Strange, just this weekend I finally replaced my copy of Time Peace, definitely one of the best best-ofs ever, not to mention one of the hippiest titles ever. People DO got to be free, but it’s a shame to way a concept like freedom can get degraded from overuse as a campaign plank. As Felix sings, “Seems to me we got to solve it individually.”
The Northeast Corridor Hippie was an under-represented lot, wasn’t it? There was that post-Beat/post-folk musicians like the Fugs, but most Italians and Jews in my part of the country had trouble breaking free of the limitations of their typically thick, kinky hair and prediliction for stylish, tailored suits. The Rascals and The Lovin’ Spoonful (maybe both bands being led into hippiedom by Canadian members???), made it into long-haired, peaceful freakdom, but the rest seemed to wait out the storm until hard rock, singer-songwriter music, and eventually punk blossomed further into the ’70s. Am I forgetting any other obvious Northeast Corridor Hippies? The Nazz were kind of stuck at the tail-end of pseudo-British psychedelia, right?
No, I was thinking of Vanilla Fudge as one of the early hard rock bands that Northern Corridor longhairs were more apt to get into. Maybe I’ve pigeonholed “hippies” as being on the sensitive, peaceful side. The Rascals seemed to be as idealistic as any West Coast hippie band.
What about the Youngbloods? Weren’t they NY/Boston types? That Get Together song was a hippie anthem. Hell, I still remember it being used a station identification song for NY TV channel 5 with a big cartoony dove flying into the picture in the early 70s.
The Woodstock festival was one of the pinnacles of hippiedom, but most of the big acts were British or Californian. Richie Havens (in a caftan!) represented the NYC folkie turned hippie, and John Sebastain represented the Woodstock community itself. Woodstock the town is maybe the east coast version of hippiedom, with lots of transplants (Van Morrison, the Band, Bob Dylan) and favoring the more rustic style of hippie rather than the psychedelic style. The ‘back to the earth’ hippie’s west coast version was in Marin County I figure.
The Youngbloods are a good one, Mockcarr. Jesse Colin Young is from Bucks County, outside of Philly, if I’m not mistaken. I’ll accept Havens, BigSteve, but not the transplanted border types and would-be Irish singers. I’m thinking specifically of born and bred Northeast Corridor Hippies.
I know Ed Sanders of the Fugs has been in the Woodstock area for decades. Hippie artists on both coasts grew out of the folk scene, and some of the people we associate with California hippie rock were originally easterners, like the Mamas & the Papas.
There may not have been many Eastern Corridor hippie bands, but there must have been hippies. Otherwise who were those million people at Yasgur’s farm?
There may not have been many Eastern Corridor hippie bands, but there must have been hippies. Otherwise who were those million people at Yasgur’s farm?
I also included The Fugs scene as part of my set up. Come on, guys, obviously there were hippies. I was making almost a joking observation, but now I’m throwing down the gauntlet and asking for real debate and discussion:)
Do any of these Northeast based artists, who performed at Monterey &/or Woodstock count?
Blood, Sweat, & Tears (NY)
Laura Nyro (NY)
Joan Baez (NY)
Arlo Guthrie (NY)
Melanie (NY)
Mountain (NY)
Quill (MA)
Bert Sommer (NY)
And a few that weren’t at the fests:
Mortimer (NY)
The Lemon Pipers (NY)
The Fifth Estate (CONN)
The Cyrkle (NY)-Don’t know if they count as “hippies”. More of a “mod” look
The Critters (NJ)
Blues Magoos (NY)-For their album titles alone (“Psychedelic Lollipop”-“Electric Comic Book”)
Blades of Grass (NY/NJ)
The Youngbloods were New Yorkers, but operated out of S.F., CA.
there’s a long standing EC hippie tradition, related to the earlier folk movement, that settled itself in woodstock and saugerties as well as places in vermont and western mass.
but i DO think a lot of young EC people went west.
but the East Coast will always also be more Euro-culture damaged, and art-damaged, too. at the same time that there’s no way the east coast could have ever produced a pure, armpit hair farming hippie band like the Dead, there’s also no way the WC could have ever produced a whacked out band of Cage / tanglewood-damaged champagne sippers like the Velvet Underground, either.
The V.U. champagne sippers? That crowd were all straight up speed freaks & heroin addicts. Art damaged (in the best way), yes, but hardly effete. From all accounts, The Factory was a pretty scummy lair.
I think a lot of it does have to to with the weather. If it’s sunny all the time, & you’ve got mountains, beaches & deserts to play in, it’s bound to produce a more idyllic-minded, LSD gobbling populace than the long, dark, cold Northeastern winters, which lend themselves more to smack & amphetemines.
Blood, Sweat, & Tears (NY): No, more blues/show band, not really hippies
Laura Nyro (NY): No, more singer-songwriter, but CLOSE…
Joan Baez (NY): No, pure folkie, not a hippie
Arlo Guthrie (NY): Son of a hobo, therefore probably rootless – does not count
Melanie (NY): I’ll accept her, but you’re sure she’s not secretly Canadian?
Mountain (NY): No, this is one of those bands that moved directly to hard rock
Quill (MA): Yes, hippies! Would you believe I own an album by them? I didn’t know anyone had ever heard of them. Some lawyer friend of my Mom’s – about 25 years ago – gave me that album. She dated one of the band members when they were young hippies!
Bert Sommer (NY): Never heard of him – he doesn’t sound like much of a hippie.
