Forum Home Forum Home > Progressive Music Lounges > Prog Music Lounge
  New Posts New Posts RSS Feed - What was it like in the 60's and 70's?
  FAQ FAQ  Forum Search   Events   Register Register  Login Login

Topic ClosedWhat was it like in the 60's and 70's?

 Post Reply Post Reply Page  <1234 19>
Author
Message
cstack3 View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar
VIP Member

Joined: July 20 2009
Location: Tucson, AZ USA
Status: Offline
Points: 7264
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 28 2011 at 21:24
Originally posted by Atavachron Atavachron wrote:

Originally posted by cstack3 cstack3 wrote:


Wish I could convert my memories into video!  The hippies in downtown Chicago selling underground newspapers, the head shops selling hash pipes, the record stores, the bra-less chicks!!  Loved it!  

come to S.F., that's daily life  (well there are also bra-less men, but that's another story)


Nah, been there, done that!  We have plenty of hippies selling tie-dyed tee shirts in Madison, WI!  

What made it cool was the tension about Viet Nam & Nixon, the F-You in-your-face counter-culture attitude, and pushing the envelope in general!   Being hippie is too mainstream now, even for serious adherents to the culture....the drivers just aren't there.  Medical marijuana, dude. 

"The Seed" was our local hippie paper, check it out!!  


It all made for tremendous eye-candy for this impressionable high school freshman!!  
Back to Top
Atavachron View Drop Down
Special Collaborator
Special Collaborator
Avatar
Honorary Collaborator

Joined: September 30 2006
Location: Pearland
Status: Online
Points: 65245
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 28 2011 at 21:57
I can remember being about 4 yrs old in Dolores park watching people chase-down some poor slob in a rubber Nixon mask
Back to Top
Mellotron Storm View Drop Down
Prog Reviewer
Prog Reviewer
Avatar

Joined: August 27 2006
Location: The Beach
Status: Offline
Points: 13467
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 28 2011 at 22:39
Originally posted by scandosch scandosch wrote:

I'm 50. So I grew up listening to the music of the seventies. I must have been on another planet, because I dont agree with most of what I read hereby, really. Maybe US was another planet then (but I doubt it having seen several films about the era...) but here in Europe the situation was not that!
First of all: in the seventies no TV show, no rock magazine was making choices. The market was! I mean, if a band or artist was selling hard, it was on display everywhere. And that happened because the record companies based band selection on the quality of the concerts, THEN a band was allowed to make records! So the ones who got into a studio were absolute quality bands. Talent selection was the key to every company.
Today record companies just buy finished records, dont take risk, just put on the market everything, hoping that enough people will buy to cover the cost. Back then to record music cost millions.
So as an adolescent I was happy to see every week end a concert of Yes, of Genesis, or Deep Purple, or Styx (you pick) and discover new music. The very same bands came in concert in near cities and venues of HUNDREDS of sitting places, for the price of a record. And the record were not expensive...If you consider the production cost of a vinyl and those of cds, the latter should cost MAX 10 dollars each new, situation reached only in the last 4-5 years.
Was it difficult to get records of less known bands? Maybe, but not impossible. What was really difficult was to get bootlegs, usually japan ones, because illegal and very very expensive.
But the most important thing: not every day you had new records coming out. So when a band was publishing a new LP it was an event. I remember many many evening spent with friends in my tiny room listening to the new Banco, tha last Santana or the magical double (DOUBLE) album of Genesis. So a record was playing for months, not days like today. This is probably the worst limit of Prog Archives: lack of historical sight.
But hey, music is just music, so a matter of taste. Personally, having become a musician myself, I recall with the same pathos the first time I heard "Burn" , "Foxtrot", "Aqualung", "Atom heart mother", but also the first Asia, the first Dream Theater, not to mention when I saw at cinema show "The song remains the same" or singing all togheter Red on the beach with my girlfriend, and all other listening. I was lucky. 71 to 76 was the best music period ever for rock, and back then rack was only rock, against jazz, classic and country (for old people...)

