Jim Fox Appreciation Post + The Night I Almost Killed Jim Fox

[Reg or Rog?]

One of my biggest regrets is being born too late to have seen the original Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, or The Who in concert.

And of course Jim Fox is the man. I just recently listened to the ATKM episode about Brown?s retirement. And 10 years later he still teared up talking about Brown handing him the Cup.

I was very fortunate to see all their tours after the Hollywood Bowl show in 1972. I missed that one by a few months.

The Raving and Drooling shows at the Sports Arena are still the best concerts I've ever seen. Even better than Animals at Anaheim Stadium. The LA Times review of those shows did not age well, eh?

Here's the entire Hollywood Bowl concert, along with Mike ?The Mic? Millard's* recording of the 1975 LA Sports Arena concert, and the original covers of the vinyl bootlegs from those shows and Anaheim in '77. Dark Side of the Moon hadn't been recorded yet, and this early version at the Bowl is very different from the final product. And here are three of my ticket stubs from 1975, which I donated to my friend's Floyd website. How did I get tickets up front for all these shows? Tickets were sold via mail order and I used my grandfather's downtown address, and evidently the band issued the best seats to the adresses closest to the venue. Same deal for The Wall in 1980 at the Sports Arena. We used the same address and got seats up front for all seven nights! Score!

*Millard got the recording equipment in via a fake wheelchair he used that housed the equipment. Here's the Rolling Stone article about Millard, and his recording:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/...u-here-tour-bootleg-remastered-sound-1193122/

 

[Sevenhole]

Cool story! Thanks for sharing!

Love him or hate him, Jim is a class act. And he knows the game.

He talks a lot, and sometimes I just want to scream "Shut the f*** up!" but Jim's like a family member at this point, and I love the guy.

Yeah, Los Angeles Police Chief Ed Davis decision to raid the Sports Arena for the Floyd concerts made international headlines. I was arrested on the final night and spent the show sitting inside of a paddy wagon backstage.

It was my first concert ever, and when we got to the arena, there was a van circling the parking lot with a banner that read:

"This is not a sanctuary for smoking pot. Enter the arena with drugs and you will be arrested."

They were repeating those words on a loudspeaker on the van. But all the idiots that turned around and went back to their cars were searched and subsequently arrested. I got to the security checkpoint and was searched thoroughly. I had an 8" bong down my pants, and when the security guard grabbed it, we were eye-to-eye. He suddenly pulled his hand back and said, "Sorry man!" and let me in. He must have thought it was something else.

On the fifth night, the entire row we were sitting in was taken out of the arena and put in the wagon. After the show, they let us go without charging us.

On one of their most famous bootlegs, Azimuth Coordinator, Roger Waters can be heard yelling at the security guards during the show. It was ugly.

That bootleg is one of the most famous ever because it contained the original follow-up to Dark Side of the Moon, that was never released. In fact, it was just five years ago a studio version of the opening track ("Raving and Drooling") was finally made available on a bootleg called The Extraction Tapes. There's no studio version of "Gotta be Crazy" (which was later released as "Dogs" in 1977 on Animals), but there is an early version of "Have a Cigar" with Roger on lead vocals.

If you still have the 25 cent comic book program they sold at those shows, it's worth a lot more than a quater today.

It's amazing after all these years I keep meeting people that attended those shows. Definitely the best concerts I have ever seen. I mean, Floyd played all of Dark Side, half of Meddle ("Echoes", for the encore), half of Animals ("Raving and Drooling" aka, "Sheep", and "Gotta Be Crazy") and over half of Wish You Were Here ("Shine On You Crazy Diamond" and "Have a Cigar", which they wrote and premiered in LA).

The (downloadable) comic book program:

The long lost, unreleased studio version of Raving and Drooling, otherwise known as The Holy Grail to Floyd fans:



Pink Floyd switched record labels while they were in LA, which led to the infamous meeting with the record executive that asked the question "Oh, by the way, which one's Pink?" and inspired Waters to write "Have a Cigar".

Here's the archived review of the LA concerts (and the photograph that accompanied the article), by Richard Cromelin of the LA Times, who sat next to us on the second night. He never looked up from his notepad the whole night, and absolutely trashed the concert. Clueless A-Hole.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainme...s-pink-floyd-1975-concert-19750425-story.html

I still tell people that was the best concert I’ve ever attended, except the cops pulling people out the their seats. I don’t recall their names but the three African American women that sang accompaniment had chilling awesome voices. Thanks for the recall and memories

 

[Reg or Rog?]

