The Family Dog After The Fall

The Family Dog After The Fall

The long - suffering Family Dog, closed for four days in January by the Internal Revenue Service, has reopened again but this time Chet Helms, who is the spiritual if not titular leader of whatever community combine runs the Dog at this point, has a little different perspective now; that perspective, Helms feels, is a direct result of the changes San Francisco and San Franciscans went through in the wake of the Altamont disaster.

“Up to that point (Altamont) I had gone through a six, eight month, maybe a year bag of not really valuing my opinions about things. I think that that taught me to value myself and my attitudes. The only way that Altamont and things like that happen is by a lot of us being in that insecure place.”

Altamont was a particularly decisive event for San Franciscans because of that, he thought. “I read the I Ching the day after and I threw the Turning Point, which is what Kesey threw a few years ago at the Death of the Haight thing. The Turning Point says that darkness forces reach the pinnacle of their power in late winter, the darkness before the dawn.”

Helms’ perspective on Altamont, while seeing its aftermath as beneficial for the Bay area community, was still tempered by the obvious realization that “it was a ripoff. You could even say we ripped ourselves off. I think that altogether it had a good effect, though. Like I say, it taught a lot of people to value what they were doing. I think the basic problem along with the whole thing is that no one in this town thought they were as good as the Rolling Stones. Or thought they had as much right to say anything about it. And they did.”

“Up front, I just know enough about theatre and different size audiences to .know, which is something the Stones opposed from in front, that when you have 300,000 people you can’t concentrate all their energy on one point in the circle. You reduce 300,000 people to a binary lever, yes or no. It can be exultant or catastrophic. With that high an energy level, it can be really catastrophic, not just minorly catastrophic.”

“You reduce it to the ability of one person, in this instance Mick Jagger, in the middle of all of it, you dig, to conquer it within his own will. And to some extent once it got intense, he did”. He paused. “I mean, I admire, I personally admire Jagger for the fact that he didn’t run. When the chips were down he stuck his chin out. And said ‘no’, like ‘get yourselves together, you can’t do this to each other, man’. It was a point where I think a lot of musicians probably would’ve dov$ for cover.

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On that level I admired him very much”.

As for the Dog’s new re - opening, Helms sounded as optimistic as possible under the circumstances. “The bands are playing for a percentage instead of a straight fee -we had the Jefferson Airplane last weekend and Quicksilver this week. We filmed a free show February 4 to be shown later this year with the Dead, the Airplane, Santana and Quicksilver for National Educational TV.

“We were able to negotiate our landlords into lower rent and so on...We’re in good shape right now. We ain’t really funded, you know. But like I say it’s entirely a political situation; if the Haves decide to help you you’re in. The Haves being the bands that are on top. I don’t think I would have said this before the Altamont thing, but it’s just fortunate that I’ve come through these two or three years with still a good personal relationship with most of those people, because I don’t have the money at this point to create the nexus of tools.”

Dave Marsh