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

Regarding drugs.....for me and many of my friends, the liberal use of high-quality marijuana definitely enhanced the listening experience!! 

TODDLER wrote: ... But anyway....I'm too old for depression from personal experiences. It doesn't affect me with that magnitude any longer. I surpassed that emotionally charged energy crap. Now I just like to tell the stories or read the stories of others.

Edited by moshkito - September 19 2011 at 15:49

presdoug wrote: as a sort of F#$% up teenager, i tried street drugs, in the late seventies-early eighties period, but i was always really more into the music! more than a lot of the kids who were more into the stone         i have been completely clean from all street drugs for almost 29 years, and it is the best decision i ever made!         Man, music itself is the greatest high there is-i don't need anything else

The problem was the magnificent enjoyment one can get from just a few tokes or the entire rolled up drug which enhances the sound of an album like Ummagumma. They utilized the drug force to enhance the music. This was a huge deal for music fanatics in the 70's. They just wanted to sit quietly in their chambers smoking and listening to Prog. Like a clan? I was very distant from the drug culture due to my personal morals and the development of my skill as musician. My dad was a really great jazz/classical guitarist in the 30's and 40's so I couldn't fool about with drugs. He schooled me from age 7 and then I left for the road age 18. In the 70's as I traveled the east coast musicians were for the most part universal. They were mostly  10 to 15 years older than me. All diverse in the music field stylistically perfect...and so you had to be on! I am making reference to bands I worked with who covered material from Chicago Transit Authority in the 70's ...or they covered instrumental jazz/fusion pieces and to a full house wherever they traveled. Everything you played on your instrument had to be very close to perfect or you would get a warning from the band leader or manager.

 

All of them had toured in the 60's and it was a real pleasure just to meet them let alone work with them. They all became bitter and had this kind of social breakdown. They were already laughing at 1975 and when the business changed for the worse in 1980...the were given orders not to play Jazz to a full house whenever they felt like it or....stop with the prog cover bands and limit the money growth in that. Let's worry about our own pockets and go with the flow which is "New Wave". So skilled musicians who had been on the scene since the 60's and all through the 70's....worked in all the N.Y. studios were now being told to play songs....(just songs in general) that are 3 to 4 minutes long and let's keep it that way or your work will be cut. The "Blackball" concept from the empire above. So musicians who toured popular circuits became foul and tried to fight for the cause. Some of them broke through like Happy the Man and by 79' I recall jazz musicians telling me it was a sign for things to change. The industry grew further and further away from promoting a musician based on his ability to be diverse in nature. People were foul.

 

I had many great keyboardist friends who were very Julliard and also did the jazz scene in the city..or played Vangelis and Emerson style in a original or prog cover band. When the scene changed 3 of them went the suicide path. It's so strange to know somebody for that amount of time on the road and then they die tragically because the scene was changing? And then all the great Jazz musicians in Philadelphia and N.Y. were very sour because they had been cut of their liberty to perform what they wanted to in huge venues with full house and top dollar profit. Everybody on the road in this age bracket was bitter and deeply hurt by what had been taken from them. It's like the girl in the dressing room putting her electric bass away and picking up her cello and bow. Now she has to pick up the electric bass, enter the stage and play commercial music with vast limitations. That is how every musician in that age bracket felt. It was very selective in the sense as to what you could divide from their world and yours. This is why I ended up traveling with a lot of R&B cover bands who played the early Chicago or one instrumental at least. You could no longer do the prog cover band scene and it remained selective from the agents to just book a handful of them. This is around the time when Tom Evans from Badfinger was stopping into bars and drinking. He was always with Joey Molland and they were easy to spot as they wore these funny looking hats. Then I discovered later that a few musician buddies of mine were backing that current Badfinger formation. They were on Elektra label. Then it was reported that Tom Evans tragically killed himself and it was the industry that destroyed him.

