CALLING ALL HIPPY GEEZERS FROM THE 60'S

I used to check out garage sales quite a bit, and in any given stack of vinyl record LPs for sale, they ALWAYS have at least one Herb Alpert record.

 

The only song I like by Herb is "Lonely Bull" ... Maybe it's because I used to hear it on the radio a lot....

 

I was a bubble gum hippy geezer back then! Yeah I was that kid!

 

I have the Ohio Express 45...

 

Oh man, you guys gotta stop...bubblegum?...you're embarrassing yourselves

 

I also used to have the "Archie's" 45 "Sugar" till my sister sat on it and broke it....

 

Good lord, I was WAY more "hard core" than you wussies.


Then, in '69 I got introduced to the Allman Brothers...and was hooked for life

 

Its been very interesting to see the evolution of the various posts on this thread, and I fully agree with @hotrodjack33 and his choices of the killer albums he just posted, I had all of those albums, and indeed, the Allman Brothers were very addictive to listen to !

Now dig this, back when I was a kid in grade school, I had to endure way too much country/western music from my "Okie" parents, so I saved up my money and I decided on one of these General Electric Model C-550 AM clock radios. Back then, the local Air Force base was operational, and we had friends in the service and they would get us deals, at the Base PX. This was back in 1962, I was 9 years old, and I had saved up the $33.00 it took to purchase my first radio. This little clock radio was my only connection to the only tolerable radio station that was in Merced California " KYOS ". Back then, it played the top 40 and that was it, so it was a mishmash of Motown, Bubble gum, Rock and Roll, rhythm and blues (rarely) and super rare was when they would play " Topsy part II " by Cozy Cole ! Jesus fucking Christ, that was my first introduction to JAZZ and I was hooked !!!!!!!!!!

Now a lot of you fellow geezers may not appreciate JAZZ, but this particular tune was a new thing for me at 9 years of age, and when it would come on and that cool baritone voice in the intro would say "Topsy Part II" I would just drop what I was doing and listen to it, even by today's musical standards, its still a kick ass tune ! Any of you that are drummers will know what I mean when you hear the drum solo! The drum solo reminds me of a hot rod engine that is trying to start up and the distributor is slightly off , but then gets adjusted and then runs smooth and kicks ass ! Pretty cool for a song, that was recorded in 1958 !





This little " POS " AM clock radio, was the conduit of all of the music that would come into my life, all through grade school and high school as well, I could even listen to "Wolf Man Jack " on it back then !

When my parents bought a big new Zenith stereo with the AM/FM radio and turn table back in 1970, I could crank up the tunes, but even back then, the only FM radio station that I could pick up was a classical station in Fresno, 50 miles away ( BORING ) !

I didn't really get to appreciate a great FM rock and roll station ( KSAN ) The Jive 95 out of San Francisco, until 1975 when I got out of the military, I bought my first real stereo unit and promptly blew up the speakers listening to " THE TUBES " tune, " What do you want from life ? " and " White punks on dope " I am sure a few of you out there can relate !

All of you out there in the H.A.M.B. Universe, keep the interesting posts coming, its a trip to see the various attitudes and experiences from you all !

Thanks from Dennis.

 

$33 for clock radio in 1962?! That was a lot of newspapers and mowed lawns.

 

You got that right! Mowing yards, saving my Birthday money, even any change such as found penny's and nickels and dimes!
I learned to be frugal and thrifty at an early age!

 

That $33.00 would have given me a lot of cruisin' time in my 327/300 Nova. By the way, I bought
that Powerglide equipped Nova in '67 (a junior in high school). Not long afterward I was
talking with my dad (an odd occurence in itself) and mentioned that I had looked at a '67
4 speed SS. I was surprised as hell when he asked why I didn't get that one. "Duh, I didn't
think you'd sign for a 4 speed car" (I thought but didn't say it). It was a smart choice on my
part, anyway. I have to say, my old man swung with my choice of cars except for when I was
picking out my first. He just couldn't see me having a '59 Impala convertible, so the first car
was a '63 Corvair, a car that was a lot of fun.

 

I dig Jack's choice of music, too, but would have started off with "Fresh Cream".
My dad got me started listening to blues. Lightning Hopkins, Leadbelly, Big Bill
Broonzy and Muddy Waters, of course. When I bought my first Paul Butterfield
Blues Band and Memphis Charley Musselwhite Blues Band albums I found white
guys could also play blues without sounding foolish. I had the time of my
life seeing Muddy Waters, James Cotton, Otis Spann, Paul Butterfield and Michael
Bloomfield playing together in 1969. These days, the blues is almost as watered
down as the so-called "country" music we hear these days. Too many show-offy
guitar slingers and not enough substance.

