Live at the Carousel Ballroom 1968 [PA]

Performer: Quicksilver Messenger Service
Distributor: Koch Records (USA)

Notes: Personnel: Gary Duncan, John Cipollina (guitar); Greg Elmore (drums). Liner Note Author: Jon Kirkman. Recording information: 04/04/1968. Part of a series of live recordings unearthed after 40 years, this album is said to present an appearance by Quicksilver Messenger Service at the Carousel Ballroom in San Francisco on April 4, 1968, a month before the release of the group's self-titled debut album. Although earlier shows presented in the series demonstrated that QMS certainly were ready to record years before they did, this performance is recognizably one by the band that made the first album and its follow-up, Happy Trails, a group comfortable improvising for 12 or 13 minutes at a time on "Who Do You Love" and "The Fool." In fact, the second disc contains a formless jam lasting nearly 42 minutes that presses the point a bit too far. The jam includes a flute and an organ, not instruments that were part of the QMS lineup (there is also a flute on "Light Your Windows"), so some unnamed guests seem to be present. Although this recording is a valuable document in the history of QMS and the San Francisco scene in general, it has been treated shoddily in this packaging. Guitarist John Cipollina and bassist David Freiberg's names are misspelled in the skimpy liner notes, which mistakenly bear the title of another album in the series. For that matter, the April 4, 1968, performance by QMS actually occurred at the Fillmore Auditorium, not the Carousel. (It wasn't until July 1968 that promoter Bill Graham took over the Carousel and renamed it the Fillmore West.) That is assuming this concert even took place on April 4, 1968. On the recording, someone comments that it's Easter Sunday; April 4, 1968, was a Thursday. Easter Sunday 1968 occurred on April 14. QMS did not play a show on April 14, 1968, but they did play at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles on the night of Saturday, April 13; maybe this is actually that show. ~ William Ruhlmann

Along with the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service were one of the first and best of the San Francisco '60s psychedelic bands. Though they shared with their peers an improvisational bent and eclectic roots in blues, jazz, folk, and rock, what helped set them apart was the distinctive twin-guitar work of John Cipollina and Gary Duncan, two virtuosic players. When New York singer-songwriter Dino Valenti became their frontman, their sound became more accessible and they scored a couple of minor hits before disbanding in the mid-'70s.

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