Aug 152010
 

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  9 Responses to “How Might Rock History Have Been Altered Had The Incredible String Band’s Set at Woodstock Been Included in the Final Cut of the Film?”

  1. hrrundivbakshi

    Holy shit, but that sucked ASS. To answer your question: I think it would’ve further accelerated the world’s desire to find “meaning” and “seriousness” in rock music — two things that produced nothing good.

    As a side note, I have no doubt that the bass player aged very poorly.

    MY question is: what’s Plurbie’s take on these guys?

  2. Good lord that was horrendous. I think that scene would have singe handedly kick started the punk movement about 7 years earlier.

  3. I would take the brown acid to escape from this.

  4. misterioso

    Mind you, that was awful, but considering how lousy a lot of Woodstock is I cannot see that it would have mattered a whole lot.

  5. Mr. Moderator

    misterioso, you make a great point! Woodstock is unwatchable for long stretches. Has any rock film gotten more rope than that one?

  6. misterioso

    Um, no, I don’t think so. Talk about “mainly of historic interest.” Maybe the unwatchable Great Rock and Roll Swindle is in the ballpark.

    But here’s the breakdown courtesy of wikipedia. For my part, I flush everything but The Who, Sly, and Hendrix, and thank the gods that Melanie was omitted. Obviously one would want Creedence and the Band included.

    Artists by appearance
    No. Group / Singer Title
    1.* Crosby, Stills & Nash “Long Time Gone”
    2.* Canned Heat “Going Up the Country”
    3.* Crosby, Stills & Nash “Wooden Ships”
    4. Richie Havens “Handsome Johnny”
    5. “Freedom” / “Sometimes I Feel Like a Motherless Child”
    6. Canned Heat “A Change Is Gonna Come” **
    7. Joan Baez “Joe Hill”
    8. “Swing Low Sweet Chariot”
    9. The Who “We’re Not Gonna Take It” / “See Me, Feel Me”
    10. “Summertime Blues”
    11. Sha-Na-Na “At the Hop”
    12. Joe Cocker and the Grease Band “With a Little Help from My Friends”
    13. Audience “Crowd Rain Chant”
    14. Country Joe and the Fish “Rock and Soul Music”
    15. Arlo Guthrie “Coming Into Los Angeles”
    16. Crosby, Stills & Nash “Suite: Judy Blue Eyes”
    17. Ten Years After “I’m Going Home”
    18. Jefferson Airplane “Saturday Afternoon” / “Won’t You Try” **
    19. “Uncle Sam’s Blues” **
    20. John Sebastian “Younger Generation”
    21. Country Joe McDonald “FISH Cheer / Feel-Like-I’m-Fixing-to-Die-Rag”
    22. Santana “Soul Sacrifice”
    23. Sly and the Family Stone “Dance to the Music” / “I Want to Take You Higher”
    24. Janis Joplin “Work Me, Lord” **
    25. Jimi Hendrix “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” (credited as “Voodoo Chile” in the film) **
    26. “The Star-Spangled Banner”
    27. “Purple Haze”
    28. “Woodstock Improvisation” **
    29. “Villanova Junction”
    30.* Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young “Woodstock” / “Find the Cost of Freedom” **

    * studio recording from an album by the artist
    ** director’s cut only, not in the original theatrical release
    [edit] Artists omitted

    * Sweetwater
    * Incredible String Band
    * Bert Sommer
    * Tim Hardin
    * Ravi Shankar
    * Melanie
    * Quill
    * Keef Hartley
    * Mountain
    * Grateful Dead (although an interview with Jerry Garcia was included)
    * Creedence Clearwater Revival
    * The Band
    * Blood, Sweat & Tears
    * Johnny and Edgar Winter
    * Paul Butterfield

  7. I don’t think that list is right. It doesn’t mention Volunteers, one of the few worthwhile things that the Jefferson Airplane has ever done.

    I like that movie and wouldn’t cut much. I really like the Joe Cocker clip, the CSN clip (even though I don’t like them in real life), Santana, hell, I even like the Richie Havens clip. The only obvious choices for the cutting room floor are Sha Na Na and Joan Baez. Even some of the goofier stuff like Feel Like I’m Fixin to Die Rag by Country Joe and the Fish are still an interesting document of the times (although I would much rather have heard them do Not So Sweet Martha Loraine).

  8. misterioso

    I agree that Volunteers is one of the few decent Airplane recordings. But this performance is lame, and, as far as I can tell, based on most evidence I have seen (Monterey Pop, Woodstock, Sympathy for the Devil) they were nightmarishly bad live act, and I can only assume some combination of acid and throbbing lights was needed to make audiences think otherwise.

  9. BigSteve

    I meant to write when this first appeared, but I read producer Joe Boyd’s book White Bicycles recently. He’s got a very interesting story to tell, and I highly recommend the book, but he spends a huge amount of time in the book detailing semi-rise and then break-up of ISB.

    Boyd totally thought they were going to be big, and this is a guy who has pretty good taste. After reading the book I got a couple of their albums. In the studio they’re much better than this clip would indicate, but they’re still an acquired taste which I have not yet acquired.

    And btw part of the reason for their downfall was that both of the original guys added their non-musician girlfriends to the group. Harmony did not ensue. Conversion to Scientology was also a factor.

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