 

Look at what the industry did to Judy Garland. Getting her hooked on drugs when she was in her teens. I don't pat attention to what the industry is like today, but I do know that in the 70's and 80's it was tragic for a great many musicians. Someone should count the suicide rate from 79' through the 80's. I'm not joking ...there were many entertainers and musicians who blew their brains out or overdosed due to the pressures put upon them from the industry. That was a tragic scene during those years ....like right out of a movie...not even thinking as you witness it that it could be real. It was when the industry made that quality business leap into the 3 or 4 minute song. Then at a club I played in Fort Dix N.J Johnny Winter was over turning all the food trays in the dressing room and just throwing stuff around. People were wigging out! The scene was changing and the original rules set by the higher ups were no longer made available to us in order to make a good living. A good honest living where you make a thousand dollars a week performing prog covers. Some people blame it directly on the drugs. But no....not in the moronic sense.  Drugs were the exit out of this life. The cut-off.  So many musicians did exit that way. But I was on the road with them for decades and you can see plainly that their frustrations and doom lies within the  changing of the industry. When Genesis became a hits band. But that was the gloom and doom scene up and down the east coast anywhere from late 70's and through the 80's. I worked in this 1 particular music store and Carmine Appice had a drum clinic and gave a speech on how corrupted the music industry is. I found it interesting that he would even open with a topic like this. He spoke about crime mostly. He told us about the difference between his previous experience of hope in the music business and what it developed into much later. There was a tone in his voice that expressed frustration and yet he wanted to make all the musicians in the store aware of his experiences. It was his method of reaching people who take music seriously.  

Edited by TODDLER - September 13 2011 at 10:09

oh Frank, you old geek you

i always thought it was really cool when Zappa told Mick Jagger to leave his party when he lit up a joint!

TODDLER wrote: This forms-rules-wise regulation got me thinking a bit. I am quite concerned about how much or less should be spoken.  ... drugs ...

TODDLER wrote: This forms-rules-wise regulation got me thinking a bit. I am quite concerned about how much or less should be spoken. There is one experience I would like to bring to the table which tends to confuse a lot of people. In the music business during the 70's, 80's, 90's ...drugs were offered to musicians from the record company staff. Whoever arrived to the show from the staff could offer you the best quality drugs in the world. Not street drugs. The story Fito la Perra drummer with Canned Heat told is quite the opposite. Where the coffee shop in Australia was raided like a scene right out of the "French Connection'. Where Henry Vestine (fired by Zappa for drug usage), feverishly tried to get this very young record executive to dispose of his needles and speed bag. The poor kid knew nothing about drugs. He threw the stuff in a fountain.     Not the case in my experience. I never met a record executive who had a sincere innocent nature about them. They wanted us to be strung out for one particular reason only. When you are traveling the road....you become un-balanced because your physical body and mental state are vulnerable. I didn't allow that to destroy me although sometimes I almost gave in. I was raised differently then many of the folks around me who were on the road with me in the 70's. I was attracted more to the Amish way of life and did follow some of those morals. In the 70's record executives had a master plan for musicians. The style of life for the musician was already laid out and you had to be raised differently or just be a true individual to avoid indulging in it. But it was a trick because if people from the staff COULD get you hooked it would be easier for them to con you. They would show to your gig or room and ask you to sign a contract as you stood there high on something....and had a rude awakening 6 months later because you signed your royalities away. You're so tired of traveling and just want to sleep and if all you have to do is sign a paper then so be it. Drugs came from the higher ups. Big managers and even agents and owners of venues. This is where society becomes confused or have a difficult time believing it. The world thinks for the most part....that sex and drugs come from the audience or hanger-ons. It only does if the musician allows it. Sex and drugs are offered in most cases from the staff or the management. People who are protecting you. People you trust. People who gave me cars, instruments, and payed me thousands of dollars. The world may consider this for a moment or 2...but can't visualize it unless they are in the business themselves and experience it first hand.   This is why most people in the world are under the assumption that groupies are sex for the musician and drugs are given to musicians by dealers and fans ONLY. The record company staff back then was always let off the hook. It sound farce to everyone and that is more than cool for the dogs of the industry ...for it paints a better image for them and paves a clear path for them to continue criminal activity.

