Too Loose Ta Truck with Phil Lesh, May>December 1976 (Lost Highway)

 

An ad for upcoming acts at River City in Fairfax (Marin County) from the May 16, 1976 San Francisco Chronicle Datebook (the "Pink Section"). Touloos, with Phil Lesh, is booked for Monday, May 17. Opening the show was comedian Guido Sarducci (later famous from Saturday Night Live).

Too Loose Ta Truck: John Allair, Steve Mitchell, Terry Haggerty and Phil Lesh
Too Loose Ta Truck, whose name was billed with various spellings, remains the only band featuring Phil Lesh that played nightclubs. The group only existed for seven shows in the second half of 1976. A few tapes circulate, but you will be hard pressed to find anyone who had actually seen them. Years after the group had disintegrated, I did meet someone who had actually seen them at the Keystone in Berkeley. At this time (about 1981), I had never heard a tape of the group. In response to my urgent questioning, the eyewitness reported on his memory of the night: "they tuned up for three hours, and then it turned out that was the show." Eventually, I did hear some tapes, and this wasn't far off. Nonetheless, the story of Too Loose Ta Truck reveals some interesting byways of the Grateful Dead, and are worth unraveling, even if the musical payoff was a bit vague.

Too Loose: Short Version
During the "Hiatus, " when the Grateful Dead did not tour between October 20, 1974 and June 3, 1976, the various band members all participated to some degree in other groups. Some of these ensembles even lasted beyond June 1976. Phil Lesh had a musical partnership with Ned Lagin, but that had disintegrated by November 1975. Starting in May, 1976, Lesh was booked with some other musicians as Too Loose Ta Truck. Organist John Allair also played piano and sang, and they were joined by Allair's regular duo partner, drummer Steve Mitchell. Guitarist Terry Hagerty, then a full-time member of the Sons Of Champlin, rounded out the group. Most of the songs were extended covers, although some songs were Allair originals. 

Too Loose Ta Truck, spelled a variety of intriguing ways, was booked for nine shows between May 17 and December 21, 1976. Six were in the Bay Area, but the two booked at the Starwood Club in Los Angeles were canceled. A few tapes survive and circulate. I know of no photos of the band onstage. The eyewitness account I described is the only one I have heard (if you saw the band, or know someone who did, please note it in the Comments).

[update 20260220] Shortly after posting, BlueSky user Andeux pointed me to another show, namely Too Loose Ta Truck opening for the Sons Of Champlin at Keystone Berkeley on November 14, 1976. Post edited accordingly. 

This post will look at the brief, but interesting, history of Too Loose Ta Truck. Although there were only six seven known shows and three recordings, the saga reveals some undercurrents of the 1976 Grateful Dead universe that were not always apparent. The post will look at what can be learned from Too Loose, both in how different it was from other Phil Lesh projects, and for its similarities to other Dead-adjacent projects. Anyone with eyewitness accounts, additional information or intriguing speculation is encouraged to note them in the Comments. Flashbacks welcome. 

Phil Lesh with his Alembic "Mission Control" bass in 1974, in front of the Wall Of Sound

The Grateful Dead and Phil Lesh, 1974>1976
Phil Lesh had not wanted the Grateful Dead to go on hiatus after the Winterland shows in October 1974, but he had no real choice in the matter. Subsequently, Lesh had enthusiastically participated in the Blues For Allah sessions at Bob Weir's house in Mill Valley throughout the spring and summer of 1975. At the same time, he had worked with Ned Lagin on his Seastones electronic music project. Now, Seastones was really Lagin's project, although Lesh, Jerry Garcia, Mickey Hart and others played roles. Since the Grateful Dead saw themselves as a record company in 1975, the Seastones album was attributed to both Ned Lagin and Phil Lesh, as a Grateful Dead member's name greatly increased attention to the album. Presenting Phil and Ned as partners in Seastones was fine with both of them, but it didn't accurately characterize the project, which really belonged to Ned Lagin.

Round Records had released the Seastones album in April 1975. Challenging as the album was, there was some evidence that it was well received, as it appeared in the "Bubbling Under" section of the Billboard magazine album charts after it was released. Without going too far into the rabbit hole of what "Bubbling Under" meant, its Billboard listing indicated that chain record stores in big cities noticed that it was selling, or that people were asking for the album. Don't forget that 1975 was the high point of progressive rock bands like Yes and ELP, and music-to-get-stoned-by often sold more than you might think. However, the collapse of Round Records distribution hurt the existing album, and it appears in retrospect that when United Artists took over manufacturing and distribution of Round Records, the Seastones release got no attention (if it was even re-labeled and re-pressed, which is unlikely). 

By Spring 1976, the Grateful Dead had a new agreement with United Artists, a commitment to make new albums and at least a general commitment by the band to return to live performance. What has been lost in the passage of time was that while the Grateful Dead were going to tour again, for financial reasons if nothing else, it was not certain whether solo endeavors would take up a more substantial amount of their time. In early 1976, all the members save for Phil Lesh and Bill Kreutzmann had alternative gigs along side the Dead. Mickey Hart had the Diga Rhythm Band, Weir had Kingfish, and Keith and Donna Godchaux were members of the Jerry Garcia Band. Diga, Kingfish and Garcia had all released albums in the first half of 1976.

