The Summer of Love????

[QUOWow-Great show!-They did so much for music and most of those guitar players played for one guy at one time or another-the great John Mayall!-love dem Blues Breakers!TE=luvhuffer]I really dug The Small Faces. I was lucky enough to be at the A.R.M.S. Concert in L.A. at The Forum in '83 or '84 (I forget). It was a benefit concert for Ronnie Lane after he had gotten M.S. Hence the name Action for Research into Multiple Sclerosis. Quite an Amazing concert. Here is an excerpt from a review of the show at Madison Square Garden:Wow-Great show!-They did so much for music and most of those guitar players played for one guy at one time or another-the great John Mayall!-love dem Blues Breakers!


The A.R.M.S. (Action for Research into Multiple Sclerosis) benefit last night demonstrated that even the most brutal and bluesy guitar playing can come from a heart of gold. The concert at Madison Square Garden was a tribute to former Faces guitarist Ronnie Lane and a benefit for muscular dystrophy [sic]. The ensemble of superstar players - which concludes its international tour tonight at the Garden - proved that British blues and the finest British blues guitarists are aging quite nicely. Three hours after eric Clapton, Bill Wyman, Charlie Watts, and Kenney Jones opened the show, Lane - suffering from MS - was led onstage and exclaimed, "What do you think of my friends?" The crowd obviously thought a lot, especially moments earlier when the entire cast, including Joe Cocker, Jeff Beck, Ron Wood, Jimmy Page and Paul Rodgers brought the show to an emotional climax with the appropriate John Lennon song, "With a Little Help from My Friends". The song, dedicated to the Beatle who died three years ago yesterday, summed up the emotional and musical best of the evening. For most of the show, the musicians were pooled to form three bands structured around Clapton, Beck, and Page, three guitar giants who led the legendary Yardbirds through the band's various incarnations. There were many highlights, especially the Clapton group, which proved the tightest band of the concert. Page, the former Led Zeppelin guitarist, was unfortunately paired with Rodgers, the night's weakest vocalist. However, Page offered his fans what they have long waited to hear live - "Stairway to Heaven" - the song that Led Zeppelin singer Robert Plant refused to sing during his recent international tour. But more than showcasing Page's stringmanship, the number brought the entire cast to the stage and launched the concert finale, memorably marked by Clapton's guitar masterpiece, "Layla", and the Lennon tribute. Overall, the A.R.M.S. benefit was an impeccably produced group effort by musicians dedicated to their craft and, more importantly, to a dear friend. They made you feel good about the music business all over again. Wow-Great show!-They did so much for music and most of those guitar players played for one guy at one time or another-the great John Mayall!-love dem Blues Breakers!

Ya that concert rocked![/QUOTE]

 

It was great while it lasted and don't let anyone tell you any different-if they were there they would know that-if they were on the outside looking in then they would not know that-the truth is-from 65 till 67- it was a fun time in SF-

 

Lemon. I don't know. What I know is that I didnt listen to the folks telling me not to go. Maybe if there had been more I wouldn't have. I made a lotta love in the winter of 68 so I don't put dreams on a summer. Turn a person off to war today. Maybe we'll have a summer of peace.

 

You were at the Human Be-In? - Wow that is so cool!!!.
Sure we've gota change today but maybe the past wasn't so bad in comparison with now?.
It seems to me that SF was spoilt by rich middle-class kids crashing in & dethroning the original hippies.But I am no authority on the subject just a research enthusiast!.

Mindless Meandering Fact File On The Summer Of Love 1967 continued:

Our World 'Eurovision' satellite transmission 25 June 1967.So here's where I get to mention the finest band in England.......of course ,none other than;.....


SIMON DUPREE & THE BIG SOUND:26th? June 1967:

BBC-TV 'Man Alive' documentary produced by Desmond Wilcox.'The Ravers' featuring 'Simon Dupree & The Big Sound' on tour.The programme ephasized the 'groupie' element within modern world of pop.The young teen-age girls who met the band backstage for a little soul & revitalization.This 30 minute black & white programme is still in the BBC archive-incredibly the video-tape WASN'T wiped in the early seventies like so many Dr Who episodes.I have seen snippets of it & it caputures the innocuous nature of the period Girls wanting to 'hang out' with groovy pop stars like lambs meeting up with hungry wolves.
SD & TBS went on to record the lyric:"Give me everything you've got to give"....a few weeks later at E.M.I. Abbey Road!!!.
It was surely a summer of love for this brilliant white soul band.



