Original subtitles

[soft music plays]

[birds chirping]

♪ ♪

[Victor] San Francisco.

It was remarkable, you know.

♪ ♪

I couldn't have scripted it any better.

And this is a script I never would have imagined.

Posters, art,

anything that I could do with a poster,

I did with a poster.

♪ ♪

Big Brother and the Holding Company.

Janis,

Grateful Dead,

Steve Miller.

♪ ♪

The posters were being shown in the neighborhood.

♪ ♪

San Francisco's a little town.

It could only have happened here.

["Somebody to Love" playing]

[Jefferson Airplane] ♪ When the truth is found ♪

♪ To be lies ♪

♪ And all the joy ♪

♪ Within you dies ♪

♪ Don't you want Somebody to love ♪

♪ Don't you need Somebody to love ♪

♪ Wouldn't you love Somebody to love ♪

♪ You better find Somebody to love ♪

♪ Love, love ♪

♪ ♪

♪ When the garden flowers ♪

♪ Baby, are dead, yes ♪

♪ And your mind, your mind ♪

♪ Is so full of red ♪

♪ Don't you want Somebody to love ♪

♪ Don't you need Somebody to love ♪

♪ Wouldn't you love Somebody to love ♪

♪ You better find Somebody to love ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Tears are running down ♪

♪ They're all running Down your breast ♪

♪ ♪

♪ And your friends, baby ♪

♪ They treat you Like a guest ♪

♪ Don't you want Somebody to love ♪

♪ Don't you need Somebody to love ♪

♪ Wouldn't you love Somebody to love ♪

♪ You better find somebody ♪

♪ To love ♪

♪ ♪

[radio tuning]

[Steve Miller Band] ♪ I got to turn it ♪

♪ Turn it round ♪

♪ Somebody somewhere help me ♪

[woman] ♪ Somebody somewhere help me ♪

That's from Steve Miller. And welcome

on KSAN in San Francisco.

[laughs]

I grew up in the Bay Area.

I was the first female disc jockey on the West Coast.

San Francisco has always been and always will be

a great source for an incredible diversity of music.

["White Rabbit" playing]

I remember walking down the street

past the Grateful Dead house on Ashbury.

And you could hear music of different kinds

coming from different rooms.

Phil Lesh would have classical music going on.

[classical music plays]

Pigpen would have blues coming out of his.

[blues music plays]

There would be bluegrass from the living room

-with Jerry Garcia. -[bluegrass music plays]

San Francisco was always such a cultural hub.

You're having influences from all different places.

The beatniks had been in San Francisco

and the Allen Ginsbergs and the City Lights bookstore

and the jazz musicians.

And the folk music.

[Steve] All of that culture was already

pretty much embedded in San Francisco.

And then you dropped LSD in the middle of that,

it expanded everything by a huge factor.

So San Francisco is the place

where the Renaissance is gonna happen.

♪ ♪

[Jorma] When the San Francisco thing started

in the early to middle '60s,

that was before the term "hippie"

had really surfaced.

It was just a bunch of folks that

were creative and did stuff.

♪ ♪

It was very inviting to creative people

on a lot of levels back then.

It just seemed like a magical place,

sort of at the edge of the Earth there.

♪ ♪

[Lucy] You know, it's kind of like

the pied piper or something.

[laughs] People just all

simultaneously picked up and said,

"Well, let's go to San Francisco."

There was something in the air.

There was a kind of freedom and different energy.

I was part of the scene playing folk songs

at a coffee gallery and getting free beers.

Almost a professional musician. [laughs]

It was Monday night, and I was sitting at the bar.

And I heard... rah!

[Janis] ♪ I been rocking and reeling ♪

♪ Lord, as long as I can be ♪

♪ Lord, that man I love ♪

♪ Trying to make a fool Out of me ♪

♪ Lord, I'm leaving... ♪

Holy shit. What's that?

[Janis] ♪ I'm leaving this morning ♪

♪ I'm leaving ♪

♪ I'm trying to find A man of my own... ♪

I didn't see her, I heard her,

which made me go into the room.

I didn't know who she was,

[Janis scatting]

♪ Lord, I'm leaving... ♪

[Peter] That was probably '63 or '64.

That's where I first saw Janis.

I was a folk singer and sang blues, mostly,

country blues, old-time blues.

♪ I'm trying to find A man of my own... ♪

[Jorma] The first week I was in California,

I met Janis Joplin and Jerry Garcia,

[Jerry] We all played the same clubs,

all the people who were at the fringe.

[Paul] There was this nice little nexus

of music and strange people.

[Jorma] Everybody just really shared the joy

of playing music.

[Dusty] Everybody was experimenting.

Everybody was trying to figure out

where they wanted to go.

And nobody was thinking about hit records.

Nobody was thinking about recording.

[Alton] Nobody knew who the Grateful Dead were.

Nobody knew the Jefferson Airplane.

Nobody knew The Charlatans.

Nobody knew anybody.

["Alabama Bound" playing]

[James] The Charlatans were one of the first bands

in San Francisco.

[Richard] San Francisco is Victorian

and it is Edwardian.

And so we started to pick up

the clothing from that era.

We were into the look.

We fashioned ourselves as rock stars

before we even played a gig.

[George] We didn't want to be identified

with the British groups,

so we decided to be American.

[Ben] The Charlatans, they were true pioneers.

They were the first ones to think of a flyer

or a handbill or a poster

to advertise themselves.

[Alton] And that poster was the seed.

It started everything for everybody.

It's really an important piece.

[Stanley] I saw it when I got to San Francisco.

And I went, I can do that. [laughs]

And so I just jumped in.

What was happening when I got there was,

they were having parties

and had bands at the parties.

And the parties got bigger and bigger and bigger.

And so they finally had to rent a hall.

["Baby Won't You Tell Me" playing]

[Ben] The Charlatans, they were not,

by any means, acid rock.

But they were kind of part of that emerging scene.

[man] ♪ Hey, now, baby Won't you tell me ♪

♪ What you trying to do... ♪

[Alton] That was the very first dance in the city,

October 16, 1965.

About 400 or 500 people showed.

[man] ♪ What you trying to do... ♪

[Jorma] That was a big deal.

San Francisco in those days,

you needed a license to have dancing.

And to say it was an eye-opener

is an understatement.

[Alton] That night was such a revelation.

Everybody was kind of walking around with their mouths open.

Where did these freaks come from?

I thought me and my friends were the only guys around.

♪ ♪

[Dusty] Dan Hicks of The Charlatans

lived in a really big commune

way down the hill from the Haight-Ashbury,

which originally had been, like, a Russian neighborhood.

There was the Russian Tea Room,

best pierogies I've ever had in my life.

That was the neighborhood where we had

these huge Victorian houses that everybody could live in.

