I know a guy who estimates he goes to something like a hundred and fifty rock concerts each year. From stadiums to bars, he sees them all. That’s his thing – it’s what he does. Much as I love rock music, historically I’ve tended to be a bit discriminating, stingy even, about where I spend […]
Read more "Guns N’ Roses – Yesterdays and Today"Damn, it’s tough getting a social change movement going nowadays. And just as tough to get the permits and Board of Supervisors’ okays for a commemoration of one from half a century ago. Fuckin’ bureaucracy, man. It ain’t how it used to be. The Summer of Love in 1967 was one of those organic hopey-changey […]
Read more "You Can’t Go Home Again: San Francisco and the Summer of Love"The climax of the Sixties was approaching as the spring of 1969 plodded onward. New President Richard Nixon began the withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam, though the escalation of the brinksmanship with the Soviets and the war’s expansion into Laos and Cambodia lurked just around the corner. Reasons for hopeful progress could still […]
Read more "1969, Part Two – We’re Not Gonna Take It"I pause at this point to wonder aloud at what point the overall cultural vibe of the Sixties went from light to dark. Depending on who you ask, this momentary thought break of mine could appropriately show up almost anywhere in this chronology from mid-1967 onward. People who experienced the Summer of Love in and […]
Read more "1968, Part Four – Inheriting The Earth… Or Not"Prog rock continued to exert a growing pull on pure psychedelia’s audience as 1968 wore on. Deep Purple helped drive this point home with their inaugural release, Shades of Deep Purple, which melded different song styles into a cohesive whole, always underpinned by Jon Lord’s Hammond organ. Lord eschewed the Moog synthesizer that seemingly everybody […]
Read more "1968, Part Three — Moving and Shaking"I find myself returning to this little musical journey of mine after a three-month hiatus. Too much of a good thing is, well, too much, and I needed to break away from the music of the Sixties for a bit. What took its place in my listening queue? A lot of Motörhead and Iron Maiden, […]
Read more "1968, Part Two – Curiouser and Curiouser"As I commented in the previous post (and as many much smarter people than me have no doubt in the past), it’s clear to me that the passing of the year from 1967 to 1968 represented a significant change in popular music. It was true, almost from the moment the new year dawned. It might […]
Read more "1968, Part One – Distant Thunder"