RIP Chet Helms


Chet Helms died this past weekend.

Chet Helms, founder of The Family Dog concert production collective and proprietor of the Avalon Ballroom which preceded the Fillmore as the place for "the San Francisco Sound" in the 60s, died this past weekend. I was fortunate to have met him in the late 90s when I was living there, as a result of volunteering for a benefit put on by a musician's collective at the club Slim's. He was a generous and modest presence - a true hippie in the best sense.

Since he had so much to do with encouraging many of the bands that came out of SF in the mid-60s, which inspired my early musical efforts (in my first band in high school, we covered sides 2 and 3 of Live Dead, for instance), I must give him props for his profound, if indirect, effect on my life.

Here's a pic of him from that Slim's show. (credit: Anatole Soyka, with my camera)



Posted: Mon - June 27, 2005 at 10:28 PM          

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