" FEAR & LOATHING IN BERKLEY" - Barrington Halls Spaghetti Night Dinners

        The Morlocks had been living in San Francisco for about 3 Months and things had gotten better. We we're playing shows and building a following somewhat. We had a friend that was attending "Berkley University" and was living in a kind of dorm, but it was more like a four story run down apartment building that resembled something out of "Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls". Barrington Hall as it was called was famous for their "Spaghetti Night Dinners", which they would have once a Month. They would make a spaghetti dinner for all the residents of the hall. After they would have a band play and consume copious amounts of "chemicals" . . .

 
         When we got there we where a little surprised , because we where under the impression that this was like a place where students lived. I guess looking back they did live there but it didn't look like they where doing much schooling. The place basically looked like a squat with black lights , glow in the dark graffiti on the walls and people wandering around looking more like hippies, punkers, artists, and rich "trust fund" kids that where spending Papas money trying to figure out what they where going to be . . . basically looking like "Manson Family" rejects. At the time we where a bit paranoid because the Week before we had been in Oakland, (which at that time was still basically a Black community) and some gang guy had run across the street and slapped Jeff in the head because of the bandana he was wearing. I guess it was the wrong color or something along those lines. He said something like, "Don't ever let me catch you wearing this here agian cuz", I think it was also cause Jeff was one of those "White Devils" So we where kind of tripping because "Barrington Hall" was kind of on the border of "Berkley " and "Oakland".

Welcome to Oakland

  
     Everything was going to be alright we realized when some guy and I guess his assistants came a greeted us with a 4ft. tank of nitrous oxide and some 30 gallon trash bags. They said that it was for the band. We we're cool with that because at the time everybody in "The Morlocks" was experimenting with all times of mind altering substances. In other words we we're taking any kind of drug that we could get our hands on. I was actually the "late bloomer" of the group in that area. I know that many of you will laugh at that remark, (and your  humble narrator will acknowledge that he made up for lost time rather quickly) but seriously I had just started to smoke "weed", ( Tommy was like a huge stoner ) and I didn't really drink. But that is a whole different story in itself.  So they shuffled us into the dinning area and helped us haul our gear inside.

Tommy "Stoner" Clark

      At the time "The Morlocks" where using primarily all "Vox" equipment, including drums and guitars, except Ted. He had tried using a "Mark IV" teardrop but he was always accidentally hitting the different knobs or the wah wah hand thing on the bridge of the guitar. In "The Gravedigger V" he used a "Fender Coronado" most of the time and once in awhile he would use a "Silvertone". When he joined up with "The Morlocks" he was using a "Harmony Rocket" hollow-body. He would later switch to a solid-body guitar, a 1965 "Gibson Firebird"and he also had this strange guitar called a "Standell". It was super heavy and really evil looking thing. Haven't seen one since then.
    So we set up in the corner of the room. They had built a small stage maybe about 2ft. tall out of wooden crates. I don't think we did a sound check , if I remember correctly we set up and then we had a spaghetti dinner. Seriously! with wine in little white plastic cups.

TED & JEFF

     About 15 min. later people started to mill into the dinning hall and having dinner, drinking, smoking, etc . . . It was a cool scene, we had never been in a place where you could do whatever you wanted and you didn't have to worry about being hassled by the man. After we had finished the dinner and our "nitrous" we hit the stage, so to speak. I think we opened the show with "Project Blue" and everything went ape-shit!!! Beer and whatever was being thrown around along with spaghetti and God knows what else.

UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF FUZZ

    The dinning room turned into a mass swirling pit of people dancing and just going crazy. Back in those early days people would see us (the way we looked) and they would assume we like "The Monkees" or some other Sixties pop band. Then we would come on a just kick the shit out of them with a sonic blast!!!!
     I remember that the show was quite good and crazy and the people loved it. Then again everyone was so fucked up that they probably would have liked "Emerson, Lake, and Palmer" just as much!!!! Most likely even more than us. Easier to do that fucking "Greatfull Dead" hippie dance thing to.  So anyways we went upstairs to our friends "dorm room", I think it was Susan Goddard, which was really strange because if you knew Susan she was a pretty "straight-laced" girl. We went up like four floors, I mean that place was huge. When we entered her room there was a huge painting of "Lou Reed" from the  "Transformer" album painted on the floor and I remember thinking to myself, " the worm has diffidently turn for you sweetheart". A couple of minutes later our host came into the room with a large plastic freezer bag full of white pills.

The Students at Barrington Hall

     He most generously gave us each a handful of pills and went on his way. Of course we took them without asking what the hell they where. They turned out to be mda , mdma would come out later that Year from the Chemistry department at "U.C. Berkley.  Don't remember to much about the rest of the night . . .
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                                           Leighton Koizumi