In the ‘60s, I used to go to Faith Petric’s Folk Music Club at 885 Clayton. There was a big pot of soup and lots of goodies. Every room on the main floor, including the basement, was filled with music.
It was at one of the Club’s camping weekends that I first heard Country Joe and the Fish play. The Fish played folk music there but they were the quintessential psychedelic rock band that formed in Berkeley in 1965. They sang songs like “Not So Sweet Lorraine,” their ‘60s version of the old Nat King Cole song, and “Janis,” tribute to Janis Joplin, whom Country Joe had dated. Their anti-Vietnam war song, “l Feel Like I’m Fixin’ to Die Rag,” was a wild sensation at Woodstock in 1969. The band was electric music for the mind and body. When you were tripping your brains out, the music would boost you even higher, but at the same time, mellow. It definitely expanded your mind!
A few years later, my husband and I, and our friends Peggi and Alex, went to hear Country Joe and the Fish at the Fillmore. It was at our friend’s flat where I first heard Bob Dylan singing “Like a Rolling Stone.” Alex and his family escaped from the Nazis and settled in San Francisco. He worked as a zookeeper, and played the violin. He published a poetry magazine, The Keeper’s Voice. Peggi and Alex met when they were Freedom Riders. I like to think it was in the jail.
In 1966, we went again to hear Frank Zappa and The Mothers of Invention. The opening act was a comic. We sat through his act in stunned silence. It was Lenny Bruce! I learned later that he fell out of a window at the Swiss-American Hotel, where we lived when we first came to San Francisco. North Beach was in the throes of “topless-mania.” A huge birdcage stood high up on a pole in the middle of Broadway. Inside, a topless woman danced. One night, we went with Peggi and Alex to see “The Topless Mother of Eight.” I’m not sure about the number, it was so long ago. It might have been only six, but what’s the difference? Afterwards, Alex wrote a poem called “Tits.”
Meanwhile, the Haight-Ashbury teemed with hippie kids. But that’s another fantastic story. Stay tuned!
