Woodstock

...that's all...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7961047.stm

Woodstock founder plans 'sequel'

Michael Lang, the co-founder of the legendary 1969 Woodstock festival, is reportedly seeking sponsors for a 40th anniversary reprise in New York City.

"The chances that something will happen are probable," he told the Times. "But I don't really have the answer yet as to what that will be."

Central Park has been suggested as a possible location for the event.

The Who were among the acts who played at the original concert, which took place in Bethel, New York State.

A 30th anniversary concert held in 1999 at a former air force base outside New York ended in looting and violence.

'Legacy bands'

According to Billboard magazine, Mr Lang hopes the concert would be "a free event" leaving "as small a carbon imprint as we can."

To this end, he is seeking raise $10m (£6.8m) in sponsorship money.

"Depending on how successful we are in raising that sponsorship will determine when and how we do this event," he is quoted as saying.

Mr Lang is hoping the bill will feature such "legacy bands" as Santana, Joe Cocker and Crosby, Stills & Nash.

The Red Hot Chili Peppers are also being considered, having headlined the ill-fated event a decade ago.

Trouble began at the end of their set when what began as several small bonfires escalated into a number of major infernos.

Mr Lang admitted the 1999 concert had "ramifications" but said it had not done "any real damage" to the Woodstock name.

http://thinkprogress.org/lgbt/2012/02/21/429606/santorum-the-democratic-party-is-about-homosexuality/

“Woodstock is the great American orgy. This is who the Democratic Party has become. They have become the party of Woodstock. The prey upon our most basic primal lusts, and that’s sex. And the whole abortion culture, it’s not about life. It’s about sexual freedom. That’s what it’s about. Homosexuality. It’s about sexual freedom.”

Sign me up for the Democratic Party!

First comment:

If the Democrats are the party of Woodstock, then I reckon the Republicans are the party of Jonestown.

A+++

http://0.tqn.com/d/history1900s/1/0/X/N/1/Woodstock1_2.jpg

Original festival, billed as '3 days of peace & music,' was held 45 years ago today in Bethel, N.Y.

I got my "Amazon edition" of the 40th anniversary DVD set out of storage. A true marvel of gimmick packaging, with a slipcase made like a fringe jacket, a box fashioned after a psychedelic shirt, and bunch of quality knick knacks inside--along with like six hours of performance footage over four discs.

You may have seen this on Facebook: the cover (still a) couple today.

http://www.jeffreymlevinemd.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/02/Ercolines_01.jpg

A lossless encode of the 38 disc box just showed up on the grey net. Guess it's a free festival now...

They're going all out at the local documentary rep this weekend:

http://www.hotdocscinema.ca/c/woodstock?_ga=2.171795111.686544546.1565783921-1969575565.1565783921

I'd like to see the Barbara Kopple but can't; if I make it back in time from something else, I've never seen Alice's Restaurant.

As a field recording of what it's like to sit on the side of the stage of a poorly organized music festival in 1969, the full box is amazing. especially in headphones.

https://xpn.org/player/player.php?MediaID=77af76dd-cb65-4dee-a8a9-bcb747cb4aa2&categoryGuid=c747c304-8a34-4649-8b76-e05462b8923d 

"Woodstock As It Happened"

There was a Woodstock story on my local news tonight. It was literally interviews with people in a retirement home, wearing headbands and tie-dyed T-shirts.

Joan Baez is fucking funny pic.twitter.com/GYxCg1a1hO

— Matt Prigge (@mattprigge) August 16, 2019

Some documentary on Woodstock just starting on BBC4. Not that interesting to me, to be honest, but I'm watching it.

"Woodstock: Three Days That Defined A Generation" followed by "Jimi Hendrix: The Road to Woodstock".

I keep thinking I should finally use the 50th anniversary of the festival as a reason to finally slog through the Woodstock movie. Of course, the movie’s 50th anniversary isn’t until next year...

OK, so CCR were the first band booked for Woodstock!

No way

nobody is commemorating the 25th anniv of Tony Randall appearing on Letterman as a mud-covered Woodstock '94 correspondent

Have always thought hippies were unbearable and this documentary merely confirmed it.

