Half Moon Bay Memories & El Granada Observer

Photo: Poodle, is that a black cat, too?– and Belinda with Fayden. Photo: courtesy Fayden

Hi June! Just busy fixing, building, being a grandpa, being a dad, being a husband, being a good worker, being being being etc. (Baba Ram Dass would have liked those last three words).

There is this really nice man who just moved to the coast named Charles, who owns Coastside spa repair in Princeton– he is very interested in coastside history (military, mainly, I think). What building did what kinda thing and where.

I told him about the pedestrian overpass in Montara going over to the lighthouse for the enlisted men– from the end of what is now Serra St. in Moss Beach– and about the gun turrets in front of the Distillery– and that most of the horizontal (small lap), lap strake homes on the coast were probably officers homes.

Then I had this great idea, and I suggested he read your articles. I loaned him your book (I really want you to autograph it), and told him perhaps you would know more about the coast in this regard.

This picture is of Belinda Balaski and me the day before I left to go to Europe on tour in 1970– she starred in and acted in a bunch of movies and now runs an acting school in L.A.. Belinda was a local on the coast in the late sixties, worked at the Miramar Beach Inn– although it was called the Spouter Inn for awhile, then the Shelter Inn. Belinda is a great gal! She was one of the rare coastside poodle owners as well.

She always had Muffin, her poodle, with her wherever she was– and apparently has always had one to this day. I like guitars better, I don’t have to feed them, take them for walks, or hold them unless I want to!

Anyway, got back from my European tour…the first morning back I’m walking south on the beach from El Granada, and I see Belinda running in front of the Miramar Inn across the beach. My hopes arise that she and I will pick up where we had romantically departed. She sees me… smiles, comes running up to me, gives me a big hug, and kiss– and in the same moment tells me excitedly she is living with Mike Mindell! My heart was broken…….. well not really, but I was forever jealous of Mike after this moment.

Mike, by the way, was one of the managers from the Spouter Inn days. He and Belinda moved to Manhattan beach where Mike recorded for Kapp records while Belinda launched her acting career. Mike is a great guy too, reminds me of Peter Adams in a way.

So there is a part of coastside history before you moved here, my friend, that was apparently important for me to share with you.

By the way, I fell in love with you the day you brought two plastic dog puppets that operated from squeeze handles into the kitchen by the back door. Do you remember them? You sat across from me at the kitchen table, and did a puppet show with them, you being the voice for both! You won my heart forever!

F

On that sizzling hot weekend a few days ago, Coastside musician/artist Fayden drove from Half Moon Bay to Redwood City where he had a musical reunion with friends he hadn’t seen in 38 years.

The guys rented a hall that wasn’t air conditioned “so playing acid rock four-feet up on a stage full of Marshall amps was brutal—— but fun!!!”

When I arrived on the Coastside in the early 1970s, everybody knew Fayden. Well…I’ll let him tell his story as a musician, filled with sweet memories…..

“The band I played with was called “Time”; we were a major player on the peninsula,we played with Country Joe and the Fish, and released a 45.

Before this (and what really made me want to be in music) I knew a wonderful
Italian family who lived down the street from where I grew up.They kind of adopted me
(my parents weren’t home much) and I was there more than not.

The dad was in partnership with two other guys who managed the “New Bedouins”.
He would take me to their performances, and sometimes the group would let me sit in for the
warm-ups as the drummer usually didn’t arrive until the last minute
from his regular job.

This group became the original “Grassroots” that did “Where were you when I needed you?”, and “Mr.Jones”, by Bob Dylan.

Anyway, I popped my lung singing with the band “Time” (acid rock),and so had to start playing more acoustically/folk type music,

I went to Hollywood and worked with Jackson Browne, Dobie Gray, Karen Gunderson (New Christy Minstrels), Lee Mallory (Millennium).

Half the time I was in Hollywood, the other half in the Bay Area– when up here I lived with Ron and Sue Wickersham. Ron was the main
engineer/electrical genius for Pacific recording on El Camino Real and Hwy 92. I got to work with a lot of the people from the Avalon/Fillmore, Tony Lenzini (Steve Miller) Cork Seagull,
Fred Catero, David Rubinson (San Francisco records),

Backin the sixties musicians ran around like a bunch of quaking ducklings whoever was around played, and it was wonderful!!!

I had a little shack in El Granada, and was playing over at the Miramar beach Inn (then called the Shelter Inn, then the Spouter Innor visa versa). Patrick Simmons, and Tyranne (went on to be DoobieBros.), and Peter Grant (played with the “Dead”), and I played there.
Also Mike Mindell (Uncle Jim’s music), Sonny Terry, Brownie Mcghee,Jesse (the lonecat) Fuller (wrote San Francisco Bay Blues), TomScribner(played musical saw on a Beatles song), Hot Tuna and the list goes on.

Clay Fountain, Mike Conrad, Bill Middlejohn, Harry Moore, Kay Quadra,Anthrax (Electra records), so many people (the regulars) played atthe Shelter/Spouter Inn and we all played together later in the
evenings.

I went to Europe and cut a solo album while on tour with a groupcalled “Steam Hammer”. This was a side group for Ion Anderson. While there I was offered a chance to be in the “Doobie Bros.” by the man who gotthe front money from Warner Bros., His name was Paul–he was one
of the guys from the group “The Mojo Men” who took their royalties and built and owned Pacific Recording where just about all of thesixties albums were made.

If I had known Pat, and Ty were going to be in the group, I would have probably not opted for the solo l.p. andcome back to the states. My l.p. went to the Cannes music festival (representing Bellaphon records.)

I was the first American to write against the Viet Nam War (outside this country). This l.p was blacklisted in the U.S.A.–however it did really well every where else.

When I got back to the U.S.A., I hooked up playing in smaller coffee houses again, recording and working with other folks, who, like myself, were largely the wind beneath the wings of folks most people have heard of.

Chuck Portz was the bassist in the Turtles– he and I had a little band in Montara in the early 1970s. The last time I played (using my union card) was with Waylon and Willie, substituting
for and “Outlaw”, at the Concord Pavillion in 1976.

Then I started building/repairing guitars instead of playing them.

P.S. I play guitar, bass, banjo, mandolin, dulcimer,keyboards, handsaw, and vocals. A little drums, brass, and fiddle.

I’ve written hundreds of songs.

I play and write in a John Fahey, Leo Kottke, style however usually
end up jamming with people in a bluegrass or blues capacity.

A few posts back I shared with you what I called “the two sides of Fayden” Holmboe (literally the two sides–left and right, taken on the same day in my El Granada backyard 30 years ago)

“I sent my son those two pictures you sent me, he had his wife take this one

He’s going to be 25 this June so that puts us just about at the exact age.

Zack is a science teacher in a junior high school in North west
Oregon and is starting a chapter with his class on heredity. He
said this is going to be one of his examples!

Thought you’d enjoy seeing how your “historical photo of me” was built upon!

Fayden lives in Half Moon Bay and works at Stanford (Applied Physics).

The two sides of Fayden as he relaxes in my “old” backyard ” 30 years ago when, as he says, “we were all hanging out”– in the background a snap-together geodesic dome “invented” by my ex.

Fayden played with a rock group; was it The Turtles?