[soft music plays]

It wasn't so much that things started there

as much as it was an opportunity

for people to get together

to decide where they wanted to go musically.

[Ben] And the house at 1090 Page Street

was putting on these jam sessions,

charging 50¢ for people to come and hear

whatever band dropped by.

[Peter] On Wednesday nights, people from the neighborhood

would come in and jam.

We had an open-door policy.

Doors were unlocked.

The whole experience of that scene

was community.

[Sam] I was walking down Page Street one day

and I heard an old folk blues on an acoustic guitar,

and it just sounded really good.

[Peter] I was in a top-story room practicing.

Sam Andrew heard me playing out of the window

and came and introduced himself.

And at those jam sessions, we were the house band.

That was like the beginning of

Big Brother and the Holding Company

from 1090 Page Street.

[Jerry] 1090 Page, amazing.

Here we are talking about 1090 Page.

We went down there and jammed at times.

The common denominator down in the scene

I was living in in Palo Alto

was the idea of electric music.

It's band music. You play it with other people.

And you can have all different backgrounds

work out well in the music,

since it was formless, in a certain way.

I could come into it from bluegrass music,

somebody else from straight folk music,

from rock and roll, and from classical music.

Lots of different elements.

We had Pigpen in the band.

And he was this guy from Palo Alto whose father

had been a blues disc jockey.

For him, the blues was very natural.

He played harmonica and he sang really well.

[Bob] As that rock and roll band

called The Warlocks got more popular,

we became the Grateful Dead.

We started to develop a real loose

improvisational sort of style of playing.

["I Know You Rider" playing]

[Jerry] And we got good.

Six nights a week, five sets a night,

we just did it and did it and did it.

♪ ♪

We were young enough to love it.

We made enough so we could quit our day jobs, you know.

That was what we did.

That happened immediately.

♪ ♪

[Marty] I had this idea that there was

a new music coming around,

and I realized that the quickest way

I could make money in those days was,

every time I sang, somebody would pay me.

So I decided to put a band together.

[Paul] Marty just came up and asked, "Hey, do you want

to start a band?" To a total stranger.

I just said, "Sure, why not?"

It seemed to be the thing to do at the time.

And we got to know each other's stuff and liked it.

[Marty] We got together at Paul's house and went over

some ideas. While we're there, coming down the stairs,

just the coolest-looking guy. I said, "Who is that?"

Paul said, "That's Jorma Kaukonen, guitar player."

I said, "That's the guy we should get

for our lead guitar."

He says, "Oh, he's too good."

[Jorma] I was busy seeking my authentic soul

and all this kind of stuff.

I wasn't sure rock and roll was authentic.

But I went up and I played with them.

And... it's very seductive.

In the beginning, Jefferson Airplane

was a bona fide folk rock band.

Electric guitar, we didn't do that yet.

[Paul] Signe was in the folk scene like all of us.

She had worked at the club where I met Marty.

She had a great strength and power

to her voice-- low, moving. It was beautiful.

[Jorma] When we decided to look for a bass player,

I thought, Jack Casady.

He was a childhood buddy.

[Jack] So I arrive out in California,

my first airplane flight,

started rehearsing with the band.

-["Let Me In" playing] -[Marty] We started to play,

and the guy was just phenomenal,

just what I was looking for--

a guy who would just play his bass and be himself.

♪ ♪

But I told him, I said, "Hey, man, you can play

"the bass, but you got to change your look."

You look like an Okefenokee guy."

[Jack laughs] I had the dweeb look

with horn-rimmed glasses.

[Jefferson Airplane] ♪ I don't want to be ♪

♪ Told by you what to do... ♪

[Jack] In San Francisco, I found myself

in an atmosphere, it was absolutely crazy.

Everybody came from a different direction creatively.

[Paul] More often, the things that worked best

were the things that just came upon us.

And we just dove in headfirst.

[Marty] One day, I see this kid,

and he's glowing like Buddha, Skip Spence.

So beautiful.

And I just walked up to him.

I said, "Hey, you're my drummer."

Skip thought I was nuts.

He said, "I'm not a drummer. I'm a guitar player."

I gave him two sticks. I said, "Here, take these sticks.

Go home. Practice awhile. Give it a try, you know?"

And he gave it a try, and he was great.

[Paul] There was a glowing power to him

that was undeniable.

He translated that into drums for us.

But there was no place to play in town.

So I said we should probably try to do our own club.

And Marty knew some dentists who wanted to get laid

and convinced them that they should build a club

and they could get laid. [laughs]

So we built the Matrix around that.

We owned, like, a quarter of the club.

And it all worked out, very little planning.

We became semi-famous within the small circle of the town

at that point.

[Grace] I was a model at I. Magnin's in San Francisco.

Floor model, which means you walk around all day.

Ah, it's stiff.

It's boring.

My husband at the time was Jerry Slick.

That's where I got the name.

It's a real name-- weird but real.

We went to see a group called Jefferson Airplane

at a place called the Matrix.

[Jefferson Airplane] ♪ This is my life ♪

♪ ♪

♪ I'm satisfied... ♪

[Grace] I saw them and I thought, "I can do that."

My mother was a singer-- stupidity of youth.

"I can do that. That looks like a lot more fun"

So that's what I did, stopped modeling.

♪ ♪

[Jefferson Airplane] ♪ Let me be satisfied ♪

♪ This is my life... ♪

[Grace] Jerry Slick and his brother Darby

and I and a couple more guys

formed a group called The Great Society...

[man] The Great Society there for a set this evening.

[Grace] ...making fun of Lyndon Johnson's thing.

- [man laughs] - ["That's How It Is" playing]

[The Great Society] ♪ Well, I hear shouting ♪

♪ And crowds are cheering ♪

♪ There's so much Laughter... ♪

[Grace] None of us were any good.

[laughs]

It was fun.

But we wrote our own songs.

And the DJ "Big Daddy" Tom Donahue,

he heard us.

Tom, who had been on KYA, top 40,

a major personality around town,

was working on creating his own record label,

Autumn Records.

He was just trying to find some new

and interesting talent, trying to capture

the general attitude

of what was going on in San Francisco.

[Grace] He got Sly Stone

to come and help us as a producer.

We recorded at Golden Gate in San Francisco,

a fairly small studio.

[upbeat rock music plays]

Now, we were really pretty lame musicians.

♪ ♪

[Sly] You blew it.

Hey, man, forget it.

[man] OK, somebody go up, take 11.

[mellow rock music plays]

[Sly] That was bad, bad.

They were not quite professional enough

for Sly's standards.

And Sly pretty much ran around and played everybody's parts

because he couldn't stand what he was hearing. [laughs]

[Grace] At one point, he just stopped the thing

and said, "Look, I'll do this."

