The psychedelic music scene of 1960s Houston was accelerated by the opening of Love Street Light Circus Feelgood Machine, more commonly known as Love Street, on June 3, 1967.
The music venue took over the old Sunset Coffee building at Allen’s Landing on Buffalo Bayou. Artist David Adickes envisioned Love Street after a trip to San Francisco, where Texans like Chet Helms and Bob Simmons were key to the psychedelic ballroom scene then in full swing.
Love Street quickly became ground zero for Houston’s counterculture. Adickes originally thought of the club as a “summer project,” but new ownership partners from Houston’s International Artists record label extended Love Street’s run until 1970, also making that label’s psychedelic artists house bands for the record company’s very own venue.
The club had tables and chairs but also a space called “Zonk Out” that contained cushions and backrests for more horizontally inclined patrons to enjoy the psychedelic light shows.
While the patrons could “zonk out,” the performers endured the additional labor of carrying their equipment all the way up an exterior staircase to the stage on the third floor. Bands that did so included a who’s who of Texas psychedelia: the 13th Floor Elevators, the Red Krayola, the Lost and Found, Shiva’s Headband, and Fever Tree, blues musicians Johnny Winter and Lightnin’ Hopkins, and even a late-night cameo from San Francisco’s Jefferson Airplane.
