Gary Duncan (72) – Quicksilver Messenger Service – was born on 4 September 1946 in San Diego, California as Eugene Duncan, Jr., but adopted at birth and named Gary Ray Grubb.
He grew up in Ceres, California, where (as Gary Grubb) he played guitar for the Ratz until they finished their performance itinerary as an opening act for the Byrds and the Rolling Stones at the War Memorial Auditorium in San Jose, California. It was in 1965 when, as Gary Cole, he joined the Brogues, in Merced, California, and met future Quicksilver Messenger Service drummer Greg Elmore. It was with the Brogues that he adopted the stage name Gary Duncan. He stayed with them until they broke up later that year.
In late 1965 Duncan received a call from John Cipollina offering an audition for himself and fellow Brogues member Greg Elmore to join Quicksilver Messenger Service. The group first performed in December 1965 at The Matrix. The complex guitar interplay between Duncan and John Cipollina had a big influence on the sound of psychedelic rock. In early 1969, after recording two albums “Quicksilver Messenger Service” and “Happy Trails”, Duncan left Quicksilver and as he describes it, “I left for a year and rode motorcycles and lived in New York City and Los Angeles and just kind of went crazy for about a year.”
By the beginning of 1970 Duncan rejoined Quicksilver Messenger Service along with singer/guitarist Dino Valenti which pushed the group toward a more folk rock sound. By 1971 the original group had splintered with Cipollina, David Freiberg and Nicky Hopkins all leaving while Duncan, Elmore and Valenti continued to perform as Quicksilver Messenger Service until the end of the 1970s.
In the mid-1980s Duncan revived the Quicksilver name and began touring with his own band even releasing an album, Peace by Piece. He released a few more albums into the 1990s with the Quicksilver name but was the only original member in the group (except David Freiberg who guested on some tracks). He began touring with a four-piece band up until 2001 when the World Trade Center was attacked. After that Duncan recalled there were no more shows to play and he tore down his home studio for financial reasons. He said: “I tore the Studio apart by myself… no help from any of my friends… in fact not even a word… they all came and got the stuff they had stored and left the stuff they didn’t want so I could haul it away and they just never spoke to me again…”
Duncan walked away from the music industry for the next few years until 2004, when he began releasing music from his Quicksilver band in the 1980s and 1990s. In 2006 Duncan reunited with Freiberg and began touring again as the Quicksilver Messenger Service. They were still performing up to his death. Freiberg now 86, is the last surviving member of the band.
On June 19, 2019, Gary Duncan fell and had a seizure, followed by multiple cardiac arrests. He fell into a coma, and died on June 29, 2019, in Woodland, California, having never regained consciousness. He was 72.
Following is a excerpt of an interview with Gary Duncan that gives an insight into Quicksilver Messenger Service’s name and the vibe of the time in San Francisco 1967/68:
Q – Quicksilver was offered record deals early on, but you turned them down. You or someone in the group felt you weren’t ready?
A – It wasn’t that we weren’t ready. We just didn’t aspire to do that. That wasn’t our motivation. Really all we cared about was having some place to live and enough to eat so we could go play. Getting involved in the music business wasn’t necessarily something any of us wanted to do, and when it did finally happen, it basically created the end of everything. That was about 1967 when everybody was signed to a label. Then the mystique of San Francisco sort of disappeared. It became commercialized.
Q – People on the East Coast thought the names of bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kinks and The Zombies were rather strange. Then, we started hearing about groups with names like Country Joe And The Fish.
A – Yeah. (laughs)
Q – Big Brother And The Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Grateful Dead, Quicksilver Messenger Service.
A – Everybody tried to come up with some sort of strange name for some reason. We had a bunch of different names and finally settled on Quicksilver Messenger Service because we’re all the same birth sign. We’re all Virgo, which is ruled by Mercury. Me and the drummer had the same birth date. David Freiberg and John Cipollina had the same birth date. So, between the four of us, there were only two birthdays. Virgo is ruled by Mercury, which is Quicksilver. Quicksilver is the winged messenger and Virgo is the sign of the selfless servant. So, that’s where the name Quicksilver Messenger Service name came from. It’s astrological.
Q – I got the Quicksilver and Messenger part, but where did the Service come from?
A – Virgo is the sign of the selfless servant and we called it Service.
and also……I don’t drink. I’m a Native American so I have what they call the Apache Syndrome, which is not being able to stop drinking. So, I just don’t drink.
