The Monterey International Pop Festival

June 16, 2007 11:47 PM

Before Woodstock, there was the Monterey International Pop Festival, the world's first major rock festival. It took place from June 16 to June 18, 1967, and it featured performances by, among others, Eric Burdon and The Animals, Simon and Garfunkel, Canned Heat, Al Kooper, The Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Electric Flag, The Byrds (more), Jefferson Airplane, Otis Redding, Ravi Shankar, Big Brother and The Holding Company, Buffalo Springfield (minus Neil Young), The Who (3 4 5), Grateful Dead, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, Scott McKenzie, and The Mamas and The Papas
posted by Silune (35 comments total)

Even the most knee-jerk, hippie-hatin', under-forty-something, sick-of-hearing-about-how-great-the-sixties-were person has sooner or later got to admit: the explosion of styles and the range of talent in that era was pretty damn remarkable.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 12:03 AM on June 17, 2007

You've got to hear the Animals do "Paint It Black". It sounds like the Velvet Underground jamming with the Doors on top of a big pile of crystal meth. The only downside is that now I'm not sure I can listen to the Stones version again.
posted by Clay201 at 3:00 AM on June 17, 2007

Okay, we have to have a contest. Try to find one video in the bunch where you can be fairly certain the majority of the performers weren't stoned. Winner gets a pony.
posted by Clay201 at 3:04 AM on June 17, 2007

Heh. Summertime Blues, from the Who. Heh heh. Keith Moon. Hahaha! Always just on the very verge of veering completely out of control. And then of course, he does. Veer out of control. Hahaaahahahaha! Fantastic!

That Scott McKenzie tune was embarrassing 5 minutes after it was written, and sure enough, it still is embarrassing today.

Otis Redding, of course, is one of the giants of southern soul. This version of Respect, though, with the Bar-Kays, and taken at just a bit slower tempo than at Monterrey, is better, I think.

Canned Heat had a pretty good handle on that raucous, north Mississippi hill country sound.

Al Kooper had a serviceable little R&B combo there. Drummer kept things pumping. Kooper wasn't much of a vocalist, though, unfortunately.

How 'bout that David Crosby's introduction to "He Was a Friend of Mine", though, eh? "When president Kennedy was killed, he wasn't killed by just one man. He was shot from a number of different directions by different guns." Go David! (Never cared for the Byrds too much, though. Those whiny vocals. Eight Miles High was an ace tune, however.)

I guess in retrospect, Monterrey was not the greatest moment for a lot of these bands.

Oh well. Jimi was a god. Total god.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 3:20 AM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

flapjax at midnite writes 'Even the most knee-jerk, hippie-hatin", under-forty-something, sick-of-hearing-about-how-great-the-sixties-were person has sooner or later got to admit: the explosion of styles and the range of talent in that era was pretty damn remarkable.'

Sure, flapjax, but there can't be many of us over forty who haven't already seen this movie about fifty thousand times.

Me, I'm back off to the Harlem Variety Review.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:31 AM on June 17, 2007

The Byrds sound whiny?

That's a new one.
posted by the cuban at 4:50 AM on June 17, 2007

The Electric Flag clip was great. Gotta love a band that takes the time to incorporate horns.
posted by bardic at 4:51 AM on June 17, 2007

the explosion of styles and the range of talent in that era was pretty damn remarkable

As much as I want to agree with that, I still think that it only pertains to the R&B and blues influenced music of the era, which was outstanding.

De gustibus etc., but much of the folk-based music from that era was pretty damn insufferable (Richie Havens and Simon & Garfunkel perhaps notable exceptions). Much of it is parochial, self-conscious and pompous. Songs like "San Francisco" and "For What it's Worth", as well as the Joan Baez stuff from Woodstock, are very much of their time, and no doubt extremely popular in their day, but they lack a certain power and reach today.
posted by psmealey at 4:54 AM on June 17, 2007

Try to find one video in the bunch where you can be fairly certain the majority of the performers weren't stoned. Winner gets a pony.

What's your point Clay201? There was more talent and creativity and peace and love on that one stage than the world has seen in the last 30 years combined.

