Man, I wish I was alive during the 60's! Tell me your stories =)

[2pacHendrix]

2pachendrix, i think we would be good friends if you lived near me... my computer background... on topic, i wasn't alive yet in the 60s.

Whoa, that's awesome! That's reminds me, I need to start meditating.
Awww, why has no one mentioned the drugs back then?

[metal0822]

last time i mentioned the drugs i was into on this forum everyone jumped down my throat...but then there are forums just for that which i am on as well. by the way, the artist for that is alex gray. he does all the artwork for tool. i highly suggest you check him out if you are into psychedelic art, and ESPECIALLY if you have an interest in meditating

edit: alex grEy. not grAy

[paulojcduarte]

I was born in 1952. So really caught the tail end of the 1960's. I was never a hippie - I was a freak. A hippie did not work - a freak worked a job so he could buy fun - psyco active - psychedelic fun - and drums, and guitars. I think at that time there was more oppurtinity to play in front of people in small way. Jams, and dances sponsored by churches, or the YWCA. So you could make a little money playing when like you were in High School, or even younger, in Jr. High. It actually was a lot of fun, and although I did some pretty silly, and self destructive things, I don't have any regrets.

 

 

 

Into Zappa?

[2pacHendrix]

last time i mentioned the drugs i was into on this forum everyone jumped down my throat...but then there are forums just for that which i am on as well. by the way, the artist for that is alex gray. he does all the artwork for tool. i highly suggest you check him out if you are into psychedelic art, and ESPECIALLY if you have an interest in meditating edit: alex grEy. not grAy

There are forums for drugs?
And yeah, I'll check him out.

[metal0822]

hipforums.com i love that place

[diddybow]

drugs-forum.com

[xStonr]

 

You had to put up with crap like BJ Thomas.

 

 

Not really. Preset buttons had been invented by then as underground FM radio was just coming around. I also did get an under the dash cassette player so I could play tapes.

[HKR]

Smokin grow yer own and drinkin Anny Green Springs or maybe Ripple wine. Partying with my friend that lived in an apartment building where the apartments consisted of a small bedroom with a closet. Nobody closed their doors and the pot smoke was so thick that you got stoned just by being inside the building. I was born in 1943, the 60's were crazy times I wouldn't have missed it for the world, glad I survived. By the way did mention bra less women, and free love? ya didn't have to be a guitar player to get laid.

Peace brother, Make love not war!

[Muddslide]

Awww, why has no one mentioned the drugs back then?

 

 

Well son, the pot wasn't as good as it is now, but the hallucinogens were cleaner.

[mike42]

Fall of 1960. My firsst real rock n roll event. Barton coliseum in Little Rock. One of those huge rock extravaganza tours that happened for maybe 3 or 4 years there. The headliner act was Fats Domino - I remember the Shirelles (?), the Drifters, 4 or 5 other acts, but the act that everybody was there for was the man himself - Bo Diddley. They had the red plaid outfits, the square red Gretsch, the whole works - I think he may have opened with "Road Runner". Anyway, he just about brought the roof down. Poor Fats Domino had to follow Bo, and half the crowd had left before he finished his set. That was about the biggest thing we had ever seen in our lives up to then.

[blazingblake]

I'm an old fart i'll be 50 this July I remember Pres Kennedy getting killed Bobby Kennedy killed Marting Luther King, the moon landings, we didn't have a color tv until 1972 I think. The Beatles on Ed Sullivan. A lot of cool stuff happened back then.

[2pacHendrix]

hipforums.com i love that place

That site gave me BAS (Book Acqustion Syndrome)
I bought three books about the stories of hippies in the 60's
BUT, I got this book

Anybody read it?

['s mel gibson]

It was a cool yet scary time to be a kid. I was 10 in 1968. Kennedy shot. ML King shot. College students shot. Protesters beaten in Chicago. Huge riots in the big cities with looting and fires, blocks and blocks of burning carnage. Nightly body counts on the evening news-"the communist death toll was 27 today, while 12 Americans were reported killed or missing in action north of Khe Sanh..." Footage of people being killed was shown on the news (which only was on for a half-hour per day). Americans racing to the moon, every launch was an event. Every new Beatles song was an event. Cool music acts were on the Ed Sullivan Show Sunday nights, along with crappy stuff your parents liked. Families watched together, there was only one TV in the house. Car models looked different, and cooler, every single year. You could tell the difference between a 65, 66, 67, 68, and 69 Chevy...