I still tell people that was the best concert I’ve ever attended, except the cops pulling people out the their seats. I don’t recall their names but the three African American women that sang accompaniment had chilling awesome voices. Thanks for the recall and memories

Those fine ladies were Venetta Fields and Carlena Williams. Then came Katie Kissoon and Doreen Chanter, followed by P.P. Arnold and Susannah Melvoin. On his Us + Them Tour, Roger had two LA girls from Lucius, Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig. All these woman can really sing. Roger only got he best.

When David Gilmour stole the band's name for two LP's and tours without Roger (dreadful), he had his girlfriend sing. She was B A D.

The most frustrating part for younger fans is the appalling lack of video footage from any shows spanning their entire career. There's just nothing out there. Recently some decent footage from Floyd playing a party in France in 1969 has appeared, along with a few more snippets from 1970, such as playing with a full orchestra and choir on Atom Heart Mother. But that's about it, just a few low-quality clips from here and there, but absolutely nothing from the 1972, 1975 and 1977 tours, and even the Wall in 1980. The band hired a video crew to film the LA Wall shows, but the footage is awful. I have the VHS bootleg, and it's out there on the Internet too, but the quality is low.

Such a bummer because these were true spectacles to behold.

Now with cell phones, it seems like half the crowd records the concert and puts it on YouTube before I get home from the show. But the real shame is nothing from '75 or '77.

 

[Pevsfreedom]

In keeping up with the thread jacking and trying to out-picture Reg or Rog?:

I'm just glad the Grateful Dead were over the top in encouraging people to record. I don't know if they (initially) intentionally employed the best viral marketing tool ever or not, but damn it worked. More Dead heads nowadays than those days, and we can argue forever about which Scarlet > Fire is best, ad nauseum. As for video and Pink Floyd, all I've really seen is like "Tonite, let's make love in London' (just fun and weird) from early 67, Pompeii (which is f'king great), and Echoes (which is OK). My favorite concert footage is the Dead @ Veneta 72 (the movie "Sunshine Daydream", which just looks like another world (everyone's naked, Jesus I think was completely naked standing on a pole for an entire song on footage behind Garcia, kids running and playing on stage, 100 degrees, in full sun, the guitars are like super slinky sounding; never sounded that way ever).

I have a cool vinyl bootleg of a live Dark Side of the Moon, which is pretty interesting. It's called "How Shall We Sing in a Foreign Land?".

One of my biggest regrets is being born too late to have seen the original Pink Floyd, Zeppelin, or The Who in concert.

And of course Jim Fox is the man. I just recently listened to the ATKM episode about Brown’s retirement. And 10 years later he still teared up talking about Brown handing him the Cup.

I'm a huge classic rock nerd and enthusiast. I feel the "born too late" thing hard, when 90% of what I listen to is from 67-73. My mom was born in 71, so I missed it by a few years, lol. The good thing is we have such unlimited access to so much music now. I play guitar with a lot of older dudes who mock me for listening to "their" music, even though literally none of them ever actually DID or SAW anything cool in their personal "haydays" so I feel I've experienced the music I sort of missed in my own unique way, which has actually fundamentally shaped me a lot as a person. Reg or Rog? actually has some cool ass stories, which I appreciate.

My Spotify top 10, just because. Pink Floyd would be #2 or 3 on here, but I only listen to them on my turntable. My rule of thumb is I don't listen to anything digitally that I have on vinyl, which I've been collecting for about 12 years, and is my pride and joy, lol.

Hawkwind's s/t

I've been packing/cleaning/fixing my house for sale for about 6 months. Haven't had my "music room" for months, where I go in and play a record and play along with it. Probably my favorite past-time, esp. with some weed and beers. Can't wait to get a new house and get that set-up again!

and yeah I love Jim Fox, again!

 

[VegasHockey]

I'd love to find this broadcast, but the only thing I found online, with the pregame included, is a Canadian broadcast en francais.

 

[beedee]

Nice guy, passionate as heck, very nice guy, beyond endearing to say the least....but still needs to tone it down.

 

[Reg or Rog?]

