San Francisco psychedelic subculture

In late-1960s San Francisco a full psychedelic subcultural scene took shape—venues, radio, shops, and more. They were also early products of rock culture.

Now San Francisco, and how Haight-Ashbury became the core of the psychedelic movement in the late 1960s. I mentioned subculture earlier; it has its own mechanisms in popular music. Many scholars study subcultures because they open a small enough culture to see how music shapes identity, values, and related ideas. Early Haight-Ashbury psychedelia is subculture: often we simply did not know what was happening there, except for the early-1967 Human Be-In we will cover. What is clear: by summer 1967—the Summer of Love—when Scott McKenzie’s “If You’re Going to San Francisco” (flowers in your hair) caught on, San Francisco truly entered the mainstream view. The history of San Francisco psychedelia goes back to 1965, two years before that mainstream moment. For those two years it was a subcultural scene.

As said, it grew around Haight-Ashbury: fine nineteenth-century neighborhoods, a commercial street named Haight, and Ashbury crossing it toward Golden Gate Park. At the edge of Haight-Ashbury, across the street, is Golden Gate Park—a great local park San Franciscans live with, a good place to hang out. The sprouts of psychedelic culture—LSD use, “trips,” and parties of taking LSD and listening to music—can be found in summer 1965 in Virginia City, Nevada. Only months after the Beatles’ first “dentist experience” (George Harrison’s phrase), many students went to a place called the Red Dog Saloon. Not a long drive. They took drugs and listened to acts like the Charlatans. That was the real prototype of the psychedelic party.

Back in San Francisco, the first psychedelic events appeared in late summer and early autumn 1965. A group calling itself the Family Dog organized many such nights—bands, light shows, everything tied to San Francisco psychedelic events. They worked Longshoreman’s Hall and any cheap rentals, under names like “A Tribute to Dr. Strange” or one I like, “A Tribute to Sparkle Plenty.” You can see the posters; the familiar San Francisco psychedelic poster art formed then. Remember: autumn 1965. If you were not local, you would not know. This was not a national or world phenomenon—only around Haight-Ashbury. You had to be there.

An important figure: writer Ken Kesey. One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest is among his classic novels. Tom Wolfe’s The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test is basically about Kesey and followers called the Merry Pranksters. They traveled by bus between towns—a bus with psychedelic graffiti. Most buses go to Detroit, Chicago, or Boston; theirs just said “Further,” because it was meant to take people farther. In each town they handed out flyers for an “Acid Test” at the edge of town—outside the law. For a dollar you could join, buy some acid, trip all night. They were like the Johnny Appleseed of psychedelia, active within driving range of San Francisco.

Note: Johnny Appleseed was an American frontiersman who helped spread apple growing; the name comes from that.

I said LSD can be seen two ways. One is more idealistic—Timothy Leary, trained in psychology and psychiatry, wrote The Psychedelic Experience. He may have drawn partly on Aldous Huxley’s The Doors of Perception, but Leary wrote a clinical book on the psychedelic experience. He told young people to learn to turn on and turn off; he really wanted to raise consciousness. Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters mainly wanted fun. A bit like Dadaists—anti-convention, a little wild. Anyway, young people began to immerse in LSD, counterculture, and psychedelic experience. Not teens, but college-age or older people living in that area. In January 1967 they held a “Human Be-In”—a play on “human being” and “be-in.” The “be-in” form caught on: sit-in, love-in, Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. Everything became an “in,” but the Human Be-In came first. They held a “tribal gathering” of music and Beat poets like Allen Ginsberg. Owsley Stanley, who made a lot of acid, was there, and Timothy Leary. They gathered in Golden Gate Park for a huge free celebration. That counts as a start of the counterculture. National media covered it; people could not believe these crazy folks in San Francisco doing crazy things. Of course they blamed the damn drugs for making youth lose their minds. Either way, it was the first time the subculture got national attention.

Then Bill Graham opened the Fillmore, a crucial venue for psychedelic events and concerts. Chet Helms opened the Avalon Ballroom. Two dedicated concert halls, with carefully designed lights and sound for psychedelic nights. Things got organized. In fact Fillmore and Avalon became prototypes for rock venues nationwide. At that time bands like the Beatles only played stadiums; performance spaces had never been designed for rock concerts. With Fillmore and Avalon you could play rooms built for rock.

Also in San Francisco then, Tom Donahue—who had worked in AM radio—thought: what if a station played music entirely by the DJ’s taste? Impossible on Top 40. He wanted a usable, cheap station. FM was not widely used yet—mostly churches for sermons, universities for distance courses, or classical. Many radios, including car radios, had no FM. Donahue called local FM stations until one did not answer. He figured: if they cannot pay the phone bill, they must be in bad shape; talk to them—they will not mind me doing a show. He went on air, picking from his own collection what AM would not play. Haight-Ashbury people tuned in. The basis of FM growth was that freeform, album-oriented idea. A DJ could do a show on flying, dig through the collection for songs about flying—or any theme, or none. A great guitar solo, if you wanted. A bit psychedelic, right? Haight-Ashbury listened; FM caught on among them. As with anything popular, before you notice, someone sees how to make money. By the 1970s FM was nationwide; the real start was San Francisco. Other freeform FM stations arose elsewhere too, so it was not only San Francisco—but what Donahue set in motion mattered.

Magazines focused on rock culture also appeared first. There had long been teen magazines like Teen Beat with Paul McCartney or Peter Noone on the cover. Now came the earliest Oracle and later Rolling Stone and so on—out of San Francisco, really about the music and its surrounding culture. The first head shops also appeared there: music, bead curtains, incense, burners, full drug kits, rolling papers, water pipes—whatever you needed for hippie culture. Soon, by the late 1960s and early 1970s, head shops were everywhere; they became local counterculture bases, but a major origin was San Francisco.

That is the rough face of the San Francisco subculture. Next section: important bands in that culture.