John: Here we are on a telephone on a rainy day in February the 19th, 1998. How are you doing David.

David: Very well, thank you.

John: I appreciate you giving the time in your busy schedule to be interviewed.

David: Well uh, my pleasure. We are between rainstorms here. We?re doing fine. It?s supposed to start coming down heavy again today a little later on.

John: Well, if it is OK with you, I would like to go back to your high school years and start forward in time from there.

David: Uh huh.

John: I have done some research of course and I understand you came from Salt Lake City. Is that right?

David: I grew up in Salt Lake City. I was born in New Britain, Connecticut and lived there until I was about five years old and then we moved to Los Angeles actually and lived there about three years and when I was eight or nine years old we moved to Salt Lake City. My mother was born and raised in Salt Lake City in a very large Mormon family. She missed the family and my parents picked up and moved so she could be near the family.

John: You went to high school in Salt Lake?

David: I went to Highland High School in Salt Lake City. Actually summers a bishop of our church was a general contractor. He actually built the high school I went to, which was about three blocks from our house and summers I used to work on the construction gang for him actually building the school I went to later on and graduated from.

John: So you started working at a pretty young age, right?

David: I started my actual first job when I was fourteen. That wasn?t a construction job. I started working construction work when I was sixteen and worked summers for this man named Paulsen again that owned the construction company. I worked for him every summer for years and years while I was going to school. I made good money and I would save everything I made to carry me through the winter. I came from a family of six children. My father was a miner at the Kannecott Copper Mines which is in Magna, Utah about twenty miles west of Salt Lake City in the mountains there and didn?t make a lot of money or anything like that so I pretty much had to make my own money all of my life.

John: I was just wondering what kind of musical influences you had in High School?

David: Well very early on, even way before High School, I was a big radio fan and music sound track motion picture fan and just had a general love for music and was influenced by a lot of the great orchestral pieces, particularly I was a big fan of Leopold Stakowsky and his recordings of famous pieces, symphonies and so on. I still have quite a collection of Stakowsky recordings. That?s on 78. The ones that break. You know?

John: Right, the big thick ones.

David: I have quite a collection of 78?s. Mostly classical but I also do have some popular records. But I eventually you know I studied all the classics and was educated in the classics. I played in all the local symphonies in Salt Lake City. You know spent .... one of those children who spent most of my time away from school practicing and doing recitals and concerts. That sort of thing.

John: Well how did you pick violin over all of the other instruments?

David: Well I picked a violin at a very very young age. How that happened was I didn?t realize it but I had a very extreme fondness for the sound of strings and I noticed as a small child by the age of one and a half I had quite a repetoir of pieces that I sang that my grandmother taught me. I began singing at a very early age. I think that the violin probably more than any other instruments closely mimics the voice and my first love was singing and the voice and I think violin an extension, the closest extension of that. I used to hear different musical sound tracks and recordings and when the string section would come in... that was the sound that I loved and enjoyed. A smooth beautiful sound and I just became very very enchanted with it. During that period that I lived in Connecticut I had an Aunt and an Uncle that were quite well to do in Farmington, Connecticut and they had a daughter that studied the violin as a child and then like most children had given it up and in the course of clearing an older home that they had sold. They built a new one. She ran across the violin that her child had played for a short time. Opened the case up. She said the minute she looked at it, knowing my love for music, she thought of me and put it in a box and sent it to me as a gift. At that time I was five or six years old. I believe five years old and here comes the box. My parents explained to me that was a violin and that was the sound that I was so fond of on these recordings. So I began fooling around with it on my own and taught myself to play "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" and my parents seeing I had a passion for the instrument sought out a good teacher and I began my formal education.

John: Now when you said you also sang, are you talking opera or what?

David: Well I have sang all of my life since I was a child. I have never sang opera. I have sang light opera. I have appeared in many musicals from the time I was a child singing in various stage productions including Gilbert and Sullivan which is light opera. As I got older I began singing more pop songs, blues songs and rock songs and standard type songs. What we call standards like "I Left My Heart In San Francisco" or something like that. Pretty much I have sung the gamut of types of music throughout my life. Early on the songs that I sang were typical children?s songs like: "You Are My Sunshine" songs like that. Children?s songs that my Grandmother taught me.

John: So at what age did you leave Salt Lake City? How old were you?

David: Well, the first time I started leaving Salt Lake City brought me to California. I had won several musical competitions in the Salt Lake area against other local young violinists and won my first scholarship to attend a place called Music Academy of the West, in Santa Barbara. These were summer sessions so during the summers in High School I would go and spend my summer studying and playing intensely at the Academy in Santa Barbara. So that for the first time brought me down into the California area. I made several trips from there up to San Francisco on weekends and down to Los Angeles. I just had a chance to scope out California as a teenager and really feel in love with the place and decided after college I would move to the Bay area and try and make a life for myself there. That?s what I did. That would have been 1963 that I actually traveled with some college buddies of mine in a new Thunderbird that one of the guys fathers had bought him. We traveled down to San Francisco. I didn?t tell anyone, my parents or the fellows that I was with, that I didn?t intend to go back with them. I had a suitcase with some clothes in it. I think when they finally left me at the corner of Broadway and Columbus with a very puzzled, worried look on their face because they weren?t sure what they were going to tell my parents when they got back. I was standing there with a suitcase and ten dollars in my pocket as they drove off. I didn?t know a soul, not a single soul in San Francisco but it was, I guess what you say, the beginning of "David?s Big Adventure" and that?s how I started. I was determined to stay there and make a life for myself. I didn?t have anything more back in Salt Lake City really that I was interested in getting involved with. There had been a lot of interest in me becoming a member of the Utah Symphony there. I had played with the Symphony again I had won a couple of different competitions and because of the competitions I was invited to play with the Symphony as a soloist. To me the world of Classical music was at that point was mostly a lot of old people and I was very young, very spirited and really interested in a lot more kinds of music than just heavy classical music which I had played a lot of all of my life. So I set out on this musical odyssey, I guess you could call it, to discover and play with a lot of different types of musicians and a lot of different types of music in San Francisco.

John: What did you first find when you got to San Francisco? Was it pretty harsh or did you fall into the musical scene fairly easy?

David: I fell into it fairly easy. There was a... really there was a healthy underground music scene there. It was kind of the tail end of the folk music scene and there were a lot of folk clubs. There was a lot of jamming going on. A lot of open mike stuff and no one seemed to mind if I sat in or accompanied them or whatever. It really was no time at all before I was invited to play with a lot of different people who were playing in the clubs at that time. People like Dino Valenti or people like: Janis Joplin, some of the kids from Big Brother, Jerry Garcia. These are different people who were very involved, were my age and were kind of, again on the tail end of folk music scene. Not long after that, it became, oh I would say, two years later the term "Folk Rock" in which a lot of the folk musician who were song writers, many of them were, started teaming up and putting these groups together. The We Five was the first that comes to mind with a song "You Are On My Mind." It was a new sound really. It was a folk music with an electric drum eventually with a beat to it for the first time and it became very, very popular. I loved it! I thought it was some of the best music, popular music, I had ever heard. The music seemed to have an intelligence to it and it seemed to have a lot of melodic creativity and a lot of good vocal harmony. Which, of course, being a singer I loved to sing and I loved particularly to sing with other people. I have never had that much of a passion for singing alone although I have done a lot of it. I really prefer as I have done through out the years to have a singing partner. Like my present wife Linda or before her Patty Santose and many others before her many other people that I like to sing with. That really is probably something that is very close to me, singing with somebody else.

John: I have read that you jammed with Big Brother on Paige Street when they were first starting up.

