The Avalon Ballroom

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The Avalon Ballroom was a music venue founded by Chet Helms and the Family Dog in 1966 and converted into the Regency 2 movie theater in '69. It was at the corner of Sutter and Van Ness, about a block from Bush Street in San Francisco. Helms and the hippie business group known as the Family Dog (with offices on Van Ness Avenue) served as impresarios for the facility. The Avalon usually had two bands performing during the evening beginning about nine PM. Many of the local bands, such as Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Steve Miller Band served as the back up bands, as did the early Moby Grape, to Headliners such as the 13th Floor Elevators, the Butterfield Blues Band and the band Helms organized around singer and performer Janis Joplin, in Spring 1966, Big Brother and the Holding Company. Joplin performed in June, 1967, with Big Brother, on several weekends.

Bands were frequently booked to perform at the Avalon Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Extraordinary posters were produced by psychedelic artists such as Mouse advertising each event. Among the first bands were 13th Floor Elevators with lead guitar and singer Roky Erickson, famous for his head shaking yells ending a stanza or musical phrase. Tommy Hall and Roky wrote much of the lyrics and Roky and the whole band developed the music in live jam and during local Austin and out of town appearances in Houston at Ma Maison during summer and fall 1965. Tommy, and occasionally his wife Clementine both, sang, and Tommy played the electric jug to the rhythms of Stacy Sutherland's base and several drummers, among them Danny Galindo on their first album.

The Avalon was the first two floors of a multi-story building and had a balcony 2d floor surrounding the lower floor dance area in front of the elevated stage where musicians performed. The doors were in a corner foyer which opened directly on both sides of the corner Sutter & Van Ness. The address of the Avalon was 1268 Sutter Street. The Family Dog also maintained a hippie residential house about 1812 Bush, just in the first block across Van Ness where Chet and his friends visited frequently and put up guests from Austin and other places. Except for the about 8-10 feet surrounding 2d floor balcony on all sides except that of the stage, the Avalon was open from the dance floor to about 25-30 feet, corresponding to the top of the stage area. The size was not so large as the Winterland or Fillmore ballrooms, which Helms had used before Bill Graham violated their partnership agreements, but was the size that could hold 400 to 500 and approximately 80-100 feet wide and 160 to 180 feet long inside including the stage which was perhaps 40-50 feet wide with non-stage walls of 25 to 20 feet on each side. The dance floor was usually filled with several hundred dancers, mostly in pairs but a few singles. The light show, always present and generally delightful in artistry and movement, was created by several different light companies locally retained and varying from time to time. Those who wanted to listen to the music and watch the light show and musicians only stood around the lower floor walls and in the balcony jutting out from the second floor.

The Avalon was a popular tribal, hippie gathering place of celebration and music involvement, lasting until about November of 1968, when the lease was lost and Chet Helms moved on to other genres.

[edit] Sources

Book: 1- The Haight-Ashbury by (sorry, can't remember author; will get book from home and add author's name; much confirming data within it) 2- www.sfheart.com/map/The_avalon_ballroom.html 3- WIKIPEDIA, article on Chet Helms.