Author: nic

Last edition, you will recall I was recounting the experience of cleaning out the basement of the Denver Folklore Center with its founder, Colorado Music Hall of Fame inductee Harry Tuft. In that basement were literally hundreds of pieces of paper that had to be sorted through to find the few gems that really showcased Colorado and its music history. The shows themselves are a fascinating glimpse into the tastes of the public at the time, but the posters are also an important resource about the local music business infrastructure that surrounded popular music events. 

These posters testify to the pivotal role Harry Tuft played, and continues to play, in the cultural and artistic development of this great music state we live in. Thanks Harry! 

There is a lot to be gleaned here. Kweskin was a real pioneer of the ‘old timey’ music revival. Along with others like Eric Von Schmidt and Dave Van Ronk, he really flew the flag for traditional American music. His band was a fantastic conglomeration of established players from bluegrass and a new generation of musicians seeking a valid cultural connection to the past. Geoff and Maria Muldaur both went through the group, as did Mel Lyman. Lyman is a fascinating character who was both a gifted musician, natural leader and, as it turned out a potentially dangerous and violent cult leader. His story is both interesting and chilling, and I recommend further research. Why a movie has not been made about Lyman is a mystery. He had qualities that make him comparable to Manson, although he was complex and the Manson comparison doesn’t really do his legacy justice.

The venue, Phipps Auditorium, was built in 1940as part of the Denver Natural History Museum (now Denver Museum of Nature and Science). It was used for lectures, concerts and special events until 1982. I remember seeing school-sponsored lectures there in the 1970s. In 1983, it became the Museum’s IMAX theatre. 

One can only marvel at what the audience at this show was like: curious intellectuals, dyed in the wool folkies, nascent counterculture types – who knows? I’ll bet Harry does. If you notice, The Folklore Center is the sole sponsor and ticket outlet for this event.

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When one looks over the history of events held at the Denver Auditorium Arena (built in 1908), it is a snapshot of the history of American popular culture of the 20^th century. Every type of entertainment for every audience made a showing there. We tend to look at Colorado as a cultural backwater sometimes, but nothing could be further from the truth. This poster has it all! Color, photo, local opening acts and lots of intriguing ticket outlets. The Mamas & The Papas were riding high at this point in time with multiple hits in the Top 10, and a secure place in the rock royalty firmament. It’s no surprise that the show was sold out. 

The opening acts for this show were Benzie Kryck, The “New” Moonrakers and The Rainy Daze. All three of these groups loom large in 1960s Colorado music. Known to all locals as Boenzee Cryque, this country rock band had some success and recorded at least three singles, one of which Ashbury Wednesday appeared in the “psychsploitation” movie Psych Out. For years their 45s were hot collector’s items. The band included both Rusty Young and George Grantham who both became Colorado Music Hall of Fame inductees with their band Poco. The Moonrakers were a popular garage rock outfit with a number of sought after singles. They would go on to become Colorado Music Hall of Fame inductees Sugarloaf to greater acclaim while remaining beloved in the hearts of early fans. The Rainy Daze recorded the controversial pro-marijuana song and album That Acapulco Gold in 1967, bringing them great notoriety. One of the members was later co-author of the smash hit Incense & Peppermints.

The ticket outlets listed are a treasure trove of cool Colorado places that used to be. Co-promoter Hipbone was Harry Tuft’s record store.

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Allegedly, Harry got Seeger to play Denver on the promise that he would take the folk legend skiing in Aspen after the concert. Harry made good on the promise, and the result was this gorgeous poster advertising an American treasure appearing at the height of the social upheavals he was partially responsible for inspiring in a younger generation. 

 

– Paul Epstein, Co-Chair, Colorado Music Hall of Fame; founder/former owner of Twist & Shout; music historian and archivist

“I moved to Colorado in 1968 and started going to concerts almost immediately. I eagerly grabbed posters, flyers, ticket stubs, advertisements, concert recordings, pretty much any proof I could find that the event happened. In 1988, I started a record store called Twist & Shout, and my collecting of memorabilia went into even higher gear. Over the next 34 years, I had rare access to memorabilia of all types and sizes. Now that I’ve retired, the time seems right to start sharing these things, and the stories that go with them. So, every other Tuesday, I will ask you to Let Me Take You Down (to the basement) to check out some of the good stuff!” – Paul Epstein

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colorado Music Hall of Fame inductee Harry Tuft and his Denver Folklore Center are one of the most important stories to be told in the history of Colorado music. Harry (who grew up in Philadelphia) originally started the Denver Folklore Center in 1962 with a few acoustic instruments to sell and a desire to share his love of folk music and folk traditions with others. Originally located on 608 East 17^th Avenue the Folklore Center nurtured multiple generations of local and national musicians with their instrumental, educational and social needs. The Center was a place to take lessons, get strings, share tales of the road, pick with friends or perform a paying gig. Over the years, the Folklore Center moved to different locations and eventually gave birth to Swallow Hill Music Association which has morphed into an internationally-recognized mecca for all facets of folk music. 

The Folklore Center itself went through a number of changes –with Harry closing it in 1980 only to reopen it in 1993 at 1893 South Pearl Street where it remains (true to its mission) to this day but under new ownership. Harry is beyond legendary in the music history of our state. Few have accomplished more for their community, and done it with such understated dignity and kindness. 

