50 years of Woodstock Mythology
ASPartOfMe
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14 Aug 2019, 5:37 pm
What follows is not an academic screed but rambling kind of like the event itself.
While baby boomers mythologize it as everything that was right about the counterculture younger people(and old conservatives) view it as symbolic of the hedonistic selfishness of the baby boomers
When Woodstock arguably the worst non war sensory hell event of 20th century happened I was 11 years old listening to songs with titles such as “Sugar Sugar” and “Chewy Chewy” what was called “Bubblegum rock”, the complete opposite of the innovative music the era is remembered for. I remember it being a big item in the news at the time but my priorities were elsewhere. A few years later when I was listening to harder rock we were still constantly hearing about it. It was a constant reminder that me and my peers just missed out on the seemingly good stuff. Were we ever going to hear the end of it? Here we are in 2019 not only are we not hearing the end of it I am contributing to the pablum for some reason I do not understand.
Lets get this straight Woodstock was not an anti capitalist statement that just through karma happened. Michael Lang may be the face of the organizing of the festival but a lot of the financing was done by John Roberts heir to the Polident/Poligrip denture adhesive behemoth that many of the people who attended the festival are likely using these days. Isn’t it ironic? The festival was advertised heavily in alternative newspapers and New York rock stations.
Organizers originally targeted a field in Wallkill,NY. Organizers lied to local officials telling them 50,000 will come when they expected 250,000. When then locals got a look at Micheal Lang with his long hair visions of unwashed, rioting hippie invaders danced in their heads and they backed out.
Eventually they found Max Yasgur one of the major farmers in the area. While he was a pro Vietnam war republican he had a libertarian streak. The locals in Bethel were just as opposed as their Wallkill brethren. Yasgur was threatened, signs went up “Don’t buy Yasgur’s milk. He loves the hippies.” which only made him more determined. The money was too much of a temptation for the politicians to ignore and the 50,000 attendees promised seemed something this resort area could handle.
There was a major problem. There was a week and a half to go to set up this thing. A rainy summer made things worse. Eventually Lang was told you have a choice forget collecting tickets and take a big financial hit or set up collection booths to a festival with no stage and thus no acts. Actually their was no choice people were already breaking down the fencing. Nothing was going to stop them, not radio warnings to stay away not miles and miles of traffic at a compete standstill. Snowflakes they weren’t. Traffic going nowhere, get out and walk the remaining 20 miles.
Richie Havens opened because nobody else had gotten there yet. “Freedom” was completely improvised, Havens had run out of material. Food and medical supplies ran out, not nearly enough port-a potties, there was almost a mass electrocution during a thunderstorm. A traveling commune called the Hog Farm provided food and how to handle your bad LSD trip advice. The locals did give food but it was a dicey situation to say the least. The media most of whom could not get there sensationalized it to a reading audience ready to believe the worst. “Hippies Mired In Mud” ran headline the New York Daily News. The Governor of New York State declared the area a disaster zone and was constantly trying to have the national guard clear the area an action that if it had occurred we would be remembering Woodstock quite differently. On the bright side Kent State would not be known as the place the war came home.
Jimmy Hendrix ended the “Sunday Night” portion of the festival late Monday morning not with “The Star Spangled Banner” but with “Hey Joe”.
The mythologizing of Woodstock began immediately the last note was played. The media realized they got it completely wrong. They wrote followup stories quoting local residents and police as saying the kids were the nicest most respectful people they have ever met. Analysts opined that this was an historical event because the kids in really bad conditions did not tear each other apart, that they proved that there was something to the idea of peace and love and mind expanding hallucinogens can change the world. If the kids can win over the local rednecks the “Woodstock Nation” can end cooperate greed and war. The night after the festival acts that performed there as well as Joni Mitchell appeared on the Dick Cavett show. Mitchell upon hearing how great it was was inspired to write a homage to the festival. Covers by Crosby, Stills, Nash,and Young and Mathews Southern Comfort the following year were hits in the US and UK respectively. “Lay Down(Candles in the Rain)” by Melanie about her experience preforming at Woodstock was also a hit. But it was the Oscar winning documentary movie endlessly replayed that has most defined the mythology and kept it alive. It is the way the vast majority of us have experienced Woodstock.