Sly Stone can play any instrument you hand him well.

Sly Stone, Sylvester Stewart, was a genius musician.

[Dusty] Tom Donahue recorded him on Autumn Records.

And the first record was "Buttermilk."

And all it was was an instrumental

with Sly going, "I want a glass of buttermilk."

[Sly] ♪ Buttermilk ♪

[funky music plays]

[laughs]

[Ben] And then from there...

-[radio tuning] -...he got onto the radio.

[Sly] ♪ Playing records is my game ♪

[Ben] Great personality, witty, fast.

[Dusty] He came on and he playd great soul and R&B.

He was a DJ like none other.

He would create his own jingles,

sometimes on the spot with a visiting musician,

and just did whatever the hell he wanted.

It was wonderful to hear.

It was like the beginning of free form radio.

[Sly] ♪ A little bit different Every night ♪

♪ Always out of sight ♪

[Dave] Before I was their drummer, I went to see

Big Brother and The Holding Company.

[funky music plays]

Everyone in the room was drawn to the stage

like a magnet.

What's coming out of the amplifier

is nothing like you've ever heard in a rock band.

♪ ♪

It just blew my mind.

[Peter] It's not what they call serious music.

Even though you spent a lot of time working on it,

if you take it too seriously,

you're gonna lose all the fun that you get when you play it.

♪ ♪

[Dave] James Gurley's guitar was the predominant sound

of Big Brother and the Holding Company.

♪ ♪

[Peter] He had a very crazy style of playing--

all over the guitar neck,

kind of like the Coltrane on guitar.

♪ ♪

[James] James was an Old Testament prophet

come back and joining the apocalypse.

He was this visionary, totally instinctive player.

Never had a guitar lesson in his life.

And I was, like, an 18th-century classicist.

When it came time for a structured,

beautiful, melodic line, I would play.

And very often, we would do both of them

together at the same time.

♪ ♪

[James] It was just no limits. We didn't look at anything

as out-of-bounds--

pieces of Bach or Beethoven or whatever, just mix it up.

We didn't keep to any strict categories.

We didn't play strict blues.

We didn't play strict rock and roll or strict jazz.

We mixed elements of all of those things together

into this homogeneous thing that

became psychedelic music.

[psychedelic music plays]

♪ ♪

[Bob] We kept hearing about these strange happenings

up in La Honda, up in the hills above Palo Alto,

centering around the author Ken Kesey's house.

[Jerry] We got invited, actually, to one of

these parties. We went down, and we plugged

all our stuff in and played for about a minute.

♪ ♪

And then we all freaked out. [laughs]

But we made a good impression on everybody in that minute.

♪ ♪

They stunk. But when you're on acid,

who gives a shit?

I mean, a garbage pail rolling down a flight of stairs

sounds like a symphony when you're on acid.

[upbeat music plays]

♪ ♪

[Jerry] We had an opportunity to visit

highly experimental places

under the influence of highly experimental chemicas

before a highly experimental audience, you know?

It was ideal.

♪ ♪

[Bob] You could play a line that you were used to playing

and you would hear it differently

and other people would hear it differently.

Because everything was new-sounding

and felt and looked new to us,

we started jumping over whatever brink we could find

and seeing what was out there.

♪ ♪

[Jerry] During the course of the acid test, there was

this one guy I remember, who came in

with a suit, looking real straight.

Later on in the evening, you see him, his coat's gone.

The next one after that, he's got a sweatshirt

and some Levi's, you know. And then the next one

after that, he's got a funny hat.

And you see this metamorphosis going on

from week to week that was just--

oh, it was really neat.

And then the Trips Festival was just amazing

because we weren't the headliners, the event was.

♪ ♪

In the middle of total madness,

here's this guy running around

with some illusion of order with a clipboard,

looking straight as can be.

[Bill] At the beginning, it was a very cliquish thing.

Bill, you know, fine, but he's a...

businessman and doesn't dress

the way we dress and doesn't wear the clothing,

doesn't do the social things we do.

[interviewer] Bill, you were born in Berlin.

-[Bill] Yes. -Those awful years,

the beginning of the Nazis in Germany...

...what do you recall of those years, anything?

Were you much too young?

No, I've never--

I've never known what to do about that.

From the day that I came here--I was 11--

I have total amnesia for the first nine years

of my life. I remember nothing.

What happened to your mother?

My mother went in the camps in '43.

After I arrived here in America,

this Jewish couple came from the Bronx

and took me into their home.

The first few months that I spent here,

I got my head kicked in pretty good

'cause I had this accent when I spoke English.

I changed my name. I wanted to be...

What was your name?

...an American. Grajonca.

-Wolfgang Grajonca. -[interviewer] Hmm.

Which is a much nicer name than Bill Graham, but I--

Kind of sorry you changed it?

Very much so.

By the time I was 16,

it cost me $48 a month to pay into the family.

That was my foster, my agreement, my contract.

So there was always the entrepreneurial thoughts

of, how do I make money to do this?

You were in Korea,

court-martialed a couple of times

and won the Bronze Star.

That seems to be a little inconsistent.

Just an angry but good soldier, I guess.

Yeah.

[Bill] I drove to San Francisco

not knowing what am I gonna be someday.

But when I came out here, like everybody else,

I couldn't believe what was here.

I thought this was the special place on this planet.

[bell clanging]

[people singing indistinctly]

[Peter] If you're an artist of any kind,

you want to change people's lives, I think.

You can do that by example

by the kind of life you lead, in other words,

showing-- saying, saying, I live this kind of life.

It's a viable alternative. Or you can do it in your work.

Or you can do both. That's what we do.

Oh, they're so square down there.

[Peter] I had been an actor in college.

And I stumbled into the San Francisco Mime Troupe,

this vibrant troupe rewriting 17th-century

Italian masked commedia dell'arte

for political currency, modern events.

[man] Money must be spent.

It thrives on trade.

After all, William, that's the secret

of how this nation's made.

[Peter] We became the darlings of the left.

And the audience was eating it up.

It was the romantic height of a young revolutionary artist.

[Bill] Love the theater, political satire.

And I went to work for the San Francisco Mime Troupe.

[Peter] Bill Graham was the manager of the Mime Troupe.

And he was formidable, incredible energy.

[Bill] I got very much involved with doing

free shows in the park. I talked to the law.

I'd run the business of the Mime Troupe.

And one day, we were in Golden Gate Park.

We took commedia dell'arte plays

and changed it into police brutality

and civil rights and fuck you,

piss on this, shit this, fuck that.

["Outlaw Blues" playing]

♪ ♪

We got arrested in the park for using four-letter language.

[whistle blows]

[The Great Society] ♪ Ain't it Hard when you stumble ♪

♪ Land in some Muddy lagoon... ♪

[Peter] The mime troupe didn't get a permit.

