MORE MISCELLANY...        

Beautiful people everywhere

	Michelle Phillips
Nico	Brian Jones
It's been said the crowd at Monterey Pop was a tough crowd. Meaning the hip crowd in attendance didn't want to hear any rhythm and blues, or pop music. With very few exceptions, I didn't find that to be the case. It's reported that Laura Nyro left the stage in tears. I don't remember seeing that, but I don't remember much of her performance either. D.A. Pennebraker reviewed the film of her performance while editing for the VH-1 special "Monterey Pop, the Lost Performances" and said while she did leave the stage in tears, it was because SHE thought she hadn't done a good job and there were no "boo's" from the crowd as previously reported. It's also been reported that Lou Rawls did not receive a very good reception. I don't remember that being the case at all. Maybe I just enjoyed his act so much I didn't care if anyone else did or not, but I thought he was great. Now, Johnny Rivers was an altogether different story. If you remember, Johnny Rivers' style was pseudo-country. For example, Memphis, Mountain of Love, Maybelline, his rendition of Seventh Son, which is an old blues tune, and others. Welllll....Johnny Rivers came out on stage sporting a Beatles hairstyle, and a fur vest (a la Sonny Bono) and opened with the Beatles' song Help. That went over like the proverbial lead balloon. The crowd felt that he was masquerading as something he wasn't and they seemed to feel insulted by it. There were cat-calls, boo's, and a general exodus in the direction of the snack bar. It got so bad, I was surprised he didn't leave the stage. I actually felt sorry for him (and I'm not particularly a Johnny fan). Now, granted, Johnny Rivers was instrumental, along with John Phillips, Bill Graham, Derek Taylor, and others in putting this whole festival together, and the audience as a whole should have been, and probably were, appreciative of that fact. However, he should have come to the party as himself. His reception would have been a whole lot warmer if he had. Oh, I need to say, I saw Johnny Rivers at the Whiskey later on that summer watching the Doors and he seemed to have reverted to his pre-festival image. And, it's probably a good thing the Beach Boys did not show up. I heard many disparaging remarks made about their scheduled appearance and they probably would not have had a good crowd response. A lot of the Southern California hip crowd at the festival seemed to be opposed to the whole surfer scene. I think they brought that animosity with them from home where Hippies and Surfers seemed to get along about as well then as Crips and Bloods do today. I spent a lot of time on the Sunset Strip later on that summer, and I saw a lot of that kind of tension but I never really fully understood it. It must have just been a Southern California thing. The bay area "hippies" loved everyone. It seemed to me there were two distinct and different flavors to the California "hippie" movement. Bay area and Southern California. And moving between the two as I did, it seemed to me that the bay area hip crowd was genuinely interested in changing the world, while the Southern California "hippies" were kind of superficial and mostly interested in getting stoned. Not that the bay area crowd didn't get stoned, but it just seemed to me they were a lot more mellow and more interested in the spiritual side of life and looking for insight into themselves and the world around them. The Southern California crowd was a little scary and "plastic" and into harder drugs like speed. But, getting back to Hippies and Surfers, I remember meeting one guy who was selling the Free Press on the Sunset Strip who said he only wanted enough money to buy acid and go surfing. That sounds kind of Hippie and kind of Surfer at the same time to me. And a lot of my Sunset Strip friends spent a lot of time at the beach, too, although most were sleeping and not surfing. But, I was only seventeen and what did I know? However, I was always much more comfortable among the bay area crowd. My memory says the festival crowd was generally very receptive to acts that did not fit into the hip or psychedelic mold. For example, the Association got a great reception. Otis Redding drew raves. The blues groups like Paul Butterfield's, Mike Bloomfield's, and Steve Miller's got great responses. Hugh Masakela brought down the house. Ravi Shankar's performance was just a tad too long, but the performance itself was well received. Granted, the hits of the weekend were Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and the Who. But 2 out of those 3 were festival discoveries. My opinion is that every artist there received the type of response his or her performance deserved.
RETROSPECTIVE CONTINUED... Later on that summer, after I got suspended from summer school for not wearing socks and not shaving, Jerry and I and another friend, Burt, spent a lot of time in Hollywood on the Sunset Strip. We'd pile into Burt's woodie and drive down for weekends and such. We met a lot of people, made some friends, and tried to stay out of trouble. We saw and heard some good music, and generally had a good time. I remember being too young (or too broke) to get into the Whiskey-a-go-go, and sitting outside on the sidewalk leaning up against the wall and watching and listening to The Doors through the cracks in the wall. Cool! But generally, our experiences were shallow and sensually oriented. There didn't seem to be a lot of attention given to what was inside of a person. More...

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