You are oh so welcome! I agree that this is a particularly interesting run, especially from an embryonic developement standpoint. Many of the San Francisco bands were jumping off from a blues based sound, which you astutely mention, and this is indeed a prime example.

I also wanted to adress the issue of the Dino Valenti material, which you also mention. He is not included in this QMS set summary intentionally, as his brief set, which occurred between the QMS and Airplane sets has been logged as the "Dino Valenti set" that it was. The QMS members backed Valenti on his songs during this run, but he was not a participant in the actual QMS set, which is what you are listening to here. We intend to post his brief set, with it's own summary, seperately.

Thank you for bringing this up, which gives us a chance to clarify things on this. And I share your opinion that QMS was a more engaging band, particularly from an instrumental standpoint, prior to Valenti taking control of the musical direction. I do however, enjoy the Valenti era of the band, but consider it two completely different phases of the band.

That's one of the things that makes his brief sets on this particular run so interesting, as it is a signpost of that second major phase of the band, years before the fact. Valenti unquestionably brought them greater commercial success, but the raw energy of the pre-Valenti QMS era cannot be denied.

Regards, MrBB

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In response to Billiam, who posted:

Thanks for posting the historical early recording from Feb 1967 by Quicksilver. If there was ever more evidence needed that the jam bands of the era (Dead, Quicksilver, the Airlplane) were jumping off from a blues base, well, listen to this. The Stones were doing the same thing in England, as were the Who. They all needed time to develop their own sound and this '67 recording is a marvelous archive of this evolution.
The concert notes mysteriously fail to give the rest of the story of that night however. Dino Valenti (Valente, etc) joins QMS for three songs that made the tape before the Airplane took over, but the notes stop with the performance of "Mona." If one knows the history of Valenti, this was between one of his jail terms and over almost three years before he joined them and they recorded "hits" like Fresh Air. These three songs are the epitomy of what those of us who loved QMS before Valenti did not like about his joining the group. Those around then will know what I am talking about; Dino was just never my cup of tea....