David: They were first starting up at 1090 Paige. It was .... I forget which night it was. I believe it was Wednesday night it was kind of an open jam session kind of thing. It was blues. I mean we all kinda knew the simple blues changes, a lot of the standard "Stormy Monday" type songs. That were kind of classic blues songs, you know, and this is before the Big Brother band or any thing like that. It was strictly the Albin brothers these little jam sessions that they held. I held my own similar jam sessions at my studio on Paige Street. Just around the corner from the Straight Theater off Cole and Haight Ashbury. I had my own jam sessions there. They were a little bit different than Peter and Rodney?s sessions. Those were more kind of R and B or blues oriented. My sessions were strictly creative oriented, in other words, I encouraged people to bring new original music that no one had ever heard before and introduce it to the group that was there. It was for ever changing. We would jam on a person?s original song. That was the way I did it because I was interested in a persons strictly original material and not blues material.

John: This wouldn?t during the time period that the group... well I don?t know if it was really a group...... but the Electric Chamber Orchestra?

David: Eventually out of those jam sessions that we had there emerged a group. It was one of those things where at first I had a number of people then it kind of.... there were those who came back regularly and then that turned out to be a little five piece group we call the Electric Chamber Orchestra.

John: Who were some of the people in the early stages of your jamming? Do you recall any that you played with? Who brought their own original material as you said it.

David: Oh my original material?

John: Yes...

David: Well, one of the people that used to come by there and play a lot was a fella .... he has changed his name. It is hard to relate to but his name at that time was Jesse Barrish. He was a person that went on to write for the Jefferson Starship: the song "Miracles" and several of their big hit songs, the Airplane and Starship. He was a regular for a long time and performed with us there. The most infamous member person that was a members of that group for a while was Bobby Beausoleil, who is still in the penitentiary in Oregon and was involved eventually after he left the Haight Ashbury and moved to Los Angeles with Charles Manson and brought Charlie Manson by the jam session or by to meet the group. He had left it and been replaced by somebody else but he would come by occasionally with Manson and Jam The bass player, Jaime Leopold after the Orchestra split up. The reason the group split up was because the drummer and the bass player were busted for possession and went to jail for a while and so that was kind of the end of the Chamber Orchestra. When they got out I was playing with Dan Hicks regularly and working on an album for him. He was looking for a bass player who played good standup bass. So I recommended that he audition Jaime who had worked for me in the Orchestra for about two years and had just gotten out of jail. They hit it off so I brought Jaime on board and then there was a guitarist who had replaced Bosele named John Burton and I suggested to Dan that he take a good listen to him. We brought him on board. The John?s wife was a singer and Dan was interested in having two girl singers and so we added her to the group along with another lady that Dan knew and pretty soon with the combination of Dan?s friends and people that worked with me in the Chamber Orchestra we put the Hot Licks together. We started Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks.

John: Speaking of which I was looking at.....I have the original recordings, an album, and I didn?t see any credit given to you. Do you actually play anything on that album?

David: No I didn?t play on that album. I actually played on the album, and I have it here, that was the album before that album. That album was never released. We did that for Trident Records and that was produced by Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio. What that turned out to be was a demo album in which Dan was able to use the album that we did to get a deal with Blue Thumb. Which of course is the one you are talking about.

John: Right.

David: So when I say I did an album with him, I actually didn?t do an album with him. It was never for general release. It turned out being the demo for the .......

John: Did you end up playing live with Dan Hicks?

David: Many, many times, at the Filmore regularly and......

John: And also about the same time, the Orchestra also played the Matrix and the Avalon? I think we are talking about 1965.

David: Right.

John: Did the Orchestra ever get a chance to record anything?

David: Well we did some television shows that were happening. We did one, as a matter of a fact, for CBS. A television show in which CBS was looking to San Francisco for....avant garde type music happening in San Francisco and we did a show for them. I have never been able to get a copy of it and we did other television shows in San Francisco but back in those days nobody saved anything ..

John: Right

David: So I am afraid they are just gone. We never did an album.

John: No singles or anything like that.

David: No.

John: During that time you are performing with Dan Hicks and the Orchestra, you obviously elbow rubbing with a lot of the upstart groups, including yourself, you know like maybe the Greatful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver..?

David: I did a lot of work with Country Joe, with Big Brother, the Dead, the Airplane. A lot of opening acts for what was called the "first wave" bands. And I was what you would call a "second wave" band.

John: Right

David: Second Wave bands were people like Beautiful Day, Santana, Cold Blood a lot of second.. Steve Miller groups like that. They called us second wave bands. We did a lot of openings for shows for those bands, you know? Whether it be in the Orchestra or Dan Hicks or It?s a Beautiful Day. I loved it. I always liked being an opening act. You were right in the thick of it, you might say. All of the weight wasn?t on you, you know?

John: Right. Did you ever do any outdoor concerts?

David: Many of them. Many outdoor concerts. In the Panhandle regularly and of course a lot of Polo Field concerts in Golden Gate Park itself. But every Saturday there were concerts in the Panhandle, right there in the Haight Ashberry, between Oak and Fell. We played there regularly.

John: So I am assuming, since you were there for a couple of years you obviously had enough income to live and survive while you were getting settled in San Francisco.

David: Well, It was lean but I was always able to scratch out a living somehow, to get enough work.

John: So how did the first inkling of It?s a Beautiful Day come about?

David: Well my first Linda, I was out performing with the Orchestra at the time. My first wife Linda and I am not sure where she met him but she came home all excited she had been introduced to a man named Matthew Katz or ( pronounced Kay- tz). Who at that time appeared to be a very successful entrepreneur and manager of the Jefferson Airplane. Who of course I had performed with many times. I had never seen him before and this new group called Moby Grape, whom I had also seen performing although I don?t remember having performed on the same bill as them. And that he was looking for a third group for, I guess you would say, his stable of artists. She had arranged for me to bring the Orchestra group to his rehearsal facility. It was in the basement of a church just off of Polk Street and Green in San Francisco and audition. So I brought the group down and auditioned for him and afterwards he and I went to lunch and discussed what it was he was attempting to do. What kind of group he was visualizing and that is how I got involved with him. Through my first wife.

John: At that time Patty wasn?t involved or was she?

David: Patty was involved with him previously. He had put together several groups with Patty and none of them had the kind of leadership to keep it together and make it into something, so they had fallen apart.

John: So some of these playings when you first started...obviously she came into the fold. That was because of Matthew right?

David: Right?

.............. break............

John: You were saying that Patty had already been together with Matthew Katz?

David: That is right. He had put together some other musicians some of which I knew. I remember there was a drummer, Joey Covington who had played for a time with the Airplane.

John: right.

David: For a very short time. He was one of them that was interested in getting involved in a new group. In fact, I auditioned him at one point. And there was numerous or several other musicians that Matthew had tried to form a group in the image....essentially in the image of .... what Matthew wanted was a group that was in the image of the Airplane but different.

John: At that time he had lost the Airplane. Is that right?

David: Oh not quite yet. When we came on board there unbeknownst to us they were on the outs with him but still has some kind of contractual obligation to him. They did and so was Moby Grape but we didn?t know any of this. By all appearances, the way he made it appear was that everything was rock solid with the two of them and everything was rock solid with the two record labels that they had gotten record deals on. That was Airplane on RCA and Grape on Columbia. If I could come up with the original material and a sound that was acceptable that there was a hundred percent chance that we could come up with a record deal with RCA or Columbia based on his association with the two and his management pro, so to speak. And that was the picture he painted.

John: Did he have the name It?s a Beautiful Day before you came along or did you bring that with you?

David: No he had that in place. He had that in place and it is a name that ..... when I say in place... it is a name that was suggested... that it?s funny, it wasn?t actually a name, it was a statement that was made by a young girl. I can picture her. A young blonde lady, I think her name was Carol who while driving in the car believe it or not made that statement and Matthew thought immediately that it was a name for a group. The previous groups that he had been working with, including Patty, didn?t have any names. This was the time when we were working with him. Not previous to that time.

John: Is this like 1966-67?

David: 66.

John: 66?

David: I think it is right in that period. 66 or 67 I am not sure exactly when.

John: So outside of Patty, were any other members already with Matthew or did you and Patty find them?

David: Patty and I found the other members. Actually I did.

John: Right, is that including your first wife?

David: Right, that includes my first wife.

John: How did you come about with the sound of your music?