John Allair, probably in the early 1960s

John Allair
The key figure in Too Loose was organist John Allair, who turns out to be a legend amongst Marin musicians. On his website, a Marin Hall Of Fame lineup lays it out:  

• Van Morrison "Nobody plays organ like that" 
• Elvin Bishop "If I played piano I'd like to play like John" 
• Mark Isham "The best B3 player I've ever heard" 
• Huey Lewis "The godfather of rock in Marin County"   
• Phil Lesh “John Allair is a master of all styles, and swings like mad, to boot.”       

Allair's bio (on his website) gives the essential backstory:

Born and raised in Oakland, he used to pick up Fats Domino’s early records at the age of 12, and sat in with the local African American R&B and Jazz players, who taught him the basics. “A friend of mine, a black guy, Lonnie Leak, gave me lessons on the piano in 1952. I used to go to this spot in Oakland where I bought used 78 records they took off the jukeboxes. I went crazy for R&B! Nobody knew much about it back then in the early '50s. But I was well versed in R&B before it became Rock & Roll. I collected all of the records and played along with them.” 

When John moved to Marin in 1955, he started playing sock hops. He has been credited with being one of the first Rock & Roll players in the Bay Area: “When I started playing rallies at Tamalpais and Drake High Schools, there were no bands around. All the guys were into sports, it wasn’t cool to be a musician.” ...

While in College at S.F. State, John discovered J.S. Bach, “Before that, I didn’t care about Classical, or Jazz - Fats Domino and Boogie Woogie, that’s all I wanted to play. I studied Bach starting in college, and have studied him ever since. It fills me out to learn about classical music.” 

By 1967, he was accompanying Rock and Roller Bobby Freeman at San Francisco's Playboy Club. He once bested Freeman at a Fillmore District battle of the bands, before Mission High grad Freeman hit it big in 1958 with "Do You Wanna Dance?" and Allair got his first union job after high school, which involved traveling to Ukiah to back up Freeman for $18. 

Two years later [1969], he hooked up with a group called Pure Love and Pleasure. "They were young hippies," he said. "I was the old guy." They recorded an album of Mamas and Papas sound-alikes in Los Angeles (the tracks I have heard are more like "heavy" '70s rock, with prominent organ and slashing guitar).

Pure Love & Pleasure debut album, released by ABC-Dunhill Records in 1970 (John Alliar-l)

Pure Love and Pleasure broke up, probably around 1971 and Allair was soon back in Marin. He was well-known amongst Marin musicians, but not to the public at large. By 1973 or so, he had found a regular gig at the lounge in a restaurant in Novato. Although Marin County had been a commuter enclave for San Francisco workers for some time, it's population was small, and so was its commercial footprint. The kind of San Francisco executive who commuted to a San Francisco high-rise from Larkspur or San Rafael went out to eat and relax in the City. Marin, in turn, had almost no nightlife. There was one rock club, the Lion's Share in San Anselmo (near San Rafael), which had opened in 1970, and a few jazz joints in Sausalito, most prominently The Trident. Even the Trident, however,  depended on San Francisco traffic. Then there was Shipwreck Pete's, just up Highway 101 in Novato. 

For those who do not know Marin's geography, it was a very different county in the early 1970s, in comparison to its reputation today as an exclusive, wealthy oasis. True, Sausalito was just across the Golden Gate Bridge from San Francisco, and a few nearby communities like Larkspur were wealthy and privileged, where elite San Franciscans bought expensive homes that had easy trips to The City. A few other towns near the bridge, like San Rafael, had their share of commuters, too. But most of early '70s Marin was pretty sparse, just a few years removed from a being a fully agricultural county. Yet the 5.5 mile Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, with its direct route to Berkeley, Oakland and Highway 80 had expanded the scope of Marin County. By the end of the '60s, the County was neither isolated nor exclusively agricultural.

Novato, however, 24 miles North of the Golden Gate Bridge, just up Highway 101, was the edge of populated Marin County. North of Novato was pretty rural. Just a few miles North of the town, in fact, was Rancho Olompali, the former site of the Burdell Mansion and an infamous commune. The Dead had hung out at the Mansion  in the late '60s. The BBC had taken pictures of a huge hippie gathering in 1966, and the band jammed there often. The back cover of Aoxomoxoa was photographed on the Olompali grounds. The mansion burned down in 1969, and the commune had moved out, but it looms large in Grateful Dead lore. 

An ad for Shipwreck Pete's lounge (at the Sportsman Lodge Hotel), from San Rafael's Marin Independent-Journal, February 12, 1970, soon after it opened. Note that in the pre-GPS era, the actual address (8141 Redwood Highway) was not given, just directions. Novato was then so rural that "2 miles North" was enough.

Shipwreck Pete's, 8141 Redwood Highway, Novato, CA 
Shipwreck Pete's was the bar in the lounge of the Sportsman Lodge Hotel in Novato. The address was 8141 Redwood Highway, North of downtown and just across from the tiny Marin County Airport. Rancho Olompali was just a few more miles up the road. Today there is a Days Inn at the site (the address is now 8141 Redwood Boulevard, as it is now a frontage road to US-101, which has since become the Redwood Highway). So Shipwreck Pete's was the last outpost of suburbia in that part of Marin, before it turned into farms and open space.

