Family Dog Presents Matchbook 1966 Authentic Chet Helms Logo Graphics EXC RARE

Offered for sale is an authentic Family Dog Presents Matchbook from the promotion's business office at 639 Gough Street - S. CA (circa 1966), which features great graphics of their iconic logo along with Chet Helm's famous salutation: "May the Baby Jesus Shut Your Mouth and Open Your Mind" - a true historical relic of Rock Music History (see bio info below). The matchbook is in "EXCELLENT" condition (see details above), and is very suitable for display or framing. Domestic, is the only known example to be offered on the market, and comes from the estate of a former employee at The Family Dog! Chester Leo "Chet" Helms (August 2, 1942 June 25, 2005), often called the father of San Francisco's 1967 Summer of Love.

Figure in San Francisco during its hippie. Period in the mid to late Sixties.

Helms was the founder and manager of Big Brother and the Holding Company. He was a producer and organizer, helping to stage free concerts and other cultural events at Golden Gate Park. The backdrop of San Francisco's Summer of Love. In 1967, as well as at other venues, including the Avalon Ballroom. He was the first producer of psychedelic.

Light-show concerts at the Fillmore and the Avalon Ballroom and was instrumental in helping to develop bands that had the distinctive San Francisco Sound. Helms died June 25, 2005 of complications from hepatitis C.

Family Dog Speakers/Poets/Heroes of the Hour. Chester Leo Helms was born in Santa Maria, California. The eldest of three sons. His parents were Chester and Novella Helms. Helms' father, a manager at a local sugarbeet mill.

Died when he was 9. His mother took the boys to Missouri. Helms spent the rest of his youth in Missouri and Texas, where he learned to organize events by helping to stage benefits for civil rights groups.

He enrolled at the University of Texas. And became part of the music scene there, a scene that included a very young and inexperienced Janis Joplin. Soon he dropped out of school and, inspired by the Beat Generation writers, Jack Kerouac.

To travel across America in search of freedom and inspiration, he set off wearing shoulder-length hair, beard and rimless glasses. He ended up in San Francisco in 1962. Later he was to return to Austin with his best friend at the time, Peter Haigh, to visit his friend Janis Joplin. He thought she could make it as a singer in San Francisco. After a week of partying, they convinced Janis to drop out of school and hitchhike back to San Francisco with them. Later he would bring her to the attention of Big Brother and the Holding Company. The house was in Haight-Ashbury. Then a rundown, low-rent neighborhood. Having met many musicians in his trade, and appreciating the vibrant music scene in San Francisco, he instinctively recognized the need for a forum for musicians to jam.

When he saw the large basement at Page Street, he began organizing jam sessions for the local bands and musicians. His career as a rock concert promoter began. Big Brother and the Holding Company formed and Helms functioned as their low-key manager. He teamed up Janis Joplin. With Big Brother for jam sessions in the Haight-Ashbury basement.

In February 1966 he formed a loose connection with the Family Dog, a commune of hippies. Living at 2125 Pine street who threw open dances and wild events.

Helms was the ideal person to help this group organize their presentations and he moved into the Family Dog house. Their first formal production was a concert at Longshoremen's Hall. In February 1966, Helms formally founded Family Dog Productions to begin promoting concerts at The Fillmore Auditorium. Alternating weekends with another young promoter, Bill Graham.

As the concerts became more popular, inevitable "conflicts" arose between the two promoters. Within a few months Helms secured the permits necessary to host events at the Avalon Ballroom, an old dancehall at 1268 Sutter Street, on the corner of Sutter and Van Ness. Big Brother and the Holding Company.

Debuted there in June 1966. Later Helms would get them the appearance that made them famous, the Monterey Pop Festival. Spotted Joplin and offered her a contract. In the context of the Avalon's "anti-business model" and loose ambience, Helms' Family Dog held a series of legendary concerts between April 1966 and November 1968, featuring a mix of artists, including rock, blues, soul, Indian, and rock and roll.

