THE SUMMER OF '69...

DAZED AND CONFUSED:

Just before I cleaned out my high school hall locker for one last time before the long needed summer break from a tough school year I had an epiphany which went something like this...
I saw a Fillmore East advertisement in the Village Voice for a Led Zeppelin performance Memorial Day weekend 1969. That combined with having had " Led Zeppelin 1" on my turntable for what seemed like an eternity(since February), I contacted my concert going friends and we all agreed "this is the one". Running down to the local drug store I purchased a $20.00 money order, and with a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope (SASE) enclosed I mailed it out to 105 Second Ave, NY requesting four (4) seats for Woody Herman's Thundering Herd; Delaney Bonnie and Friends; and the headliner, LED ZEPPELIN, scheduled for May 30, 1969.To my surprise the tickets arrived a few days later, as did my friend's who also requested four. So "the eight"  had now planned  a beautiful start to a holiday (Memorial Day) weekend. Orange Julius on West 8th for a bite to eat, a few head shop visits along our walk , a record store here, and a shoe shoppe there (more on the shoe in September), we strolled peacefully toward our East Village destination. Show time 8PM would find  4 in one section, four in another section only a few rows back, but all eight in the house.

Wow, life was great, an early 8 PM show on a Friday Night of a Holiday Weekend, a freshly cashed paycheck loaded my wallet, a pack of Marlboro Red, bottle of wine (purchased by an age appropriate friend) and a gift from one of my factory friends to help "lighten" up the mood. Four on the train, meeting four more there, we were a Rock and Roll army outfitted with new jeans, new Chuck Taylor high tops, and hair getting longer by the moment. " See you tomorrow Mom". A nice buzz was developing while we waited on line seeking admittance to the sacred hall. Finally, in and seated, house light down and BOOM, I fall in love. Rita Coolidge of Delaney/ Bonnie was the most beautiful woman I had ever seen, well that night anyway. Woody Herman's Big Band was way too cool and Pop would have been proud as I recognized a few of Woody's tunes from our family's record collection.Then, "OHHHHH, I CAN'T QUIT YOU BABY...",and a power chord shook me to the core. This followed by Dazed and Confused, White Summer, How Many More Times, a drum solo, Communication Breakdown... Sweating profusely we leave into the warm May air at a bit before midnight. Through the East Village, Greenwich Village, a bit to eat, a gift or two, the E train to Penn and the late train home.Arriving home I felt like a new person, never to return to the old one.


MAGIC BUS:
A few weeks prior to getting the Led Zep tickets I purchased two seats for another show at Fillmore East: CHUCK BERRY and ALBERT KING. I was especially looking forward to hearing Albert King as I probably wore out his KING OF THE BLUES GUITAR album.When the tixs arrived I noted the location of the seats and when I attended the Zep show I looked for where I would be actually sitting for the Albert King show ( fourth row aisle seat on the left). Too cool, really nice sight lines. At the Zep show an announcement was made that an additional act was added to the bill, headlining would now be.... THE WHO. OMG... I was ecstatic...

Having only (0nly???) two tickets led to a slight problem with seven others I attended The Zep show with but they all had an opportunity to pick up a tix at the box office before we left. But... Albert King played a short but sweet set highlighting BORN UNDER A BAD SIGN, PERSONAL MANAGER,AS THE YEARS GO PASSING BY and STORMY MONDAY. Chuck Berry did what I found out years later was his traditional set list, nothing too outstanding for me except seeing his duck walk. He closed with Ding-a-ling , a really stupid song, and then did a quick encore.THE WHO were fantastic, anything short of fantastic. In awe the entire time, mouth opened awe. Needless to say my very limited concert experiences just had a new threshold to beat and that would be... THE WHO.



SUMMER of 69:

Prior to the hot weather really hitting with a part time job turning full time summer employment, combined with having now had two major shows in only six day apart under my belt, stopping me from attending more shows would have been next to impossible. Working full time I had plenty of cash to spend on my obsession; music, live music. Money Orders and Self Addressed Stamped Envelops became the norm for pay day with tickets were arriving almost daily.


Blind Faith with FREE and ( again) Delaney Bonnie and Friends, July12, 1969 at Madison Square Garden. A stage set in the middle of The Garden with FREE kicking things off. Pretty good lead singer, guitarist not too bad and a nice bottom sound. DB and F were proselytizing, doing their funky stuff but Rita was too far away this time. Blind Faith was just that. Having only a single out, the album awaiting release in a months time, Blind Faith did their Cream/Traffic thing until tensions grew and the show ended by the NYPD. Ginger Baker hit some security guard who "manhandled" a girl near the stage.Show over. But a great experience.


