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

I had to fight for every inch of hair back then (70s) because my dad was in the Army. I was the trailblazer for my two younger brothers--they had it much easier. Even though I was a hippie or as we called them in school back then a "freak.'

As I have expressed before in other threads smoking was a private activity for me personally until I met a drummer who was deeply into 20th century composers. He would send invitations to us by mail. We would be invited to his Sunday afternoon bash of a 2 hour listening of Edgar Varese. Usually a small gathering of friends would show..maybe 8 or even 10 people. Chairs were set up, the stereo against the wall with giant speakers built by his brother-in-law who was a sound tech. He would pass the pipe around until everyone was up in the ether. Then he would request silence during the run of pieces.

 

Captain Beefheart, Syd Barrett, Gong, Bartok, GTO's, ....that was all on the agenda at my house with gatherings. One time a few Rocky Horror Picture Show fans stopped over to party and I scared them with Ummagumma and a strobe light. Philadelphia was populated with kids who were crazed over European Progressive Rock. Once you were outside the city (like me), it became a difficult task to cross paths with anyone who had these interests. Local venues were packed with people who came to see prog cover bands, but restrictions at age 15 made things almost impossible for me. I would wait for my parents to fall asleep, sneak out of the house, walk to the "College Inn" where the Devil worshippers hung out and hide in the back woods waiting to hear the "Robert Mule Band" perform "Thick as a Brick".

 

 

 

In the 70's I watched friends disconnect themselves from the world. They had bad acid trips and were escorted to the Ancora Psychiatric Hospital where I would visit them and make attempts to bring them back. Now for some reason this was very consistent in my life from 74' to 78'. I don't know if it were the times I lived in or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time? 3 of my close friends had studied classical music in Philadelphia when they were age 10 and we all grew together in the music world. As kids....then teenagers. They were very talented and all it took was one dosage of acid. Just 1 trip to destroy their mind. I would visit them and they would sit and pull on their hair or simply deny knowing me and mumble funny words to themselves.

 

Some of them were converted to Christianity and roamed the streets of Vineland spreading the word of the gospels. After talking to them for a whole of 2 minutes ....I felt angered by the fact that they did not remember what we did as friends. I assume this 1 extreme to the other ....drugs to religion....was happening all over the U.S....but the town I lived in was quite corrupted so maybe that was the more sensible answer in thiscase.    It was the 60's casualties thing progressing in the 70's.

A great keyboardist I worked with was taken to the mental hospital because he had taken too much acid and was trying to jump off the roof of his house. When I went to visit him...his name was no longer Norman. Now it was Noah and it's the same pattern over and over. It's complete garbage you know? The scene was a bit over done at times. If you wanted to be yourself and not take drugs....you had to be by yourself to do that. And if you were always off by yourself that gave the schoolboard reason to believe you were on drugs. Every night I was up late studying music with my father and the next day I looked like a vampire in school. They put a lot of pressure on me by calling me to their perfect office with perfect principal to examine my eyes and ask their stupied questions. 

There had been a Satan cult killing in town and all these religious fanatics arrived to our community shortly after. They were very persistent in converting everyone to the born again concept. Police patrolled the area day and night as private investigators attempted to prove with circumstantial evidence...that there was the existence of an elderly and wealthy Satan worshippers sect. They had been hiding and conducting service to the Devil in a church. Police had the idea that these people were brainwashing kids my age to perform rituals that derived from Judeo-Christian concepts. I do know that this is all very true, but the school staff was tormenting the kids with this drug reality and it just went into harassment mode after the young man's body was discovered. Police convicted 2 boys who confessed to the crime sending them to Yardville prison while the police continued the search for the older cult which some of them had fled. They interrogated many of them as they spent 2 years trying to locate physical evidence.  

 

Edited by TODDLER - September 01 2011 at 12:50

TODDLER wrote: Slartibartfast wrote: Maaaan, it was horrible, we all had to grow long hair, smoke a lot of dope, call each other "man", wear tie-die t-shirts and bell-bottom blue jeans. Oh God I hated that stuff. Except for the hair. I didn't mind having long hair in the early 70's. However the Baptist did. During the 70's they created a vision of Hell for me. Hell was the place you went if you had long hair, smoked weed, and listened to what was better known then as "Hard Rock".

I'm 54, so back then I lived in a village in deepest darkest north Bedfordshire with no access to music stores or venues other than small folk clubs that my Dad would take us to at weekends and the only "pop" music we heard came from the radio or one of the very few music variety programs on TV (well, we did get to see Hendrix on the Lulu show). I had an old steam (valve/tube) radio in my bedroom that had an old BSR turntable wired into it so I could play 45s (in mono), but most of the time I was listening to John Peel (Perfumed Garden and later Top Gear), Emperor Rosco and Pete Drummond playing hippy psychedelic music. My Dad wasn't a musician (he was a wood-machinist/carpenter) but he could knock out a tune on the harmonica if we weren't quick enough to hide them from him; he would often come home with bizarre instruments he'd bought of "some bloke in the pub" or at jumble sales; or he would buy strange albums of celtic folk or odd jazz albums that consisted of nothing but percussion or the soundtrack to "Secret of the Inca's" an album of exotica featuring Yma Sumac and her 5 octave vocal range; and being a woodworker by trade, he would occasionally make instruments, such as my first guitar (with only four strings because he could only scrounge four machine-heads). These experiences formed in me a curiosity for the unusual and the weird.