Already by the time the movie and the songs were being listened to and watched there was a wistful nostalgia about it. The Altamont festival where fans got in for free dubbed “Woodstock West” in the fevered optimism of the moment degraded into scattered violence. Kent State happened, The drugs that were supposed to change the world killed Jim Morrison, Janis Joplin, and Jimi Hendrix. The locals followed by many other locales banned mass gatherings in an attempt to prevent another Woodstock. The supervisor who approved the festival was voted out. The neighbors shunned and sued Yasgur for property damages. The sites owners spread cow manure and even tractors were used to try and block pilgrims from visiting the site. This went on for decades before the The Bethel Center of the Arts, and the Museum of Bethel were built as tributes.
Mythology says the rock festivals ended for awhile. Not quite true. While festivals tampered down Glastonbury started the following year and is still going strong. 1973’s largely forgotten Summer Jam at Watkins Glenn drew more people then Woodstock people got in for free and abandoned their cars and walked. It was peaceful also. There were also California Jam’s in ‘74 and ‘78. It was 1985s Live Aid that truly revived the festival movement that continues going strong today. The original organizers got in on the act putting on Woodstock ‘94. The idea was greeted with cynicism by the generation dubbed slackers. Yet somehow it worked as the best sequels do combining a tribute to the original with staying current. People got in free, it rained, concert goers covered themselves and slid in mud but the signature performance was by Nine Inch Nails. Woodstock ‘99 ended in arson and sexual assault, Woodstock ‘50 was canceled.
If you say it enough times people including yourself will believe it. Festival goers interviewed talk about a sense of finally belonging. There is element of truth to it. One persistent myth about that era was that the counterculture was widespread. It was on college campuses certain urban neighborhoods but if you were a hippie in mainstream America in the late 60s there might be a few others in town but your look made you a target. Seeing 400,000 people similar to you had to feel similar to the feeling many of us had when we first joined WP. That said how many people really went to Woodstock to advance the cause? Most were probably not hippies, they went to get drunk, stoned and laid. They might have been hippies when they left or when they after heard how historic it was (sarcasm). 2 people died one from a drug overdose, one run over by a tractor. How do friends and family of these people feel about all the worshipping of this event? 2 people died at the festival but how many died or had their lives ruined as a result of the Woodstock mythology of drugs and free love solves all?
The above has been a bit of snark, a bit of myth busting IMHO all deserved. One thing can not be argued with, under really bad conditions there were no reports of violence, not even a fight. It should have been a calamity. When it counted the most the locals helped people they hated. I have a theory as to a possible explanation. It was held in a resort area used to dealing with crowds of out of towners. The festival was held 100 miles from New York City. A large percentage of concert goers were used to crowds and being jostled. That said nobody had experienced anything like that. Credit has to go the locals and concert goers.
It has been 50 years of negatives since. Only the most deluded believes love and drugs will change the world. What the mythology does offer is something to strive for a purpose in for life even if it will never happen. I think that is why the mythology still has not ended.
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Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
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14 Aug 2019, 7:32 pm
"If you can remember Woodstock, you probably weren't there." -- attributed to Joan Baez
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CockneyRebel
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18 Aug 2019, 1:10 am
I'll stick with The Kinks, Beatles and The British Invasion. I'm not really the Woodstock type. I think the reason that Woodstock 50 was canceled is because the world isn't in the Woodstock state of mind right now. There could be a Woodstock 55 in the future. I still wouldn't go. I've come to the realization that I'm much more of a Mod, Baby!
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The Family Schlager
18 Aug 2019, 3:17 am
You understated the "scattered violence" at Altamont. Meredith Hunter was beaten to death by Hell's Angel "security guards" and his body dragged onto the stage while the Rolling Stones were playing.
My favourite story of Woodstock was Abi Hoffman being booted off the stage by Pete Townsend. It may even be a myth, but a great story, nonetheless.
