Another risible article from David Burchell marks the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. In attacking “the Woodstock moment”, he criticises “un-remembering” (what a horrible coinage), the putative sin of the Boomers (whoever they may be), and in the process indicts himself with a ludicrous conflation of all sorts of things into a single generationalist narrative, which has precious little to do with history or cultural memory, and everything to do with right wing prejudices.
Burchell claims that Woodstock “was little more than three wearisome, mud-soaked days of musical chaos”, citing the Wall Street Journal‘s music critic, surely itself an oxymoronic title. Apparently blind to the symbolic dimension of popular culture, Burchell blithely ignores the fact that the entire discourse of the culture wars is founded on the symbolic distribution of cultural value. An anthropologist would have no trouble recognising it for what it is – myth-making.
Update: Tim Dunlop.
Memo to David Burchell: Methinks thou dost protest too much.
I’m surprised that it got such a rise out of you, which probably means the author achieved his purpose.
I think David may have been more of an Altamont kinda guy.
Its just the seething jealousy of another small mean-minded culture warrior who missed out on all the fun. Set Guy Rundle onto him. I totally enjoy his demolition derbys…
It surprises me that you’re so invested in the true meaning of Woodstock.
But then its also surprising that David Burchell is also so invested.
What is really surprising, is how surprisingly surprised you are Terry!
Lol Grace, re demolition derbys, Guy certainly has an entertaining wit and matching gusto for those sort of performances.
THe Oz serves the white picket fence brigadooners and provides a refuge to those constipated journos, still stuck about something that happened at school so many years ago.
Expect Quadrant to follow up, once they run out of AGW denialists.
Burchill may claim this but he is forced to acknowledge that Woodstock and what it came to signify were much more than this:
Translation from the original Rupertese:
The power elites of the security state can no longer lead Americans sheeplike into foreign entanglements at their whim.
Young people, who do most of the fighting and dying now have rhetorical vocabulary to challenge the malign authoritarianism of their elders who assert that it is a good thing to die in a foreign field for a bad cause.
If that is what Woodstock has achieved, then thank you, Woodstock.
(BTW the Rupertverse has spent the entire weekend trying to plough Woodstock into oblivion. The good news is that Murdoch has achieved the opposite. As we used to say: “Way to go, Rupe!”
Wow, acerbic reviews of a 40-year old concert.
Can’t wait for Burchell’s next instalment: Why Disco Sux.
Firstly, the Wall Street Journal’s music critic is a guy called Jim Fusilli, who wrote a wonderful book about “Pet Sounds” for the 33 1/3 music series. Fusilli is a 1960s music buff, and he is correct that the festival itself was muddy, chaotic and musically largely over-rated. The significance of it seems to be mostly in what it represented, and in its concert documentary, which is much more influential than the festival itself.
Secondly, I’m not entirely sure what Burchell means by “British invasion” bands at Woodstock that ape Chicago/Memphis blues bands – the more obvious targets here (Cream/Eric Clapton, Peter Green’s Fleetwood Mac, The Rolling Stones) were not at Woodstock, and by 1970 had transcended their influences. In fact, the only major British acts at Woodstock were The Who and Joe Cocker, neither of whom were particularly indebted to Chicago/Memphis bluesmen – Joe Cocker is much more indebted to the Otis Reddings of the world.
Thirdly, Burchell is being disingenuous attempting to hold a diverse range of musicians and listeners of a time period to a single coherent political philosophy. The appeal of music is by nature emotional rather than reasoned, and much of the music of the era (and its appeal) was an emotional response to uncertain and unpleasant times.
Also there from Britain were the Incredible String Band and Ten Year After who were probably bigger than Joe Cocker at the time.
The ISB owed absolutely nothing to Chicago or Memphis, where as TYA owed those US cities (and several others) quite a lot.
burchell is an idiot, fusilli isn’t…
Garcia rekons he met people from the past who had travelled back in time to visit it. I rekon it’s sad that an event so blatently commercial has had the myth built up around it. the myth of Woodstock imho – a long term right wing plot to undermine the actual achievements and real events that shaped an effective counter culture…lets forget the Diggers and just focus on, say, the Who (Townsend eventually a Thatcher supporter) endlessly banging on about “touch me feel me”. at the time (forgive me) we knew it was crap, it’s still crap now.
Fusilli http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25929579-16947,00.html
Burchell writes about “the same icy disregard for individuals and peoples less holy than themselves”.
