Rockin' at the Red Dog
A short note from Reno. A while back I read a short but informative book about the development of the psychedelic San Francisco music scene back in the sixties. Can't seem to find it in the library catalog at the moment, but I think it was called "San Francisco Scene" or "San Francisco in the Sixties", or something like that. One of the bands that really kinda kicked off the scene were the Charlatans, and one interesting aspect of their development was their frequent trips to a place called the Red Dog Saloon, in Virginia City, Nevada. Back in the days of the Comstock Lode, the silver and gold from Virginia City helped to build San Francisco.
Intrigued by the book, as well as the movie Rockin' at the Red Dog, I went to the visitors' center to ask about its whereabouts. A woman dressed in period costume was happy to reminisce. Unfortunately, several years ago, new owners bought the building and jacked up the rent, forcing the Red Dog to close. Here's the building. The right half is boarded up at the moment, while a new establishment is apparently in the left half.
One of the old signs is reputedly hanging in another local establishment, though I wasn't able to locate it, and one is hanging outdoors. Of course, they used to have tons of vintage concert posters. Also formerly in the saloon, but now at some unknown location, is the only three dimensional artpiece made by the dude who designed the Grateful Dead skeleton.
Don't have time to detail all the fun they had back in the day, of dressing up in olde tyme clothes, playing music and shooting guns indoors, but check out this and this. Here's the view looking out of town to the east:
Intrigued by the book, as well as the movie Rockin' at the Red Dog, I went to the visitors' center to ask about its whereabouts. A woman dressed in period costume was happy to reminisce. Unfortunately, several years ago, new owners bought the building and jacked up the rent, forcing the Red Dog to close. Here's the building. The right half is boarded up at the moment, while a new establishment is apparently in the left half.
One of the old signs is reputedly hanging in another local establishment, though I wasn't able to locate it, and one is hanging outdoors. Of course, they used to have tons of vintage concert posters. Also formerly in the saloon, but now at some unknown location, is the only three dimensional artpiece made by the dude who designed the Grateful Dead skeleton.
Don't have time to detail all the fun they had back in the day, of dressing up in olde tyme clothes, playing music and shooting guns indoors, but check out this and this. Here's the view looking out of town to the east:
Labels: conorpost
3 Comments:
I wish you would've given us more details about the lady who worked at the place and the stories she had to tell. For a moment I wasnt sure what period costume and reminiscing you were talking about, then I realized that weather she was some freakily old woman (160?) or just an freaky old hippie (60?) the stories might not have been all that different. I love all sorts of 60s lore and when it's combined (somehow) with the history of the last decades of the old west, it is just to me a fascinating combination.
Yeah, this was fairly interesting. Did you go to Reno specifically to see this place or was this just a side trip?
The main trip was to Reno, but definitely had the Red Dog in mind when choosing to do a VC daytrip, although it's pretty interesting in itself. Her period costume was from the vicinity of the 1860's rather than the 1960's. I believe she mentioned having moved there 11 years ago, so her first-hand stories were of a more recent vintage.
Here's the second version of the first ever psychedelic concert poster.
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