We just said, "It's a park, what the hell?"

They wanted to see our scripts.

What do you mean? We're not gonna do that.

♪ ♪

[The Great Society] ♪ Now When it's nine below zero ♪

♪ And three o'clock In the afternoon... ♪

[Bill] We needed money for our legal fees

to defend our rights in the park.

And I said, "Let's have a fundraiser."

November 6, '65, I invited Jefferson Airplane.

It was the first time I saw

the undercurrent of San Francisco.

We raised $4,200. The place was jammed.

And it was so successful, people just called and said,

"I heard about this party. When is the next one?"

[The Great Society] ♪ I love him just the same... ♪

[Bill] So many people couldn't get into our little loft.

I was running around town looking for a larger place.

Somebody suggested, at the corner of Fillmore and Geary,

the ballroom called the Fillmore Auditorium.

I went to see it.

And it was run by a gentleman named Charlie Sullivan.

He was running R&B shows there.

And I rented it from him for a night.

[mellow music plays]

You have a poster there, is that--

Yes, it's a poster somebody gave to me.

-It looked pretty good. -[man] I did.

Jefferson Airplane, John Handy Quintet,

and Sam Thomas

and The Mystery Trend and The Great Society

are all playing at Fillmore Auditorium

Friday, December 10th.

And I would like to go if I could.

[laughter]

["It's No Secret" playing]

♪ It's no secret ♪

♪ How strong my love is For you ♪

♪ It's no secret ♪

♪ When I tell you What I'm gonna do ♪

♪ 'Cause I love you Yes, I love you ♪

♪ It's no secret... ♪

[Bill] It was obvious to me that there was

this tidal wave of desire from the audience

to express itself.

The show wasn't just a stage.

They came in to see the act on the stage and then

turned to one another: "You want to dance?

"Do you want to make love? Do you want to talk?"

[The Great Society] ♪ It's no secret ♪

[Bill] There was an openness.

♪ When you got me jumping Up and down... ♪

[Bill] These people all had something in common.

They were all doves. They all really believed

in be and let be.

[The Great Society] ♪ I love you ♪

♪ Yes, I love you, yeah ♪

♪ It's no secret ♪

[Chet] I went to the second Mime Troupe benefit

at the Fillmore. And it's the first time I met Bill.

I let him know that we were interested in promoting shows.

Bill was saying, "Well, you know, the lease

on this place is only, like, 500 bucks a month."

We made a handshake deal that night

to come in on alternate weekends.

So we did four shows with Bill at the Fillmore Auditorium.

[Bill] With each show,

the handwriting was on the wall.

It was as if life filled out the form

of how I could express myself.

Big fucking deal.

How many times have I lost my temper in public

and I read about the vicious things I've done?

[Ben] Bill Graham had a forceful, explosive temper.

He was a tough, tough negotiator,

a businessman prone to yell and scream

in person or, famously, on the phone.

Just slam the phone down once he

was finished with his points.

At first, he and Chet were gonna share weekends.

After about three weeks, Bill Graham

had another enlightenment and realized

there was no reason for letting this other guy

have the other weekend.

So then Chet had to find a place.

And he found the Avalon.

[somber music plays]

♪ ♪

[Chet] I loved that hall. I loved the sprung dance floor.

If you got 300 or 400 people dancing at one time,

the floor would rise to meet you and lift you even higher.

It was quite a marvelous room.

We had shows continuously for about three years.

Each show was designed to create a unique atmosphere,

a certain thematic resonance to send you on a trip,

as it were.

[psychedelic music plays]

♪ ♪

[Bill] I made up the light show at the Avalon.

Food oil, alcohol, Windex, water,

and food coloring, mostly what I used.

♪ ♪

I projected from the balcony down close

to the end of the room where the stage was.

♪ ♪

The first weekend, I spent the day

stapling white plastic behind the stage.

♪ ♪

Then we had the whole wall.

And at that point, the whole room became the show.

♪ ♪

And the people dancing were all in the light show.

So it became a kinetic painting.

[Grateful Dead] ♪ If only I could ♪

♪ Be less blind ♪

♪ ♪

♪ If only I knew What to find... ♪

[Bill] All of my work has been spontaneous.

But it had a compositional coherence.

[Grateful Dead] ♪ Bending my mind... ♪

[Bill] Like music, you had a period of time.

And it only existed while it was happening.

The viewer had to be there at the same time

the painter was making it.

♪ ♪

♪ The friendly stranger Calls my name ♪

♪ He only wants me For his game ♪

[man] The group is known as the Grateful Dead.

They sing "The Mindbenders."

♪ I'll bend his mind ♪

♪ Everywhere And all of the time ♪

♪ It's bending my mind ♪

[Chet] What has happened here in San Francisco,

large groups of people are gathered together.

They want to do their thing.

The way I produced shows

came out of my own unique upbringing.

I was raised in a fundamentalist

Christian family.

Watching my grandfather, who built and promoted

little churches all over Texas and Missouri and Arkansas,

in many ways, it was like being backstage.

I was aware of the stagecraft.

At the peak of the Avalon, in many ways,

this was my church and my flock.

It was the way I wanted to express myself.

And I learned canvasing from my uncles,

who were printers.

I was a printer's devil as a kid.

I cleaned up and set type in the shop.

Once I lost my faith in evangelism,

I had this promotional skill and this background.

And I originally worked with Wes Wilson

on our earliest posters.

[Victor] Wes Wilson, he was working in a print shop

where some of the first Family Dog posters

were printed.

Saw them and he started doing them...

[upbeat music plays]

...working with Chet Helms.

♪ ♪

Then Mouse shows up.

He teams up with Kelly.

[Stanley] Kelly and I were standing in front

of my studio on a sunny day.

Across the street, this guy is walking.

And he looks exactly like the Zig-Zag man,

the logo, Zig-Zag papers for smoking pot.

Kelly and I said, "We've got to do this Zig-Zag poster now."

Inspiration was everywhere.

[Victor] I saw that poster on the wall.

And I just about fell into the street

because it was so logical.

Come to this event. Smoke dope.

♪ ♪

[Stanley] We were breaking all kinds of norms.

And it was really fun doing it.

We did the Zig-Zag poster.

And then Kelly and I followed it up

with another poster together for the Grateful Dead.

We were looking for something that would fit the band.

So we went to the library.

They had wonderful books.

We came across The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám.

We opened up the book

and we saw this skull and roses image

and said, "Wow, that has Grateful Dead

written all over it."

Skulls and roses?

Grateful Dead.

That poster became the starting block

for all the Grateful Dead's later albums.

♪ ♪

I said, "Holy shit. I can do that."

Seven years of college, fine art,

all the rules out the window.

All the new rules came in.

Now I can bring my bat and ball and play with the other boys.