…glass houses and all that.
Even if Burchell’s narrative of the facts of Woodstock or of Hendrix’s personal feelings of patriotism are correct, (and I suppose one has no reason to doubt them)he seems to be ihnoring the basic historical truism that frequently it is not the event itself that is important but people’s idea of the event, (which can very well be the very opposite of the actual event) that is more significant.
[Jeez, I'm not sure that even I can follow the para. above.
]
David Burchell is almost exactly the same age as myself – just old enough at the time to have known that something big was happening at Woodstock, not old enough at the time to have been part of either the event or the cultural ferment surrounding it in any meaningful way, and perhaps too old now to have much hope of really being in the middle of anything of comparable significance which might occur in the decades remaining to us. Perhaps that explains the tenor of his article.
@ Tom Byron
Those bands transcended Muddy Waters, BB King, Howlin’ Wolf et al? I think not. “Diverged” is a far better and accurate word.
bugger Woodstock, Monterey Pop Rules.
the real significance of Woodstock is that the police officers involved realised that 150,000 stoned kids are a lot easier to deal with than 150,000 drunk kids. A realisation that they spread around their collegues both in the US and around the world. i even heard it repeated in the ACT in the mid eighties. without the police on board, the war on drugs would be a fizzer, i guess that means that the Murdochverse needs to go hard on this muddy moment.
trainspotters corner: Which performing artist/s played at all of the “big three” concerts; Monterey, Woodstock and Concert for Bangaladesh?
Goddamn hippies
.. is Burchill the articulate version of Eric Cartman?
Geez, can you imagine how the world would be if Woodstock had been any good?
Indeed, Shaun @ 15. Nothing transcends the Mighty Wolf.
“Which performing artist/s played at all of the “big three” concerts; Monterey, Woodstock and Concert for Bangaladesh?”
Ravi Shankar and Allarakha Khan Qureshi.
d
Paul, I’m surprise Burchell is so young. He sounds exactly like the members of my parents’ generation (Depression kids) who fulminated about moral collapse and the end of civilisation itself in the years around Woodstock.
Nice one DR at 20
And the allegedly magisterial Jim Fuselli should not escape being tarred with the same clueless brush as the egregious David Burchell.
Does Jim Fuselli not know that the the hiring of Roy Rogers was a huge piss-take by the promoters? Roy Rogers was a “singing cowboy” whose TV show was iconic of the cloistered childhood of boomer children living in Levittowns the length and breadth of America.
When offered the gig, Rogers refused it, opining that those damned hippies would kill him.
Poor old Roy. If he had appeared at Woodstock, “music critics” like Jim Fuselli might know who he was, even if posthumously.
katz @ 23..where is it implied that fuselli doesn’t know who RR is? and even if he doesn’t know who he is, why would that matter, a lot of people don’t know who tim hardin was, but like..so what?
and nobody is saying the fuselli is god anyhow, but his article is, i would argue, accurate and to the point, unlike the burchell.
Quiz: Which famous person went to Woodstock having never worn jeans in his life? He was in a suit and lost a cufflink.
.
Anyone??????
was little more than three wearisome, mud-soaked days of musical chaos
.
Well…
.
1. When the chaos includes Hendrix it’s good chaos.
2. We told you not to take the brown acid
3. It’s not our fault you couldn’t get laid. Shut up!
.
Fuselli mentions RR in the same breath as The Doors, Led Zep, Lennon and others. Clearly Fuselli does not distinguish between them and RR, as if the failure of Woodstock’s promoters to engage RR signified a similar repudiation of their plans as their failure to engage some icons of rock.
In that sense, Fuselli is inaccurate.
Fuselli commits the fallacy of motivation. The alleged failure of the Woodstock promoters to engage Franklin, Brown, Wonder, etc., is presented as proof of some prejudice against Afro-American music.
In fact, the promoters’ motivations were far simpler. They hired acts that hippies liked (with the possible exception of Sha Na Na, who could well have paid heed to Roy Rogers’ decision to stay away.)
“Which famous person went to Woodstock having never worn jeans in his life? He was in a suit and lost a cufflink.”
Abe Simpson and/or Martin Scorsese
d
“some prejudice against Afro-American music”, “they hired acts that hippies liked”…well (forgive me again) but at the time a great many white middle class weekend hippy idiots were, in fact, racist (and sexist and viciously conservative). and i would argue, an awful lot of them were at woodstock.
