Comments for The Chet Helms Chronicles

Comment on Artifacts II (FD-26) by ponderpig

ponderpig — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 15:21:33 +0000

This is too amazing. I am speechless. You are doing all us old freaks and the entire western world a service by posting this stuff. Post more.

Comment on Artifacts by PonderPig

PonderPig — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 14:02:07 +0000

I remember John Carpenter, but not well. I knew him as part of the scruffy street scene we were all involved in. Don’t remember his business arrangement with Chet at all. He lived in an apartment or room on 20th Street and was nice to my young cousin, who had recently come to SF and didn’t know her way around the bad city yet. Didn’t try to get over on her. Seems to me he later got into trouble and died young in LA.

Comment on Searching for Huey M. by sandrar

sandrar — Thu, 10 Sep 2009 15:13:03 +0000

Hi! I was surfing and found your blog post… nice! I love your blog. Cheers! Sandra. R.

Comment on Denver ‘67 by Ross Hannan

Ross Hannan — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 10:29:53 +0000

You wrote: “I never know where following the trail of Chet Helms is going to take me, but I ain’t jumping off this train any time soon.”

Glad to hear the quest will continue – and please don’t forget the Family Dog’s short-live London venture.

Ross – Wokingham, England

Comment on Let Us Digress For a Moment…. by Ross Hannan

Ross Hannan — Thu, 03 Sep 2009 20:22:58 +0000

Although a little over a year has passed since this entry was posted, the confusion and potential misinformation of the date of Ms Joplin’s first show with Big Brother rages, well I guess, smolders on. Pretty much all of the records show the date as June 10 – but not with a Big Brother & the Holding Company show, but with BBHC sitting in at the Avalon playing maybe a handful of tunes on the kit of either the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service or the New Tweedy Brothers. Maybe it was just the basic backline kit – I don’t know. I have always considered the listings marking this as the first JJ show to be erroneous – and in all probability perpetuating the same simple error, that now seems to have passed in to “legend”. This matter has recently come to the fore in an effort being made to document the summer of 1966 for Wildflower – a popular music combo from the East Bay. As the focus switched to the Red Dog Saloon in Virginia City handbills have been unearthed and newspaper ads discovered. On May 13, 1966 Big Brother began a six week series of alternating weekend (Friday & Saturday) shows at the Red Dog Saloon, Virginia City, NV – the shows alternating, nominally weekly, with the Wildflower. This would put Big Brother in Virginia City the day Janis Joplin (who had at that point only been in The City less than a week) made her debut. Between the June 10 weekend and the scheduled June 24 shows Big Brother had only one scheduled engagement – at the St Francis Hotel playing a Timothy Leary Benefit with the Sopwith Camel on June 19. Reviews of this event are abound but there is no mention of Big Brother’s “groovy new chick singer” or anything else that implies the band were anything but a foursome. Years of caring too much about such matters led me to conclude the first Janis Joplin show as June 24 – there now appears to be some support of this. Ross

Comment on Chet Moves On Up by Eva Wilson

Eva Wilson — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 13:57:11 +0000

Hi, Greg:

Bravo for all the work you are doing and have done on the book about Chet. He was a great character and soul for our generation, and you are doing him justice. I know it must be a big huge job. I am so proud to have counted him as a friend and Wes and I think about him often.

Comment on Coinkydinks – Part II by beachdog67

beachdog67 — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:53:51 +0000

“Lincoln had a secretary named Kennedy. Kennedy had a secretary named Lincoln!”

Comment on Dispatch from Desolation Row by beachdog67

beachdog67 — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 10:51:08 +0000

I think one of my favorites was a woman friend who insisted that “it’s a doggy dog world”.

Now, if you would please
‘Scuse me while I kiss this guy….

Comment on 27 by ponderpig

ponderpig — Fri, 17 Jul 2009 00:53:54 +0000

Very interesting and I think you should write a book about it. In it, you could add, “The Pondering Pig got married in 1970. He was 27!!!”

Comment on Coinkydinks – Part II by ponderpig

ponderpig — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 19:16:03 +0000

Did you know Minnie Mouse’s full name is Mineola Mouse? Mickey couldn’t pronounce it right so Walt shortened it to Minnie. Min didn’t care. Long as she got the cheese.