I have had a number of encounters with Harry throughout the years, but the most significant for me was when he decided to retire from the Folklore Center and asked me to help him go through the mountain of posters he had in the basement. Knowing me to be a big poster collector, he figured I might have some insight into what some of this stuff was worth and maybe help him figure out how to sell it. If I recall correctly, he collared me at a Colorado Music Hall of Fame event and showed me a photo on his phone. It was a poster of The Grateful Dead and Alice Cooper at Reeds Ranch in Colorado Springs. My heart almost stopped! This guy sure knew how to get my attention. 

At that time in history, this show was long rumored but barely substantiated. It was truly one of the white whales of Colorado rock and roll history. Since then, a fine tape recording of the event has surfaced, though no photographic evidence exist–as of yet. It turns out the show also featured Colorado Music Hall of Fame inductee, Zephyr. Apparently, a few shows had been promoted at a barn on this property at Reeds Ranch outside of Colorado Springs. The production team was called MFP (Mother Fu@%&ng Punks) and had previously been working at the Colorado Springs club Kelker Junction. This was the last show at Reeds Ranch, because so much money was lost due to gatecrashing. Accounts put 400-500 people attending the show. Gotta wonder how many people were there to see The Dead, Alice Cooper, Zephyr or just to make the scene?

I told Harry I was at his service and scheduled a time later to meet. I was greeted by a disorganized mountain of paper ephemera. Flyers, posters, handbills, newspaper articles and some just plain junk. We spent the better part of an afternoon organizing it and, when we got to the end, I was filthy, exhausted and thrilled with what we had found. I told Harry that I thought he had some really important stuff and that it would be a real shame to break it up. I then made him a large offer, which he seemed quite happy with, for everything I had put in the “historically relevant” pile. I’ll show the two biggest finds this week, and in the next blog I will show more of this amazing trove of Colorado music history.

The Alice Cooper, Zephyr, Grateful Dead poster from Reeds Ranch in Colorado Springs. The show took place on July 3, 1969 and allegedly featured two additional bands; The Holden Caulfield Blues Band (a psychedelic band from Salt Lake City) and Devin Mikles (a Colorado Folk singer). The poster features not-so-memorable artwork, but does have a neat little map showing the location and some local “on sale” information at the bottom. $4.00 seems like a bargain for tickets. The Grateful Dead supposedly started their set at 3:00 am and finished just before sunrise. 

This second poster, while not related to Colorado, is a very important piece of rock history and further illustrates Harry Tuft’s role at the center of the counterculture. It is the final concert performed by The Beatles. Performed on August 6, 1966 at San Francisco’s Candlestick Park (now torn down), this show marked the end of The Beatles as a performing group. A fantastic design, dripping with history, and in remarkably good condition (the colors almost glow), my knees buckled when I found this almost at the bottom of Harry’s pile of paper.

– Paul Epstein, Co-Chair, Colorado Music Hall of Fame; founder/former owner of Twist & Shout; music historian and archivist

“I moved to Colorado in 1968 and started going to concerts almost immediately. I eagerly grabbed posters, flyers, ticket stubs, advertisements, concert recordings, pretty much any proof I could find that the event happened. In 1988, I started a record store called Twist & Shout, and my collecting of memorabilia went into even higher gear. Over the next 34 years, I had rare access to memorabilia of all types and sizes. Now that I’ve retired, the time seems right to start sharing these things, and the stories that go with them. So, every other Tuesday, I will ask you to Let Me Take You Down (to the basement) to check out some of the good stuff!” – Paul Epstein

 

 

 

 

 

Tale of The Fish Part 2

So, last time I told you about my first meeting with Denver artist John Fish and my purchasing of his posters and original artwork used in advertising concerts in Colorado (and other states) in the early to mid-‘70s. But the story didn’t end there. After I got the stuff back to Twist And Shout, it dawned on me that his style was reminiscent of the sign which adorned the original store I had purchased at a tax auction in 1988: Underground Records. Sure enough, when I got a ladder out and looked at the old sign, which was displayed on a wall inside the store, I saw John’s name at the bottom of the logo. My connection with this guy grew yet again. 

A few weeks later, John came into the store with an artist’s portfolio. He told me he had come across some other interesting items while going through his “archives.” What he showed me was astonishing. It was the best, rarest stuff yet. A flyer for a very early ZZ Top show at the legendary, and tiny, Tulagi’s nightclub on The Hill in Boulder. Colorado Music Hall of Fame founder and inductee Chuck Morris ran that legendary club that saw the early success of The Eagles, Dan Fogelberg and countless others within its storied walls. 

The next item completely blew my mind! A flyer for a Derek & The Dominoes show at Mammoth Gardens that never happened. The flyer is classic Fish–cartoonish and fun, but what an important, and unknown moment in music history! Eric Clapton’s short-lived supergroup featuring legendary guitar parts from Duane Allman produced the all-time great album “Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs” in 1970. The band did little touring, cut even shorter when they broke up, largely due to Clapton’s ongoing struggles with heroin. The Denver show was scheduled but never happened. I have not seen another copy of this flyer anywhere—ever! 

John Fish continued to surface over the years. We became friendly, and he told me many interesting things about the music scene in Colorado during the ‘60s and ‘70s. He was there; he was part of it, and he was further proof that the counter-culture indeed existed and flourished in our fair state. 

As time went on, John started declining before my eyes. He was an avid drinker and was having trouble finding his way in modern society. I continued to buy everything he brought me—no matter how slight. At one point, he brought me a CD of his self-produced music. It was him playing guitar and banjo and singing old-timey blues and folk songs. It was a fun listen, but it seemed like a last-ditch effort to fit into the artistic community as he understood it.