Like 41 GMC, I had to endure the slings and arrows of real country & western music
growing up. My old man was a pretty sophisticated fellow for being a regular
working stiff but each Sunday morning I suffered the embarrassment of having our
windows open and him playing Roy Acuff, Hank Snow, Ernest Tubb, Jimmie Rodgers
("The Singing Brakeman") and Buck Owens. These days, though, I know how good
that music really was. I'm still a blues guy, though.

Before I forget,41 GMC created one pretty damn good discussion here. Long may it live.

 

@41 GMC K-18 Thanks for Topsy Part II!!! What a trip down memory lane... one of my favorites. It's funny, though, don't think I ever heard Part I.

 

Thanks @'28phonebooth for that recognition of Topsy part II, it really made me smile, to know, that at least one other person, took this trip down memory lane, and remembered that song!
Now granted, that particular song, is pretty esoteric, but I am sure you will agree, that its unique and has stood the test of time!
I am a guitar player and I bang away on my piano as well, but music would be nothing, if it wasn't for the element of percussion, and the great forward thinking drummers, that are the true foundation, that all of the other instruments, and their players depend upon!

 

I’m just a tad younger than you guys. Radio pretty much sucked in the 70s around these parts. What ever genre you liked they played the same songs over and over. This is probably why I like so many different types of music. After a week or so I couldn’t take it any more and switched genres. That is until I found WHFS and WGTB. HFS was a family owned station that played really good music. They had a cult following around the DC area and when it was sold people held huge demonstrations at record stores. GTB was the Georgetown University station and for a time in the 70s the students ran it. Unbelievably good stuff with no fear from the man or the promoters. I remember one night the disc jockey premiering a new album from some big name rock band. About halfway through the third or fourth song you heard a needle screech and then silence. A few minutes later the jockey said, that was the worst crap I’ve ever heard and I got more pleasure throwing it out the window than I did listening to it. Refreshing to say the least.

 

Deposits on soda bottles. Collected about every two weeks and hauled them to the store in a “borrowed” shopping cart.

 

This is slightly off topic, but I feel that its important to share it with all of you, that have been following this thread and contributing to it as well.

Its one thing to always have a camera with you, whether its an ancient film camera or the latest smart phone to record both the sights and sounds of life, as it happens all around us. Its one thing if the sounds and sights are posed, and its entirely a different thing, if the sights and sounds are totally spontaneous and just raw, warts and all.

Sometimes, its more cool to just listen to the unfolding event, and let your mind provide the internal visual, but that is just my opinion.

As a kid, hanging around my dads wrecking yard in the 60's, and due to the fact that, until I got my first car, I would have to ride with him in the mornings, to go to school, in his tow truck, as he would head to the yard, and I could walk over to the shop after school and catch a ride with him back home, but more often than not, we would not get home till about 8:00 PM, because after the doors were closed at the shop, there were some incredible bullshit sessions between my dad and a lot of his friends and customers, in the parts room of the shop, which was the lunch room as well.

This was my dads wrecking yard and some of the crew that made up the nightly BS sessions. My dad is the one with the yellow stain on his sleeve, and my grandfather is next to him in the checkered pants.




How I wished that back then, I would have had the foresight and the resources, to record all of those BS sessions, it was pure theater, of the highest magnitude, because people were imbibing cheap "Hiram Walkers " Peach flavored brandy, and just cutting loose on all topics and gossip under the sun !

I have great memories of those times at my dads wrecking yard.

Now fast forward to today's technologies and WOW, we as a society have the cool stuff, to capture everything, both sights and sounds in real time !

I retired from FOSS Maritime Company, back in 2019. I had a great position as the Assistant Foreman, that was in charge of the truck transportation division of the FOSS Shipyard. Our section was the stores department, that all of the shipyard workers would come to, to get parts and tools and what ever they needed for what ever project they were working on. Just the shipyard workers alone, were some of the greatest, rednecks, hippies, right wingers, left wingers, intellectuals, smart asses, diversified, comedic, natural actors I had ever met ! I am one of those hippy smart asses as well, and I am slightly devious by nature, its the artist in me that wants to capture lighting in a bottle, or pure " Americana " humor as it happens, raw and unfiltered. When you came up to the counter, what you saw was an autographed, laminated, poster of local drag racer " Jerry Ruth " that was displayed and all of the gear heads appreciated that !



