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

Climax Blues Band, Manfred Manns Earth Band, Ten Years After..Spectrum, Philadelphia

Genesis...Wind and Wuthering tour ..Spectrum, Philadelphia

Return to Forever...Tower Theatre, Philadelphia

Spooky Tooth, Frampton's Camel, The Mahavishnu Orchestra...Spectrum, Philadelphia

Gary Wright, Peter Frampton, Yes...JFK Stadium...Rows of seats were set on fire when YES performed "Ritual". The fire department arrived late and the fire was spreading rapidly. Insane!

 

Sea Level, Jefferson Starship..Spectrum 75"

U.K., Al Dimeola-Tower theatre

ELP-Welcome Back tour..Spectrum

Frank Zappa...Tower theatre 82"  He had the flu as he pointed at everyone singing...you're an a-hole, you're an a-hole

Steeleye Span....flipping excellent my friends!

 

When the British musicians invaded America....they changed Rock music by coloring it more and in general having many more ideas to experiment with than any of the American groups before and even after they hit the music scene. The Beach Boys were unique for their time..however most American Rock bands were directly influenced by the British bands. Love songs were huge on the charts in America, but no one was writing lyrics like "I'll be back again" or "Not a second time", "I Can't Get No Satisfaction" and "Tired of Waiting". Sorry folks..but lyrics like that did not exist in America until the British invaded the Rock n' Roll music scene. And to note..."All Day and All Of The Night" , the unwed father, if you will, of such later classics as Paul Revere & los Raiders' "Just Like Me" and los Doors "Hello , I Love You" was a copy cat , repeated sequence ,by many other American Rock bands as well. Every kid on the bus I rode to school carried British Invasion Rock albums and 45's with them to play in music class. You see those films of girls throwing themselves off a balcony while the Rolling Stones or Beatles are playing on stage...well? everyday life of the kid and teenager in America was just as extreme. Don't think for a minute that when American kids and teenagers went back to school on Monday..that they were forgetting all about British Rock..because it's simply not true. Kids were sent down to the office for singing Beatles songs in class and everywhere in America was British influenced chaos! American kids were hypnotized by British rockers for many years...unlike today where someone , somehow, hit's the big time and fades a year later. I'll remember that magical period when I'm on my deathbed,

 

According to David Bowie, then in the middle of recording of his Berlin Trilogy with Brian Eno, its impact on the genre's direction was recognized early on: One day in Berlin ... Eno came running in and said, "I have heard the sound of the future." ... he puts on "I Feel Love," by Donna Summer ... He said, "This is it, look no further. This single is going to change the sound of club music for the next fifteen years." Which was more or less right."

 

 

 

 

Clearly the people who programmed my childhood friends had lots and lots of money. They had prominent positions in the community and programmed kids my age who were completely and mentally unstable. Kids who fooled about with LSD because they had desires to kill themselves. Private desires that is. They had money and power to control the sect and they were not by any means young. Much of this is written as conspiracy theories by individuals today and many skeptics find it laughable. I don't believe everything is true in publication because writers are spicing it up to make a living..but nevertheless it does exist. I know....if I say so right? But seriously...there is truth to it. They are more organized than "lost boy" youths and they will kill you if they have to..and they will NOT leave marks for federal officers to discover. That's what I experienced in the early 70's and every Halloween I think about it. 

 