The final time I saw John, he came into the store at 300 East Alameda and said “Hey man, would you buy all the stuff in my wallet?” He literally sold me his collection of business cards, receipts, and whatnot—the detritus of a fading life. I bought them, and even there I found stuff of interest. Business cards from promoters, musicians, nightclubs. Once again, it was an obscure but fascinating peek back into Colorado’s music scene in the ‘70s. 

I didn’t see John again. I heard from a mutual acquaintance, photographer John Schoenwalter, that Mr. Fish had died, broke and lonely, not long after my last encounter with him. I was profoundly moved by this news and have never forgotten this important Denver connection to its musical past. My experiences with John were also foundational in my understanding of the fickle and unforgiving nature of the music business. Whenever anybody promised me anything that seemed too good to be true, instead of getting stars in my eyes I would take a moment to reflect on the lessons of Mr. Fish.

 

Photo credit: Jay Strausser

The long-awaited induction of Yonder Mountain String Band, the final member of “The Flatirons Sessions,” the pandemic-delayed 2021 Induction Class, was held at the 50^th Telluride Bluegrass Festival on June 16,^, 2023. Festival producer Craig Ferguson, along with Colorado Music Hall of Famer Tim O’Brien, presented Yonder with their formal induction at the sold-out Festival.

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Photo credit: Jay Strausser

Since forming in Nederland, Colorado in 1998, Yonder Mountain String Band has brought their high-energy acoustic sound into rock and roll settings with tremendous success, proving it was possible for a bluegrass band to not only exist but excel in a rock world, without drums. The inroads they made created opportunities for like-minded acoustic bands to perform at festivals, rock clubs, theaters and stadiums previously considered off-limits for string bands. Yonder Mountain’s high-energy sound and anything goes attitude cultivated a spirit of collaborative improvisation that continues to fuel today’s progressive bluegrass and jamgrass scenes.

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Credits for both photos: Benko Photographics

Band members Adam Aijala, Ben Kaufmann and Dave Johnston comment on the honor of being named Hall of Famers: “It seems so distinctly perfect that our induction into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame is beside three bands and a venue [Hot Rize, Leftover Salmon, The String Cheese Incident and Fox Theatre] that inspired and supported us as musical heroes, guides, friends, and inspirations. In the same way, there could be no better place to celebrate this honor than at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival. Craig Ferguson gave us our first festival opportunity in the earliest days of Yonder. There is not another individual who has shown such unwavering support through all the highs and lows, shifts and changes that have been a part of Yonder Mountain’s history. Musicians talk about the Colorado music scene as being particularly welcoming, open and informed.  It’s our belief that the audience at the Telluride Bluegrass Festival is the purest representation of what that means and feels like.”

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Photo credit: Jay Strausser

“Yonder celebrates our 25th anniversary as a band this year. For 23 of those years, we’ve spent a week in June celebrating in Telluride with our fellow Festivarians. Having a ‘good show’ is always a joy. Having a good show on the stage in Telluride is transcendent. We share this honor and take a moment to remember co-founding member and brother, Jeff Austin, who we lost in 2019. There will never be another like him. We thank former band-members Allie Kral and Jacob Jolliff, who contributed their talent to YMSB for many years. And finally, we celebrate this honor with our newest member, Nick Piccininni, whose musical gifts and energy are so instrumental in helping us carry the Yonder Mountain flame into our second quarter-century. It is with the deepest gratitude that we thank the Colorado Music Hall of Fame for this honor.  We hope we have represented well the sound and spirit of Colorado,” continues the band.

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Photo credit: Jay Strausser

Colorado Music Hall of Fame’s Board Co-Chair Paul Epstein remarks on Yonder’s deserving induction: “Similar to walking along the Continental Divide–that giddy ‘at altitude’ feeling one gets halfway between ecstasy and passing out, that fine line is where Colorado’s Yonder Mountain String Band dwell. Constantly finding that edge where traditional music meets modern sensibilities and making it danceable to a current audience seems like a magic trick. But it is a feat Yonder pulls off with each album and every concert—reinventing folk and bluegrass for a new generation and reminding all generations of its value. Whether we should view Yonder Mountain String Band as a jamband selling out festivals, or as a public service preserving evergreen traditions, is unclear, but in all ways the band shines, we welcome them into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame.”

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Photo credit: Yonder Mountain String Band

The Tale of Mr. Fish – Part 1

In 1988, when I was first beginning my career as a record store owner, I was at the store one day when my wife came in breathlessly and told me I had to go to a house a few blocks away because there was a guy selling off all his posters. In those days, she used to go to a lot of garage sales and buy records or tapes for the store. To be honest, I was never very supportive of her efforts. I’d usually tell her it was scratched-up junk. This time though she was insistent. It was only a few blocks away, and there were hundreds of old posters. Begrudgingly I accompanied her back to the guy’s house. There, in front of an old Washington Park row house was a front yard completely covered with the entire contents of a person’s life. Furniture, a few dishes, and, in this case, lots of empty beer cans and stacks and rolls of posters. There were a few people looking through this and that but not a lot of activity. A slim, bearded guy, as faded as the jeans he wore, recognized my wife, ambled up and said: “are you the guy interested in posters?” 

