Janis Joplin saucer, according to biographer Ellis Amburn, the concrete foundation for which was poured the day before she died. Peggy Caserta claimed in her book, "Going Down With Janis" (1973), that she and Joplin had decided mutually in April 1970 to stay away from each other to avoid enabling each other's drug use. Caserta, a former Delta Air Lines stewardess and owner of one of the first clothing boutiques in the Haight Ashbury, said that by September 1970, she was smuggling cannabis throughout California and had checked into the Landmark Motor Hotel because it attracted drug users. For approximately the first
Janis Joplin Gleason of the "San Francisco Chronicle", were negative. Gleason wrote that the new band was a "drag" and Joplin should "scrap" her new band and "go right back to being a member of Big Brother ... (if they'll have her)." Other reviewers, such as reporter Carl Bernstein of the "Washington Post", generally ignored the band's flaws and devoted entire articles to celebrating the singer's magic. Bernstein's review said that Joplin "has finally assembled a group of first-rate musicians with whom she is totally at ease and whose abilities complement the incredible range of her voice." When Joplin and her back-up