Quicksilver Messenger Service

Quicksilver Messenger Service
Quicksilver Messenger Service, 1970 John Cipollina, Greg Elmore, Nicky Hopkins and David Freiberg
Background information
Also known as	Quicksilver, QMS
Origin	San Francisco, California, United States
Genres	Psychedelic rock,acid rock
Years active	1965–1979, 2006–present
Labels	Capitol, Edsel
Associated acts	The Brogues
Website	quicksilvermessengerservice.com
Members	Gary Duncan David Freiberg
Past members	John Cipollina Greg Elmore Jim Murray Nicky Hopkins Dino Valenti Mark Naftalin Mark Ryan Harold Aceves Chuck Steaks Roger Stanton Bob Flurie Michael Lewis Skip Olsen

Quicksilver Messenger Service (sometimes credited as simply Quicksilver) is an American psychedelic rock band formed in 1965 in San Francisco. They were most famous for their biggest hit, the single "Fresh Air" (from the album Just for Love), which reached #49 in 1970.

Quicksilver Messenger Service gained wide popularity in the San Francisco Bay Area and through their recordings, with psychedelic rock enthusiasts around the globe, and several of their albums ranked in the Top 30 of the Billboard Pop charts. Though not as commercially successful as contemporaries Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver was integral to the beginnings of their genre. With their jazz and classical influences and a strong folk background, the band attempted to create an individual, innovative sound. Member Dino Valenti drew heavily on musical influences he picked up during the folk revival of his formative musical years. The style he developed from these sources is evident in Quicksilver Messenger Service's swung rhythms and twanging guitar sounds.

After many years, the band has attempted to reform despite the deaths of several members. Recently, original members Gary Duncan and David Freiberg have been touring as the Quicksilver Messenger Service, using various backing musicians.

There is some confusion as to the real origins of the group. According to John Cipollina:

It was Valenti who organized the group. I can remember everything Dino said. 'We were all going to have wireless guitars. We were going to have leather jackets made with hooks that we could hook these wireless instruments right into. And we were gonna have these chicks, backup rhythm sections that were gonna dress like American Indians with real short little dresses on and they were gonna have tambourines and the clappers in the tambourines were going to be silver coins.' And I'm sitting there going, 'This guy is gonna happen and we're gonna set the world on its ear.

The next day, Valenti was arrested for possession of marijuana, and spent the better part of the next two years in jail. But Gary Duncan notes:

That’s the story Cipollina told everybody. But according to Dino, that wasn’t the case at all. When he’d been looking for a band, he’d talked to Cipollina, and everybody somehow put two and two together. He actually lived with us when he got out of prison, and while we played some music together and wrote songs, he had no interest in playing in Quicksilver; he wanted to start his own career. Well, when his own career didn’t do so well, he had more interest in playing in Quicksilver!