In the three years between Rolling Stones tours, partying for many of the wonderful folks working at the Trident became elevated to a high art.  Everybody was throwing parties all the time – the Record Plant threw a lot of them. They had this big house in Tamalpais Valley where Mick Fleetwood Mac stayed, and it seemed like every Friday and Saturday night, there was some kind of party. Peter Greene, who founded Fleetwood Mac threw a couple of great ones at his home in Mill Valley. Of course, this was before the feds took over the Record Plant from Gary Kellgren, who used to ride around in this purple Rolls Royce Cornishe with license plates reading “GREED.” 

   (The Alton Kelley/Stanley Mouse (Kelley Mouse), Randy Tuten, and Crazy Arab poster for the 1975 show. Alton Kelley just passed away , a dear friend, and with the help of Keith Impink (the Dead's web guy) we've created a tribute site to Kelley and Dave Sheridan. We've also revived Kelley's Artista Gang. For more information go to The Artista Gang and check out the links there! Arab did the pin stripping for this poster in about 45 minutes, amazing! Mark Lomas) Now back to the story...

Compared to the Stones party in 1972, the affair in 1975 was almost sedate. This time around we had a little more lead-time on who would be there so there wasn’t as much scrambling to staff the event, and prepare the food etc. There was even time to arrange a little entertainment – Laura Cholos and her daughter, Anastasia performed a very provocative belly-dance for those who attended.

            Instead of the tour staff, roadies, and other support personnel, those in attendance were strictly members of the band and whatever ladies they chose to bring, BGP inner circle, Trident family and friends, and BGP security staff. I didn’t stay long at this party because I wanted to go home and get some sleep before I went to the much bigger and wilder bash planned for Mick Jagger’s birthday at the Orphanage, a rather run-down old theater near the Boarding House in San Francisco. The Harder They Come, a movie filmed in Jamaica starring Jimmy Cliff had recently been released and reggae music was then taking the country by storm. Chris had arranged to have Toots and the Maytelles to play that night and the rumor was that the Stones would be there as would about half the SF music scene. That was the rumor.

I was driving this big old orange utility-body truck at the time – filled with tools and I didn’t want to park it on the mean streets of SF at night so I arranged to ride over to the City with Don Lewis and Cathy Civale. We got there about mid-night and the place was jumpin’. We went in this closet-sized office and Chris is in there with this bowl of cocaine. There’s also about ten other people in there. Iris, my longtime roommate and one-time lover, is sitting on this old couch not partaking in anything because she is about four months pregnant with her first child. So I wandered out to get some drinks and check out who was also there. Toots and the Maytelles were pumping out some great reggae music and everyone is buzzed to a fair-thee-well. You know you’ve had a rough night when you wake up the next day with condor feet on your third eye. Anyways, about 1:30 am the Stones arrive and the energy level in the place just takes off. There are close to 500 people in that old theater and I don’t know what its rated capacity was but I’m pretty sure we exceeded it. Robin Williams was there with Linda Ondeyko, a gorgeous brunette who also worked at the Trident. Robin was just starting to hit the comedy clubs and always a riot to be around. He was always…on!

I wish I could say I remember what happened after that but the sad truth is…I don’t. I’ve probably made a few mistakes in the chronology of events but to the best of my knowledge, it’s all true. Sleep and I were strangers.

By Patrick Pendleton   February 17, 2010   Seabrook, NH

Email Pat at: Gizmo754@aol.com