And I did.

We were the big five, including Rick Griffin.

The posters were easy to roll up, put them in a tube,

ship them to New York, to Italy.

They showed up in China.

[Ben] In many cases, the poster artists

were more famous than all the different bands.

The posters ultimately advertised the scene,

added to the mystery of San Francisco.

♪ ♪

[man] I may as well do this without counting off.

[band tuning]

[Dave] The band's rehearsing every day.

We're rehearsing in a firehouse that Stanley Mouse,

the poster artist, is living in on Henry Street,

sort of between the Castro and the Haight.

And it's just four guys.

[Peter] We liked the bands that had female vocalists.

Jefferson Airplane had Signe Anderson

and The Great Society had Grace Slick.

So we wanted a female vocalist.

Chet says, "Janis Joplin,

do you know who she is?" And I said, "Yeah."

And he said, "Well, I think I can get her out here"

[Dave] Chet brought her to a rehearsal at the firehouse.

["Down On Me" playing]

♪ Well, down on me ♪

♪ Yeah ♪

♪ Looks like everybody In this whole round world ♪

♪ ♪

♪ They're down on me... ♪

[Peter] There was a knock at the door

and there's two cops standing outside:

"We've gotten reports there was a woman

that's screaming in here."

"Oh, that's just Janis.

It's OK." [laughs]

♪ ♪

♪ They're down on me... ♪

[Sam] We played so loud,

she had to kind of swim to the top of that.

♪ Well, down on me ♪

♪ Yeah, yeah ♪

♪ Looks like everybody In this whole round world ♪

♪ ♪

♪ They're down on me... ♪

[Peter] We had only two amplifiers.

So we would plug in a PA into one

and then my bass in channel two.

♪ ♪

The other unit played guitars.

Wasn't really a good system.

But with Janis, worked out fine.

♪ ♪

♪ Yes, they're down on me ♪

♪ Well, down on me ♪

♪ Yeah... ♪

[Peter] We knew just from that first day

that she was a member of the group.

♪ They're down on me ♪

[Country Joe] I was there at the Avalon ballroom

when Janis Joplin performed

with Big Brother and The Holding Company.

We were on the bill together.

[mellow rock music plays]

When she performed that night, she was

just another player in an extremely far-out

art psychedelic rock and roll band.

Janis brought to them a fusion of blues.

[Dave] When Janis joined

Big Brother and the Holding Company,

that was the beginning

of change of focus.

[Sam] Singers need to know where the verse

and where the bridge is and all that.

Immediately, they begin to organize the music

and shape it.

All of a sudden, we had to have beginnings and endings

and transitions.

[man] People who influenced you.

-[Janis] Yeah. -[man] Big Mama Thornton.

[Janis] She's fantastic. We've played with her twice.

[man] You and she sing together?

[Janis] Not at the same-- I wouldn't get on

the same stage with her. She'd kill me.

No, but we have played on the same bill.

You know, and I was absolutely terrified.

[laughs] But it was really a thrill for me.

[man] Why do you like Mama Thornton's

"Ball and Chain," for example?

[Janis] We heard it one night, we went and saw her at

the Both/And Club in San Francisco.

[Peter] We had heard that she was gonna be

performing at the Both/And Club on Divisadero.

It's a jazz club close to 1090 Page Street.

And occasionally, they'd have blues artists there.

["Ball 'n' Chain" playing]

♪ And then you find out Your heart ♪

♪ Will be like mine ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Whoa, wrapped up just like That old ball and chain... ♪

[Janis] I heard that tune and I just really loved it.

[Big Mama Thornton] ♪ Whoa, yeah ♪

♪ Hey, hey, oh, baby ♪

[Peter] And so we went backstage and said,

"Would you mind? I mean, we'd like to record it."

She said, "Well, who are you guys?"

We said, "Well, we're Big Brother

"and the Holding Company. We play at

"at the Fillmore and Avalon."

I think we're gonna change it a little bit."

She said, "Well, OK, just don't fuck it up."

["Ball 'n' Chain" playing]

♪ All right, come on Come on ♪

♪ And you say, oh, whoa ♪

♪ Honey, this can't be ♪

♪ No, this can't be in vain ♪

♪ Daddy, Daddy And I say, no, no, no ♪

♪ Oh, baby ♪

♪ And I say, oh, whoa ♪

♪ Tell me why ♪

♪ Well, tell me why ♪

♪ Honey, tell me why love Is like ♪

♪ Well, it's like a ball and ♪

♪ And a chain ♪

♪ ♪

[Jack] We were one of the early bands in San Francisco

to get a record contract, go down to Los Angeles,

set up in Studio A where Frank Sinatra

had set up, and get to play our music.

[Jefferson Airplane] ♪ Well, she's riding ♪

♪ On the air So easy in the sky... ♪

♪ ♪

[Jack] Signe made our first album with us.

[Jefferson Airplane] ♪ I'm Rooted like a tree here... ♪

[Jack] She had a smooth lower-timbre voice

that fitted in with Paul's harmonies a lot.

♪ ♪

We liked three-part harmony.

[Jefferson Airplane] ♪ And the only way to fly ♪

♪ Was to die ♪

♪ Yes, I am ♪

♪ Yes, I am ♪

[Jorma] So the record came out. We were actually starting to be

a professional band.

We had a bunch of gigs coming up.

But Skip Spence dropped acid and went to Mexico.

[Marty] Well, you don't miss a gig.

That's my philosophy.

You miss a gig, you're out.

So Spencer Dryden became the drummer after that.

[Jorma] And that was pretty much the last I saw of Skip

until he surfaced in Moby Grape later.

[Pat] I had a friend who I played with

in a band in high school. And one day, he calls me up.

He goes, "Pat, you got to hear this record."

He put it on, and it was the first Moby Grape album.

[Moby Grape] ♪ Listen, my friends ♪

♪ Listen, my friends... ♪

[Pat] He goes, "I think it's the best

"San Francisco band of all of them."

What do you think?"

I go, "I think you're right."

[Moby Grape] ♪ Listen, my friends ♪

-♪ You thought never but ♪ -♪ Listen, my friends ♪

♪ I'm yours forever ♪

[Pat] I was head over heels for the San Francisco music.

I loved Jerry Garcia.

I loved Jorma Kaukonen.

I love Barry Melton.

But there probably wasn't a better

rock and roll guitar player than Jerry Miller.

He blew my mind.

♪ ♪

[Jerry] The first time we got together,

the sparks come off of us, bing, bang, boom,

there it was.

I played most of the lead guitar.

Peter was a finger picker, excellent finger picker.

And Skippy played just wonderful rhythm.

[Ben] Skip Spence was the original drummer

for the Airplane.

And then he was fired

and moved over to form Moby Grape.

