 I want to welcome George Mikowski to the Haydashbury video oral history project. My name is Rebecca Nichols and I will be moderator for this interview. Nice to see you. Pleasure. I love your hair. It's grown a lot of long. Which hair in particular? I've been told you're a native San Francisco. Yeah, native. So where were you born? About three blocks from here. We're on Haight Street. Yes. About three blocks away at St. Mary's Hospital. On, um, Stanion. Amazing. And, uh, what are your parents' names? Felicia. And this is my mom. And my dad, um, is Joseph. He's, um, been dead for about ten years or so. And so... Could have worked with your father, too. He's a metal worker. His father was a sheet metal worker. His father was a sheet metal worker. He was from Poland. My parents are both from Poland. They're holocaust survivors. Wow, when did they arrive approximately in America? 1950. And I have two older brothers. They were born in Russia. And I'm the only one born in America with my family. What's your brother's names? Henry and Jerry. I know we're going to talk a little bit later about some of the work she's done. But I know you have a CD out about San Francisco. And I think there was a photo of your mother. Can we possibly take a close-up? Yeah, this is a CD I put out just a little while ago. It's called San Francisco. Just what the cover looks like. And it was done by Alton Kelly, a really well-known artist. My father's a Stanley mouse for many years. And Kelly probably did the first posters ever. And he created the family dog originally. And he's a legendary guy, a great guy. A sweetheart. Yeah, a great guy, a great artist. And so this album, San Francisco, is a musical soundtrack to the city. I wrote a song for every neighborhood and hopefully the music sounds like where you are. Perhaps she's the heart of the area. I know you did a little tribute to your mother this year and I think she's photographed somewhere. My mom is on the back cover. Wonderful. Tell us a little about that. Sitting anonymously next to me on this bench here. There she is. She's my best buddy. I know her too and she's a wonderful lady. Wonderful, wonderful lady. She's pretty cosmic. And here, you know, when I was a kid and had gotten grounded, the beam was happening that week and she wanted to go herself. So that's how I got to go. You know, because she wanted to go back and go like I wasn't about to stay home. So we both went. That was the first time she ever saw me smoke pot. I wasn't here. It was about 13 or 14. And I'm 52 now. But what was great was, see, I have two older brothers and they are a lot older. They're seven and ten years older. Henry is seven years older and Jerry's ten years older. And they'd already been smoking before that. They were a lot older. My mom had never seen me do it. She didn't even know if I did it. And we're sitting there, we're watching, you know, The Grateful Dead and Quicksilver and Allen Ginsberg and Lawrence Ferlinghetti and all this. And this guy, you know, next to me just passes me a lead joint. And my mom's looking at me going, what are you going to do with that anyway? I start smoking and what's she going to do? Yell at me in front of 60,000 amputees? What's she going to do? So that was a pretty amazing day. In many respects. So you didn't actually live in the Haydash Ferry, but you lived in San Francisco. You had a lot of time here. Well, for a lot of reasons. A, I wasn't home. Right. You know, when you're a kid, you don't want to hang out at home. And B, you know, for a little kid about 13 or 14, it's really cool all these girls with no bras on. It's like a really big deal for me. And that was a big attraction for me. And I'd be here every day after school. Sure. And also I like everything about it. I like the artwork, the music, the smell. I'll never forget. There was a certain smell. Everything smelled like patchouli and that vinegar on the fish and chips. Right. It's right. Yeah, because there was that place Foghorn, Fish and Ships up the corner for 25 cents. Get a bag like this, a fries. Yeah. And pour like a, you know, gigantic amount of vinegar on it. Somehow that smell of vinegar and patchouli. It will stick with you forever. Well, the smell will stick with you. Well, you just, the timing was right. You were at the right age. And there was a playground right there. Well, I was a musician, but I was a serious classical pianist. And I was actually pretty well-known. When did you start playing music? When I was, I started, I gave my first concert at the age of four at the San Francisco main library. Wow. And a great story. My mom was so excited. Leaving the house, she fell and broke her leg. Oh my goodness. Didn't go to the hospital until after the recital. Oh my goodness. Oh my goodness. That's my mom for you. Amazing. I know one of these stories, one of these days when the legendary warlocks Grateful Dead pulled a plat bed from along the straighter and they closed the streets and there was a sea of people. You were there that day. Yeah. Luckily, I didn't know and I don't think anybody did. It was a spur of the moment thing and I just used to like to go hang out at the Grateful Dead's house because they were always, well, Jerry Garcia taught me how to roll a joint there. And there were always guys, you know, they would get like big kilos of wheat and there'd be like 10 guys and girls and everybody just sitting around tables rolling joints all the time. And I still, to this day, roll on the table because Jerry had that missing finger. You know, he didn't roll them up like that. He did it like this and so I still do it that way. You still do it the same way. So that day, I just, you know, it was a nice sunny day and I woke up and went to Hay Street and there was a lot of activity around the Grateful Dead's house. That was 7-10 Ashbury. And a lot of activity and what