The Novato area had mostly been farmland, and housing developments only sprung up after WW2. Novato had only incorporated as a town in 1960, with a population of about 17,000. By 1970, it had a population of 31,000.  The Sportsman's Lodge was one of the few hotels in Novato, and probably the biggest facility. At the time. Shipwreck Pete's was likely the only live music venue in Novato, and one of the few in Marin in the mid-70s that was a bar rather than a coffee shop. Shipwreck Pete's had only opened in early 1970, replacing an earlier establishment. The Marin Independent-Journal regularly reported that various civic and professional groups had meetings at Shipwreck Pete's, no doubt planning to relax afterwards at the bar. 

Marquee spotting for Shipwreck Pete's at the Novato Sportsman's Lodge, from the September 8, 1973 Marin Independent Journal. John Allair shared the bill with local country singer Terry Ryan.

There was music booked at Shipwreck Pete's most nights. It seems that the same group would play all week, and danceable jazz was the order of the day. The owner was Pete Lind, and his son Dick Lind was a jazz drummer. Dick Lind, in turn, had been playing with John Allair since they were in high school in the 1950s. There wasn't much nightlife in Novato, and for local musicians, Shipwreck Pete's was probably the only real hangout. Around 1972, when the Highway 101 bypass was being constructed, Shipwreck Pete's and a few other businesses were somewhat isolated from traffic, and it was noted in the press as an issue. This did not help the business climate at the lounge, but of course--inevitably--the isolation would have added to the funky cool of the place, so musicians would have flocked to it even if regular patrons did not, and Marin was full of musicians. 

Drummer Steve Mitchell, at home in Pennsylvania in the 21st Century

Puppeteer Jim Henson's character "Animal, " rocking out--possibly inspired by Steve Mitchell

 

Steve Mitchell
Steve Mitchell (1946-2019) was an experienced drummer with a good musical education from Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. After his graduation in 1967, he had moved to San Francisco. He immediately found work as a session musician, as well as playing with the band Cleveland Wrecking Company. At the time, the Wrecking Company were a sort of psychedelic band with lots of jamming (in later years they had a horns section and were more dance oriented, although Mitchell had long since left). Mitchell was highly regarded as a session musician in California, playing on film and TV soundtracks for Peanuts and the animated feature Garfield. He knew and had worked with puppeteer Jim Henson. Legend has it that Mitchell was the inspiration for the Henson drummer-character "Animal." Mitchell conceded it was possible, as he had met Henson in New York and later worked with him in an LA studio in 1968.

Mitchell had a good reputation in the studio, but freelance work is tough for musicians. In 1976, he skipped a local NARAS dinner because he needed his paying gig; it turned out it was a presentation of a Grammy for "best studio musician" that night. So Mitchell's reputation extended beyond just the Bay Area. By the 21st century, Mitchell had returned to Troy, PA, where he was from, but before he died Jake Feinberg talked to him, and Mitchell described the genesis of Too Loose Ta Truck.

I was playing with a piano player 4 nights a week [sic--actually 5] at a club called "Shipwreck Pete's." It was John Allair and myself, we were playing duo gigs. John sang and played piano and a B-3 organ at the same time.

We're playing one night and this fella comes in with his saxophone and he's dressed all in black and he's got a black hat on and nobody knows who he is and he's standing there in the middle of the dance floor getting knocked around and he could play pretty good - it turned out to be Van Morrison.

Van liked what we were doing so he played with us. He came to our gigs and played with us cause he enjoyed playing and he wanted to develop his saxophone chops.

I had run into Phil Lesh at one of Mickey Hart's gatherings and we talked and he said he wanted to be able to play when the Dead weren't on the road.

It was all the Marin County guys, John Allair, Terry Haggerty from the Sons of Champlin and Van and Phil Lesh. There was a revolving door of people who were in and out of the band. Most of the time it was Phil, Allair, Haggerty and myself.  

Drummer Steve Mitchell's memories of Shipwreck Pete's are about 45 years after the fact, so we can forgive him a few vague details. Nonetheless, the connection wasn't casual. Allair and Mitchell played a little with Van around Marin, and John Allair also toured with Van Morrison numerous times, starting in 1980 and as recently as 2022. 

Van Morrison
Belfast singer Van Morrison had moved to Marin County around late 1970, from Woodstock, NY. After all, his wife Janet was from San Leandro, Van was popular in the Bay Area, and anyway the weather was great. Bay Area fans were lucky in that when Van had a new tour or new material, he would try it out with his current band in local clubs. The Bay Area already had a tradition of local stars like Jerry Garcia and Jorma Kaukonen playing club gigs. Unlike in some cities, stars playing clubs was seen as cool rather than a sign of insecurity. In places like Los Angeles or Manhattan, big stars only played big shows, but San Francisco wasn't like that. 

Joel Selvin's SF Chronicle column on June 7, 1974 tipped off the Bay Area to Van Morrison's partnership with John Allair and Steve Mitchell

San Francisco Chronicle columnist Joel Selvin had an interesting surprise for readers on Friday, June 7, 1974. He wrote:

At The Orphanage Tuesday [June 4], the "surprise guest" scheduled to appear with John Allair and Steve Mitchell failed to show. It was to have been Van Morrison, the taciturn Irish poet-rhythm and blues singer now living in Fairfax.