Darryl – Give the man a prize! A nice Italian-American boy. He never used language like that in the home. And Bob de Niro doesn’t attend Catherine’s dinners in his underwear. He wears clothes. Whatsamatta witchoo?.
And I’m sure you have a list of these ugly folk ES.
Publish it.
oh yeah, like i’m gonna list names, for goodness sake…what i am saying is that woodstock, at the time, was commercial hype of the worst kind, that the bands themselves were some of the most musically conservative for the time, that the event was a great advert for flared blue denim jeans, and by the time we’d got to multi-national companies producing flared jeans any semblence of anarchic radicalism that had driven the original free festivals was long gone….townsend went to the conservative party conference in brighton in the 1970s supporting thatcher, he was and remains one of the most right wing voices to have lifted a gibson sg and the sexism at the time was ever present..none of this is rocket science….never trust a hippy.
Fuselli himself provides evidence against this bizarre assertion:
1. The promoters had to accede to demands of managers. That’s show biz.
2. The organisation of this event was shambolic. Unfortunate? Perhaps. There is little evidence of any well-oiled commercial business plan.
3. Do you have more information on the great flared jeans marketing conspiracy. I find your views very interesting and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
“that’s show biz”….well if it’s show biz it can not possibly have anything whatsover to do with counter culture then can it? show biz is the absolute antithesis of anarchic art. the event was market driven, just because the organisers were crap at business and organising doesn’t suddenly make them angels of the underground left. on the jeans thing…photos of the crowd are just an ocean of indigo denim, if one could get hold of flared jeans in your local shop then clearly the market has taken over…like: by 1978 you could buy tartan bondage trousers in high street clothes stores…..pop eats itself katz, these big mythological events have no deep structure but are constantly touted as having one…………”the voice of a generation”..yuk.
Do you know the meaning of the word “hype”?
Just because you don’t like the particular “deep structure” that may have emerged from any event doesn’t mean that the event didn’t have one.
In fact, both fervent proponents and more fervid antagonists of Woodstock assume that the participants and projectors of the event shared a single agenda.
In reality, there was no manifesto. Only later do folks construct a mythic manifesto.
So the “underground left” were (are?) disappointed in Woodstock. Well, boo hoo, let me offer my commercially-manufactured tie-dyed hankerchief.
I imagine that few in attendance wanted to change society or political arrangements in profound ways. Most of them just wanted to be left alone, and especially not to be sent unwillingly to Vietnam.
The novel aspect of the Woodstock event was that so many kids had never turned up in the same place at the same time at any time in the history of the world.
Rundle responds:
thanks katz, that’s really clear.
“if it’s show biz it can not possibly have anything whatsover to do with counter culture then can it? show biz is the absolute antithesis of anarchic art.”
Oh, fiddle-dee-dee. It’s dry old grumps like you that give anarchic art a bad name. Or bad art an anarchic name. Or both. Or neither. Sorry, were you saying something?
Oh yeah, that’s right.
“townsend went to the conservative party conference in brighton in the 1970s supporting thatcher, he was and remains one of the most right wing voices to have lifted a gibson sg”
Townshend spoke at a Young Conservatives meeting in 1984 about Heroin addiction and how wrong the Tories’ policies were and because ‘They had the power and the platform’. Your entire statement is about as wrong as you can get, except Pete did play SGs between 1969 and 1972.
d
Rundle via Rachel #36:
I take issue with Rundle’s description of the Eurocommunists as boring. Marxism Today in the 1980s may have been chi-chi, but it wasn’t boring. CPA Sydney Tertiary Branch meetings in the 1970s and 1980s may have been chock full of stoushes, but they weren’t boring. The CPA Sydney District Committee may not have provided united party leadership in Sydney, but for that very reason it wasn’t boring. As a political party branch, the Newtown Branch of the CPA in the 1980s made a great punk-rock cooperative, but it wasn’t boring. Brisbane cadres meetings which the Stalinist rearguard attempted to stack in order to sack me from my job with the Queensland CPA added considerable excitement to my weekends in 1990. Denis Freney in the company and immediate presence of Bob Gould was the second least boring phenomenon in Australian politics (the least boring being Bob in the company and immediate presence of Denis). Lee Bermingham was a dirty crook, but he wasn’t boring. I could go on, and on, and on.
well i’m so sorry to spoil your nice little romantic party darryl.
unfortunately i did in fact work for the who for a (very) short time in the late 1970s so i met their racism, sexism and downright hatred of decent humanity first hand. and while “good ole workin’ class pete” has said he knew “how wrong the Tories’ policies were”, at the time he was smacked right out of his tiny head, so everyone knew he was full of bollocks..
enough from me…onward.
