What was it like in the 60's?

[high_hopes]

Not 40+ here - 28 to be exact. But I find myself thinking a lot about what the 60's was like - mostly what was the music scene was all about. The best music, IMO, was created in the 60's/70's and I'm just curious what it was like to be around the scene. Beatles, Floyd, Doors, Zeppelin, Marley, etc...

Thanks.

 

[mrwags]

Sex was dirty and the air was clean.


Mr.Wags

 

[Murphy]

I don't know if a lot of true stoners will be able to tell you.....a lot of killed of brain cells between then and now.

 

[vonforne]

AM radio, cartoons on Saturday, Gunsmoke and Disney on Sundays. Had 3 TV stations ABC, NBC and CBS. That's it and if the weather was good. And every night at 5pm. the war report from Southeast Asia. Racial riots, war protests and the US government killing on both fronts, at home and in Asia. But we won some freedoms that we are loosing now. Women got out of the house, finally.

 

[1TWISTEDTRUCKER]

AM radio, cartoons on Saturday, Gunsmoke and Disney on Sundays. Had 3 TV stations ABC, NBC and CBS. That's it and if the weather was good. And every night at 5pm. the war report from Southeast Asia. Racial riots, war protests and the US government killing on both fronts, at home and in Asia. But we won some freedoms that we are loosing now. Women got out of the house, finally.

And if you lived in rural areas like where i grew up the radio stations went off the air between 10 @12p.m.

 

[Guest]

Damn folks

Thanks for the trip down memory lane.

I do remember the tremendous sense of hope that the 60s produced.

 

[Haps]

Sam the Sham and the Pharohs, and the Turtles, first concert, before drugs were available to rural prairie lads. Battles of the bands, miniskirts, and red necks calling ya honey if ya had some hair, $1.15 per hr to shovel chicken crap - first time I was fired for not getting my hair cut. And NIKE nuclear missles.
H

 

[green_grow]

the great bands seemed to just keep on coming . MUCH more diverse music scene than there is now . radio stations and dj's seemed to have much more freedom . it's hard to imagine a station nowadays playing stuff like Goose Creek Symphony, Canned Heat, Janis Joplin, Long John Baldry, etc., etc., etc.
then came disco. not to knock disco, i rather like it now, but back then it was disco or nothing, it seemed . when the Police, Elvis Costello, et al finally broke through the disco barrier it was like a window had been opened in a long dark room.

 

[gen131]

made 1.15 delivering telegrams for western union in 1963. it was the best of times and the worst of times. i stole it. i typed it. rebellion was sweet. short but sweet. the music was pure. the prophets died young. the music stopped. we were played, punked by our gov. oh get over it. ok.
gen131

 

[Guest]

In So Cal the air was dirty, black and white TV's were the norm, the walls of sensorship were being broken down, the Thai weed, Columbian Gold, and Panama Red were the norm, with alot of commercial shake going around, lots of cows and orange groves as far as the eye could see, very few freeways, sort of innocent and fun.

The opposite of the insanity it is right now!!!

 

[Guest]

For me the 60s was the end of the Innocence.
It was also the end of patience as we know it. In 1969 the new microwave oven could turn out a baked potato in 6 minutes instead of 30 minutes from the ole conventional oven. I remember my grandpappy saying "The world will never be the same." He was right.

In 1964 Batman took to the airways and I got my bat mobile and my cape and helmet for Christmas that year. It was too much for me to handle and I totaled it out on the first week.
How about the ole water wiggle and the Slip and Slide. I worked my @$$ off all summer to buy one only to find out we didn't have enough well water pressure to make the water wiggle work and the slip and slide was pretty cool until you slid across a ground steak that was holding it in place . There was no Ralph Nadir in those days.

I remember being glued in front of the B&W TV watching the Moon Missions and Neil Armstrong taking those first steps on the moon...and yes we did go to the moon, it was not faked as we will soon find out.
I remember my father was playing for the Oakland Raiders. The race riots were breaking out in Berkeley. My father decided to retire from the AFC and moved us to little town America in order to keep his family safe. I was raised in the good ole country as a country boy and during the summer the asphalt/blacktopped roads were so hot that we ran from shade tree to shade tree. Oh sure we had shoes but...it was summertime!!!. I could walk to the store with a quarter and pick up a couple of pop bottles along the roadside and collect 3c on each bottle. I could get a 10oz Dr Pepper and a pack of peanut M&Ms and a Ice Cream bar and still have a nickel left over. Gas was around 25c to 35c a gallon. The next thing I knew this character named Bob Dylan was singing about "The Times They Are A-Changin" and they did. Aluminum drinking cans started replacing the metal ones and the taste of the mighty metallic beverage was never the same. Thank goodness for glass!!!

I remember staying over at Granny Tigert's on Saturday night and watching Lawrence Welk & Dragnet with granny T and reading the back of the Nabisco chocolate chip cookie package to get the latest adventures of the "Cookie Man". I remember waking up on Sunday morning to the smell of slightly burnt toast and oatmeal and fresh perked coffee and walking into the kitchen to a simple yet wholesome breakfast. What I wouldn't give to smell that just one more time.

 

[Guest]

More memories coming back...

The first 7/11 opened in our area, what a treat. Slurpee's in the summer.

Music, well we would go down to the record store and put a dollar down to reserve the next Beatle vinyl records and hoped when they came in they were not scratched. Then we would crank up those records until our parents coudnt stand it anymore. It was important to get those records the day they were released.

