Live Music in Palo Alto1971-73 - Across the Tracks at Homer's Warehouse

Literally across the tracks from In Your Ear, Homer’s Warehouse was the other main venue for regular live music performance in Palo Alto during the early 1970s. An actual warehouse located where the western extension of Homer Street intersected the main Southern Pacific train line from San Francisco to points south, Homer’s period as a rock venue is portrayed in colorful fashion in Andrew Bernstein’s California Slim, the Music, the Magic, and the Madness, which I heartily recommend as essential reading on the Palo Alto music scene in the 1970s. It provides the full, colorful story of the club whereas this piece is intended to provide all of the information I could find on who was booked at Homer’s Warehouse during its brief two year tenure. Homer’s was more of a gritty rock-based roadhouse than the more genteel, blues-and-jazz focused In Your Ear. Because it was a bar and closed its doors before I turned 21, I never made it to Homer’s Warehouse. The purpose of this appendix is to spotlight some of the musical luminaries that played other main club the Palo Alto area in the early 1970s. There are a number of these bands for which I couldn’t find any information, so I just list the date and the band name in those instances. 

For the first year of its existence, Homer’s Warehouse was run and booked by Bob Giussi, and its booking policy seems to have mostly attracted a lot of bikers, an otherwise relatively rare commodity in primarily white collar Palo Alto. 

12/4/71 Gold

Gold was a Latin-inflected blues band from San Francisco’s Mission District. Their manager and sometime percussionist Ron Cabral was a school teacher by day and a good friend of Country Joe McDonald, who he met when they were both in the army. Although they did not release recordings during their tenure as a band (1968-1973), there are two posthumous releases by the band that show them to be a tight and dynamic ensemble. Their most infamous gig was supporting Big Brother and the Holding Company and Janis Joplin’s final band, Full Tilt Boogie, at the Palms Ballroom (later Pepperland)  in San Rafael on 5/16/70. Gold was apparently a hit at Homer’s as they were booked for two subsequent dates. Cabral also wrote a very entertaining book, Country Joe and Me, 

12/9/71 The Dogs

After lead singer Roy Loney left San Francisco rock band the Flamin’ Groovies, the band briefly took the name the Dogs before wisely returning to their original name. Although they were part of the original San Francisco rock renaissance of the mid to late 1960s, and performed during the closing of the Fillmore West in July 1971, the Flamin Groovies’ short old time rock tunes cut against the grain of what most Bay Area bands were doing at the time. The Groovies had their greatest success in the late 1970s/early 1980s when the musical fashions of the day caught up with their style and they moved temporarily to the UK. 

12/10/71 Around and Around

12/23/71 The Doobie Brothers

I believe the Doobies actually played a number of times at Homer's during the Guissi era, but this was the one hard date I could find. Being based in San Jose, Homer's was an easy gig for the Doobie Brothers, presumably still living hand to mouth at this point a few years away from the beginning of their glory years.

12/31/71 Truckin'

1/8,9/72 The Beans

As detailed here, the Beans were initially a jam-band focused group from Phoenix Arizona including the core of future band the Tubes. The Beans was one of a very few bands that I could determine played at both Homer’s Warehouse and In Your Ear.

1/15/72  Black Kangaroo and Lollapalooza. 

Black Kangaroo was the power trio rock band that was principally a vehicle for guitarist Peter Kaukonen’s Hendrix-style instrumental acrobatics. They released their sole album in 1972 on Grunt Records, the label run by Kaukonen’s brother Jorma’s band the Jefferson Airplane. The younger Kaukonen went on to play on a number of other Grunt recordings, toured with the Jefferson Starship, has played occasionally with Hot Tuna, participated in the 1989 Jefferson Airplane reunion, and has released a number of solo albums on his own Veldt records. 

1/21-22/72 Fluid Drive and You

1/26/72 King Kong

2/2/72 Funeral Wells

2/17/72  You Thursday

3/3/72  Pomps

3/10,11/72 Rockets

3/17/72  Hades

3/24-26/72 The Doobie Brothers

5/4,5/72 Touchstone

This is an intriguing booking because the timing is right for this to have been an appearance by the band Touchstone that included former Grateful Dead keyboard player Tom Constanten, former Country Joe and the Fish Drummer Chicken Hirsch, and avant-garde composer/guitarist Paul Dresher. They released a single album, Tarot, which was the soundtrack to a mime production. 

