March 30, 2011
Tonight I’m going to write about my favorite summer of all time, the summer of 1967. But before that, I’ve decided to go to 1967 Broadway. No, I don’t have a time machine, I mean the actual address and see what’s there and take a few photos. Alright Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for 1967!
Here we are, let's go find 1967 Broadway and see what it is today.
We're close, here's 1965 Broadway, it's the next door down, let's see what 1967 looks like in 2011.
A Pottery Barn. A little disappointing, but then we are on the Upper West Side. Let's see what the address looks like.
They don't have the address up! What a fucking gyp! Oh well, I'm going home to write my story and then we'll get a glimpse of 1967.
1967
I’ve always loved the summer, especially when I was a kid. School was out and you had three glorious months of freedom and warmth. My favorite summer of all time was the summer of 1967. I was nine-years-old.
The experience I remember the best about the summer of 1967 was that our family took a vacation to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. It was a great vacation. I remember swimming in the ocean for the first time and running on the white sandy beach outside of our hotel room. The skies were blue, the air was sweet and warm and I didn’t have a care in the world. We were in Florida for a week and while we were there my brother Jim celebrated his 11th birthday on Sunday, June 11th. We had a little party in one of the hotel rooms we were staying at and he opened his gifts. I can only remember one of his birthday presents, but it was a doozy.
It was the last gift he opened and it was slim and square, the size of a record album. We both knew what it was before he tore the wrapping paper off. On June 1st, 1967, The Beatles released “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band” and it was the only thing he wanted for his birthday. I was just as excited as he was. The Beatles were our favorite group and we had heard that this was the best thing they had ever done. We had already heard snippets of songs on the car radio and they sounded magical. It soon became the soundtrack for what history would call the “Summer of Love.”
There was no record player in the hotel room, so we had to be content with just looking at the album cover. But there was enough on that cover for us to absorb and study till we got home. The front was a psychedelic collage of faces, wax figures, marijuana plants, a doll with a note to The Rolling Stones on it and The Beatles themselves in the center of all of it wearing colorful, military outfits. A big bass drum was emblazoned with the Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band logo. They had moustaches and instead of guitars they were clutching horns and strange instruments. The wax figures were the old “mop-top” Beatles looking like they were at their own funeral and in a way they were. Some of the faces we recognized on the cover were Laurel and Hardy, W.C. Fields, Bob Dylan and Tony Curtis. The note to the Rolling Stones said, “Welcome the Rolling Stones, Good Guys.” Mick Jagger and Keith Richards had been arrested earlier in the year on drug charges. The times they were indeed changing.
The back of the album cover had all the lyrics printed on a backdrop of red and a portrait of The Beatles decked out in their Sgt. Pepper gear. We read the lyrics to songs we couldn’t yet listen to. There was Billy Shears who got high with a little help from his friends. We were introduced to Lucy in the sky with diamonds, a girl with kaleidoscope eyes. There was a benefit for Mr. Kite and the Hendersons would all be there. Lovely Rita was a meter maid who wore a cap and the bag across her shoulders made her look a little like a military man. In the last song, “A Day in the Life,” we learned that The Beatles would love to “turn us on.” I guess they didn’t know that they already had.
As soon as we got back home from our vacation, we took the album out of the sleeve and put it on our parents fake wooden stereo console and put the needle on the vinyl. The act we’d known for all those years and all the other characters from Pepperland came to life and we played it over and over.
About a week after we got home from Florida, the Monterey Pop Festival happened. It was the first rock and roll festival and it lasted for three days in June of 1967. I remember looking at photos of it in Life and Time magazine and wishing I could’ve been there. Images I remember from the Monterey Pop Festival include Jimi Hendrix setting his guitar on fire, The Who smashing their instruments, Mama Cass in the crowd gaping wide-eyed at Janis Joplin on stage belting out a tune like no one had heard before, Mickey Dolenz dressed up as an indian and kids dancing with their faces painted, long hair flowing and openly smoking pot. I was pissed that I was only nine-years-old and wasn’t able to go, but I remember looking at those photos and being filled with optimism and hope that when I got older, everything would be different. Everything would be better.
All summer long we played Sgt. Pepper and it was the best summer of my life. I’ve never felt so hopeful and anxious for the future to come and I know I’ll never feel like that again in my life.
1967 drifted into 1968 with rallying cries from those under thirty for a revolution that never happened. In 1969 Woodstock morphed into Altamont and the hippie dream turned into a Helter Skelter nightmare.