It wasn't the drugs - it was an attitude that whiny, me-me-me, raised on self-esteem, window-smashing punks under 40 will never be able to tune in to.
posted by three blind mice at 4:59 AM on June 17, 2007

tbm:

I'm afraid I didn't have an actual point.
posted by Clay201 at 5:43 AM on June 17, 2007

it was an attitude that whiny, me-me-me, raised on self-esteem, window-smashing punks under 40 will never be able to tune in to

I'm 40, but I wasn't raised on self-esteem. However, I am a window-smashing punk.

Sigh, never the target market.
posted by psmealey at 5:48 AM on June 17, 2007

Cool is putting a dirty great STP sticker on your Gretch Country Gent.
posted by mattoxic at 5:54 AM on June 17, 2007

This is weird to wake up to. About 2 hrs. before this post, I was wandering around in these clips, especially liking the closing song and S & G. (better quality than the Simon link above, and without the interview). BTW, S & G don't look especially stoned. (and 'college kids' didn't get stoned, did they??)

I also thought this was already posted and spent some time trying to find the post.
posted by MtDewd at 6:19 AM on June 17, 2007

laura nyro
posted by pyramid termite at 6:30 AM on June 17, 2007

...and were David Crosby and John Phillips wearing the same hat?
posted by MtDewd at 6:43 AM on June 17, 2007

psmealey writes 'De gustibus etc., but much of the folk-based music from that era was pretty damn insufferable (Richie Havens and Simon & Garfunkel perhaps notable exceptions). Much of it is parochial, self-conscious and pompous.'

I'm not really a fan of folk music myself, but I don't see it. What about Dylan? What about the Greatful Dead? What about Gram Parsons? John Martyn? Richard Thompson? John Fahey? All people who were working in very diverse styles, rooted in a profound interest in a wide range of folk music, and all taking -- not just folk, but pop music in general in directions that it had never been before, to the benefit of the whole of the wider genre.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 7:37 AM on June 17, 2007

Also probably not stoned...Ravi Shankar (or Allah Rakha or Kamala Chakravarty), but everyone else in those 2 clips surely was. Do I get 2 ponies?

And also, thanks, Silune. I had Shankar's album from this festival and probably fell asleep listening to Dhun a hundred times. Great to see it.
posted by MtDewd at 7:43 AM on June 17, 2007

Fair enough, PeterMcDermott. Richard Thompson, Dylan, Arlo Guthrie, etc. were all great. I guess I was commenting more on the "folk rock" element that was present at Monterey Pop and Woodstock, rather than pure folk (which has as long and rich a tradition as any genre).
posted by psmealey at 8:13 AM on June 17, 2007

What about the Greatful Dead?

The Dead didn't get folky until '70 or '71 -- in '67 they were still trying to be as loud as possible.
posted by docgonzo at 8:44 AM on June 17, 2007

docgonzo writes ''The Dead didn't get folky until "70 or "71 -- in "67 they were still trying to be as loud as possible.'

"Between 1962 and 1964, Garcia sang and performed mainly bluegrass, old-time and folk music. One of the bands Garcia was known to perform with was the Sleepy Hollow Hog Stompers, a bluegrass act. The group consisted of Jerry Garcia on guitar, banjo, vocals, and harmonica, Marshall Leicester on banjo, guitar, and vocals, and Dick Arnold on fiddle and vocals.[10] Soon thereafter, Garcia joined a local bluegrass and folk band called Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions, whose membership also included Ron "Pigpen" McKernan."
posted by PeterMcDermott at 8:51 AM on June 17, 2007

'The Dead didn't get folky until "70 or "71 -- in "67 they were still trying to be as loud as possible.'

they were doing "he was a friend of mine", "i know you rider", "it's all over now, baby blue" and quite a few blues songs, so folk rock was pretty much always a part of their sound live ... in 68 and 69 they did tend to get into the loud, freaky stuff but soon worked their way back
posted by pyramid termite at 9:19 AM on June 17, 2007

The Electric Flag clip was great. Gotta love a band that takes the time to incorporate horns.