5/18/72  Gold

6/6/72 Blues Bash

6/7/72 Mike Shapiro Band. 

Mike Shapiro was lead guitarist for Palo Alto band William Penn and his Pals, which included keyboardist-lead vocalist Greg Rolie who would shortly go on to fame and fortune as a key member of Santana. 

6/15-16/72 Country Weather

Country Weather was one of the better unsigned second or third wave San Francisco rock bands, with a twin guitar lineup of Greg Douglass and Steve Derr, they were probably closest in style to early Quicksilver. This gig was near the end of the band’s tenure, with Douglass slated shortly to work with Van Morrison, Hot Tuna, and Terry and the Pirates before becoming a member of the Steve Miller Band in 1976.

6/17/72 Frank Biner Band.

Oakland’s Frank Biner was a blues vocalist-guitarist that played Chicago clubs before migrating to the Bay area in the 1960s. He sang backing vocals on several Tower of Power cuts and later worked with Michael Bloomfield, who he had known from his Chicago days. Other than a 1982 single,  Biner didn’t have recordings of his own released until he was signed by German label Acoustic Music, which released four albums by Biner during the 1990s. 

7/6/72 Titus’ Mother with Linda Laflamme. 

Linda Laflamme was the original keyboard player in It’s a Beautiful Day and the first wife of that group’s violin player/songwriter David LaFlamme (not to be confused with his current wife Linda). After leaving IABD, Laflamme formed Titus’ Mother, a band that never recorded and seems to have mostly vanished from Bay Area musical history. Here is a brief insight into Titus’ Mother from a 2003 interview of David LaFlamme by Peter Thielen: “Yeah, she started her own band Titus’ Mother, did “Food Stamp Blues” and a lot of other — what I call protest music. Very political. I remember once, Freddy over at Keystone [a club in Berkeley] he had spoken with Titus’ Mother and they wanted to play there, and he said, “Do you think you could get that ex-husband of yours to play?” So I talked to Freddy and he said, “I want you to play here at the Keystone, but I want your ex-wife to be on the bill as the opening act.” I said “Freddy, this is going to be the biggest mistake that you ever made in your life, you’re going to be so sorry you did this.” He said, “No, I’m not, no I’m not, I think it’s going to be fantastic. The place will be packed.” I said “Oh, there will be people there, but you’ll be sorry.” Guess what? She got her friends, they made some signs, and they paraded up and down in front of the club all week before we were supposed to play there because of the high ticket prices. (laughs) He called me and said “What is she doing? David, please, I don’t understand.” (laughs) “I told you Freddy, she’s very political and she doesn’t like these fifteen dollar ticket prices, she’s really upset about it.”

7/8/72 Gold

8/18-19/72 Ribbet

9/29/72 A Natural Act

11/2-3/72 Bluesberry

11/4/72 Madness

Following a biker skirmish that resulted in one person being stabbed with an ice pick, Homer’s Warehouse closed its doors after the incident was reported on the front page of the Palo Alto Times. After being closed for a few weeks, Andrew Bernstein and Rollie Grogan took a sublease from Bill Giussi, who had originally leased the warehouse from 82 year old landlady Katherine Urban, whose husband had built a group of warehouses in the former industrial center. 

2/2/73 Stoneground and Blue Mountain

Stoneground started out as a trio from Concord that morphed into a 10 piece band with five lead singers. They were the central band for Warner Brothers Records’ Medicine Ball Caravan and appeared in both the movie from that tour and a Hammer Horror film called Dracula A.D. 1972. By 1973, they had undergone a number of personnel changes, most recently the departure of former Beau Brummels singer-songwriter Sal Valentino, but were still a powerful live act with lead singer Annie Sampson, guitarist Tim Barnes, keyboardist Cory Lerios, and drummer Steve Price. Blue Mountain was a great Palo Alto based rock/R&B band. 

2/9/73 Nick Gravenites and Luther Tucker

Nick Gravenites was an essential part of the group of Chicago blues musicians who migrated to the bay area in the 1960s. Gravenites wrote songs for the Butterfield Blues Band, was a principal songwriter and vocalist for the Electric Flag, and then performed regularly with Michael Bloomfield in his club gigs around the bay. He also performed without the guitarist, particularly when Bloomfield’s tendency to miss gigs became more commonplace. For this performance, Gravenites performed with pianist Mark Naftalin and a rhythm section. 