Scandy/Shakary
 
Nice to read your thoughts Scandy and by the way i really enjoy your "The Last Summer" album,it's quite meanigful to me.I kind of missed the seventies music-wise.Well i started to really get into music in the late seventies but missed the prog era.I do remember LPs in the department stores which have long ago been replaced by cds.Personally i never bought an album based on the cover.Money was the issue so if i heard a song i really liked or if a friend recommended an album then i would take the plunge.So different from today though with the internet.I grew up in a tourist town so my memories of the seventies are mostly of the motor cycle gangs and those muscle cars which were everywhere back then.Everyone had long hair including almost all of my school mates even though i was only in grade six.I remember the bell bottomed pants,often striped and platform shoes.Yes i had both back in the day.
"The wind is slowly tearing her apart"

"Sad Rain" ANEKDOTEN
Back to Top
octopus-4 View Drop Down
Special Collaborator
Special Collaborator
Avatar
RIO/Avant/Zeuhl,Neo & Post/Math Teams

Joined: October 31 2006
Location: Italy
Status: Offline
Points: 14071
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 05:15
Originally posted by lazland lazland wrote:


However, one of the sheer pleasures then was to walk into your local record shop, flick through the lovely vinyl covers, and discover some great music, or they would personally order it for you. Such shops are becoming a bit of a rarity these days, and that is a shame.


This Thumbs Up. Digging inside the covers was a great pleasure. I have bought a lot of good and crap albums just looking at the covers.
Each shop was used to have a "discount" section with low price albums, just because they were trying to clear ouf their stock. I have found copies of Bo Hansson's Lord of The Rings, Black Sabbath's Sabotage and Waters-Geesin's Music from the Body and the mono vinyl of the Electric Prunes' debut in a shop like this, but also some "John Lodge" bought only because the cover was like a YES album that I've never been able to listen to a whole side.

None of the shops I was used to go still exists.

A good moment was at the end of the 80s, when the market was converted to CD. Some lucky guys had the possibility to buy boxes full of vinyls (without looking inside the boxes) for few money. Imagine a box containing 100 discs, you throw 80 of them in the bin but you may find an original Thick as a Brick inside.....I have purchased the whole Private Parts and Pieces by Ant Phillips in that period.

The bad...in my country (Italy) private networks started to be allowed at the end of the 70s, and the national network was ruled by politicians, so you couldn't expect to hear Aqualung on the radio because it was not liked by the Vatican.

Knowing new bands and artists was a question of friends and home made tape copies.  
I stand with Roger Waters, I stand with Joan Baez, I stand with Victor Jara, I stand with Woody Guthrie. Music is revolution
Back to Top
yanch View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: January 03 2010
Location: Lowell, MA
Status: Offline
Points: 3247
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 07:09
Nice thread. Here's my input. I'm 52 so the 70's were a huge part of musical development. The things I remember growing up in NYC:
1-The FM radio stations played everything. I got my first listens of Gentle Giant, Genesis, ELP, Crack the Sky, King Crimson from the radio.
2-There were lots of small record stores that had very eclectic catalogs-some leaned more toward mainstream-Beatles, Stones, Etc. Others toward jazz and others toward-art-rock-Yes, Genesis, Floyd, etc. You could walk in and find much of what you were looking for. As mentioned, if things didn't sell well and you were patient, you could get vinyl very cheap at times.
3-Concerts galore and affordable! When I was in high school-1973-1977-I went to many shows every year because you could afford to. My first Jethro Tull concert cost me $15 dollars and I had very nice seats. You also had so many venues from small clubs (Saw Peter Gabriel in a 300 person club) to Madison Square Garden and Shea Stadium. 

It was a great time and for me a great place to be a teenager getting into the kind of music I have come to love.
Back to Top
topographicbroadways View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: May 20 2010
Location: Australia
Status: Offline
Points: 5575
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 07:50
Like this



Edited by topographicbroadways - August 29 2011 at 07:52
Back to Top
ergaster View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: June 30 2010
Status: Offline
Points: 294
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 08:37
Great topic!  We old farts do like to reminisce.  Smile

I was in my late teens/early 20s in the 70s.  To echo someone else, back then FM radio would play albums in their entirety, and a lot of prog got played.   Pink Floyd (pre-Dark Side) was common. Zappa and Beefheart could be heard.

I was a bit luckier than most people I suppose, when it came to hearing and getting my hands on music, because I was closely connected to a rather well-known record store in Toronto that routinely stocked a lot of what we would call "prog" today*.  (It wasn't called progressive back then, I'm not sure it was called anything in particular but that could be failure of memory.  Genre distinctions were not so fine back then anyway.)   Most of the main prog bands had Canadian labels, and they always had a large selection of imports and odd stuff from everywhere.  So I could hear it, and then get it at a discount (I have to confess that when the orders came in, especially the imports, a lot of those albums never made it to the front of the store for the general public.....)

