CALLING ALL HIPPY GEEZERS FROM THE 60'S

One of the interesting things about YouTube, is the fact that its literally a time machine. I will be 68 years of age this month on the 28th. Today I was cruising YouTube and came across this amazing footage, that was shot on 16 MM and the rolls of film sat in a cardboard box for 44 years, till the people that made the film, discovered it and had it digitized. Take a few minutes to get a look back through time, at an amazing (controversial) event, check out the styles of clothes, the hair styles ( long and short ), the shoes, and some of the cars that were driven to this event.

I was a sophomore in High School at the time of this event, I didn't have a car, nor did I have a FM radio that could pull in the signal from KSAN radio station, the Jive 95 in San Francisco. None of us kids from the San Joaquin Valley ( Atwater area ) even knew this was going on when it happened.

I hope that this will put a smile on the faces of people my age and older that can appreciate it.
Enjoy from Dennis.

 

Thanks Dennis. We're the same age. That was fun to watch. Where has the all the time gone? Here's a couple old photos of this old hippy. Also my 38 Chevy coupe that I had in high school. My girlfriend, and now wife. Peace brother! lol Ron......

 

It seems obvious now, but they made a few errors on that deal. They didn't secure the necessary permits and ran around at the last minute trying to find a venue large enough.

A "Free" concert in that situation was insanity - it just meant a whole lot of folks just mentally subtracted (or added) the money ordinarily allocated to the ticket price and spent it on even more drugs & booze. Oops.

 

That was great sure brought back memories. Lippy

 

This was my time. I find this interesting as a character study / overview of
the scene. I've watched very little of anything concerning Altamont. The
situation still irks me to this day. This really was the beginning of the end of
the whole peace / love experience, which actually was a fun time for a couple
of years. However, it wasn't always peace & love. In the summer of '67, the
Old Town neighborhood of Chicago was the place to be on a Sunday. Plenty
of people came to enjoy a day of strolling around in the sun, stopping in at
different shops to buy pin-back buttons and Fillmore posters. But along
with that was the b.s. that servicemen gave to freaks, and freaks to the
swabbies from Great Lakes Navel Base. Add to that the suburbanites cruising
along the street yelling at anyone that was different from them. It was a
topsy-turvy time.

Back to Altamont, though. Bringing in an "outlaw" bike gang for security was
about the dopiest idea they could have come up with. How in the world could
anyone have controlled them? Even if the poor schnook that got killed brought
it on himself (rumored), who deserves to die because they want to see a concert,
or more accurately, a happening. I spent the summer of '67 hanging with two
Angels, and while it never got hairy, it could be a relief to go home to mom and
dad after a night of craziness. I was 17.

Anyway, thanks for posting this, Dennis, but it'll be a one time watch for me.

 

I'm lucky enough to not live far from Jorma Kaukonen. He has events at his ranch quite a few times a year (during normal years). The best are the lunches. A small number of people, probably 20 tops and he plays. There isn't a major event during this time that he wasn't at. At his place he has a large silo he has turned into a museum. All sorts of pics and memorabilia from this time frame. He is accessible and easy to talk to. I got him to sign a Jefferson Airplane and Hot Tuna album for me for a fundraiser for the local high school band.

The coolest though is some black and white pics of him and Janice Joplin performing in 1964 before anyone knew who either one was.

 

I wasn't there, but my understanding is California was kind of a wacky place back then. The "Summer of Love" though, was an artificial media creation.

Everything by most accounts was pretty groovy in '64, '65, up till early 1966. That's when it ended if you talk to the people who lived there. Drugs are illegal for some very good reasons, and not just because the "squares" are too uptight.

Things got ugly very quickly as thousands and thousands of suburban runaways & teenagers flocked out there with flowers in their hair and all that BS.

By the time of Altamont "the scene" was getting very, very ugly, and decidedly not very groovy at all. Keep in mind about 400,000 people showed up for a "Free" Rock concert in various stages of chemical imbalance at a hastily chosen location. The "stage" was located at the bottom of a hill, at more or less ground level. No risers or fences or barriers or any crowd control whatsoever. That was a mistake.

Yeah, the Hell's Angels as security (They were paid in Beer!) can be assholes no doubt, and this is widely panned in retrospect (ya know?) but in some ways that might not have been such a bad idea, if the goal is to keep 400,000 stoned people from bumrushing the stage.

Would everything have been groovy with no security? Rent a cops? Beats me. Maybe.

One of the guys (Sonny Barger?) had a saying - "Treat me good, I'll treat you better. Treat me bad, I'll treat you worse." I recall seeing or hearing that Marty Balin, of Jefferson Airplane, got knocked out by one of the Hell's Angels. What I never heard, was why he got clocked to begin with. Yeah, Bad scene!

Stay away from the Brown Acid, or Something.

 

I think that this particular piece of footage is unique, because the people that made it, focused on the positive aspects of the gathering at Altamont, and none of the " tragic "negative elements.