Morrison had introduced Allair and Mitchell as his new backup group Sunday and Monday [June 2 & 3] at the Lion's Share in San Anselmo. He has cut loose both his large band, the Caledonia Soul Orchestra, and his manager and apparently intends to make future local performances and possibly tour Europe this summer with the keyboards-drum backing of Allair and Mitchell. 

A flyer for Van Morrison with John Allair and Steve Mitchell playing early and late shows at the Lion's Share in San Anselmo on June 2 &3, 1974 (via the amazing VanOmatic site)

The Lion's Share was the principal rock musician hangout in Marin County, in San Anselmo, just a few miles from downtown San Rafael. Only local groups played there, but in Marin, the locals were some heavy hitters. The excellent Van0matic site somehow found a flyer for Van Morrison's gig with Allair and Mitchell the Lion's Share. There were four shows, and the capacity was nearly 300, so with just three players they probably made decent money.  If Joel Selvin hadn't written about it in the biggest Bay Area paper, though, no one outside of Marin County would have known.

Still, Van is who he is, and his no-show at the Orphanage the next night was a harbinger. There was a big tour coming up, yes, but it came off with a different group of Marin musicians. The local band Soundhole featured some hot young players, and they were the ones who toured with Van. Any plans with Allair and Mitchell were dropped. Later, however, Allair would join in on Van's 1980 tour, and he toured with Van numerous times subsequently. Van's ways are ever mysterious, and that includes to his own band members.

What's less well known is that Van Morrison used to hang out at the Grateful Dead office. Sadly, it appears that he never played with any band members, or not enough for any tapes to be made, but he wasn't a stranger. In a recent Deadcast, Jesse Jarnow even found out that Van Morrison attended at least one of the Blues For Allah sessions at Bob Weir's house in Mill Valley. He quite literally "sat in," in the sense that he sat in a chair for the entire afternoon and listened, rather than played or sang (would that he could have taken a rip at "Help On The Way," but...). 

Van may have even alluded to hanging out with the Dead in the lyrics to his 1973 song "Hard Nose The Highway" (props to Commenter PC over at JGMF some time ago)

I was tore down at the Dead's place
Shaved head at the organ
But that wasn't half as bad as it was oh no
Belfast and Boston 

So Van was very much part of the day-to-day Marin music scene. Van would have known what was going on. Since Van lived in Fairfax, once someone had hipped him to John Allair and Steve Mitchell at Shipwreck Pete's, it wasn't hard for him to drop in. 

Terry Haggerty some years ago, probably amazed at the solo he just played

Terry Haggerty
Steve Mitchell suggested that numerous musicians dropped by at Shipwreck Pete's. That's what jazz hangouts are like--there's a combo laying it down, and they invite a friend to leave his drink at the table and take a trumpet or guitar solo. There were a lot of musicians in Marin at the time, because rent was cheap (really) and it was an easy to drive to gigs all over the Bay Area. Most musician's paying gigs are on weekends, so I'll bet the drop-ins were mostly school nights, with just a few dozen patrons in the crowd. 

Guitarist Terry Haggerty had been in the Sons Of Champlin since their founding in 1965, and he had already been a professional musician in High School. All of the Sons members were actually from Marin, unlike those bands (like the Dead, the Airplane or the Youngbloods) who had just moved there later. Haggerty's father had been a big band guitarist who was gigging well into the 1960s, and beyond, so young Terry had been a disciplined and well-trained musician from an early age. Haggerty was a phenomenal, if under-rated guitarist (listen to the Sons' "Freedom" from 1969). The Sons performed constantly, but mostly in Northern California, so Haggerty would have been able to drop in and jam often enough. Ironically, Haggerty was such a good guitarist that he would overwhelm most musicians, so if he liked to drop in on Allair and Mitchell that alone marks them as world-class. 

Round Records released the Seastones album in March 1975, credited to Ned Lagin and Phil Lesh

Phil Lesh 1975-76 Status Report 
What's historically unremarked about Too Loose Ta Truck was how out of character it was for Phil Lesh to have a bar band. The rest of the Dead regularly performed in night clubs for much of their careers, or at least until they graduated to larger places, yet Phil Lesh consistently resisted that. He may have occasionally played a bar gig as a favor to another band member, but even so it was not his preference. Phil himself has acknowledged he liked his Heinekens and enjoyed bars, perhaps too much, and there were plenty of sightings of him at local clubs and bars over the years, but he didn't sit in and play. 

In 1975, besides recording Blues For Allah, Lesh was working with Ned Lagin on Seastones. While not likely to record a break-out FM hit, Seastones had a chance to sell a few records. They also drew san audience for their performances. So if Lesh was thinking that he needed an alternative gig to go along with Grateful Dead recording projects, parallel to the Jerry Garcia Band, Kingfish, Diga Rhythm Band and so on, Seastones was a plausible project. A record company advance was not an unreasonable expectation for a member of the Grateful Dead, no matter how odd or difficult the music might have been.

Nonetheless, Seastones had fallen apart by the end of 1975. Ned and Phil played their last Seastones gig in the San Diego area on November 22, 1975. By this time, the Grateful Dead's record company edifice had crumbled, and had been re-constituted with the support of United Artists Records. This was all right, but since Seastones was gone, Lesh wasn't really going to benefit from it. By April of '76 it was clear that the Grateful Dead were going back on tour. Nonetheless, contrary to the inevitability with which it seems to possess now, it wasn't clear to members of the Dead whether their return to touring would be successful or permanent. 

