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

No bottled water.

I grew up in Oshawa Ontario, about a half hour drive from where Rush were just putting it all together.  I turned 15 in 1970 and was already infatuated with my older sisters record collection.   The title track of ITCOTCK and "Epitaph" drew me into the prog direction at an early age but I still had a love for hard rock that rode along with it for many years.  I saw Rush on the 2112 tour and was blown away at how much and how fast they had grown from a hard rock bar band to a valid contender on the world prog scene.   Some radio stations out of Toronto were into playing the longer songs in there entirety, even Iron Butterfly's psychedelic 17 minute "Inna Gadda Da Vida" was fair game for a while there.  And the cover art, I miss that.  There was no feeling like taking the plastic off a double album and exploring the creative artwork.  I now have a couple of "coffee table" books the size of an album cover that feature a lot of the greats.  The curve creativity took from about the mid 60's to the late 70's was astounding.  As the electric guitar, and the effects it spawned and the synthesizer were coming into their own as instruments in modern music the sounds coming out of the radio were amazing.  And they were bewildering to my parents generation, it all happened too fast for them but us kids didn't know the pace things were at before this era, we just listened and soaked it up.   

My 1st job in 1976 was Christmas season at a toy store paying $2.05/hr.  The law may be different now, but back then they didn't have to pay me minimum wage cause I was only working about 20 hrs/wk.  Of course single albums at Tower records were $5 so I was happy to trade 3 hrs of work for a new copy of Starless and Bible Black  

What the various minumum wages are now isn't really the point I was making... to me $7.00/hr seemed like quite a lot of money for 1976 considering that is it roughly what the minimum wage is now and I was trying to get a perspective on that... I'm going to take a guess and say the average US wage in 1976 was probably not much over $9,000, which would be about $4.30/hr... for a teen/young adult it would be considerably less

Finnforest wrote: Federal min wage is something like that but many States have higher min wages I believe.  Some cities I think even have their own, like San Fran's is over $10 an hour.My first job paid me 3.10 an hour as I recall.

In Canada it is 10$

In the 60s I had one of these:

Federal min wage is something like that but many States have higher min wages I believe.  Some cities I think even have their own, like San Fran's is over $10 an hour.

My first job paid me 3.10 an hour as I recall. 

$7.00 an hour in 1976 looks like a fortune from my old Spanish eyes, good for you!

   Well , i don't really Know about the other Guys !!   but i'm only giving my Opinion about this //

progbethyname wrote: The.Crimson.King wrote: Gerinski wrote: And for the musicians themselves, maintaining a Mellotron in smooth working order required more dedication that a sick pet puppy, often a dedicated guy for the big bands which could afford it. When King Crimson played San Francisco in '74 they had to limp through with only one of the two trons working.  <span style="line-height: 1.2;">An aside...a friend was at the show and also on the bill was 10 Years After.  While Crimso was on this girl behind him kept asking her boyfriend, "Is that Alvin Lee?" </span> Anyway, remember how often your cassette or 8 track tape would get stuck in the rollers and spit out in a creased and folded mess?  Multiply that by 35 more tapes and you have the nightmare that was the Mellotron...'course when it worked it was as if angels had descended to earth  I imagine it would be pretty hard to fix a busted tron. I wouldn't know where to begin.