Popped muscle in calf

I t was perhaps rock and roll’s all-time worst day, December 6th, a day when everything went perfectly wrong. Altamont remains Topic A among the musicians who were there. After all, it’s not every day that a rock and roll band’s performance, let alone the Rolling Stones ‘, is accompanied by a knifing, stomping murder within a scream of the stage. “The violence,” Keith Richards told the London Evening Standard , “just in front of the stage was incredible. Looking back I don’t think it was a good idea to have Hell’s Angels there. But we had them at the suggestion of the Grateful Dead . “The trouble is it’s a problem for us either way. If you don’t have them to work for you as stewards, they come anyway and cause trouble. “But to be fair, out of the whole 300 Angels working as stewards, the vast majority did what they were supposed to do, which was to regulate the crowds as much as possible without causing any trouble. But there were about 10 or 20 who were completely … [Read more...] about In the Aftermath of Altamont

WOODSTOCK , N.Y. — Chicago was only the labor pains. With a joyous three-day shriek, the inheritors of the earth came to life in an alfalfa field outside the village of Bethel, New York. Slapping the spark of life into the newborn was American rock and roll music provided by the Woodstock Music and Art Fair. And Dylan’s Mr. Jones, who has, indeed, been aware of what is happening, but has preferred to denounce the immorality of fucking around with his values, is now forced to acknowledge both the birth and its legitimacy. The New York Times , which had given the story front-page coverage for three days running, thundered on its editorial page the Monday-after that it was “an outrageous episode” and demanded to know “what kind of culture it is that can produce so colossal a mess?” But, in a reversal astounding for that Establishment journal, a second editorial Tuesday sheepishly allowed that the gathering was “essentially a phenomenon of innocence . . . they came, it seems, to … [Read more...] about Woodstock: ‘It Was Like Balling for the First Time’

LONDON — French conductor Pierre Boulez once expressed a wish to blow up opera houses. Pete Townshend obviously prefers infiltration. On January 16th, the Who start their first tour of Europe in four years. A grand tour. They open in Paris at the Theatre Champs Elysees, the first pop group ever to play that establishment. From there it’s the Royal Danish Opera in Copenhagen and on to Germany and the Cologne Opera House, the Hamburg Opera House and Berlin’s German Opera House. On December 14th the Who brought their British tour to an end with a performance of Tommy at the London Coliseum opera house. Except for the royal box, all 2,500 seats were filled. In Germany, says Who factotum Peter Rudge, the group is scheduled to have “a cup of tea and a doughnut with President Heinemann and then they’re going to lay some bread on him for the Save The Children Fund.” In turn, President Heinemann will attend the Who’s performance in Cologne. At the London Coliseum Townshend … [Read more...] about ‘Tommy’ Takes the Opera Houses