Went with a spur of the moment flash of inspiration type thing, to watch Woodstock. Seeing it one Friday night as a kid at my local flea-pit cinema, probably 1971, was a revelation. A crash-course introduction to the existence of, possibilities of, decline of a counter-culture, that was a million light-years from anything that my parents' generation could understand or accept. They used to call it the 'Generation Gap', and it was certainly acute - and acutely and painfully felt - in my personal case. And it meant something. Still does. I've characterised it in recent years as, my generation, people my age with an oppositional, non-compliant bent, was the first time the majority of a generation were not going to be younger versions of their parents as they grew up, in any way. I sure as hell wasn't!
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Sometimes the lights all shining on me, other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me what a long strange trip it’s been. -
As long as they called it the "Generation Gap" your parents had a understanding that you just did no wrong but are just growing up in different times. Thanks god, my parents were like this as well, they were on a different planet but they knew it and more or less accepted that. My mom liked Close To The Edge, she got hooked by the organ part which reminded her of Händel. Woodstock was my first concert-film as well, Yessongs was the second one, I think it was in late 75, I was so excited to finally see them in moving pictures. -
I'm nothing like my parents thankfully. They're dead, and I'm not. I remember my mother complaining about me buying another album sometime in the early 70s: "Haven't you got enough now?"
My father was a bully and a bigot, and had big heavy hands. They were both racist, I remember my mother saying at breakfast one morning in the mid-70s about the house next door that was being sold: "I don't mind who moves in as long as they're not black".
On holiday in Mallorca in 1977, my father telling me not to spend time with a guy because he was queer! I guess his wife and two kids didn't know... He was there with his beautiful sister as well who I fancied. They were all from Dusseldorf. Those were the bullshit ignorant attitudes and values I had to deal with growing up, with my long hair, denim, reading books...
My mother used to search my bedroom, go through all the cupboards and drawers. I remember her picking up a book on my bedside table, one of Jean Paul Sartre's Roads to Freedom novels, saying "Why are you reading this? He was queer!" Well he wasn't but that's beside the point. Just as well she didn't pick up John Rechy's City of Night, or any of William Burroughs or Kerouac....
Definition of irony/hypocrisy: your mother gets in a tizzy about Jean Paul Sartre, but gives you a copy of John Clelland's Fanny Hill as she can't understand it, when your father has a pile of soft-porn magazines on his side of the marital bed. Why the hell it took me till I was 23 to get out on my own, I wish I knew! That was 1982, so I was involved with the Anti-Apartheid movement, CND, opposing the National Front and other far-right groups, supporting the striking miners and the Wapping print-workers, opposing Thatcherism and everything to do with it throughout the godawful 1980s. Happily I was nothing like my parents. ....Sometimes the lights all shining on me, other times I can barely see.
Lately it occurs to me what a long strange trip it’s been.Comment
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I think we both belong to the generation who experienced - and as well as managed by ourselves - a huge change of conciousness towards life. A lot of boundaries fell and some of them with our little micro-impact in importrant occasions. My parents weren't really either ideal in the sense I wished they were and I had confrontations as well. But the barriers they built always were not too high.
But anyway, we both and probably a lot of others in our age as well got out of this quite good, didn't we.
We were able to live the life we live, to open up, colours of skin became as unimportant as sexual orientation and cultural barriers and a lot of others things changed for good. Thanks not at least to the generation before us, the ones who are now going towards their 80s, a lot of them were and are musicians we love, they fought for us. Rock 'n' Roll was probably not the only reason and factor, but it helped and had the power tear down walls. But also a Bravo to ourselves, for being not sooooooo bad in passing on and manifesting what they had achieved
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Anyone old enough to remember the "midnight movie" at your local theatre ? I was lucky enough to have one walking distance from my home (well actually was about a mile, which made the trip home a pain at 2 in the morning !). It was great because pre-internet and pre-VCR, it was the only way to see great rock films outside of staying up until 1 AM to watch the Midnight Special on my tiny TV.
A few of the ones I remember seeing on the big screen :
"The Song Remains The Same" (Led Zeppelin)
"Rainbow Bridge" (Jimi Hendrix)
"Pink Floyd Live at Pompeii"
The Kids Are Alright" (The Who)Comment
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