happened was they were renting the flatbed trucks and the generators and they were, it was a guerrilla concert. They had no permits, no rights of any sort. They said, we're going to go play on Hay Street. Once we close it up, what can they do? So they put the two flatbed trucks together and created a long stage and just started playing. I had walked to the destination of the gig from their house with Pig. And I was a kid and he was a really scary looking guy. But he was like the nicest guy in the world. He was like, not scary at all when you started talking to him. And the dichotomy I thought was really great. You know, and I remember his girlfriends were all calling him Piggy and you know, these cute little names. And here's this really tough guy just going, oh, I show up. I thought he was a great guy. And also that was the first time Jerry Garcia had ever wore glasses in public. And that was a big deal. He didn't have a beard at that point. So you was going through a book? Well, no. There were a lot of pictures. And photographers, Jim Marshall was there. And the Dead came out with an album called Live Dead a little later. It was a pretty famous album. And on the insert when you open up the album was this picture. And I'm looking at the picture and I remember I was there. That is the day you were talking about right now. And straight theater up here. Here I am right here. Right above my finger. How old are you there? There I am. There you are with the black glasses. All right. I was about 14 years old there. Amazing. And here I'm right in the front, watching the band. And that was a great, great day. That's a great day. And I see here the straight theater is all open. Yeah, straight theater right here. Charlie Musselwhite. And all the kids playing. There was hardly any way you could stop that. The street went all the way down. This is at Stanion. The straighter. And we're taking the view all the way back to Masonic. Yeah. Let's back up here on this picture here. And we did look at the street theater. Look at all the people. It starts at straighter and goes all the way back all the way to the top. And there's a cherry with his glasses on for the first time. Amazing. We'll do a close-up on the cherry. I was looking at pig pen. In the shot. But there's cherry. First time glasses. There it is. And maybe. That flannel shirt he was wearing. So many people can look at this and find themselves in there. I know a few friends that claim to be in this picture. I was there that day, so I just, I'm not going to get a magnifying glass. Right. It's like looking at an aerial shot of wood stock and trying to find yourself. Yeah. That is such a great shot because it's so typical of what it looked like when those days happened. And then the police would come around six o'clock and chase everybody away. Right. And the straight theater doors would open wide and everybody would run for refuge inside the straight theater. You know. I said that's an amazing shot. So through the, and that's what about 1967 is. So you were at the human being. Yeah. And any time there was a concert in the park. Everyone? Everyone. Probably. If I had anything, I would plan because the band's setting the planet. Sure. I would, you know, just by virtue of being there, you were there. Exactly. And, you know, when I was a kid, you know, like 13, 14, 15 years old, I mean, where else am I going to hang out? Best playground? I mean, in the 60s, Hade Ashbury, this was a magical place at a magical time. And cannot be recreated no matter how hard you try. The innocence is the greatest thing that I remember. We were all like pioneers. We had no role models. Right. It was like we were all, everything we did was for the first time. Exactly. We were all jumping off the cliff together. Sure. And didn't know if there was a parachute underneath or a trampoline or a wet rag or anything. A bunch of rocks. You know, who knew what acid would do to you? Who knew what the whole lifestyle would do to you? Who was some, during that period, did you ever know any other musicians besides your dad? Did you know Grant Jacobs? A lot of people lived in the neighborhood. Oh. McSilver, Big Brother. Even a kid at that time, I didn't really know the big guys. They didn't want to hang out with me. Sure. You know, Jerry Garcia was about the only guy that was nice to me at all. The rest of them could hear a laugh, so I was just sitting away. Right. Well, as I got older, then, you know, then the age levels out. Right. Exactly. And it doesn't matter so much. Sure. You're all the same size, and your hair is all the same length at that point. Sure. You're all, you know. Doesn't matter. And so, then I would become friends with the musicians and the artists. But as a kid, I just looked up to them. Of course. And couldn't really get near hanging with them. Sure. I would say it was a normal day on H Street, and you were coming out of school, and you're walking down the street. You'd pick up some fish and chips on the corner. You might run down the street. And there were places like the Drug Store Cafe, the psychedelic shop, the boot hook. Any memories of walking down H Street in those days? Well, for me, I had a purpose. And that was, I love the posters. So I would come to H Street, and collecting posters was my kind of mission. Right. And while collecting posters, you go into all the shops. You meet everybody and blah, blah, blah. But as a kid, I loved them. And I would go into the stores and say, hey, you know, when the gig's over, can I call Dimms on that poster? Sure. And then I'd go there next week and take it out the way I know. And then I think it was on Tuesdays. Every Tuesday, at about four o'clock or so, a truck would come up to the psychedelic shop with the new Philmore and Avalon posters. And there'd be stacks of them. And so me and the other kids from school, we'd