 

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Yeah. I remember the 60's the same way. I was born in 52 and started on guitar in 62. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were new. We were always waiting for the next Beatle album. They never seemed to let us down.

 

I went to a lot of music festivals in my area. Strawberry Mountain, Aldergrove. Human Be-Ins in Stanley Park. Everybody smoking pot, some stoned on LSD. Colourful clothes and bell bottoms. Gonorrhea hurts but doesn't kill you and it's cureable.

 

I had a couple of paper routes and did deliveries on my bike for a Drug Store. I mixed with the hippies a bit but never really became one. They were all about 5 to 7 years older than me. I was living at home the whole time and playing in bands.

 

We played Country Joe And The Fish songs, Jefferson Airplane, Beatles, Stones, Yardbirds.

 

I saw The Yardbirds with Jeff Beck on guitar and Jimmy Page on bass in 66 at The Garden's Arena.

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quote;His time with The Yardbirds was short, allowing Beck only one full album, "Yardbirds" a.k.a Roger the Engineer (1966); Beck left after 18 months, partly for health reasons. For a few months he shared the dual-lead guitar role with Jimmy Page, who had joined the Yardbirds as a bass player, but quickly moved to co-lead guitar, with Chris Dreja moving on bass (wikipedia)

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I don't think I've ever missed a Vancouver show with Jeff Beck on stage ever since. I've seen almost every reincarnation of Jeff from the Yardbirds, with Rod Stewart, with Robert Tench in The Rough And Ready Group, the Blow By Blow Band, with Jennifer Batten(twice). Haven't seen him with Tal Wickenfeld yet. With Jennifer and Tal, all he needs now is a female drummer.

 

Another show I saw at The Colliseum was a line up of, Heir Apparent, The Soft Machine (Andy Summers, Alan Wakeman, Allan Holdsworth), Vanilla Fudge, Jimi Hendrix. It was a beautiful summer's night in Vancouver.

Pacific Coliseum, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, 1968-09-07(July). Back-stage interview for CBC TV by Terry David Mulligan.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=[YOUTUBE]Y0tOXaBrll0&feature=related[/YOUTUBE]

 

Jimi broke a string in the middle of a song and he fixed it on the fly. Like while still playing the song. I was 16 then. Memories of my youth are quite clearly remembered. I was less polluted then.

 

And it was around 66 The Cream appeared. I saw them in 68 at the Vancouver Colliseum. Eric was playing his Firebird I. I've seen Derek and The Dominos but that was 71 and also Clapton with Santana on the same bill but that was much later. (I suppose Jim Gordon is still in jail for killing his mother.)

 

Alice Cooper came out in 64. I saw him maybe around 69.

 

And tickets for all of this was still under or about $10 each. Beer was 20 cents a glass. Cigarettes were 40 cents a pack. Coca Cola was some where around 15 cents a bottle. Student bus tokens were only 10 cents each. I got my first used car for $200cdn in 69. A 61 Austin mini that I could fill the tank for $3.50http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Morris_Mini-Minor_1959.jpg

 

Frank Zappa came out with Freak Out in 66. I've seen him twice. The last time was with Flo and Eddy in 71 I think.

 

Led Zeppelin came out in 68, I saw them in 69 at the Colliseum. And a couple of more times too. Those were the best rock and roll years of my life.

 

Deep Purple appeared in 68. I've seen them at least 5 times.

 

Santana came out in 69. He was so amazing for his debut album.

 

I've seen him 3 times since then.

 

Those were the days and there were drug and alcohol casualties as there are now. Too many people over doing it. Violence wasn't as bad as it is now but it always existed.

 

Some how I survived but I do know some people who are still tarfu'd mentally from too much acid way back then.

[Scoogs]

Every interview from back then that was conducted by a Canadian station makes me {censored}ing sick.

"Do you like Canada? Tell us why you love Canada! Aren't Canadian fans the best??!"

{censored}! I watched one reporter from Toronto talking to The Beatles about how great Toronto was. You could tell the lads were really annoyed. I was, too.

['s mel gibson]

Actually, most interviews were sort of all stupid back then. And if I were a famous personality now, I'd probably dread them because I'm not an egomaniac and am now also partially deaf from too much loud rock and roll. I'd be saying, "What? Repeat the question!" all the time.

[Bert-O-325]

I have a very, very vague memory of some kid saying something about the President (Kennedy) being shot. I was - very young - and didn't understand what it meant.

I remember The Animals had a cool song hit "House Of The Rising Sun". I very much remember the organ.