At this point in my life, I was actively and avidly collecting any authentic poster I could find from the vintage eras of rock and roll. The man introduced himself as John Fish and gestured at the posters, “I got plenty of posters.” I started to look through a stack. The top few were advertisements for local, now defunct, Denver bars and restaurants. I noticed his name at the bottom of each of them, denoting him as the artist. When I got to about the fifth poster, I literally gasped as I saw it was a poster for the legendary Denver venue Mammoth Gardens. It depicted a mammoth standing on top of a pig and it said “Support Mammoth.” The next one was advertised blues/rock great Johnny Winter; the next Leon Russell; the next Stephen Stills. I was starting to freak out—doing my best to control my growing excitement. I looked up at Mr. Fish and asked: “you were the artist on all these?”  He looked momentarily proud: “yeah, but I gotta get rid of everything, they’re kicking me out.” I continued looking through posters. 

Finally, I stood up and faced him: “would you sell me everything—all of them?” He looked really relieved. It turned out, he’d run out of time. Nobody was buying anything, and he had been about ready to give up and just walk away. These were our very early days at Twist And Shout, and I had almost no money to spare. But I think we agreed on a few hundred bucks for all the posters in his yard. I paid him and loaded the posters up and took them back to the store. I pored over them for the next few days, marveling at Mr. Fish’s unique, cartoony style and the important piece of Colorado and rock and roll my brilliant wife Jill had stumbled upon. 

I decided then and there to not sell the posters but to try to keep them together as an archive. The only exception has been when Bill Graham Presents opened The Fillmore in 1999 and contacted me to get some to put up in the new venue. I told them I didn’t want money, but I would trade them one for one for first editions out of their archive. It was only a handful of posters that I traded, but it provided me with some rare early San Francisco posters I would have never gotten otherwise. Some of those John Fish posters can still be found on the walls of The Fillmore today.

In Part 2, I will share more about John Fish the rare gems from his incredible body of work. I will also give some more background on Mammoth Gardens/The Fillmore. Stay tuned!

 

 

 

 

 

 

– Paul Epstein, Co-Chair, Colorado Music Hall of Fame; founder/former owner of Twist & Shout; music historian and archivist

“I moved to Colorado in 1968 and started going to concerts almost immediately. I eagerly grabbed posters, flyers, ticket stubs, advertisements, concert recordings, pretty much any proof I could find that the event happened. In 1988, I started a record store called Twist & Shout, and my collecting of memorabilia went into even higher gear. Over the next 34 years, I had rare access to memorabilia of all types and sizes. Now that I’ve retired, the time seems right to start sharing these things, and the stories that go with them. So, every other Tuesday, I will ask you to Let Me Take You Down (to the basement) to check out some of the good stuff!” – Paul Epstein

 

Let Me Take You Down (To The Basement)-The Denver Be-In

The first “Human Be-In” which took place in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park on January 14, 1967 was a seismic event that helped set the tone of the counter-culture toward the end of the 1960s. An all-day event featuring many of the great San Francisco bands of the day, and a number of speakers, poets, chanters and, most famously, Timothy Leary telling the assembled crowd to “Tune In, Turn On And Drop Out.” A seminal event by any standard. 

My wife Jill, a freshman at Berkeley at the time, was in attendance. Just to add a little reality to the scene, she claims to have been largely unaware of the music and drug subtext, but rather paints a picture of an innocent idealist in a plaid jumper there to raise her fist in political solidarity with the civil rights and anti-war movement. When she first sold me this picture, I was outraged at her popping of my hippie fantasy balloon, but as time has passed, this image has, in fact, endeared her to me even more. The ‘60s meant a lot of different things to different people, and overlaying a stereotypical scenario on top of her already fascinating and righteous life just seems silly. However, that day did change people’s feelings, and popular history has taken what it has wanted from the event. 

What many people may not know, is that the idea of a ‘Be-In’–an event for the youthful tribes to gather in a public space and fully freak, peak or politically activate– happened in a number of cities during the ensuing months. Incredibly, it happened in the Mile High City on September 24, 1967 at our very own City Park. I first found out about it during my career as an English teacher at Smokey Hill High School in the 1980s. 

One day after class, one of my students came into my office and said: “hey, you like The Grateful Dead don’t you? Well, my dad works for the Rocky Mountain News, and he found this picture in the paper’s archives and said you’d get a kick out of it.” My jaw hit the floor! I was looking at a black & white photo of The Grateful Dead playing on what are now the steps leading up to the west entrance of what was then called the Denver Natural History Museum (now Denver Museum of Nature & Science). There were no steps then; the band set up on a grassy landing in front of maybe a few hundred people. The crowd looked totally appropriate to the times, and the band looked like babies. A clean-shaven Jerry Garcia played a Guild Starfire guitar through wildly primitive amplification. In a different photo from the same event, he can be seen playing a psychedelic-painted guitar that I hadn’t seen before. Pigpen played an ancient organ. A shirtless Phil Lesh looks like he’s high, while a barely-adult Bob Weir is wearing striped high-water bellbottoms. 

What! Am! I ! Seeing! Here? Is this real? 

Yes! The more I looked at it, the more I could recognize that this was indeed Denver’s City Park, and this was indeed The Dead in 1967. I thanked the kid profusely and asked him if his father could get his hands on anything else documenting the event. He came back a few weeks later with a handful of other pictures:  a close up of Jerry; a close-up of Pigpen; different angles of the full band set-up; and, best of all, a color shot of the group. I was so thankful. I just couldn’t believe it. How was it possible I had never heard of this show? I was now on a mission.

