Monterey Pop Festival

[Jason Penick]

What he wrote about Peter Fork explains why Brian may have feared a bad reaction at Monterey, considering the Beach Boys also didn't play on a lot if their records and some of the  hippie wannabes like Christigau may have considered them LA plastic, too.

Bingo. Yes, he mentions something along the lines of a lot of L.A. acts were getting nervous in the wake of the San Francisco bands' response to the festival, and then states the Beach Boys dropped out right around this time.

Although I thought Christgau's response to the JHE was interesting to say the least.

[bgas]

What he wrote about Peter Fork explains why Brian may have feared a bad reaction at Monterey, considering the Beach Boys also didn't play on a lot if their records and some of the  hippie wannabes like Christigau may have considered them LA plastic, too.

Bingo. Yes, he mentions something along the lines of a lot of L.A. acts were getting nervous in the wake of the San Francisco response to the festival, and then states the Beach Boys dropped out right around this time.

Although I thought Christgau's response to the JHE was interesting to say the least.

 Christgau, always the ass. Still, the two of you are  supposing Brian was SO prescient that he knew what Christgau was going to write, and THAT is why he pulled the BBs performance? 
Doesn't wash

[jmc]

I think The Beach Boys touring band in 1967 wouldn't have been well received if only because I recall their live performances from '67 being rather thinly executed. Perhaps if they had a fuller band at the time, as they would even a couple years later, they might have done well for themselves.

I think a version of 'Let's Go Trippin' could have caught people off guard in a good way. Check the 1964 live album version.  Imagine the intro...let's go trippin! !  Now only if they could pull it off as heard on the 64 record but with a slightly harder edge

[Lonely Summer]

Since the Beach Boys were considered too square to go over at Monterey, maybe they should have hosted their own festival, featuring all the critically derided bands like the Turtles, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, and the Monkees. Band that IMO made some pretty good records.

[Jason Penick]

What he wrote about Peter Fork explains why Brian may have feared a bad reaction at Monterey, considering the Beach Boys also didn't play on a lot if their records and some of the  hippie wannabes like Christigau may have considered them LA plastic, too.

Bingo. Yes, he mentions something along the lines of a lot of L.A. acts were getting nervous in the wake of the San Francisco response to the festival, and then states the Beach Boys dropped out right around this time.

Although I thought Christgau's response to the JHE was interesting to say the least.

 Christgau, always the ass. Still, the two of you are  supposing Brian was SO prescient that he knew what Christgau was going to write, and THAT is why he pulled the BBs performance?  
Doesn't wash

Come on, I didn't say that at all. Nobody knew who Robert Christgau was at that time. The point we're trying to make is that Brian or sombody in the Beach Boys/ Brother organization felt the pressure coming from the Bay Area bands. It's not like they were the only ones either; it seems to have been well in the air at that time. Read what Christgau says about what happened when Dewey Martin tried to get up and sing at the Ark in Sausalito. It was a full scale culture war between the Bay and L.A. and the Beach Boys were on the losing side of it, rightly or wrongly.

[metal flake paint]

Since the Beach Boys were considered too square to go over at Monterey, maybe they should have hosted their own festival, featuring all the critically derided bands like the Turtles, Paul Revere and the Raiders, Gary Lewis and the Playboys, and the Monkees. Band that IMO made some pretty good records.

They did (in a way): Lei'd in Hawaii

[guitarfool2002]

Wow, so much to cover...   (Good to see Jason posting here too!)

I think there is much ado about a little something regarding the Bay Area bands, and the whole scene of Monterey being an LA versus SF kind of thing. I don't want to over-extend this, but it's a topic that I think gets into how and why certain things were written and then passed into what became a history of it rather than what was actually going on. I'll try to keep it to the point, but that's tough with me sometimes...

First, there have always been "battles" between bands from different regions and areas, from the neighborhoods to communities to sections of the same block. In the big band era, 1930's, there were battles between big bands where you'd have Count Basie and Chick Webb having cutting contests at places like the Savoy, all in good spirit but which gave their fans a sporting event kind of thing to root for their favorite. Same thing with the doo-wop and streetcorner groups, within the same neighborhoods in cities like Philly and New York you'd have the groups from one area of the same neighborhood throwing down with other groups for bragging rights. Surf groups around the early 60's, same thing, and the BB's engaged in that kind of bragging rights competition.