Joel Selvin's September 19, 1976 Chronicle column notes that Bob Weir had left Kingfish and that Phil Lesh had joined Terry Haggerty, Steve Mitchell and John Allair to play local nightclubs

It's revealing that Lesh told Steve Mitchell that he wanted to be able to play when the Grateful Dead weren't on the road. It implies a concern that the Dead might not be touring much, or that Lesh might need the cash. One of the few sources of information about the Grateful Dead in those days was Joel Selvin's column in the San Francisco Chronicle. In his music news round-up for September 19, 1976 (above), Selvin noted

Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir has left Kingfish, and the band will record its second album as a quartet. Meanwhile, Dead bassist Phil Lesh has teamed up with Sons guitarist Terry Haggerty, drummer Steve Mitchell and keyboard player John Allair for a round of local club dates. The Dead recently closed their San Rafael record company office, after running out of funds to support it. The group has fulfilled its current agreement with United Artists Records, at least as far as amount of product owed, and is said to be shopping for a new record deal.

Translating the polite industry-speak, the Dead's record company had gone belly-up, they had no money and no record deal and were hoping to put something together. In fact, they would do that, with Clive Davis and Arista, but that was no sure thing in September '76. Phil asking Steve Mitchell about playing when the Dead weren't on tour was about financial survival, not some conceptual thing about music. Note that Too Loose Ta Truck had made its official debut before the Dead's Summer '76 tour, and the tour had gone well. Nonetheless, Too Loose gigs were still being booked in September, when the Dead's tour (and two stadium shows in the Northeast) had been completed.

Lesh had to have concerns that the Dead might not fully support him. They didn't have a record deal, they were no longer "cool," and Jerry Garcia might very well tour profitably as a solo act, minimizing Dead tours. This threat is perpetually unstated by other members of the Dead, but I assure you it weighed heavily on their economic calculations. Note also that Phil, alone among Dead members, couldn't really be part of any Jerry Garcia Band because John Kahn was so integral. So Too Loose Ta Truck was some kind of hedge against the future. Without trying to personalize this too much, per Phil's own autobiography, he was rather deep into the Heineken during this period. On top of that, he had a brief, unhappy marriage from 1975-77 (in his book, his wife is just called "Lyla," which may not have been her name), so things were precarious on numerous fronts.  

So whenever exactly Phil mentioned to Steve Mitchell that he wanted something for when the Dead weren't playing, I see it as a concern on Phil's part that he might need a Garcia Band of his own. I also have to assume that Lesh had already dropped into Shipwreck Pete's and heard Allair and Mitchell--indeed, Van Morrison might have even invited him. Shipwreck Pete's had closed in October 1975. From 1975 onwards, however, Allair and Mitchell had been playing on Sundaty nights at the Sleeping Lady in tiny Bolinas, and on Mondays at River City in Fairfax. The Monday night River City gigs continued on into 1976. I have think Phil must have brought his bass along at least once and plugged in, just to see how it sounded, whether at Shipwreck Pete's, the Sleeping Lady or River City.

A flyer for Touloos Ta Truck, with Phil Lesh, at River City in Fairfax on May 17, 1976

May 17, 1976 River City, Fairfax, CA: Touloos Ta Truck/Father Guido Sarducci (Monday)
The official debut of Too Loose Ta Truck was at the River City bar at 52 Bolinas Road in Fairfax, on Monday, May 17, 1976. River City--I'm not clear what "River" was responsible for the name, possibly it was a nod to The Music Man--was a game arcade and pool hall in the tiny town of Fairfax, four miles West of San Rafael (with San Anselmo in between). In early 1975, proprietor Ron Barbarita started booking jazz bands, ultimately booking rock bands as well. Since the Lion's Share had closed in July '75, and Shipwreck Pete's in October, that left River City as pretty much the only rock club in Marin County. It could hold perhaps 200, maybe slightly more. 

The SF Chronicle listed Touloos Ta Truck at River City on Monday, May 17, 1976. The next night was the Rowan Brothers (with Peter) and Jack Bonus ("Hobo Song"). Just another week in Marin.

Of course, River City got all the Marin bands: Jerry Garcia Band, Kingfish, Keith & Donna, Clover, Taj Mahal, Brian Auger, Mike Bloomfield and numerous others all played there, particularly on weeknights. But even a packed house isn't that big a payday for a club when it can only sell 200+ tickets. By mid-1976, River City was struggling financially. Marin County in this era was a peculiar market, in that there were numerous quality local musicians willing to play a club for the door receipts, but no way for a club to really succeed. 

Intriguingly, we have a tape of this show.  It's a little over two hours. John Allair sings some, but most of it isn't complete songs, just riffs and verses. It's so rare that we hear Phil Lesh outside of a Grateful Dead context that it's fascinating, but ultimately it's just high quality noodling. That being said, it was probably a nice way to spend Monday night, nursing a beer while top flight musicians let it rip. 

Opening the show was comedian Don Novello, appearing in character as Father Guido Sarducci. Novello had created the character of Father Sarducci when he had purchased a priest costume for $7.50. By 1976, he had already appeared on TV. In 1978, Sarducci would appear on Saturday Night Live, where he later appeared many times. In the mid-70s, the Bay Area was a thriving market for rising comedians, and Novello was just one of many who would go on to greater acclaim (including Robin Williams, Dana Carvey and many others). 