Hearing the roar of the people at the horse races from miles away in the evenings was a trip.

The police station was in a mobile home on a dirt lot. Knotts Berry Farm had no fences, you would just walk in and enjoy your day and go on the rides. They bakery truck coming buy and parking in front of the house with fresh baked goods.

It was awesome.

 

[high_hopes]

Awesome guys. Thanks.

 

[MMJ Today]

memories

memories

...white cotton briefs on girls instead of thongs, people cursed less, knowing the draft would get me, protests, Janis Joplin (Cray Baby), skinny-dipping at beer parties down on the riverbank, walking up to the door and rining the bell to collect your date, saying "yes sir" and No sir" to a Police Officer, Davy Crockett on Sunday's (Walt Disney's "The Wonderful World Of Color"), Saturday morning TV with my Friend Flicka and Fury and Tom Terrific, eating lunch with my mom at the counter of the Woolworth's store, Wolfman Jack, my bitchin' '64 Chevy Impala SuperSoprt, Naturlamb "skins" (men in their late 50's like myself will know exactly what I am talking about here), the Alligator Farm that used to be across the street from Knott's Berry Farm where my father once bought me a baby Alligator for a pet, secretly standing on the toe of my father's boot in 1955 (?) so I was tall enough to ride the Autopia cars at Disneyland the first day it opened, Fizzies, The Kingston Trio, going to a Led Zeppelin concert at Earl Warren SShowgrounds in Santa Barbara CA., and precisely where I was and what I was doing the moment the announcment came over the school intercom that President John F. Kennedy had been assassinated.

I would trade all the technology of today for the simplicity of fifty years ago in a flash if I could!

 

[Guest]

The truly great thing about the 60's was the incredible diversity of types of music on one radio station. It was the birth of FM radio and suits and ties didn't yet control the airwaves. On one station you could hear Ozzie or Zep and the next song would be Joan Baez. Look at the line up of the bands that played Woodstock, many diverse types of music were represented. Nowdays music is pigeon-holed by the industry. They don't want creativity, they just want to sell the flavor of the month. The 60's were a time of creativity that produced music that still stands up today. Many people that weren't born when the Beatles were together or when Jimi was alive are keeping alive the music from that time.

 

[Guest]

One of my favorite adventures back in the late 60's was camping at a remote camp site in the foothills of the desert with motorcycles.

We would hop on those bikes and ride 20 miles of crazy hills to find the hot springs. A lot of naked people kicking back in the three different tempurature natural pools. At the entrance to the area there were topless women with small coolers hanging around there necks selling beer. We found the occasional bag of weed people would drop (too stoned) and party all day, then hop on the bikes bikes and try to find our way back.

Some times we would come across some cowboys hearding there cattle down the hills and they would draw shotguns on us and force us to walk our bikes behind them to keep from spooking there cattle. Hard to believe we always made it back to camp before dark.

Finished off those days partying out under the stars drinking and smoking very good weed. My freinds had awesome connections.

I'm not sure about those hot springs these days, but back then everything felt very free with little restriction.

 

[Harry Gypsna]

according to a old geezer i started smoking with as a kid, used to say ""if you can remember the 60's, you werent doing it right""

 

[2broke2smoke]

In the 60's sex did not kill you and a lid was $25 for either Panama Red or that Columbian Gold or Columbian Red bud. It was a simpler time in some respects and a bit more complicated in others. I was the T.V. remote control for my father. There were no microwave meals, as there were no microwave ovens. Jiffy pop was the popcorn of choice. There was the constant threat of nucluer anniallation(sp) and the nuclear drills in school. All in all a good time if u were not old enough to go to nam.

2b2s

 

[Rosy Cheeks]

Damn moose eater, I just had to add twenty years to your imaginary age, perhaps your hippie past is what gave you a younger touch.
There's lots of food for thought in what you said. I bet you've got a novel stashed away in a drawer.

All I remember from the 60's is a frightful autumn storm in -69 that ripped the ceilings of houses. An oak outside my house was derooted and the wind somehow turned the tree upside down, resting on its crown and stretching the roots towrds the sky. An impressive sight for a youngster.

 

[MMJ Today]

Yep...

Yep...

according to a old geezer i started smoking with as a kid, used to say ""if you can remember the 60's, you werent doing it right""

He's correct. I have very few very sketchy memories of those days. Where I lived, in Santa Barbara, California (USA) a "lid" was ten bucks. All stems and seeds and shake were mixed together to make a "four finger lid". Very few actual buds in the baggies as I recall.
The good stuff that occasionally made itself available to us generally went for $25, like Thai Stick or Purple Oaxacan. And when we smoked we got absolutely ripped! The highs were really fun...more intense and just different than they are for me today. The common $10 a lid stuff was almost always good ol' Mexican Sativa. I don't recall hearing the word "Skunk" in those days, but I'm sure that's what it was.

Oh...and unfortunately I was old enough for Viet Nam!

In the mid-to-late 60's our motto was "Have it in ya, not on ya", and it served us well. Me and a good friend named John used to climb the big tree outside the SB Museum of Art and smoke a joint or two up there. Our logic was--and it was never challenged--that is the cops tried to arrest us we would have plenty of time to eat the roaches, thus having it "in us" which would save us froma possession charge.

Fun days, to be sure!!!

ATB!

David