Edited by Dean - September 02 2011 at 06:15

^ thought a trawl stagger down memory lane might entice you out of hiding. Great to have you back 
(you incorrigible old hippy)

Dean wrote: Just passin' through   ...yeah, the lure of this thread was too great.

I was born in '66 so I was too young in the actual prime of prog, but in my native Spain everything arrived very late due to the dictatorship of fascist Franco, plus I grew up surrounded by older brothers and cousins who were into prog, so I can remember some of the atmosphere.

 

Without internet, if you wanted to stay up to date you had to read rock magazines, in Spain you had to read Vibraciones and Popular 1, one would buy them and a big group of friends or family would read them, next week someone else would buy them etc, so with a minimum budget everybody stayed informed. Magazines came always with posters and stickers of the hype bands, and the walls of your room or your school notebook told a lot about the music you liked. Our bedroom walls and ceiling were completely filled up with posters of ELP, Yes, The Who, Purple, Bowie, etc and early spanish prog bands.

Someone said that it was difficult to get an album after some time of its release but I don't remember it like that, at least for the well-known bands. Record shops were frequently semi-specialized, and the discographies of bands were still short, so for a shop specialized in rock (no classical, jazz, or traditional music) if they had a stock of 1500 different albums they had pretty much all there was. Obscure bands were of course different, most of them I simply didn't know, and if you did you had to order the albums on purpose and they could be very expensive.

... We might have gotten that in the top ten radio (AM radio) in those days, but FM radio did not have a top ten for 10 years until it was bought out by all the record companies ... dig this ... the major conglomerate that distributes music in America owns the single largest number of FM stations in the country ... do you wonder why I do not listen to FM radio anymore? ... they only play the "artists" they deliver to all the stores, and nothing else, and don't even follow the required rules that the FCC had requested for these stations in the big city ... the requirements of which are being filled out by PSA's.   True! True! and very true! Why does it seem as if a lot of people don't get this? Is it the seperation of generations? We were exposed to everything as a way of life. Every single point you bring out here about AM and FM. It shouldn't be the seperate....I can't relate to the older folks thing because ...

presdoug wrote: moshkito wrote: ... We might have gotten that in the top ten radio (AM radio) in those days, but FM radio did not have a top ten for 10 years until it was bought out by all the record companies ... dig this ... the major conglomerate that distributes music in America owns the single largest number of FM stations in the country ... do you wonder why I do not listen to FM radio anymore? ... they only play the "artists" they deliver to all the stores, and nothing else, and don't even follow the required rules that the FCC had requested for these stations in the big city ... the requirements of which are being filled out by PSA's.   True! True! and very true! Why does it seem as if a lot of people don't get this? Is it the seperation of generations? We were exposed to everything as a way of life. Every single point you bring out here about AM and FM. It shouldn't be the seperate....I can't relate to the older folks thing because ...   I don't think there is a separation of generations any more today, than there was yesterday, or 40 years ago, when I was working at the Rathskeller in Madison, Wisconsin.   Just like then, there were factions ... the democrats that stood against the VietNam War and the Republicans that were trying to be cooler than thou by saying that we were not supporting the troops ... which of course was not true, and was a gross b*****dization of the whole situation ... somethings never change in life! But the democrats usually had longer hair than the republicans to give you an idea of the absurdity of the whole thing!   We were exposed to as much then, as people are now. And we were just as stupid then, as we are now ... the only thing that has changed? ... we're fatter, uglier and snore a little louder!   In the end, it is all about how much to do you want to open your eyes, your ears, and your heart ... and nothing else.   FM and AM radio were different. Again, in the first 10 years, FM was the voice of the new age and the new feelings and the new revolution, but when it started selling big, and many bands getting into the millions, they all got bought out by the record conglomerates. And that is when the proliferation of new music and groups stopped, and instead it become ... let's make a million with Genesis and bruhaha ... and dump the rest ... heck ... the WEA distribution conglomerate paid the Rolling Stones many millions to go on tour with a humungous penis on the stage for Mick to ride ... and then Led Zep got 100 million or something like that ... and you know the result of that was right? .... more than 5000 groups lost their distribution ability over night ...   And 20 years later, when the Satelite thing came out, it was even more blatant of a corporate thing .... and everyone thought it was cool, which means that the advertising got you hooked ... but none of us here had the balls to lay it on the line ... and still don't! And for me, the sad thing is ... a board like this, other than a thread like this one, is not interested in adding the history to the website and help make sense of the music ... now you know why so many reviews of "In the Court of the Crimson King" are so off base! They are no longer the snapshot of that day and time and place and people ... they are some imaginary idea of music that had nothing to do with anything else.   It speaks volumes for the importance and value of the music itself and the work of so many of us that deserve a little pat in the back ... we did really well folks, and we're still doing well!  And that music is remembered and loved ... I would never trade a million dollars for the love and affection found in this place for some of the most beautiful music ever recorded! Go ahead and try!   Now we just need to get the rest of the folks in PA to believe also! ^Hey, man, you lay it on the line, Moshkito-that is your greatest post!