-'The Ravers' 26? June 1967.Simon Dupree & The Big Sound on stage.

 

The Human Be-In was a gathering of the tribes-It was in Golden Gate Park and was very -very nice-Music-insence-music-smoke-acid and a whole lotta love-it was the real first big outdoor get together and was a one time thing. As far as the kids that came to the city from all over the country. They were all in search of a better way of life. They came from all walks of life-from the suburbs and the country and the city. It was a youth movement and people wanting to help stop the war and meet like minded people. It's important to remember that the newspapers and magazines had been giving the Haight Ashbury alot of free advertising that it really did not ask for or need. But when word got out that we were doing all this and that it was only natural progression for it to expand. Problems arose when people with less than honorable intentions and heavy handed drug dealers started moving in-The area could not support this many people-housing and food was short and too many people were broke all at once-there was no planning as know one expected the flood to happen-but-I can only say to those of us that were fortunate to have been there before the flood-it was a magical time-to repeat it takes only a few things-love of your brothers and sisters and letting your ego go-think peace and help stop wars-no drugs are needed to do this-we used alot of them but that was not the real purpose or meaning of the movement-it was based on the basic be-good to your neighbor ideas-and still are-thoses ideals will never go out of style-

 

According to Allen Cohen of the San Francisco Oracle and Gene Anthony who took all of the well known photographs in and around the Haight that you all have seen, both of whom I both knew personally, clearly discussed with me that the actual Summer Of Love was in 1966, when the acid was legal, the spiritual consciousness that resulted from its use was strong and in unity, and there were not near so many people. So from alot of the original hippies who helpled shaped the Haight and it's energies, 66' was it, up to and not much past the Be-In of Jan.14th. The press gave the title to 67'.Y.B.

 

Thats correct-The Oracle was a good paper-very colorful-The big difference between before 66 and 67 was the mass migration that flooded the city-In 66-the Haight was still a small community of long haired people doing acid and pretty much everyone was very high and very friendly-We had free music in the parks and free drugs alot of the time-and then the papers found out and that was it-the private party became a world wide event!-People coming in from all over the planet-unbelievable-In the years of 65 and 66 in San Francisco it was a close group of people who were tuning in-turning on and dropping out-We had been doing that long before Tim Leary said it was cool to do that-We were the lysergic pioneers and the freaks in town but it was soo much fun-incense-patchouli oil everywhere and the smell of reefer in the air and down at the Fillmore or over at the Avalon-The original "hippys" were the few hundred people that went to the Avalon to listen to Janis and Big Brother and The Holding Co and Quicksilver and Countery Joe etc-and that was because of one man-The man who hitchhiked out from Port Arthur Tex with Janis Joplin-Chet Helms-The whole fantastic party was his idea and he put the groups a place to play and the people a place to paint their faces with day-glo and dance under the blacklights and strobe lights at the Avalon-VERY HIGH-a brave new world!-and yes a year later they made acid illegal and that pretty much did it for me-Something I had been eating 3 times a week was now against the law? No thanks-

 

Great stuff!.You've captured some of the atmosphere surrounding the Avalon Ballroom in San Fran.Let's not forget that 'Avalon' was also the stomping ground of: The 13th Floor Elevators.

............Meanwhile in June & July 1967 you could take your pick at the World Teen Fair in Chicago:

 

I remember in '67 they had the Teen Age Fair in Hollywood, which was your basic carnival/fair genre with some hip trappings thrown in. My clearest memory is there were several stages where local bands were playing, and everyone seemed to be covering "Sunshine Of Your Love". It went for a week and we went every day on acid. I think by the last day, we were having to do 6 or 7 hits just to get off. Nothing too memorable but your reference to the Teen World Fair (never heard about that) reminded me of it. We did sell a lot of acid while we were there though, and a lot of cute cheer leader types in their weekend hippie mama costumes. The shaved legs were always the give away! LOL

 

lets make another summer of love...and be free?

