 We want to welcome William McGinnis to the Haydashbury Oral History Project and your friends call you Bill. Yep. Okay, well tell me a little about yourself, like where were you born? I was born in Boyarica, California, which is about 350 miles north of San Francisco. It's right on the border in Florida. We have 25 miles south. It's 1938. Is that too loud? Yeah. Maybe we'll lower it a little bit. Beautiful. So you're California native? Yes. And your parents' names? My father's name was Bill, just like mine. Sure. And my mother's name was Alma Emma Bartlett. I think you said you had a photo of your father? Yep. I'd love to see him. This was taken in 1948, approximately. I guess he was chief engineer of a radio station. He was also an announcer. He's also your what? He was also an announcer. An announcer as well. Yeah. So he did everything. You're Bill McGinnis II. He's Bill McGinnis I. It's an amazing photo of excited radio station around here. Must have been around 1948. In 1948. Wonderful. Yeah, it was January 11. So you grew up with your father in the industry some more already? Yeah, yeah. So what was your mother's name? My mother's name was Alma. And she had studied in voice. She did a lot of light opera. Did you bring a photo of your mother? Yeah. Okay, let me put that one down. This was taken probably eight months, seven months before I was born. Wow. What year were you born? Born in 1938. And this is stamped on the back April 27, 1938. Is she pregnant or maybe a little pregnant? She might have been pregnant. Beautiful lady. And her name again? Her name was Alma. Alma. Emma Bartlett. She was born in Senior, Ohio. Beautiful. Yeah. Actually, she probably wasn't born in Senior. Probably she was on a farm. Not many hospitals around here. On a farm. And then your parents, and that was where? In Roosa born? Senior. Ohio. Ohio. Okay. I thought I was born in Portland. Hey Bill, I think we need to lower that just a touch. Our microphones are very sensitive. They'll pick it up. I would like to know if you've got any other family photos with you? I brought some that are much later. Much later? Yeah. This is one of my mother and father, and then there's one of all of us here. Yeah, let's look at all those and... Yeah, this is... We'll try to... you know, we'll get a close-up on this and you can explain to us. I'll say that's my mother and me, my daughter and my wife. Wow, so what's your wife's name? That's Ruth. And your daughter? And Sarah. And you? And me. And your mom, Alma? No. Beautiful. This one is my mother and father. Wonderful. It must be in 1988. Where were they living at that time? That was in Puerto Rico. Okay. And for how long did your father stay in some way connected to radio music or announcing? Well, he... He retired? He didn't retire. He bought a radio repair shop, radio and television. Sure. A repair shop. Actually, before there was television in Wairika. Wow. And got involved in cable early on, early in the early days of cable. Yeah, we're in the mountains and we couldn't get television. So he brought television into town, wired up to town for television. So he was essentially in the technical and technical management end of the entertainment business for all of his life. Fantastic. Any other family photos you bring with you? There was one of his taken... What was taken, I think? World War I? World War II? World War II, is it? Right. This was... Oh, like a film. This was my mother and her cousin Willard. My father is on the left side of the screen. And my mother's cousin Willard there is on the left side of the screen. So this day I don't know his last name. Probably Barbara or Ford. Right, no problem. This other one you brought? And the other one is my wife and myself, sometime about 1963. That's amazing. Just after me and Mary. That's amazing. It's a rare photo without a beard. Well, I have a moustache, but... You have a moustache. It's still in the reserves in the National Guard. Sure. It's right before you came back to the Hague? A couple of years or... Actually... We're living in... I was... I had come back, I think I'd started working at the San Francisco Tate Music Center about that time, which was on the Dizidero Street. Right. In the Dizidero and Page. Oh, wow. Right in the neighborhood. Just down there. Yeah, right down the street. That's around 1963, 1964, right in there? 1964. 1964. Pretty close. This is probably... That's probably 1963, 1964. Did you ever have long hair? Did you let your hair grow? Oh, yeah. Through the next few years? Well, unfortunately, the commanding officer... Right, she was still in the reserves. Didn't approve of... Sure. He didn't mind the moustache for some reason, because he said it made me look like a German field officer. Oh, okay. That was okay. Okay, so that's the last... Do you have one more? That's a family field? No, I think that's just about it. Put it down. That's wonderful. I do have a picture, though, of this band that's playing. The one that's playing right now. Yeah. And we can make that a little bit louder, the audio. Let's listen to the music. Except for the girl singer, I realize. She's not even a picture. She left the band. Oh. Put back in New York, isn't she? Okay, we want to lower the sound just a little. Okay, Bill, what was the name of