When I ask musician Dan Hicks about his

memories of Marin, he's quick to remember some

of his more irregular gigs:

"There was this Christmas Jug Band," he says,

and "We did a marching band thing called 'The

Toilet Bowl'.  Click HERE to watch a video of Dan

perform an Irving Berlin song with "The Christmas

Jug Band" at the Sweetwater in 1990. 

"The Toilet Bowl" was actually a touch-football

game played every year between Mill Valley's Old

Mill tavern and The 2am Club bar at a field near

the Mill Valley Rec Center.  

During halftime, Dan and the Jug Band performed

marching band routines inspired by Dan's early

experience in a high school marching band.  "I

could turn any kind of song into a march," he

says.  "Like 'Somebody Stole My Gal' (by Cab

Calloway).  We'd do a march to that song and

play the cadence." 

Somewhere buried away Dan believes he still has

a videotape of an old "Toilet Bowl" performance

and hopes to share it with MarinNostalgia.org when he finds it.  "It was really

funny at the time," he says, "And I think it would be really funny now

too."  (Register for the free e-newsletter to learn when the Toilet Bowl video

and other new material is added to this site.)

"There's still a snapshot of us up above the bar at The 2am Club at Fort

Mason marching along," he says.

Another hangout Dan enjoyed was The Brothers bar in Mill Valley.  "It was

kind of a utility looking place but it had a little homey feeling.  "

Regarding the clientele:  "Let's say, they weren't 'street people' but the class

of the clientele went (down) from The Old Mill to the 2am to The Brothers and

then to the Fireside.  And then the Sweetwater was kind of in its own

category with its live music.  It wasn't a real 'hang place'." 

Something that has really changed about Mill Valley from the 'old days', says

Dan, is the feeling of stillness he got when walking downtown on a Sunday:

"When I first moved to Mill Valley there were a lot less people," he says. 

Sundays were just dead out there, nothing doin' downtown, just a few people

walking around, if that.  That must have been '72 or '73.  That's a really vivid

memory for me."

Dan also spent a good deal of time in Sausalito.  "Sausalito was cool," he

says, "I lived in the houseboats.  I felt it was kind of the last frontier of

freedom.  You go out there and girls might be bathing nude on the top of the

boats.  I moved from the Haight Ashbury to Gate 5 so I used to come over

from the City and play at this little folk joint in Sausalito across from the

theater that's there now.  The week I moved into Sausalito, I thought 'Gee, I'll

have a cool place to gig.' But it burned down."

Why did he move to Marin in the first place?

It was 1968, he had just broken up with a woman he'd been living with in the

City, and was looking for a change.  He remembers, "I'd get out of the car

while visiting Sausalito and get this peaceful calm feeling...  Somebody's

houseboat on Gate 5 was available for rent and I moved in.  I was starting

my band and we would rehearse on top of that houseboat.  I had a pretty

good artist's life -- do creative stuff in the afternoon and hang out at night." 

Dan says that Marin's quiet and peacefulness influenced his songwriting. 

"When writing songs I always like to have a quiet isolation and I've got that

right here (in Mill Valley)," he says. "Quite a few tunes were conceived here." 

He recalls "Hell I'd Go", a song he wrote at his house on E. Blithedale.  It's a

discussion of what Hicks would do if an alien spacecraft landed and wanted

to take him away.  He begins to rattle off the lyrics:

"Hell, I'd go

If they came down and got me

They could be little green men, yeah

That wouldn't stop me

Buzzin' through the galaxy

Who could beat a ride for free?

For all I know I'm just the perfect fellow

Not too white, not too yellow

Get me on that big space ship

This could be my hippest trip!"

I asked him, "Inspired by the '70s movie "Close Encounters of the Third

Kind"?

No, he says, an independent idea.  But as Hicks remembers various songs

he's written in Marin,  he recalls writing several atop his Gate 5 houseboat. 

And he remembers he may have some video of that too which he wants to

share with the site when he finds it.  So, if you'd like to be notified when Dan

Hicks finds his lost tapes, click on the REGISTER link to the right and stay

tuned.

Please visit Dan Hicks' official website by clicking HERE.  

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COPYRIGHT

All of the material

on this website is

copyrighted by

Jason Lewis

unless otherwise

stated.  Those

images not owned

by Jason Lewis

are copyrighted

by their

respective

owners.  If you

are interested in

using material

from these pages,

please contact

Jason Lewis at

jason@marinnost

algia.org prior to

doing so.