 

Touloos Ta Truck, Long Branch, Berkeley May 26, 1976

 

May 26, 1976 Long Branch, Berkeley, CA: Touloos Ta Truck (Wednesday)
A week after their debut, Too Loose Ta Truck played a Wednesday night at the Long Branch Saloon in Berkeley. Wednesday was usually "audition night" at the Branch, so the band could have just phoned up and gotten themselves on the bill. The Long Branch Saloon was at 2504 San Pablo Avenue in Berkeley (at Dwight Way), an infamous address in Berkeley music history. As the Cabale Creamery, from 1962-65, it had been an important part of the folk music scene. During the week of March 11-15, 1964, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir and others had seen the Jim Kweskin Jug Band, and it was a formative event in Grateful Dead history. Garcia had been to the club many times, catching bluegrass acts like the White Brothers.

By Spring, 1966, 2504 San Pablo had become a sort-of-psychedelic folk rock club called The Questing Beast. Owsley was reputedly a regular visitor, and the Grateful Dead had definitely rehearsed there in late January '66 (there's a tape). In late April, probably April 28, Country Joe McDonald and Barry Melton bought electric instruments and a few friends to their folk gig, having just seen the Paul Butterfield Blues Band at the Fillmore. Joe sang that immortal line "Hey partner/ Won't you pass that reefer around" while Barry Melton squeezed out some blues licks on his Gibson. Berkeley was never the same, and better for it.

After many transformations, 2504 San Pablo had evolved into the Long Branch by May 1971. Capacity had been doubled to about 350. There was music six nights a week, and the club was mainly a beer joint that appealed to young people who lived in that part of Berkeley. In 1972, with the rock market booming, the much larger Keystone Berkeley (capacity 500+) had opened nearer to the UC Berkeley campus, two miles North. To some extent, the Long Branch became a feeder club for the Keystone. Jerry Garcia had played a few gigs with the New Riders at the Long Branch in 1971, but by 1972 Garcia's ensembles were regulars at Keystone. Other Dead spinoffs, like Kingfish and Keith & Donna, did play occasional gigs at the Long Branch. So Phil Lesh's new ensemble playing a weeknight at Long Branch wasn't unprecedented.

In Berkeley at this time--I was a college freshman--local clubs primarily advertised with flyers posted on bulletin boards. There were services that were paid to staple them up (it didn't occur to me at the time to save any of them). No doubt the simple flyer for the Long Branch show above was stapled to bulletin boards on the UC Campus and telephone poles downtown and near the Branch itself. Tantalizingly, the flyer says  "final show before U.S. Tour," as the Dead were playing Portland the next weekend (June 3-4). The phrasing implies that there was more than just one show prior to this, so maybe we are missing a few more dates. If so, my guess is that they were unpublicized appearances by Lesh and Haggerty at some Allair & Mitchell bookings at the Sleeping Lady or River City.  

 

Listings for the Santa Rosa Press Democrat (Sep 19 '76) at the Inn Of The Beginning in Cotati

September 19, 1976 Inn Of The Beginning, Cotati, CA: Toulouse La Truck (Sunday)
The next Too Loose booking was months later, after the Grateful Dead had completed not only a sold out small theater tour in June, but two successful small stadium shows in August (in Hartford and Jersey City). But the band's recent album, Steal Your Face, had been poorly received, and the Dead did not yet have a record deal. This very weekend was the one when Selvin's Chronicle article (above) had appeared, and the fact that the information was being shared by band members indicates their financial anxiety. Clearly the Grateful Dead were still a viable live attraction, but the band had no money, no royalty-paying records and no record company supporting them. 

The Inn Of The Beginning was a tiny hippie hangout in bucolic Cotati, in Sonoma County, near Sonoma State University. It had opened in 1968 and held about 200. An easy drive from Marin, San Francisco and Berkeley, it was a fun gig for Bay Area bands since it was easy to get to and a nice place to play. The Inn was at 8201 Old Redwood Highway, only 20 miles North of Novato. There couldn't have been a friendlier crowd, and band members probably had plenty of friends in the audience.

The September 19, 1976 Sunday Chronicle Datebook (Pink Section) ad for Keystone Berkeley includes the listing for "Toulousse" (yet a new spelling), and it's "with PHIL LESH from The Grateful Dead

 

September 20, 1976 Keystone, Berkeley, CA: Toulousse (Monday) 
The next night, Too Loose played Keystone Berkeley, the biggest rock club in the Bay Area. The official capacity was 476, but regulars had good reason to think that number was readily exceeded. Monday night at Keystone Berkeley was usually a no-cover night with a local East Bay band, but with a member of the Grateful Dead in the house, it probably drew a few hundred patrons. From the point of view of the Keystone, this was a great night. Whereas normally a Monday might draw, perhaps, several dozen people, most of whom just dropped in for a pint, more likely the crowd was around 200 people, most of whom stayed for hours. The economics of Keystone Berkeley was all about selling beer, so this was a great night from the club's point of view.  

