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After the show, Slauson says, a record company offered $250,000 for the rights to produce a record from Tribal Stomp. Helms thought the sound was worth more and turned the offer down. "I thought he was crazy," Slauson says. "That was just for the audio. I wanted to use that to finance the video."
The record was never made. Helms and Slauson got into legal disputes. Attorney fees stacked up over the years. No one has seen the video.
"I love Chet," Slauson says. "But he's the lamb who backs off the cliff in fear of the unseen wolf."
Helms planned the second Tribal Stomp for Sept. 8-9, 1979. He worked the entire year arranging the venue -- the Monterey Fairgrounds, at the exact place the famous Monterey International Pop Festival was held 12 years earlier. The bill was huge, with more than 40 acts scheduled to play over two days. Whereas the first Stomp appealed to nostalgic thirtysomethings, Helms wanted this event to have cross-generation appeal: Wavy Gravy and the Clash shared the same stage.
Helms had a hard time getting the correct permits for the event. Permission for audience members to camp didn't come until the last minute, so he couldn't advertise an alternative to expensive tourist hotels. Two weeks before the concert, Us magazine came out with a story about major concerts that had collapsed due to the gasoline crisis in 1979.
Besides booking the event in Monterey, the biggest mistake Helms made was one that he should have learned from Bill Graham during the Avalon days. Helms neglected to impose territorial imperatives.
Territorial imperatives are spelled out in a fundamental clause of most sizable musical performance contracts. If a contract includes territorial imperatives, a band cannot play other concerts near in place or time to the performance under contract. This prohibition protects the owner of a concert venue; the fewer performances a band gives in a region on a particular weekend, the higher the audience demand for the performances that do occur.
As a former manager, however, Helms thought territorial imperatives hurt bands. "I had managed Big Brother and watched them struggle and watched them starve," says Helms. "Maybe that was a poor business judgment on my part, but that wasn't where my heart was. My heart started out with the bands, and I could never bring myself to put those kind of restrictions on people."
When Helms booked the Clash the band was still fresh in the States, and the fans were rabid. But without a territorial imperatives clause in the contract, the group booked their tour finale in San Francisco's Kezar Stadium a month later. Other bands played nearby as well. Suddenly, the coups of Tribal Stomp II didn't look so special.
Slauson, along to film the Stomp again, sensed a sinking ship. Twelve days before the Monterey show he demanded to know where the money for audio and video was. Helms didn't have an answer. Slauson said Helms was greedy. The accusation was too much.
Helms fainted in response.
When the gates finally opened, there were eight people in line. Helms needed at least 13,000 just to break even. Over the entire weekend, only 6,000 would show.
Helms was crushed -- even losing the Avalon had not hurt as much. There were some lawsuits. He became deeply depressed. He wrote off rock music and went back into therapy.
After Helms had stewed and brooded for almost a year, his girlfriend, Judy Davis, convinced him to find something else. Besides, Helms was broke. He decided he'd try to sell two canvases by the 19th-century French academic painter Gustave Dore that he'd picked up for a song back in 1971. When a private collector bid $142,500, Helms couldn't believe it. Suddenly, he had more money than he'd seen in his life. He immediately bought dental work ($4,000) and a used tan Audi ($7,000). The rest of the money was for starting over -- the purchase of a small space for an art gallery on Nob Hill. "I never made it in rock 'n' roll," he says. "I thought I might as well have a stab at the art world."
Helms stayed away from rock music for the next 14 years. By then, three surgical procedures that aimed to remove plaque from the arteries in his heart had completely drained his pockets -- and more. His old friends responded in classic fashion: They offered to throw a benefit concert.
When the event finally came to fruition on April 30, 1994, 3,500 sweaty hippies crammed themselves into the Maritime Hall. Another 3,000 were turned away at the door. The crowd looked like a 25-year high school reunion of the kids who grew up in the Haight-Ashbury. Yes, they were there to watch more than 80 musicians play for seven hours. But the event wasn't just a concert.
Helms stood onstage with hepatitis C, his heart condition, that stack of hospital bills, and a mess of emotions. "He was clear, pristine," says Boots Hughston, who paid $40,000 out of pocket to produce the benefit. "He was really humble. He was excited. He was very much thankful."
"I remember him saying that he was glad that they hadn't waited until he died to have that tribute," says Helms' friend Craig Lucken.
Terence Hallinan, then on the Board of Supervisors and an ex-roommate of Helms' from the early '60s, passed a key to the city. The crowd exploded. Members of the Doors, the Monkees, Moby Grape, and Country Joe & the Fish all performed. There were poets and writers, Michael McClure and Ken Kesey. Graphic artists made 11 different commemorative posters; the profits went to Helms.
All told, $70,000 came out of that audience and went toward Helms' medical care.
"Shit Chet, let's just start the Dog again," Boots Hughston told Helms. "I'll pay, let me do it."
