Someone asked me in the comments what I thought about Quicksilver Messenger Service. My response was that outside of a couple of songs I love, they never really did it for me. It’s a little strange, in a sense, in that Dino Valenti was a fantastic singer and John Cipollina was a tragically underrated guitarist, but the band’s history was chaotic, to say the least, and that’s probably why they never really developed a lot of traction with me.
Still, there are those two great songs, “Fresh Air”…
… and “What About Me?”.
Too bad they couldn’t keep their shit together.
If you want a good taste of Cipollina’s talent, here’s the band in one of their many re-groupings, in 1975 at Winterland, performing “Fresh Air”.
Dude definitely had some serious chops.
Get The Picture 
“What About Me” out to be a big hit around here. What’s next, “Momster” by Steppenwolf or a little Country Joe?
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Monster
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Quicksilver Messenger Service – Gold and Silver
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I know it wasn’t released in the ’60s, but “Gypsy Lights” from 1975 is one of their best, IMO.
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Good stuff. Haven’t come across the live version. Thanks for sharing
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What about the album Happy Trails with Who Do You Love and Mona live?
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Wore out a copy of Quicksilver Anthology in the early 70’s but really only wore out two tracks, “Fresh Air” and “What About Me.” Always wondered if the rest of the album would have sounded better if I was into drugs instead of alcohol.
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Listening now- I’ve only ever owned one album of theirs, I think, (Happy Trails) and never dug deep. Nice to hear these again…the most screwed-OVER band in history, I contend, is Moby Grape. Their manager was worse than the Badfinger guy, if that’s possible, and they’ve never had their music decently available in the digital age without immediately legal action being taken to remove it. Of their very few albums, I think most have never been released on CD in complete or original form and the aging manager was continuing to suppress them and refusing to either relent or die, like Mr. Burns from “The Simpsons” or something, last I heard.
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