All of Too Loose's bookings were usually on Sunday or Monday night (save for the Wednesday at Long Branch, and a Tuesday at the Starwood). This leads me to think that band members were only available on those nights. Working musicians like John Allair and Steve Mitchell probably had regular weekend gigs, even if they weren't listed in the paper. For professionals like them, who could read music and play in all styles, these might have included a San Francisco theater production, or playing in a hotel band, for example. As for Terry Haggerty and Phil Lesh, while their performance schedules may have been less rigid, working on weekends was still common, so Sunday and Monday must have suited the entire band.  

Apparently, Too Loose Ta Truck even had a sort of road manager, one Pat Reddix. Pat Reddix was one of the infamous Marin County "Waldos," Tam High students who invented the term "420" around 1971. His brother's memorial for Pat mentions that Pat and Phil were lifelong friends. Apparently Pat served the same function for both Seastones and Too Loose. His brother Dave recalled:

“Pat hired me to do security and collect tickets at the door for the bands. Phil and Pat would pick me up at my house in Fairfax in Phil's new silver BMW 528i. We’d stop by the Belli Deli San Rafael, get some sandwiches, and go to band rehearsal at the Grateful Dead’s San Rafael rehearsal hall behind Litchfield’s, a sketchy hotel at the time, on Front street, also known as “Shake Down Street,” the same as the album by the Grateful Dead.”

“David Crosby stopped by and jammed a few times at shows and we all smoked out backstage a lot. I remember Crosby coming up to me during a backstage bong session saying - “Man, your brother is crazy,” as Pat was coughing and laughing in the background. Pat and myself spread the Waldos term 420 at those shows with the band and Deadheads who attended them. We always had a real good time every show and the memories are precious to me.” [Dave Reddix] 

Although it is tempting to hope that David Crosby at least rehearsed or jammed with Too Loose, I suspect that Dave Reddix is recalling Crosby's work with Seastones. Nonetheless, it's interesting to hear that Too Loose rehearsed at all, since their tapes don't show much sign of it.

The November 14, 1976 Chronicle ad for Keystone Berkeley includes the listing for Tooloos opening for the Sons Of Champlin that same night. The tape of this show circulates on the Archive.

BlueSky user Andeux pointed me to a hitherto unknown Too Loose show, namely opening for the Sons Of Champlin at Keystone Berkeley on Sunday, Novembe 14, 1976. For decades I had assumed that a show circulating as Too Loose at "Keystone Berkeley October 1976 (?)" was a misdating of the September 20 show. Andeux pointed out that at the end someone in Too Loose says "The Sons coming up." Since it wasn't likely to be 6am (i.e. "the sun's coming up") that suggested opening for the Sons. Remarkably, the show was listed in the Chronicle and we all missed it. The tape was misdated, but it was a previously unknown event.

I had a long-ago tape, possibly this one, where Allair, Mitchell and Terry Haggerty played about 45 minutes as a trio, eventually joined by Phil Lesh on an extremely loose version of "Swanee River." The tape on the Archive matches up to that, as it begins with Phil in the quartet format jamming on "Swanee River." We have so little information about Too Loose, however, that we don't know if it was typical or a one-off for Phil to join mid-show. 

 

An ad for The Starwood club on 8151 Santa Monica Blvd in Los Angeles. Too Loose Ta Truck was booked for December 13 and 14, 1976. Jackie Lomax had been a friend of the Beatles in Liverpool and Hamburg, while The Motels were a happening New Wave band. 

December 13-14, 1976 Starwood, West Hollywood, CA: Too Loose Ta Truck (Monday-Tuesday) canceled
The most mysterious of the Too Loose dates was the two nights at the Starwood club in West Hollywood. The Starwood, at 8151 Santa Monica Boulevard (at North Crescent Heights Blvd), had been a West Hollywood club called PJ's in the '60s. By 1973, it had changed its name to the Starwood, and was owned by a notorious character named Eddie Nash. As for Nash, I'll leave you to google him yourself. Don't do it at work, and prepare to cleanse yourself spiritually if you read too much about him.  

Lots of now-famous bands, and now-infamous bands, played the Starwood.  The Starwood was open until 1981, and is famous for breaking lots of punk and metal bands. Black Flag, X and the Go-Gos all played the Starwood, and Van Halen was discovered there in 1977 by Warner Brothers producer Ted Templeman. Motley Crue played their first show at the Starwood, around 1981. Frank Zappa even namechecked the Starwood in a song about bands in LA (In 1980's "Tinseltown Rebellion" he sang"From Madam Wong's to Starwood/To The Whisky on the Strip"). Like any club, however, it was open most nights of the week and booked all sorts of acts. Kingfish, albeit without Bob Weir, had played there earlier in 1976 (September 15-16).

The December 12, 1976 LA Times shows Fresh at the Starwood on Monday and Tuesday (Dec 13-14), replacing Too Loose Ta Truck

In fact, Too Loose Ta Truck did not play the Starwood (they were replaced, per the LA Times above, with a presumably local band). The significant thing was why Too Loose was booked at the Starwood in the first place. Too Loose To Truck couldn't have made much money at the Starwood, not enough to justify hotel rooms and the like. Even if they squeezed expenses somehow (driving to LA and staying with friends, a very plausible scenario) it still would have been less than playing the Bay Area somewhere. Bands didn't expect to make money at the Starwood. Bands played the Starwood to attract record industry interest. Jesse Jarnow found this Starwood booking, much to my surprise, and caused me to re-think the entire timeline of Too Loose.