The list is long, compiled from the memory of having been there and from poster art websites. Helms presented top blues performers including Country Joe and The Fish.

Rock bands like The Doors. Bill Haley & His Comets. Blues Band; Sir Douglas Quintet. Sarode-player and Indian music teacher, Ali Akbar Khan. New Riders of the Purple Sage.

The Loading Zone; It's a Beautiful Day. Southern Comfort; The Ace of Cups. Tyrannosaurus Rex; Cleanliness and Godliness Skiffle Band; Flying Burrito Brothers. Congress of Love; Notes From the Underground; Chrome Circus; Initial Shock; Oxford Circle; Daily Flash. Electric Train; Sparrow; the Orchestra; Hourglass. Other Half; Phoenix; Lothar & the Hand People. Cleveland Wrecking Company; The Rhythm Dukes. Eighth Penny Matter; Jimmerfield Legend; South Side Sound; Super Ball; Solid Muldoon; Box Top; and jazz artists Sun Ra. And San Francisco's own John Handy. Brotherhood; and folksters Joan Baez. Sometimes Helms cast the music promoter role aside and the Family Dog would feature speakers, including Alan Watts. Helms is linked in San Francisco lore with Bill Graham. To promote their concerts, Family Dog published a series of innovative psychedelic. Posters, handbills and other ephemera, created by a group of prominent young San Francisco artists including Alton Kelley. Often printed using intensely colored fluorescent inks, they typically featured a mixture of found images and specially drawn artwork. The posters of Griffin, Mouse and Kelly, in particular, were known for the intricate and highly stylized hand-lettering in which the concert details were written out, which sometimes took considerable time and effort to decipher. Original Avalon posters are now collector's items. Helms was also involved in joint productions/promotions at the Fillmore, Longshoreman's Hall, and Haight Street's Straight Theater (not all formal Family Dog Dance-Concerts).

While Graham was an aggressive businessman and professional promoter, Helms presented a folksier image. He related easily to the San Francisco hippie. Subculture since, in essence, he was one of them. Called Helms "a towering figure in the 1960s Bay Area music scene, " and indeed he was a huge contributor.

Helms embraced music for music's sake and the Beat-hipster-generation-turned-hippy philosophy. While the war raged in Vietnam. And the nation coped with racial problems and assassinations, the anti-war, anti-establishment youth thrived in the throes of a social revolution. Meanwhile, Helms was cranking out bands and musicians espousing the same lifestyle as this new audience, while giving the very distinct impression that he was uninterested in financial gain.

His benign image could be deceptive. Some of the more serious bands (ones not subsidized by trust funds) came to prefer Graham's hard-nosed, businesslike approach. Graham did covertly help Helms financially at various times during the 1970s, keeping San Francisco in the fore as the West Coast Music mecca.

The core San Francisco rock bands, Jefferson Airplane. Country Joe and the Fish, and Quicksilver Messenger Service. , would play for both Graham's concerts at the Fillmore. Auditorium, once a Black Muslim. Temple, and the Family Dog at Helms' Avalon dances.

Helms' shows were always more relaxed and offered a pleasant alternative to Bill Graham Presents. Dances, at a more reasonable admission, and with more room for the stoned, arm-waving type of solo dancing that personified the era. Kept a late-night clinic to accommodate the many drug overdoses from the Fillmore. To concertgoers, Helms' contributions to the music world, like introducing a singer he knew in Texas, Janis Joplin.

To the San Francisco music scene, were not always well publicized, but witnessing the final product of Joplin, with her powerful performances was a spectacle. First introduced as a new bandmember of Big Brother. She brought what the Grateful Dead.