David: Well we continued to rehearse in the church there, for several months. We continued to work on original compositions at home and bring them to rehearsal and teach them to the group and start to build a repetoir of original songs. Of course these were based on my ideas and my ex-wife, Linda?s, ideas. We would collaborate on ideas we had and bring them back to rehearsal and introduce them to the group and when they started to sound like something Matthew would come in and give us his input of what he thought, you know? As he had done with the other groups: Moby Grape and the Airplane.

John: Did he like what he had heard? Was he critical?

David: To tell you the truth, for the most part he liked what he heard. He liked the combination of musicians. He liked the way they played and looked and he liked the material we were coming up with. He seemed to be really fascinated with or impressed by the group. Now mind you at this point there was no guitarist.

John: Oh, OK.

David: I played all of the lead that a guitarist might play. And quite frankly I didn?t want a guitarist at that point because though it was difficult enough with just the five of us. Developing a sound really that was based around organ, violin, bass and drums.

John: Wasn?t HELL WAGON in it?

David: Wagonette. He didn?t come on board until sometime later, a year later.

John: OK.

David: We performed all of the early shows at the Filmore and all without a guitarist. Then eventually we started auditioning guitarists. Looking for the one that best suited what we were trying to accomplish.

John: What was the next logical step? Was it playing live or did you actually record something in the studio prior to being live?

David: It was a combination of the two really. Matthew arranged for some recording time at Post Recorders there in San Francisco. At that time we were not performing live. And basically I was working on what I was told was demonstrations, "demos" as we called them at that time. To put in the ears of some of the major executives and see if we couldn?t maybe come up with a good album before we even went out and started performing all over the place. Have product in place and promotion.

John: How many songs did you end up performing at Post Street?

David: Oh I suppose a dozen or so. Oh, in the studio do you mean?

John: Yes in the studio.

David: I think two songs is what I remember. We might have started work on a third. I remember two songs.

John: Did they eventually come out on the "San Francisco Sounds" label?

David: I believe they did.

John: "Bulgaria" and "Aquarian Dream?"

David: Well, "Aquarian Dream" is something that I am not responsible for in any way shape or form. It has nothing to do with me. You won?t find any of my people or me on that recording.

John: Really?

David: That is something he made up and that he put together with other musicians well after we had disassociated ourselves from him. so I have no responsibility for that. I think one song we might have recorded called "Love for You," that is what I called it, actually appeared on one of his albums. He probably changed the title I don?t know. Anyway, this song was called "Love for You." That did appear and anything else after that appeared would be something he fabricated and put his name on.

You have to understand this mans thinking. This man was... His idol was Don Kirchner who created the Monkees.

John: Right.

David: and essentially he viewed us as the Monkees. We would be under his total control and that we would be paid a small salary every week for any and all recordings and live performances that we did. And that he would retain all the rights to everything. Of course, he didn?t tell us this at first. You know what I am saying. Later on in our relationship he started spelling out what he expected for this help that he was giving us.

John: You were sharing with us Matthew?s? view which sounded like you were paid help.

David: That?s the way he envisioned it and as he told me eventually that he intended to own everything lock, stock and barrel and anyone that wasn?t happy with that arrangement was free to leave and they would be replaced.

John: And this was prior to releasing your first album or was this afterwards?

David: This was prior. What happened was I thought we were making demonstration recordings. We had a conversation about how things were going one day and that is when he informed me that rather than him taking these recordings that we were working on and shopping them to the major labels. What he intended to do was use our recordings which we would do an albums worth, and with those recordings he would start his own record label and that we would be on his record label. Still working under this tiny little salary. It was about a hundred dollars a week.

John: That was for the entire band?

David: No that was per person. I had at that time, my wife was pregnant, we had a two bedroom apartment. We were so poor that the bass player and drummer, Mitch and Val lived together in the other bedroom. Actually, I am sorry, actually it was a one bedroom apartment. It was an old, old rundown Victorian building on Portrero Hill. It had a living room and dining room. It had the glass French doors that you could close and separate them. Linda and I moved into the dining room you know when we were asleep to keep our privacy we would close those doors and put curtains over it and the two of them lived in the bedroom. The landlord continuously hassled me about having more than two people living there and not paying more money. At one point we had a hole in the roof of the hallway that flooded the entire apartment with a foot of water during a heavy rain and the landlord refused to do anything about the hole in the roof unless we threw the two guys out into the street. It was quite a scene. Which we refused to do by the way and made him fix the hole in the roof anyway. But we literally lived with a hole in the roof of our apartment for about a week during rainy weather. Of course after that all of the wooden floors all buckled up and we lived with the wooden buckled up floors as long as we lived there.

But then he informed us at a point that...... Well, I refused to work on his recordings anymore after I heard his plan. Because I had had many conversations with about finances and my financial needs: with a wife and a child coming and a band to support essentially as far as getting them from one place to another and everything else. No one had any kind of transportation besides myself and I had a UPS truck, just like the ones you see today, that I bought from UPS at an auction for $250.00 and that was the only transportation we had in the group. We went everywhere in that and did everything. We literally lived off, I guess what you would say, brown rice and candy bars. When we couldn?t be home to fix brown rice we would buy candy bars. When we couldn?t be home to fix brown rice we would buy candy bars. Like poor people do; live off of candy bars.

I could never get any money out of the guy. So finally he said we were going to actually make some money and do some performances in Seattle. He had rented this place called the Encore Ballroom in Seattle. He had rented a house not far from the Ballroom, an old house. We would be staying in the old house and we would be performing weekends at the Encore Ballroom and during the week we could rehearse at the Ballroom rather than in the basement of the church. Now he owned a home in Seattle. I didn?t know that but he, again not far from the area, owned a home there as he still does today. He owns a couple of homes up there now, plus, of course, his big home in Malibu. So we rehearsed there. During that period I wrote the song, Linda and I wrote the song "White Bird" and performed it there in Seattle at the Ballroom for the first time. We did that for about six weeks, I think. Each weekend we performed there. Very few people ever showed up at the Ballroom. No one had ever heard of.... there was a couple of local groups. They were the main draw. No one had ever heard of "It?s a Beautiful Day" so...

John: Had you played in San Francisco prior to going up to Seattle?

David: Pardon?

John: Had you performed in San Francisco prior to going up to Seattle?

David: No, we hadn?t. We had just been working on the demos for the record labels. So we did those performances up there and at the end of that time I asked him. We had been.... Well, back home at our apartment we had fallen a couple of months behind in our rent and everything else. I went to him and told him I had to have some money for the performances we had done. He said, "Well, we didn?t make any money. I lost money. So I can?t give you any money." I said, "Well, we have to live. You might not understand that but we have to live and you don?t want us to perform." You see the thing was we weren?t allowed to perform for anyone except him. do you follow me?

John: In other words he had to do the booking?

David: That?s right. In other words we couldn?t... there were people who... remember we had been performing in San Francisco for years. There were people at the different venues around town, different clubs, the Matrix, the Avalon and so on, these people called me all the time and asked me when we were going to.... when could they book us? I had built a reputation already. When could they book us? When could they book us? Every time I would mentioned it to him he would say, "No, no, no, no, I don?t want you playing at those places." I kept saying, "Hey, we have to make some money. We have no money. We need to work. We need to play." "I don?t want you playing in public, you?re not ready yet. I don?t want you playing until after we finish this album and I?ve released it. Then we will have a big release party and blah, blah, blah"

John: So did that come about? I mean obviously the album came out. How did that work.

David: It never came out.

John: Oh it didn?t?

David: No. Do you mean the "It?s a Beautiful Day Today" album?

John: Right.

David: Well that had nothing to do with him whatsoever.

John: Well I guess it is better to ask how did you get out from underneath him then?

