The Monterey International Pop Festival

[Analogman]

The Monterey International Pop Festival

 

Clips from the film on youtube

 

 

Monterey Pop Festival's 40th Anniversary Inspires a Flood of Tributes

 

Press release

Source: Rogers & Cowan

40th Anniversary Monterey Pop Festival CD

 

40th Anniversary Monterey Pop Festival CD

The Monterey International Pop Festival was a defining moment in rock and roll history. Thirty-two acts representing nearly every genre of popular music at the time performed on June 16, 17 and 18, 1967 and ushered in the Summer of Love. The unprecedented bill of musically diverse acts showed rock

[mountain bed]

I got the Monterey box set that came out for the 25th anniversary. It's a pretty decent box set, with great performances ( Jimi, Big Brother) and some truly horrible ones (Byrds, esp.).

 

I seriously doubt that the Dead's set will ever be seen (or heard, officially) because they refused to sign a release to allow their performance to be included in an album or movie. A real interesting story...Rock Scully's book gives the explanation why.

[Analogman]

I have seen those clips somewhere - may have been on youtube. I have always wanted to hear the stuff not on the cds or in the film. That show, as well as being the big bang as far as rock festivals go, is also sort of my starting point for much of the music I love.

[j4lackey]

I just watched the Viola Lee Blues from Monterrey via AMan's link above. Horrible sound, but fun to see young Jerry hopping around like a kid.

[Analogman]

You have to realize there was hardly a monitor/mixing system back then.

 

Also -John Cipollina was the man.

[mountain bed]

Also -John Cipollina was the man.

Yes, he was. I actually was into QMS before the GD. "Happy Trails" is still one of my all-time favorite records.

 

Also, I got the opportunity to hang with John's son Mike for a couple of days a few years back...he was working with David Nelson. At a dinner before the show I pulled him aside & told him 'you know, I just wanted to tell you that I really really loved your Dad's music'. He told me a pretty sad story about how he hardly knew his dad as a child because he was on the road so much. He finally got to hang with John & go out with him when he reached his late teens & then of course John passed away.

 

It's really a shame that QMS didn't really take off in a big way. At the time of Monterey, they would routinely blow the Dead off the stage...really a fantastic live band (or so I've read).

[Analogman]

He use to sit in with The Dead quite a bit (you knew that of course). I got to see his guitar/amp stack at the R$RHOF. There was a dvd all about him out a few years ago - I'd like to see that sometime.

[mountain bed]

He use to sit in with The Dead quite a bit (you knew that of course). I got to see his guitar/amp stack at the R$RHOF. There was a dvd all about him out a few years ago - I'd like to see that sometime.

Have you watched the Closing of Winterland DVD?(12/31/78). Cippolina is in the 2nd set & the NFA is a killer.

[Analogman]

Have you watched the Closing of Winterland DVD?(12/31/78). Cippolina is in the 2nd set & the NFA is a killer.

 

I think I have seen parts of it.

[uncle wilco]

nothing like watching old shit to make you realize how old you are.

[Analogman]

REMEMBERING MONTEREY POP

Locals recall when county was at center of the musical universe

By LESLIE ESCOBAR and DAVE NORDSTRAND

 

The Salinas Californian

 

On the third weekend of June 1967, Monterey became the heart of the Summer of Love.

 

From June 16 to 18, about 200,000 people converged on the Monterey Fairgrounds, where they grooved to the music of the Monterey International Pop Festival in a smoky haze, taking in musicians who were then up-and-coming: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Otis Redding and others.

 

 

While no one realized it then, the now-famous festival's significance is clear now. The legendary event helped popularize artists such as Hendrix and Joplin and inspire the much-bigger Woodstock music festival in 1969.

 

The festival's mellow mood also remains remarkable - despite a crowd of 200,000 over three days, no one was killed or injured. At Woodstock and music festivals even today, accidental deaths have occured.

 

While plenty of official events are being held to mark Monterey Pop's 40th anniversary - art exhibits, a movie screening and a reunion show, for example - some festival-goers are content to simply reminisce. Below are some of their stories.

 

Back on the night that Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin courted rock star immortality in Monterey, Richard Gourley was a 30-year-old Salinas milkman who also served as an officer with the Salinas Police Department Reserves.

 

Monterey called in police from Salinas and other areas in the county to help with the festival, said Gourley, who's retired and lives near Lake Nacimiento.

 

"They wanted all the police they could get, because they didn't know what they were up against," he said.

 

All the officers wore leather jackets and carried Mace and nightsticks as though preparing for a major riot.

 

"In fact, everybody at that concert turned out to be the most wonderful people with colorful clothes, beads and long hair," he said.