2/13/73 Asleep at the Wheel

Asleep at the Wheel had played a number of gigs at In Your Ear before it closed, but became close to a house band at Homer’s during the remainder of the club’s existence. The original lineup of Asleep at the Wheel easily succeeded in bringing western swing to Bay Area clubs and released a series of strong albums on United Artists, Epic, and Capitol. Andrew Bernstein’s book chronicles many exploits of the band during their affiliation with Homer’s. 

2/15/73 Sons of Champlin

The Sons of Champlin predated many of the better known San Francisco bands, but never obtained the commercial success of the Jefferson Airplane or the Grateful Dead. After briefly changing their name to Yogi Phlegm in 1971, the band returned to their earlier name and recorded possibly their strongest album, Welcome to the Dance in 1973. At this point, the Sons comprised Bill Champlin, Terry Haggerty, Geoff Palmer, David Schallock, and James Preston. A formidable live act, the Sons of Champlin were regulars on the Bay Area circuit and also toured nationally during this period. 

2/22-24/73 Nick Gravenites and Blue Gravy

3/4/73 Old and In the Way. 

Old and in the Way’s second live performance was the first appearance by Jerry Garcia in a Palo Alto club since his appearances with the New Riders at the Poppycock in late 1969 (He did play twice at Stanford in the meantime, once with Merl Saunders at Frost Amphitheatre and once with the Dead, on 2/9/73, at Maples Pavilion). According to Bernstein’s book, Sam Cutler contacted the club to offer the club a gig by this then unknown but soon to become legendary ensemble, comprising Garcia, Peter Rowan, David Grisman, and John Kahn, so they got this gig on a Tuesday night, two days after OIITW did their first radio broadcast for KSAN from the Record Plant. For the radio gig, the band included fiddler Richard Greene but, According to Bernstein book, the group performed the first time at Homer’s as a quartet without a fiddler. Garcia clearly liked playing at Homer’s as he returned two more times with Old and In the Way, and also did a weekend in May with Merl Saunders. 

3/23/73 Rowan Brothers and Frank Biner Band

At this time, the Rowan Brothers consisted of Chris and Lorin, the two younger siblings of Earth Opera/Bill Monroe/Seatrain guitarist Peter Rowan. The duo had met Jerry Garcia, then a neighbor of theirs in Stinson Beach, through Peter, and he was instrumental in getting the younger Rowans signed to Columbia records, who released their first eponymous LP in 1972. At this point, the Rowans were working with a small electric group, performing a wide variety of original tunes by the two brothers. 

4/10 Bob Banks and the Gas Tanks

Banks and the Tanks were apparently a country band made up of Stanford students who had enough cronies to fill the club from the nearby university.

4/12/73 Copperhead and Luther Tucker Band.

After he left Quicksilver Messenger Service in 1970, Guitarist John Cipollina migrated to Copperhead, a harder-rocking band that included bassist Hutch Hutchinson, drummer David Weber, keyboard player/vocalist Jim McPherson and guitarist/vocalist Gary Phillippet. They recorded a single eponymous album for Columbia in 1972 that consisted of original material written by Phillippett, McPherson and Cipollina in various combinations. The band broke up Phillippet, who also went by Gary Phillips, had a long career in bay area bands including Freedom Highway, Earthquake, and the Greg Kihn Band. McPherson did recording with a variety of Marin County musicians in the mid to late 1970s, and was a member of High Noon, an eclectic band put together by Mickey Hart in 1980 that included Merl Saunders and Norton Buffalo. Around the time Copperhead folded, Cipollina started working with Terry and the Pirates, a great rock and roll ensemble that was fronted by Terry Dolan and featured twin lead guitar courtesy of Cipollina and Country Weather’s Greg Douglass. Cipollina subsequently worked regularly with Nick Gravenites and was a member of the Dinosaurs as well as numerous other Marin County based groups.