And there, the drumming went to Don Stevenson.

So that left Skip playing guitar,

which he did very well.

[Jerry] We all sang.

We all wrote.

We were all young and handsome.

And we thought, hell, there's no end

to the possibilities here.

[Ben] Moby Grape, they were so good,

most knowledgeable people thought

that they could have been superstars.

[Moby Grape] ♪ Eight-oh-five ♪

[Jerry] I had just left my wife.

She was gonna go back to Tacoma on the bus.

Didn't have no time right then for wives.

So I was driving my '50 Olds Rocket 88.

[Don] Crossing over the Golden Gate Bridge,

and Jerry looks at me,

and he goes, "What time is it, man?"

And I went, "It's 8:05."

And he goes, that sounds like a song.

[Moby Grape] ♪ Eight-oh-five... ♪

[Jerry] ♪ Eight-oh-five, I guess you're leaving ♪

[Moby Grape] ♪ I guess You're leaving, goodbye ♪

They were signed to a major label, Columbia.

And they were produced by a superb talent

named David Rubinson.

[Don] David Rubinson was our producer.

And he knew music.

[Moby Grape] ♪ I hear someone's ♪

♪ Been a-telling you... ♪

[Don] Columbia, they really, really promoted us.

They wanted us to be the next Beatles.

[Moby Grape] ♪ And now you're saying ♪

♪ You can't groove behind... ♪

[Ben] The first album was so good

that the excitable boys at Columbia Records said,

"Let's do something that's never been done before."

[Don] Some A&R guy goes, "Hey, I got an idea.

We're gonna put out five singles at the same time."

[Moby Grape] ♪ Who you been talking to... ♪

[Jerry] That was really insane.

But we were not businessmen. We were musicians.

[Moby Grape] ♪ Hey, babe You oughta know by now... ♪

[Ben] Anybody who becomes successful,

becomes commercial, and becomes a person

with some reputation or notoriety

becomes also highly suspect.

[Don] Our reputation turned out to be kind of

like a--like a hype band.

Nobody's ever done that again.

♪ ♪

[Jorma] Everybody that's played in the band with me,

knows how hard is it to keep a band together

more than a half an hour.

Signe was becoming an adult.

She was pregnant, gonna have a kid.

And it became apparent to her that this was not a lifestyle

conducive to raising kids.

But it was imperative in Kantner's worldview

that we had a female voice in the band.

And so we went to see The Great Society

'cause we watched each other play all the time.

[The Great Society] ♪ Never thought ♪

♪ That it could be... ♪

[Jorma] Grace had a sound.

And she was really something.

[The Great Society] ♪ Never thought that... ♪

[Jorma] Not just her voice but her stage persona,

it was special.

[Marty] "Grace," I said, "is a good singer,

but she's got her own band and it's a hit band."

Jack said, "Well, hey, it won't hurt to ask."

[Grace] I was up in the balcony

at the Avalon Ballroom,

watching the crowd down below.

Great Society was breaking up 'cause the guys

were gonna go study in India,

which was very popular at the time.

Jack Casady came up to talk for a while.

"What do you think about singing with Airplane?"

Trying to be cool, I said, "Yeah, that might work."

[Steve] The Jefferson Airplane,

they had a big ceremony at the Fillmore.

[cheers and applause]

[Steve] They said goodbye to their lead singer

and then they introduced Grace Slick

and gave both women big things of flowers.

I was standing there going, "What is this?"

Took me quite a while to figure out San Francisco

was a social phenomenon

more than a musical phenomenon.

It was like a whole different thing

than Chicago.

I maneuvered my way backstage,

and there was Paul Butterfield.

Immediately weaseled my way up

on the stage with Butterfield...

[Paul] ♪ I was Born in Chicago In 1941... ♪

[Steve] ...and announced who I was and that

I was bringing my band, which I didn't have,

to San Francisco.

Got a big cheer.

After the gig, I borrowed five bucks from Butterfield

'cause I was flat broke.

I drove over to Berkeley, parked in the woods,

and spent the night in my truck,

where I lived for the next five months.

[upbeat music plays]

We were just putting our band together.

Started working in the Matrix nightclub.

♪ I should have Quit you, baby ♪

♪ ♪

♪ A long time ago... ♪

I was already working with electronic music.

But when I got to San Francisco,

that's where you could really play it.

♪ Should've split for Mexico ♪

♪ ♪

We had our club act together.

We knew how to entertain people,

whereas a lot of the San Francisco bands

would play a tune and then stand around

and talk or do nothing for 15 minutes.

Everybody in every San Francisco band

just seemed like this amateur

pretending to know what they were doing.

[Grace] We didn't have the idea of,

"Oh, boy, we're gonna be rock and roll stars."

The business of being a star

was looked down on because that's the Hollywood machine.

That's the straight people's things.

[Steve] Eventually, our crisp, hard edges got soft.

And then their soft edges got a little harder.

We all sort of moved towards each other.

And watching it all develop was always cool.

[Grace] My songs were not very radio-friendly.

But when I was in The Great Society,

I wrote a song at parents.

They said, "Why are you taking these drugs?

Why are you doing this?" I said, "Really?

Why did you read me those books?"

When we were little, they read us Wizard of Oz.

They fall down in a field of opium poppies

and suddenly, they can see the Emerald City.

Alice in Wonderland, who takes

five different drugs in that book.

If you drink this, you'll get high.

If you eat this, you'll get small.

She's talking to a hookah-smoking caterpillar

who's sitting on top of a mushroom.

Now, they didn't happen to notice that, I guess.

But their whole generation was based on alcohol.

They weren't paying attention. [laughs]

So I was writing that song

back at what we considered adults.

[Jefferson Airplane] ♪ One pill makes you larger ♪

♪ And one pill Makes you small ♪

♪ And the ones That Mother gives you ♪

♪ Don't do anything at all ♪

♪ Go ask Alice ♪

♪ When she's ten feet tall ♪

["White Rabbit" playing]

[Jack] To me, it was just kind of natural

to start the song out with that lick

and do it with a triplet with my fingers

as if it was the snare in "Bolero."

[Grace] I loved his bass

and, of course, flamenco music.

[Jack] That was really the beginning

of a great relationship

where we'd all just work at rehearsal

and see what we could come up with.

[Jefferson Airplane] ♪ And the White Knight ♪

♪ Is talking backwards ♪

♪ And the Red Queen's Off with her head ♪

♪ Remember ♪

♪ What the dormouse said ♪

♪ Feed your head ♪

♪ Feed your head ♪

[cheers and applause]

[Paul] "White Rabbit" was like shining light

on positive things. It was a celebration

of the whole community, what we were doing.

Feed your head, and that means everything

from education, reading

to drugs to social experimentation

to sexual experimentation.

Older people worry.