A version of school spirit and rivalry, we could call it.

Now we get Monterey Pop, and the notion of LA versus SF, or whatever.

But what truth is there behind it?

I'd argue some of the most prominent acts to come out of Monterey Pop had nothing to do with LA or the Bay Area...as Paul McCartney was one of the "governors" who was advising and organizing the whole thing going back to his hanging out in LA with John Phillips, Lou Adler, and someone named Brian...he had known of the Who, and Hendrix, and had seen them in the London clubs like Bag O' Nails which was a scene the USA had not yet experienced. So Paul was one who suggested inviting them to play Monterey. Same with Andrew Oldham, another "governor" who pushed for these acts from across the ocean.

Adding in Janis and Otis, who I wouldn't consider LA or Bay Area (especially Otis who brought the Memphis/Stax vibe to Monterey), who else made such an impression via the film as the Who and Hendrix?

We always hear of the Airplane...was their impact anywhere near what happened to Hendrix or the Who? Remember, those acts were still much better known in the UK than the US, and Paul Macca having witnessed their acts in the UK knew they were something special and pushed for them to play the festival. After that, they became the Who and Hendrix of legend, again thanks quite a bit to Pennebaker and his film.

*Big point*...The Monterey Pop festival itself when it was in the planning stage was to have been exactly that: A "pop" festival, bringing together many styles and variations of pop music, or what was called pop music at the time. It was also planned to lead to various distribution and broadcast deals (some of which fell through) which would have funded some kind of foundation or organization for promoting and supporting pop music and pop musicians, that according to chief organizers and backers like Adler, Phillips, Andrew Oldham.

Then it turned into this throwdown, it became a "rock" festival, you had as I described Laura Nyro showing up in a cocktail gown with a Vegas-style act assuming it was indeed a "pop" festival and getting a puzzled (yet polite) response to her probably based on her stage look in some circles (like Adler who invited her) before she sang a note.

And the critics and writers, like Christgau for one, took it beyond what happened to suggest "real" acts like the Airplane or whoever versus the "plastic" acts from LA and the studio scene...

I say, hogwash.

Consider how many of these rock journalists were actually from the SF area, which would eventually gel together into the Rolling Stone staff of writers and critics.

Consider that if you're active in the music scene of a particular city or area, you'll naturally hang out with and get to know (and part with) bands from that area.

And when it comes time to write about those bands - your friends who may have rolled you a joint the night before you sat down at your Smith-Corona to write a review of their latest show - that connection will run through your words.

You had it in LA too, look at 1966 and 1967 and what got published via Cheetah magazine, the LA Weekly, Tom Nolan, even KRLA Beat. These writers were hanging out with guys like Brian Wilson, David Crosby, etc as part of the music scene.

But when it came time for Rolling Stone's staff to do a retrospective of things like Monterey, what angle would they be pushing, apart from what they needed to do to stay somewhat neutral?

Naturally, they'll paint it with a broad brush...where San Francisco acts simply creamed the plastic, manufactured LA scenesters. Where the Dead and the Airplane and Quicksilver were setting the tone, shaping rock history, and the LA bands were still California Dreamin' and making manufactured pop.

See where the Monkees backlash and mythology could fester from that mindset as well? Never mind they made some damn fine records, they weren't doing gritty, loud blues based jamming on Bo Diddley songs and worse, so they weren't in the same pantheon because they were "plastic". And, horrors, they were not from Haight Ashbury and didn't go to Bill Graham's parties.

That's a stretch, I'm being sarcastic, I know, but there is something to all of that.

Monterey started out as something to highlight and promote the different styles and sub-genres of "pop" music, and elevate the form, similar to what Inside Pop tried to do. It was envisioned that way by the so-called "Board of Governors" when you'd have Adler, Oldham, Phillips, McCartney, Paul Simon, Wilson, et al having informal discussions that turned into meetings that turned into organizing this thing beyond saying "hey kids, let's put on a show right here!" in a Mickey Rooney-Judy Garland fashion.

And if what got written as critiques and reviews and analysis well after the fact had an agenda that went beyond reporting and got into attempts to shatter and lessen what these writers considered "plastic" music versus "real" music, I'd suggest reading between the lines and finding out where that mindset was coming from.