Over the next decade or so, I learned this was The Denver Human Be-In, held the afternoon after The Dead had played two nights at The Family Dog. No set lists, recordings or photos exist of those two shows (just an amazing poster—-see my previous blog about The Family Dog to get a look at it). They remain a holy-grail search for Deadheads worldwide to this day. Similarly, virtually no information exists about The Dead’s set at the Be-In either. As it turns out, the event featured The Dead, Captain Beefheart, Tracy Nelson and Mother Earth, and Denver bands Lothar & The Hand People and The Crystal Palace Guard. This was a real event, and it happened right here in Denver. What a trip. 

I’ve met a few people who claimed to have been there, or had some information about the event. Unfortunately, none of it bore fruit. Memories were faulty and documentation non-existent.
I’ve been able to blow many minds with those pictures, but I had come to believe that the evidence I had was probably all that we’d ever see.

Fast forward to 2023 and the week after I sell my record store, Twist And Shout to my long-time manager Patrick Brown. I get a call from him saying an older gentleman has brought in a handful of old posters and would I mind evaluating them for purchase. I start going through them: Family Dog posters and other neat vintage items, unfortunately in poor condition. Then, I get to the final image and HOLY SHIT-it’s a poster for The Denver BE-IN. I can’t believe it. I immediately scour the internet for any other copy of this item (knowing full-well from past research it didn’t exist). I tell Patrick, yes, I will happily evaluate this collection, but I MUST OWN THAT BE-IN POSTER!!!! Patrick, sympathetic to my lifelong quest for Denver Rock relics, kindly purchased and gave me the poster in Day-Glo orange that actually says “The Denver Be-In” on it. The artist’s name appears at the bottom, but I can find nothing out about him. The gent who sold the poster claimed to have purchased it at the time but couldn’t provide any more details. The poster is one of my proudest possessions, and I encourage (no, beg) anybody with any first-hand information on this event to come forward and share!

Yes folks, the 1960s happened in Colorado, and here’s the proof.

– Paul Epstein, Co-Chair, Colorado Music Hall of Fame; founder/former owner of Twist & Shout; music historian and archivist

“I moved to Colorado in 1968 and started going to concerts almost immediately. I eagerly grabbed posters, flyers, ticket stubs, advertisements, concert recordings, pretty much any proof I could find that the event happened. In 1988, I started a record store called Twist & Shout, and my collecting of memorabilia went into even higher gear. Over the next 34 years, I had rare access to memorabilia of all types and sizes. Now that I’ve retired, the time seems right to start sharing these things, and the stories that go with them. So, every other Tuesday, I will ask you to Let Me Take You Down (to the basement) to check out some of the good stuff!” – Paul Epstein

 

I remember the first time I walked into the Rainbow Music Hall. It was not for a concert, because the building was then a tri-plex movie theatre. It stood on a piece of ground that had been adjacent to the Valley Drive-In Theatre (1953-1977) on the southwest corner of Evans and Monaco. Later the entire corner was redeveloped, and The Rainbow Music Hall was born from the removal of all interior walls of the movie theatre. Under the guidance of Colorado Music Hall of Fame Inductees Barry Fey and Chuck Morris, and boasting “Sound by Listen Up,” the theatre was an incredible upgrade to the Denver music scene. Intimate (capacity just under 1,500), perfect sight-lines, and what seemed like impossibly good sound, it provided a truly world-class venue to see truly world-class acts. When I think back to all I saw there, it’s almost hard to imagine. Yet, The Rainbow stayed open for only a decade –from 1979 until 1989. A full list of the ~1,000 acts that played there is available several places online, but I’m not sure any are completely accurate. 

Who was most impressive you ask? 

Well, just a small sampling of the amazing acts that graced that stage: Miles Davis, U2, The Police, The English Beat, Jerry Garcia Band (and his Jazz side-project Reconstruction), David Bromberg, Rickie Lee Jones (on her first national tour), The Blasters, Los Lobos, a drunken but musically valid Gene Clark, Cheech & Chong, a super young and hungry Stevie Ray Vaughan, The Ramones and of course, three nights of Bob Dylan playing an incredibly charged show of gospel (and no hits). 

At that Dylan show, genius poet and American treasure, Allen Ginsburg (then a resident of Boulder, thanks to The Naropa Institute) sat one row behind me. Mid-show Dylan pointed at him and said: “Don’t be taken in by false prophets, there is only one true way,” and he pointed skyward. At the time, I was furious and shocked, but with the passage of years I recognize those shows as being some of the best I ever saw. Whatever schtick Dylan is on (God, Sinatra, Blues or his own brand of brilliance) is just fine with me. 

Any night at The Rainbow was a great night in my book. It was all ages, and as I recall, this took the emphasis off booze inside the venue. I do remember waiting in line all day (most, if not all, shows were general admission) and getting plenty lit up in line–it was a real party out there. The lack of loud bar ambience now seems like a stroke of incredible luck. There weren’t hecklers, fights or stupid call outs for “Free Bird,” because everyone was there for the music. What I wouldn’t do to return to that place for one night. . .

I’m not exactly sure why The Rainbow closed, but it was a huge loss to the Denver music scene. In my opinion, there has never been another venue that matched both the booking with the sound, intimacy and ambience of that room. You knew you were lucky when you sat in one of those folding chairs in front of a legend like Miles or Bob, or took in a new act like U2. It was one of the major stepping stones of turning Denver from a small to a major music market– truly, one of the most important venues in Colorado history!