On May 4th, 1970 at a protest rally over the Amercian Invasion of Cambodia at Kent State University, Ohio National Guardsmen sprayed 67 rounds of ammunition at the protesters and killed four of them and wounded nine others. One would go on to suffer permanent paralysis. By then I was twelve-years-old and watching that on the nightly news sent a chill right down my soon to be teenaged spine. It drained any optimism out of me that was left over from that magical summer of 1967. The really sad thing is the fact that two of the students that were shot to death weren’t even involved with the protest. They were just walking from one class to another and got caught in the line of fire. I realized then that the future had bullets and if you didn’t do what you were told or if you had the balls to question authority, you might take one right between the eyes. Millionaire rock stars singing about revolution seemed a little naive and silly all of a sudden.
Nobody can really say for sure when the ‘60’s ended. Most people acknowledge sometime in the early ‘70’s. Writer Hunter S. Thompson eulogized the ‘60’s free spirit vibe in his nerve-jangled novel, “Fear and Loathing In Las Vegas.” I think it’s one of his finest pieces of writing, here it is:
“Strange memories on this nervous night in Las Vegas. Five years later? Six? It seems like a lifetime, or at least a Main Era—the kind of peak that never comes again. San Francisco in the middle sixties was a very special time and place to be a part of. Maybe it meant something. Maybe not, in the long run...but no explanation, no mix of words or music or memories can touch that sense of knowing that you were there and alive in that corner of time and the world. Whatever it meant...
History is hard to know, because of all the hired bullshit, but even without being sure of "history" it seems entirely reasonable to think that every now and then the energy of a whole generation comes to a head in a long fine flash, for reasons that nobody really understands at the time—and which never explain, in retrospect, what actually happened.
My central memory of that time seems to hang on one or five or maybe forty nights—or very early mornings—when I left the Fillmore half-crazy and, instead of going home, aimed the big 650 Lightning across the Bay Bridge at a hundred miles an hour wearing L. L. Bean shorts and a Butte sheepherder's jacket...booming through the Treasure Island tunnel at the lights of Oakland and Berkeley and Richmond, not quite sure which turn-off to take when I got to the other end (always stalling at the toll-gate, too twisted to find neutral while I fumbled for change)...but being absolutely certain that no matter which way I went I would come to a place where people were just as high and wild as I was: No doubt at all about that...
There was madness in any direction, at any hour. If not across the Bay, then up the Golden Gate or down 101 to Los Altos or La Honda...You could strike sparks anywhere. There was a fantastic universal sense that whatever we were doing was right, that we were winning...
And that, I think, was the handle—that sense of inevitable victory over the forces of Old and Evil. Not in any mean or military sense; we didn’t need that. Our energy would simply prevail. There was no point in fighting—on our side or theirs. We had all the momentum; we were riding the crest of a high and beautiful wave...
So now, less than five years later, you can go up on a steep hill in Las Vegas and look West, and with the right kind of eyes you can almost see the high-water mark—that place where the wave finally broke and rolled back.”
—Hunter S. Thompson from “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas.”
There will never be another summer like the summer of 1967. It came and went like a cool breeze and it didn’t last long enough. I’m sure happy I got to live through it and in some small way be a part of it. The song is over, but the memory lives on in an unending fadeout groove.
Further reading: Wikipedia, Internet Sgt. Pepper’s, NPR and the NY Times.
Seven Other Albums That Came Out In 1967
Younger Than Yesterday by the Byrds
Surrealistic Pillow by Jefferson Airplane
The Velvet Underground & Nico by The Velvet Underground
Are You Experienced by The Jimi Hendrix Experience
Something Else by The Kinks
Clambake by Elvis Presley
There's battle lines being drawn,
Nobody's right if everybody's wrong.
27 Comments | Share Article | tagged 1967, Monterey Pop Festival, Sgt. Pepper, Upper West Side | 2 References
Reader Comments (27)
Great writing and pictures here today. A nice look at the '60s from someone who lived through it. Thanks for the memories!
This is the best MAD I have read so far, without a doubt. This blew me away. I lived thru a lot of this growing up in Los Angeles in the sixties. In 1967 I was living in Inglewood, watch the movie "Training Day" where Denzel's character's girlfriend lived, tough apartments, right? I lived on that block. Not as bad back then or I would of been dead a long time ago. Sgt Peppers, could be Beatles greatest album, see the still great legend Dion two heads above Lennon's right shoulder? Neil Young captured the Ohio tragedy with his song, what an outrage. Buffalo Springfield touring this summer, Furay, Stills and Young, hope to see them somewhere. Surrealistic Pillow-Best JA album, wow sorry I ranted so much but this was beyond awesome.
Great piece, Marty! And I agree with Al on the JA album.
A co-worker told me to check this out and I'm glad I did. I'm one year older than you and boy did you sum up the sixties perfectly. The Hunter excerpt was the icing on the cake. Really nice work. And the inclusion of Clambake was excellent!
