Noe Street San Francisco and Blue Cheer Noe Street was like many areas in San Francisco in the 60's

Noe Street San Francisco and Blue Cheer

Noe Street was like many areas in San Francisco in the 60's, with rows of Victorian homes usually three stories. Many homes had an entrance on each floor, and dwelling within. Depending on the owners, sometimes homes were painted to catch your eye, and imagination. Moreso as the more mundane but being Victorian architecture always offered unique touches, like rounded windows, a turret, and the structures always had little details unique to the structure, the large homes albeit mansions tended to be more towards different areas more upscale and more property with large Victorian homes that were a delight to look upon and if you got a peek inside, some unique custom work with large fireplaces and ornate molding (that were sometimes shelves) and widows that were specially designed and the room varied from sweeping to small but cool.. .

Back then we lived on the second floor so you had a one-story stairway walk-up and used a buzzer to open the door. And of course some people created their own buzz patterns so you'd know who was at the door, or go to the front room and look out the window of the main bedroom to see who it was and always someone would try to hide in a blind spot, just because. And down the hall another bedroom, a bath room with tub and then another bedroom-the way the building was structured there were windows in each bedroom facing the bathroom and windows on each side of the bathroom. I would think for air rather than for view, unless someone was a bit of an exhibitionist while in the tub. Going down the hall you entered the kitchen and to the right was a decent sized living room. There was a small landing outside with stairs leading up or down. There was a yard, but the owners lived downstairs and that was their backyard and at that point in time, it didn't matter to any of us.

The front bedroom was cool because the front was rounded and then the window glass themselves was curved to flow with the room as an extension was like a turret-i can't imagine where one would purchase or the cost of a curved window glass today. The window opened and closed like an outer shell and there were cool ledges (and shelves if wanted)and scrollwork with little details you wouldn't see today unless custom design.

At the time (considered a bit high), rent cost was $125.00 a month and that included utilities and trash services. A mere pittance today, but back in 1967 ish that was serious cash to rent a pad. Somehow I had rented it and at the time I had roommates most of the time.
Will get back to that in a bit.

Dickie
It wasn't a poor area, but not really a wealthy one either. It was a San Francisco neighborhood, a few blocks from the Church Street cable car that was on tracks and went through a tunnel. Taking the cable car was always fun. People were friendly and it was almost a separate universe or like a slow spaceship as you watched people on the streets. And a nice park, that allowed dogs up a few blocks from Noe (a lot of movies use the park for shots of a park in S.F. with the hills of Victorians as a background)

Dickie on the left and Paul on the right
My road dog, Bart and I had decided to see Blue Cheer and it was at the original Fillmore Auditorium in September of 1967 (I will have the poster at the bottom) with Vanilla Fudge and the Sunshine Company. We got there and parking even then was a task so we parked about 3 blocks away and heard Blue Cheer from there as we climbed out of the car, one of those funny Volvos that looked like it belonged in a World War II movie. As we got closer the sound grew (we were sure people in the neighborhood had a few choice words about the volume the next day, no doubt). Once we got to the line queuing to get inside the sound was just below a supersonic jet roar.

We purchased our tickets and once we arrived at the dance, sitting on the floor. it had subsided only because Blue Cheer was in between songs and we happily braced ourselves for more music at maximum volume. It may not have been the summertime blues, but the force and drive of the song was closely related and we watched until the end of the set, and with ears slightly ringing went to the snack bar to get juice or something. There was also Vanilla Fudge and The Sunshine Company. Donovan was playing but at a larger venue, the Cow Palace and it was only on Friday and it was out of the way and we liked Donovan, but not that much at the time.
Usually there were three bands, sometimes four. Those days and those concerts would have Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Santana , Quicksilver Messenger Service as part of the bill and more locals like a beautiful day, Moby Grape; but then too, The Doors, the Sparrow (Steppenwolf). I will be sure to add a list of bands at the end to see if you remember those days.

Saw them at the avalon ballroom too, many times , when we did the puppet show with Bart and Tony. The puppets were under a black light so they glowed (we did add little bits of fluorescent paint) and generally danced to the music playing at the time and the light show people were right next to us. There is a blog coming up about that.
Now, back to Noe Street...I had lived in the area for a while...with friends as roommates…across the street…and even with girls I knew that wanted a roomie who wasn't weird. And one girl I was seeing sort of steady lived at home. I knew the area and saw the sign go up for rent and had said "hello" to the owners' son on occasion. and the timing was good as I had wanted my own place and had been thinking about it and it was time. In short, how I landed in the Noe Street flat.

Noe park today, it was always a cool view
There were a few times when, the roach motel became a reality- you would go into the kitchen and there would be umpteen roaches everywhere, as they climbed walls and ceilings like a champ. Turn on the light and they would scatter "like roaches" do. There came a time the issue was being dealt with but as with most landlords, always the cheapest and usually ineffective way..so in the interim...we would get cans with aerosol spray of some type and light the spray and it became a blow torch of sorts and became exterminators ourselves. As the saying goes-good luck with "scattering roaches" they seem to just vanish, at least when you are after them.