Blues guitarist Luther Tucker had impressive credentials before fronting his own band, having served in Muddy Waters and later James Cotton’s bands in the late 1960s before going out on his own in the early 1970s. He was a regular at In Your Ear during its last months of operation. During this era, Tucker also worked with John Lee Hooker, and did not record under his own name until the 1990s, when he also did an album with the temporarily reunited Ford Blues Band.

4/18-19/73 Stoneground

4/20-21/73 Rowan Brothers Chaos Chorus and Stagger Band

The Chaos Chorus were an electric trio from Sonoma County that were led by a teenaged Norton Buffalo. Buffalo, an amazing harmonica player, songwriter and vocalist, later played with Commander Cody, led his own band, the Norton Buffalo Stampede, that recorded a couple of albums in the mid-1970s for Capitol. For many years, he was Steve Miller’s sidekick in the Steve Miller Band, and also recorded a series of fine albums with guitarist Roy Rogers. 

4/27/73  Sons of Champlin

5/2/73 Dirty Butter Jug Band

Santa Cruz ensemble Dirty Butter Jug Band has been playing since the early 1970s. The group originated when New Jersey music fanatics Tim Greenwood, Bob Young and Rita Black decided to start a jug band. Moving to California in 1971, they assembled a sprawling cast of collaborators that began performing in bay area clubs, most notably the legendary Club Zayante in the Santa Cruz mountains. 

5/3/73 Appaloosa and the Mad Brothers

There was a New England Quartet called Appaloosa that recorded a single album for Columbia in 1969, produced by Al Kooper. Given the time gap and the lack of any follow up recordings by this group, and the fact that they had a return gig in July, it is more likely that this was an unrecorded bay area band.

5/4,5/73 Jerry Garcia and Merl Saunders. 

As noted in California Slim, Andrew Bernstein knew Jerry Garcia from the folk days, and took guitar lessons from him. Since the Grateful Dead moved out of Palo Alto, Garcia had been a rare presence in Palo Alto, other than some excursions with the New Riders in 1969-70 and a Dead performance at Stanford’s Maples Pavilion on 2/19/73. However, once Garcia played a local place that he liked, he would often return there frequently. Jerry clearly liked playing Homer’s Warehouse, starting with his March date with Old and In the Way, but this was the only time he performed there with Merl Saunders. Soundboard recordings exist of both nights of this May engagement.

5/6/73  Mad Deal Ely

5/18/73 Old and In the Way

Two weeks later, Garcia was back again playing bluegrass with with Old and In the Way.

5/19/73 Stoneground

5/24/73 Cat Mother and Eyes

Cat Mother and the All Night Newsboys had a long history, starting as a quintet playing rock and roll in New York, where they met Jimi Hendrix, who produced both their first album The Street Giveth and the Street Taketh Away and the hit single from that album “Good Old Rock n Roll” which reached #21 on the Billboard singles chart in 1969. The group subsequently moved to California, went through a number of personnel changes, and released two more albums. By 1973, they were mostly playing bay area clubs, including this one date at Homer’s.

5/25,26/73 Crabshaw’s Outlaws (Elvin Bishop) and Elvis Duck. 

In 1973, Elvin Bishop was juggling two bands. The Elvin Bishop Group was a popular club and ballroom act that he had maintained since at least 1969, featuring keyboard player Stephen Miller and vocalist Jo Baker. In 1973 he began playing club gigs with a different group including second guitarist Johnny Vernazza, who had played in soul/R&B band Gideon and Power. Gideon and Power also included vocalist Mickey Thomas, who had been mentored by that band’s lead singer Gideon Daniels. Thomas was recruited into Crabshaw’s Outlaws as a backing vocalist. The novelty of the sound of Bishop’s new group was the twin lead guitars of Bishop and Vernazza, which created a sound more reminiscent of the Allman Brothers than the classic Butterfield Blues Band. Eventually Bishop transitioned the Outlaws into a new version of the Elvin Bishop Band in 1974 that recorded a number of best-selling albums for southern rock label Capricorn and generated the huge AM hit “Fooled Around and Fell In Love,” which launched Thomas’ career as a lead vocalist, initially in the Bishop band and later in the Jefferson Starship and Starship. 