David: Well we or I or we gave him, the group of us, had a big meeting with him and we gave him certain ultimatums. One, that he would allow us the freedom to perform around San Francisco so that we could make a living and other ultimatums. He flat out looked at me and said, "Listen you are working for me and you?ll do what I say or you won?t work." So we left. I told him I couldn?t....I?ll never forget this. Twice I have had this conversation with him in my life. Once just a few years ago, as a matter of a fact, when he called me asked me to do another album for him. Believe it or not. For which he offered me the same thing he did the first time. Absolutely nothing but a promise, a handshake promise. So anyway, I asked him at that time I said, "Gee" I said, we started making some money, "Isn?t there enough money for all of us?" Do you know what he told me? "No, there isn?t!" Then he gave me his big "I Have a Dream" speech. He had a dream of being another Berry Gordy or somebody. That he was going to have his own gigantic record label with all kinds of groups that he had signed and he would own everything. He assured me that if I played ball with him and went along with all of his plans I would be an important part of his plan but in the meantime I had to work and help finance his plans. Well that just didn?t appeal to me at all. Particularly with the number of lies he had already told us to get us to do certain other things. So we left. Shortly after we left we went out and immediately started performing around San Francisco and actually making a living playing music for the first time since we met that man. It wasn?t a lot of money but I could pay my bills. He filed for an injunction in the Superior Court of San Francisco. To get an injunction to prevent us from performing under the name, "It?s a Beautiful Day" at the court.

John: This is still ?66, ?67?

David: Yes, I suppose this would be in ?67 now. We went to court and in those court proceedings the Judge refused to give him an injunction based on lack of proof that he provided the court to show that he had established that name and do business under that name. He failed to prove he had established that and we were performing under that name. The public wasn?t confused in any way, shape or form or being frauded thinking that we were a different group. Do you follow me?

John: Right.

David: His injunction was denied. Well we thought that looked pretty good to us. Everybody did including our attorneys. Six and a half years later... That?s why we proceeded doing the album with Columbia which of course I produced. He had nothing to do with whatsoever or any of the other records. I tell people the man never wrote, arranged or produced anything in connection with "It?s a Beautiful Day" other than the song "Love for You" which he put on that compilation of groups on his first release "San Francisco Sound." Of course in later years when he started manufacturing those albums that we did for Columbia and they gave him the rights to do that. I don?t know how they... Without ever speaking to me of course about it. They just went and did that. If you have seen any of those records you will not find my name or any of the other members names as performers, writers or publishers or producers on the records that he manufactures and sell and has been doing so, and still does today.

John: I refuse to have anything to do with them. Reading and hearing about it and the quality is supposed to be poor.

David: The quality is poor and it is a blatant... It?s illegal. First off, it is illegal to put out product that doesn?t recognize the source and the licensing source.

John: Right because you wrote a lot of these songs and you would have royalties coming to you right?

David: Yes, but of course I have never received any. Now based on what the court decided in ?67 we proceeded, the fall of ?67 and early ?68 we had performed at both of the ballrooms several times, the Avalon and the Fillmore. We did the Cream concert which ignited us all over all of a sudden. Where we opened for the Cream.

John: That was their farewell tour in like ?68, right?

David: Steve Winwood on the day of the show came down with laryngitis. Bill Graham called me and asked me if we would perform and we did successfully. In the audience that night were several major record executives. At that point we starting to negotiate with several major labels as far as a record deal. They liked what they heard. They wanted to know who would produce. I told them that if we couldn?t find an acceptable producer I would produce the record. They seemed quite comfortable with that after interviewing me extensively and that?s what I did. I came down in the summer of ?68 and produced the first album here in Los Angeles not far from where I am sitting right now and lived not far from where I am sitting right now. Six and one half years latter Matthew made a new injunction to the court. Filed a new lawsuit claiming essentially the same thing the first time. That we were infringing upon his name "It?s a Beautiful Day" and this time things didn?t go quite so well for us. It was 1973 and just to make a long story short. When I got up to testify in my own behalf in the courtroom in the case. Before I said a word. The judge leaned over to me. This is off the record. No one else could hear. He leaned over to me and told me that he hated my guts. That I was a hippie, a drug addict, probably a child molester. He hated everything that I stood for and he was going to get me.

John: That?s real nice.

David: That was what he told me, right off the record. He didn?t like me. He didn?t like my whole scene and he also told me he had listened to the album and he hated the music. You can imagine my attorneys face when I came back to the table and he asked me what the judge had said to me. Whispered in my ear. Then, I swear to God, he proceeded to have a nervous breakdown during the trial, for real.

John: This hearing was in San Francisco?

David: Yes, in the Superior Court of San Francisco. The case went on for six weeks even though that was like day three. We tried everything in the whole world to get a different judge and so on and so on. Nothing worked. It went from bad to worse to worse to worse. He had his group, his wife at the time came in and told all kinds of lies. He lied and lied and lied. The amazing part about it was that I had been divorced for a number of years from my first wife. She came in to spite me and she backed up him. She had become friends with his wife actually and was still friendly with him. She supported their position even though it meant that she would be ..... of course it would be the end of any royalties that she would see or anything like that. To her that was worth sacrificing just to get back at me. You know the old saying.

John: At that point you had like four albums out.

David: Right. So the judge said we never should have used the name from day one. We had no rights to use it. It was his name and that any and all moneys we had every made using his name we owed him. Every cent whether it be royalties, live performance, what not and then he called for an accounting. The accountant, the court appointed accountant looked at our books. Which was easy enough. They were all.. We were being managed by Bill Graham at that time and he had everything down at the agency, where they could just go down and read them. They went down and read the books and added up every cent we had made and gave Matthew a judgment award in that amount. Every cent we had ever made and to this day we still owe him that money. Of course all of a sudden we couldn?t work because we had didn?t have the name anymore. Because we had a huge judgment against us all of a sudden our reputation went south way south. People looked at us as another example of people who couldn?t keep their shit together. Who did bad business. Probably were as he described us, "a bunch of junkies" and deserved everything we got. So there was no way we could make any money at all to pay the man because we had no record contract, no name. Everything had been taken away from us including all our incomes and this was instantaneous, mind you. We literally whipped out. Penniless with no way to make any money. No way to make a living. So that was it. Everything was split wide open. Of course, when something like that happens it leaves a bad taste in everyone?s mouth.

John: Definitely. Did you have the kind of ruling that any future money you would make would be owed to him?

David: Absolutely. Not only did I owe him all of the money I made in the past but all of the money I made in the future would go towards satisfying the money I owed him from the past. And that still where I am today some twenty, well what?s ?73. Twenty seven years later? Twenty eight years later? I don?t know. It is going on thirty years later. That judgment amount has climbed between a million and two million dollars now.

John: What with interest?

David: Yes. From time to time he has levied against any earnings I might get. Any kind of substantial earnings other than, you know the few hundred dollars I might make performing here or there. But any type of royalties...of course, I have never received any kind of statement as far as earnings or amounts paid against those royalties from him or CDS or anyone else. To this day he claims that he has never received anything, nothing. I think the last amount that he admitted to was something like six thousand dollars. Now this is why. He claims that because those albums are what he calls his; that any revenues that are generated or made from those albums that he sells. None of those amount or the over a million dollars that he has collected from Columbia Records. That none of those amounts were royalties that would have gone to the group, therefore they don?t apply in any way towards satisfying the judgment that he has against the group.

John: That?s pretty amazing!

David: That really is! Now recently, a year ago, just about a year ago, right now. I received a notice in the mail that he was making a motion to the court. In El of none satisfaction of judgment. Making a motion to the court that they should award him the rights to all of my songs and all of the other members songs also but mainly my songs. He got me and I don?t have money to fight him and he knows it. He hauled me into court in San Francisco. Back to the same old court again and made a motion to the court that they should give him the rights, the publishing rights and all the rights to my songs. In other words, rather than just collect the royalties what he wanted to do was own the songs because he was starting to get worried because he?s never licensed those songs. He knows that?s illegal and that eventually something will come down on him. So he decided that if he owned the songs he would never have to license them of course because he would own them. So he tried to take all of my songs away. I was able to hire an attorney here in town using credit cards which my wife and I have never used before. We have dozens of them but we never used them. We have sterling credit. We financed a defiance against him in court using credit cards and ran up about sixteen thousand dollars on about eight different cards paying this attorney to travel to San Francisco several times and plea our case in Court of San Francisco. After about eight or nine months of this going back and forth and running up this sixteen thousand dollar bill his motion was denied. Since then he has continued to attack me in various ways. To file injunctions to try and collect any moneys that I might get from anywhere. Generally just make my life miserable and continue to make my life miserable daily.