Great post today and I agree it's some of your best writing.
Keep stretching your writing legs Daddio!
I'm only a few years older than you but glad to have been around for those Days of Change.
It was all something to behold.
@Barfly: Thanks, glad you enjoyed it.
@Al: I thought you'd like this one. I hope The Buffalo Springfield play here, I'd love to see them live.
@Biff: Thanks, Bifferoonie!
@Dodger Roger: I think that wave piece by Hunter Thompson is a genius look at what happened in the sixties.
@"Boris:" Thanks, Daddio! I've always felt lucky to have been able to grow up in those times. Interesting days beyond belief.
This is a great post Mr. Marty. By the time I was cognizant to what was going on socially and politically, fucking Disco had taken over, Moms were on prescribed afternoon delights and wars were a thing of the past. The real Country music was in its death throes, Hippies were just weird costumes on Let's Make a Deal, and Wings 'Mull of Kintyre' was playing on the radio every ten minutes, instilling a deep knowing inside me that Paul is indeed Satan. Yes Mick ans Keef, the 70's sucked.
I love reading about peoples experiences in the 60's because whatever side of Color/War/Cool you were on, you believed in it 100%, you felt it and it defined you. Thanks for your memories.
If I had a time machine the ONLY place/year I would want to go back and visit is 1967.
What a FABULOUS post, Marty. And thank you for sharing this lovely stroll down memory lane with us!
@Marty In Montreal: Thanks and your observation about the 60's is spot on. Not too many people in the middle of the road back in those days. The 70's did mostly suck, but that decade did give birth to punk rock, so that's something at least. Gabba, gabba HEY!
@meleah: If I ever get my time machine working, I'll let you know. We'll go back and score some Owsley acid at the Haight.
I've been rendered speechless all afternoon by today's post, Marty. I'm four years older than you, and all afternoon I've been contemplating everything we've lost or allowed to slip away since 1967. The fascist police state all the hippies screamed about in '67 is now here with a vengeance. Can't even smoke a cigarette in a corner booth in a bar anymore. The hippies would all be aghast with disbelief and horror if you could bring them here in the wayback machine.
@Marty and Meleah - After you stop by the Haight, would you mind setting the yearometer to 1991, swinging by The Condor, and picking up that sweet and lovely belly-dancing waitress for me? I never made it to her after-hours party and I should have. Thanks a million!
As a nine year old, in 1967, I pored over that album too! It was good to have 15, 19, and 21 year old siblings - fueled into my precocious musical tastes. Yes, 67 was abuzz - even at 9 you knew it was a special year. And what great singles in the charts too - Respect, Ode to Billy Joe, Purple Haze, Waterloo Sunset, See Emily Play, Whiter Shade of Pale, Itchycoo Park. A magic year.
Great stuff, Marty!
@Jaws: I think if you brought them all back they'd do what Abbie Hoffman eventually did.
@Biff: What the hell, why don't you come along with us, the more the merrier!
@onemorefoldedsunset: We're the same age! I thought maybe we were from the same time zone from the videos you post over at your blog. It was a great year for singles, I always loved the ones that came with a picture sleeve. I wish I still had them.
Well I wasn't alive then, but enjoyed reading your memory. I don't think I have a favorite year, I hope its still coming! I do have lots of great memories of my family listening to the Sgt. Peppers Album. That Buffalo Springfield song has always been a very moving song to me. I'm a hippie at heart and it definitely stirs something in my soul.
Nice to know Thompson was winning
@ Mad; I think you're absolutely right. The world we're living in now seems diametrically opposed to the world that existed in 1967, when my greatest 13 year old fantasy was to sneak off to the Haight and get my cherry popped by some hippie Godess.
GREAT POST!...
yea thanks for feeling like an "old woman"....no the rr is not racheal ray...all you "puppies" runnin" "round...leave all w/ this:
“Time is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.”
-Douglas Adams
rr
@kari: Glad you enjoyed it, if you haven't listened to other Buffalo Springfield songs you should check them out. Lots of stuff on YouTube.
@Jaws: I too desperately wanted to get to the Haight, finally made it in the mid-90's but it was filled up with kids with dogs, begging for change.
@rr: I love that quote! One of your best finds yet.
Well I wasn't around, but from what I read 1967 was a very interesting year indeed. Atlantis was gone, but the Egyptians had begun construction of the Temple of Karnack. The Minoans had Crete on full tilt. Daedalus had built the cool as as fuck Labyrinth and Athens was supplying young captives for a rocking good sacrifice. India was truly India, for it was only kicking it on the Indus river. According to the Bamboo Annuls, China was still the land of X'ia. X'ia, that's a good one for the name game!
