HIPPIE REDUX: #19 Why I'm Glad I'm Over 65!

The Greatest Rock and Roll Band in the World (Still)!!

As soon as they came out, I played The Rolling Stones early albums daily for a year or two, in love with the groove and swagger of their music. I was only dimly aware that they were imitating their heroes, the great bluesmen of Detroit, Chicago, Memphis. The Stones, these skinny kids from London, were perhaps the first white blues band. And with very few digressions, they have remained true to the feel of Black music since then (I know they included a Chuck Berry classic in every concert I saw). Formed in 1962, they will be touring South America in a few months, Jagger is 72.

HIPPIE REDUX: #18 Why I'm Glad I'm Over 65!

Eighteen Floors of Hippie !

This building on a Toronto main street opened in 1968 as Rochdale College, a co-op student residence cum educational facility. Its relaxed polity soon became anarchic and the building became maybe the world’s only high rise hippie haven. I remember visiting a friend, the general atmosphere was…well…funky. The joke was that the Jesus freaks lived on one floor, the speed freaks on another, the bikers on another, and the dealers on the top (to have more time if there was a police raid). Eventually it became more and more a drug distribution centre for a biker gang and finally in 1975 the last person was ejected and the doors welded shut. It’s now an old folks home.

HIPPIE REDUX: #17 Why I'm Glad I'm Over 65!

photo: Joel Brodsky

Not Your Great Grandmother's Handsome Man !!

In keeping with the Sixtie's spirit of experimentation, new ideas of male magnetism from Jim Morrison.

HIPPIE REDUX: #16 Why I'm Glad I'm Over 65!

photo: Don Hogan Charles / The New York Times

Racial Inequality

The Sixties pushed the question of racial inequality into everyone’s face. I remember visiting a gas station in Georgia in 1965 and seeing three toilets signed Men, Women, Coloured: this in violation of the Civil Rights Act of the previous year. Riots exploded year after year, and in April and May of 1968, after the assassination of Martin Luther King, violent eruptions occurred in 125 cities and large parts of the country appeared deserted as everyone remained indoors.

HIPPIE REDUX: #15 Why I'm glad I'm over 65!

Santana at Woodstock: Latin Rock

The music scene was re-energized in 1964 with the so-called British Invasion of the Beatles, Stones and many other bands. Although largely simple rock n roll, this changed quickly as groups on both sides of the Atlantic began to experiment. The number of brilliant musicians who showed up in the next eight years was astounding. And rock took on many new forms, latin rock, prog rock, folk rock, country rock, rock opera, psychedelic rock, glam rock, shock rock. We didn’t know how lucky we were to have new albums by Pink Floyd, the Doors, King Crimson, Steppenwolf, all in the same month perhaps. By 1972, the transformation of popular music was complete and glorious.

HIPPIE REDUX: #14 Why I'm glad I'm over 65!

The Drug Question

What would the Sixties have been without drugs? Pot and LSD played a key role in showing people how reduced the contemporary cultural reality was. Taking acid was almost a rite of passage. The illegality of it created a immediate sense of revolt. Imaginations were set loose to play in art, music, literature. A psychedelic style was created. The new sense of an interior world caused people to seek out gurus and teachers, often from the East.

But that was one side to the experience. I can remember a friend of mine injecting speed into my vein. This naive desire to “get fucked up” any way possible was part of the tragedy. People were damaged by intense drug experiences. Amphetamines, cocaine and heroin became major problems. And many never got beyond the drug experience to real change.

HIPPIE REDUX: #13 Why I'm glad I'm over 65!

photo: Gered Mankowitz

The Man

In 1967 I was going through a record store bin in the Oshawa Shopping Center when I found an album by a group I'd never heard of, the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The cover was cool, so I bought it ($3.29?) and took it to a friends house nearby. His dad had a large stereo in the basement, and we slapped on the vinyl. When the first chords of Purple Haze came crashing out of the speakers, our jaws dropped. We didn't know music could be so wild, so chaotic, but so beautiful.