this band? It's called A Gentle Dance. Okay, and starting with the guy in the black hat? The guy in the black hat is Bill McGinnis. That's you? He's the drummer. Yes. The fellow down in front with the brown hat is Steve Mills. Steve Mills? Yes. The lead singer and the living guitar. Mike Tisoni, he's a fellow with the long hair in the back. And the rather cherubic face. Yes. He was the youngest. I was the oldest, but I think when that picture was taken, I was just past the age of being trusted. I think I was 30 at that time. What did he do in band? Oh, he was a baseball player. The gentleman at the corner with the love beads. And that's David Ayala. He was also a singer. Mike was the only one that didn't sing. We tried to get him to sing, he never would. And then there was another girl singer in the band? Her name was Christina Joy. And she's still around. Yeah. And amazingly enough, all these people are still alive. That's pretty good. Mike Tisoni went back to Tennessee with Steve Gaskin. And Steve Mills is probably someplace floating around in the Pacific on a boat. Right. What year was this photo? Would you say approximately? This was... Bring us to the right decade and then we'll sort of see. This was 68. 69. 68, 69. 68 or 69. Great. Wonderful. And again, the name of the band was... A gentle dance. A gentle dance. Okay. And my tape just went on the floor. It's okay. We will get it. I brought this because I was living in the Haight-Ashbury 1962. At 704 Ashbury. Wonderful. And I had a wonderful garret. And that was my view. Oh, that's wonderful. Out doing the garret. That's wonderful. I was taking a course in... Just a survey course in... Sure. In parts. Sure. Because I had to take something. Sure. Some elective. And it was a great course. And the instructor said, well, let's go home. Look out your window and paint what you see. Yeah. And that's what I saw. That's wonderful. The sun was sort of going down. So that's the view from your house. And the address you lived at was... Again. 704 Ashbury. 704 Ashbury. Yeah. That's amazing. And then 1962. That was between what streets? You remember? It was... Just up... The paint handle? Well, no. Waller. Waller. Okay. It was right off of Waller. Gotcha. I should go up the hill. It was wonderful. Well, Grateful Dead was at 710, I think. That's right. Yeah. Do you still paint once in a while? Or are you artistic at all? Oh, once in a while. Once in a while. Yeah, I get an urge to throw paint and paper. That's wonderful. If you were to be remembered in the future when this tape is being viewed, if you were in the future being remembered for your music, do you consider you play more than one instrument? What instruments do you play? No, in public I play drums. That's it. Yeah. And sing a little bit. Yes. I have in the past played clarinet, saxophone, flute. Although I haven't done that in probably 40 years. Right. We didn't have one for you. Yeah. Oh, you love that. And if somebody asks what's the spectrum of the music you play, what kind of music have you played in your life in the past, in the early days, in the middle, and what kind of music are you playing now? Well, I play just about everything that I can think of. I can play classical music. I studied classical music, of course. I played with the Oakland Symphony, played with the San Francisco Symphony, played with, well, actually it wasn't with the San Francisco Symphony. It was members of the San Francisco Symphony. Sure. It was on the Music of Viva series, and I played tape recorder. Because I was associated with the San Francisco tape music center. Sure. And I've done things with them, I've done electronic music kinds of things in the early days with the development of, like, the book alone, and the move synthesizers and such things. Sure. That, I mean, of course, it was developed... It was the beginning of all of it. It was at the film orontory of all places. What happened now? Well, Don Bullclub used to bring in his synthesizers, and the dead had some of the bookless synthesizers that were candy apple red. Right. And the myth was that the candy apple was impregnated with LSD and it chipped it off. You could eat it. Well, it was nonsense, but... So what year was that about? Did that at the time work? That was in the beginning. That's when, during the time when Chad Helms and Bill Graham were alternating. Avalon, Fillmore, Avalon, Fillmore. Well, no, it was not Avalon, Fillmore, it was Fillmore, Fillmore, but one week it was Chad Helms, and the next week it was Bill. At the Fillmore. At the Fillmore. It had to be before they signed the contract, so Bill had signed the contract. Right. To rent it permanently, but in the year before, played with a few different promoters. Right, and he was doing benefits for the main troops. Right. And the Howard Street loft. Yeah. And then it went down there. Exactly. To the Fillmore. Exactly. And there was also the Trips Festival. Exactly. Which is where we got involved with the workflow machines and so on. But getting... So that was pre-65. That was? Well, it had to be... Yeah, okay. When was it? It had to be 65, 64. Yeah. Because Bill signed late in 65. Yes. But the airplane show was the first show of his own. Right. Yes. So that's really early. And about that time, he was also