Photo caption: A friend and customer of Twist And Shout gave me this battered and rusted piece of metal that said “Hall” on it—part of the marquee. As The Rainbow was being torn down, he and a buddy jumped over the construction fence and grabbed this one memento of the Denver landmark.

Photo caption: An ad from the opening night (Jerry Jeff Walker) handbill showing the first months of bookings. 

Photo caption: Handbill for Jerry Garcia’s band “Reconstruction” which has a nice photo of The Rainbow shot from the west.

 

– Paul Epstein, Co-Chair, Colorado Music Hall of Fame; founder/former owner of Twist & Shout; music historian and archivist

“I moved to Colorado in 1968 and started going to concerts almost immediately. I eagerly grabbed posters, flyers, ticket stubs, advertisements, concert recordings, pretty much any proof I could find that the event happened. In 1988, I started a record store called Twist & Shout, and my collecting of memorabilia went into even higher gear. Over the next 34 years, I had rare access to memorabilia of all types and sizes. Now that I’ve retired, the time seems right to start sharing these things, and the stories that go with them. So, every other Tuesday, I will ask you to Let Me Take You Down (to the basement) to check out some of the good stuff!” – Paul Epstein

The Denver Family Dog – Part 2

This week’s installment is a continuation of my musing on the lack of documentation and recording of the incredible shows played at Denver’s legendary The Family Dog. When one considers that Hendrix, Cream, Van Morrison, Zappa and so many other legendary artists played there, the fact that no tapes or film from inside the venue have surfaced and only a couple of photos, is shocking. There are tapes in existence from virtually all the other major venues from the ‘60s. 

To be precise, there circulates one song of The Doors (“Light My Fire”) in terrible quality, and one concert by the Mothers of Invention from May 3, 1968 (pretty good quality) and that is it! In the 50 plus years since its heyday nothing else has surfaced. How is this possible?

Early on in my career at Twist And Shout, I had a great customer named Ron Babcock. He was a native Denverite, who told me he had gone to every show at The Family Dog. He had some pretty specific recall of certain shows. From the stuff he purchased, I could tell he was a big-time music fan who had really seen some stuff in his life. He had detailed recollections of Van Morrison, The Doors, Blue Cheer and a few others. An interesting side note about Ron was that he was always covered with paint when he came into the store. I finally asked him if he was a painter, and he informed me that he was an assistant to legendary Denver expressionist Vance Kirkland (now the subject of a beautiful museum at 1201 Bannock Street in Denver). Our conversations started to revolve around Kirkland instead of The Family Dog. I wish I had been more persistent. In a way I am torn between thinking it is a great tragedy to history that no evidence exists, but in another sense, the lack of evidence has just added to the mystery and excitement of the place.

The legacy of The Family Dog is larger than you might realize. If he hadn’t built his reputation there, Barry Fey might not have had the wherewithal to build Feyline Productions into one of the most successful promotion companies in the world. He went on to literally change the face of concert promotion along with Bill Graham, Ron Delsener and a few others. He ended up eclipsing his original mentor Chet Helms in a big way. 

In the concert business, there are what they call tertiary, secondary and primary markets. It is fair to say that in 1967 all of Colorado was a very tertiary market, but through Fey’s groundbreaking work, Colorado has become a primary market. We have an abundance of incredible indoor and outdoor venues of all sizes. Also, Denver has moved from a semi-sleepy “cow-town” to a bastion of cutting-edge cultural innovation and progressive thought. Much of our state is unrecognizable from what it was in 1967 (for good or ill), but there along West Evans Avenue, the sight of historical innovation remains essentially untouched. My kids both live on the west side of town these days, and it has caused me to drive up West Evans a lot. No matter how many times I drive by 1601 West Evans, where The Family Dog once stood, I always get an excited chill at the history and what was to come.

Which leads us to the posters. Almost immediately upon moving to Denver in 1968, I became aware of the fact that there were psychedelic concert posters from this music venue that had recently closed. In those pre-internet days, it was really hard to get any firsthand information, so the process of figuring out the story has been a lifelong passion project for me. Over the next many years, I made it my business to track the posters down. They were pretty plentiful to find back in the 1970s but not so much anymore. They were produced in the Bay Area by the same artists who were doing the posters for the Avalon, Fillmore, Carousel etc., so these were the real thing. The best of the psychedelic artists, producing artwork for the cream of the 60s bands for shows on West Evans—absolutely mind-blowing!

-Quicksilver Messenger Service with local boys Super Band (several of whom would go on to be in Sugarloaf, a Colorado Music Hall of Fame inductee). This poster references Quicksilver’s Happy Trails LP, and really captures the nexus of the psychedelic and cowboy worlds.

-Grateful Dead – Two nights with Tracy Nelson and Mother Earth. This is the rarer variation of the poster with the name of the band written on the skull. Even in the ultra-completist world of Grateful Dead concert collecting, no copies of these shows exist.

-The Doors, Lothar And The Hand People and Captain Beefheart. This gorgeous Bob Schepf design, utilizing a Gustave Dore lithograph is probably one of the most sought after posters from The Family Dog. A masterpiece! Denver Band Lothar and The Hand People would go on to be enormously influential to modern bands in the decades to come.

-Jim Kweskin Jug Band with Solid Muldoon-two shows-one in San Francisco, one in Denver, designed by Rick Griffin and Victor Moscoso, make for one of the most unique presentations in rock poster history

-Chuck Berry (backed by Denver band New World Blues Dictionary) with The Sons Of Champlin. This Rick Griffin design is impossible to read, because it is in a made-up language.

