Hippies vs Punks: Jefferson Airplane at Altamont

Last Friday night convalescing from a mystery virus I watched the Maysles brothers' (with Charlotte Zwerin) Gimme Shelter (1970). The documentary chronicles the U.S. tour of the Rolling Stones in the autumn of 1969. The film is famous because it captures the Hells Angels riot at the Altamont Free Concert, a moment that is widely accepted as the shattering of the Hippie dream of a "Woodstock nation," the Utopian aspiration that the Western youth could come together at free rock'n'roll festivals, practice "peace & love," and somehow spontaneously heal the rancid body politic.

Woodstock took place in August of 1969. The Rolling Stones weren't there. A free concert in early December at the end of their U.S. tour, a tour which was criticized by Ralph Gleason for its high ticket prices, was a way to mollify critics and tap back into the Woodstock magic. (Michael Lang, one of Woodstock's co-creators, also played a role at Altamont and can be seen in Gimme Shelter.)

The Maysles come down strongly -- the way Zwerin edits the film -- on blaming the Hells Angels for the violence. There are numerous shots of the Angels guzzling canned beer and clubbing concert-goers with weighted pool cues.

Seeing the documentary again, what impressed me about the Altamont sequence -- I've seen Gimme Shelter numerous times over the years -- is how excellent Jefferson Airplane was, not only the band's sound and how they looked on stage, but how they stood up to the Hells Angels -- Marty Balin even pitched himself into the crowd to try protect people and got knocked unconscious by the Angels for it -- and how Grace Slick spoke to the audience and tried to calm the situation.

When I was at the university in the 1980s, Jefferson Airplane, at that point known as Starship, was the worst of the old Hippie bands trying to stay on the gravy train by crafting New Wave pop songs to fit the barren "It's Mo(u)rning in America" Reagan-era Zeitgeist, songs like the brain-dead, chest-thumping "We Built This City." I remember being offended by seeing Grace Slick yukking it up with Dick Clark on American Bandstand:

But clearly at Altamont Jefferson Airplane comported themselves in a heroic manner, far more so than the Rolling Stones. The genius of Gimme Shelter is in its shots of the audience, Jagger powerless onstage, reduced to a spectator performing "Under My Thumb," as the Hells Angels knife to death Meredith Hunter:

We'll have to return to Altamont. It is a goldmine. The Hippies realized in real time their dream had died. This is December 1969, which sets the stage for the freak-out year of 1970.

Hippies vs. Punks: Aquarian Family Festival 1969

Nineteen-sixty-nine. The year that Nixon assumes the throne. Johnson jets back to the LBJ Ranch with a load of White House toilet paper ( -- that nugget is from Ronald Kessler's Inside the White House: The Hidden Lives of the Modern Presidents and the Secrets of the World’s Most Powerful Institution). It's also the year of the Hippie's zenith. The summer of '69 sees the release of Easy Rider, the staging of Woodstock and the Tate-LaBianca murders. The year draws to a close with Altamont.

But what I'm interested in is the story of the Aquarian Family Festival -- the non-stop, three-day free rock concert held at the end of May, 1969 on the San Jose State football practice field across from Kelley Park. It was a masterwork of Hippie ingenuity and pluck and served as a model for Woodstock (though Woodstock's promoters sought to get rich and were forced after the fact to accept circumstances and open their "Aquarian Exposition" to all-comers free of charge).

Today I worked through lunch. It was a busy day. But on the train home I managed to jot down a few notes for tonight's Hippies vs. Punks post. As is my wont, I stopped off at the supermarket to get my grocery shopping done and out of the way for next week. When I was piling steak and chicken into my basket I saw a big tall  -- over six foot -- classy blonde woman. I looked her in the face. She looked back at me. I knew her. She was different. But I knew her. "Shelley!" It came up my throat and out of my mouth unbidden.

She replied with my name. And suddenly we were thrust into the maelstrom of an encounter with a former lover who has not been seen for almost a decade.

She looked good. She has a prestigious job. I was stuporous. I had just finished drinking a strawberry protein drink that I had grabbed out of the juice cooler. I probably had red foam in my mustache. We both wanted to escape, quickly. I felt ashamed, diminished. She seemed to tower over me. "Have I shrunk?"

"No, I'm wearing heels."

After a few more pleasantries, she said, "I have to run." I shook her hand and said goodbye and walked away to get yogurt. I felt old, completely absent of any mojo, a graybeard, a juiceless cypher. It's shocking when one looks himself full in the face and sees nothing attractive. And more shocking still is the acceptance and familiarity of this shock. I've dealt with it so many times over the last three-and-a-half years of burdened bachelorhood that I can't feel pity anymore for my pitifulness.

But the encounter did zap my will power for tonight's Hippies vs. Punks post on 1969 and the Aquarian Family Festival. I did, in preparation, immerse myself in the first album by Joy Of Cooking, the eponymous Joy Of Cooking (1971). Joy of Cooking was one of the bands that performed at the Aquarian Family Festival. They were a Berkeley fern bar boogie band, unusual in that they were led by two women -- piano player Toni Brown and guitarist Terry Garthwaite. There are a few tracks at the beginning of the album that haven't aged well. They remind one of the "Far out!" fatuousness of Hippies cavorting in the grass and getting freaky. But all in all it is a smooth, well-made, easy-to-listen-to recording. This is a live version, not the version on the first album, of "Brownsville/Mockingbird," which can be found on "Back to Your Heart": previously unreleased live and studio recordings 1968-1972 (available for order on the band's web site). It is a good example of Bay Area folk rock from the late '60s/early '70s. The video contains footage of People's Park 1969:

I'll be out of town next Friday night. We'll pick up Hippies vs. Punks on May 31.