doing the benefits for the Montreux. Right, and it was airplane. Yeah. And the first one that I did with Bill was the airplane, the Quicksilver messenger service, the Gentleman's Band. Sounds right. It was the Gentleman's Band, and it was a black rhythm of blues band. Uh-huh. Local. And then after that, they hardly ever showed up. Okay. That's the habit of taking different styles of music and putting them on the same bill. Yep. You know? So, what is your favorite kind of music to play? Usually what I'm playing at the moment. Really? Yeah, my favorite kind of music to play is music where the other players... I like ensemble. Yes, like work with other musicians. Care about what they're doing. That's all I care about. If they care about what they're doing enough to do very highest quality performance, I love it. Right. It doesn't matter what it is. It enables you to go... Right. ...as the drummer. And it's... I've played with Klesmer bands. Yeah. I've played with Country Western, and I've played with... What are some of the people... Have you played with anybody through the very beginning that we would know their name? Well, when I was working for the San Francisco Tate Music Center, there was another technician, engineer, guy that I knew more about. Peter the Blanc. And Peter had a girlfriend by the name of Janice. And she used to come by and sing a little bit. So that's where I met Janice Joplin. Peter could play blues and the key of C on the piano. That was about it. But Janice... Wow. Janice is wonderful. What was your impression when you pushed her in her voice and she came in? This is a pre-big brother, right? Right about... Actually, this was... Janice kind of got a little spacey and went back to Texas. Right. And it was before that. Right. So she... Janice had brought her out. Yeah. Here. Yeah, and she went back to Texas, got straightened out and came back out. Then that's when the big brother came here. Right. And that's when... She was just playing for her, singing from the heart. Yeah. She was wonderful. She was amazing. She was... She's the only... She could... I swear she could sing two notes at once. Exactly. She really could sing two notes at once. Exactly. You know, it was the first time I ever heard her do that. Exactly. So that's a wonderful experience. She almost does that and take a little piece of my heart. Right. Right. You know, I... In the old days, I worked with a lot of guys. Like with Jan. I played jazz. Sure. I worked with Wiggy Mendoza. I played with Norma Ticoard and Jack Ticoard and his sister for years. And with Bert Bale, who's an MPL player, pretty well known here. Sure. And actually, I wish I could... I should have made a list. That's okay. We can add to this, you know? Yeah, add to this. There's a lot of times, somebody says, we don't have a drummer. Can you come and help play for the night? Yeah. It doesn't... Well, what happened, Lightning Hopkins. Lightning Hopkins, sure. I was playing with a traditional jazz group over in Berkeley. Sure. At... I had the name of the place with us, but... That's fine. It was way before the Frayden Salmonage. And lightning was also on the bill with us. And his drummer didn't show up. So he said, can you... Can you somehow do it? Yeah, I'll do it. So, because I'd heard a lot of his recordings, and I said, I stuck to him like blue. Boy, I tell you, he'd phrase blues, like, you know, it's usually 12 bars, but he'd phrase 13, 9, 11. Amazing. You know, he'd speed up, he'd stop, and slow down. I stuck to him just like blue. Go on. Well, that's why you're here. Okay. Then he says to me, he says, hey, man, you're a little too tight. He says, go loosen up a little bit. Go loosen up a little. Go loosen up. Here. Shows his gallon of wine in my... Make a slug of that, you know. So I hit that. Yeah, I have another one, you know. Get loose, man. Get loose. Get loose. The second show we did, I was beating me to the end of the tune every time. The last one you know, it was... Hey! Got you, dude. That was amazing. That was amazing. I know you put some other music. I would love to hear something else you brought. Maybe tell us a little about it as you're putting it in the machine. Okay. This particular tape, I did. And... I wore two to one to visit Darrow. I've got a cute upper. I'm getting it in the machine. It's called Flight Suite. And I did it the night that the first Brooklyn machine was delivered in 1965. Early 65. And I was... This thing was wonderful. Right. We could do things with it that would take us forever. Months to two. Cutting tape, splicing, doing all that stuff. We could just do it. Just do it. And so... So you're playing on here. Is there anybody else on the tape beside yourself? No, I'm just telling you. I'm just running the machine. You could program this, though. Okay, let's see how much time we have to do this. See if I can get the problem. I probably got it wrong. I do. That's right. No problem. No problem. So this machine was a very new machine. And I remember that. It wasn't even complete. Right. So here's a very early tape using this technology. But I am playing the keyboard. Yeah. Another... Do you have another tape? I want to make sure we can continue talking. Do you bring another tape with you? There's some that follow us. We just did