Quicksilver Messenger Service’s “Happy Trails,” the band’s second album

You likely haven’t heard of Gary Duncan. Or the band in which he played guitar, Quicksilver Messenger Service. But QMS was the prototype psychedlic band, a mainstage act at the legendary 1967 Monterey Pop Festival and Gary Duncan was a very good guitarist in that band.

In early 1969, WC’s roommate, Steve, dragged WC to a QMS show at the old MacArthur Court at the University of Oregon. Steve and WC may have been the only sober folks in the sold-out crowd. The show opened half an hour late, when the musicians slowly drifted out on to the stage. Musicians arrived on the stage and started jamming. After another 10-15 minutes, the lead singer, Dino Valenti, finally wandered on stage and clutched the microphone stand in a death grip. The jam slowly coalesced into a cover of Bo Diddley’s “Who Do You love,” and launched into a 25 minute version of the rocker, with extended solos, extended jamming and Valenti howling the lyrics. Gary Duncan’s solos were astonishing. Watching Duncan jam against his band mate, John Cippolina, was amazing. It was, WC would say, something to see. And hear. They closed the show with a 10-12 minute version of “What(cha Gonna Do) About Me,” which with “Fresh Air” was the closest thing QMS ever had to a Top 40 hit.¹ Valenti, who had clutched the microphone stand the whole show, had to be helped from the stage by his bandmates. It was a totally amazing show, and WC’s ears rang for a couple of days afterward.

WC was told later by a Mac Court employee and stagehand that after the two and a half hour show, Duncan dropped amphetamine and acid, faced into the corner of a room and continued to play guitar until they finally threw him out hours later.

The next morning WC went to the U of O bookstore and bought QMS’s “Live at the Filmore” and “Happy Trails.” To this day, “What About Me” is on WC’s “Favorite Tunes” playlist on his iPhone.

Most things about Gary Duncan and, for that matter, QMS, are shrouded in a cloud of myth, dope fumes and confusion. He was probably born Gary Grubb in San Diego on Sept. 4, 1946, and raised in Ceres, Calif. He claimed he was a Native American orphan who “grew up with rednecks.” He built and fixed cars, worked at canneries, worked as a longshoreman, worked on a sailboat, served in the military and spent a year in prison for marijuana possession before co-founding QMS. “I didn’t think I would live past 25,” he claimed in interviews. But he made it to age 72, although he had reportedly been in a coma for some time. He was the last surviving original member of QMS. 

For more details on Duncan’s life, read the fine biography of Duncan written by this ex-wife, Shelley Duncan, My Husband the Rock Star, which is still available on Amazon.

It was quite a show, Gary Duncan. R.I.P. and happy trails.