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ASPartOfMe
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18 Aug 2019, 3:22 am
Speaking of mods and Woodstock
WOODSTOCK WAS THE WHO’S WORST GIG EVER, SAYS ROGER DALTREY
"You’ve got to remember, by the time we went onstage, we’d been standing in the mud for hours," he told The New York Times. "Or laying in it, or doing whatever in it. It wasn’t actually that muddy backstage, but it wasn’t comfort, let’s put it that way. ... That’s all you could do. Waiting, waiting, waiting. We were young, and life is a lot easier when you’re young. I wouldn’t do that show now. Sod that. I’d walk away from it. I’m joking. No, I’d walk away and come back 10 hours later."
Daltrey said he has never listened to the Who's set to reassess it with years of detachment. But, after noting it was the band's worst gig, he still has vivid memories of what went wrong.
"It was a particularly hard one for me, because of the state of the equipment," he said. "It was all breaking down. I’m standing in the middle of the stage with enormous Marshall 100-watt amps blasting my ears behind me. [Keith] Moon on the drums in the middle. I could barely hear what I was singing."
Still, Daltrey has a few positive memories of the weekend, like noting Creedence Clearwater Revival were "fantastic," as well as the vibe coming from the audience.
"They were the stars," he explained. "That half a million people put up with that crap for three days. That coming together of that community was, I think, the key to getting America out of Vietnam. That’s when politicians actually started to take notice."
The Who vs Abbie Hoffman
In the below essay, the author looks at a significant moment at Woodstock where Abbie Hoffman took the stage during a set by Saturday headliners, The Who
It was well after midnight when the Who took the stage. Townshend was already a bit grumpy. Meanwhile, festival organizer Michael Lang invited Abbie Hoffman to sit on the stage next to him to watch the set. Hoffman had been working as a volunteer in one of the medical tents, consuming large amounts of LSD to keep himself awake. Lang thought it would be beneficial for him to take a break, chill, and enjoy some great music.
Hoffman was still very involved in various types of political activism. One of his causes at the time John Sinclair. Sinclair, the leader of the White Panther Party, had recently been busted for selling a small amount of marijuana to an undercover cop. Hoffman, quite sensibly believed the sentence was an outrage, and that Sinclair was really being punished for his radical politics. Hoffman wanted to get up on stage and rally the crowd the injustice against Sinclair.
Let’s just say his timing was a little off. Pete Townshend, never one to tolerate sharing the stage with anyone who didn’t work with The Who, was already in a bad mood. There were rumors circulating that the tea and coffee backstage were spiked with acid. He was just looking for a place to sit down when, as he put it, “Some lunatic would come up to me like Abbie Hoffman or some stagehand and go, “Ahhhhhhh! Aaaaaaaah! Buuuuuuuupw.”
Joe McDonald:”I knew Abbie and I knew Jerry [Rubin] because I moved in circles where there were radicals. I knew that it was not uncommon for the pontificators, politicians, underground politicians to get up and try and make a speech. I knew he had been making a scene around there. He was stoned. Someone said he had taken acid and he was stoned, and I can believe that because it was crazy what he did. I was watching and all of a sudden, there was a pause because they didn’t introduce their songs. Which was something that bands would do. Then — boom — Abbie walks up to the microphone and starts giving this talk, which I knew about. I remember thinking at the time that the audience was not going to be able to process this.”
Hoffman remembered shouting into the mike, “Four hundred thousand of our brothers and sisters [are being persecuted] for no more than we’re doing on this hill. It’s only fair that we help out. We are the Woodstock Nation. We are one.”
Joe McDonald: “The Who was well into their set, and all of a sudden, this guy shows up and starts talking politics and anti-marijuana laws. I don’t think Townshend was even aware that he was there. He just kind of looked up and “Who the hell’s this guy?” A stranger shows up and starts talking in your microphone. It’s your turf, but it wasn’t a hostile takeover.
The mic went dead and Hoffman thought to himself, “What the f**k did they do that for?” and he kicked the mic.”
What happened next provided one of the true Roshomon moments of Woodstock. Actually, that’s not strictly speaking true. There were only two versions of what happened next: Hoffman’s and everybody else’s.
Hoffman remembered that he and Townshend bumped.
Joe McDonald: “Peter walked over and bonked Abbie in the head with his guitar. Abbie’s response was so funny because he just looked at Peter and then jumped into the press pit and went through the crowd and kept going.”