The Starwood booking was a sign that Phil Lesh was still anxious about the Grateful Dead's economic future. To be clear, I don't think Phil was considering Too Loose as any more than a steady side gig, but he must have been concerned that the Dead would not tour enough to pay his bills, and that the Jerry Garcia Band would have taken a bigger piece of Jerry's interests.

Club dates would have had to be booked thirty days in advance, or more, and the Arista deal did not come together until December. So the Starwood booking stands out as an indicator that Too Loose Ta Truck was not just a casual exercise--there were rehearsals and an out-of-town booking, so it wasn't all just for fun, because Phil Lesh was concerned about making ends meet.

As it happened, by December 1976, the Grateful Dead were rehearsing with producer Keith Olsen in His Master's Wheels studio at 60 Brady Street. The studio had formerly been Pacific High Recorders and then Alembic Studios. So Lesh did not interrupt rehearsal to take a trip to Southern California. It's possible that Lesh played another stealth gig with the Too Loose band to make up for it--I would suspect the most likely time to have been the Allair & Mitchell gig booked at the Sleeping Lady Cafe in Bolinas on Sunday, December 5.

The SF Chronicle Sunday Datebook ("Pink Section") ad for Keystone Berkeley notes Tooloos on December 19 &20, and the Jerry Garcia Band on the next three nights (Dec 21-23). Under Tooloos it says "Lesh from G. Dead, Hagerty's The Sons, Allair & Mitchell of Van Morrison." This indicates to me that Allair& Mitchell's association with Van was generally known.

December 19-20, 1976 Keystone, Berkeley, CA: Tooloos (Sunday-Monday) 
The Too Loose Ta Truck story ends the next weekend, on December 19 and 20, 1976, a Sunday and Monday night at the Keystone Berkeley. We do have a tape from the December 19 show. The band almost sounds rehearsed, however, so it fits my thesis that Phil Lesh had some worries about the viability of making a living exclusively from the Dead, and he had rehearsed a band and booked gigs in case he had needed to branch out. As it turned out, he didn't need to do any such thing. By December, the Grateful Dead were locked in with Arista Records, as they would record in February and tour in March and April. In December of '76, they would spend most of the month rehearsing with Keith Olsen, but both Lesh and Garcia played Keystone gigs, presumably after studio work was done for the day. 

While Jerry Garcia continued to have an active touring and recording schedule, the Grateful Dead were full throttle from then on. Phil never returned to any club bands. He did play a few gigs with Grateful Dead entities, mostly in 1981: two shows with Mickey Hart and "the Rhythm Devils," a percussion extravaganza where he played fretless bass (Feb 13-14 '81), and a few instances where he filled in for John Kahn in the Jerry Garcia Band (Jun 24-26 and Aug 22 '81). 

The only other trace of Too Loose Ta Truck was Phil Lesh's cover of Bob Dylan's "Just Like Tom Thumb's Blues." Phil Lesh first sang it in concert with the Grateful Dead in 1985 (there is a rehearsal version from 1984). Too Loose did perform the song at least once, because we have a tape (the "October " tape, from November 14 at Keystone). It's sung by John Allair, but in the last verse he sings "I'm going back to San Anselmo" instead of Bob's "New York City," and Phil adopted that for his own version. So whether he recalled it or simply sang it out, it was the last hint of Phil's only bar band. 

John Allair's 1985 album Larkspur, produced by Mark Isham. The solo piano-and-vocal record features some songs that were performed by Allair in Too Loose Ta Truck

Aftermath 

John Allair had a long professional career as a musician, and indeed he is still playing. He is now best known for performing regularly with Van Morrison. Van does not have fixed bands, and rotates players in and out of his groups, but Allair had been performing live with him since 1980 (here's a great version of "Summertime In England" from Jun 18 1980 Montreaux).  More details from Allair's bio page:  

John first appeared as Van's organ player on the Common One album, leading to a succession of Morrison titles, Beautiful Vision, Inarticulate Speech of The Heart, Live At The Grand Opera House Belfast, A Sense of Wonder, and later works like Too Long In Exile (with John Lee Hooker), Keep It Simple, and Three Chords and The Truth. 

In 1985, Allair made his first solo album, with Morrison bandmate Mark Isham producing. While the album itself, Larkspur, never received widespread distribution, KSAN, then San Francisco's top rock radio station, played one track off the set as though it were a hit record, "High Place (in Your Mind)," which has a Fats Domino sound matched to an appropriately new-agey Marin County lyric. 

But Morrison continues to turn up in Allair's life. He has completed 2 short tours with him in 2022, and in September participated in recordings for a new blues-based Morrison album, with appearances by Buddy Guy, Elvin Bishop and Taj Mahal. And Van recorded a new version of John's "High Place (In Your Mind)," with the two of them sharing vocals.  

Steve Mitchell returned to Pennsylvania in the early 21st century, and continued his successful career as a drummer and teacher. He died in 2019.

The Sons Of Champlin broke up in 1977. But then they reformed again in 1980, then broke up, then reformed in 1996 and so on. Although Terry Haggerty's guitar playing remains as stunning as ever, his health no longer allowed him to tour. But the Sons still occasionally played the Bay Area, and Haggerty could be expected to join in and rip it up for a few numbers.

Phil Lesh played with the Grateful Dead until 1995. After Jerry Garcia's death, he continued to tour and record until his death on October 25, 2024.