 

"Everyone was giving me the peace sign."

 

The police worked each of eight stations on the festival grounds, rotating every hour. Those eight stations included the men's restroom, where festival-goers who were too high on drugs often decided to curl up and sleep.

 

"So we'd be picking the guys off the floor," Gourley said.

 

The only trouble came when soldiers on Fort Ord, many of them bound for the war in Vietnam, confronted the peaceniks.

 

Scuffles did occur, Gourley said.

 

"Mostly they were outside the gates," he said.

 

Because the crowds were so great, there was an overflow to arena events.

 

"They'd show a video tape of it in one of the buildings, and that was a place you didn't want to be," he said. "After a few minutes indoors, you'd get dizzy" from all the pot smoke afloat.

 

At night, most of the hippie crowd retired to the beach on the bay - some drove "flower-power cars," Gourley said - to sleep under the dancing stars or in makeshift shelters.

 

Gourley picked up a program from the event. He still has it. Page 78 is a picture of a very young Bob Dylan. Page 79 is the lyrics to Dylan's "The Times They Are A-Changin.'"

 

"Come gather 'round people wherever you roam ..." could have doubled as an anthem for the festival.

 

"I wasn't into all the music," Gourley said. "But after they became famous, I thought, 'I was there when that all happened.' And that was kind of great."

'Pretty special'

 

Then-20-year-old Don Garl was probably trying to stay away from Gourley and his crew the Saturday night of Monterey Pop. He'd snuck in.

 

"I had tickets for Sunday night but I couldn't wait, so I thought, 'If I go up there, maybe I can hear the sound from outside," said Garl, who was a student at Monterey Peninsula College then and lives in Prunedale now.

 

He ended up hanging out near a back entrance, where he decided to pretend to be part of a group moving cameras inside.

 

"I thought, 'What do I have to lose?' All they can say is, 'Get out of here, kid.' I even said, 'Here, this way,' or something like that."

 

Garl then wandered the festival grounds, where the headliner that night was Otis Redding. He got in legitimately the next night with his $5 ticket.

 

"It's funny, but five bucks was a lot of money back then for a guy going to MPC," Garl remembered.

 

And so, he was there when The Who destroyed their equipment on stage after their set. Then he watched as Hendrix set his guitar on fire in an epic performance shortly after.

 

"He took it to whole new levels," Garl said. "He could get different sounds that no one else could. He just did everything to a guitar imaginable."

 

Looking back, Garl said it's surreal to know Monterey Pop happened and that he was one of the lucky ones in attendance.

 

"As you get away from it in time, you start to realize that was pretty special to see all those people come here to little old Monterey and give you your money's worth," he said.

 

Garl, now 60, does wish his memory were a little clearer.

 

"Forty years is a long time," he said. "It was two-thirds of my life ago, and it's kind of hard to remember the things that happened to you then, because at the time you're not saying, 'I've got to remember this; this is really special.'"

 

Garl said he doubts he'll try to rekindle the spirit of 1967 by going to a reunion festival that will be held the last weekend in July.

 

"Re-creating it is not going to come close," he said. "I think Jimi Hendrix is probably the greatest performer I have ever seen, and he's not going to be there. I probably wouldn't even go."

'A turning point'

 

Having just moved to Monterey County from Los Angeles, Pat Smith didn't have many friends here in 1967. However, the 14-year-old convinced her dad to let her go alone.

 

He dropped her off at the front entrance Saturday afternoon, said Smith, who's now 54 and lives in Salinas.

 

"I just remember driving slowly through that area and seeing all these hippies and hippie vans and people with lots and lots of hair," Smith said. "The more we drove through it, my dad was like, 'Um, are you sure this is where you want to go?'"

 

Smith said she remembers being at Monterey Pop from about 1 to 6 p.m. that day, when musicians such as Country Joe & The Fish and Big Brother & The Holding Company were playing.

 

"I was kind of scared when I first got there, because if you didn't buy the seating in the front, you could pretty much sit anywhere," she said. "I ended up meeting a group of people, and they kind of adopted me. I felt like I had known them my whole life.

 

"They were passing joints around, and I had never been exposed to that, and so I had my first try of marijuana. That's why I look back at it as such a turning point in my life. I had made a decision to try something that was an adult decision. It was the time in my life where I was just really starting to grow up."

 

While memories of that afternoon are a bit hazy, Smith said she does remember that she was wearing "a little black mini skirt, and I wore black fishnet stockings and black knee high boots. You didn't need sweaters or coats or anything. You just enjoyed the sun, and it was a beautiful day."

 

Finally, at the end of the afternoon, Smith's dad arrived to pick her up.