Their first album was even better. Mike Bloomfield was one of the best players of his generation (he played the solo on "Like A Rolling Stone" among other things) and Buddy Miles, and Nick Gravenites weren't slouches either. "Killing Floor" and "Wine" are the standouts.
posted by jonmc at 10:01 AM on June 17, 2007

PeterMcDermott -- You are right; Garcia's roots were in bluegrass. Pigpen's were in the blues; Lesh's were in avant-garde composition; Kreutzmann in jazz and R&B. At the time of Monterey, though, they had thrown that all in the pot and had come up with a loud blues/psychedelia mix. The idea that the Dead were a bunch of stoned hippies playing folk music -- not saying you said that; just sayin' -- is incorrect.

pyramid termite: I agree, they were playing some stuff from the traditional folk canon, but I'd differentiate between their blues sound and folk-pop "Scarborough Fair" crap. They weren't doing that (and they only played "Baby blue" once between the end of '66 and the beginning of '69.)

Anyhoo. Trying to pin down the Dead's main influence is like trying to nail jello to a wall.
posted by docgonzo at 10:30 AM on June 17, 2007

I can't get the site to load right now, but if you can find a link for the 6/7/69 Dead show at Fillmore West I would definitely recommend it.
posted by nervousfritz at 11:31 AM on June 17, 2007

MtDewd, I know that feeling. It's hard to explain to anyone who hasn't experienced it — they assume you're talking about deja vu. And if I get emphatic (which I do, easily) and try to explain that it wasn't deja vu, because I took action based on the information I had received, before that information became available, the usual reaction is, "You know you're weird, don't you?"
posted by MinPin at 12:42 PM on June 17, 2007

Summer of Love 40th Anniversary!
posted by priyatam at 3:34 PM on June 17, 2007

I saw the DA Pennebaker documentary on late night tv when I was a teen. It blew me away. never seen anything like it. I remember LOVING Ravi Shankar.

Country Joe and the Fish though thought of as a one hit wonder band, could really jam the psychedelia. Underrated.
posted by vronsky at 6:18 PM on June 17, 2007

Thanks Silune! Some of those clips gave me the chills. I was only a "twinkle in my Dad's eye" at the time, but damn, I so feel like I missed out on a Renaissance.
posted by snsranch at 6:27 PM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I am not the biggest Hendrix fan, but the MPF performance is amazing. There is a documentary on VH1 this week called Monterey at 40 that is well worth checking out. They claim that Jimi took two hits of Owseley just before he took the stage.

The other Hendrix performance that is godlike?

Band of Gypsys - Machine Gun
posted by vronsky at 6:43 PM on June 17, 2007

vronsky, checking that vid out now. Do you know that soldiers that he was talking about in NY and Chicago, etc? Thanks for the link.
posted by snsranch at 7:09 PM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

Jimi is an interesting "Poster Boy" for the era. He was the opposite of the mainstream vision of what was right or normal or acceptable. Black, lefthanded, and had more soul than a million white guys.
posted by snsranch at 7:13 PM on June 17, 2007 [1 favorite has favorites]

I believe he is talking about the Chicago 7 snsranch.
posted by vronsky at 7:26 PM on June 17, 2007

Do you know that soldiers that he was talking about in NY and Chicago, etc?

perhaps black panthers ... he, like a lot of other rock stars at that time, was feeling a lot of pressure from political radicals to support them and their causes ... it may have been a nod to them without naming them, since that could have had bad consequences

it was a strange and paranoid time for people

i've been listening to that song for over 30 years and never realized there was a video of it ... thanks vronsky
posted by pyramid termite at 7:40 PM on June 17, 2007

Oh yeah. That Machine Gun clip is THE. TOTAL. SHIT.

I'd forgotten how refreshing it was to hear Hendrix play with drummer Buddy Miles, who is such a very different kind of drummer from the Experience's Mitch Mitchell. I loved Mitchell, but he was such a busy player, forever playing really fast and busy fills. With Buddy Miles' much more stripped down playing style, Jimi had more breathing room. Thanks a lot for the link to that clip, vronsky.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:34 PM on June 17, 2007

And I always loved this Buddy Miles record jacket. Is that cool or what? Here's his Drummerworld page.
posted by flapjax at midnite at 9:38 PM on June 17, 2007