John: There was about three years ago a Moby Grape double CD that came out and in the trade papers there was talk of a similar It?s a Beautiful Day coming out.

David: Yes, and the reason that was happening is because a that particular time and this is so typically him. He had lead Columbia Records to believe that based upon some kind of reasonable negotiated figure that he would grant them the right to put out a double CD. I have it sitting right in front of me as a matter of fact because I also produced that. CBS called me and asked me if I would put together working with the master tapes a compilation for CD "best of" type thing. I spent months working on that. Put the whole thing together with previously unreleased material included that I thought was good. In the end he said that he wanted several million dollars. In other words, he led us to believe he was going to play ball and then in the end, like he always does, he backed up. he made a demand that he knew was completely and totally ridiculous.

John: Right.

David: And they told him, "Forget it. This is just a classic thing. This isn?t the new Paul Simon record or something." You know what I am saying? He made some huge monetary demand that they in no way in heck were going to meet and that was the end of it. It went back to oblivion again. That is his style though. Shortly after that by the way he filed another lawsuit against CBS. The man never has less than a dozen lawsuits going. He has made his living... He?s learned how to manipulate the judicial system to use it to his own advantage.

John: Didn?t Moby Grape recently win a case against him?

David: Yes they did, eventually they did win their case. In that case and in the Airplane case, in both cases, the judge determined that he did business in a fraudulent and deceptive manner and that over the years he had continued to, what they call, muddy the water by continually firing attorneys, making postponements and that these decisions could have been made years ago but he was making it impossible for that to happen. Boy he took a beating. Now they have regained the rights to their songs and so on. Thank God. But most of the money that he has made doing to them what he has been doing to me is money he has already made. You can?t get that. It?s gone! It?s gone! It?s gone with his Malibu high living life style.

John: Plus also gone are all of those years too.

David: That?s right.

John: It is hard to put a price tag on those.

David: Well that is pretty much the end of that story. The most positive part about it is still in Limbo for me. The one thing we did accomplish other than preventing him from taking my songs away and it seems as though there is a law that says that you can?t take a writers songs away from him. You can take the money he might make away but you can?t take the songs. So that was good. Then we asked the judge if he would give us because Matthew had collected tremendous amounts of moneys and claimed that none of those moneys could be put towards any kind of satisfaction of the judgment. We proposed that those amounts that he got should have the judgment years ago and that he perhaps has collected moneys well above and beyond the judgment at that time. OK?

John: Right.

David: Because he?s renewed it twice. These things must be renewed every five years. He?s renewed it more that three, four times I guess. But anyway, we agreed the judge agree to appoint an unbiased accountant to go in and try and determine the best he could the amounts that had been paid by us. The amounts that he had received. The amounts that he had collected against the members of the group, we have royalties and so on, as best we could. Now mind you we had very little to go with because considering that we had never received any kind of accounting from him or from the record label nor any royalties. It makes it very difficult for us to know anything, right?

John: Right.

David: We have been kept in the dark because the man is a crook. He does business like a criminal. Based on that, the accountant did the best he could and he made a report to the court. In that report he said that as far as he knew the group had never gotten any royalties and he wasn?t sure whether the moneys that Matthew had collected had satisfied the judgment or not. He just pointed out the amounts he had gotten. When he had gotten and asked the judge to make a decision on whether this judgment had been satisfied or not. That report went to the court, I guess it has been maybe a couple of months ago. Since that time after the accountant made that report it seems Matthew was not happy, very unhappy with it because it left this question to be answered. He has been writing letters to the Superior Court, to the judge, to my attorney. The latest letter I got from him to my attorney really believe it or not wanted to improve his relationship make amends with what he called, "Getting started off on the wrong foot."

John: Yeah right.

David: So he was suggesting that to save us all time and expense. He knew how much it was costing Mr. LaFlame on this litigation. We should appeal to the court in San Francisco and move the whole case to Los Angeles and get a new accountant. One that was more familiar with the royalty collection system. A record industry based accountant here in Los Angeles. That was his latest letter. Which is about two weeks ago. My attorney wrote him a new letter and said, "Thank you but no thank you." We will just stick with what we got. The case started in San Francisco and should end in San Francisco." Whatever.... That doesn?t mean I am out of the woods but it is as close as we have ever come to at least having the court even question whether it has been satisfied. In the past years and I have had a attorney to represent me every time he renewed it in court. It was really just a rubber stamp process whereas the judge asked him if the judgment had been satisfied. He said, "No your Honor. I never received a dime yet." And he got the rubber stamp of renewal every single time, just based on his word and us not being able to prove whether he got any money because we are not privy to any of that information.

You could imagine after all of those years I?ve worked, to do all that work and then to be stripped of all money all credit, everything. It?s depressing to say the least. I have lived a... Tried to make a life for myself the last twenty seven years with a very, very dark cloud hanging over me the whole time.

John: Can we talk about those first four albums a little bit?

David: Absolutely.

John: Is there any standouts? This last summer you have performed quite a few songs off of the early albums. Are there any songs you like a lot? That you are proud of?

David: I still enjoy playing most of the songs. I think they stand up well as far as playability. They are interesting enough to play for the most part. I mean the one I enjoy playing the least is "White Bird."

John: And that?s because?

David: You can understand that.

John: Everybody wants to hear it. Right?

David: You know I give it a hundred percent when I do it but it doesn?t mean it?s my favorite certainly. I still like doing some of the others like: "Hot Summer Day" or "Time Is" I still particularly like doing. I have always liked playing "Dawn Dewy" or "Bombay Calling." I have another story that is going on right now with a different attorney as far as those two numbers go. If you think that might be interesting.

John: Sure give it a try.

David: OK, I?ll tell you another fun interesting another sad story. Seems all I have is sad stories and when it comes to the music business most of it is not pretty story and this is another one that is not so pretty. I performed some forty five times at the Filmore Auditorium and early in nineteen..... some of the performances were in 1968. In fact I think it was the first time It?s a Beautiful Day headlined the Filmore Auditorium. The group that played just before us was a group called Deep Purple. In 1970 they came out with an album and on that album of theirs appeared a song that appeared musically to be pretty much identical to my composition "Bombay Calling." Anyone who has listened to it including a copyright attorney that I have hired recently. Other friends, musicians and so on agree that the song was definitely plagiarized from "Bombay Calling." They call it "Child In Time." Now I had never heard it. I had heard about it. I had no idea what the title was. I wasn?t even sure what group it was. But last year a friend of mine called me who had just gone to see a film called "Breaking the Way." And was astounded to hear this piece of music on the soundtrack of the movie. This sounded identical to him to "Bombay Calling." This famous actor, who is a friend of mine, he and his wife went out the next morning and bought the soundtrack to "Breaking the Waves" and invited us to dinner. To come up and have dinner they had a surprise for us. The surprise was he put on the soundtrack and on comes this song and I?ll be darned if it doesn?t of course sound just like "Bombay Calling," except it has a few lyrics to it. they call it "Child in Time." So I took the soundtrack to a copyright attorney and showed him my copyright for the song which is dated 1968. Showed him where we had performed with the group in late 1968, right around the time the album had come out or was just going to come out. They had recorded that song and another song that they called "Ring That Neck" on their album. Now those two songs of course I called "Dawn and Dewy" and "Bombay Calling" and had their copyrights in 1968 and 1969 on those two pieces. So right now we are preparing the necessary paper work to file injunction against the use of the song "Child in Time" or the sale of any product that includes the song "Child in Time" in it, including the soundtrack. Sixteen albums I have discovered so far that contain one or both of those two pieces of music.

John: And both of them are performed by Deep Purple?

