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Disillusionment of youth following

• Kennedy assassination
• Viet Nam war
• musically, this became evident by the time of Altamont
  • as Paul Kantner (of Jefferson Airplane) said, "There was that two perfect weeks in the summer of 1967!"

"dropping out & turning on" - Berkeley, CA (Height-Ashbury) as center of the movement

• drugs
• free sex
• love-peace philosophy

Music of the 1960s (in the words of Bono, Jerry Garcia, & Paul Kantner)

The Weird Ones: San Francisco, Beat Poets, & Allen Ginsberg

Relevant Developments:

• concert halls (promoter Bill Graham's concerts at Fillmore & Fillmore West auditoriums)

  see videos of Bill Graham in action and performances during the last days of Fillmore West (June 30 to July 4, 1971)

• rock festivals (Monterey Pop Festival, Woodstock, & Altamont)
  • Monterey Pop Festival
    • see a collection of selected performances
      - commentary**
      
  • Woodstock - 3 Days of Peace and Music ... August 15-17, 1969 in Bethel, NY
    • see some photos of the Woodstock festival
      
    • see the complete set list from the 3-day festival
    • see a collection of video performances at Woodstock
  • Altamont - a tragedy & return to disillusionment
    • see the Rolling Stones page for details and video

• FM radio - album-oriented rock (AOR); e.g., Tom Donahue (DJ) at KSAN

  recordings of Tom Donahue's radio show

  Sign-On

  Newscast

  Sign - Off

Tom Donahue

Tom Donahue's Great Medicine Ball Caravan

Fillmore West, 1971

Characteristics common to most of the San Francisco bands

• drugs were an important element in the music & lifestyles; "acid rock"
• volume levels reached a new high
• considerable emphasis on instrumentalists (esp. guitarists) - long improvisations rivaling the Yardbirds' "rave-ups" ("musical trips")
• electronic technology, resulting and spacy sound effects (feedback, distortion, phase shifting, wah-wah pedals, etc.)

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