For information about how to use this forum please check out forum help and policies.
Quote
swiss
Stay tuned -- I'm aiming to release a special bonus feature *tonight* pertaining to The Night Before Altamont.
- swiss
Quote
Naturalust
Yeah swiss you've set the stage, I'm ready for the show.
I'm curious what has happened to the property since it closed down in 2008. Have you checked it out? Track houses and mini malls?
peace
Quote
Naturalust
wow. Still looks like a good place for a Rock show. I imagine the skies were a bit bluer in 1969 though..
peace
Quote
swissQuote
Naturalust
wow. Still looks like a good place for a Rock show. I imagine the skies were a bit bluer in 1969 though..
peace
That looks like a photo I may have taken -- but the landscape out there is so similar who knows?
The skies were actually quite smoky, by many accounts. There was some kind of agricultural burning going on (which I will discover more about in the year to come)!
Quote
bluegreenvinyl
seems the world is now talking altamont, just heard a feature in national public radio.
Quote
2000 LYFHQuote
swiss
That looks like a photo I may have taken -- but the landscape out there is so similar who knows?
The skies were actually quite smoky, by many accounts. There was some kind of agricultural burning going on (which I will discover more about in the year to come)!
Hi Swiss - yes that is your picture which I just gave you credit for (sorry). Would love to see any other pictures from the day. hbwriter (now gone) had some photos from the site (found one here half way down page) : [www.iorr.org]
Quote
barbequebob
Unless one wants to interpret each verse that ends with "the day the music died" as each representing a different event ("day the music died").
Quote
bluegreenvinyl
right, the American Pie reference to the day the music died is not at all altamont. interesting stuff here tho, tho i will add i don't think there's much of a story to chase the night before.just a typical slapdash effort to throw up a stage while a bunch of hippies got high. i think the real story is in the days after, as the band goes all their own ways after conquering america.
Quote
swissQuote
bluegreenvinyl
right, the American Pie reference to the day the music died is not at all altamont. interesting stuff here tho, tho i will add i don't think there's much of a story to chase the night before.just a typical slapdash effort to throw up a stage while a bunch of hippies got high. i think the real story is in the days after, as the band goes all their own ways after conquering america.
LOL, bluegreenvinyl -- well said! "slapdash effort to throw up a stage while a bunch of hippies got high"
That's actually the point of "The Night Before Altamont." Altamont has been mythologized so heavily--and so negatively--hyperbolically characterized as The Death of Idealism in American. The End of Counterculture. And so on.
"The Night Before Altamont" is a light quirky radio piece--a glimpse at "time before time," or "history before history." What happens in those moments before an History happens. And--more to the point--if the Counterculture (as if there were only one Counterculture that could be extinguished) expired on December 6, 1969, wouldn't there have been some foreshadowing 12 hours beforehand? How could this purported cultural Black Hole of Calcutta been considered so "groovy," "far-out," compelling and cool to Keith and Mick that, upon encountering the scene the night before, they waxed poetic about how beautiful it was? Leading Keith to stay behind to drink in the vibes with bodyguard Tony Funches?
Don't agree that American Pie has nothing to do with Altamont--but I appreciate the feedback, and have changed the language to:
The dominant narrative about Altamont claims the event signaled the last gasps of 1960s idealism and the death knell of the American counterculture. One of the days "the music died," as referenced in Don McLean's song, "American Pie."
- swiss
Quote
footlooseman
if the hippies along with everybody else had just gotten high instead of drunk this event might be seen in retrospect as one of the greatest ever taking place at the zenith of all these bands careers and a free one at that.no good deed goes unpunished.