David: Yes, Now the law says you have three years from time of use to make an appeal or file an injunction like this. Well of course "Breaking Waves" was a movie last year so we are well within the three year limit there. I don?t know about the "Dawn and Dewy" song. The latest album I could find that on was a recently rerelease.. an album called "Made in Japan" I believe or something like that was 1989 the song "Wring The Neck" appears on. That?s the latest I can find on that. It might be too late to do anything about that other than to use it as evidence to prove our point. But certainly on the "Child In Time" song which appears to be the second most popular song Deep Purple ever did. It appears on essentially the same compilation and so on that "Smoke on the Water" does. So if you see "Smoke on the Water" on the album you will also see "Child in Time" because it appeared on that album "Smoke On the Water" initially that "Smoke on the Water" appeared on. That was their big breakthrough album I believe and they used my music to do it. People do strange things like that and they think they are going to get away with it and they might. We?ll see.

John: Going back a few years with It?s a Beautiful Day when you were still able to perform. Did you ever get to Europe to perform?

David: Yes, we did. Twice we went to Europe. Initially we to Europe on a package that Bill Graham arranged along with Clive Davis and Columbia Records, that would be several nights of different groups that new albums out or successful albums out playing at the Royal Albert Hall. We would be going over and we would play the Royal Albert Hall and then we would play a series of smaller venues up and down from Scotland to actually playing at the Bath Festival in Bath which is a famous festival there. So we would play sort of as a promotional thing at the Albert Hall. We would go on and play the Bath Festival. We would play such places as Leeds in Northern England where the Who did a live album. Eventually we played at a place called the Round House. We performed regularly at a famous club there called the Speakeasy which is a place where I met people like Mick Fleetwood, Peter Green, Eric Clapton. All kinds of famous English musicians Eric Burdon. It was a hang out. A real hang out for all kinds of rock musicians and gorgeous groupie girls. That was it. The Speakeasy didn?t even open until one am. So it was an after hours club. When you got through playing your other gig then you would go and jam or play at the Speakeasy. So we did that for several weeks in England and then we went back to the States and performed at the Filmore East with the premier performance and introduction in the country to "Tommy." Where we were the opening act and played before "Tommy" every night at several different venues including four nights at the Filmore East and in Philadelphia and some other places. Then we went back to England. No we didn?t go back to England. Well yes, we went back to England and did a concert at the Round House then we headed for the continent. We performed in Brussels and Paris at the University. We also did a television show there in Paris. Then we traveled and also did several shows and television shows in Germany and different cities in Germany. Then we played Amsterdam at Tivoli. No, Amsterdam and Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. Then we went back and did a couple more shows in England, a festival and back to the States again. We had two really very, very, very successful trips.

John: You also performed at the closing of the Filmore, I believe it was in ?71?

David: The closing of the Filmore we performed there, yes. We did close both the Filmore East and the Filmore West during those final days.

John: You were talking about the "Dawn and Dewy" song earlier. Did Don "Sugarcane" Harris play with you on that?

David: No he didn?t.

John: He didn?t? I had read that they....

David: I had aimed that as a tribute to he and Dewy. As a matter of fact I just saw them perform recently at BB King?s up at Universal City Walk and they were absolutely phenomenal!

John: Jerry Garcia played a couple of songs on Maiden?

David: Jerry Garcia, who I had known for years and years, and I was doing a couple of pieces. No one actually knew that he played pedal steel guitar. This was before New Riders or anything like that. I, of course, spent time with him at his house and listened to him play and played with him there. So when it came time to do that second album, I heard a couple of places where I thought I might showcase his talent and other instruments besides the guitar, which nobody had ever done. So I invited him to sit in on some sessions and he was delighted to do it. He wanted almost nothing. I almost had to force him to take something to do it. He just wanted to do them and so it turned out to be a lot of fun. I just tried on the second album, unlike the first album, which really was a labor of passion. I just tried to make the second album lighten up and make it more fun because we were enjoying life at that point. We were a success and I just felt it was time to enjoy our success and make some music that was just about good feeling, for one another and the community. Invite friends down I had a good feeling about and have them sit in.

John: Then came "Choice....

David: "Choice Quality Stuff"

John: Right, then the "Live...was it Carnege Hall" is that where?

David: Carnege Hall, uh huh.

John: Any thoughts on those two albums.

David: Well, the "Choice Quality Stuff Anytime" album was a very difficult thing to accomplish because half way through the recording of that album, and you will see this on the credits, I started to have disagreements with other members of the group as far as the material that would be used to be recorded for the album. We had rehearsed a lot of different songs by a lot of different members of the group and songs by people who weren?t members of the group actually. As producer, I felt it was my responsibility to go with the material that I felt was the strongest and would be the strongest in live performance. I tried to do that and not everybody was happy with my choices. In fact, they were very unhappy with them and because they were unhappy with it and because Mitchell and Hal were unhappy with me not choosing their particular songs. As I explained it to Hal, I had written hundreds of songs but I was only proposing perhaps to put one or two of my songs on the album, even though I had written several hundred songs. He had written one song. He insisted as well as Mitchell that I put their song on the album and gave me an ultimatum, that if I didn?t record their song, that they were going to quit. I told them, "I am sorry, as producer I can?t do that. I have to overview the entire album and make the decisions on what I feel makes the best album. I can?t just put your song on because you wrote one and want it on there." Whether I was right or whether I was wrong, I don?t know but they quit. They quit because I refused to perform their songs. Right in the middle of the album this is. So I was forced to find replacements to finish the album, to finish the contract commitment to the label. Who expected it long before now and was on my back to deliver them some product under our contract. I think they did a stupid thing. I think if you talk to them they might agree that it was a bad decision to just walk away from the whole thing, based on their ego trip like that and I had full support from management, the label and the remaining members of the group. Who were completely in my corner, as far as not choosing to record those songs by them.

John: What happened you are not on the "Today" album? What happened in-between?

David: What happened was that I was burnt out. I just couldn?t go on tour again. I was exhausted. I had literally became paralyzed from so much playing and singing and performing and traveling. My personal life and my marriage was falling apart and I decided that: well the best thing I needed to do at that point was to take some time off. The way I proposed to do that was that I would work with the remaining members of the group and that I would stay on board as the groups producer and keep my hands in there but I wouldn?t perform with the group anymore. So that is when I choose not to be a part of that album and initially it was agreed upon that that was going to happen. They changed their mind as we started going along. They decided they didn?t want me to be their producer, so I said, "Fine." I had already produced the "Carnege Hall" album, which by the way, is not the album that the label, that you will hear. Nobody has ever heard the album that I produced, which is a different album then the one that came out.

John: Is it the same performance?

David: Well no it isn?t the same performance and it is not the same material. The whole thing isn?t the same material and it is certainly not the same mix, completely different. What happened was their new manager, they got a new manager, after this, they didn?t like the way the Carnege Hall album was. They complained to the record label. The new manager made a big stink about it and said that they wanted the album to be redone. They wanted to take the recordings, the original recordings again, change the songs that would be on it. Remix them and make it completely different. They wanted a much harder, louder sound and if you have ever listened to it closely, they damn near mixed me right off of the thing, in many many cases. They took the songs that featured me more off the album. It is not something I am proud of having been associated with at all. In fact, when I was working with the guy in New York, in conjunction with the man I worked with, working on the compilation CD we spoke about earlier, called me in total amazement and shock, and said, "I had no idea there were two "Carnage Hall Live" albums." And I said, "Well, there?s only a few people in the whole world that know about it, perhaps six or seven. Now you are number eight." I said. He said, "Well I listened to both of them. I so much prefer your album. The one you did over the one that came out." He said, "I just can?t believe that happened because your album is a beautiful piece of work, a sensitive beautiful piece of work. Whereas this other thing is kind of a loud, obnoxious. It doesn?t even sound like It?s a Beautiful Day to me." I said, "Well finally one person in the whole world. You are the only person in the world that ever said that!" I felt very good about it I felt like I had been vindicated.

John: Maybe someday I hope the rest of the world will be able to hear it.

David: I hope so, of course I don?t own it, so I can?t give it to you.