They see the way you're dressed.

They hear your music.

They don't understand it.

Do parents have anything to worry about?

I think so.

Their children are doing things that

they didn't do and they don't understand.

[Dusty] We were a community unto ourselves.

The Free Store if you needed clothes.

Free clinic if there was something wrong with you.

The drugstore, which actually was

a really great place to eat,

where a lot of people hung out.

[Peter] We were creating

an imaginarily workable alternative

of people living their own authentic lives.

We used to regard ourselves as outlaws.

You were either a citizen, or you were an outlaw.

I have no idea who came up with the word "hippies."

But it stuck.

And as the hippies started to move in,

we kind of took over.

All of a sudden, what had been the pierogi shop

became a head shop.

[Jerry] Somebody put in The Psychedelic Shop.

You'd get prism glasses, weird stuff.

And the clothes started coming in.

[Moby Grape] ♪ Hey, Grandma ♪

[Jerry] Hey, Grandma, you're so young.

It was about all the ladies in San Francisco

that dressed with those bargain clothes.

My grandma, she thought it was about her.

And she was so proud. I wasn't gonna tell her,

"No, Grammy, that's not about you."

[Moby Grape] ♪ Looking good ♪

[Jerry] 1966 was pretty perfect.

Haight-Ashbury was quaint.

I mean, you could get one of those nice Victorians

and put your band in there.

The prices were right.

[Dusty] And the panhandle, which is this long strip

of park parallel to Haight Street,

a lot of people lived off of that.

On the weekends, we would open up the windows

and listen to see who was tuning up.

Oh, yeah, that sounds like the Dead,

or, oh, yeah, that sounds like Quicksilver.

[man] Check, one, two, two.

[upbeat music plays]

[Dusty] They knew that when they played at the Fillmore,

we would go to the Fillmore and pay to see them.

But it was also cool that they were playing in the panhandle

and giving back to the community.

♪ I ain't going back To Logan ♪

♪ ♪

[Ben] Looming over all of this discovery and joy and music

was the specter of this war, Southeast Asia, Vietnam.

The shroud of death loomed over all of us.

Friends who were over there were getting killed.

[Country Joe] People got drafted.

You have to remember that.

Every male had to have thoughts

about the military.

I know I did.

[people clamoring]

I wrote a song about a year ago.

It's called "Fixing to Die Rag."

["Fixing to Die Rag" playing]

♪ And it's one, two, three What are we fighting for ♪

♪ Don't ask me I don't give a damn ♪

♪ Next stop is Vietnam ♪

♪ And it's five, six, seven Open up the pearly gates ♪

♪ Yeah, there ain't no time To wonder why ♪

♪ Whoopee We're all gonna die ♪

[Ben] 'Cause of roots as a folk musician,

Country Joe was among the first of the local bands

to address the war.

[Steve] They were really for real, those guys.

They were always trying to push you over the edge

into some political stew.

[groaning] I don't know, man.

The '60s were exploding all around us.

-[crowd chanting] -The anti-war movement.

And you talk about the beautiful America.

[Ben] Civil rights.

[people screaming]

Black Panther strikes.

Equality for women.

Legalization of marijuana.

In Berkeley, it was much more serious and political.

Change the world, change the system.

In San Francisco, it was, "Hey, man, have a great time.

Let's not march. Let's dance."

And by 1967, it was those two things

that gelled in the community and into the music.

[mellow music plays]

♪ ♪

At the beginning of '67,

on a beautiful day in January,

25,000 to 30,000 people gathered

all over the polo fields in Golden Gate Park.

[Paul] And they have it being in the park.

People were expecting, like, a couple hundred people.

And all of a sudden, there was, like, 20,000 people.

Whoa.

[Grace] There were a number of things that we were trying

to promote as fun as possible.

Instead of killing people, suggesting, how about this?

Why don't we try that?

A purposeful push for positive interaction.

[Stanley] It was called the Gathering of the Tribes.

[Jefferson Airplane] ♪ Nothing But an electric sign... ♪

[Stanley] People were coming from all over the Bay Area.

The invitation was, you bring your tribe,

you bring your flag, and join us.

And then the music starts

and people get into the event,

and pretty soon, they've laid their flag down.

Pretty soon, everybody's dancing.

Pretty soon, it's just all one thing, one tribe.

[Peter] The Human Be-In, I thought it was bullshit

up until I stepped foot in it.

It was mind-blowing.

All of a sudden, it seemed like

a cultural movement.

[Jerry] We're all those people who are the weird ones,

you know.

And it was all of a sudden, you discovered

all these people who were like you.

And that was the neat part about it.

[Bill] It was just an amalgamation

of what the scene was about at that time.

Allen Ginsberg was there,

Janis and the Quicksilver Messenger Service

and the Jefferson Airplane.

[Ben] Even the bands were not a big, big deal.

The big deal was that we were here.

This was happening in front of us.

And that you look left and right,

and there were people of all kinds, all colors,

trying to soak in and live life.

The vibe that was around that entire day

made everything seem like we were gonna be able

to accomplish all of the dreams

that we had been having.

It was one of those days when you thought,

everything is possible.

[Bill] In the middle of the afternoon,

a parachutist came down over the park,

just throwing flowers at random.

It was just an amateur paratrooper decided

to come in and join the party.

[Dusty] The Human Be-In was one of the last times

we were all able to get together as a community

where we weren't being influenced

by the outside world.

[Ben] Right after the Human Be-In,

the national media really took notice of San Francisco

for the first time.

[man 1] The aggressive determination of hippies

to start a new society has made its mark

upon San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury.

[man 2] In Haight-Ashbury, doors are for

letting people in, not keeping them out.

[man 3] This is the house of a popular local band.

They call themselves the Grateful Dead.

Warren Wallace asked them what they thought

the hippie movement was trying to accomplish.

What we're thinking about is a peaceful planet.

We're not thinking about revolution

or war or any of that.

That's not what we want.

We would all like to be able to live

a simple life, a good life, you know?

And, like, think about moving the whole human race

ahead a step or a few steps.

[somber music plays]

♪ ♪

[Richard] I just remember all of us getting together

there at the Dead's house on Ashbury.

♪ ♪

The Charlatans,

Big Brother and the Holding Company,

Quicksilver Messenger Service,

Jefferson Airplane,

and the Grateful Dead.

We're just all hanging out.

It's all the five bands.

We just finally ended up walking down to the park.

♪ ♪

That was pretty much the bands in the beginning.

♪ ♪

But The Charlatans, we were the first.

And everybody else is starting to pass us

and get these good record deals.

It was just frustrating.

The Charlatans weren't invited

to the Monterey Pop Festival.

[Ben] The bands of San Francisco

got a lot of attention from the Monterey Pop Festival.