 THE FILLMORE AUDITORIUM ORIGINAL
There had been a few people I had put up to help them out. I remember a fellow named Bob-known as Dogman. He was a funny guy but had some bad drug issues. Drugs back then were basically pot, hashish and kifir (a lighter version of hashish) and there were psychedelic drugs, LSD, Ozzleys stp and acid with was considered the bomb by most purists-and many more with color and pet names. Trips from these drugs were always hallucinations and a lot of soul searching-sometimes paranoia and "coming down" made hangovers look docile. Originally made by Sandoz in 1938 as a blood stimulant and in the 1960's, The Merry Tripsters-(Ken Kesey) became Timothy Leary's anthem "Tune In and Drop Out". The military experimented and ended up banning it because they saw no use for the military because it didn't work for population control or upon "targeted people" of course add in the factor it was part of the anti-establishment culture. Cocaine was around but was not commonplace  or in high demand-heroin had always been around, but more so in poor non-white neighborhoods but was now slowly coming into the drug scene, many of theories, including Air America and CIA bringing the drugs into to help crush the counter-culture as a threat to the establishment. Mainly from Mexico, the China white came and both far more potent and addictive.

Timothy Leary and the Merry Tripsters

Back to Dogman-was christened to Bob as he would get hammered and dance with the house dog, Sport, or porster-port as I and others called him, as his happy dance because he got some heroin, this was my first close contact with heroin and didn't want any at that time. And as I watched Bob deteriorate and transform into a liar and scandalous- fate intervened and he went to jail and was not heard from for quite a while.

The era did offer incense burning in the house, jasmine was my favorite. There were a lot of scarves pinned to walls and tapestries...most furniture was from thrift stores...rarely new. But some of it was pretty cool as older and unique in design. So the house was furnished, and yes the "roach" problem was finally taken care of once the basement was cleaned and sprayed to the expense and chagrin of the owners. Looking out the front window, there was just San Francisco Victorian homes up and down the block. Now this wasn't too far from Castro Valley or as loving called the "Swish Alps" a large gay community and had some really cool stores both new and established. You learn in life that people are people, maybe not like you…but so what, if there's no harm, not my business. Actually it never phased me or Bart, my road dog, as his sister was gay and was a kind person and always nice to us. So we say, never a threat from the gay community to either of us or our masculinity, because we had already looked at people as people, and we were sarcastic. But where it was duly deserved, as in life you learn person to person, encounter to encounter, and there are your life lessons…you get burned at times but you learn too, and generalization is its own trap.

Castro Valley in the 1960's

How my renting the rooms to Dickie, the bass player from Blue Cheer and Paul, the drummer, and their girlfriends came about is hard to remember, but it happened-no judgement here, i do not walk on water, but they had a bad drug problem. Dickie had his base and a small Marshall amp and would play once in a while (thankfully not at full volume) I do believe they attended rehearsals, I was invited but knew how loud it would be and I had had Dickie play the bass line to most of their sound at the house so that was enough for me and I had seen them live many times before this. Never saw Leigh Stevens around, the guitarist, as he had said he was drug free and this seemed to be true (booze wasn't considered a drug then) and when he had indulged, his voice was so raspy it was really hard to follow when he talked to you as he eventually nodded out, whereas Paul kept to himself. It was an eye-opener to me in the hard world of addiction. Both their girlfriends went out and came back with money and I'll leave that up to your imagination what they did to get the money. I had them there for several months and got along with them but also saw what being sick was like and not the most appealing but it's funny, not all lessons are learned right off, their girlfriends were nice, but at times stand-offish especially when sick-and then one day i came home and they were gone-and forgot that i had rent money owed me, it was $50.00 but at that time that was a fair amount of cash-oh well chalk it up to experience. they reformed minus Leigh Stephens and player until Paul Whaley's death in local clubs and such, and Dickie Peterson has passed away also-they blew out marshall arms and that isn't too surprising, they were loud, ground-shaking, building andshaking loud and had garnered the title as the fathers of metal rock as time went on, the made it on american bandstand and played all San Francisco venues and nationally and we know worldwide, fame can be a bit of a fleeting thing, Bowie sang about that. Nonetheless they are legends in rock and roll and broke boundaries and are still listened to today.
and this is the Blue Cheer story on Noe Street...
and here are some bands from that era, you may have seen or heard..
I saw them and in a way we take things for granted and too, it was the scene at the time…
here is the Concert written about.....



The Electric Flag
Flaming Groovies
Big Mama Thorton
Chamber Brothers
Steve mILLER bLUES bAND (WITH bOZ sCaggs)
tHE dAILY fLASH
Country Joe and T =he Fish
The Doors
jOHN lEE hOOkER
iROn BuTTERFLY
leE mICHAELS
sOUl surVIVORS
MOther eARTH
SONs of cHaplin
dAN HickS
chARLES LLYOD
jiM kWESkin juG bANd
Mt. RUShmorE
KALEdiscopE
HOwlin' WOlf
JameS COTTon BLUes BAnd
ByrDs
spIRT
siR douGLAS quiNTET
CHArltans
OXFord CIrcle
THe GrASS ROots
GREat SOCiety
Bo DIddley
CHARLie MusslewHITE
jOhn MayALL BLues Band
ELvin BisHOP
VelVET UNDERgroUND
TAj maHAL
BUddy gUY
PAUl buTTERielD
SOpwith caMEL
CAPtain BeefHEArt
THe youNGBLoodS
caNNEd hEat
junIOR welLS
dr JOHn and the nIGHT trIPPERs
aLL Men JoY
ACE Of cuPs
bIG BROther and the HolDING Company
leoN ruSSEL
ritCHIE HAvens
vaN MORRisON
JimI HENdriX EXPEriejncE
The ROllING STones
THE GReatfuL deAD
c s n and Y
to naMe a Few