‘bitter, burnt-out, pessimistic, victimhood junkies, incapable of that most defining of adult traits, the acceptance of ambivalence and ambiguity.’
Ain’t necessarily restricted to the right.
Why is the 40th anniversay such a big deal? Was anything similar done on the 30th?
The new film about the event seems to be the only reason why it is being discussed at all- clever marketing by someone.
I should point out that I’ve quoted an excerpt of Rundle’s view of the Burchell article. The entire article would have been too lengthy to reproduce here. The whole article doesn’t appear on the Crikey website as yet either.
Read this, Murph.
Rundle’s description of the Eurocommunist CPA as boring may, of course, reflect his political origins as part of the Arena magazine crew in Melbourne whose view of the CPA as a whole was coloured by the genuinely boring and conservative right-Eurocommunist politics of the Taft group which controlled the Victorian CPA and were the Melbourne face of the CPA until they and their great ally Lee Bermingham spat the dummy about losing the inner-party debate and quit en masse in 1984.
Looks and reads the same to me Katz, sleaze bags wringing a few bucks out of it again.
Shaun @
I could have put that better. I didn’t mean to say that they had transcended Albert King, Robert Johnson et al (and yes, Howlin’ Wolf is fantastic), but rather that they had transcended the influence of Albert King, Robert Johnson et al, – perhaps diverged is a better term, but, say, the Stones of 1970 are better than the Stones of 1964 – they had absorbed the influences into something better than a pale imitation of Chicago blues.
As to Woodstock, its main importance is probably in the sheer amount of hippies in the one place. It made it seem like a movement rather than simply a disparate bunch of drugged-up lefties. The interesting bit about Burchell’s piece is in his glib dismissal of the social influence of the hippie movement, which he instead attributes to economic factors. If he was making a serious argument, he would have devoted the bulk of the article to this.
You’re correct about this, Tim Byron. Woodstock and related events sent the Nixon administration ballistic. Operation Chaos, an illegal CIA domestic spying program, sent the Nixon administration spinning toward its Watergate nemesis.
And I say that is if it were a good thing.
pAUL #45 – their great ally Lee Bermingham
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Lee – I adore you.
.
Are you going to write a big fat book abut the microhistory of the Oz left sometime?
.
In the late 80s the CPA had the foxiest ladies.
At least Guy Rundle can write, and he’s still a lefty.
Can’t say the same for poor old ex-Tribune writers.
Gosh that was a boring paper.
Debaters debate the two wars as if Nixon’s civil war on Woodstock Nation didn’t yet run amok. One needn’t travel to China to find indigenous cultures lacking human rights or to Cuba for political prisoners. America leads the world in percentile behind bars, thanks to ongoing persecution of hippies, radicals, and non-whites under banner of the war on drugs. If we’re all about spreading liberty abroad, then why mix the message at home? Peace on the home front would enhance credibility.
The drug czar’s Rx for prison fodder costs dearly, as lives are flushed down expensive tubes. My shaman’s second opinion is that psychoactive plants are God’s gift. In God’s eyes, it’s all good (Gen.1:12). The administration claims it wants to reduce demand for cartel product, but extraditing Canadian seed vendor Marc Emery increases demand. Mr. Emery enables American farmers to steal cartel customers with superior domestic product.
The constitutionality of the CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) derives from an interstate commerce clause. This clause is invoked to finance organized crime, endanger homeland security, and throw good money after bad. Official policy is to eradicate, not tax, the number-one cash crop in the land. America rejected prohibition, but it’s back. Apparently, SWAT teams don’t need no stinking amendment.
Nixon promised the Schafer Commission would support the criminalization of his enemies, but it didn’t. No matter, the witch-hunt was on. No amendments can assure due process under an anti-science law without due process itself. Psychology hailed the breakthrough potential of LSD, until the CSA halted all research. Marijuana has no medical use, period.
The RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) allows Native American Church members to eat peyote, which functions like LSD. Americans shouldn’t need a specific church membership to obtain their birthright freedom of religion. Denial of entheogen sacrament to any American, for mediation of communion with his or her maker, precludes the free exercise of religious liberty.
Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of thought. The Constitution doesn’t enumerate any governmental power to embargo diverse states of mind. How and when did government usurp this power to coerce conformity? The Mayflower sailed to escape coerced conformity. Legislators who would limit cognitive liberty lack jurisdiction.
Common-law must hold that adults own their bodies. The Founding Fathers decreed the right to the pursuit of happiness is inalienable. Socrates said to know your self. Lawmakers should not presume to thwart the intelligent design that molecular keys unlock spiritual doors. Persons who appreciate their own free choice of path in life should tolerate seekers’ self-exploration.
Simple majorities in each house could put repeal of the CSA on the president’s desk. The books have ample law on them without the CSA. The usual caveats remain in effect. You are liable for damages when you screw up. Strong medicine requires prescription. Employees can be fired for poor job performance. No harm, no foul; and no excuse, either. Replace the war on drugs with a frugal, constitutional, science-based drugs policy.
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I blame Joni Mitchell.
“townsend went to the conservative party conference in brighton in the 1970s supporting thatcher, he was and remains one of the most right wing voices to have lifted a gibson sg”
Probably one of the most misinformed and idiotic statements I’ve ever encountered online. And believe me I’ve encountered (and made) a few in my time.
“Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
I woke up in a Soho doorway
A policeman knew my name
He said “You can go sleep at home tonight
If you can get up and walk away”
I staggered back to the underground
And the breeze blew back my hair
I remember throwin’ punches around
And preachin’ from my chair
chorus:
Well, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
Tell me, who are you? (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
‘Cause I really wanna know (Who are you? Who, who, who, who?)
I took the tube back out of town
Back to the Rollin’ Pin
I felt a little like a dying clown
With a streak of Rin Tin Tin
I stretched back and I hiccupped
And looked back on my busy day
Eleven hours in the Tin Pan
God, there’s got to be another way
Who are you?
Ooh wa ooh wa ooh wa ooh wa …
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
Who are you?
Who, who, who, who?
(chorus)
I know there’s a place you walked
Where love falls from the trees
My heart is like a broken cup
I only feel right on my knees
I spit out like a sewer hole
Yet still receive your kiss
How can I measure up to anyone now
After such a love as this?
(chorus)”
Now I’m fairly certain the Heath/Thatcher or Wilson/Callaghan parties of the late 70s would have not gone anywhere near such an articulate scream of rage back then. And Pete made damn sure it was mutual.
On the other hand when he became a Faber and Faber commissioning editor, apparently he used to enjoy sitting in TS Eliot’s old chair. As I did once. It’s just a dull wooden Gill Sans chair if yer wondering.
One thing you rarely hear about Eric Gill is that he used explore inter-species sex as a philosophical attitude.
Yes, one of the world’s greatest typographers was a dog fucker.
Ask me how I can derail your thread. Easy Terms. Small domesticated mammals accepted as security.
But I never got to cash and burn back then. Even though I could outpace an English Electric Lightning or Jeff Beck.
So David Burchell is Generation Jones?
Which brings to mind that Dylan line…
ahhhhhh yes…the die hard who fan….shame on you….”back to the rolling pin”..thanks pete from the wives of england…..”Eleven hours in the Tin Pan”..gee it’s tuff at the top.
“touch me feel me”..i was just looking, honest. oh, and lets bomb iraq.
Bat #50, you wouldn’t happen to be related to jinmaro by any chance?
Tribune was a very boring paper, that’s true. Not too much of the Woodstock about it from looking at the archives.
Bubba, which years are you looking at in the archives?
It is interesting to note from this vantage point of history the nature of the counter-cultural upsurge of the late 1960s.
It is granted that the “Movement” was very diverse, encompassing some truly lunar leftist tendencies from Maoism to anarchism, the bulk of the membership and adherents of the movement and many of its political mouthpieces were constitutionally quite conservative. Despite serial disappointments, most remained committed to peaceful change and peaceful protest. And in a strict constitutional sense they were Jeffersonian in their suspicion and fear of executive power. Indeed, the most coherent feature of counter-cultural demands was their revulsion against the security state, which had been a post-WWII innovation of American government. Large swathes of the counter-culture hankered for a return to a mythic age of political innocence. The Pentagon Papers and Watergate revelations energised the counter-culture and projected their concerns into the political mainstream. As a result, the 1972, 1974 and 1976 Congresses were probably the most liberal in American history.
