The Great Society Live At The Matrix 1966
(some time between June 21 & 26th, or possibly 1st july?)
Down Home Girl
Born To Be Burned
Talk To Your Father
Who Do You Love
Black Crow Blues
Didn't Think So
Someone To Love
Slow Movin' Man
Darkly Smiling
Father Bruce
Daydream Nightmare
You Can't Cry
Often As I May
Drive Me Away
Outlaw Blues
Get Out My Life Woman
Born To Be Burned (cut)
line-up
Grace Slick vocals, recorder
Darby Slick lead guitar
David Minor Guitar, vocals
Peter Vandergelder bass, saxaphone
Jerry Slick drums
I received this in trade a few years ago, it came to me as a single disc with songtitles and the location as general title. I am therefore unaware of lineage beyond my copying this from disc with EAC.
To my knowledge the recordings on here are unique. They certainly sound like different takes on the same songs that appear on the one concert by the band that has been generally released. A few of the same titles appeared on a compilation bootleg series called San Francisco Nights, I don't have those to compare with so I can't tell. This was a band that wasn't together very long, I think they formed in 1965, so they only had a relatively small pool of original songs to play. I'm not sure how many covers they had, certainly here they are leaning more on male vocaled blues covers than on the other set(s).
Conspicuous by It's Absence has been one of my favourite lps since Oni Nguyen gave me her copy on the closing of the Sweet Charity psychedelic clothes shop. The other released lp 'How It Was' appears to be the second half of the same set, from the same venue. They were released together under a couple of different titles, Collector's Edition and 'Live At The Matrix'. But as far as I can hear these recordings, which come from the same venue, vary in detail.
The Great Society were formed out of a jam session held by by Jerry Slick and his wife Grace (nee Wing). Jerry had invited his brother Darby, who began playing on an electric guitar bought for Grace, enjoyed the experience so much he went out and bought his own and the three decided to make the band more full time They then brought in David Minor on 2nd guitar and Bard Du Pont on bass. Du Pont was later replaced by Peter Van Der Gelder. I'm not sure on which side of that line-up transition this was recorded. I just have this as Matrix 1966. Jerry played drums and Grace at the time could be found on on vocals, recorder, occasional bass and guitar.
I've been given a date for this recording which places this in the last week of June or the 1st of July. At this point David Minor was just about to leave the band to fail an audition for a band called The Outfit, who incidentally were at one point managed by ex-GS bassist Bard du Pont. du Pont had been fired from GS in March '66 because he was never a real bassist, he had apparently been included in the band more because he looked right than because of playing skill. He died on Jan 20, 2005.
I think Darby Slick is one of the great unsung and under-recorded guitarists. I find his strummed raga guitar to be a thing of great beauty that I wish there was far more of in similar electric rock settings. Unfortunately there are few recordings, the above-mentioned 2 sets, an at the time unreleased lp which has since come out on Sundazed and this (possibly also the SF NIghts set, though that may be included in this material). There is also the somewhat tragic tale of the band's demise, though without it there would have been no classic era Jefferson Airplane, or certainly not with the same line-up. Just as the band had contracts ready to sign Grace was asked to join the Airplane, from what I've read she was encouraged by the other bandmembers to take this unrivalled opportunity but it did mean one less classic SF ballroom scene band.
Darby Slick and Peter Van Der Gelder went to India to study Indian classical music and reappeared in 1970 with Saddhu Brand who were far more Indian Classical than raga-rock, Darby has reappeared since and released a few more recent lps(Sandoland & King Of The Fretless Guitar, both recorded on an instrument designed by his son Jor). He also had a very interesting memoir of the times published in 1991, 'Don't You Need Somebody To Love' named after a line from the song he wrote as 'Someone To Love'.
The band seem to have gone pretty rapidly from little playing experience to being able to play long improvisations relatively capably. I would really like to hear what would have developed given time. Unfortunately that will never happen but for now here is another great recording by this band.
I'd be interested in finding a longer clip of the footage of the band that is projected behind the Grateful Dead on some very early footage of them.
Stevo