That was clearly stated in the beginning of the video. I liked the music that was chosen by the people that made the video as well.

I appreciate all of the comments that are being posted.
Thanks from Dennis.

 

He gave lessons, was a guitar instructor during the folk scare of the early 1960s. He still does, part of the Fur Peace Ranch with guitar workshops. Very good guitar player (one of the dirty secrets of the 1960s was a lot of the bands that were very popular could hardly play, the studio time was mega expensive and they brought in the "Wrecking Crew" to make recordings.) Jefferson Airplane, those guys could actually play. I'm not sure whether it mattered too much

Jorma was amazing, really good fingerstyle guitarist. Since all those lockdowns started he has been doing live You Tube broadcasts every Saturday, don't know if that's still the case. He must have taken care of himself, he's sharp and looks good. Some of his peers ... well he's way past 27, put it that way.

 

thank you that was xlnt

 

My era too This must be the brotherhood of "Hippy Hot Rodders"
In 1969, we lived only about 75 miles from Woodstock and of course I was going...but I came down with rheumatic fever 2 weeks before the concert...couldn't go, but ALL my friends did
I did make it to Watkins Glen in '73


1970, My prom pic with high school girlfriend Denise...she finally wised up and dumped me in '74


Summer of '70, Denise and my 48 Chevy

 

Watkins Glen '73? Wasn't that the Summer Jam festival with The Band, the Grateful Dead...and the Allman Bros? That festival probably had more attendees than Woodstock.

 

i don't know about that, but it's not fun to trip in the rain & get crabs.

 

there's a second rockumentry, but it escapes youtube and my two remaining brain cells can't remember the title.

 

The only Altamont that mattered to me.

Bob

 

Thanks for posting. I'll be 69 this year, and lived those times to the fullest. Being in Tennessee, we didn't get the full story on the California scene in the early/mid 60s, but we were catching up hard and fast by '67 or '68.Live fast, break every rule we could find, cause we were all gonna die in Vietnam anyway. Lost a lot of friends in the next 20 years, none of them natural causes.
Since this is the HAMB, I won't tell my better stories. As for the insanity of festivals in those days, anybody here go to Bull Island? That had to be the scariest 4 days of my life. Peace and love was dead and gone by then. Another couple of days, and they would have found a lot more bodies after it was over.

 

Yes, 600,000. Denise (see above) and I got there a week early, staked out a camp in the woods and partied for over a week. Borrowed my Dad's pickup we and couldn't drive out of the place until the following Tue.

 

Didn't get to Woodstock I was only 15 and my mother said no way! However, we had Tanglewood, a performing arts center and they brought in popular groups during their season every year. My brother was a Beach Boys fan, so being my BIG brother (well older, I've outweighed him since I was 13 and he was 17), we always went to see them.

We had a friend who always got us free lawn tickets, and being on the edge of town it was easy to get to. Stockbridge is not very big. Summer of 1970 Santana was there, and so were we. Look it up on You Tube, its still great. We got to see a lot of acts there and also at the Music Barn (at least that's what I think it was named, altho I'm getting up in years alsoand am probably wrong...).

James Taylor was/is a routine act at Tanglewood, he lives in Stockbridge. We also went to Springfield area concerts. To this day I don't remember where we saw Aerosmith, but it was just before they really hit it big and werethe opening act for some big act. They blew us all away, and to tell the truth, I don't have a clue who the big act was, as Aerosmith was by far the best show that night.

And of course there was Arlo Guthrie, but that's a whole nother story...

 

My wife and I have always been Beach Boy fans too. We went to all their free concerts that they held at Washington D.C.

 

Beach Boys fan here. I remember exactly where I was and what I was doing when I first
heard "409" and "Good Vibrations". No one did those early California sand, sun, beach
and car tunes like the BBs. Hey Ron, you trying to pull a fast one? Who are those fellows
in the third photo down from the top? The shirts match but they got the board wrong.

 

That Chevy Roadster was on American Pickers this past week, Built in New Jersey, owned by the builders son, still looks great. Bob

 

I am still a big fan of the Beach Boys, and I don't care if Milner knows it! D

 

Here comes Milner and he's pissed. He's looking for you!

 

I meant to say Buddy Holly........

 

Had no idea Woodstock was happening. The “news” we got about it in Vietnam was after the fact and filtered through AFR and Stars and Stripes. Needless to say none of it was flattering.

Had to wait ‘til I got home to get the straight skinny from my younger brother who went. He still rubs it in to this day.

 

Pshaw! You call that a Woodstock? This is a Woodstock.

 

This is a Woodstock too !
Hey Ron, you trying to pull a fast one? Who are those fellows
in the third photo down from the top? The shirts match but they got the board wrong.[/QUOTE]Ha, ha, I didn't notice that???

 

If you remember the late 60's you didn't do it right, just sayin...

 

Yeah, uh huh, sure.