Culturally, conversely, the counter-culture questioned and weakened many traditional attitudes and practices, legitimising many startling innovations and stoking an evermore bitter culture war in the US.
Tribune = boring paper – but an excellent historical source if read imaginatively. [Sighs for olden days long gone.]
Update: Tim Dunlop.
Good link, Mark. As is so often the case, Tim is spot on.
Mind you, I agree with Eric Sykes (I thought you were dead – quite liked your work in the 60s) about Pete Townsend. One of the biggest bores in rock music, and one of the most over-rated songwriters and guitarists.
Eric Sykes link@60 is priceless. “Won’t Get Fooled Again”…yer right, Roger’n'Pete.
Omg!! you mean millionaire rock star junkies may not actually be working class socialists?!1! And they sometimes consort with owerful people I don’t like?!!?
I’m shocked and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to listen to ‘mama’s got a squeezebox’ in the same way again.
d
adrian, joe2..this ones going out to you…its 1967, two years before Woodstock…the rolling thunder bombing campaign is well under way killing huge numbers of civilian Vietnamese…and what’s pete doing you may well ask?..well, blow me down sideways, he’s creating commercial radio advertisements for….the US Air Force…
and it seems unfair to single out pete..there’s a lot of rock stars who are right wing…no surprises here really eh?
Ah! Roy Rogers and Trigger. The Adelphi picture theatre cowboy matinees.
I don’t normally read opinion pieces in newspapers, preferring to read more factual and objective reporting, and forming my own opinion. Exceptions are if the opinion is from a specialist or expert in his/her field – in which case I may learn some new facts or insight. But that Woodstock title caught my eye and I read it. And it reminded me why I don’t usually read these trite pieces of garbage.
British invasion? That’s risible – everybody knows this was over by 1966. Pale imitation? – not the Who (lunatic drumfills and power chords instead of 12 bar blues). Not Ten Years After (proto hammy metal flash) nor Cocker (spastic soul). But hey – Burchell is a pale imitation of O’Rourke.
Kerouac hated the counterculture? So what, he was washed up and irrelevant then. I hate Woodstock because Kerouac hates Woodstock. Wow, you’re really thinking for yourself, Burchell.
Then he cites Burdon arguing with Hendrix over Vietnam. It may or may not be true, but Hendrix is on record (check the Band Of Gypsys LP of his December 1969 gig, or the CD version Live at Filmore East) making his anti war sentiment clearly known.
And the nitpicking! The 60s counterculture was not original because Lester Young coined the word cool! What culture does not absorb influences from the past and other cultures? As if anything arrives out of a vacuum.
Fusilli? Oh The Who hated it. So it must be crap. Yeah. Don’t bother with original criticism, just lazily quote the artist on what he/she thinks of the art (I thought they were mesmerizingly violent and beautiful). As for Hendrix, he let loose and felt liberated from the original Experience via new bassist Billy Cox. On the Live At Woodstock CD you hear this amazing metal-psych-jazz-blues-rock-funk meld that’s totally afresh.
I have never encountered anyone pretending to think Woodstock was perfect – hey it was filthy mud, not all the music was good or great (27 artists/bands over 3 days -given the number and duration in any context there will be duds).
But it was a wake up call that rock could permeate culture on large scale, that lotsa people would congregate to hear it, and it became a time capsule of sorts for the end of the 60s. It also spawned a great documentary film which was less flawed than the event (the power of editing).
Beyond that article in the Australian, I do not know anything else of Burchell… and most likely never will. Not reading these waste of timers again.
Great rave Mark Fichera.
Especially about bands like The Who moving beyond their influences and “As if anything arrives out of a vacuum.”
Or as Keef once said, it’s all a hand me down right from the start.
And speaking of anti-war sentiments of the time, ’tis interesting to note that the UK ended nasho in 1960 not long before LBJ ramped up selective service. Not to mention Jimi was an Army brat who also had very undistinguished time in the 101 Airborne – a heavily black unit at the time it was sent into Vietnam.
Also Eric Skyes, I apologise for my remarks @54 referencing your previous comment. The blogosphere hosts far worse than any comment you’ve made here.
“But it was a wake up call that rock could permeate culture on large scale, that lotsa people would congregate to hear it, and it became a time capsule of sorts for the end of the 60s. ”
Yup, there are many worse reasons for which such things should be remembered.
“Also Eric Skyes, I apologise…”
Yikes! I meant “Sykes”.
