The following night, before our set at the Afterthought, Steve went up into the balcony. He was standing in the dark watching the opening band when he felt a chill. He turned just in time to glimpse a shadow coming straight at him. It was a man with a knife. He lunged at Steve. Steve jumped to the side, grabbed the shadow and they both went down on the floor. The knife was knocked free and bounced down a couple of steps under a seat. They fought a brief feeble fight in the aisle. Steve was no fighter and his assailant appeared to be drunk. As Steve held him off a light flashed onto the shadow’s face. It was Geoff Edington, William Tell from The Marksmen! Steve pushed him off and they both lay there wheezing.
“What's your trip, man?” Steve shouted in surprise.
“Stay away ... from Marilyn,” was the slurred answer.
“What?”
“Marilyn’s my chick. I want you ... stay away from her,” Geoff mumbled propping himself up against a seat.
“Marilyn’s your girlfriend?” Steve said sarcastically. “I don’t think so. I’ve been going out with her for months.
“The bitch is two-timing both of us,” Geoff said.
“She’s two-timing both of us?” Steve repeated unbelieving, “all this time?”
“Yeah.”
“Far out!”
“Yeah.”
“Hey! Saw your set last night. You guys rock,” Steve said with admiration.
“Heard you guys are pretty good too,” offered Geoff.
“Yeah, hey, I gotta go play. You gonna stick around?”
“Don’t know. Uh, sorry about ...”
“It's cool. She’s just a chick.”
“Yeah.”
That was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.
After our set we were approached by a man who said he was interested in managing us. He stated that it was between us and The United Empire Loyalists. He said he preferred us, even though The Loyalists were better musicians, because we played our songs one after the other without any long gaps and The Loyalists spent a lot of time tuning with their backs to the audience. He conveniently ignored the fact that The Loyalists were already managed by Jerry Kruz. He felt that we had more of a potential for entertaining, whatever that meant. His name was Jim Wilson. I was a little suspicious of him because he looked so straight. He was older, maybe twenty-one, had short brown hair and wore a suit.
But, he had real music business experience. He had been the local promotions man for Phonodisk. They distributed Motown in Canada and his most recent assignment had been to squire Diana Ross and The Supremes around Vancouver while they were here playing the famous Cave Supperclub on Hornby Street.
Bob was also suspicious of Jim mostly because he did not wish to lose control of his band and Jim had some very strong opinions on how we should perform. Any misgivings aside, Bob considered the proposal. There certainly was a positive energy about Jim.
Steve, John and I found ourselves strangely drawn to him. He had a place at First and Balsam in Kitsilano (just up the hill from my grandparent’s house) and the three of us began to hang out there on weekends. I even got to meet Jim’s friend, David Harpine, a short wiry man who ran The Trans Euphoric Express Light Show at The Afterthought.
Steve and I discovered a new boutique on Fourth Avenue called, Positively 4th Street. A British tailor who had moved to Vancouver from Carnaby Street designed and built us suits that were progressive and radical. Steve’s was pink and blue striped and mine was green and purple striped. The double-breasted jackets were long and skin tight. The bell-bottomed trousers were snug at the hip and wide at the bottom. Worn with a flowered shirt it was far-fuckin’-out.
At Easter somebody organized a gathering in the park and called it a Human Be-In. My heroes, Country Joe & the Fish,were in town playing the Afterthought and had agreed to play. They were the draw but several local bands were asked to play as well - including The Seeds of Time. I was amazed when several thousand long-haired freaks assembled in Ceperley Park in Stanley Park. I did not realize that there were so many of us already. It was a warm sunny day but the grass was soggy from recent rain. There was no real stage; just some sheets of plywood lain down to create a solid place to set the bands on.
The United Empire Loyalists introduced their new bassist/lead vocalist, Rick Enns, formally of The Tom Northcott Trio.He had a pure, sweet voice with great range and was an impressive bass player. We only played a few songs including a rockin’ rendition of The Spencer Davis Group’s Keep on Running.
Because of the wet grass the lawn got dug up by all the whirly-bird dancing. After a few hours of 'Be-ing' the entire area was a sea of mud. The next day the papers proclaimed:
Hippies trash park
There was such a fuss I worried that the City might ban all humans from using the park.
What caught my attention was that the paper had called us Hippies. I felt good about that. It made me feel like I belonged to something big, something important. While the world was beginning to flip completely out-of-control, Hippies became known as Flower Children; loving, peaceful folks with long hair and sandals who only wished to get along with other folks, get high and make-love not war. Head Hippie, Dr. Timothy Leary, uttered our mantra, “Turn On - Tune In - Drop Out.” I liked the sound of that.
This was the beginning of the Summer of Love. It was a summer that lasted more than two and a half years!
I heard that Country Joe & the Fish were going to play at the University of Washington in Seattle after they left Vancouver. Steve, John, Howard Diner and I decided to drive down and see them there. Steve scored his mom’s Fairlane and we made the three hour drive down I-5 in two hours.
We pulled into the parking lot of a basketball gym on campus where the band was scheduled to perform. A small number of hippies had assembled, waiting for the doors to open. We nudged our way up near the front and waited with everyone else. When the door time came and went people began to get restless. We wondered what the problem was and if we had driven all this way for nothing.
Eventually, the door creaked open and to everyone’s surprise Joe McDonald appeared. The crowd pressed forward and there was a lot of, “Hey, hi-ya man - Yeah, far out - groovy, man”, but Joe had something on his mind.
“Any of you cats a drummer?” he asked casually.
There was a stunned murmur from the crowd.
“Yeah, well Chicken's sick and we could use someone to fill in, can you dig it?”
I was speechless.
Everyone was in shock - “Chicken sick?”
Then Steve shouted, “Hey, Rock’s a drummer!”
Then Howard added, “yeah, he’s a drummer; he can play!”
All eyes turned to me. Joe looked at me, sizing me up. I don’t think he was impressed but, what could he do, he was desperate.
“Far-out,” he said, “come on.”
He took my arm and pulled me inside.
I nattered nervously at him about how I knew all their songs. He wasn’t listening - He was so together he just assured me that everything would be cool. He introduced me to guitarist Barry Melton, keyboardist David Cohen and bassist Bruce Barthol. I was so anxious I couldn’t speak.
They might have been a bit worried that I would fuck it up for them but they didn’t show it. Instead they all smoked a joint. I only pretended to take a puff because I hadn’t smoked grass yet and now didn't seem like the best time to start.
Joe