My father took my sister and her friend to see the Beatles live at Dodger Stadium. I vaguely remember him,afterward, remarking "Everyone was just screaming the entire time! You couldn't hear anything but screaming!"

I remember my sister got a little, portable tape recorder - reel-to-reel (like 3.5 inch reels!). I remember it was blue and white (cream, actually). All she wanted to do with it was record two songs, back-to-back, over and over until the tape ran out: "Kicks" by Paul Revere & The Raiders and - I dunno, some other song (maybe "Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love)

[harold heckuba]

I was raised on a farm and we only heard country or Elvis. However, my first cousin was a singer in musicals and also went thru a hippie phase. Dated a guy who wore earth shoes. She is about 8 yrs older than me, and had a great record collection, all the Beatles, Stones, Animals, Yardbirds, Lovin Spoonful, Jeff Airplane, Who, etc. She also had a lot of musicals on LP, one in particular I loved was the Cowsills version of "Hair". This gave me a love of rock and I left country behind. Also, I have a friend who went to Woodstock. He said as he walked thru a field and got close to the concert he could feel history in the making.

[theHORSEwhisperer]

I would imagine that back then you could be a layabout and harbor liberal political views and still be considered mildly original.

 

No, wait, people still consider themselves original for doing that.

[tim gueguen]

Hey, I was just looking up vintage stuff on eBay and went to a few hippie sites, and it reminded me of how awesome the 60's were.

 

 

People will say the exact same thing about the 2000s 35 years from now, especially those who were too young to remember them, and those who look at their own role in them via the rose coloured glasses of nostalgia.

[Surfdude]

I was still soiling my diapers in 1960. Basically just went to elementary school and grew up during that era. Played with BB guns, Erector Sets, Creepy Crawlers, GI Joes and watched black and white TV. Rode skateboards with metal wheels. Had my first kiss....with my cousin. (She was hot). Got spanked a lot. Went to Boy Scouts and summer camp.

Basically, the sixties for an elementary school age kid was a lot like the movie Stand by Me.

The seventies were a lot like Cheech and Chong's "Up In Smoke".

Surfy

[GAS Man]

I was born in early '57 so for me the '60s were more as a voyeur than an active participant. But what I saw was that what folks think of as "The 60s" was indeed a relatively small, but significant, counter culture.

Almost what was more interesting is the changes the mainstream culture was going through.

Every one was acting a bit more hip. Even amongst the conservatoids risque cocktail parties where people drank to excess and tried to swipe each others wives was a bit of the norm. So even old {censored}ers were getting loose and twistin it up on the floor. Their cars were becoming powerful enough to launch you to the moon and low gas mileage was a friggin status symbol.

For me I remember the bell bottoms, big belts, long hair and the music was fantastic. It spoiled me for the era we live in now. Back then so much good music was coming your way that you expected that to be the norm for ever. Plus so much of it had either a great mood to it, or a seductive revealing dark theme. But the radio stations still tried to {censored} it up back in those days by playing the top 40 incessantly whereas you still had to be a bit of a sleuth to find a lot of the other gems in album rock.

But one of these days, someone will do a TV Special of the affects of the 60s on the conservatoids which I really find to be more fascinating than the beaded sandle wearing counter culture reps.

[karma279]

(Basically the San Francisco of Kansas)

I've never understood the romanticizing of the 60's that kids do.... it's kinda silly.

[Bert-O-325]

I was still soiling my diapers in 1960. Basically just went to elementary school and grew up during that era. Played with BB guns, Erector Sets, Creepy Crawlers, GI Joes and watched black and white TV. Rode skateboards with metal wheels. Had my first kiss....with my cousin. (She was hot). Got spanked a lot. Went to Boy Scouts and summer camp. Basically, the sixties for an elementary school age kid was a lot like the movie Stand by Me. The seventies were a lot like Cheech and Chong's "Up In Smoke". Surfy

...I swear I've read that exact text before - as if it was months ago. I remember - or rather, it feels so familiar, as IF I'm remembering it - the bit about the kiss with your cousin, elementary school, and the movie "Stand By Me". Woah - deja-vu! thats freaky!

[Professor Tom]

I was 18 years old in 1967 and it was pretty wonderful being alive at that time. We very nearly changed the world for the better in my opinion. The drugs were great, women were great and the music was out of this world for most of the time. A good time to be alive as long as you weren't sent to Vietnam.

[59humbucker]

I find it disapointing that the generation that promised to change it all became my parents generation of teachers, doctors, lawyers etc.

I was born in 78.