 

-The Doors, The Allmen Joy, Gingerbread Blu-3 nights culminating on New Year’s Eve 1967. One of the most important Rick Griffin designs and possibly the most emblematic of all The Family Dog shows-The Doors would indeed “Break On Through” to much wider acclaim shortly thereafter. But this New Years Eve they played to less than a thousand Coloradans on West Evans.

– January 12 and 13, 1968–A rarely seen poster featuring American Standard (which was Colorado Music Hall of Fame inductee Tommy Bolin’s pre-Zephyr group), Beggar’s Opera Co., and 8th Penny Matter. Interestingly, this poster incorporates the Rocky Mountains as part of the design. A couple of local bands playing in the 60s at a legendary psychedelic ballroom. 

-Six handbills from The Family Dog

– Paul Epstein, Co-Chair, Colorado Music Hall of Fame; founder/former owner of Twist & Shout; music historian and archivist

“I moved to Colorado in 1968 and started going to concerts almost immediately. I eagerly grabbed posters, flyers, ticket stubs, advertisements, concert recordings, pretty much any proof I could find that the event happened. In 1988, I started a record store called Twist & Shout, and my collecting of memorabilia went into even higher gear. Over the next 34 years, I had rare access to memorabilia of all types and sizes. Now that I’ve retired, the time seems right to start sharing these things, and the stories that go with them. So, every other Tuesday, I will ask you to Let Me Take You Down (to the basement) to check out some of the good stuff!” – Paul Epstein

Any discussion of the music history of Colorado or the development of Denver as a cultural hub must invariably lead back to The Family Dog concert venue. In 1967, Colorado music promoting legend and Hall of Famer Barry Fey and his (former) wife Cynthia decided there should be a club in Denver that participated in the nascent “ballroom” music scene. The scene had been gaining traction on both coasts, especially in San Francisco, where hippie promoters Chet Helms and his partner Bob Cohen) were making waves with their communal organization called Family Dog Productions. Helms was mixing the best bands of the day with psychedelic light shows and having extraordinary results–at least artistically (The Family Dog was never really a profitable entity). The Feys went to San Francisco to discuss the possibility of opening a venue in Denver similar to Helms’ Avalon Ballroom. 

Amazingly, they left with a partnership to open a hip spot for psychedelic concert happenings in Denver. On September 8 and 9^th in 1967, Big Brother & The Holding Company (with Janis Joplin), Blue Cheer and Colorado band Eighth Penny Matter opened the venue, which closed only 10 months later. Promising great things on the horizon, the poster for the grand-opening concert is a classic Rick Griffin design with so many fantastic design elements, and really portends to the exciting, optimistic adventure the venue and society was heading towards.

But, almost immediately, Denver police made the venue the subject of intense scrutiny with an eye towards stamping out the youth movement bubbling up worldwide. Colorado was still a pretty conservative place when I moved here in 1968, and the powers that be were wary of radical behavior popping up in their usually quiet city. The details of this conflict as well as so much more about The Family Dog can be seen in the important documentary Tale Of The Dog. Released in 2020 by Colorado filmmakers Dan Obarski and Scott Montgomery, this film is an important reference for Colorado music and should be sought out by all serious students of the scene (currently available on both Apple TV and Amazon Prime).

There are a number of factors about The Family Dog story that draw my attention besides the obvious musical connections. There is the confounding lack of evidence to be found about the venue. There is the legacy of the posters, the ongoing impact of the venue and its place at the crossroads of Colorado history. 

I drove over to 1601 West Evans yesterday, as I have many times over the years in an effort to glean something (photos are of the current building). Denver county line ends on just the other side of Evans, so this really is and was the outskirts of town. Both property costs and the ability to stay under the radar must have been factors in Barry Fey’s decision-making when he signed the lease. It’s hard to get the vibe at all these days. The building has been a strip club for a long time. It’s also hard to find info on the building before it became The Family Dog, but it was owned by a lawyer named Francis Salazar. He would end up being involved in the legal turmoil of the venue as it unfolded. There is a suggestion that it was a strip club before it became The Family Dog, but I am unable to confirm this. 

                          

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

After The Family Dog closed, it became Francis Salazar’s law office, before becoming PT’s Gentleman’s Club which it remains to this day. The neighborhood has always been a mix of light industrial and mid- to low-income housing, and nothing has changed. It truly is one of the +few stretches of Denver that looks essentially like it did in 1967, and from the outside, other than the newfangled electronic signage, the building is remarkably unchanged. As I walked around the building I was struck by how large the parking lot was. It seemed like back in the unregulated days, the grounds of the building could accommodate maybe 50 cars. There was also ample neighborhood parking. As I stood by the side-doors I pondered a young Jim Morrison or Grace Slick standing there nervously catching a breath before going on stage to a crowd of young Coloradans. 

