Blast from the past- Kairos Coffee House

The other day I went to visit my folks. They still live in the house I grew up in. Driving through the neighborhood always gets the memories flowing. I will do a continuing series of full blown flash backs from time to time.

I drove by Congregation Beth Shalom, obviously now a synagogue, but in the years 67-71
it was Kairos Coffee House, our own slice of Haight St style weirdness right in the middle of suburban Carmichael.

In 67, a couple guys convinced the pastor of this church, United Church of Christ or some such thing to open up in the evenings to have a little coffee house type scene up in what i guess was the cry room.

My friend Paul said to me "hey I found this coffee shop where we can play". So we went over and climbed the stairs. We walk in and there is a a tiny bandstand with the Samuels brothers playing their guitars. A half dozen spool tables were full of earnest college students mostly discussing art, politics, sex,dope what have you..

I say to Paul:" Eff you man, this is a coffee house not a coffee shop."

So I started goin there every night they were open, 3 or 4 times a week. As time went by the coffee house grew and the church shrunk.Pretty soon when it was open it took up the whole building. We had bands playin on the pulpit and we used the former cry room to project San Francisco style lights shows above the band.

Things got weirder and weirder, street people taking refuge from Haight St would hang around and prey on the sheltered hippie kids, tons of dope (weed and acid) were around. A lot of bona fide mentaly ill people hung around, which we we endlessly romanticized.

Some of my first gigs happened there. early on it was a folk concert with the folkies I played with Ethnic Soul, then rock bands. I remember playing there the night Jimi Hendrix died. As my band (Buckwheat) got better and better we played more visible gigs there, opening shows and headlining.

The amazing thing is that this wide open scene, basically unsupervised ( the inmates ran this asylum for sure) lasted for 4 years or so. I remember the county sheriffs raided one time. Or county sheriff was totally obsessed with hippies and his cops were charged with keeping us in line. I remember going out each night with the expectation of getting jacked up and I usually did.I remember the cops had dossiers on us. When the cops did raid (only one time I remember)the toilets got clogged for a week from people flushing their stash.

These days a scene like that would last maybe a week, maybe a few hours. But we were different. I don't remember any violence, not even a fist fight, let alone the shootings that are common now when teenagers party.