Along with easy access to the music was also easy access to concerts--I went to SO many free concerts back in the day, including VdGG in 1976....sigh.....

However, even at that, one often took a chance because there wasn't the opportunity to hear really new music as easily as today, even with the more adventurous radio stations.  I still have some dogs in my vinyl collection that I bought after hearing one or two cuts that never went beyond those one or two cuts.  There was also more of a tendency to buy new releases from favourite artists without hearing them first, on the strength of the catalogue.  That could be a mistake too, sometimes.

At any rate, it sure was a great time for music, but my experience was not typical I suspect.

I only bought based on cover if the cover was by Roger Dean.  Some notion of collecting all the Dean covers, I think.  Smile

*One of the "interview questions" that would be asked of hopeful employees was "Who is the drummer for Magma?"
LOL




Edited by ergaster - August 29 2011 at 08:39
We have done the impossible, and that makes us mighty.
Captain Malcolm Reynolds

Reality rules, Honor the truth
Chemist99a R.I.P.
Back to Top
jean-marie View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: July 27 2010
Location: FRANCE
Status: Offline
Points: 2585
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 10:09
Was 13 on 1968 when i got my first 45 rpm, Mainly pop singles but in fact everything english singing was called pop music, here in France at the time LOL I did dirty little jobs like working for a scrap merchant, after the school, to win a little money for getting records.I remember i got second hand singles coming from jukeboxes for more or less half one euro....It's the way i got Procol, Aphrodite's child, Creedence clearwater revival, Bee gees, Beatles, Moody blues, Canned heat, Shocking blue and a few others, i used to listen to them around 20 times a day Big smile My first lps have been Pink floyd More soundtrack, Iron butterfly Live (and it's been disapointing at first listening because the drums phasing effects were not there on stage) Aphrodite's child It's five o clock and Creedence Cosmos factory...It was a magical time and i still feel very nostalgic Heart

Edited by jean-marie - August 29 2011 at 12:01
Back to Top
jean-marie View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: July 27 2010
Location: FRANCE
Status: Offline
Points: 2585
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 12:06
Originally posted by octopus-4 octopus-4 wrote:

Originally posted by lazland lazland wrote:


However, one of the sheer pleasures then was to walk into your local record shop, flick through the lovely vinyl covers, and discover some great music, or they would personally order it for you. Such shops are becoming a bit of a rarity these days, and that is a shame.


This Thumbs Up. Digging inside the covers was a great pleasure. I have bought a lot of good and crap albums just looking at the covers.
Each shop was used to have a "discount" section with low price albums, just because they were trying to clear ouf their stock. I have found copies of Bo Hansson's Lord of The Rings, Black Sabbath's Sabotage and Waters-Geesin's Music from the Body and the mono vinyl of the Electric Prunes' debut in a shop like this, but also some "John Lodge" bought only because the cover was like a YES album that I've never been able to listen to a whole side.
Got this album as a Moodies fan, Natural avenue,and sold it back after two weeks LOL
None of the shops I was used to go still exists.

A good moment was at the end of the 80s, when the market was converted to CD. Some lucky guys had the possibility to buy boxes full of vinyls (without looking inside the boxes) for few money. Imagine a box containing 100 discs, you throw 80 of them in the bin but you may find an original Thick as a Brick inside.....I have purchased the whole Private Parts and Pieces by Ant Phillips in that period.

The bad...in my country (Italy) private networks started to be allowed at the end of the 70s, and the national network was ruled by politicians, so you couldn't expect to hear Aqualung on the radio because it was not liked by the Vatican.

Knowing new bands and artists was a question of friends and home made tape copies.  
Back to Top
ghost_of_morphy View Drop Down
Prog Reviewer
Prog Reviewer
Avatar

Joined: March 08 2007
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 2755
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 13:08
I can't put enough stress on how different radio was back in the day.  Here in America, DJ's ruled.  If they liked it they played it.  If the owners didnt' like it, they got another DJ.  What that ended up meaning was that depending on your market, you might hear a lot prog mixed in with the hits of the day,  Or you might hear a lot of R&B or whatever.  It just depended on the market, the DJ and the station.  Anyhow, depending on where you lived, you could still get a strong prog station up until the very early '80's.  Nowadays, all radio stations (even ones that pupport to play randomly) follow a pre-approved playlist, and prog has a very minimal profile.
 
