Antion’s Blog
Mount Tamalpais Ampitheater 1967
July 2nd, 1967 On the Sunday, when we were due to finish at the Fillmore, Eric asked us to play for a benefit at the natural ampitheater Susula had shown me, up on Mount Tamalpais. The benefit was for a children's school known as The Six Day School, certainly a worthy cause. Most of the Bay Area bands were into playing benefits for various radical and left wing causes. I believe that Eric wanted to show that The Animals also had a social conscience and were not above helping others. The whole...
San Francisco and the Fillmore – Part Two
June 27th, 1967. Meanwhile, in spite of my euphoric discovery of Northern California, there was a gig to be played. We opened at the Fillmore Auditorium on Tuesday June 27th 1967, and would play 6 nights, until the following Sunday. We were second on the bill after Chuck Berry. The Steve Miller Band were also featured and would support Chuck. Each band played two sets, with Steve Miller kicking the night off. Then we would play, with Steve coming on again to back Chuck Berry. After Chuck,...
San Francisco and the Fillmore – Part One
June 27th, 1967 I barely had time to recover from my UCLA Med Center experience, when we were on the plane to SFO to play the Fillmore Auditorium. We would be there from June 27th, 1967 to July 2nd. I had renewed my friendship with Bill Kreutzman, the Dead's drummer (this was pre-Mickey) and he invited me to stay at the apartment he shared with Phil Lesh, the bass player and their ladies. The extended Grateful Dead family was largely domiciled at a house located at 710 Ashbury Street, quite...
Adventures in UCLA Medical Center
June 24th, 1967. We were in LA, having played the Monterey Pop Festival the previous weekend and staying in a hotel on the fabled Sunset Strip. The trip to Monterey had been hurriedly arranged. The Festival had been a charity gig, a freebee – although we got first-class tickets between London and the West Coast. Now we needed some more work in the US so we could at least break even on the trip. Once again, our man-in-LA, Kevin Deverich came through for us. We would play two legendary...
Monterey Pop Festival 1967 – Day Three Evening
That evening I ingested some of the purple-colored LSD that Augustus Owsley Stanley had brought to Monterey. Obviously this had a strong effect on my perception of the evening’s events. I couldn't handle being out in the crowd so I stayed in the clubroom behind the stage and watched the show on closed circuit TV. I was deeply affected by The Who's performance, but not in a positive way. Their performance was fine but, when they started to smash up their instruments, I was disgusted. It seemed...
Monterey Pop Festival 1967 – Day Three Afternoon
I returned from my drive down into Big Sur at about the time I needed to get to the Fairgrounds for Ravi Shankar’s performance on Sunday afternoon, June 18th, 1967. About an hour before the performance, I made my way into the enclosure in front of the stage with prime seating reserved for festival performers. Since I was the first person in the arena, I made sure I got the best seat in the house, then sat and watched as the seats around me filled up. The weather was grey and miserable with...
Monterey Pop Festival 1967 – Day Two
June 17th of this year represents the 50th anniversary of the second day (Saturday) of the fabled Monterey Pop Festival. Here’s how I spent that day. Because we were through with our performance on Friday night, we were able to kick back for the rest of the festival. This also meant we were free from all of the managerial and status shenanigans that went on backstage, of which there were plenty over the next two days. The backstage setup at the Monterey Fairgrounds was like this: As you might...
Monterey Pop Festival 1967 – Day One
The dates don’t exactly match, but the third weekend in June marks the 52nd anniversary of the first day of the Monterey Pop Festival. That 1967 Friday morning found the Animals in a Los Angeles airport hotel, ready to fly to Monterey. We were up bright and early to catch the flight to Monterey. We flew in and found we were checked into the Western Motel. Jimi and the Experience were also going to be staying there and I was booked to room with Mitch Mitchell, Jimi’s drummer and an old friend....
Monterey Pop Festival 1967 – Prequel
1967 was a very special year, for me as well as for the whole planet. My memories from that year are still vividly etched in my mind. Two years ago, June of 2017, I was on a roll. I was sharing my memories of that year on Facebook and just getting into the “Summer of Love”. I was intending to chronicle my highlights for that entire year and, at the same time, create the core of my still incomplete autobiography. Just after I had shared my writings about the iconic Monterey Pop Festival of June...
Lyle Ritz passes
With the recent deaths of Hal Blaine (March 11th) and Mac Rebbenack (Dr John) who died June 6th, it made me want to look up other members of the fabled Wrecking Crew, the studio musicians who formed the core of the recording scene in Hollywood in the 60s and 70s. Sad to say, I found another loss. Lyle Ritz was a session bass player, both acoustic and Fender. He was a good friend back in the day. Lyle also had a interesting secret. Lyle learned to play bass in the army in Korea. He became a...
Dr John the Night Tripper passes
In the spring of 1969, I was working as an independent arranger and producer in the recording studios of Hollywood. I got a call from Norm Ratner, a staff producer at Uni Records. I was Norm’s go-to arranger and had already done several projects with him. “Wally Holmes has a country-rock outfit that we’re going to take into the studio. We’d like you to take a meeting with us and review their material.” Wally was a songwriter that Norm liked a lot. A few years later he would have an enormous...
A Stunning Kirtan Experience
One of the main reasons I come to India is to experience my own spirituality. This is not to say that on cannot experience one’s own spirituality in Hawai’i where I live. One can experience one’s own spirituality anywhere. In India, however, spirituality is so woven into the fabric of everyday life that one may more easily allow themselves to express their own spirituality. I made a commitment to record my experiences on my trips. I feel it is important to record the spiritual, as well as the...
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