Do you know of these groups ::: The Hometown Band Crawler Lake TIm Duffy's Orchestra of Clouds The re-formed Focus (1977) this is one I cannot find anywhere but have one track on tape whcih i will post later. Cluster The 70s are the Diamond in my life, If I could go back I would without a doubt.

Heard of Crawler but only vaguely, but I own Cluster + Eno, and After the Heat (Eno, Moebius, Roedelius).  I even like them!

One Radio Station was the king: WNEW FM in NYC.
If it wasn't for them my music background would be 1/1000 th of what it is today.
Every day it seemed there was a new song or group that made the day for you.
I have over 100 cassettes of WNEW radio from back then and trying to get them into digital is a time consuming task though and the quality is not like recording today.

The 70s ended too early for our gang of musicians, friends, girlfriends etc. During High School we just wanted to get out and once out we wanted to go back in !
In the mid 70s for $5 you could get a six pack beer, cigarettes and a cheap fast burger- you were set for the night. We would plan weekend trips every few weeks and Line up the music to go along with it. It was as important as the gas to get there!
    Once a week we would go to a few of the smaller chain record stores like Harmony Hut, Alwick,
Not so much Sam Goodys they were a bit to mainstream. But did have most of the charting groups Yes ELP Genesis and alot of Hard Rock etc.
Also there were a few Musical Instrument shops that carried a short selection of lps .
Prices ranged from $ 2.99 to $8.99 round there you were getting into double album territory  $8 and up. The lower prices seemed just right, higher was "save up for a week or two"
   Cover art and the instrumentation was key to a purchase of an unknown group.If you heard one song on the radio that was enough to seal the deal.
    Harmony Hut had an awesome import rack: German and other Euro artists but those prices were usually higher. They still had it going on in the mid 80s too When we were searching for the first release of Eddie Jobson's  Zinc The Green Lp.  It was on the new release wall and the sales girl who was a knock out said she just got it and loved it, I was in instant love with her !!! Of course the Lp turned out to be Iconic for sure. oops back to the 70s:

We also had our own bands back then and it was quite the scene between groups in high school too. I remember at a High school Battle o Bands one group doing Dear Prudence with a video projection screen backdrop of a movie they made of the beach witth a girl etc. THIS WAS 1973 !
Before the days of Varilites, LED Lo and Hi res video, Full lighting rigs hung from the grids /roofs of halls and arenas.
Remember going to a school dance in the gym  which was pretty big and this band brought every piece of gear they could scrape up. Cause it was also how many amps and cabs you had on stage in addition to your musicianship which made you a good band or not. This guy was playing a Clear Lucite bass thru some old Gibson amps ( yes they made amps too) and Guild +Ampeg cabs I asked him where he got it from and he said " Rondo Music Man !" shaking his head up and down with the song they were playing.

Do you know of these groups :::

The Hometown Band
Crawler
Lake
TIm Duffy's Orchestra of Clouds
The re-formed Focus (1977) this is one I cannot find anywhere but have one track on tape whcih i will post later.
Cluster

The 70s are the Diamond in my life, If I could go back I would without a doubt.




Edited by sturoc - September 09 2011 at 11:45

pony tail wrote: I was born nov. 3 1960 so I got the best of  the 60s and 70s.  A lot of ups and downs but one hell of a ride.  I am what I am because of those years A peace Loving down to earth person. the music set me free they sure dont write music like that any more. I get lost in the old tunes and the memorys come flooding back. yes the 60s and 70s changed me forever and I love who I have become. my music is my life. rock on and on till the cows come home. peace out to every one out there in computer land.