Ears perked up, and it exploded.

["Hope" playing] ♪ All I ever wanted to do ♪

♪ Was love you ♪

♪ ♪

♪ And maybe hope You could love me too ♪

♪ ♪

[David] Monterey put an exclamation point

on the whole scene.

It was pretty amazing.

♪ ♪

-[cheers and applause] -We played on the afternoon

of the first day, and then the rest of the time,

I got to watch all these people.

Pretty much everybody I knew played.

[Ben] Monterey was set up by The Mamas & the Papas

to showcase, primarily, their own friends...

Well, this is John Phillips of The Mamas & Papas.

[Ben] ...top 40 hitmakers, and a contingent from Europe.

And at first, the Airplane, the Grateful Dead,

and Big Brother were resistant.

And they're gonna make a movie of this?

Oh, God, we don't want to be in a movie.

[Dave] Before every band went on, they said,

"Oh, we're gonna film this.

Sign this release."

♪ I'm gonna buy A Mercury and cruise ♪

♪ Up and down the road ♪

[Dave] A lot of the San Francisco bands

wouldn't do it. I'm not saying

they weren't filmed secretly. Some of them were.

♪ Cruising round In that Mercury '49 ♪

♪ I'm gonna buy me A Mercury ♪

♪ Cruise it Up and down the road ♪

[Steve] Film crews coming in and filming all this stuff.

And I thought, "Hey, wait a minute, that's all bullshit.

I don't have to do any of that."

There was a lot of tension between LA and San Francisco.

But it was a really cool thing

because there were acts from all over.

It was really diverse.

[Paul] From Ravi Shankar

to the Mike Bloomfield, Electric Flag kind of band

to Otis Redding and the Who,

all of those people on one stage

was a very broad palette in which to work.

["Somebody to Love" playing]

♪ When the truth is found ♪

♪ To be lies ♪

♪ All the joy Within you dies ♪

♪ Don't you want Somebody to love ♪

♪ Don't you need Somebody to love ♪

♪ Wouldn't you love Somebody to love ♪

♪ You better find Somebody to love ♪

♪ Love ♪

[Jorma] Grace was newly in the band.

We were just starting to flex our wings.

I mean, it was exciting for us on so many levels.

♪ ♪

It was the first festival that dignified rock and roll.

It was a big deal.

[cheers and applause]

[Marty] It was just the dream, you know?

Monterey was just a dream life for me.

It was great to be there right there at the moment

it was happening.

[cheers and applause]

[rock music playing]

♪ ♪

[Country Joe] I went there, and Owsley had

just invented this new drug

called STP,

little orange pill.

And he said, "Do you want one? And I said, "Well,

give me one and a half 'cause I want to make sure it works."

♪ ♪

I lived in a Monet painting, like Water Lilies,

for about a week, actually.

♪ ♪

I was there in the audience when Jimmy Hendrix

was humping his amplifier.

I thought, "Wow, this is entertainment."

I'd never seen a guy do anything like that.

And then with the lighter fluid,

set it on fire.

Watching that, tripping on this STP stuff, that was fun.

♪ ♪

It was crazy and fun.

But we had to work really hard to buy a guitar.

So I couldn't believe they were destroying things.

[Jack] Coming out of the purest folk and jazz world,

your instrument was your sacred temple.

When that happened, there was a frozen moment

out there in the audience.

Everybody looked at each other to see,

what's going on now? The music has sort of

taken a left turn off in another direction.

That night captured everybody's attention.

It was a psychedelic event.

[psychedelic music plays]

♪ ♪

[Dave] No one ever talks about the nest under the fest.

There was a lot of people there looking

to sign bands, make deals.

♪ ♪

[Steve] The record companies,

they were ambitious and greedy.

And they came in with the idea that they

were just gonna buy anything and everything.

♪ ♪

Out of all the San Francisco groups

that I met in the early days at the Matrix,

I never thought that Big Brothr and the Holding Company

and Janis Joplin would become this big hit that they did.

You know, and it's pretty amazing.

["Ball 'n' Chain" playing]

♪ Sitting down by my window ♪

♪ Just looking out At the rain... ♪

♪ ♪

Mama Cass, she's watching Janis.

[Janis] ♪ Mm, oh ♪

♪ Sitting down by my window ♪

♪ Just looking out At the rain... ♪

Well, she's seeing her, and she's a singer.

♪ And I want somebody To tell me, come on ♪

♪ Tell me why Oh, tell me why ♪

♪ Oh, baby, tell me why love ♪

♪ Honey, why love is like ♪

♪ Well, it's like a ball and ♪

♪ And a chain ♪

♪ ♪

[cheers and applause]

♪ ♪

[Grace] We were just as awed as Cass

when she saw Janis Joplin.

Just, wow.

[cheers and applause]

[Peter] That was the beginning of the end of our relationship

with Janis.

[Dave] The writing was on the wall

that Janis was gonna quit the band.

[indistinct chatter, laughter]

[Steve] Toward the end of the festival,

you could see the vibe changed.

Like, when the Mamas & Papas were on the stage,

the entire backstage area was closed off, locked off,

and everybody was kicked out.

It was like, really, what the hell

just happened here?

You could see the difference

between the looseness of San Francisco

and the control of LA.

That was the end of The Mamas & the Papas.

That was the end of The Mamas & the Papas.

The only thing he had after that...

♪ When you go to San Francisco♪

♪ Be sure to wear flowers In your hair ♪

Sucks.

What's the matter with you, you fucking tourist.

Don't you know better than that?

Anyway.

[Ben] The Monterey Pop Festival and national media

made it so that a lot of kids

were anxious to find out

what was going on in this crazy city.

♪ ♪

[Peter] After the Monterey Pop Festival,

I started seeing the very friendly scene

that I had been part of,

particularly in Haight-Ashbury,

starting to change.

[man] The hippies is often a strange world

in which they live in.

They take many trips.

And the trip of the hippies

is generally an unusual one.

And marijuana, of course, with LSD is being used.

["Today" playing]

♪ ♪

[Jefferson Airplane] ♪ Today I feel like pleasing you ♪

♪ More than before ♪

♪ Today I know What I want to do ♪

♪ But I don't know what for ♪

♪ To be living for you Is all I

♪ Want to do ♪

♪ To be loving you ♪

♪ It'll all be there When my dreams come true ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Today everything you want I swear ♪

♪ It all will come true ♪

♪ Today I realize how much ♪

♪ I'm in love with you ♪

♪ With you standing here ♪

♪ I could tell the world What it means to love ♪

♪ ♪

♪ To go on from here I can't use words ♪

♪ But it don't say enough ♪

♪ ♪

♪ Please, please Listen to me ♪

♪ It's taken so long To come true ♪

♪ And it's all for you ♪

♪ All for you ♪