John: Right. So after you left some of my publications they mention that you went and got yourself involved in a couple of groups for a short time?

David: Uh huh.

John: Edge City and Love Gun.

David: Edge City and what?

John: Love Gun.

David: OK, Edge City is a group of musicians. There was a place called Brothers right on the Russian River in Gurnville, nice little club. In fact I have some recordings from the some of the times we played there that are really quite entertaining. They are very good and I like the material that I had written at that point. It is a little different than any of the Beautiful Day stuff. It sounded a little more like the Lovin? Spoonful I guess you would say. I wrote some material for Edge City. Anyway, they were a group that were bumping around and playing mostly at this Brothers place, kind of like a house band. I came by there one night and introduced myself. They invited me to come back and sit in with them so I went back and sat in with them. There was some really pretty good musicians in the band. The guitarist player, Lynn Burwell, was really quite phenomenal. I still talk to him from time to time. By the way, he lives out in Riverside not too far from here. We reminisce about some of the good times we had.

John: So how long did you play with them?

David: Oh I guess probably maybe six months or so, six to eight months something like that. A friend of mine, and old friend was managing a club called the Orphanage in San Francisco. He invited me to bring Edge City down, some of my new songs and things they had always been doing, and do several nights there at the Orphanage and we would be opening up for Booker T and the MG?s. That first night we played there I was doing a radio interview at the bar there with the local radio station, much like I am doing now, and who came and sat at the bar but my present wife Linda and her girlfriend. I didn?t speak to her or anything. I thought she was extremely attractive. I was really attracted to her, as she was me, I guess, because the second night we were there, she returned this time alone. When I saw she had come back alone the second night that?s when I approached her and introduced myself. We have been together ever since. I mean since that night.

John: That is quite a long time.

David: And that was in ?74. I was glad to be out playing again, Beautiful Day was behind me, the nightmare. I thought, "What the heck, I haven?t got anything in this world except what I started out with, which an old fiddle and my talent, so I?ll just go with that." I met a new fine lady who really had my interests at heart and didn?t seem to care about riches or fame or anything like that. We just really thoroughly enjoyed being with each other and I started putting my life back together again. Now that night when I performed and this is the biggest thing I ever did with Edge City, playing at that nightclub in San Francisco. Playing that night opening for Booker T, a guy in the rhythm section that was accompanying Booker T, approached me at the end of that engagement, said they were local guys living in Marin County. These guys were phenomenal musicians mind you. You can imagine touring with Booker T. You had to, you know what I am saying? You had to be top guns and they were. They expressed an interest in putting a group together under my leadership if they liked the material that I might propose that we do. Well, at that point it was just an offer that was too good to be true. I saw the potential there to put together a super group. A group of really terrific musicians, you know what I am saying? Way better than anybody in Edge City.

John: Right.

David: And perhaps could put me back on top again even, with the right material. So I had some material that I had written that was more in a straight ahead kind of, R & B rock style that would also feature my violin. I played some of the music that I was proposing to do with them, along with some of the copy tunes of my arrangements of some kind of classic R & B tunes. They loved it. They liked it, said they wanted to do it and I got a rehearsal studio and began rehearsing with them and not long after that a new agent. Not long after that a new record contract with Amherst Records. Most of the fellows, if not all of them, you will hear playing with me on the two albums that I did with Amherst Records. So my instincts at that point were right.

John: Yeah, I have one of them myself "White Bird." I always have enjoyed it. I never picked up the second one.

David: The second one is different. I think it is a better album. It?s more cohesive. The first album was kind of a strange experience to me because instead of having to change bands in the middle of an album. I had to change material in the middle of an album, completely change the whole direction of an album I was working on. I recorded several new pieces with the band. Sent them back to New York and the fellow that owned the record company, Amherst Records, didn?t like it. He lied to me. He lied to me. He said that he wanted me to do with my new band.... Just go in the studio and do my thing. Be creative. Do my thing. Put this new band some where, this new Love Gun band. Well he lied. After I sent him those recording do you know what he said?

John: No

David: "This doesn?t sound like It?s a Beautiful Day."

John: Yeah right.

David: And my face just about hit the floor. Then I said, "Well of course it doesn?t sound like It?s a Beautiful Day. It isn?t. It is a whole new sound. It?s a new group." He said, "Well I don?t like it. I don?t want that. I am not going to spend another dime on this project." Well you can see what happened. At this time mind you, not only was I not receiving any royalties or anything from anyone of any kind. I was literally living on off what I could make performing live but I was deep in debt. The ending of It?s a Beautiful Day just doesn?t end and your broke. You know what I am saying?

John: Right.

David: That would be easy. It ends with you in a gigantic financial hole where you owe all kinds of people lots of money. You know? Not Matthew, no way I could give him hundreds of thousands of dollars. I?m just saying I owe this attorney this and that person that. I mean just regular amounts; you know the bank, the this, the mortgage, everything. You know I would have told the Amherst Records guys to go stick it at that point if I hadn?t been so damn deep in debt but this was my one and only chance to make some real money and get out of debt and pay off these creditors that I owed because I am one of these people who was raised ..... that believes that bellying up on people and failing to meet your financial obligations is almost a sin. Bankruptcy and that type of thing, you just never would hear of such a thing in my family. People were raised to pay their debts and their commitments, no matter what it takes and that?s it and that?s the way I am. I managed to extort and I use the word extort, money out of that label to the point where I managed to pay off all my creditors and debts, back child support payments, I could go on and get myself all square again at least. I was still flat broke but I was square. I am one of those persons that, I am not insecure with being broke but I have a very uncomfortable feeling with having the wolf at my door, so to speak, owing people money and not being able to pay them.

We did the two records for Amherst. It was a very difficult period musically because during that period disco music ruled the earth.

John: Right.

David: It was really the day the music died. It really was when disco came in really big, you know? You didn?t need a group. You didn?t need groups for disco music. You didn?t even need groups to record it. Certainly you didn?t need them to perform it. So really pretty much all of those groups from that period unless they had gotten really really big during that period and could ride it out, so to speak. Do you know what I mean?

John: Right.

David: They died. They couldn?t make it through that period unless you were big enough to ride it out. .... with a Beautiful Day I could reride it out.

John: You performed live during that time didn?t you, with those two album?

David: Yes we did. After we finished the second album we actually went out on a promotional tour and we performed some major concerts with people like: Billy Joel, Boz Scaggs. Plus played places like the Bottom Line in New York City, all over the place, you know, but this was with tour support from the label, in the way of promotion and so on. Then one day, as a matter of a fact, we were back east, I was back east with the band and performing and everything was going great. We had just done some shows at the Fox Theater in Florida, Jackie Gleason Fox Theater....Fox or Paramount, I forget,.... and the University of Florida and I got a call from my management company here in Los Angeles. I wasn?t working with Bill anymore. I was working with a major agency here in Los Angeles. Bill had given up his agency there and he wasn?t doing that anymore. So I had to seek new representation, strictly doing promotion. So I got a top flight agency down here. I got a call from agent here and he told me the label had called and he didn?t intend to continue the tour support. The album was not doing anything. He didn?t even intend to put out a single. That the label felt like, "Well we spent enough on this act. They really haven?t done anything." They moved on to greener pastures and no further tour support would be happening and he suggested that I get the band together and tell them that from this day on they were unemployed. That?s exactly what I had to do. I put them on the airplane and sent them all home unemployed.

end of side three.......

With that group my direction was kind of romantic tinged R & B rock kind of songs, You know.

John: We were just talking about the demise, I guess you might call it, of you recording career with your solo. Actually wasn?t it called the David LaFlame band or just David LaFlame?

David: Well when they wouldn?t go with my whole Love Gun program the label decided to put... and they couldn?t use Beautiful Day, they put it out under my name.

John: Right because your name has some value to it.

David: Yeah, because my name had some value and they felt like the Love Gun thing would be trying to establish a totally new name, that kind of thing, you know. I disagreed with them but they had all the money.

John: OK, well we are talking about ?77 maybe ?78 then?

