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Boots Hughston, now a short 48-year-old man with a paunch and awkward hair, met Chet Helms in 1967. Back then, he wanted Helms to book one of the psychedelic bands he played sax with at the Avalon. Eventually, Hughston got the show, but he never really made a band work. Instead, he earned his way for a while doing session work with Ike & Tina Turner, Santana, and Van Morrison.
Then, in the 1970s, Hughston turned to promoting street fairs, stage-managing the Tribal Stomps, and running the Reggae on the River festival in Humboldt County. He also started investing in real estate. In the 1980s, as a favor to a friend, he helped Helms track the licensing of old Avalon images.
Now, Hughston wanted to take advantage of the vibe created by the Helms benefit and use the Maritime, a large hall with beautiful varnished floors, a wide balcony, and good acoustics, as a venue for launching an offensive against the hegemony of Bill Graham Presents, which had ruled the concert scene in San Francisco for decades. Hughston says his intentions transcended business. He wanted to "bring the families back together." He thought the Family Dog name might do it. He also says he wanted to help Helms, a close, personal friend.
Helms didn't ask for any help. As a matter of fact, he was tired. He didn't really need the stress of running a venue again. But Hughston and a few pals leaned on Helms. "C'mon," they said. "You won't have to do anything. We'll run the hall."
Eventually Helms agreed, signing on with a handshake. For 10 percent of the net (with a $1,200 monthly guarantee), he would contribute the Family Dog logo and show up for concerts and be Chet Helms.
It took a year for Hughston to get the hall. Once he did, he spent "hundreds of thousands" remodeling it, and on Oct. 27, 1995, Gregg Allman, one half of the Allman Brothers, opened the Maritime. Helms was there, but, per his arrangement, he hadn't done much to make it happen.
"It's sad to say," says Hughston, "but Chet had almost nothing to do with the beginning of the Maritime."
After about three months of good, if not terribly successful, shows, the working arrangement with Helms shifted.
"Things changed when [Hughston] ... lost a bit of money. It was kind of a back-to-the-wall mentality," says Helms. It was costing Hughston plenty -- $50,000 a month -- just to run the hall. Big name artists wanted exorbitant amounts of money. (Maritime wouldn't release any figures, but sources say that Willie Nelson, who played after Helms left, could get $50,000 just for a night. Posters alone could cost $4,000 a week.)
And, Maritime partner Grant Jacobs says, "It wasn't like we were making a fortune at the door."
Hughston booked additional shows to spread out the fixed costs -- utilities, for example -- of running the hall. Helms disagreed with the theory: If Hughston ran several shows a week, he thought, not all of them could be special events -- which is to say, Family Dog events. Hughston told Helms it was all about money.
"He wanted to change a lot of things that were -- to me -- quintessential attributes of Family Dog shows," says Helms. Helms wanted an immersive light show; the operators had to be in the room, engaged in the show. Hughston wanted to put them in a control room on another floor and have the light show pumped into the space by video projector.
"Boots was taking care of the business. That was not Chet's primary concern," says Queenie Taylor, a local event producer who booked a few of the early Maritime shows. "I don't think that Boots completely shared [Chet's] vision, and that's why they are not working together. That vision can be unprofitable."
But Hughston wasn't the only one with money concerns. The Maritime took a bath with one of Hughston's bookings, Richie Havens and Mose Allison, two acts that Helms also loved but knew wouldn't draw. "Those were idols of Boots' and I think that's the temptation when anyone gets involved in promotions," Helms says. "That's not always the most realistic business thing to do."
Helms also thought Hughston was heavily overpaying -- by as much as $5,000 or $10,000 -- for some concerts.
There were other silly mistakes, like Hughston announcing performances before he confirmed the bands that were to play them. Neither the Counting Crows nor Tracy Chapman ever played the Maritime -- even though Hughston had said they would.
Then there were operational concerns. Hughston didn't want to have staff meetings. Helms wanted to hear what everybody had to say on any given issue.
"Chet is about a vibe. He's got the Zen Buddhist approach. Boots is the antithesis: He is a control freak," says Herbie Herbert, who worked in the music industry for 25 years and now fronts the Sy Klopps Blues Band. "He's such a little tyrant, such a little fascist."
Meanwhile, although the Maritime wasn't faring well, Hughston and his financial partners were recording and digitally videotaping every band that performed, with the idea of marketing live CDs and videotapes. Helms, who was originally supposed to receive a percentage of the Maritime's monthly net profits with a minimum $1,200 guarantee, worried that the venue would sink all net profits into this new business venture -- and Helms would, therefore, always receive a percentage of nothing.
"That's how it happens in the movie business," he says. "You achieve a surplus, and you seed a new project with it, and if those projects are cross-collateralized, you never see a net."
Helms wanted Hughston to separate these projects instead of lumping them together, and threatened a lawsuit in May 1996. Hughston was offended.