be sure to be there on that day. They had the little flyers. Yes, flyers. You know, let's say take one, we'd take a hundred. Sure. Do you ever take a poster off a pole? We took them off poles. We took them out of stores when we weren't supposed to. We took them out of, I mean, you know, if they were up, we took them. You know, I had a memory. When the poster came out and they pinned them on the poles, you always had a crowd of people standing around because everybody was trying to figure out what did they say. That experience where the poster art was great, but you could hardly read them at that time. That was kind of the fun. Yeah. It was like a secret code. Right. Like, we could only read them. Our parents couldn't figure them out. Exactly. That was great. This CD that you did has a, it's an amazing CD. I want to congratulate you on it. It's a wonderful piece. And every neighborhood is represented. This piece that you did on the Hade Ashbury, can you tell me a little bit about what inspired you to go the direction you did when you created that? Yeah. And then I'd love to hear it. Let me put this on here. The Hade Ashbury song. Hey, look at this. We're modern science here. We can, all of a sudden, now this thing is going backwards. Okay, here we go. All right, here comes the Hade Ashbury song. What inspired you to? This is a basic asset trip. Your basic LSU trip. It starts out here with some nice kind of piano music. It's kind of early in the morning. I'm looking out the window. It's a really nice day. I think I'm going to take some asses and go down to Hade Street. Now I can go down to Hade Street. It's kind of mysterious. The ass is just starting to kick in now. Here comes the first rush. And this goes on here for a while. Kind of a meditative state. Kind of getting high. Coming to all the colors. You're getting a little bit brighter now. Everything's starting to get kind of goofy. I think I see David Nelson. I think I see George Mikowski. And what happens? This goes on for a bit. And it's in the high gear. This is one finest psychedelic guitar. So on this CD that you give, you do Chinatown. You do the North Beach. Beach with the flavor. Introducing the North Beach song of Lawrence Furling Getty. Sea Lions appear in 39. And the church bells of Mission Dolores are the missions song. The artists and all the musicians are all San Francisco. Everybody who appears is... I have a member of the charlatans. Richard Olson plays on the web song. Martin Fiero plays on one. Kathy McDonald appears. Lauren Rowan, Harvey Mendele. All San Francisco artists. Everything is San Francisco. Do you have a website? What is your website? George Mikowski.com George Mikowski. Can you spell Mikowski for us? Can you see? M-I-C-H-A-L-S-K-I George Mikowski. Dot is...you don't have to write D-O-T. Dot. Not C-A-L-M, just C-O-M. I want to lower that a little. That's an incredible treat. Thank you so much. I want to learn a little bit more of what you're doing now and what you've done a little bit in the past. We don't have a whole lot of time, but we don't want to miss some of this stuff. When you were... you had met Don Johnson and tell me some of the growing history of Don Johnson. In my L.A. years. Yes. Well, going to L.A. was a whole trip in itself because in San Francisco I'd been playing with Michael Bloomfield. He taught me how to play the blues, actually. And then I began recording with Blue Cheer and two-thirds of the original Blue Cheer and I went down to Los Angeles and we started a band called Foxtrot. We were the house band of the Whiskey of Go-Go and the Starwood and then we were the first white band to sign the Motown Records which was kind of a trip for us. What year was that around? 1973. Amazing. After that I teamed up with a partner, my Nicky Osterveen and we did a really nice album on Columbia Records but we gained a lot of notoriety for our songwriting mostly for Barbara Streisand who wrote a lot of songs for her. Anything that we know? I wrote a song for her called A Man I Love which is on her greatest hit album so if you're a Barbara Streisand fan you would probably know that song. Immediately. I did the music for a couple of movies whether I did a main event and Isolora Mars. Songbird? Yeah, I have a song on the Songbird album and then right around after that time I met Don Johnson who at the time was just a struggling artist not at all famous and we got along really well together why I don't know but we did. When I first met him he came in the room and he was wearing white tennis shorts and a tennis outfit, a sweater tied around his neck and I looked like I just came from an audition for Kiss or something. Exactly. But we got along really well immediately we ended up becoming best friends I did a lot of work with him musically because he was very musical then when he moved up here to San Francisco to do Nash Bridges he hired me as the music director for the show so that was a good six year run. He gave you some freedom in that show to be able to Well the best part was I was able to use San Francisco Axe and I used Unsigned Axe which no network show has ever done and I used 50 Unsigned Axe from San Francisco because I wanted the show to be authentic when you walk into a nightclub I wanted a real San Francisco band to play in there and real San Francisco music as often as possible so that was a great run. Did your show ever shoot through the hate at all? Yeah, we did shoot in the hate and we did a scene with Cheech at the Academis Club Wow. Actually it was Cheech and Chong Perfect. and teamed up back together for that scene. Perfect. And I put the music to that and I used Gary Duncan from Quixote on the guitar because I wanted the authentic psychedelic sound for it. Exactly. And then you did some stuff for Fame and you also Kids from Fame did a song in the mind called Lock and Roll World it