Of course that's just for America.  If you grew up in the UK, things were very very different.
Back to Top
lazland View Drop Down
Prog Reviewer
Prog Reviewer
Avatar

Joined: October 28 2008
Location: Wales
Status: Offline
Points: 13627
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 14:11
Originally posted by ghost_of_morphy ghost_of_morphy wrote:

I can't put enough stress on how different radio was back in the day.  Here in America, DJ's ruled.  If they liked it they played it.  If the owners didnt' like it, they got another DJ.  What that ended up meaning was that depending on your market, you might hear a lot prog mixed in with the hits of the day,  Or you might hear a lot of R&B or whatever.  It just depended on the market, the DJ and the station.  Anyhow, depending on where you lived, you could still get a strong prog station up until the very early '80's.  Nowadays, all radio stations (even ones that pupport to play randomly) follow a pre-approved playlist, and prog has a very minimal profile.
 
Of course that's just for America.  If you grew up in the UK, things were very very different.

In the UK, radio stations have always had a pre-approved playlist, even the so-called pirates. We had a few "eccentric" DJs, such as Peel, who played what they liked, but they were an exception, rather than the rule.
Enhance your life. Get down to www.lazland.org

Now also broadcasting on www.progzilla.com Every Saturday, 4.00 p.m. UK time!
Back to Top
ClemofNazareth View Drop Down
Special Collaborator
Special Collaborator
Avatar
Prog Folk Researcher

Joined: August 17 2005
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 4659
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 14:16

I went through my teens in the 70s in Montana, so in addition to no computers (or internet), we didn't have much access to live music or music communities like folks in Chicago, New York or other big cities.

Radio was a critical music source.  Back then most local radio stations were actually local, meaning instead of programmed song rotations there was an actual DJ sitting behind a microphone and a couple of turntables spinning records, even at night.  Stations tended to be a bit less restrictive about the kinds of music they played, and almost all of them took phone-in requests so you could always call in if you had some band you wanted to hear and they would usually play something of theirs.  Also, many FM stations would have 'extended plays' in the evenings, and often played entire albums.
 
There were also late-night music shows like The Midnight Special, the Sonny & Cher Hour,  and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert.  Those shows were all on network TV and were a great way to see bands perform live (and sometimes early music videos), especially in places like Montana where none of those bands were ever going to tour.  I first saw acts like David Bowie, Kansas, Queen, Mountain, T. Rex, ELO and Elton John on those shows.  I'll never forget Annie Wilson singing "Magic Man" and "Crazy on You" live on the Midnight Special in 1977.  It was practically a religious experience.
 
And there were a lot more record stores in the seventies then there are now of course.  There had to be since that was about the only way to buy music.  I tended to buy 8-tracks since you could play them in a car, although I did know some people who had turntables in their cars.  Car stereos were big, and many of us spent a lot of money pimping out our cars with huge amps and speakers.
 
I spent a lot of time in record stores just trolling through the stacks looking for something new and yes, often buying something I'd never heard of just based on the cover art or the name of some musician I knew of in the liner notes.  Some record stores had previewing rooms where you could play an album before buying it, and others would put a record on the PA system and play it if you asked nicely.  Every record store had a copy of this huge book with yellow pages that got updated every month or so.  Can't remember what that thing was called, but it supposedly listed every record from any label with U.S. distribution that was still in print.  If a store didn't have one you could usually order a copy, but sometimes you had to put down a deposit or even prepay for the album.  And it might take weeks before the thing came in because a lot of times the stores would wait until they had enough special orders to justify the shipping costs.  Imports were very expensive so I usually would call into a radio station with European band requests and hope they would play something.
 
It's certainly a lot easier to get music today than it was back then.  Sometimes I miss the record stores though, especially the used ones, because there was usually someone either working there or just hanging out who would be happy to recommend something or just shoot the breeze about music they knew that you didn't, or tell you about some great concert they'd been to somewhere exotic (everywhere was exotic compared to Montana).  Hard to find that kind of inside information today...
 
 


Edited by ClemofNazareth - August 29 2011 at 14:16
"Peace is the only battle worth waging."

Albert Camus
Back to Top
ghost_of_morphy View Drop Down
Prog Reviewer
Prog Reviewer
Avatar

Joined: March 08 2007
Location: United States
Status: Offline
Points: 2755
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 14:44
Yep, radio stations were way different then.  And let's not forget the huge influence of The King Biscuit Flower Hour.  I grew up in the heart of Appalachia, Clem.  Only had one local record store that thought outside the box.

