(SAN FRANCISCO) With Somethin’s Happening Here: Bay Area Rock ‘n’ Roll 1963-73, the Museum of Performance & Design (MPD) charts the magic time in the Bay Area rock scene from the folk-infused early ‘60s to the last days of the Fillmore West. The exhibition is an unprecedented, in-depth examination of this incredibly diverse era—charting its trajectory, identifying its causes and effects, dispelling its myths, and offering a fresh look at this well-known subject.
Somethin’s Happening Here will have its opening celebration at MPD on Thursday, September 24 at 6:00 pm. The evening will include an exclusive first look at the exhibition and live performances by Sal Valentino (Beau Brummels/Stoneground)
Seminal local bands like The Beau Brummels, The Charlatans, Country Joe and the Fish, and Quicksilver Messenger Service receive their due alongside better-known Bay Area names like The Jefferson Airplane, Santana, Grateful Dead and Sly and the Family Stone. Above all, the show celebrates the timeless appeal of this signal moment in 20th-century popular culture, enveloping visitors in a blaze of sight and sound.
Co-curators Melissa Leventon and Alec Palao will evoke this rich era using a wealth of rarely seen footage, posters, images, and costume from private and public collections and from the artists themselves. Visitors will also be able to sample extremely rare audio and video clips, some of them drawn from the important archive of recordings from San Francisco’s KSAN that are now in MPD’s permanent collection.
Just a few of the key original items on display include:
- costume pieces worn by Janis Joplin, Carlos Santana, Sly Stone, and others
- the full-sized original painting featured on the Grateful Dead’s Anthem of the Sun album cover
- the famed “Captain Trips” hat worn by Jerry Garcia
- original posters from classic Bay Area venues, including the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore Auditorium
- rare letters, documents and one-of-a-kind ephemera from the Bay Area's 1960s rock'n' roll heyday
- iconic and previously unseen photographs from the archives of photographers such as Baron Wolman, Herb Greene, Bob Seidemann, Bill Brach, and Elaine Mayes
- musical instruments used by John Cipollina (Quicksilver Messenger Service), Merl Saunders, Dan Hicks, and others
The exhibition will be open to the public September 25, 2009-August 28, 2010. Admission is free. Gallery hours are Wednesday-Saturday, 12:00-5:00 pm. The Museum is located on the fourth floor of the Veterans Building at 401 Van Ness (@ McAllister). A range of public programs, including live performances, panel discussions, and film screenings is being planned throughout the run of the exhibition. For up-to-the-minute news on programming, please visit us online at www.mpdsf.org or follow us on Facebook and Twitter.
Curators’ Bios
Melissa Leventon, a founding partner of Curatrix Group museum consultants and appraisers, is a specialist in European and American costume and textiles. She was formerly Curator-in-Charge of Textiles at the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, and she has also curated exhibitions involving many different art media ranging from contemporary glass to the Dead Sea Scrolls. She has authored or contributed to many exhibition catalogues and journals; What People Wore When, published by Thames & Hudson and St. Martin’s Press in 2008, is her most recent book. She teaches fashion history and fashion theory at California College of the Arts and lectures frequently on costume and collecting. This is her second exhibition for MPD.
Alec Palao is a British-born writer, musician, archivist and full-time rock ’n ’roll fanatic, championing the more esoteric - yet no less worthy - nooks and crannies of vintage pop, R&B and soul. A Bay Area resident for twenty years, as a reissue producer he has compiled and annotated close to two hundred CD and vinyl releases, including the critically acclaimed Nuggets From The Golden State series for Britain’s Ace Records, and the recent Grammy-nominated Rhino Records box set Love Is The Song We Sing, both of which focus on mid-late 1960s California rock - an easy area of expertise for Palao, who has painstakingly researched the rock history of San Francisco.
The Museum of Performance & Design is supported by the following: Anonymous Benefactor, The Mervyn L. Brenner Foundation, California State Library, Compton Foundation, Inc., Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation, GRAMMY Foundation, The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Institute of Museum and Library Services, George Frederick Jewett Foundation, Multimedia Educational Foundation Morgan Stanley Foundation, the National Endowment for the Arts, Paragon Community Fund, San Francisco Arts Commission, The San Francisco Foundation, San Francisco Hotel Tax Fund/Grants for the Arts, The Drs. Ben and Jess A. Shenson Foundation, Wallis Foundation, the Russell Hartley Society, the Board and staff of the War Memorial Performing Arts Center, and the Members of the Museum of Performance & Design.
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CALENDAR LISTING - EVENTS
Somethin’s Happening Here: Bay Area Rock ‘n’ Roll 1963-73
Opening Night Celebration
Museum of Performance & Design, 401 Van Ness Avenue, Veterans Building, 4th floor
Thursday, September 24, 2009 - 6:00 pm
$30.00 MPD Members / $40.00 General Public
Somethin’s Happening Here: Bay Area Rock ‘n’ Roll 1963-73 at Museum of Performance & Design (MPD) charts the Bay Area rock scene from the folk-infused early ‘60s to the last days of the Fillmore West. The exhibition is an unprecedented, in-depth examination of this incredibly diverse era—dispelling its myths and offering a fresh look at this well-known subject—all evoked in a blaze of sight and sound with a wealth of original posters, images, instruments, and costumes on display. The opening night celebration will include an exclusive first look at the exhibition and live performances by Sal Valentino (Beau Brummels/Stoneground)
CALENDAR LISTING - EXHIBITIONS
Somethin’s Happening Here: Bay Area Rock ‘n’ Roll 1963-73
September 25, 2009 - August 28, 2010
Museum of Performance & Design, 401 Van Ness Avenue, Veterans Building, 4th floor
Wednesday-Saturday 12:00-5:00 pm
Free for MPD Members / $5.00 suggested donation for general public
Somethin’s Happening Here: Bay Area Rock ‘n’ Roll 1963-73 at the Museum of Performance & Design (MPD) charts the Bay Area rock scene from the folk-infused early ‘60s to the last days of the Fillmore West. The exhibition is an unprecedented, in-depth examination of this incredibly diverse era—dispelling its myths and offering a fresh look at this well-known subject—all evoked in a blaze of sight and sound with a wealth of original posters, images, instruments, and costumes on display.
