music scene,". Helms embraced music for music's sake and the Beat-hipster-generation-turned-hippie philosophy. While the war raged in Vietnam and the nation coped with racial clashes and assassinations, the anti-war, anti-establishment youth thrived in the throes of a social revolution. Meanwhile, Helms was cranking out bands and musicians espousing the same lifestyle as this new audience, while giving the very distinct impression that he was indifferent to money and commercial success. His benign image could be deceptive. According to Jay Ferguson of Spirit, Graham would negotiate shrewdly and frequently offer a lower fee to a band than Helms, but when the concert was over, he would pay the band in full; Helms did not always do likewise. Some of the more serious bands (those not subsidized by trust funds) came to prefer Graham's hard-nosed, businesslike approach. Graham did covertly help Helms financially at various times during the 1970s, keeping San Francisco in the fore as the West Coast Music mecca. Helms also had a reputation at the Avalon of being a rather authoritarian stage manager, once (April 6, 1969) famously unplugging the Grateful Dead's stage amps when they played beyond their allotted hour, forcing them to complete Viola Lee Blues a capella.. The core San Francisco rock bands, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country Joe and the Fish, and Quicksilver Messenger Service (including pre-Dino Valenti), would play for both Graham's concerts at the Fillmore Auditorium, and the Family Dog at Helms' Avalon dances. Helms' shows were always more relaxed and offered a pleasant alternative to Bill Graham Presents dances, at a more reasonable admission, and with more room for the stoned, arm-waving type of solo dancing that personified the era. The nearby Mt. Zion Hospital kept a late-night clinic to treat the many drug-overdose victims from the Fillmore.. Janis Joplin To concertgoers, Helms' contributions to the music world, like introducing a singer he knew in Texas, Janis Joplin, to the San Francisco music scene, were not always well publicized, but witnessing the final product of Joplin, with her powerful performances, was a spectacle. First introduced as a new bandmember of Big Brother, she brought what the Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Big Brother did not seem at that point to have – a lead singer to match Jefferson Airplane's Marty Balin and Signe Toly Anderson. With Joplin as the lead singer, Helms became the group's