Edited by ghost_of_morphy - August 29 2011 at 14:49
Back to Top
TODDLER View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar
VIP Member

Joined: August 28 2009
Location: Vineland, N.J.
Status: Offline
Points: 3126
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 14:46

The road was strange in the 70's. and the 80's. I was basically living in Holiday Inns, transported by limos and buses, paid extremely well for rehearsing and performing. This was a corporation and my head was in the clouds. I was a 23 year old mixed up kid. Upon arriving to the first show,,,I step out of the limo and see that the workers are taking down the sign which read Steve Hackett. His bookings that year and only for 4 to 5 months were directly a week ahead of us. I was freaking out on the inside. The bodyguards would not allow many of us musicians to mingle. The corporation had some pretty twisted ideas for criminal activity. There were pay offs and mofia around me at times and I became extremely nervous. As time went on I met strange people. A few record executives, managers, agents, roadies and bodyguards. Mostly all of the roadies and bodyguards were into martial arts. For traveling years on end I became used to the protection.

Groupies killed the Blues supposedly but I steered clear and found the idea yuck! revolting! It was laughable when they followed us from one state to the next. Sexual promiscuity was vast and in the high numbers. It was a diseased community that held the act of sex over the hiring of talent. I had many musician buddies who lost their big time break because they refused to sleep with someone on the staff. Drugs were always handed to us whether we wanted them or not. It wasn't often that you could ask questions. This was a wealthy empire. It wasn't a healthy experience because people told me I was great every night, bought me expensive gifts, offered me drugs, offered me sex and you are thinking in your head...."I don't know what the H is going on?" Peter Banks experienced the same extremes in the biz. Back in the 70's the music industry was out-right evil. Larry Magid concert promoter who eventually controlled "Electric Factory Concerts" threatened his competitors with violence tatics and manyof them in Philadelphia backed down. This coordinates with his evil plan to obtain ownership for the Tower Theatre and among other end of result disasters he created was the famous WHO concert in In Ohio where a hundred thousand kids converged on 2 doors of an arena resulting in 11 people crushed to death. The press was keen to blame the Who and it was Larry being too cheap to hire enough security to open all the doors of the staduim. He was an evil guy and he treated musicians badly. He had this idea based off the Woodstock festival. He figured if he gave it a shot with all his financial backing he could attempt to book bands in stadiums So that particular aspect of the large gathering at Woodstock is what made the lightbulb go off in his pea brain head. So now you had Stadium Rock. This was when the musician was placed on a high stage in front of a huge audience. It caused nut cases to worship you like a God because in their small minds...you are too far away for them to touch....so you see? It's the pollution of the sexual promiscuity repeated once again.
 
In the 60's when Hendrix or Jefferson Airplane performed in small theaters it was more of a close connection between audience and band in the spiritual sense. They were no doubt rock stars with maybe a few props, fancy stage clothes (especially Hendrix).....but the communication regarding space between audience and artist was demolished forever when Magid took over Electric Factory Concert Bookings. The hippies who cut their hair and became record executives decided against doing 20 minute epics in the studio and to attempt to shorten most songs. Prog was taken out of the media over a slow course of events. Promotion was no longer in the interest of the arts. Instead it was about going commercial. Magid was part of this caper as well.
 
From the mid to late 70's bands like U.K, Dixie Dregs, Triumvirat, played mostly theatres but were trying to carry the torch for the sake of art. After Magid and the industry's decision to put their plan in motion....prog started a slow death. In the 80's you might be able to check out Bruford's band in a small club or even Gong. But those days of PFM opening for a mainstream band were gone. The disintegration of prog is what I recall in the 70's as being the most disturbing experience for musicians. You had all these great jazz musicians who actually played prog and hailed from N.Y. or Philadelphia and when the nightmare started they wanted to put a gun to their head. Everything was about what Magid wanted ...so it seems.  


