluminum, glass and exhaust of 'downtown. “The energy levels aren’t opposed, the surfs rhythm is in tune with any sort of music.”

“I’ve found that I don’t like rock and roll in the building in the afternoon because of the natural sounds of the wind, the ocean, and the crackling fire (in one of the two fireplaces). But at sundown there’s a natural transition into other things.”

Picking up on some ideas gained from the old Avalon, Chet prefers to think of the new place as a sensorium instead of a ballroom. “It’s a few centuries old, this communal idea. That’s what the church used to be all about, but they blew it quite a while ago. Ifs all based on the environmental factors for a party vs. a show. I’m an environmentalist, the S.F. scene has come to focus primarily on the groups. But people don’t come out to see the stars, they come out to be with other people. The people are the stars. If that’s not so then it ain’t a party.

Determined to create a party, the Family has built many innovations into the new place. Most of these are based on Chet’s McCluhanesque theory of “hot” and “cold” clusters. People plus emotion equals hot. People and no motion equals cold cluster. “The pattern is familiar, doors open, the crowd files in and plops down for an evening of seated music.”

The Dog outwits this through a scheme that runs the entire evening. First a group of drummers sets up rhythm on conga drums until the first band. And with each set, the bands play from different ends of the ballroom.

The low stages at either end of the main room made of component parts so that the shapes can be switched. The sound system is laid out horizontally in accordance with the low atmosphere.

Other features include a rear-projection light show on a floating screen canted at a 30 degree angle (there are no other lights), an outdoor patio with two fireplaces (S.F. nights are chilly especially-next to the ocean) and both balcony and sunken eating areas. “The arrangement allows people to leave the high energy areas and get into fresh air without leaving to disconnect yourself from everyghing.”

“I’m interested in seeing the establishment of a viable musical/theater performing showcase instituted on the durablity of the S.F. scene which is always changing. It used to be so groovy because it was complete and total vision. Now it’s become a tightly focused scene.

And part of this is mirrored in the “ballroom” atmosphere and the ' music, “The institution of announcers is a hype artist arrangement. They hype a crowd into a group that’s going to perform. Its more subtle. There was a lot of looseness in the music of 4 or 5 vears back, it was the symphonic nature of it that reflected the looseness and freedom of the scene. Now only the Grateful Dead do it.”

“In this new place I’d like to encourage bands to get into it on an improvisational basis. ‘There’s so much to play’, it used to be. Now, there’s less free music. There’s a curve of .1Vi-2.hours per band to really get it on, really get up to their peak. Then the energy subsides naturally. We want this intead of 40 min. sets.” -

“The whole shot depends on the conciousness of the director, who. shouldn’t be a promnter. 1 don’t view myself as such. I produce experiences through a promotion vehicle, for its necessary that we survive ecnomically,”

“I don’t consider myself the savior of the world. I consider the scene the hope, and if the people don’t. support it, then there’s not much hope.”