I might agree more with those journalists if the bands and artists who made the biggest impact were actually coming from San Francisco rather than London, Memphis, and even Texas. But since they did not, it's hard sometimes to agree with an analysis pushing a certain regional battle that turned into a "real" versus "plastic" comparison (or 'rock' versus 'pop' perhaps...) based on that writer's perspective at that moment.

Just food for thought...

[clack]

It wasn't LA vs. SF, really -- it was counterculture rock vs. commercial pop (and yes I know those are problematic terms, to say the least). Move it forward a decade and it would be the Clash, say, vs. the Bee Gees. A decade after that the Pixies vs. Poison.

Ideological, in other words, rather than territorial. Canned Heat  -- from LA -- weren't considered "plastic". Paul Revere and the Raiders were.

[guitarfool2002]

Whether ideological or territorial, there was a notion of bands coming into the LA "plastic" area and blowing away the native bands with their harder-edged (re: 'non-plastic' ) music, and yes there was ideology behind that.

But look at what history has done to all of this.

Where are long, extended blues jams on "Who Do You Love" that could last for a half hour or more placed within the context of rock history? Where are the similar blues excursions and jams placed within rock history? They seem more like time capsules of a bygone era, far less than what some in the rock-critic community at one time thought they would be.

What survived as far as classic recordings and landmark songs? Even when rock music back in 1968 was going back to a more stripped-down, basic sort of thing, you had groups like The Band who were quite capable of jamming a Bo Diddley song for 20 minutes but instead chose to write compact, well-crafted songs that featured little or no extended soloing or blues-based guitar wanking...again, styles they could very well have done. And the styles within rock soon parted ways, and existed within their own demographics.

But in terms of influence, especially in revisiting and re-evaluating music from, say, 1966 to 1970, which forms have really stood the test of time and continue to influence subsequent generations compared to which forms have become a time-capsule curio?

The elements that went into the most basic structures and goals of the so-called "plastic" music have survived, and if anything have grown even more in influence than anything being touted as the rock elixir to the so-called manufactured music.

Aside: I love Canned Heat, I'm a *big* fan of Al Wilson's harp and guitar playing, but remember in the late 60's even they had a rap against them from critics for overly mimicking authentic blues, to the point where some of the reviews harp on their attempts to sound authentic to the point of sounding comedic rather than authentic. All of this despite "Bear" Hite having one of the most extensive collections of rare blues recordings at the time, and Al Wilson having been a true scholar of the blues and blues musicians to the point where he would track down even the most obscure artists to talk to and learn from them, direct from the source...and this was his passion in life.

Yet, Canned Heat was nowhere near as well-regarded among critics and journalists of the time as other bands who were far less skilled in playing blues and boogie but had a better schtick to sell their acts.

[KittyKat]

San Francisco was a cultural epicenter in the '60s in a way LA was not. LA was where people used their art to make money. Not that SF wasn't, but there was so much happening in SF that was not happening in LA, including the drug scene (or making a public spectacle of the drug scene, at least), which was so important back then.  Not to mention the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. Of course, a lot of the leading lights in San Francisco came from other parts of the country, especially from New York. So, the LA vs. SF thing in the '60s was in some ways the old LA vs. NYC battle. Chistgau was from New York, as was Jann Wenner.

[Jason Penick]

San Francisco was a cultural epicenter in the '60s in a way LA was not. LA was where people used their art to make money. Not that SF wasn't, but there was so much happening in SF that was not happening in LA, including the drug scene (or making a public spectacle of the drug scene, at least), which was so important back then.  Not to mention the Berkeley Free Speech Movement. Of course, a lot of the leading lights in San Francisco came from other parts of the country, especially from New York. So, the LA vs. SF thing in the '60s was in some ways the old LA vs. NYC battle. Chistgau was from New York, as was Jann Wenner.

Right, and you see this battle played out in Christgau's article in the phone calls between Lou Adler and Dead manager Dan Rifkin regarding how the money was to be spent, and in the shadow festival at Monterey Peninsula College. (The reveal of the article for my money-- I mean did anyone know about this up until now because I sure didn't!) It seems the Hollywood booking agents or whoever was in charge of selecting bands were approaching it as business as usual, but the SF contingent made up of freaks (I use that word in the positive sense) such as Rifkin and Chet Helms had other ideas on how they wanted things to go. Their anti-L.A. bias was well noted and as you both mentioned is reminiscent of other scene battles that have occurred throughout the years.