The next week was Creedence Clearwater Revival with TERRY REID and AUM, July 19, 1969 at FILLMORE EAST. With my kid brother a fan of Creedence at my side I was there to see Terry Reid. AUM opened and did their GOD IS BACK IN TOWN thing which was getting some air play at the time. Terry Reid hit the stage announcing his favorite Les Paul was stolen the previous night and he begged for its return. Despite not having his trustworthy axe, Terry had the place on its feet by sets end, demanding MORE. CCR was pretty good. Dressed like rich hippies with flannel shirts. jeans and boots, the swamp rockers closed it all out with a 20 minute" KEEP ON CHOOGLIN".



Having dug Terry Reid so much at The Fillmore I traveled to the Action House in Island Park, not far from my home a few night later to see him again. While in a less than capacity house Terry was off to the side of the stage when I engaged him in a conversation. Just a delightful person, too. His set this night was much longer than Fillmore's and just as tasty.

Not much happening on the circuit the next week or so until the LI Rock Fest @ Freeport Race Track 8/6/69 (2 weeks before Woodstock) with Canned Heat,TenYearsAfter, Cat Mother,and Orpheus, a mid week event. TEN YEARS AFTER was the tease here. Unbelievable to say the least. In total after all is said and done I have seen TYA eighteen times with this being the first. Canned Heat was the full ensemble with the Blind Owl in tow but a 45 minute boogie was a bit much for me. I know I nodded off while laying on the grass.

A week before "3 Days of Arts' Music and fun" AKA WOODSTOCK I hit the Fillmore East for The Jefferson Airplane and Joe Cocker. Cocker was a visual experience as well as sounding a bit like Ray Charles. And THE AIRPLANE was a trip, really a trip. Light show, amps cranked up, three vocalists, a bass player who stalked around the drum kit, a sheriff for a drummer and a guitarist making the strangest feedback. Was I high or where they THAT good?

and the prize of my END OF THE SUMMER celebration show was to end it where I started it, with... Led Zeppelin. Led Zeppelin, Buddy Guy/ Jr Wells and RAVEN 8/30/69 originally at Singer Bowl  rescheduled for the opened air standing room only, Pavilion at The World's Fair site. This was a different experience as I got there early enough to find a standing spot in front , mid stage against the stage. This became dangerous as the Zep set went on. Having to only perform one show the set list was expanded.And yes Zep fans this IS the show where Bonzo collapsed on the drums to end the night.

Artist Of The Day

Happy birthday to Thelonious Monk, born this date in 1917.

Rock and Roll Part 1 (1964-1969)

ROCK AND ROLL... Part 1: Starts With The Beatles

The Beatles on Ed Sullivan changed everything. No longer vocal groups, Doo Wop, girl singers, or lounge acts, bombarded the airwaves and variety shows, now we teens had something to stick our teeth into. Three weeks, three shows and our world no longer revolved around the sun; a NEW path had been chosen and it was The Fab Four. Soon other "planets" were discovered ; The Rolling Stones on The Hollywood Palace; The Animals, KinKs and  more, oh, so much more. Radio changed immediately as The Beatles beat the charts, taking over the traditional  Top Tens were what was now called THE BRITISH INVASION. Soon albums cuts, those not played as singles on AM  found their way onto the airwaves. As AM progressed into FM, and FM into free form radio so did we as the listeners progress and became more knowledgeable about what we liked. And this is part of my story...

By 1967/68 listening to the radio and watching television rock was not enough. Like every other red blooded Anglophile I picked up the guitar, primarily playing bass in garage bands but was much more in demand as their drummer to which I was more proficient. Needless to say I was drawn to the fire of other like musicians primarily those my own age which help me judge where I stood on the food chain or better yet to judge my proficiency on the bandstand.  Having no true curfew  I started to regularly attend  Hullabaloo, a local teen club in the neighboring town of Lindenhurst. A true  TEEN SCENE club, soda and bags of chips with a $2.00 cover, there they hosted  a few bands each weekend (Friday and Saturday nights), many bands of the garage style  with a few noted National acts tossed in...The Rascals, Vanilla Fudge just to name a two.

During this period I also was entertained by The Critters (Younger Girl; My Dyingly Sad)  at a local roller rink (Copiague Roll N Ice) (1966), Every Mothers Son( Come On Down To My Boat, Baby) at my 10th grade dinner dance,The Good Rats at an art show (1969) ,Scott Muni Sock Hop Show featuring The Left Banke (1967), again at my high school, and of course Long Island's own The Vagrants (Leslie West), The Hassels (Billy Joel), and The Illusion at every other spot but regularly at Hullabloo.

