In mid-September of 1967, Gainesville’s first headshop, the Subterranean Circus, was founded. By October, the notorious Jourard brothers had found it. A trio of middle and high-school kids, Leonard, Jeff and Marty Jourard felt right at home skulking through the blacklight room, reading the underground newspapers, riffling through the piles of incense. They came separately, in pairs or all together and when they showed up it was not for ten minutes. The Jourards were there for the duration. It’s not as though no other young kids ever came in. But most of them walked around the place, hands in pockets, looking intimidated, uncomfortable. Not the Jourards. Leonard, Jeff and Marty felt right at home, as if they’d been waiting an irritating length of time for the place to finally appear. This is where they belonged. Hell, yeah.
Now, in those days, the counterman at the Circus was often Dick North, a bespectacled, pony-tailed, mustachioed no-nonsense operator, a thoughtful man, a subscriber to eastern religions and the use of experimental drugs, a fellow with little patience for fools or children. Dick was not unlike The Soup Nazi of Seinfeld fame, the Manhattan chef/counterman whose product was so delicious that customers allowed themselves to be tyrannized by his insistence on a strict purchasing regimentation. If a customer erred in the process, the Soup Nazi tossed him into the street with the loud admonishment, “No soup for YOU!” Dick North was The Rolling Paper Nazi. Act up in the Circus and it was “No Big Bambus for YOU!” But remarkably, the Jourards remained. One day I arrived to find the kids arguing the merits of the L.A. Free Press vis-a-vis the East Village Other. I looked at North and wondered: “Dick, you’re not a patient man. You have been known to have a short fuse with difficult customers. Yet, you put up with the Jourard brothers for extraordinary lengths of time. What’s the story?”
Dick North looked at me and smiled. He twirled his ample mustache in the fashion of the eminent Groucho Marx. Then he raised his eyebrows once, twice and said, “Well, sometimes that Marty kid brings doughnuts.”
Then, suddenly, they were gone, Marty and Jeff off to join the rock ‘n’ roll wars with a band called The Motels, Leonard repairing to parts unknown. We kept track of them for awhile via their father, Sydney, a prominent author and psychologist who occasionally visited the Circus. Eventually, as happens often, they were lost to the ethers. Then one day, out of the blue, Marty emailed. He was writing a book, he said, about Gainesville in the 1960s and 70s, the atmosphere of the town, the people, the remarkable music scene. Was I available for an interview? Sure, why not.
Now, when a saxophone player communicates to tell you he’s writing a book, it gives any man pause. Saxophone players and books are not your normal travelling companions. Surely this was a snapshot ambition, a passing fancy. Sooner or later, Marty would settle down with a nice chubby groupie, start a family and all this book foolishness would be forgotten. Except it wasn’t. Marty had the fever. If he didn’t do this, nobody would. The Gainesville of the sixties/seventies deserved a savior, a booster, a….well….a historian! And Marty Jourard would be that man.
Where It All Comes Together
There are towns and there are towns. Why is Gainesville a cradle of individualism, a nursery for rebels, a garden of art and culture and tolerance while nearby Tallahassee, a mere 150 miles down the road, is not? Don’t blame the politics. Austin, like Tallahassee, is a state capitol with a university, too, and is much more like Gainesville than Tallahassee. Why is Athens, Georgia, smack in the middle of the anachronistic South, progressive and vibrant? Why is Bloomington, Indiana cool and West Lafayette not? Why are people avid to live in freezing climes like Ann Arbor, Michigan and Madison, Wisconsin and not at all thrilled by Champaign-Urbana?
There is, of course, more than one answer. Obviously, years ago, some entity planted magic seeds in these cities, got the ball rolling, caused the right people to take an interest. Most of these places have always been a little more tolerant of human indiscretion, a bit more open to new ideas, a little less afraid of rapid progress, a trifle less likely to punish. Creative people, questioning souls, individuals who ride near the edge feel more comfortable in these pockets of acceptance, flourish there, feel free to present their credentials, are not required to hide their light under a bushel. And in these places, have you ever noticed, there always seems to be exceptional music?
Who knows which came first, the chicken or the egg? Were the musicians in these oases nourished by the towns in which they lived, liberated by the positive vapors to explore their art, encouraged by their peers, untrammeled by the dark forces so prevalent elsewhere? Or did the music men help to create that atmosphere, foster it, send it on its irreversible path? A little of both, we suspect. Marty Jourard explores all this in his new book, originally titled “Gettin’ Down In
Gator Town” but altered by the forces of nature to “Music Everywhere; The Rock and Roll Roots of a Southern Town.” The work is more than a history of music in Gatortown. It is, in fact, a remarkable sixties/seventies History of Gainesville. And it goes to prove, once and for all, that saxophone players can, albeit a rare phenomenon, sometimes display multiple talents.
