Gary Duncan Quicksilver - Live at Fieldstone 1997

Beating the bootleggers at their own game, Live at Field Stone was recorded on Memorial Day 1997 at the Field Stone Winery in Healdsburg, CA by the simple expedient of attaching two lapel microphones to a DAT tape machine. The result could have been a mass of high-tech mud, but digitally remastered and tweaked for release, the seven songs here capture Gary Duncan's recycled Quicksilver sounding phenomenal, with lengthy explorations of "Voodoo Boogie #1" and "Bubba Jeans" and seething romps through "Senor Blues" and "Gator Bait." There are moments, to be sure when you could wish for better separation between the instruments, but the disc still relays all the excitement and energy of the night, with the crowning glory arriving via a 15-minute frenzy through Herbie Hancock's "Maiden Voyage." A companion volume can be found in the form of Live at Sweetwater. Infuriatingly, it was pressed without any hard recording data beyond the track listing and lineup, but beyond noting the replacement of bassist Bobby Vega with Jimmy Guyette, this could be a continuation of the simultaneously released Live at Field Stone CD, with "Wide Laig," John Lee Hooker's "Bottle Up and Go," and a wonderful revision of Marvin Gaye's "Inner City Blues" joining regular Quicksilver favorites "Close Enuff 4 Jazz," "Senor Blues," and "Maiden Voyage" in the repertoire. The recording quality is a little scratchy, as seems to be the case with a lot of these releases, but the energy levels never falter, and Gary Duncan remains the visionary hero behind some of the most exquisitely realized jamming of the age. This may not be the sound of classic '60s Quicksilver, but every band has to grow up sometime. AMG.
 

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Gary Duncan Quicksilver - Strange Trim 2005

There aren't many, if any, medals or awards given for the positions of best second lead guitar players in rock history. If there were, though, Gary Duncan would be right up there for his work in Quicksilver Messenger Service. Quicksilver is most-remembered for John Cippolina's striking, shimmering leads. Yet part of what made them a solid band, rather than just a pretext for guitar solo grandstanding, was Duncan's sympathetic second guitar, which could play (often in the same song) both rhythm and accomplished lead lines on its own, with a more traditional tone than Cippolina's.

Quicksilver Messenger Service, like many of the '60s San Francisco psychedelic bands, were assembled from disparate parts that few would have guessed would have been compatible. In Quicksilver, Duncan and drummer Greg Elmore emerged from the teen garage rock scene. Both had been in the Brogues, though Duncan (born Gary Grubb), wasn't in the band when they did their first single in 1965. Under the name Gary Cole, he joined the Brogues in the summer of 1965 and was in the band when they recorded their second and last single, which paired a fine sullen version of "I Ain't No Miracle Worker" (better known as done by the Chocolate Watch Band) and "Don't Shoot Me Down" (in the style of one of Duncan's favorite bands, the Pretty Things). In late 1965, the Brogues broke up and Elmore and Duncan moved from Merced to San Francisco to join Quicksilver Messenger Service.

On Quicksilver's first two albums, Duncan also contributed some vocals and co-wrote standout songs like "Light Your Windows," "Gold and Silver," and "The Fool." However, Duncan left at the end of 1968, frustrated by what he felt was the band's lack of motivation to expand their repertoire and write new songs. In 1969, he tried to form bands with his good friend Dino Valenti, who had been planning to be in the group that became Quicksilver Messenger Service before getting busted, before Duncan was involved in the project (and before Duncan had even met Valenti). At the end of 1969, though, Duncan ended up rejoining Quicksilver and Valenti got in the band as well. The band radically changed in character as Valenti took a heavy role in the singing and songwriting, and Cippolina and David Freiberg left over the course of their early '70s albums, which were less impressive than those of the previous decade. Valenti and Duncan kept the band going through much of the '70s, but by the end of the decade, Duncan left music for a while to work as a longshoreman for a few years.

Duncan was the sole remaining member of the vintage Quicksilver -- as their name had now been shortened to -- when Peace by Piece came out in 1986. He has remained active in the music since, sometimes as the principal in Quicksilver. AMG.

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