Marin History Museum: Marin Rocks

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Marin Rocks

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Upcoming Exhibition

Marin Rocks
Opens in 2010

The upcoming Marin Rocks exhibition, presented by the Marin History Museum, will celebrate Marin County musicians’ many accomplishments in popular music.

The exhibition will open in 2010 in MHM’s new downtown San Rafael gallery. Here, the history of rock will be uniquely filtered through a Marin lens, portraying how many of the world’s top rock musicians migrated from San Francisco and the Bay Area, from across the country, and from around the world to make Marin County their home. Musicians and bands located their headquarters in Marin, while others recorded historic albums in studios throughout Marin—all the while headlining performances at famous Bay Area venues and touring nationally and internationally.

Marin Rocks will feature artifacts, photographs, film footage, and a multi-media theater using Meyer Sound Laboratory technology to create a mesmerizing immersive experience. Programming at the Marin Rocks gallery will offer a blend of music, history, hands-on education, and on-stage performance that connects Marin’s historic music roots with the current music scene. Musicians will have the opportunity to play, teach and share their music and knowledge with the public, with an emphasis on collaborating with students.

Rendering of Marin Rocks exhibition space. (Courtesy of Academy Studios.)

Marin’s music community embraces both world-renowned performers and hometown heroes. Marin Rocks will showcase the history of the Grateful Dead, Van Morrison, Janis Joplin with Big Brother and the Holding Company, John Cipollina and Quicksilver Messenger Service, Journey, Jefferson Airplane and Starship, James Hetfield and Lars Ulrich (Metallica), Carlos Santana, Sammy Hagar, Steve Miller, David Grisman, Tupac Shakur, the Rowan Brothers, Huey Lewis and the News, Bonnie Raitt, Ali Akbar Khan, and many others. “Hometown heroes” include John Allair (Marin’s 1st rock and roll piano player), Charlie Deal (inventor of the toilet seat guitar), Clover (predecessors to Huey Lewis and the News), Eggs over Easy (inspiration for Elvis Costello), the Sons of Champlin and innumerable others who have contributed to the rich musical culture in Marin.

The bohemian Sausalito Houseboat community was the site of one of Marin’s key music-making locales. The alternative lifestyle that came of living on the docks appealed to many artists, including Dino Valenti, David Crosby, and Dan Hicks (of Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks) and the Red Legs—an anarchistic rock band who gigged regularly at The Ark, a nightclub made famous by Janis Joplin who was often there in the after hours, aboard a famous old ferryboat, the Charles Van Damme.

Other musicians rehearsed at the Sausalito Heliport, including the Ace of Cups (the first all-female psychedelic-era rock band), Gale Garnett and the Gentle Reign, Quicksilver Messenger Service, Elvin Bishop, the Sons, and the Grateful Dead. Another celebrated visitor to Sausalito was Otis Redding, who wrote “Sitting On the Dock of the Bay” while renting a houseboat in 1967. That song soared to Number One after his death in a Wisconsin plane crash in early 1968, just months after he recorded it; today it’s the sixth-most-performed song of the 20th Century (with nearly 6 million performances).

The late concert promoter Bill Graham received distinguished musicians at his hilltop home in Corte Madera which he called “Masada” after the Jewish fortress of antiquity. Graham often escorted visitors like Eric Clapton and Jim Morrison of the Doors through Marin’s Muir Woods and down to the Pacific shore.

Nationally and internationally-known musicians including Bob Marley, Fleetwood Mac, Sly Stone, Aretha Franklin, Mariah Carey, Dave Matthews, The Doobie Brothers, and Carrie Underwood rented homes in Marin and recorded some of their finest albums at Marin’s many recording studios, including The Record Plant in Sausalito and Tarpan Studios in San Rafael—headed by award-winning musician and producer Narada Michael Walden. The latest cutting-edge World Music continues to be recorded at Mickey Hart’s studio and at the Ali Akbar Khan College of Music. Metallica recorded much of their latest album Death Magnetic at their San Rafael-HQ Studios; and the Grateful Dead famously rehearsed and recorded at their legendary Club Front, also in San Rafael.

Mick Jagger, Elvis Costello, Pink Floyd, Ry Cooder, Nick Lowe, and Mark Knopfler are among the hundreds of out-of-town performers who appeared at Marin’s intimate clubs (including the Sweetwater, Pepperland, Rancho Nicasio, and dozens more), and personally perused the world-famous record store Village Music in Mill Valley.

Rendering of Marin Rocks exhibition space. (Courtesy of Academy Studios.)

To create Marin Rocks, artifacts are being donated or loaned by dozens of prominent musicians; band managements; recording studio owners and engineers; music clubs; record stores; music instrument and equipment manufacturers; concert-sound pioneers; fans of the many Marin-associated bands; and memorabilia collectors. A special section of the exhibition will be devoted to the world-famous psychedelic-era Marin-based poster artists and members of the well-remembered Artista “art-gang” based in Marin.

Events such as the world’s first rock festival, “KFRC Fantasy Fair & Magic Mountain Music Festival,” held at the Mt. Tamalpais outdoor amphitheater will be remembered. That event, which drew over 15,000 fans the week before the historic Monterey International Pop Festival, is an important milestone of the 1967 “Summer of Love” and helped draw attention to the new “San Francisco Sound.”

The world-renowned Bread & Roses production company, which has brought top musicians to prisons, schools, retirement homes, hospitals, and hospices, was founded in Marin by singer Mimi Fariña.

The most famous Marin-inspired song, “Get Together,” serves as a muse for the Marin Rocks exhibition. Originally written in 1963 by Dino Valenti (then known by his birth name of Chet Powers), the song became a worldwide hit sung by Marin musicians Jesse Colin Young and the Youngbloods. The song’s message still rings true today:

“C’mon people now, smile on your brother
Everybody get together, try to love one another right now.”

Click here for a list of Marin Rocks iMixes available for download through iTunes.

To contact the Marin History Museum about Marin Rocks or to donate to the exhibition, please email us at marinrocks@marinhistory.org.

Marin Rocks Wish List
• Tamalpais High School Yearbook 1962–65