What was it like in the 60's and 70's?

or how about house parties, cool ones with tons of mellow people and good drugs, and after you left one you'd go to (crash) another

TODDLER wrote: Let's see if you remember this.........Playing clubs up and down the strip..sometimes Disco clubs would be on one side of the street and Rock clubs on the other. Rock audiences were angered about Disco and thought it would over throw the Rock music world and so they picked fights with each other in the street. Rock vs. Disco was what it was all about in the mid to late 70's.....man! and these kids would be beating the crap out of each other as I'd be walking into the venue. It's really strange thinking of it now. It seems ridiculous now, but back then it was the real world. They dressed with different codes and hated each other. Girls who were into Rock would get drunk and throw  whatever they could find....at them. In the 70's an audience that watched or danced to a cover band would give a standing ovation just for a decent guitar solo. By 1984 it was progressing the other way. Now it felt like the audience couldn't give a hoot if you were standing on stage playing like Larry Carlton or Steve Howe. Most people weren't interested anymore. Then there was this resurgence of Stevie Ray Vaughn bringing lead guitar back into the scene along with the speed demon players in Metal, but it didn't have the same magnitude of the early 70's when everyone it seemed was drinking, getting high and waiting to see a decent Rock guitarist. I can only speak for the east coast. It may have been different in the midwest or west coast. Nevertheless it would appear now that all of those realities did change.

What was it like in the 60's and 70's in Vineland N.J.?  George Dayner had built the "Palace of Depression" in Vineland N.J and it attracted witches and Satan worshippers to the town for decades. One sect in particular had revolted against Anton's Church of Satan on the west coast and they settled in Vineland. In 1971 police handcuffed kids in our classrooms who were brainwashed by the sect. A young man age 21 who tutored students in our school was sacrificed in a Satan ritual. Charles Pangburn conducted a 2 year investigation and found evidence of an underground sect. There was the brutal murder of Roger Carletto in 1957 by the hand of Juan Rivera Aponte who performed a Black Magic ritual on the boy. The 3rd generation Watchtower society was channeling demons through a young girl in Mill Woods. She later confessed that she was abused by the cult. Four doctors and one nurse gave the girl's father Rx's and she was drug induced for rituals. Satan cults held gatherings in wooded areas and if you were camping you could hear the sing song chanting which later developed into screams and cries. All through the 80's as well. Vampire cults, Satan cults, corrupted JW's and you name it. That is why I left for the road at age 18.

 

Very cool read, guys.

Didn't you older folks light up cigarette lighters during a slower song at a show?  Everyone now uses their cell phone light.

The best thing Ive gotten from this thread is that listening to music with a group of friends was an activity in itself. Nowadays, if you want to listen to music with friends, there needs to be some other activity going on, because someone will yell "I'm bored".

Perhaps I was luckier than most.  I grew up a short bus ride from Harvard Square.  We had The Harvard Coop,  Discount Records, Minuteman Records, and a slew of used record stores.  It was pretty much a given that if it was in print, you could get it in Harvard Square.

I am a new member. I have been accessing this site for years. This discussion finally did it for me I just had to post. I am 53 and I do remember buying LPs for the artwork. We did not have a lot of ways to help us decide what to buy. In the 70s I lived in Ansbach, Germany (72-76). My father was stationed at 1st Armored Division, in Ansbach. Okay so I was a "Army brat." We had radio but the Armed forces radio played mostly top forty stuff and the German radio wasn't much better. I think one of the ways to find new music was by reading "rolling Stone". The best was to go to parties and listen. We would sit and pass the pipe for hours listening to music. I went to many concerts back then. Before we moved to Germany, we lived in Ft. leavenworth, Kansas for a year and I had a portable record player and listened to mostly the Beatles and the rolling stnes. Then we moved to Germany. My first concerts were Joe Cocker and Paul McCartney. My first rock fest was at the Radstadiom in Frankfurt. 2 days of fantastic music --Spencer Davis group, Rod Stewart (Faces), Nazereth, Rory Gallager, Tempest, Chuck Berry. I went to Deep Purple and Uriah Heep concerts regularly. in 73 I saw Led Zeppelin and went backstage after the concert and got Robert Plant and Jimi page's autograph. In 75, I saw Genesis in Nurnburg for 12 marks. They were doing the Lamb Lies Down of Broadway -they handed out "L" at the door on the way in. in 75 I also went to "A Golden Summernight Concert."  there I saw Climax Blues Band, Ike and Tina, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Wishbone Ash, and Soft Machine. Also possibly, Nektar, Ozark mountain Dare devils, and Renaissance. But I don't remember if the last bunch was there. What was advertised and who actually showed up for a concert back then were two different things. Also I was in pretty bad shape for some of the concerts. Back then they didn't separate the Prog bands for the rock bands. In Germany in the early 70's was what I think it was like for the 60s in the USA. You could get access to new music in local music store (one store only in Ansbach, but it was expensive.

fandrews wrote: I am a new member. I have been accessing this site for years. This discussion finally did it for me I just had to post. I am 53 and I do remember buying LPs for the artwork. We did not have a lot of ways to help us decide what to buy. In the 70s I lived in Ansbach, Germany (72-76). My father was stationed at 1st Armored Division, in Ansbach. Okay so I was a "Army brat." We had radio but the Armed forces radio played mostly top forty stuff and the German radio wasn't much better. I think one of the ways to find new music was by reading "rolling Stone". The best was to go to parties and listen. We would sit and pass the pipe for hours listening to music. I went to many concerts back then. Before we moved to Germany, we lived in Ft. leavenworth, Kansas for a year and I had a portable record player and listened to mostly the Beatles and the rolling stnes. Then we moved to Germany. My first concerts were Joe Cocker and Paul McCartney. My first rock fest was at the Radstadiom in Frankfurt. 2 days of fantastic music --Spencer Davis group, Rod Stewart (Faces), Nazereth, Rory Gallager, Tempest, Chuck Berry. I went to Deep Purple and Uriah Heep concerts regularly. in 73 I saw Led Zeppelin and went backstage after the concert and got Robert Plant and Jimi page's autograph. In 75, I saw Genesis in Nurnburg for 12 marks. They were doing the Lamb Lies Down of Broadway -they handed out "L" at the door on the way in. in 75 I also went to "A Golden Summernight Concert."  there I saw Climax Blues Band, Ike and Tina, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Wishbone Ash, and Soft Machine. Also possibly, Nektar, Ozark mountain Dare devils, and Renaissance. But I don't remember if the last bunch was there. What was advertised and who actually showed up for a concert back then were two different things. Also I was in pretty bad shape for some of the concerts. Back then they didn't separate the Prog bands for the rock bands. In Germany in the early 70's was what I think it was like for the 60s in the USA. You could get access to new music in local music store (one store only in Ansbach, but it was expensive. The very first day of school (american high school in Germany) we skipped class, went downtown to the local record store and one of the guys ripped off a bunch of cassettes. I remember on was "look at yourself" and "fireball."We got a weeks suspension for that!! The next time I went to that record store all the cassettes were locked up. I have a million stories of those times --I should write a book!

Wonderful post

In the early 70's kids in my neighbourhood would save money to buy an album. For example Thick as a Brick. Which ever one of us bought the album first ...would be the person to call and round up everyone for the weekend. We would go into the backyard, set up the stereo, have a party and listen to the album over and over. Kids would take turns passing around the album cover reading the credits, the lyrics, etc. That's basically how I remember kids getting into music then.

Reading through this thread reminded me how important it is for me to support my local record stores! They're a rarity nowadays.

Harvard Square had at least five used record stores in the seventies, probably more.