Just read some of the comments here. Eric Sykes and Adrian make some good points – like how great artists may not be nice people, esp. re Eric’s experience with the Who. Great artists may also not have the politics you agree with. And lotsa crappy artists maybe very nice people to hang out with.
Anyway Eric, I don’t think it’s unfair to single out Pete for his right wing leanings. Instead, the Who’s uniqueness and attractiveness was that they were a violent band (musically, personally, and performance wise) – which sat ill at ease with the leftist peace, love, flowers ideology of the counterculture. And while we (un)remember Woodstock, it’s Townshend there in white overalls and doc martens (A Clockwork Orange anyone?) while everyone is in florid hippie dress. And he whacks Abbie hoffman clean offstage who is making a leftist statement!
The Who also embraced selling out- hence the fantastic Who Sell Out LP – which also sat uncomfortably with some of the hippies that wanted less materialsim and commercialism. And so those wonderful ads. And the Airforce ad is amazing! But not because Townshend is right wing – he didn’t follow Vietnam and didn’t care – he was likely apolitical, to paraphrase one of his lyrics “the party on the left is the party of the right”. No, the ad is amazing because we expect the Typical 60s Rock Star to be anti-Vietnam. But the Who were anything but typical. This apolitical stance means they can rock up and get a medal from Bush, while Bono – who obviously wants to act out his politics – will go out of his way to seek Bush and have a discourse. For the Who, it could’ve been Jack Black handing out the honours. It was laughable how Mike Moore wanted Won’t Get Fooled Again for the end of Fahrenheit 9/11, given that song disses politics on both the left and right.
And Adrian, yep Townshend can be a bore, but I would not think overrated as a guitarist or songwriter.
Music before politics, anyday.
Robot or troll?
Interesting blog. Arguably, the biggest legacy of Woodstock is its huge impact on the real children of the sixties: Generation Jones (born 1954-1965, between the Boomers and Generation X). That peace ‘n love cultural mood magnified the naturally open-hearted feelings of children in the sixties; the residual idealism which was formed into those kids bears particular salience now as this generation has taken over U.S. leadership. This USA TODAY op-ed speaks to the relevance today of the sixties counterculture impact on our new GenJones leadership: http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20090127/column27_st.art.htm
Google Generation Jones, and you’ll see it’s gotten a ton of media attention, and many top commentators from many top publications and networks (Washington Post, Time magazine, NBC, Newsweek, ABC, etc.) now specifically use this term. In fact, the Associated Press’ annual Trend Report forecast the Rise of Generation Jones as the #1 trend of 2009. Here’s a page with a good overview of recent media interest in GenJones: http://generationjones.com/2009latest.html
Re Townsend’s spruiking the US Airforce:
The Advertising strategists of the US Airforce wanted a band popular with young people to explain to said young people why it was a great idea for them to join the US Airforce.
The most suitable band they could come up with was The Who, a British band.
Hello!?
Anyone see anything strange about this picture?
Could it perhaps be that comparable US bands refused to do it?
Picture the scene:
ADman 1: Hey! I go an idea — US Airforce – Jefferson Airplane! Geddit?
ADman 2: Hey! Great idea! The brass will love it!
So what’s going on with posts 56 and 76, Mark? I think quiggan found the same thing happening over at his blog…
mark fichera @75
music is politics. wake up.
Katz @ 77: I dunno, I think it’s actually kind of an interesting sociological tell.
I can’t speak for how this stuff played in the 60s or in the Commonwealth in any era, but I will say that in the late 70s/early 80s in the US Northeast, Who fans would have been a choice USAF demographic.
The Who sat on a border between tough and cerebral; all the guys I knew who joined the Air Force were bright, witty working-class kids who were clearly smart but didn’t like school very much. The kind of kids who thought there was something campy and hilarious about Patti Smith, but bought all her records anyway. They thought Black Sabbath were hysterical, but still learned to play all the songs off “Paranoid.” I could see how the Air Force could make use of that talent pool.
Lynyrd Skynyrd fans: join the Army, then get booted out in a year for failing a drug screening.
Who/Springsteen/Elvis Costello fans: join the Air Force, the USN, or the NYPD.
Brian Eno/Television fans: join the service? Are you fucking stoned? I’m going to Columbia, dude!
Newsflash Japerz.
The Who USAF ad in question was made in the latish 1960s.