And Big Brother did not seem at that point to have a lead singer to match Jefferson Airplane's Marty Balin. Joplin later left Big Brother to record solo albums and to rapidly grow in fame, accelerated by her performance at the Monterey Pop Festival. With Joplin as the lead singer, Helms became the group's manager and introduced them on stage when they made their crucial appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, a performance that marked Joplin's elevation to national prominence. Creativity was the essence, borrowed from (while re-popularizing) a vast spectrum of musical idioms, including R&B, East Indian, pop, country, bluegrass, and, to an extent, jazz. Music that featured long solos suited the audiences, and was soon used by bands everywhere, in performance and recordings, later becoming a major vehicle for helping launch what would become a new FM radio station music format the less-commercial "Album-Oriented Rock, " in the form of "underground" stations that sprang up coast-to-coast.

Exposure on these airwaves further helped the popularity of concert-oriented rock and bands that would play for hours without stopping, as the two-minute hit temporarily was no longer the objective. Songs with long, art-centric solos gained reaffirmation with the increasing commercial success of the radio stations that became part of the new "movement" genre.

Bill Graham Presents shows evolved more into high-power, professional lineups of better-known headline bands that made him known as the can-do guy that he was, while Helms, although managing to produce top-flight bands, still showcased bands that tended to be hipper and local. Helms didn't seem to have the need to hire zealous uniformed security guards, so teenagers found it easier to sneak into his dances. Helms ultimately allowed free admission after midnight.

The San Francisco Family Dog dances later re-emerged in a new location, the Family Dog on the Great Highway at the edge of the Western World (its exaggerated sometimes heard full title) which opened in the summer of 69. It was the former Ocean Beach Pavilion turned Slot car track that was right next door to the old skating rink and "Bull Pup Enchiladas" at Ocean Beach. At 660 The Great Highway in San Francisco's Richmond district. In his career Helms used other locations like ventures in Denver. And joint productions/promotions at the Fillmore, Longshoreman's Hall, and Haight Street's Straight Theater (not all formal Family Dog Dance-Concerts), etc.

Helms left the concert business in 1970 except for managing a few later events: Tribal Stomp at Berkeley's Greek Theater (1978); Tribal Stomp II at the Monterey County Fairgrounds. (1979); a concert series at San Francisco's Maritime Hall in 1995 under the Family Dog name; and a 30th Anniversary celebration of the Summer of Love.

In Golden Gate Park (1997), a free event attended by 60,000 people. Although having a great eye for artwork his philanthropy never guaranteed the rent on time. When he retired in 2004 he was suffering from Hepatitis C.

After suffering a mild stroke he died within days, on June 25, 2005. Helms is memorialized in a "bright niche decorated with photographs and memorabilia" at the Neptune Society Columbarium.

On October 30, 2005, San Francisco celebrated Helms' life with a free nine-hour Sunday rock concert in Golden Gate Park, named the "Tribal Stomp". Attended by tens of thousands, and featuring a full lineup of bands, including the old core San Francisco rock bands, and others including: The Turtles. Jefferson Airplane's Paul Kantner. It's a Beautiful Day. S David LaFlamme, Quicksilver Gold (derived from Quicksilver Messenger Service).

Chet Helms Memorial Speedway Meadows, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, October 30, 2005. On July 24, 2005 a fundraiser and Tribute concert to Chet was held at the Great American Music Hall.

The show was organized by Dawn Holliday Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival. (who put together a collection of posters from major bay area artists) and Pete Sears.

Who was responsible for finding and organizing the musicians. Kathy Peck of the H. Had been talking with Chet while he was sick in hospital and offered to help get a benefit together to take care of some pressing bills Chet was concerned about. Chet wholeheartedly gave the benefit his blessing.

The concert details were well underway and most artists in place when Chet died. They decided to carry on with the fundraiser anyway and turned the concert into a tribute to Chet.

The concert was highly successful and featured such artists as: T Bone Burnett. Bobby Vega, Joli Valenti & Friends, and the Flying Other Brothers. The item "Family Dog Presents Matchbook 1966 Authentic Chet Helms Logo Graphics EXC RARE" is in sale since Tuesday, November 08, 2016. This item is in the category "Entertainment Memorabilia\Music Memorabilia\Rock & Pop\Artists G\Grateful Dead\Posters".

The seller is "graphxfan" and is located in Petaluma, California. This item can be shipped worldwide.