In keeping up with the thread jacking and trying to out-picture Reg or Rog?:

I'm just glad the Grateful Dead were over the top in encouraging people to record. I don't know if they (initially) intentionally employed the best viral marketing tool ever or not, but damn it worked. More Dead heads nowadays than those days, and we can argue forever about which Scarlet > Fire is best, ad nauseum. As for video and Pink Floyd, all I've really seen is like "Tonite, let's make love in London' (just fun and weird) from early 67, Pompeii (which is f'king great), and Echoes (which is OK). My favorite concert footage is the Dead @ Veneta 72 (the movie "Sunshine Daydream", which just looks like another world (everyone's naked, Jesus I think was completely naked standing on a pole for an entire song on footage behind Garcia, kids running and playing on stage, 100 degrees, in full sun, the guitars are like super slinky sounding; never sounded that way ever).

I have a cool vinyl bootleg of a live Dark Side of the Moon, which is pretty interesting. It's called "How Shall We Sing in a Foreign Land?".

I'm a huge classic rock nerd and enthusiast. I feel the "born too late" thing hard, when 90% of what I listen to is from 67-73. My mom was born in 71, so I missed it by a few years, lol. The good thing is we have such unlimited access to so much music now. I play guitar with a lot of older dudes who mock me for listening to "their" music, even though literally none of them ever actually DID or SAW anything cool in their personal "haydays" so I feel I've experienced the music I sort of missed in my own unique way, which has actually fundamentally shaped me a lot as a person. Reg or Rog? actually has some cool ass stories, which I appreciate.

My Spotify top 10, just because. Pink Floyd would be #2 or 3 on here, but I only listen to them on my turntable. My rule of thumb is I don't listen to anything digitally that I have on vinyl, which I've been collecting for about 12 years, and is my pride and joy, lol.

Hawkwind's s/t

I've been packing/cleaning/fixing my house for sale for about 6 months. Haven't had my "music room" for months, where I go in and play a record and play along with it. Probably my favorite past-time, esp. with some weed and beers. Can't wait to get a new house and get that set-up again!

and yeah I love Jim Fox, again!

Good stuff! Thanks for sharing!

The best part of being a Dead Head was trading boots...and the fact the band actually encouraged fans to record their shows. I was only nailed once for recording a concert: Roger Waters, of course, at the Universal Amphitheater in 2000. I spent the second half of the show in the security office and after the show I was 'escorted' off the premises by some a-hole security guard with an attitude that weighed about 100 pounds dripping wet. When we got to the gate, I could see the taxi cabs lined up on the access road, so I did the first thing that came to mind: I tore the security guard's hand off my arm and launched him into the bushes then jogged over to a cab and was gone.

I was never a huge Dead fan, but my buddies were. One guy must have had 500 live recordings...and he said he knew Dead Heads with twice that many. But my favorite Dead stories come from the California airports...

...I had a long-distance relationship with my first wife; she lived in San Francisco and I lived in LA, so we spent a lot of time in the air and at airports, especially SFO (San Francisco International) and LAX. At midnight PSA had the Midnight Flyer: 25 bucks one-way to LAX. At the same time, LAX had the reverse trip back to SFO. These were referred to as Dead Head flights, and not for the reasons you'd think.

Dead Head flights generally refer to flight attendants, pilots and other assorted airline employees flying free to a destination where they will be assigned to work...but in this case, it's a double-entendre. It refers to both the airline employees and the fans of the Grateful Dead who accounted for the majority of passengers when the Dead were touring the state (the Dead played almost 2,500 concerts, and a lot of them were in California).

Walking through the concourse of either PSA terminal before midnight you were virtually guaranteed to see legions of Dead fans at the gate waiting for the Midnight Flyer. It was a sea of Tie-dyed shirts and Afros and braided vests and an excess amount of body odor. Some would be dancing that patented Grateful Dead dance, others just kinda wobbling and others sitting on the floors bobbing and weaving. It was a proverbial trip.

Coincidentally enough, my current lady friend has a son (John-Paul McLean) that plays bass for Melvin Seals and JGB (aka, The Jerry Garcia Band). Hopefully I get to see them play soon. They just did a gig near my daughters house in NorCal, but I missed it.

https://www.melvinsealsandjgb.com/the-band/

Here's a cool archived article from the LA Times about PSA's Midnight Flyer, ironically published on my birthday in 1989:

https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-1989-04-18-mn-2006-story.html