 

"My dad was cool, but I was more worried when he picked me up, because I didn't know if I was acting odd," Smith said. "But he didn't say anything; he just asked, 'How was it?' and I said, 'It was the best time, Dad. Can I go back?'

 

"He said, 'Absolutely not - once is enough.'"

[LouieB]

nothing like watching old shit to make you realize how old you are.

This was a very long time ago, I was still a teenager.

 

LouieB

[Analogman]

VH1 Rock Doc: Monterey 40 - on now

 

other show times

[mountain bed]

Wow. Here's a lineup for ya:

 

http://www.2b1records.com/summeroflove40th/

[bjorn_skurj]

nothing like watching old shit to make you realize how old you are.

Then watch some young shit and realize how young you are!

[Analogman]

Woodstock's Michael Lang Seeking Sponsors For 2009 Festival In New York City

March 21, 2009 12:56 PM ET

Gary Graff, Austin, TX

 

Michael Lang said plans for a 40th anniversary Woodstock concert are "all speculative ideas" for now, but he hopes to bring them to reality this summer.

 

The Woodstock co-founder told Billboard.com that his vision is "a free event...a very green project," possibly in New York City. "We want to have as small a carbon imprint as we can and use as many green techniques as we can," said Lang, who was in Austin as part of a South By Southwest panel discussion about Woodstock. The holdup? "It's got to be sponsor-driven," he explained.

 

"It's free, but it costs a lot of money. That's kind of what we're in the middle of right now. Depending on how successful we are in raising that sponsorship (money) will determine when and how we do this event

[Sir Stewart]

The Chili Peppers, of course, closed the ill-fated 30th anniversary concert in 1999, which was marred by complaints about the facilities, food and water prices and ended with a fiery riot. But Lang said he was confident that the Woodstock brand was not permanently damaged.

They forgot the rapings.

[Analogman]

Woodstock: 3 Days of Peace & Music Director's Cut (40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector's Edition with Amazon Exclusive Bonus Disc)

 

June 9th - $41.99.

(check out the video at the Amazon link)

 

FULL DESCRIPTION OF 18 BONUS PERFORMANCES

 

 

[calvino]

 

Love the packaging.

 

And it will be great to finally see the Dead footage.

[Analogman]

For me, it's about Santana. I knew there was more footage out there, somewhere. I guess they are doing a bit of after the fact fixing of tracks. I am not to happy about that, but that is how it goes.

[imsjry]

I guess they are doing a bit of after the fact fixing of tracks. I am not to happy about that, but that is how it goes.

 

Like bringing in the son of one of the drummers to redo a drum part. That is just so freaking lame. I mean really, would anyone have missed that part?

[Analogman]

I know. From what Eddie says in that clip, I wonder if some of that sort of thing went on for the director's cut that came out in 1994. That is what I have - on VHS.

 

In 1994 a director's cut (subtitled 3 Days of Peace & Music) was released that added over 40 minutes to the film and included performances by Canned Heat, Jefferson Airplane and Janis Joplin that were omitted from the original release. Jimi Hendrix's set at the end of the film was also extended with two additional numbers. Some of the crowd scenes in the original film were replaced by previously unseen footage.

 

After the closing credits (to Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's "Find the Cost of Freedom") a list of prominent people from the "Woodstock Generation" who had died is shown, including John F. Kennedy, Malcolm X, Che Guevara, Martin Luther King, Jr., Mama Cass Elliot, Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Max Yasgur, Abbie Hoffman, Paul Butterfield, Keith Moon, Bob Hite, Richard Manuel, Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix. It ends with the epitaph to the right.

 

I also have the two official releases of Jimi's set on cd, and the 2 disc dvd.

[NightOfJoy]

They forgot the rapings.

 

And the hippie who got his head stuck in the crook of a tree.

[Analogman]

2 ordinary kids from Pine Bush became famous for 1969 Woodstock photo

 

By Steve Israel

Times Herald-Record

Posted: May 17, 2009 - 2:00 AM

 

They're the most famous couple of the most famous rock concert in history

[Analogman]

It looks like Rhino is taking advantage of the anniversary:

 

VARIOUS ARTISTS

Woodstock Two

 

$24.98 CD

Pre-Order Now! Release Date - 06/02/2009

Add To Cart

 

A companion album to MUSIC FROM THE ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK AND MORE: WOODSTOCK, the WOODSTOCK TWO 40th Anniversary reissue continues to celebrate the groundbreaking event with 16 additional performances. Newly re-mastered from the original analog soundboard, the deluxe 2 CD set contains 16 musical tracks, rare photos, new liner notes from former Rolling Stone writer Gene Scullati and an unforgettable clip of the audience begging Sunday's endless rain to