I mentioned this earlier on the CCR thread, but what's great about their Woodstock set is that you're just coming out of a doomed Grateful Dead set - Owsley's sound rig for the Dead was completely incompatible with the Woodstock system - so there's 95 minutes of so of haplessness. Weir getting shocked, false starts, everyone on acid, everyone yelling at Oswley, a directionless 40min of "Turn On Your Lovelight" that both exemplifies their shit sound and the worst qualities of the Dead. Then CCR shows up, cleans the place out like the Ramones, and are gone in 30. Take that hippies...

One of us, one of us, we accept you, one of us

CCR had the best set at Woodstock imo. (aside from Hendrix)

They played longer than 30 -- "Keep On Chooglin" was almost 10 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75VQp8iGNF0

Just learned that I guess a huge chunk of the crowd left on Sunday, because of the rain, and that Hendrix played his Star Spangled to a thinned out crowd at 9am Monday morning.

Ha, that's a real Baez quote.

(xp) True, also, having watched it last night, his set was not that great, a lot of fairly aimless noodling took place.

Mitch Mitchell didn't enjoy it much.

IIRC, Hendrix's band was under-rehearsed and playing Monday morning didn't help.

In the deleted scenes, there's a clip of Sha-Na-Na doing one of their really theatrical numbers, and you can see a perplexed Hendrix looking on offstage.

Also: How are we talking about 'Best Sets' and nobody's brought Sly up yet?

^^^^

IIRC, Hendrix's band was under-rehearsed and playing Monday morning didn't help.

Yeah, he'd got an old chitlin circuit friend of his, who'd literally only been back from Vietnam for two weeks, on rhythm guitar and two fairly superfluous percussionists, one of whom looked about as stoned as it's possible to be and still stand upright.

Also: How are we talking about 'Best Sets' and nobody's brought Sly up yet?

Yeah, he'd got an old chitlin circuit friend of his, who'd literally only been back from Vietnam for two weeks.

Yeah both those songs weren't included on the earlier release of the Hendrix Woodstock set as well.

He also played some lead guitar on some tracks too - with Jimi Hendrix standing on stage beside him - can you believe it?

Never forget that Hendrix thought Buddy Miles should be allowed to sing a few, too, and Noel Redding got a song on Electric Ladyland. Artistically speaking, the guy pretty much defined "generous to a fault."

Yes, sweet guy.

he always hated his own singing, which might also have been part of it

Forgot about that

In the deleted scenes, there's a clip of Sha-Na-Na doing one of their really theatrical numbers, and you can see a perplexed Hendrix looking on offstage.

― frustration and wonky passion (C. Grisso/McCain), Saturday, August 17, 2019 2:14 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

this is revisionist history — Hendrix was buds with Sha Na Na and IIRC he was the one who got them on the Woodstock bill!!

Hendrix producing Cat Mother & The All-Night Newsboys makes more sense now.

Never forget that Hendrix thought Buddy Miles should be allowed to sing a few, too, and Noel Redding got a song on Electric Ladyland.

Hendrix OTM on both counts.

Yeah I’ve always loved Changes

Buddy's problem was not singing per se, but instead improvising vocals and scatting.

xp To me it sounds like Sly & The Family Stone were not able to give it 100% due to sound/stage/technical problems although the parts that made it into the movie & soundtrack are dope as hell.

Heard an interview on WFMU with Andy Zax who put together the new Woodstock set, and he said that Hendrix stepped back and let this guy sing a couple of his own tunes, and apparently they were so horrible that the Hendrix estate refuses to let them be heard and they’re the only songs not included on the 38 disc Woodstock box (aside from a Sha Na Na song which it’s disputed if it was even played)

Rose Simpson has been tweeting about Woodstock:

https://twitter.com/IsbRose

I feel like this is a pattern that repeats throughout the history of popular music in America, this collective desire for racial integration via music, it periodically comes to the fore and fades away subject to politics and industry forces and big aesthetic shifts

boomers by and large didn't understand (or approve of) that at all

Citation needed! (Casual music fans didn't "understand," maybe, owing to the extent they had aged out of caring about such a thing.)

is it ok to cite my parents lol

lol sure

I think for musicians it was probably different (cf. Dylan liking Schooly D and Run DMC for "throwing horses off of cliffs") but for general aging boomer *audiences* who, yeah, were aging out of popular music, I dunno ime it was p rare to run into anybody over 30 that didn't think rap music was total shit.