1968
Just finishing out a summer job at a bank on Wall Street, all of 16 years of age but ready for the big stage we ventured out from Suburbia, AKA The Sticks/The Country, on the LIRR and subway to Queens, New York to see what was and probably still are today the Greatest AMERICAN Rock band. They did it all. Wrote, produced, played their own instruments and sang like a church choir...THE RASCALS.

The Rascals, Nazz,The Vagrants, Eire Apparent, Singer Bowl (8/30/68)

It was a beautiful evening, clear skies, the train ride uneventful, and the crowd enthusiastic, me being one of them. Eire Apparent, a band produced by Jimi Hendrix (they said it at least twice during their 25 minutes of fame, were in hindsight about as good as we were at Hullabaloo. NAZZ was next up. The drummer was superb, the singer and bass pretty good. Yet there was something quirky and eye catching about the guitarist. Windmills, neck bending, string slapping, a bit theatrical but too cool to describe: Todd Rundgren caught my musical attention at that moment and would have it for many moons to come. Local favorites (boys from Forest Hills) The Vagrants hit the stage and left doing a Stones tune (Satisfaction) followed by RESPECT. Pretty nicely done on a big stage.. The stars of the show The Rascals were tremendous. The applause deafening at the beginning and at the end. Hit after hit after hit after hit. Solos, musicianship, vocals clear, clean and crisp. It was heavenly.



1969

THE DOORS January 24, 1969, Madison Square Garden, NY: What a way to celebrate my 17th birthday. New brown corduroy slacks, brown boots, and a new overcoat. A few extra bucks in my pocket from my folks as a birthday gift and away I go. A new pack of smokes, train fare, money for the diner after the show, I was psyched. Ooops, forgot, a girlfriend who was more excited about seeing Jim Morrison and chatting with her friends on the train ride than celebrating my birthday. The lights dim, emotionally and physically, as The Staple Singers take the stage set at mid arena. Then, THE DOORS:

1The Soft Parade
2. Tell All The People
3. Love Me Two Times
4. Who Scared You?
5. Spanish Caravan
6. Wild Child
7. Light My Fire
8. Back Door Man /
9. Me & The Devil Blues /
10. Five To One
11. Jim Introduces Band
12. Hitler Poem
13. When the Music's Over

The Doors were musically okay, not great as I had anticipated. Jim Morrison was an idiot, or was it just me, nah, he was an idiot, hindering an otherwise good band with his "poetry" and rants. One rant in particular I remember was about riding the fence. I dug The Staple Singers, now there was a cool group with a smooth sound.


Since September of 68 I was working in an electronics factory making cassette. Their brands included Vangaurd, Elektra, and Capitol records. So my music collection grew substantially each and every afternoon by at least one or two cassettes, blues, folk, rock, jazz. What every could fit in my boot that day I took it all. After working only a few weeks a woman Ruthie who worked in the Mastering lab, an actual air controlled, white glove environment, called me over to hear something she thought was unique but strange to her 50 year old ears. Upon hearing the sounds coming out of her very expensive head phones I was perplexed but knew what it must be. "Number Nine, Number Nine..." over and over with a cacophony of sounds, screams, horns, etc. Smiling I answered with more of a questioning, THE BEATLES?. She then with her white gloves removed the heavy, shiny disc from the apparatus and put on another selection.... HELTER SKELTER....ah< THE BEATLES YES IT'S THE BEATLES. She informed me it was a company hush hush, no one was to know what we were putting together,not even her, no labels, no inserts yet, just a number 4XWL and it was to be  a double cassette set, one million cassettes ( half a million packages to market) to be produced and stored until November 15 shipping. The entire factory, two shifts was working on one project and I guessed who it was. Needless to say Ruthie slipped me a few early cassettes during week one, no labels just The Beatles to share with my friends. who were skeptical at first but after a little while....ah, yea man, The Beatles.

Ticket Stub Man

Ticket Stub Man:

According to my friends and family my obsession with music extends to an extreme level. It is not just the music that I love but LIVE music especially that I enjoy the most.Sitting at home listening to a recording or traveling in a car with the radio on will do once in awhile. But it is the excitement of a live show that hits the spot for me.Over the years and in the process of attending literally hundreds of shows I have accumulated many items of  minor importance but tokens of remembrance of a time well spent...ticket stubs, programs, badges, bumper stickers, and the like. A few years back I decided that a few blokes on e-bay may enjoy one or two of my items more than the old mayonnaise jar which I used for storage of stubs found in my closet or records in my basement. So I experimented. And within a few weeks surprisingly I had more than $1000.00 (US) in my e-bay account. Flamin' Groovies records, a poster, a flexi-disc and magazine went for about $75.00. A Grateful Dead 45 Compilation sold, A Cramps Picture Disc gone, DEVO 45,Johnny Thunders 45, a few CDs,Elvis Costello, Stiff Little Fingers,Raunch Hands, Raybeats, all gone. Easy money for the taking. With things going this smoothly on recorded things I ventured out with a few ticket stubs and concert programs and for sheer joy of my new endeavor I watched the final bidding develop on my screen. Fillmore East ticket stubs sold: THE WHO (6/6/69) $10.60; LED ZEPPELIN( 5/30/69)$ 61.77; DELANEY BONNIE AND FRIENDS w/ ERIC CLAPTON (2/7/70) $10.70 CREEDENCE CLEARWATER REVIVAL $15.50. To a collector this may be cheap prices but to me, I didn't pay more than $5.50 for any of those shows and I only sold a TICKET STUB for a nice profit. Hence, my buddy Joe dubbed me THE TICKET STUB MAN.

One morning I arrived at my desk to see my name plate removed and this one taking it's place.



Then in another short burst of e-Bay activity I sold a few more items mostly ticket stubs and programs, etc.... and...Whew, my rent is paid. A Cat Stevens ticket, Blind Faith, Twisted Sister, The Clash, Led Zep, Springsteen, all sold in the next few weeks and sometimes the bidding was fierce. But then one morning I get an e-mail from a certain gentle men who owned a memorabilia shop in NYC across from Electric Lady Studios. The cat knows I have a certain item he needs for "his " collection. A full size ticket, not  a stub, for The Randall's Island Pop Festival, Sunday Night in which Jimi Hendrix performed. He started the bidding at "a hundred" and when I said,  "let's see where it goes",  he determinedly stated "$250.00 Cash delivered to your office in the morning Fed Ex". BINGO, SOLD.
The next morning my secretary told me a Fed Ex guy was here and he entered my office with a FED EX envelop in which I found five brand new $50.00 bills and a return FED EX envelop insured and address to him. The exchange was made and again THE TICKET STUB man made some quick cash. jazzbus@gmail.com

The Doors 1/24/69 MSG                                         $122.50
Led Zep May 1969                                                  $61.77
THE WHO June 1969                                             $10
Blind Faith July 1969                                              $51.75
Creedence Clearwater Revival July 69                   $15.50
Led Zep 8/30/69 originally at Singer                      $15.00
Delaney Bonnie Friends w/ Clapton Feb 1970       $10.50
Grateful Dead Program 5/15/70                              $31.00
CSNY 6/6/70                                                           $15.50
Ten Years After 6/25/70                                         $8.90
Byrds Sept 12, 1970                                                $6.00
Derek and Dominoes October 24, 1970                 $15.00(program)
                                                                                $44.00(stub)
Fillmore Auction                                                    $21.00 Stub
Fillmore Auction                                                    $24.00 Program
TYA MSG 11/13/70 Buddy Miles Express           $5.00
Jefferson Airplane Nov 1970                                 $12.05
Derek and Dominoes Suffolk CC                          $20.00
Grand Funk RR/Humble Pie  MSG 12/18/70        $8.25
Hot Tuna Jan 71                                                     $5.00
Faces/Black Sabbath Feb 1971                              $29.99Program
                                                                               $19.99Stub
Allman Brothers March 13/71                               $29.99
Elton John 4/8/71                                                   $100.00(package4 Eltontixs
Last Show (Allmans)                                             $175.00
THE WHO at Forest Hills  Who's Next                 $15.50
Led Zep MSG    Sept                                              $28.50
Dr John/ Weather Report October 1971 Beacon    $5.00
Led Zep 6/15/72 Nassau Coliseum                          $74.00
Cat Stevens 11/6/72 Philharmonic Hall NYC        $18.50
Dylan and The Band 1/30/74 MSG                         $37.00
Rolling Stones MSG 6/25/75                                  $15.00
Kingfish (Program) Capitol Jersey 12/5/75            $14.00
Linda Ronstadt Capitol Jersey               12/6/75     $6.60
Fleetwood Mac MSG 6/30/77                                 $8.27
Frank Zappa Palladium Tix Stb 10/29/77               $7.00
Patti Smith Richard Hell CBGB Theatre                $6.00
Ramones Runaways 3/24/78 Calderone                 $5.50
THE WHO MSG 9/13/79                                      $15.00
The Clash BONDS INTN'L 5/29/81                     $41.00
 John Entwistle 1/30/96 at TRAMPS NYC           $5.00
Randalls Island Festival                                          $250.00