Most or even all newspaper articles on Vineland N.J. were wiped clean from the internet in the last 10 years. Why..I don't know? One in particular was out of a Miami newspaper. It may have been called "The Miami Times" but I checked it out and it stated that in 1971 , Pastor Harry Snook (RIP), deprogrammed a total of 90 teenage devil worshippers in Vineland. That article sticks more to the truth of the tragic events in the town and leaves room for detailed observation on the corruption there. The actual sect was interrogated with little results of conviction. The only choice Vineland and it's surrounding towns had was to set up Christian stations/housing to convert the kids. The hesitation to push the incidents further for investigation was ruled out in court by a judge..and this was unfortunately after the entire police force conducted a 2 year investigation which involved scoping out all the vast wooded areas, harassing members of the Chestnut Assembly of God Church and the interrogation of many teenage witnesses. According to investigators..the members of the church were leading the life of duel personalities, pretending to be Christians ..but actually belonging to a Satan worshippers sect and programming teenagers. High society members who had revolted against "The Church of Satan" on the west coast had settled in Vineland to form their own sect to practice rituals that were forbidden by Anton himself. I know this all too well from experience...however it was printed on Christian websites as far back as 2004...and then deleted. Why? I don't know? It might make a good movie or book..but without the hokey or corny representation witchcraft and devil worship is often given in Hollywood. But maybe I place emphasis on this because I truly DO NOT believe in the supernatural. I was scared between 1966 and 1971 and shortly after 71' I was weary about continuing to live there. A person recently contacted me who lives in California and lived through the darkworld in Vineland. There are things they do not understand about their past and think that I can help them.

 

Did I accidentally stumble into the Twilight Zone or is this the false memory thread...?

 

 

 

1. The radio - eventhough all of day-time radio was given over to a strict Top-40 playlist (and at that time we had no official commercial radio in the UK - it was either the BBC, pirate radio or in the evenings Radio Luxembourg - they were all Top-40 oriented), the evening and nighttime programming was more eclectic and varied. I first heard Tangerine Dream, Van der Graaf Generator, Tyranasaurus Rex and Frank Zappa on late-night radio. All those DJs, including John Peel and Annie Nightingale would later discard and disapprove of Prog, but they didn't in the early 70s - they pioneered and promoted it (along with their careers I cynically add). Even at its peak, progressive rock never featured on day-time Top-40 programming, even when tracks by Family or Jethro Tull were in the Top-40. (the BBC had this strange concept of the quintessential day-time listener - which was the stay-at-home housewife, and "she" would never approve of that kind of thing...)

 

2. The rock press - the weekly rock press in the UK (Melody Maker, New Musical Express and Sounds) formed a very important part in informing the eager public with the latest music, and that included underground and progressive music. The journo's who later villified Prog were avid supporters of the scene at the time (again career progression and self-important self-promotion of those journalists clouds the issue towards the end of the decade). While you couldn't actually hear any music that way, it brought those artists to your attention so when you saw it in a record shop you would give it a listen. I first noticed The Enid by a short 100 word review in Melody maker.

 

3. The Record Shop and the Listening Booth - all record shops played music while you shopped and they would occasionally be playing something progressive if it suited them, most (I think actually, all) had listening booths or just a headphones so you could listen to an album before you bought it. Often a listening booth would be crowded with kids all listening to the same tracks after school untill the shop assistant decided you'd had enough and kicked you out. I first heard H to He, Le Orme and Seventh Wave's  Things to Come in a listening booth.

 

4. School Friends and Sharing - sharing music is as old as music, even before the popularity of the C90 cassette or dig it all downloads we shared music between us, in the playground, in the common room, on the bus journey home albums would be poured over, discussed, raved about and shared. I would guess that most of the music I heard and subsequently bought was the result of a friend lending me the album - I got into White Noise, TONTO, Queen, Floyd, Yes, PFM and Hendrix this way.

 

5. Label Samplers, Budget releases and Greatest Hits - now-a-days we tend to be dismissive of Various Artists, Budget proce re-releases and Greatest Hits releases but in the 70s they were a valuable way of getting to hear new music because they were cheap and contained several artists that you'd never hear any other way. Budget releases such as Genesis Live, The Faust Tapes, Can Unlimited, Phallus Dei and Camenbert Electrique were often the first time many of us had experienced these bands and Label Samplers such as Nice Enough To Eat, "V", The Age of Atlantic or Bumpers introduced us to bands who were stable-mates of artists we already liked.

 

 

There was a sixth way, but that didn't figure quite as highly on the day-to-day side, and that was live gigs, mostly because you usually went to a gig because you already had the album - it was rare to pick-up on a new band because they were playing support to someone you already liked.