David: Yes.

John: What did you do after that time period.

David: Well I put another group together eventually in Berkeley. I auditioned some people and rented a little rehearsal studio at a music store there and auditioned some people and put another group together, quite a very good group, after a series of auditions with some people who lived in Berkeley and Oakland, musicians. They were all from out of state, as most musicians were in those days. They were there trying to get something going. Went out along with my wife Linda, who at this point, had been studying voice with a famous vocal coach, Judy Davis, there in Berkeley, in fact we both had. I was trying to improve my singing and she was too. The two of us started going out as David and Linda, basically, LaFlame, formerly known as It?s a Beautiful Day, type thing and performing with new musicians again, new material again, along with of course, we always did "White Bird." I wrote new songs. For every group I always group I always wrote new songs that I felt like would showcase that particular group, for that sound. In other words, I would listen to my own group play things and I would start to hear what I thought the strength of that ensemble was then I would push the music in that direction.

I could still get work. I could get work as David LaFlame. It wasn?t on the same level as It?s a Beautiful Day or the same level as my Love Gun group with a new album and tour support but I could play clubs. I had already played everywhere. It was a just matter of getting some representation and there was a couple of different agencies in San Francisco. There was a guy named Steve Kaiser who worked off and on with Big Brother for years had an agency in San Francisco, had a little agency, and was looking for a couple of little groups that he could really work with and people would hire. I talked to him and he got all excited and he said, "Well I know I can book you." So he started booking me and we started touring and performing really from San Diego to Seattle to Denver, just covering all kinds of different venues and clubs, concerts and ski resorts you name it, all over the West, Northwest and Southwest. They were happy to have us. Audiences didn?t care if it was Beautiful Day, as long as it sounded good and we played a couple of the Beautiful Day songs, they were tickled to death. We found there was still quite a receptive audience out there as there still is today, even when I go out and play today as I did this last summer. I did a few shows, one with a group back east, who accompanied my wife and I at a festival. It went very very well. I performed several shows, my wife and I, with the four surviving members, excluding myself, from the original It?s a Beautiful Day group. Who in recent years have expressed a sort of bury the hatchet type of thinking, and expressed wanting to play together again and let bygones be bygones, and let?s be friends. We have been playing together again quite successfully, unfortunately it isn?t a situation, perhaps if I lived up there we could actually rehearse more and actually become very polished again. We still have the energy, I?ll tell you. When we play it?s happening. Still happening. It?s like riding a bicycle, get back together again and boom were going.

John: I saw that you were being billed as It?s a Beautiful Day. You?ve had no fallout from Matthew over that?

David: During this period since this court appointed thing and everything and this has been months and months. First there was the months waiting for the court to appoint somebody. then there was the months where he was actually getting together to do a report and then doing it and so on. We are talking about eight or nine months of time here, where there has been a stay of execution on anything that Matthew might even do. He can?t make motions. He can?t file anything. He can?t do anything. So we felt like, "Well hell, as long as there is this stay, he can?t do anything, so we might as well go out and play." For the first time in years be in a position where we can go out and actually perform as ourselves, it just always kills me, and he can?t do a thing about it.

John: And it feels good to do that too, right?

David: Of course it does. This last time we played at the Filmore with the Charlatans and the place was sold out. We got such a tremendous response and I had so many people come by. People that are old friends, old musician friends, people like, Harvey Mandel, Nick Gravenities or Mario Cippolina or Huey Lewis and different people I have known for years and years and years, come by and say hi and how good it was to see us and hear us again. You know it was really nice. It was really nice.

John: Great!

David: And afterwards after the show backstage and the encores and we all, the surviving members, gave each other a big hug and talked about that we have to while we?re still able to somehow if we can get clear of this situation. We?ll never have the name again. At least if we can get clear of the judgment so that any work we do do isn?t going to be taken away from us, we really should do an album together.

John: I noticed on the website that there?s a fund that is being built for your legal defense?

David: Well that is a nice thought but it isn?t .... I actually had a fellow from back east send me a hundred dollars. He felt bad for the group and sent me a hundred dollars with a lovely note. A fellow named Dave Roberts from Jacksonville, Florida, who sent me a hundred dollars and said, "Use this for your legal defense fund or just for Linda and yourself to go out to dinner and forget all this shit your going through." Which I thought was really cute.

John: I have emailed Dave quite a bit myself.

David: He sent a wonderful letter like that but essentially what I have been trying to do while all of this is happening is very quickly put some product together just from tapes like the ones you provided. Not necessarily from those tapes but just different tape material like closing of the Filmore and like video material that I have collected over the last thirty years or twenty five at least and still searching for more. I have been putting videos together and so far the one audio CD. This is really a homespun, homemade type of business, right?

John: Sometimes I guess that?s the best.

David: ...and offering them to the public, on the website. This is something that started in February. Our website appeared for the first time on Relix magazine and that?s the only place it has appeared now for people to tune into and based on that Relix magazine website. They have a page on websites you might be interested in viewing, these are deadheads now. Dave Roberts calls himself a "Day Head." I have never heard before but in Jacksonville they call themselves "Day Heads." So far I have received orders and filled some orders but I have received orders for literally, one order or two for everything that I?m selling on the web site. It appears to be growing, slowly, but growing.

John: Great! I know I want to order some stuff myself.

David: It?s good stuff. I have the two Palukaville shows which are of course last year and the year before performances. Their not great tapes but their good and the sound quality is decent, features some other songs people have never heard before along with the classic It?s a Beautiful Day type songs. I have a compilation video that is an hour long that begins with quite a phenomenal performance of "Wasted Union" at the Holland Pop Festival during a violent storm.

John: I actually have seen that one.

David: Have you?

John: Yes.

David: It has that then after that it has a performance of the original members, most of them, performing at the Greek Theater in Berkeley in 1978. Then it has after that, it has a couple of songs that we recorded on television, Linda and I, with the group I was talking about after Love Gun, when we moved back to Berkeley. When the label had dropped us and I had let the band go and I put, remember I said? I put another little group back together and we started playing and did a television show up in Vancouver, called the Vancouver Tonight Show and we did two songs on that show and they turned out really nice. The reason I am using these tapes is I actually have the quarter inch masters of those. I can make them. I am using stuff that I can make off the masters so that the quality is very very good. Do you know what I am saying?

John: Yes I do.

David: so that?s what that is. I haven?t put this together yet. I have another tape that is a compilation tape that is a compilation tape of several concerts and performances that we did, that Linda and I have done over the years, that would be another tape. I have the Pallokaville one and two and then I will have compilations one and two and they will both be about... The first one is an hour. The second one will maybe be a little bit longer than that, perhaps an hour and a half.

John: Do you have anymore concert tapes coming up in the future?

David: Right now some concert tapes are being worked on. Relix Magazine is interested in having us do a concert. We haven?t got the final word on that yet but we have been in discussion. Concerts for their twenty-fifth anniversary this summer which they?ll be celebrating with a concert in San Francisco and in another one in upstate Pennsylvania, a music place there.

John: And you?ll be posting those on the website as the dates become firmed up?

David: Yes. Also there is a good chance, that perhaps in April or something like, April or May, that we very might possibly play at the Filmore again and do probably something else up in that neck of the woods, maybe up in your neck of the woods, as a matter of fact. So that?s being worked on as we speak, by actually, by Mitchell Holman who is quite involved with a lot of productions that they do, Bill Graham organization does and shows at the Filmore that he is involved with. So we will see what happens there. In the meantime, I play casual dates here in Los Angeles. Once in a while a while I get a recording date or a television show or a movie shot or something. Do the best I can, you know. I don?t maintain a band down here. This is not the kind of town where you have a band. Just isn?t you know, can?t afford it. Musicians down here are all hired guns just like I am. They do mostly one night here one night there.

John: Well I think I will take this opportunity to thank you for the interview. You certainly gave me a lot of information to work with. I hope to get it posted on the internet in a timely manner. So best of luck of you and your wife Linda.

David: All right, If you post these things be sure and post our website address.