Tuesday, July 21, 2009

Woodstock: 40 years on



I have just pre-ordered this from Amazon.

I am really looking forward to playing it through.

9 comments:

Blimpy said...

Is it right that Hendrix played at about 9 in the morning on the Sunday to 2 men and a man who thought he was a dog due to the brown acid?

TatankaYotanka said...

Yup ... but the dog had all his albums (copyright Pete Atkin)

gremlinfc said...

and Bruce Springsteen passed up the chance to play...apparently.

Chris said...

Carole, I know you're getting this for more than just the first official release of any of the Grateful Dead's set, but the whole of their set is still on archive.com at http://www.archive.org/details/gd69-08-16.sbd.cotsman.15205.sbeok.shnf.

For those of you looking to expand their Woodstock anecdotal cache, the Dead had to battle with strong wind and rain during their set, with electric shocks being distributed liberally. At one point, the stage itself bagan to move, driven by the 'sail' effect of the stage backdrop, and it was only stopped when several of the road crew attacked the 'sail' with knives.

RFWoodstock said...

Win a Woodstock special edition white Stratocaster guitar and Collector's Edition Woodstock DVD and listen to RADIO WOODSTOCK 69 which features only music from the original Woodstock era (1967-1971) and RADIO WOODSTOCK with music from the original Woodstock era to today’s artists who reflect the spirit of Woodstock. Go to http://www.woodstockuniverse.com for details.

Peace, love, music,
RFWoodstock
rfwoodstock@gmail.com

Carole said...

Was that a drive-by advert?

Chris - I have to admit that getting Dark Star was a bit of a motivation.

I didn't know that the Dead's Wioodstock stuff was on archive.org, thanks!

Dangerpuss said...

My older brother had this and we used to play it all the time when I was nine,around the same time I was becoming political. There was a pretty fevered atmosphere in Australia at the time over the Vietnam war with big street marches calling for a moratorium. My brother went to those and my mum refused to let me go which unleashed lots of conflict, ironically. These days loads of 9 year olds pitch up at anti-war marches and can explain why they object. So I was left with singing along to this album and getting into scraps with my teacher over my peace badge. What a time.

Country Joe McDonald's I Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die Rag was one of my 3 favourite tracks. We used to song it a lot and these days there's a page on Country Joe's website for all the adaptations of it. He seems not at all precious about but really generous.

http://www.countryjoe.com/fixins.htm (I think - I'll check this)

It lends itself exceptionally well to updates and scans well.

e.g. "and it's 1,2,3 what are fighting for,
don't ask me I don't a damn,
next stop Afghanistan" etc

The other tracks I loved were Hendrix's Star Spangled Banner where his guitar somehow produced bombs dropping. Breathtaking.

And the other I seem to remember was CSNY's intro saying how terrified they were, being at their first gig in front of people and playing Teach Your Children.

in high school there was a really cool English and History teacher who wove albums and songs into hos lessons to get a point across and used this album to talk about the war. He also gave out Phantom comics for best essays and years later I heard he organised trips to the US tracing landmarks of the civil rights and anti-war movements using song lyrics as a guide. Cool.

Dangerpuss said...

Here's Country Joe's anti-war singalong on YouTube :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LBdeCxJmcAo&feature=related

Parody is such a powerful way to channel rage isn't it?

I think this song has everything covered about how people become cannon fodder for political elites and how amoral war profiteers (like Cheney these days) misuse people's fear or their love for their country to feed their own power games.

Meanwhile we've still got good people coming back in bits and being put back together or kept afloat by amazing organisations like Combat Stress and their families have to scratch around to find the point of it all.

Songs like this make the point that military clout is useless against abstract nouns like communism or today's fundamentalism etc.

and then there's the extroardinary whistling sound of bombs dropping in this. How did Hendrix DO that?! :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2bGUeDnqPY

And some people have the nerve to say pop music is just fluff and entertainment.

"Dissent is the greatest form of patriotism" - Tom Paine or Thomas Jefferson

Dangerpuss said...

Funny how memory gets timings muddled isn't it? Apparently Teach Your Children wasn't done at Woodstock. Shows how albums merge in the mind. Lovely song though.

Cheers, Caitlin