Not too long ago, I watched a great documentary called " The Jazz loft according to W. Eugne Smith "
You can type that in on your browser to find it and its on vimeo as a preview as well.



Eugene smith, simply recorded his life on reel to reel at the jazz loft in New York City, and his loft was the great hang out of a lot of the movers and shakers in the music and art world. I highly recommend that you watch this incredible piece of work, you wont regret it.

I also recommend a great documentary currently on Netflix called " Count me in " Its a great look at the influential drummers of our times, as stated, you wont regret it !

So as my work career was winding down at FOSS, I decided to do something that was, and is considered controversial, but it was just for me and not to be published. My work area was a place of art and fun and stuff on the wall to let people know that when you were dealing the crew at stores, it was a fun place, and it was always spontaneous, and sometimes a complete comedy riot ! There were 7 of us that made up that crew, and the myriad of personality's, ran the gauntlet of diversity !

So in the spirit of W. Eugene Smith, I decided to capture the sounds of what went on around my desk during the day, whether I was there or not, so I bought a high end digital voice recorder, that was voice activated, with a lot of memory, and a battery capacity to record constantly for 8 hours at a time.

The shelf in front of my desk had some cool stuff on it, one of the items was this old metal toy car that my friend had modified for me, it was cool and it was innocent looking and it was the perfect place to slide the digital voice recorder under, because you really didn't notice it all, and it was at the right place to capture all of the smart ass remarks floating through the air !



So for the last 4 weeks of my time there, as I was slowly taking down all of the stuff on the walls, I would just slip the recorder under the little car and go about my business, if you zoom in, you can see the recorder under the car on the cardboard box of dispatch books. You can also see that I had a fish eye rear view mirror at my desk, so that I could see various people trying to sneak up on me for what ever prank they were devising !

So I suggest to you all out there in the H.A.M.B. Universe, you might want to invest in one of these cool little units and keep it charged and in your pocket at all times, and when you are at your friends shops and garages, when there are great BS sessions and bench racing and just talking about hot rods or what ever, its a great way to capture the magic moments, that most would never consider !

It wont do as well in your pocket, but sitting on a shelf, it can catch voices from about 15 to 20 feet away very clearly. You just have to be slick as you set it someplace while the fun is happening !

Just be discreet and know when to erase things that could be detrimental if the content isn't meant for publication at some conservative church social ! So before you some of you flame on me for this content, just know that I have no regrets about the incredible stuff that I caught in those last weeks of work, they are indeed priceless memories that I will cherish. I hope that you all, will capture some cool sounds as well, that you all can cherish, long after the cool event or content happened !

Thanks for reading from Dennis.

 

I'd do the same just to buy a tube of Testors model glue....

 

LMAO. It wasn't until years later, that I figured out why my mind seemed to get a little "fuzzy" when I was building model cars...and I didn't hate when that happened

 

It wasn't just the Testor's, you had to buy the paper lunch bags too.

 

Topsy Pt 1 isn't bad, just not as dynamic as Pt 2. Plus, I'm not a fan of the clarinet.

 

I bought those tubes for my model cars....
This is what those tubes of Testors look like now days....

 

Very Kool ! Thanks for posting !

 

I've never been a hippy, and don't call me a geezer! Now get off my lawn!!!

 

I got this in the late '60s from Peter Max himself right after he blew it up. It still has Peter Max DNA in it. Maybe I should clone him....

 

That is hilarious ! @31Dodger The bottom drawer of the desk I am sitting at, for years has had this copy of a Peter Max, paper airplane book, that is in mint condition, I bought it at a swap meet for a dime, its pretty cool!

 

My daughter just sent me that book a while ago.

 

@31Dodger
Seeing how you are from Phoenix Oregon, perhaps this cropped image I shot of a particular Dodge
" Phoenix " would make a great wall hanging for your garage wall, or just something that is cool, that is MOPAR related, that has the word Phoenix on it ! Feel free to print it !

 

Cool! Thanks very much! John

 

The Crazy World of Arthur Brown- Fire, I teach you to burn!

Bought 3 copies in 68, kept destroying them, for some unknown reason... It might have been the brownies!

Just found it on YouTube. I had a flashback!