And so ended one of the few moments of violence at a festival that celebrated peace.
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“Self Acceptance is a process not a performance”
“You are autistic enough. And you always have been”
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity.
Last edited by ASPartOfMe on 18 Aug 2019, 3:28 am, edited 1 time in total.
ASPartOfMe
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18 Aug 2019, 3:58 am
What were the Hell’s Angles supposed to do? Hunter was charging the stage with a pistol.
I put scattered violence in quotes for a reason. By late 60s standards the violence was relatively tame. It does reflect to how the media covered it at the time especially nationally. Pretty much Altamont did not become “Altamont” and the symbolic end of the 60s until “Gimme Shelter” was viewed.
The Rolling Stones Disaster At Altamont: Hype In The News - Rolling Stone January 21, 1970
– San Francisco Examiner, December 7th, 1969
The media of the San Francisco Bay Area, with a few exceptions, were programmed strictly for Woodstock West — they knew what to expect and whatever happened they knew what their story would say. The catch-phrases were all there, having been pinned down by Time Magazine months before, following the Woodstock weekend: “peace and love,” “marijuana passed through the crowd as sacrament,” and of course, most importantly, “good wishes.” Since it was undeniable that one man was actually murdered at the concert, a certain minimal adjustment was made, as if that event had been the result of some sort of unpredictable act of God, like a stray bolt of lightning.
The national mass media were set for another Woodstock, too — and when it didn’t happen, they looked the other way, rather than explore the ugly mistakes of Altamont. Confronted by the bad vibes in the photos it gathered unto its breast, Life Magazine decided against doing the story. So did Newsweek. And elsewhere — as in the New York Times — the story was given coverage, but without much insight.
One hard and familiar lesson of Altamont is this: when the news media know what the public wants to hear and what they want to believe, they give it them.
At 3 AM Saturday, KFRC announced that Woodstock was “Altamont East,” and the public wants traffic jams, give ’em the biggest traffic jam ever, despite the fact that there were no traffic jams. You coud drive at sixty-five miles an hour from Altamont to Livermore and back, twenty miles in all, with KFRC, 610 on your car radio, informing you that traffic was backed up twenty miles in either direction and that access was completely closed off.
If you carried a portable FM at the concert itself you could hear Stefan Ponek of KSAN joyously proclaiming “good vibes” and “peaceful gathering” while Hells Angels beat dozens into the ground before your eyes and the crowd around you pushed, shoved, and cursed your very presence
Some of the radio stations in the area were seriously committed to the event, in spirit and, in the case of KFRC, financially. KFRC hired a helicopter for the Rolling Stones (so they could get promo photos) and both KFRC and KSAN broadcast appeals every hour — sometimes every half-hour — for workers, for food and equipment. Now there is nothing wrong with this — but it seems incontestable that this sort of hype, promotion, public service, whatever one choses to call it — made it that much more inevitable that expecations, and not events, would define the “news.”
The news section of the San Francisco Chronicle does not publish on Sundays; instead the Bay Area receives news courtesy of the stolid San Francisco Examiner. Thus on the day following the concert, those who had been there and those who had not were greeted by a half page photo of young girls dancing and a giant headline which read: “300,000 Say It With Music.” Inside, a full page of photos — two crowd shots and a nude wine-drinker who was later beaten up (no mention of that) — was headlined “We Should Be Together.” The story that accompanied the photos followed the headlines; while the first paragraphs noted the four deaths and one injury, the basic thrust was: “But for the stabbing, all appeared peaceful at the concert . . . The listeners heeded the advice of the Jefferson Airplane: “We should Be Together.”
Once again, the hype of the Love Generation triumphed over its own reality. The Examiner’s reporter was even able to re-structure one of the day’s most chilling events, the beating of Marty Balin. After reporting one “scuffle” which “momentarily marred” the good feelings, he wrote: “The action brought a gentle rebuke from the Jefferson Airplane. One told the fighters over the public address system: ‘Violence isn’t necessary.’ Others told the Angels: ‘Hostility isn’t part of this. Don’t spoil the day.’ The Angels backed off. Their leaders told them to ‘cool it.’ The rank and file Angels did.”