That said I'd like to address Craig's point about the 30 minute jams on "Who Do You Love" not withstanding the test of time. I'm guessing that's likely a reference to Quicksilver Messenger Service who also appeared at the festival and were semi-famous for doing extended improvs on that song and "Mona" regularly throughout their career (and both found on their Happy Trails album). While this sort of thing seems quite dated by current standards, I would still make the point that this sort of long-form blues jam was pretty much tailor-made for live shows where trippy visual effects and mind-altering substances were in great supply. In other words it very much of the "now" and not really meant for long-term enjoyment. I would argue Quicksilver's legacy looms elsewhere, in the tight pop songs on their debut album like "Pride of Man" and "Dino's Song", or in later numbers such as "Shady Grove" where they really found their voice.

There's also the image of the ofay white blues dude ripping off black culture for fun and profit, but again a thorough investigation of the talent on display at Monterey reveals this probably wasn't the case as Christgau somewhat implies. Mike Bloomfield, Steve Miller, Elvin Bishop, Paul Butterfield and Nick Gravanites were all transplanted Chicagoans who had jammed with all manner of blues legends prior to forming their own bands, and the fellows in Canned Heat were all rigid blues scholars and collectors as Craig rightly points out. Add to this mixture such highly regarded musicians as Jorma Kaukonen and Jack Cassidy, Al Kooper who'd previously backed Dylan, roots music devotee Jerry Garcia, trained avant-gardeist Phil Lesh and the classically schooled John Cippolina and we can see that many of the white musicians playing had the chops to back up what might be perceived as their cocky attitudes or swagger.

It's interesting too that Christgau's first-hand opinion on what bands rose to the occasion often stands in contrast to today's conventional wisdom. While he spoke highly of Janis's performances and thought the Who did a good job, he also seemed to think that Otis Redding and Ravi Shankar were sort of going through the motions and that Jimi Hendrix was an out and out shuck. Yet he also speaks highly of Buddy Miles and the Steve Miller Band, performers who are seldom mentioned when people talk about Monterey Pop today. It's funny to hear him talk about the "almost offensively collegiate" Association, but he admits their songs were "tightly arranged" and that they received "good applause", and says of John Phillips, "with the eccentric exception of Bob Dylan, (he) is probably the finest songwriter America has given the new pop". So I believe Christgau was at least able to obtain his objectivity and wasn't necessarily approaching the article with a pro-SF slant.

A word about the selections by the L.A. contingent of the Board of Governors: It seems that although some attention was being paid to limit the amount of teen acts (no Paul Revere or Monkees), it is likely that a few bands that should have been there were shut out, perhaps due to what the Rascals describe in the article as "a clique among music people". At this point the Doors already had a #1 album and might not have even needed the exposure the festival could provide, but the Sunset Strip had many other bands to offer that were overlooked. Offhand I can think of Love, the Seeds, the Iron Butterfly, the Leaves, the Peanut Butter Conspiracy, the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, Tim Buckley and most importantly Frank Zappa & the Mothers (though Zappa would have to have been persuaded to leave New York for a few days).

Instead it seems like the only true rock bands represented out of L.A. were the Byrds, the Springfield and the Heat, and the rest of the music was geared towards the supper club set, as Craig also astutely mentions about Laura Nyro. Monterey would likely be the only rock festival in history where one would see such decidedly mainstream acts as the Association, Johnny Rivers, Lou Rawls, Scott McKenzie, the Mamas & the Papas and even Hugh Masakela-- fine artists all, but better suited for an evening at the Coconut Grove performing for cocktail sippers than billed alongside Jimi Hendrix and Eric Burdon at a party for the gathering freak culture. Then there was the fabled "Group with No Name", a band which even people who attended the festival seem to remember nothing about, other than that they were cobbled together at the last minute and featured Gary Alexander in some capacity. Though the interjection of these adult-oriented pop acts helps give Monterey Pop some of its unique flavor and differentiates it from the myriad of festivals that followed, surely booking at least a few of those great local bands that gave the halcyon days of the L.A. club scene so much of its character would have somewhat evened the playing field and likely produced a more consistent overall line-up. Why didn't this happen?