My parents liked rap OK, guess I was lucky.

Wow, harsh characterization above of Canned Heat/Ten Years After/Butterfield/Johnny Winter...???

Yup they all suck

Nah

Canned Heat is the only one of those groups I even want to try and like, and that's just because they made that album with John Lee Hooker. All the others are pretty much landfill material. Alvin Lee especially. Ooh, it's like the blues, but played at triple time? How fascinating.

just because they made that album with John Lee Hooker

Best reason to is because Alan Wilson was a genius.

When I saw the clip of them at Monterrey, was reminded that Beefheart and the Magic Band didn't make it, but then the realization that Canned Heat were actually better.

XP I really like the early Ten Years After stuff which seems to have a bebop influence pretty prevalent. First lpm, Undead the live lp are both good and i think the next couple are ok. NOt sure to what extent they went downhill after the Alvin lee at hyperspeed solo thing from the Woodstock film became popular.

THere did seem to be a misguided attempt at authenticity atthe time. people getting off on doing tuneups mid set to show howserioulsy they were taking things, apparently doing that in front of black audiences in places like the Apollo and not realising how badly they were going down for doing it.
I al;ways liked the slight dislocation of attempting to put influences in different contexts. Like post-punk picking up on funk influences though not having the full environment to osmose everything from and therebby coming up with something else as it is played in whatever teh new context is. BUt without the ability to organically grow things into a new whatever you wind up with something approaching parody.

Canned Heat’s song in the Woodstock director’s cut is an infuriating slog. I don’t mind when drummers speed up, but when they slow down, it’s deeply irritating. I don’t mind “Goin’ Up The Country” or “On The Road Again,” though.

Ten Years After’s Woodstock bit sounds like proto-hardcore to me (apart from the pointless vocal scatting, that is). Lee was a one-trick pony, though: it was a fun trick, but you didn’t wanna hear it for more than five minutes. (But I always loved that someone tossed a watermelon on stage, and Lee was casually all, “oh cool, a watermelon,” and took it with him.)

I think TYA started off a bit more multidimensional. I do like those first couple of records at least. I think Cricklewood Green from 1970 is still OK too.
Did think there was more to them than that Woodstock display but could see them getting ossified in that mold and that being the main thing they're picked up on as. Like the shortcut image of them being that when there's more to them like.
Probably triggered a number of heavy metal ideas much like Cream not being able to amplify themselves quite how they would have wanted to would.

Cream = also landfill fodder

if alvin lee is a one-trick pony than any blues guitarist is a one-trick pony. but that trick is so powerful that it doesn't matter. take stevie ray vaughan or jack white, they were exremely good in performing that trick. but blues is repetition, that is the way it is. amen.

The “trick” of Lee’s I was referring to was his sweep-picking/speed/technical facility.

I think he's a lot more nuanced a player on at least the early lps. As I said I could see this one performance as being the one thing certain younger players had seen of him and think it was the main focus and therefore be the thing they picked up on from him.
when there was more to his playing if you heard more of it.

Mr Veg brought the 10 disc boxset home from the library this afternoon :D :D … figure i can maybe blast it from the stereo through the front window & sit on the lawn under the sprinkler to try & get a sensory effect lol

avoid the brown antacid

i really loved Bert Summers & Tim Hardin - had never heard their stuff before, will def look up more by them

tim hardin is a joy.

I worked on teh O'connell bridge in Dublin 25 years ago next to a vendor who talked about how he had had to deal with hardin in the late 60s when he was seriously strung out. Shame cos the music seems to be so good.
I have the 2cd set with his first 2 lps and I think a live set on which is possibly 3.

There's a live recording around with him singing for Can in about 75 I think. Think I may have it on a hard drive somewhere

I was in a record store the other day and got to talking with someone about the Jefferson Airplane. He mentioned he’d seen them at Tanglewood in 1969, and I blurted out, “YOU SAW THE WHO!” because they, along with B.B. King, were the openers. This was a few days before the Who and the Airplane played Woodstock, and the guy seemed regretful that he missed Woodstock, but I dunno, experiencing those bands in a decent venue, where you could actually see and hear them, was likely preferable to the conditions at Woodstock.