The Examiner story contained no other reference to Angel violence, before or after the action involving the Airplane, save for the account of the murder at the head of the report. It was Woodstock with one stray stabbing — no real difference. There was no accurate sense of the mood of the crowd, the stage crew, the performers or the Angels — and while the story was filed some time prior to the actual performance of the Stones, one wonders if it would have been substantially more correct had the reporter been able to wait out the concert.
The sense of the day conveyed by the Examiner coverage maintained itself, in some minds, nearly a week after the concert was over. The December 10th issue of Variety headlined their story “Stones Create Another Woodstock, 300,000 Flock to Cuffo Coast Bash.” The story claimed that the concert was costing the Stones $250,000. The Variety reporter also claimed that “those who were on hand for last summer’s famed Woodstock Festival in New York labeled Saturday’s gathering as an equal.” Ron Naso of KFRC News had this to say: “We think it was beautiful. Things went smoothly and people were happy. When you have a big amount of people together a couple of things happen, unfortunately; it’s nothing anybody can do anything about.” He added, “After all, look what happens in Vietnam every day.”
The news staff of the Chronicle is the hippest of any metropolitan daily in the country; they are extremely sensitive to anything involving rock and roll, dope, the draft, and see-through fashions. And they got it right about Altamont — the violence, the audience, the mood of the day itself. They presented with deadly accuracy what had really mattered at Altamont and ignored what had been of no consequence. It must have been a shock for those who had seen no other reports save that of the Examiner to read what the Chronicle had to say about “Woodstock West.”
On page four was a separate story headlined “Eyewitness to Chilling Violence,” an interview with a cameraman who had watched many of the beatings that took place at Altamont. The photographer, Randy Cook, had come to do a photo essay on “The Brotherhood of Life” (leave it to the Chronicle to find that angle). The story, below a picture of what seemed like an endless line of Hells Angels, described the young man’s horror at the indifference to the violence that was shown by most of the crowd.
Ralph J. Gleason’s column in the Chronicle was the first to point out that the Angels were to be involved. And Gleason’s coverage in telling it like it was (see story) was without rival in the dailies.
The Berkeley Tribe and the San Francisco Good Times hit the street Thursday night; both papers devoted most of their news space to Altamont, balanced with coverage of the murders of Black Panther Party leaders Fred Hampton and Mark Clark of Chicago and the gun battle between Panthers and police in Los Angeles.
The Good Times cover quoted Sonny Barger, president of the Oakland Hells Angels: “Mick Jagger Used Us For Dupes.” The stories inside, like those of the Tribe, described Altamont as the end of an era — of the Sixties, of innocent days, and by implication, of the righteous self-confidence of a generation. There was little search for blame — or responsibility — in either of the papers. The Good Times printed a half-page story detailing the statements Sonny Barger had made on the KSAN special Sunday night. Virtually all of the stories presented a similar viewpoint toward the Angels: “They did what they’d been told to do in their own way; if there is anyone responsible, it’s us — or those in charge of the concert — who gave them the responsiblity of acting as security. You can really relate to the Angels; they’re right up front, no BS, no fooling around. If people f****d with them [and that could mean anything from starting a fight to tampering with a bike to talking or being stuck in the wrong place] they ought to know exactly what to expect.”
The articles in the two papers presented the fear, the chaos, and the selfishness of the event; those by George Csicsery in the Tribe and Sandy Darlington in the Good Times reflected the finest sense of the disaster that appeared in print. The Tribe, as usual, mostly displayed an above-it-all cynicism: “God, all those people are so f****d not to know what we know” — while the Good Times, also as usual, was thoughtful, direct, and vivid. And the Good Times — and this is amazing — printed the only clear photograph of violence that appeared in any of the local newspapers in the week following the concert at Altamont. The only one. Lots of Wood-stocky pictures all around, for the straight and underground press, but only one photo that presented with any clarity at all just what violence at Altamont really meant. Yes, you could really relate to it. You knew exactly what it meant.
_________________
“Self Acceptance is a process not a performance”
“You are autistic enough. And you always have been”
Professionally Identified and joined WP August 26, 2013
DSM 5: Autism Spectrum Disorder, DSM IV: Aspergers Moderate Severity.