There was a Babylonian peace in the Middle East! Not to mention it wasn't Istanbul or Constantinople, it was the Hittite Empire, and they were into early Heavy Metal, iron baby. America truly was a different place, it hadn't gone through all those tumultuous waves of immigration. Americans wore beads and all sorts of leather get ups. What's more, they tended to live communally and talk about "Mother Earth" Wild.
Wish I could have seen 1967.
@csp: Interesting facts and I hate to be a nitpicker but I believe you spelled Karnak wrong (c motherfucker?) and Donovan didn't record Atlantis until 1968. But thanks for sharing!
@LOL nice speelling catch. I think your 1967 Pottery Barn is brilliant. From making one's own pottery to buying the latest cheap foreign labor mass produced catalog shit in 44 years. (same demographic) It is indeed The Season of the Witch. (And it isn't starring Nicolas Cage ). Shed a tear for that which never was.
@csp: Google is a wonderful thing!
that was @MAD, and yes I'm being a bit of an overly cynical prick; acrimonious even.
So take this as you will everyone.....I was lucky enough to have lived the Summer Of Love (and some of the ones immediately preceeding and following it) in SF , and got to go to Monterey (which definitely was a MINDBLOWER......but to this greaser/hippie/head Otis Redding was THE standout.....ok, ok, Jimi was pretty cool too). I also was unlucky enough to end up drafted, and was literally "hip deep in the Big Muddy" in 'Nam when Kent State went down.....and the GREAT majority of my fellow grunts thought that those National Guardsmen HAD to be OUT of their minds (and NO DOUBT very ill-trained) to react that way under the rubric of "crowd control" and that Nixon should have been charged with SOMETHING for that cock-up!
Soooo....I have seen things from MANY perspectives.....and I gotta tell 'ya......the Sixties NEVER ended......they just became old news. You have to remember that less than 10% to 15% of all boomers had anything to do with being died-in-the-wool hippies.....yes, there were alot of "weekend warriors", but the great majority of kids hadn't even caught up to the Beatles haircuts much less an alternative way of living/feeling/loving......HOWEVER (and stick with me here), that's a big part of my point that the Sixties carries on. Just look around what's goin' down over the last couple of decades.....MANY things still survive from that Sixties impulse (which in turn had been fed by the 1950s beat culture which had been fed by the 1930s/1940s jazz culture which had been inspired by the 1920s cultural uprisings....ETC!). Incredible music of ALL types , with an ongoing respect for all kinds of 60s performers, especially Lennon, Hendrix, Beatles, etc. Weed is not far from being legalized, but on the streets of the world it's been LONG thought of as just one more of the fantastic earthly gifts....albeit one of the BEST ones. The women's movement was so successful that most women take what were hard fought results for granted, and a not-thought-of-at-the-time ever-developing men's movement was a not intended consequence. Even the social changes we are seeing in the Middle East comes from a movement for peace, because peace is NOT the simple absence of war: and movements like the Tea Pukers is a reaction against all the things the 60s stood for.And although there are MANY things to be bummed out about, I try to have faith in most of the people I meet who think and act differently than those in the mainstream.
In some ways I think much of our world is trying to be their own Summer Of Love....it's just more diffused, and trying to do it globally was NEVER going to be easy. And what the hell is the internet all about anyways if not trying to capture some of that magic for everyone everywhere? (I'm NOT saying there aren't quite a few issues in relation to access, metering, control, etc......but it's also almost a perfect metaphor for the battle between mainstreaming/commercialization that the Sixties fell prey to, and it's going on all the time on the net.....PLEASE no more flash ads....arrrrrrggggghhh!!!)
The heart of the 60s was ALWAYS based in the fringe, the outsiders, the wild ones. And it still is....."ya just gotta know where to look.....and the BEST part of that is the journey to discovering those places/peoples/musics. It's kind of like your blog here Marty.....it's a journey of discovery....of past passions....and future amazements.
The secrets to it all are definitely cliches..... but cliches are cliches for a reason. Sooooo.....keep the faith.....keep on chooglin'......keep your eyes on the (peace) prize.......and keep on keepin' on!
And if I may, let me suggest that you post more "What's On Marty's Mind" missives.....I get the feeling that there's ALOT more than the next Papaya and/or beer joints rollin' around 'dat noggin of yours....GO FOR IT!!!
@DrBOP: You really lived all sides of the sixties it sounds like. From Monterey to Viet Nam, it sounds like one hell of a ride. Thanks for sharing your perspectives on here, l loved reading them. I try to stay positive, but sometimes it is tough. I hope to hear more from you, good DrBOP!
I'll have whatever DrBOP's having. To the journey!
@Biff: TO THE JOURNEY!
I was 15 that summer ! I don't remember what happened but i don't think i'm having as much fun now!