Monday, February 4, 2013

Palo Alto High School, 50 Embarcadero Road, Palo Alto, CA

The Warlocks "Palo Alto High School" New Years 9/19/64 poster has been floating around for years. A company makes "commemorative" posters of past rock events, and you can usually get them for 10 or 20 bucks in record stores (remember those?).

For the record, Bill Kreutzmann actually graduated from Paly, and Pigpen probably attended. There is a persistent rumor that the Warlocks played, but the date keeps changing (Sep 19, 1965 has been floated), which leads me to suspect that its wishful thinking. But hey, Santana played the 1969 graduation dance (June 10, 1969--you can look it up).

Pigpen Ron McKernen was not exactly an alum, since he dropped out.

Jerry, as far as we know, never performed here.

2 comments:

  1. Jerry definitely never performed at Paly. This was confirmed by a Paly graduate who would have known. She pointed out that since Pigpen had actually been expelled from Paly, the Warlocks could not have played, since expelled students were not allowed on campus.

    Jerry did see Joan Baez at the Paly Auditorium in 1961, and it caused him to think "hey, I could do this" so Paly does have a role in Jerry's musical history.

    Bill Kreutzmann's band (The Legends) did play a dance at Paly, but they caused some suggestive dancing and were not invited back (first 'The Swim', and then who knows...?).

    September 19, 1965 turns out to have been the date that the SF Mime Troupe had an evening show at the Paly Auditorium, but it had nothing to do with the Warlocks.

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  2. Also, the Warlocks had not been named as such in fall of 1964. they were still Mother McCrees at best.

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