Edited by TODDLER - August 29 2011 at 15:06
Back to Top
Big Jim View Drop Down
Forum Newbie
Forum Newbie
Avatar

Joined: April 12 2011
Location: Graham Washingt
Status: Offline
Points: 3
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 15:06
In the 70's we almost all smoked pot and drank so our music taste reflected it.Here in the Seattle area we had AM radio and they played mostly pop rock,country rock and soft folk rock which if you think about it is sill much better than the pop music of today.Some of those Am ststions played funk,R&B and dance music for the city wimps and still that wasnt all bad.Most of us stoners and drinkers listened to FM radio for album oriented hard rock which included hard blues rock,metal,psycedelic rock and of course our favorite progressive rock.I grew up listening to my fathers country music like George Jones,Waylen Jennings,Johnny Cash and many others which I still love to this day.I started smoking weed and drinking in 1976 and I started listening to Tha Allman Brothers Band,Lynyrd Skynyrd and ZZ top first because of my country roots.My stoner friends started playing Pink Floyd and it blew my mind.I listened to side one of Wish You Where Here and I was never the same.Next thing you know I was listening to Yes,Jethro Tull,ELP,Nektar,Kansas,Styx,Early Genesis and Gentle Giant.My drinker buddies turned me on to Black Sabbath,Deep Purple,Led Zep,Aerosmith,Humble Pie,Judas Priest and that became my musical taste thank to the 70's which was a much more liberial time with no drug testing and sexual freedom.Ronald Regan ruined all this and the 1980's turned music into a plastic pop world.The only good music that prospered was metal.Prog rock was taken over by Neo Prog which wasnt all bad but Yes,Genesis and Roxy music all went pop.And of course the end of the 80's brought us Rap.What a freaken gift that was.
Back to Top
Progosopher View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: May 12 2009
Location: Coolwood
Status: Offline
Points: 6467
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 21:48
Some of the reminiscences here reflect my own experiences, but here is what it was like for me:
 
Used record stores were a godsend for buying older and more obscure releases.  I bought my first albums by King Crimson and Jade Warrior, Renaissance too, in those kinds of places.  We had one in the next town over called Portable Madness Records.  I was a dork and the owner was a bit of a jerk to me, but he had some really cool offerings.  Sometimes we would go into Berkeley and go crazy buying records and books we could not find in our boring small town out on the fringes of civilization.
 
At my first concert, The Tubes, me and my buddy were astounded that everybody was getting high before the show except for us.  Then a neighbor handed over a doob and we felt much better.  In more ways than one.  I was 16.
 
Radio stations played Yes, ELP, Jethro Tull, Moody Blues, Hendrix, Beatles, Kinks, etc. regularly and frequently, and not just the same one or two songs that supposed classic rock radio plays.  The King Biscuit Flour Hour was on weekly (or was that monthly?) and they had many interesting bands - not just the most popular.  Today, they provide a good reccord of what was being performed at the time.  The Midnight Special and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert were also on weekly and offered a wide variety - that's when I first heard Steeleye Span (I hated them at the time, but a couple of years later they became one of my favorites).  And you haven't lived until you see Roy Wood dressed as a jester with multi-colored face paint play an electric ukelele that looked like a miniature Strat.
 
I was shocked when I had to pay $12.00 to see Led Zeppelin, along with Derenger and Judas Priest - so expensive!  Zeppelin was great merely because they were Zeppelin, but if the playing field was level, Derenger stole the show and Priest totally kicked ass.
 
Growing up near San Francisco in the 70s, the counter culture scene loomed very large.  The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, were all local bands to us, as were The Doobie Brothers and Journey.  Oh yeah, also Creedence, and Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and the Holding Company (with Janis Joplin).  Later on there were The Residents if you were W.E.I.R.D.  The Tubes were local too.
 
Towards the end of the seventies I was going to a concert monthly: Tull, Yes, Hackett, Rainbow, Uriah Heep, UK, Queen, Kansas, Styx, Weather Report, Frampton, Skynyrd, Outlaws, Foghat.
 
Lots of good times, yes, but also lots of problems as well.  It is easy to see the past through rose-tinted glasses where reality is softened and blurred.  Lots of what are now considered Prog bands I was only vaguely aware of and their albums were almost impossible to find.  There are so many more offerings available now.  I have been in the process of discovering a lot of those bands, such as Gentle Giant, Eloy, Camel, Gong, Caravan, etc. over the last few years.  Their albums are so much easier to find than they were back then.  In that way, our current era is better, but note that these are still mainly 70s bands.  I stopped even trying to remain current years ago.  I you like it, what does it matter when it was created?
 
 
The world of sound is certainly capable of infinite variety and, were our sense developed, of infinite extensions. -- George Santayana, "The Sense of Beauty"
Back to Top
cstack3 View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar
VIP Member

Joined: July 20 2009
Location: Tucson, AZ USA
Status: Offline
Points: 7264
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 21:56
Buncha old hippies, reminiscing!  Great stories, it is fun to read about how the experiences were different throughout the world!!  