Gettin’ Down In Gatortown
Austin, Texas is famous for nurturing ultimately famous musicians, chief among them the star-crossed Janis Joplin, who rose like a meteor and crashed to Earth like a North Korean missile. But Gainesville, unbeknownst to most, had more than its fair share. I once saw a young Bernie Leadon sing a couple of songs at a small Methodist coffeehouse called The Bent Card. When friend Michael Garcia came home form the Vietnam War, we had a party for him at a little house on Wacahoota Road in Micanopy. Among the bandsmen on the front porch was Don Felder. Not too long afterwards, Leadon and Felder marched off to California to become founding members of the Eagles. Then-unemployed guitarist Ron Blair built the fancy curved stairway in our clothing palace, Silver City. Next thing you knew, Ron was lighting up the West Coast with co-Gainesvillian Tom Petty and the rest of the Heartbreakers.
Everybody has their headliners. But the gestalt of towns like Austin and Gainesville, the subtle underlying common denominator, the apple in the pie has nothing to do with famous people. It has everything to do with the thousands of small, anonymous music-makers who wander these favored places, infiltrating every nook and cranny and house party and tiny bar, plying their trade. In early-sixties Austin, there was a house party every night, some big, some small, but inevitably with the one constant: there was music. It might be a raucous quintet, it might be a brother and sister chirping folk songs or even a UT English professor plunking out old Jimmy Rodgers numbers. As often as not, it was a character named John Clay, clever songwriter, average banjo-picker, leading the party crowd in another stirring rendition of the 1962 Austin National Anthem, The Road To Mingus.
It was the same in late-sixties Gainesville, with a heavier dose of rock ‘n’ roll bands. They were everywhere, jamming in garages, backyards, fraternity parties, anywhere they could find a mike. Audiences of half-a-dozen were perfectly acceptable. And cub reporter Marty Jourard was right in the middle of it, committing it all to memory, learning to play keyboards, picking up his first saxophone, learning to lead The Life! Marty started out playing bass in a band called Road Turkey with guitarist Steve Soar and drummer Stan Lynch, who would later join the Heartbreakers, in sophisticated local joints like Trader Tom’s, where topless dancers solicted $2 table dances while the music played.
Marty eventually moved on the The Motels with brother Jeff, travelling the country, opening for big name acts, seeing the world. Unaccountably, a couple of their songs became big hits in Australia, of all places. When it was apparently over, Marty Jourard repaired to Seattle, took off his shoes, put the saxphone in a case in the closet and began giving expensive piano lessons to the local kids. In the process, he ran across the lovely and talented Natalie, settled down and prepared to live happily ever after. But then….
The Motels would rise again. Oh, not those Motels, not the old guys, but an entirely new group, with the exception of lead singer Martha Davis. Hey Marty, wanna hit the road again? Marty did, and now, at age 58, he’s trouping around the universe—including Australia—with Martha and a bunch of kids, ripe in his second childhood. Who knows, he might last as long as Mick Jagger.
Fortunately for all of us, during his musical down time, Marty diligently pursued his book dream, writing, rewriting, interviewing, spending weeks in Gainesville libraries and newspaper morgues, putting together his Magnum Opus. So now it’s here in all its radiant splendor, available at the Matheson Museum in Gainesville or via Amazon for discreet buyers of prominent literature. It’s a winner, the kind of book you can open on page one or page 78 and start reading. It’s dear to the hearts of those of us in Gainesville but that’s not to say readers in Poughkeepsie wouldn’t enjoy a look. And if you decide to own one, you might very well possess a singular property. You might have the only piece of literature ever written by a saxophone player.
Marty’s Party
Every time a local musician who was once a customer of the Subterranean Circus writes a book, we like to have a party in his honor. Being a demure little fellow, Marty didn’t want anything big but he would accept a dinner for a dozen or so at Leonardo’s 706, a restaurant directly across the street from the one-time Circus property. We were able to locate old headshop alumni Ricky Childs, Bob Sturm and Chuck Lemasters, while Marty brought along the still-frisky Road Turkey crew. The fellowship was lovely, the wine was nice, the meal excellent. A good time was had by all. We discussed with the author the possibility of another novel. Was he satisfied with a one-time boffo hit smash like, say, J.D. Salinger or Norman Mailer, or would he be back for more. He assured us the latter was the case. “Right now,” Jourard assured us, “I’m working on something called ‘Ancient Evenings’.” What is it they say in Rome? Oh yeah, that’s right. Caveat emptor.
Party Pictures Below
Because of the dark interior and light streaming through the windows, photos at Leonardo’s were difficult. Siobhan battled the elements to get something on her little cell phone so we were not shut out completely. Then, in a Frank Merriwell finish, party attendee Michelle Ganeles came through with some nice shots. The first three photos are hers, the rest are from the cell. Marty Jourard is the showoff in the blue shirt.
The Last Word: for locals, Marty’s book launch and signing is today (Thursday) at the Matheson Museum, 513 E. University Avenue, Gainesville, 6 p.m. A temporarily revived Road Turkey delivers a one-night stand Friday at 8 p.m. at High Dive, 210 SW 2nd Avenue.
That’s all, folks….