Yes

otm!

Even the acid was bad at Woodstock (it's in the movie!)

Looking back a bit:

And there are articles scattered throughout 1969-70 issues of Rolling Stone about failed festivals — either because permits didn’t clear, or because hippie scam artists announced an amazing lineup that never showed (and probably wasn’t supposed to show).

Related to which, I happily kicked down for this (successfully funded) effort:

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/gormanbechard/powder-ridge-music-festival-sex-drugs-no-rock-and-roll/description

I've read about this legendary botch before:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Powder_Ridge_Rock_Festival

And look forward to a film on same -- the guy behind this did the really wonderful Grant Hart documentary among other things so I'm looking forward to see what he and his team create.

Seems like there may have been some early revisionism---for inst, in Buried Alive, her Joplin bio, Myra Friedman said that a lot of people coming back to NYC, like one of her neighbors, reported that conditions were dire, and the Times ran a piece titled "Nightmare in the Catskills"---but then, somehow, there was a turn-around: Times had much nicer follow-ups, maybe with some exclusive interviews? And son enough, Friedman's neighbor was "dancing all over the building," talking about what a groovy historical event it was.

🚨🚨exciting update:

I have acquired the full 38 disc set (or mr veg acquired it for me because he lives to serve)

i am go for launch :D

sweetwater here you come...

i’m going to go find a hot dog, can u watch my blanket? i should be back in (muffled sounds)

sweetwater but no fever dog :/ (jk)

Not waitin 4 Wstock:

Hey kids - that’s the Byrds playing at Jane Fonda’s Fourth of July party 1965 - photo by Dennis Hopper. pic.twitter.com/M5l4E26YTl

— Pat Thomas (@PatThomas1964) July 4, 2022

Glad you got the set there, VG, through whatever means. :-D (My big ol' actual box sets right near my desk.)

liveblog plz

i am almost through to end of sweetwater, “come down from the tower” plea from nanci & the band

real talk:
i think it might be something to do with 15 years or so going to Bridge School, and a life of attending looser sundry outdoor festivals of all kinds -listening to the full show really hits me in a much different way than i expected. sense of history for the vibe, the stage announcements & all the attendant ephemera that goes with this … and the acts that don’t really exist anymore except in the context of Woodstock

i’m just really locked into this groove man ✌🏻

(apparently there was a VH1 biopic about Sweetwater featuring Michelle Williams !)

Bert Sommer now - he sounds like a dream from the first bar, really just entranced by this dude, what a voice my god. Kind of a Donovan vibe if its ok to say (voice quality i mean)

fun fact: he was in West Coast production of Hair & it is his irl hair on the original show poster so how about that

BILL MCGEE PLEASE BRING THE MEDICINE TO THE INFORMATION BOOTH

already annnouncer’s tone is IF YOU FREAKS DONT GET OFF THAT GODDAMN TOWER RIGHT NOW SO HELP ME I WILL TURN THIS CONCERT AROUND I AM NOT KIDDING

[few hours delay for dinner & life stuff]

back to the show & Tim Hardin up next
love his voice so much, seems incredibly talented
reading backstory about him & between the addiction/talent he sounds a bit reminiscent of Gram Parsons, he didn’t exactly endear himself to the ppl around him

i will def seek out his albums though, just gorgeous stuff here

again with “get off the #^%*! scaffolding”

update: everyone is now off the scaffolding

FLAT BLUE ACID IS POISON
BE COOL

and now Ravi Shankar <3
looking forward to hearing this full set!

goddamn ravi’s tutorial is cool as hell & so charming. a great way to ensure a captive audience

Melanie is a nice surprise for me
I only previously knew a couple of her songs from her later heyday around “Brand New Key”

but she really has a very strong natural singing voice, and as far as i have heard she could absolutely hold her own w the folkies of the day.

v enjoyable set imo

i feel bad saying this but I do not dig Arlo Guthrie a whole lot

he is Not For Me™️

tells the worlds longest story about Moses which is about as much fun as listening to an acid-head talk, ymmv with that but ugh no thanks . dude could talk the leg off a table just sitting around drawing breath

and here i pause to sleep