5/30/73 Asleep at the Wheel

6/8/73 Paul Pena

Boston area guitarist-vocalist Paul Pena had moved to the Bay Area in 1971. He had opened for the Grateful Dead in Philadelphia in 1969, so he visited the Dead’s office to get help getting local gigs. Pena opened for Garcia and Saunders numerous times, and they also appeared on his album New Train, which was recorded in 1973 but remained unreleased until 2000 because of contract disputes. That album, which was produced by Ben Sidran and featured a core band of Sidran, bassist Harvey Brooks, and drummer Gary Malabar, included the song “Jet Airliner, which Sidran passed to his sometime collaborator Steve Miller whose version of the song was a huge AM hit a few years later.  In 1999, Pena was the subject of a documentary film, Genghis Blues, which documented his journey to Tuva to compete in their annual throat singing competition. Back in 1973, Pena most often performed solo, but it is possible he had a band for this headlining gig. 

6/9/73 Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs

Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs were (an amazing 15 piece rock and roll band dedicated to performing old style rock and roll hits from the 50s-early 60s. The band got their start as students at St. Mary’s College in Moraga playing frat parties, and eventually morphed into a very popular bay area club and theatre act. I saw Whacks and company one time, my first visit to the San Jose State Student Union Ballroom in 1973. Their schtick was greaser rock and roll – think Sha Na Na but with more energy and musical talent. It would have been great to see them at an intimate space like Homer’s. After disbanding in 1976, the group came back together in 1983 for the first of 22 annual reunion performances before finally calling it quits for good in 2014. 

6/13/73 Asleep at the Wheel

6/15/73 Sons of Champlin and Funeral Wells

6/22/73 Luther Tucker

6/23/73 Staton Brothers

The Staton Brothers Band was a Los Angeles Based quartet that produced one CSNY-influenced album on Epic in 1972. They did not record a follow-up, but clearly were still performing in 1973. 

6/29/73 Country Joe McDonald and His All-Star Band and Funeral Wells

Country Joe McDonald’s All-Star Band included two members of Big Brother and the Holding Company, bassist Peter Albin and drummer David Getz, along with vocalist Dorothy Moskowitz, late of pioneering Los Angeles electronic ensemble United States of America. During this era, apparently membership in the All-Star Band was fluid, so this gig may have featured a slightly different lineup

7/3/73 Pegasus

Pegasus was a five piece Sons of Champlin-like  band from Maine that recorded a single in 1973, and undertook at least one brief west coast tour that apparently included this bay area gig. 

7/4/73 Asleep at the Wheel and Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen

With simpatico musical styles and similar party energies, Asleep at the Wheel and Commander Cody were a natural co-bill, and I saw the bands together many times, primarily at the Keystones, during 1975-77. 

7/5/73 Appaloosa

7/6,7/73 Elvin Bishop Band and El Roacho

This gig was apparently played the ‘classic’ Bishop band with Stephen Miller and Jo Baker, approaching its last legs. El Roacho was a six piece Texas-by-way-of-Los-Angeles rock band that released a single album The Best of El Roacho’s Biggest Hits on Columbia in 1973, allegedly produced by a young T-Bone Burnett. Not to be confused with punk trio Sons of El Roacho. 

7/11/73 Appaloosa

7/12/73 Stoneground and Elvis Duck

7/13/73 Stoneground and New Shreveport Homewreckers

All I know of the New Shreveport Homewreckers was that they used to gig around Santa Cruz when I was a student at UCSC and featured Moby Grape’s Jerry Miller as guitarist for at least part of their existence.

7/14/73 New Shreveport Homewreckers

7/18/73 Asleep at the Wheel

7/20/73 Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee

Acoustic Blues duo Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee had played several times at In Your Ear and apparently chose a booking at Homer’s when they had a more high profile gig at the Paul Masson Winery in Los Gatos a few days later. Bernstein’s description of his several days driving Terry around is priceless.

7/21/73 Butch Whacks and the Glass Packs

7/24/73 Old and In the Way and Asleep at the Wheel

Because I did not turn 21 until 1974, I never made it to Homer’s Warehouse myself. However, I was told by a friend who worked at Stanford radio station that their set would be broadcast on the radio station, so I had my tape recorder set up and recorded the first sets of both bands, which were indeed broadcast on KZSU. By this point, Old and In the Way had quite a few gigs under their belt and, after brief tenures with Richard Greene and John Hartford in the fiddle slot, had settled on virtuoso Vassar Clements, whose graceful, swooping fiddle runs were the icing on the bluegrass cake that was Old and In the Way. The broadcast was the first time I had heard Asleep at the Wheel, and I was immediately smitten with their extroverted western swing groove and the seductive vocals of Chris O’ Connell. 