Ah, pot....when we saw concerts in the early '70's in Chicago, you could cut the air with a knife!   I remember a Focus gig, the smoke was BILLOWING in huge clouds!  Foghat was also on the bill, and Lonesome Dave played his shiny aluminum Veleno guitar, which reflected the stage spotlights right back onto the crowd!  One of the best lightshows I ever saw!  

It's sure not like that anymore!!  
Back to Top
TODDLER View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar
VIP Member

Joined: August 28 2009
Location: Vineland, N.J.
Status: Offline
Points: 3126
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 22:28
Originally posted by Progosopher Progosopher wrote:

Some of the reminiscences here reflect my own experiences, but here is what it was like for me:
 
Used record stores were a godsend for buying older and more obscure releases.  I bought my first albums by King Crimson and Jade Warrior, Renaissance too, in those kinds of places.  We had one in the next town over called Portable Madness Records.  I was a dork and the owner was a bit of a jerk to me, but he had some really cool offerings.  Sometimes we would go into Berkeley and go crazy buying records and books we could not find in our boring small town out on the fringes of civilization.
 
At my first concert, The Tubes, me and my buddy were astounded that everybody was getting high before the show except for us.  Then a neighbor handed over a doob and we felt much better.  In more ways than one.  I was 16.
 
Radio stations played Yes, ELP, Jethro Tull, Moody Blues, Hendrix, Beatles, Kinks, etc. regularly and frequently, and not just the same one or two songs that supposed classic rock radio plays.  The King Biscuit Flour Hour was on weekly (or was that monthly?) and they had many interesting bands - not just the most popular.  Today, they provide a good reccord of what was being performed at the time.  The Midnight Special and Don Kirshner's Rock Concert were also on weekly and offered a wide variety - that's when I first heard Steeleye Span (I hated them at the time, but a couple of years later they became one of my favorites).  And you haven't lived until you see Roy Wood dressed as a jester with multi-colored face paint play an electric ukelele that looked like a miniature Strat.
 
I was shocked when I had to pay $12.00 to see Led Zeppelin, along with Derenger and Judas Priest - so expensive!  Zeppelin was great merely because they were Zeppelin, but if the playing field was level, Derenger stole the show and Priest totally kicked ass.
 
Growing up near San Francisco in the 70s, the counter culture scene loomed very large.  The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, were all local bands to us, as were The Doobie Brothers and Journey.  Oh yeah, also Creedence, and Quicksilver Messenger Service, Big Brother and the Holding Company (with Janis Joplin).  Later on there were The Residents if you were W.E.I.R.D.  The Tubes were local too.
 
Towards the end of the seventies I was going to a concert monthly: Tull, Yes, Hackett, Rainbow, Uriah Heep, UK, Queen, Kansas, Styx, Weather Report, Frampton, Skynyrd, Outlaws, Foghat.
 
Lots of good times, yes, but also lots of problems as well.  It is easy to see the past through rose-tinted glasses where reality is softened and blurred.  Lots of what are now considered Prog bands I was only vaguely aware of and their albums were almost impossible to find.  There are so many more offerings available now.  I have been in the process of discovering a lot of those bands, such as Gentle Giant, Eloy, Camel, Gong, Caravan, etc. over the last few years.  Their albums are so much easier to find than they were back then.  In that way, our current era is better, but note that these are still mainly 70s bands.  I stopped even trying to remain current years ago.  I you like it, what does it matter when it was created?
 
 
Really cool that someone mentioned Jade Warrior. I've hardly crossed paths with anyone in the world who knows of them. This post brings back some visuals for me. .
Back to Top
Barbu View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar

Joined: October 09 2005
Location: infinity
Status: Offline
Points: 30850
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 29 2011 at 23:19
Great thread
Back to Top
TODDLER View Drop Down
Forum Senior Member
Forum Senior Member
Avatar
VIP Member

Joined: August 28 2009
Location: Vineland, N.J.
Status: Offline
Points: 3126
Direct Link To This Post Posted: August 30 2011 at 00:58
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.
Back to Top
 Post Reply Post Reply Page  <1234 19>

Forum Jump Forum Permissions View Drop Down



This page was generated in 0.172 seconds.
Donate monthly and keep PA fast-loading and ad-free forever.