The Lovin’ Lidfull
Spoonful Makes Up Mind

Reprinted from The Berkeley Barb (Underground Press Syndicate).

Did you ever have to

make up your mind?

Pick up on one and leave

the other behind.

It’s not often easy and not often kind.

Did you ever have to make up your mind?

Did you ever have to finally decide?

And say yes to one and

let the other one ride.

Is so many changes and

tears you must hide.

Did you ever have to

finally decide?

—“Did You Ever Have To Make Up Your Mind?” The Lovin’ Spoonful

“What they’ve done once, they might do again,” warned the fall-guy who was set up by two Lovin’ Spoonfuls for a pot bust.

Steve Boone and Zal Yanovsky worked under police instructions in an apparent effort to save themselves from an earlier pot-possession rap.

They allegedly bought two lids of grass and immediately handed it over to an undercover agent, posing as their friend, who was present at the time of the buy.

Both Boone and Yanovsky were identified by their cellmates as the two Spoons who spent “about six hours with us” in San Francisco city prison, less than a week before they set up their sacrificial lamb.

The Spoonful played a concert on the Berkeley campus Saturday night, May 21, 1966.

Boone and Yanovsky were brought into the Hall of Justice prison “three days earlier,” where they readily admitted who they were and told their fellow prisoners that the cops had caught them with grass in their car.

The trap was sprung in the early morning hours of May 25.

Steve and Zal introduced Officer James J. Hampton to one of their long-time friends.

The friend, upon being asked Hampton’s identity by the intended victim, simply repeated what the two Spoons had told him: “He’s a singer who’s in town to cut a record.”

Attorney James White, counsel for the victimized Bill, asked Officer Hampton during last December’s preliminary hearing:

“At the time you first met Steven Boone and Zalman Yanovsky, at the time Inspectors Martinovich and Magnani (narco squad cops) were present, was a cover story advised so that it would appear that you were not a total stranger to Mr. Boone and Mr. Yanovsky?”

Hampton: “That is correct, sir.”

White: “Could you tell us what the cover story was to be, or what was the cover story?”

Hampton: “Well, the first instruction was to make sure he didn’t tell him I was a police officer.”

Later in the cross-examination, Hampton explained:

“We didn’t go in there with any real set story, If need be, they were to say I was interested in the music field and not give a whole background on me.”

“It was the Spoons, definitely,” said an SF State drama student who had been busted the night after Steve and Zal were released. “There were some rock magazines around the jail and the guys who were still in prison from the night before had no trouble pointing their photographs out,” he said.

“Anyway,” he added, “Steve and Zal weren’t trying to hide their identity from their prison-mates. In fact, they readily admitted it when they were recognized.”

This leads to speculation about why Steve and Zal, who together with John Sebastian and Joe Butler make such a beautiful sound as the Spoonful, turned finks.

Did the cops threaten to keep the Spoons from performing in Berkeley on Saturday?

Did they think their image would be hurt if news of their arrest on a pot charge was publicized?

Or, were they afraid to face a potential loss of booking revenue once the square booking agents told them: “No soap. You guys smoke marijuana.”

“I phoned their manager to hear if Steve and Zal could offer any rebuttal to the hearing testimony,” reported the friend who had been conned into believing that Hampton was just a singer.

“He said the hearing testimony would have to stand as is,” the friend said glumly.

Trial date for the People of the State of California vs. Bill Loughborough is scheduled to be set February 27, in Superior Court.

Bill was arrested last September not in the pad of the alleged sale, but at his job.

Hampton testified that the cops didn’t know Bill’s last name. The warrant was issued for “John Doe Bill.”

The young, undercover cop also swore that he never saw Bill at the Washington St. address where the sale allegedly took place, subsequent to that early morning in May.

Did the cops have a problem in identification?

Was the case against Bill not sufficiently strong?

Since the bust, the Spoonful hasn’t played within 150 miles of San Francisco (beyond that distance no subpoena can be served).

Were the cops allowing the Spoonful time to readjust their booking dates and take care of business within the 150-mile radius before arresting Bill?

Do You Believe in Magic?