was a title song in their album it was a huge hit in Europe and I know you're responsible for doing some stuff with the famous mimest Robert Shields. Yeah, Shields and Jornel They're great. Robert Shields started, you know Robert and he started here in San Francisco in Union Square and yeah, I was their music director for about ten years we traveled around the world and we opened for Sinatra for a year and that was a great time. They're so talented. Very talented and then they got their own television show. Yeah, we got our own TV series. Exactly. I think they put us on opposite Laverne and Shirley they were like the biggest show at the time. Right. But it was a great experience I mean, God, Robert's extremely talented artist. It was, okay, so I also know that there was this national tour and a legendary group, Black Tie Oh God, yeah. Can you tell me? That was a great band. It was kind of cool, sir. I went and saw this band called Black Tie and they had Randy Meisner on bass from Eagles who wrote and sang and take it to the limit and Billy Swan was in the group who wrote and sang I can help if you got a problem and don't know what it is, I can help. And Jimmy Griffin, who was in the group, Brad and wrote all those great songs and sang them with David Gates and Blondie Chaplin who's now with the Rolling Stones he was in the band. He sang Sailor and Sailor for The Beach Boys and David Kemper on drums and he was with the Jerry Garcia band and he was with Bob Dylan for 10 years after that and I mean, so this was an amazing band and I went and saw them and I go, God, I would love to play with these guys and then two days later their manager calls and he says, well, they're going on the road and they need a keyboard player you want to come play and I go, I'm there. So we did a national tour and it was phenomenal. Four of the guys in the group sang a number one song. So it was amazing to sprinkle our set with, you know, these hits and we had amazing four-part harmonies. Oh, what a band it was. No, there's no way in this video to fit it all in but there's a few things I don't want to forget and we won't be asking. What's really cool upcoming is Mayor Gavin is in June we're in the middle of May right now in a couple of weeks is appointing me as the chairman of the music task force to bring back the music scene in San Francisco because since Bill Graham's died we have no music scene. In fact, we don't even have a BAMI Awards anymore. You know, San Francisco's always had a music award celebrating all of the musicians that's gone by the wayside. Musicians used to come here from all around the world. Now they're leaving here going to LA they're going everywhere else. There's no more concerts in the parks all the time the band shelves it's empty so I went to the mayor and I said why don't we do something about this so let's revitalize the whole scene and make it where people come from all over the world to come back here for the music and make it where young bands could have a chance to break and so we can showcase them in the band shell and a lot of people would come and see them and then they'll see what's going on somewhere and young bands can get a following and there's so much to be done. The politics out of the way so it gets happening. The politics gets in the way of everything and we should be embracing that we are the city of love and peace just as France is the city of lights Paris is the city of lights and New York is the big apple every city has a thing to grab onto and I said to the mayor I said why run away from love and peace I mean that's what we are and where the city the being was here the summer of love is here this is why run from that that's a great deal build on it so let's take that on with pride so he's given me the full city backing to do these events to have a summer of love so Chet doesn't have to walk around with his hand out asking people to back him to raise money so you don't have to like how you did your last event pay out of your own pocket go crazy to put an event together the city should be behind that because it's great for the city well it's going to be happening now and I'm very excited about that so we have a lot of great things upcoming I know this video is about the past but the past and the present and the future are all related exactly and had I not been in the hay to see what happened then I would not know what to do now exactly well I have a question having been here is very apparent let's bring it back if this video is watched 50 years from now some young people are watching this have heard some of your experiences if nothing more what would you like in other words the world we take your advice what advice would you give if people have just watched us in 50 years I would like for them to just be absolutely amazed that we had a hard time bringing music out to the streets to people everywhere all the time exactly I would hope in 50 years from now there's music everywhere for free and for people to enjoy it heals people it joins people if kids get into music they don't grow up to be who they look that's right that's right I want so much thank you for being here you've added your music alright where's my money yeah the music you've created and brought on board and has entertained so many people it's just the beginning for you we wish you the best thanks a lot I wish you the best too we're going to be calling you back with this project and in life and in health and how all the old hippies come out and talk to you about their experiences oh everybody we have an amazing someday you'll only be hearing rumors about what happened exactly you just had to be there but at least we've got to document some of it while we can tell it our way and thank you George Mcalsy thank you George my friend alright for being part of this and being part of our family thanks Troy okay