On December 31, 1969,
Quicksilver Messenger Service appeared at a New Year's Eve show in San Francisco with their fourth different lineup since their formation in 1965. Originally, the band had been a quintet consisting of guitarist
John Cipollina, singer
Jim Murray, bassist
David Freiberg, guitarist
Gary Duncan, and drummer
Greg Elmore.
Murray dropped out before the recording and release of the group's self-titled debut album in May 1968. After the appearance of the second album,
Happy Trails, in March 1969,
Duncan departed and was replaced by keyboardist
Nicky Hopkins for the third album,
Shady Grove, released in December 1969. But at that New Year's Eve show,
Duncan returned, and he brought with him singer/songwriter/guitarist
Dino Valente, who actually had been the original instigator of
QMS, even though a prison term had prevented him from performing with the band at its inception, and after being paroled he had returned to his solo career. That might help explain how it could have been that
Valente so thoroughly took charge of the group upon his belated arrival.
Castles in the Sand brings into legitimate release a rehearsal tape of the newly reconfigured
QMS, recorded either in late 1969 or early 1970, that has circulated among collectors and been bootlegged.
Valente's domination is apparent throughout. He directs the rehearsal, stopping and starting the songs, calling out chord changes, giving instructions to the other musicians, and even making the admonition "Wake up" a couple of times. Still, this is a perfunctory run-through of material in which
Valente's whiny voice is the major element. The set includes folk and country tunes like "I Know You Rider" that no doubt date from
Valente's days as a folkie, along with evolving
Valente originals such as an incomplete take of "Subway" (which would appear on the album
What About Me a year later). The final track, "The Fool," is not the same song as the one with that title that appeared on the band's debut album. Never intended for commercial release, these recordings provide an interesting inside view of a band in transition, and they will be of interest to fans, but they do not come up even to the level of the
Valente-led albums that followed with this lineup,
Just for Love and
What About Me.