What the scene around the venue was like back in 1968 is just hard to imagine. I’ve spoken to many people who were, or claim to have been, at some or all of the shows at The Family Dog, and the lack of detail they can recall is breathtaking. There is a hackneyed trope about ‘if you remember the 60s, you weren’t really there’ which I have always dismissed. Because I did live through it, and I remember with technicolor clarity the events I witnessed. However, I can find almost nobody with specific details about the bands that played, what the sets were or what the light show experience (provided by Diogenes Lantern Works) was like. The dance floor was psychedelically-painted and coated with clear plastic, and yet there are no pictures showing the full color and glory of it

– Paul Epstein, Co-Chair, Colorado Music Hall of Fame; founder/former owner of Twist & Shout; music historian and archivist

“I moved to Colorado in 1968 and started going to concerts almost immediately. I eagerly grabbed posters, flyers, ticket stubs, advertisements, concert recordings, pretty much any proof I could find that the event happened. In 1988, I started a record store called Twist & Shout, and my collecting of memorabilia went into even higher gear. Over the next 34 years, I had rare access to memorabilia of all types and sizes. Now that I’ve retired, the time seems right to start sharing these things, and the stories that go with them. So, every other Tuesday, I will ask you to Let Me Take You Down (to the basement) to check out some of the good stuff!” – Paul Epstein

 

 

 

Did you know Led Zeppelin played their first American concert on December 26, 1968 at the Denver Auditorium Arena? The Auditorium and Arena, built in 1908 and holding over 12,000 people was the sight of so many great rock concerts in the 60s and 70s. Torn down in 1990, the sight is now home to the Temple Buell Theatre and Ellie Caulkins Opera House. 

But in 1968, Led Zeppelin was added at the last minute to a sold-out bill at the Auditorium and Arena, under American bands Spirit and Vanilla Fudge. Led Zeppelin ended up playing much of that tour as the opening act. In light of how historically significant the band has become, it’s kind of hard to believe promoter Barry Fey had to have his arm-twisted to add them to his already sold-out show in Denver. Reportedly the band was paid $500 for their performance! Yet it was the beginning of an ascent to greatness matched by very few other bands. 

The fact that Zeppelin started this incredible climb right here in our home town is a cool enough story; however there are a few footnotes that make this story even more historically relevant. First is the relationship that existed/evolved over the years between Zep and Spirit. In ‘68, ‘69 and ‘70 Zep occasionally covered the Spirit song Fresh Garbage in their sets. Spirit, formed in California in 1967, originally consisted of guitarist/songwriter Randy California, drummer Ed Cassidy, Colorado Music Hall of Fame inductee Mark Andes (later a member of Firefall), Jay Ferguson and John Locke. Over many years and lineups (always including California and Cassidy), Spirit became a highly respected and prolific band; although aside from a couple of fantastic singles, mainstream success eluded them. 

In 2014, Mark Andes filed a copyright infringement suit against Led Zeppelin saying that the opening chords of their epic hit Stairway To Heaven was ripped off from the Spirit song Taurus. A quick listen will confirm the similarity; however Led Zeppelin ended up prevailing in the suit. It was a very interesting case to follow and one has to marvel at the fact that such a large case started at a gig on the night after Christmas –right here in Denver. 

On a more personal level, this show has loomed large in my world because of the photograph you see displayed. Early in my career at Twist and Shout, I had a great customer named Steve “Jellyroll” Morton, who fronted a Denver cover band called Sticky Fingers for many years. Steve came in all the time, and we became friends. He told me he had been at Led Zeppelin’s first show and that it had been in Denver. I was disbelieving (this was before the internet, so affirmation was more of a challenge) and asked him to prove it. 

The next day, Jellyroll came in and pulled a photo out from inside his trench coat. My jaw dropped. An absolutely pristine photo of Jimmy Page looking like a young angel with his bow across the strings of his famous, psychedelically painted 1959 Fender Telecaster—the same one he had used on stage for years and to record such iconic songs as Stairway To Heaven. The picture was unreal, and Jellyroll said: “I was there to see Spirit, and I just stuck my camera above my head and that’s the photo I got.” I asked him to make me a copy, and he graciously obliged. It hung in Twist and Shout for many years. 

Fast forward to 1995 and I get a call from the office of Denver rock promoter Barry Fey. He’d heard about the photo and wanted to present a copy to Jimmy Page at his upcoming Page and Plant concert at Fiddler’s Green. It seems somewhere in the 70s, a roadie, thinking he was doing Page a favor, painted over Jimmy’s personal customization. The guitar had been a gift from Jeff Beck in 1967 and in spite of it being broken, it was a favorite item of Page’s. He wanted a photo of that original paint job. So arrangements were made and a photo was presented to Page backstage at his memorable Fiddler’s Green concert. 

Less than a year later, I get another call. This time it is a bigtime guitar gear collector in England who has heard about the picture and that a rare Marshall amplifier head can be seen behind Page in the photo. Again, we go through a bunch of back and forth and eventually he gets the image and publishes an article about it in a British guitar magazine. Funny. 

The photo now sits on my wall at the top of a stairway, so that every time I emerge from my listening room and head upstairs, it is the first thing I see. I love that photo, and I love that everything ties back to one Denver fan who randomly stuck his camera up in the air in 1968 and made history. Thanks Jellyroll!

– Paul Epstein, Co-Chair, Colorado Music Hall of Fame; founder/former owner of Twist & Shout; music historian and archivist

“I moved to Colorado in 1968 and started going to concerts almost immediately. I eagerly grabbed posters, flyers, ticket stubs, advertisements, concert recordings, pretty much any proof I could find that the event happened. In 1988, I started a record store called Twist & Shout, and my collecting of memorabilia went into even higher gear. Over the next 34 years, I had rare access to memorabilia of all types and sizes. Now that I’ve retired, the time seems right to start sharing these things, and the stories that go with them. So, every other Tuesday, I will ask you to Let Me Take You Down (to the basement) to check out some of the good stuff!” – Paul Epstein