a retrospective of the synthesis that tape music centered people at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Detroit. New York. And we didn't do this piece, but it was the same group. Sure. With Morton Separte, Anthony Martin, Ramon Sendair, Paulie Oliveros, and they... We really had a lot of fun. We did an old piece, and then we did it... Well, it's the pioneer days of this type of technology. It is. Wayne has developed now in 2005. It's actually the transitions here between how the avant-garde electronic music was done, say, with people like Scott House and then Boulez and had done this stuff before with John Cage. Sure. Of course, Cage worked with us, too. He was there. He did concerts with people. Sure. And so that was... It was quite a time. It's amazing. The transition between... It's just amazing, you know. Of course, Cage predicted it. He said people will make music using film, using, you know, the sound script of a film. Sure. Now they do it through computers. But he didn't know about tape. Right. Because tape hadn't been invented yet. Right. How long came tape? He said, oh, that's it. That's what we'll use, because it's so easy to cut and splice. Totally. I want to talk a little bit about you can either make this lower or we can put the other one back on. No, it's okay. I want to talk a little bit about the Hade Ashbury. Yeah, I'm about to explain to you that. Well, it's all about it. And it leads into it. When you were in Hade Ashbury, I heard you used to rehearse at the Strait Theater. Yes. And can you tell me a little bit about had you ever played at the Strait or been at any of the Golden Gate Park events? Well, I was there at the Golden Gate Park events, but I didn't want to. So you've seen the magnitude of people that came around everywhere. But I actually didn't play at the Strait Theater. Rehearsed there. We rehearsed there all the time. So how did that work out? How many people did you rehearse with? And which band was that? That was a band that never got a name. I think it was kind of a no-name band. It's always part of it is naming a band. Yeah, but it was Greg, the guy's name was Greg Hodel, and he was putting this band together. He had a girlfriend that was a singer who had been in Miss California or right after Miss California from Monterey or something. But the Strait Theater, they let you come in with other bands rehearse there another time? There wasn't anything happening there. During the daytime. During the daytime. Do you remember who it was? He spoke to you at the screen? Well, it was Reggie. Reggie, right, one of the founders. He was there. It was his name, Hillel Brejner. Yeah, but Swipe was there later on. Luther Green. Luther Green, yeah. But I knew Swipe from the tape center because he used to work with Anthony Martin at the tape center. And then, what was his name? A tech guy that was at the Strait Theater. A tech guy. I don't know, we've done some interviews with people from... Dangerfield? Yes, it is, Dangerfield. Is it with a B? Yeah. Yes, Dangerfield was his name. He did all the electric on it, the audio meeting and all this kind of stuff. He was a tech guy. So what are you doing now in your life? What are you living now? I'm living in San Francisco. I'm playing mostly jazz and a lot of jazz festivals. Mostly jazz festivals. Where do these take place? At the end of the month, we're doing the Sacramento Jazz Jubilee. What is your band called now? It's called Golden Gate Rhythm Machine. And I'm working with several other bands too. What's their name up here? The Apollo Jazz Group, which plays at Jellies once a month. Sure. On Saturdays. Any other bands? Yeah. Bob Shelton's Frisco Jazz Band once in a while. Magnolia Jazz Band. And then everybody else who has the phone. Sure. Do you have a website that we can learn more about? Yeah, the website that we have for Golden Gate Rhythm Machine. For you? Yeah, I don't have a personal one. But you can Google me and I'll come up. Sure, beautiful. And if someone is watching this tape and they want to learn more about you and your band, where would they go? www.santhony.it'soneword.com slash ggrm. I think that's probably backslash. Either way, try both. Try both. If you looked up William McGuinness or Bill McGuinness. If you just go look up Bill McGuinness, you'll probably get me and my father. That's right. That's the revolutionary way in the state of Jefferson. I think it's amazing coming from that kind of background. I'm so pleased that you came today. We got a little piece of history that we didn't have. I'm going to learn more about you and you being part of the scene contributed to this whole period. And sharing with us some of the technology and music and development. It's just clear to me how so many people made the 60s and the Haight-Ashbury and the family stayed there and they grew further and further. And the only way to inspire people in the future when they see this is by watching other people's lives and being inspired by what they've done. So I want to thank you. My name is Rebecca Nichols. I'm the moderator and I'd love to thank you for this interview. We will be calling you back and we will document some more things. And just want to tell you thank you so much for being here. Thank you for sharing your life.