BEAUTIFUL YOUTH - ROCK CONCERTS 1969 -70

When Chase moved into 136 The Embarcadero in the winter of 1965, he shared a block long studio with a photographer Anthony Martin. Martin was already working with Pauline Oliveros and other electronic composers at the Tape Music Center on Divisidero.  Chase found a job there as janitor and would help set up the many concerts the group would hold.  During many of these concerts, Martin would design the visuals which used colored inks mixed with oil moving on top of water, which he would manipulate on a overhead projector.  At one point he announced that a new rock band called the Bryds asked him to tour with them using this technique. Soon Martin was working in all of the shows being given at the new Fillmore Auditorium.  Chase had been experimenting with projected images also for Pauline Oliveros and his friend, choreographer Elizabeth Harris.  He would often give Martin a hand at the FIllmore.

THE TRIPS FESTIVAL 1966

In February of 1966 Bill Graham (who had produced a theater work with Chase, Oliveros, and Harris a year before) had arranged a weekend of music at the Longshoreman's Hall near Fisherman's Wharf. (what is now remembered as the historic Trips Festival)  Martin was asked to provide the visuals for the entire weekend and found the job more than overwhelming. Chase volunteered to help, and use some of his slides as well, and spent the weekend working some slide projectors by hand.  He had this to say:

"I can't remember it very clearly, because, quite frankly so much of it was improvised and everyone in the audience seemed bonkers.  We would have to literally scream to communicate. Tony's work was pulsing to the music, moving in patterns across the singers & musicians and all of the other technicians (me included) would simply decide when things were looking monotonous or boring and throw in some more imagery.  I wasn't really that familiar with all the personalities, though I knew who the Grateful Dead was, and the Jefferson Airplane. But we were so busy you really couldn't think, just filling slide projectors and clicking away. Every now and then Ken Kesey would cause a commotion downstairs - one part of the auditorium would burst into a frenzy. Later when we were cleaning up I learned that most everyone down on the floor had been given acid.  Quite frankly, I thought the whole weekend was a complete mess, disorganized, chaotic, out-to-lunch. I realize now it set a pattern for the next few years of ecstasy and burn-out."

Chase continued to develop his eye at public events like rock concerts. With a zoom lens he was often able to capture people in moments that were more intimate. The large outdoor event below was the first California concert by The Who.