Ed, Jimi, And The Hendrix Snickers Bar Incident

The show was on July 1st, 1967. (The poster is on the website on the "Strawberry Alarm Clock" main page.) Strangely enough, we were the only band pictured on the official poster! Hendrix had just finished playing the infamous Monterrey Pop Festival a month earlier, so he was big news.

We finished playing our set at the Earl Warren Showgrounds in Santa Barbara. Hendrix shared our dressing room. I took a seat in the corner of our dressing room and sat there watching Jimi change the strings on his white Stratocaster. He only had ONE roadie. This one guy set up the drums, the amps, drove the equipment truck and collected the money. ONE guy. He walks in with a case of Snickers bars...24 to the box...and starts unwrapping them and handing them to Hendrix, who was downing them in two bites each while turning the tuning keys on his guitar. He probably ate three quarters of the box in about 10 minutes. Energy.

That was the only time I ever heard Hendrix play. His amp buzzed and crackled the whole show. I guess what that roadie could NOT do was fix amplifiers. I had never seen a Marshall amp up close before, but these were the most beat up pieces of furniture I had ever seen.