 

The poster who said it was "really" 1966 is kinda right because it all fell apart so fast by the end of the summer of '67. Nevertheless, for those of us who were there before, during & after, it is 1967 for sure. A lot happened that year. The Be-ins in NY & SF, and a short-lived feeling that we had reached a "critical mass" in our sheer numbers that we could change the world.

I suppose we did in a way, but really, politically, we got the shit kicked out of us. But there was something extremely unusual in the air that made it all worthwhile, something that happens with growing infrequency on Planet Earth, and that is, as the Airplane put it, "doing things that haven't got a name yet." Something new in the world...that was really what all the excitement was about.

But the posters who keep claiming it was only in the Haight just say that because they weren't in the Lower East Side, later known as the East Village, a name change that reflected its new hipness. But as the late great poet Ed Dorn observed, to define something (as with the name change) is to kill it.

 

Yes I agree that Summer 1966 was the real summer of love.
Summer 1967 was a recreation for/of the media.
Oddly the same indictment has been made about the myth of 'Swingin'London'.It was actually unique,pioneering & vibrant from 1960 to 1963 then it became a media-hyped synthetic 'reprise' of those years in 1965 through to 1970.

 

I'm 'new' to 'Teen Age Fairs'.They seemed to be the vogue around the mid sixties.I surmise they were open-air discotheques with catering?.Yep,shows you how much I know about them.

 

Am I right in saying that the L.A. 'Sunset Strip Riots' in summer 1966 over the closing of the 'Pandora's Box' night club were the first tests of the young vs. the old?.
As you say there was something 'spontaneous' about 1967 that didn't have a name to it but something was 'happening'.
Well it can be defined now, as a 'youth rebellion' for 'freedom' & against the mores & customs of the generation that fought in the Second World War.
Frank Zappa,If I may paraphrase him in context was aware of the 'baby boomers' fighting their 'bow-tie daddies'.But FZ dismissed the 'Hippie Movement' completely as fake as the flower-pop industry itself producing masses of 'Monkee-type' bands.His cynical lyrics in: 'Who Needs The Peace Corp' sums this up.It was recorded in the late summer of 1967 & the chorus is:

"Every town must have a place where phoney hippies meet,
Psychedelic dungeons poping up on every street".

-Frank Zappa 1967.

Even better still is the FZ & Mothers Of Invention mega-cynical parody: 'Flower Punk' which contains 'Alvin & The Chipmunks' styled singers flaunting their 'cashing-in on the pop industry' credentials.


Below is a pop poster that advertises a gig for Saturday 1st July 1967:





Other summer 67 trivia:
On that same day-Saturday 1st July 1967: The BBC broadcasts it's first ever scheduled colour transmission of The Wimbledon Tennis Tournament on BBC2 at 1.00pm,proving nothing whatsoever; just a point of reference.


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66' was alot of high potency Owsley acid in S.F.-I ate alot of it lol and watched the city sway and change shape and the colors were just outrageous!-66'' was mellow and nice-67' was chaos and street kids and Life and Time-you figure it out-which year was the best?We were a family- then it became a mob-then I left-

 

so not true, even the cia was into the summer of love. most cia agents were dropping acid

 

Gene Anthony and Allen Cohen, who I both knew personally and hung out with at the street fairs of 2000 through 2003, agreed that the actual Summer Of Love was 66. Its end was actually not too long after the human be-in, the main reason being the speed being used that really fucked up the acid scene. Sure, alot of stuff happened that was cool in 67, like Monterey and the Haight scene in early 67. But in 66 everything was so unique and cool, and legal too. Like Robspace said, the freakin acid was everywhere, and it's efects on everyone ruled the consciousness of the day and area. LIke everyone was tripping all of the time. Freaking heavy tripping too, mind you.
The waning of the LSD in the later sixties and seventies is what killed hippie, and lack of the acid mind today is why todays kids don't really know what hippie was or is.

 

the summer of love is today

 

the "summer of love" did not specifically refer to any year, although it was manly known as 1969...the summer of love was when all the young people just got together, helped each other out, agreed not to fight, only to fight for what was right. it was when there was peace although our boys were over seas in a hellhole...and yes haight-ashbury was the main area where the days were refered to as the "summer of love"