Bandlands
December 30, 2005
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Chet Helms died this past year. He was quite a man responsible
for so many good events in the annals of Rock and Roll History. I
owe him a huge debt even though it's not that amazing a thing or
maybe it is... being alive in the world finding yourself surrounded
by fabulous musicians and a whole community of humans engaged in
living life to the absolute fullest and the music was the force the
gathering power the sharing the good rocking. ....and he helped set
the stage for that burst of still resonating spirit revolution
hippie thing whatever it was on so many levels Chet was there
providing the support. Giving it a place to work its magic. Avalon.
With a big tip of my hat to a
very friendly and generous man, a dreamer/visionary... I
was fortunate to meet Chet and share a few words on a couple of
occasions. Though we exchanged emails there was never any further
communication. I have to dig out my pictures of him, he was a photographer
too.
My friend Doug was able to get over to the Golden Gate Park
back on October 30 of this year. I almost got there if I hadn't had
my fateful encounter with my boss the week before at the cab company
and told him .. well... I lost my temper and decided that was enough
6 or 7 years as a taxi dispatcher. Time to go. So I couldn't make it
to the meadows because I was polite enough to give him two weeks
notice and I needed the money ...(desperately).
So Doug with his little Video camera shot some footage of the
event the tribute to Chet Helms. There is some fine footage that
Doug had of the free event. Unfortunately after
putting it on a DVD the original footage was erased. I do not have
the software to retrieve that footage yet if there is software for
that. Any one else reading this who has some video of the event let
me know I would love to share some more great performances.
All I have is less than a minute of Blue Cheer. They
were a great band. Very possibly the loudest band ever by many
accounts. That is not I think a worthy goal for any young bands
trying to make the world take notice... Leave that for Blue Cheer.
Thank you to Boots Hughson for putting on the event though it seems
a terrible shame that so many of these great bands came out and
dusted off their fine instruments and worked so hard in preparation
and only had twenty minutes of stage time. Lord have mercy that
sucks!
With that said a lot of great bands had some marvelous
moments again together and people heard some music from out of a
time warp... courtesy of Chet and also Boots.
From Doug's DVD the highlights were to my ears Blue
Cheer and their version of SummerTime Blues... Quicksilver Gold with
Joli Valente (Dino's son) lead vocals sharing the vocals with David
Freiberg Quicksilver original.. a passionate, as only it
should ever be done version of 'Pride of Man'. Canned Heat with Fito
De la Parra on drums left of the originals still bringing the boogie
( I loved that band) 'Going up the Country'.. anyways a great
afternoon to be alive. Here is some Blue Cheer sorry it's short and
cuts off just when it likely was getting hot! Brutal. Still
you get a taste.
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feel free to say hello at anytime
guy@lifesignsphoto.com
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