Whatever may have been true about the musical tastes of potential AF dudes in the late 1970s was highly unlikely to be true in the late 1960s. (The very fact they were still listening to The Who at that time is vaguely sad.)
But that, of course, is not the point.
The question is, which other bands appearing at Woodstock besides the Who would have been caught dead doing a USAF ad at the time? CSNY? Nope. JA? Nope. Sly? Nope. Janis and BB? Nope. Arlo? Nope. Canned Heat? Are you kidding? Mountain? Certainly not. Sha Na Na? Well now you’re talking. Roy Rogers? You betcha.
But of course, unlike someone upthread, even the Jarheads in the Armed Forces propaganda squad at the time (1969) would have understood that Roy Rogers was no advertisement for a boomer’s military career.
Gosh. Airforce Jarheads 1, Leading Cultural Critic 0.
Ain’t life funny?
I will merely note that someone who uses the phrase “airforce jarheads” has already disqualified himself from all manner of standing.
I’m touched, however, that you’re still capable of making a distinction between say Canned Heat and Mountain. Your definition of “vaguely sad” must be highly entertaining.
“JA? Nope.”
Wow, did Jane’s Addiction really play at Woodstock?
I learn something from hippies every day.
katz you seem stuck on the idea that your “leading cultural critic” doesn’t know who RR is? your interpretation of a list of possible Woodstock acts that might include RR as somehow “missing the joke” seems completely unfounded. its a list of possible acts, and its written as that, as a list it does not attribute any particular cultural position to any of them.
Of course you noticed my deliberate misuse of US military jargon. Your triumphing in it is, well, vaguely sad.
After what elapse of time does the incapability of distinguishing between different human identities become acceptable in your world Japerz?
Shorter Katz: (a la Pee Wee Herman) I meant to do that.
C’mon, ol’ chum, it’s just luck of the draw that you’re not saying anything interesting today, so just have a nice glass of iced tea and move on. My comment at 80 wasn’t terribly contentious or critical, it was just homely observation: grist for the mill. Garrison Keillor gets paid good money for this crap.
Let’s mug his ass and split the proceeds.
Eric at 79:
Music is politics? No – they are two distinct things, two separate concepts. This is not my idea – just look in any dictionary definition. Music is an art, politics is not an art (Johnny Howard or Kevin Rudd artists, eeek!) Politics is about decisions, music is about sounds. People usually dance to music, people usually don’t dance to politics. One must agree on what words mean, otherwise undertaking an argument or debate becomes futile.
Some feel that music should be aligned to poltics, or that music should express politics (some of it does, some of it does not). But music transcends politics, because it can express various sounds, imagination, emotions, ideas, and images. Politics is concerned with the more mundane world of making decisions. And that is why I said I like music more than politics.
mf….your view is either staggering naive or belligerently stupid to me i’m afraid…art of any kind (if the art purports to be “about” politics or not is completely irrelevant) can never be divorced from the socio/political context within which it is made…art does not exist in a vacuum….
Eric Sykes @ 86, yes, art (or even Art) does not exist in a vacuum. So what? As an example, some of the best music (in my opinion) was written by a devout Lutheran. As an atheist I have no time at all for his religious position, but am entranced by his church music.
yes of course david…..so what back at u?
I’m just unclear why Pete Townsend’s repellent political position has anything to do with the fact that he’s written some of the best pop songs ever. The two things are orthogonal.
yes well i consider the guitar solo in “I can see for miles” to be outstanding, one of the great moments that informs the heritage of the electric guitar as an instrument in its own right (no joke…but did pete actually play it?..as there is some dispute as to the solos in 60s who and kinks singles actually being played by session musos..including one j.page)…however when i listen to his lyrics i am aware enough of his politics to know that most of it is complete and utter bollocks…i know he’s a liar..thats all..no more no less…and that informs “how i listen”. I am not claiming to be special in any way at all in this regard. But i have met and continue to meet, in life, a remarkable number of people who do not question pop lyrics at all..they take ‘em at face value….and very often base a entire life philosophy on ‘em….rather like the people who believe something monumental happened at Woodstock……which takes me back to my first post on this thread..(i am in no way ignorant of the processes and ironies of myth making in cultures) ….it just saddens me is all. i think i’m done here. ta.
Unfortunately I didn’t discover this until today, so let’s celebrate Woodstock belatedly.
I should also confess that until today I thought Melanie Safka had written and recorded it as a second wave feminist anthem – not that it would be inappropriate for such a purpose.
Far out, man.