Somethin’s Happening Here. What it is ain’t exactly clear*. But Bay Area rock and roll from 1963 to 1973 is examined in an exhibition at the Museum of Performance and Design in San Francisco. This is the height of the rock scene, from the folk infused early 60s to the acid rock and the last days of Fillmore West. So, let’s see what made Jimi, Janis, Sly, the Dead, the Airplane, Country Joe, and Carlos so well known. Of course, we all know that Buffalo Springfield served as the springboard for the likes of Neil Young, Stephen Stills, Richie Furay and Jim Messina. Stills composed “For What It’s Worth” after watching police actions against young people who had gathered on Sunset Strip to protest the closing of a nightclub named Pandora’s Box. Furay and Messina went on to form Poco. And of course Messina teamed up with Kenny Loggins to form L & M.
From their website:
Seminal local bands like The Beau Brummels, The Charlatans, Country Joe and the Fish, and Quicksilver Messenger Service receive their due alongside better-known Bay Area names like The Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Grateful Dead and Sly and the Family Stone. Above all, the show celebrates the timeless appeal of this signal moment in 20th-century popular culture, enveloping visitors in a blaze of sight and sound.
Co-curators Melissa Leventon and Alec Palao evoke this rich era using a wealth of rarely seen footage, posters, images, and costume from private and public collections and from the artists themselves. Visitors are able to sample extremely rare audio and video clips, some of them drawn from the important archive of recordings from San Francisco’s KSAN that are now in MPD’s permanent collection.
Just a few of the key original items on display include:
Costume pieces worn by Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana, Sly Stone, and others
the full-sized original painting featured on the Grateful Dead’s Anthem of the Sun album cover
The famed “Captain Trips” hat worn by Jerry Garcia
original posters from classic Bay Area venues, including the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore Auditorium
Rare letters, documents and one-of-a-kind ephemera from the Bay Area’s 1960s rock’n’ roll heyday
Iconic and previously unseen photographs from the archives of photographers such as Baron Wolman, Herb Greene, Bob Seidemann, Bill Brach, and Elaine Mayes
Musical instruments used by John Cipollina (Quicksilver Messenger Service), Merl Saunders, Dan Hicks, and others
*There’s something happening here
What it is ain’t exactly clear
There’s a man with a gun over there
Telling me I got to beware
I think it’s time we stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
There’s battle lines being drawn
Nobody’s right if everybody’s wrong
Young people speaking their minds
Getting so much resistance from behind
I think it’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
What a field-day for the heat
A thousand people in the street
Singing songs and carrying signs
Mostly say, hooray for our side
It’s time we stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Paranoia strikes deep
Into your life it will creep
It starts when you’re always afraid
You step out of line, the man come and take you away
We better stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, hey, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, now, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Stop, children, what’s that sound
Everybody look what’s going down
Unless you are really desperate to kill some time, I would skip this display. Wait until you are in Seattle and visit EMP. Or better yet, and cheaper, just play an old Buffalo Springfield album. It will do the same thing, if your mind works like it did back in the 60s and 70s!!!!
