My First San Francisco Music Experience...

I arrived at the Church of the Good Earth Commune August 3, 1970. It wasn’t my plan (how do you make God laugh) to move to California. It was a blessing from the moment I knocked on the door on Oak St and continues to this day! I’ve come to learn, trust that invisible force, higher power, gut feeling, allow my heart to guide me. The more I let go of regrets and resentments, the closer I seem to be in-tune to the opportunities to give back and receive the gifts that come with living a life based on the Buddhist principle “Right Effort”.

The first musical adventure in San Francisco with my new found family was a concert at Chet Helms “Family Dog” concert hall at the famed Playland Amusement Park on the Great Highway alongside the Pacific Ocean.

About 30 of us dropped acid, piled into the back of a giant hollowed out Coors Beer delivery truck.

This multi use truck, imagine 15 tons of glass from our Haight St Recycling Center delivered weekly to Corning Glass in the East Bay, to in this case a hippie people mover, no seats just ropes along the sides to hold (not enough for all of us) onto or hold on to each other. Stoned as we were, it made for instant bonding and one of the (to this day) greatest nights of my life.

From the moment I walked in to this big gym like hall, the scent of incense thick in the air, the light show filtering through the fog like weed smoke, beautiful, psychedelic dressed hippie goddess’s dancing all around, twirling diaphanous scarves, embracing all within hugging distance. That first show, the sense of “One Love” being instilled with this sense of consciousness, was palpable. As the 3,000 of my new sisters and brothers streamed out of the hall onto the Great Highway, lit by the Full Moon reflecting off the Pacific Ocean, “I was home”!

Larry "The Hat"