8/4/73 Asleep at the Wheel, Elvis Duck, Phantoms of the Opry

8/10,11/73 Elvis Duck

8/15/73 Kinky Friedman and his Texas Jewboys and Asleep at the Wheel

This was the first meeting between Texas legend Friedman and Asleep at the Wheel, who were soon to join Friedman as Austin residents. I'm sure a good time was had by all at this show, and that many libations were consumed. 

8/17,18 Truckin’

8/24/73 Jesse Colin Young and Jerry Corbitt

Former Youngbloods bandmates Young and Corbitt reunited for a few duo performances around this time, including this show and one a week later at Homer’s. 

8/25/73 Orphan

Orphan was a Boston based light rock band built around guitarist Eric Lillhequest and

vocalist-guitarist Dan Adrien that recorded two albums for London Records. I saw them around this time at the Boarding House in San Francisco, where they opened for musical comic Martin Mull.  

8/28 Kanger Kakko Band

8/30/73 Cat Mother, Orphan and Fever

8/31/73 Jesse Colin Young and Jerry Corbitt

9/14/73 Ramblin’ Jack Elliot and Phantoms of the Opry

In the early 1970s, folk legend Ramblin’ Jack Elliot had connected with the Grateful Dead/New Riders family, most notably joining them at the Felt Forum on 3/18/73 for a fine Riders/Dead mashup. Elliot subsequently moving to the Bay area for a few years and doing club dates such as this event at Homer’s. Support act Phantoms of the Opry was a bay area bluegrass quintet featuring Pat Enright, later leader of the Nashville Bluegrass Band, and bassist/vocalist Laurie Lewis, early in her career.  

9/20/73 Fever

9/21 Truckin’

10/3/73 Old and In the Way 

Per a message from the Owsley Stanley Foundation, this show, previously believed cancelled, did indeed take place, and was taped. Here's a setlist:  1.  On & On

 2.  Catfish John

 3.  Goin' to the Races

 4.  Lonesome Fiddle Blues

 5.  Land of the Navajo

 6.  Eating Out of Your Hand

 7.  Uncle Pen

 8.  The Hobo Song

 9.  Pig In a Pen

 10. Sally Goodin

 11. Panama Red

 12. Lonesome LA Cowboy

 13. Wicked Path of Sin

 14. Blue Mule

 15. I'm On My Way Back to the Old Home

 16. Old & In the Way

 17. Old & In the Way Breakdown

 18. Muleskinner Blues

 19. You'll Find Her Name Written There

 20. 'Til the End of the World Rolls Round

 21. Down Where the River Bends

 22. Lost

 23. Drifting Too Far from Shore

 24. Love Please Come Home

 25. High Lonesome Sound

 26. Wild Horses

 27. White Dove

 28. Midnight Moonlight

 29. Orange Blossom Special

12/15/73 Steelwind

A band fronted by Jefferson Airplane/Starship songwriter Jack Traylor, Steelwind released one album on the Airplane’s Grunt label in 1973. The group also featured a 19 year old Craig Chaquico as lead guitarist, soon to go on to stardom with the Starship and later as an acoustic guitarist playing mellow new age music. 

As described in California Slim, the club reached the end of its tenure following an incident where Asleep at the Wheel’s bus being parked on the Homer’s property drew the ire of landlady Katherine Urban, who had her employees dig a ditch around the vehicle to prevent it being moved. At that time, she also learned to her great displeasure that Homer’s had not only been operating as a rock club, but had been sublet without her knowledge to Bernstein and Grogan. The bus was removed from its imprisonment in the moat, but Bernstein and Grogan decided it was time to abandon ship. The last booking I could find for Homer’s was the Steelwind show, but the two entrepreneurs moved on to briefly book shows at Zinzanatti Umpapa, a defunct polka club on nearby California Avenue that had previously been a Purity Market and would later be house rock clubs Sophie’s and the Keystone Palo Alto. But that’s another story, again covered colorfully in Bernstein’s book. 

Updated 8/1/20 with some new calendar listings courtesy of JGMF.