And a few that weren’t at the fests:
Mortimer (NY): I’m guessing I’d say no
The Lemon Pipers (NY): Definitely not hippies
The Fifth Estate (CONN): I’m gonna say no based on their name alone
The Cyrkle (NY)-Don’t know if they count as “hippies”. More of a “mod” look – Definitely not hippies
The Critters (NJ): Is this some early Billy Joel band? In all fairness (for once) I can’t judge
Blues Magoos (NY)-For their album titles alone (“Psychedelic Lollipop”-“Electric Comic Book”) – Nah, more dregs of psych
Blades of Grass (NY/NJ) – I can’t recall if they would count more as “dregs of psych” or not
Nice work, Bobby! I think you added more to this short list than all other Townspeople combined.
bobby, two of the velvets were major champagne sippers:
Cale had a legit pre-velvets classical pedigree (Goldsmiths College, aid from Aaron Copeland, infiltration into the new york classical music scene), and then an avant classical phase that included performances of John Cage and Erik Satie compositions, sometimes under the direction of John Cage.
Pre-Rock, Nico, was connected to several major European film directors, including Papatakis (her boyfriend), Fellini, Lattuada, Poiternaud, and Maté, all the while, modeling upscale products (like champagne) for fashion mags like Elle, Vogue, and tempo.
the velvet scene was filled with people like cale and nico who had dropped out of those scenes but brought that damage with them to it. Andy LOVED that shit.
Mr Mod, it sounds like you’re either defining hippies as Californian by nature or you’re defining the Northeast Corridor as the NYC to Philly to DC urban sprawl. As saturn suggested, the eastern hippie was geographically north of NYC, up the Hudson and into Vermont.
Also you seem to be equating hippiedom with LSD, and I think there was more to it than that. Plus I know that if I lived in a big city like New York of Philadelphia, acid is the LAST drug I would want to take.
Yes, BigSteve, I’m geographically thinking of the cities from DC to Boston. Woodstock, Vermont, et al might as well be Canada or Minnesota. They’re rural places, more apt to the hippie ethos as I’ve unscientifically identified it.
Honestly, I was kidding around a bit and can’t believe how much play my off-the-cuff comment has received. Thanks for helping to make my day less focused on all that I had to do. I do, however, sincerely think The Rascals were a rare East Coast, Northern Corridor band with true values representative of our cities that made the natural transition to hippie music without leaving their city roots. In other words, as you might put it, they were a rare band coming out of the ’60s East Coast dance music scene that dropped acid and didn’t have that bad a trip. They say it can be done.
That Bert Sommers guy was a poster boy for hippie. Look him up on Wiki if’n you don’t believe me.
Isn’t psychedelic music just another term for acid-head hippie music?
Laura Nyro DID write “Stoned Soul Picnic”.
Arlo doesn’t count ‘cuz Woody was a hobo? He didn’t take the family with him. Look at that “Alice’s Restaurant” movie, & then tell me he’s not a hippie (from NY).
Lemon Pipers’ “Green Tambourine”, a gateway to hippie. Hippie bubblegum.
Sat, Wow man, thanks for filling me in on the history of The Velvet Underground’s members. Golly, I had NO idea. Big deal, Cale was classically trained. They made their least hippie sounding (or sounding like anything else) music for the 2 albums he was in the band, so I guess I LIKE effete.
As for Nico, Andy managed to foist her on the band for a few songs on the 1st album. She barely counts as a member. Warhol liked damaged people, period. They weren’t ALL from Edie-type backgrounds. I don’t think Joe Dallesandro or Holly Woodlawn had trust funds. Cale didn’t come from money, he had scholarships & grants, not money from mumsy & pooh-pah, or whatever those old money losers called their parents. Is he effete for being educated? If there was a lot of champagne flowing at The Factory, Ondine & Rotten Rita were probably pissing in it before serving it to the lookey-lou’s that came to see the freakshow. At most, I’d say it was 70% street, 30% effete. Maybe you think Valerie Solanas was just a maladjusted debutante.
Strange, just this weekend I finally replaced my copy of Time Peace, definitely one of the best best-ofs ever, not to mention one of the hippiest titles ever. People DO got to be free, but it’s a shame to way a concept like freedom can get degraded from overuse as a campaign plank. As Felix sings, “Seems to me we got to solve it individually.”
The Northeast Corridor Hippie was an under-represented lot, wasn’t it? There was that post-Beat/post-folk musicians like the Fugs, but most Italians and Jews in my part of the country had trouble breaking free of the limitations of their typically thick, kinky hair and prediliction for stylish, tailored suits. The Rascals and The Lovin’ Spoonful (maybe both bands being led into hippiedom by Canadian members???), made it into long-haired, peaceful freakdom, but the rest seemed to wait out the storm until hard rock, singer-songwriter music, and eventually punk blossomed further into the ’70s. Am I forgetting any other obvious Northeast Corridor Hippies? The Nazz were kind of stuck at the tail-end of pseudo-British psychedelia, right?
Are you forgetting Vanilla Fudge?
No, I was thinking of Vanilla Fudge as one of the early hard rock bands that Northern Corridor longhairs were more apt to get into. Maybe I’ve pigeonholed “hippies” as being on the sensitive, peaceful side. The Rascals seemed to be as idealistic as any West Coast hippie band.
What about the Youngbloods? Weren’t they NY/Boston types? That Get Together song was a hippie anthem. Hell, I still remember it being used a station identification song for NY TV channel 5 with a big cartoony dove flying into the picture in the early 70s.
The Woodstock festival was one of the pinnacles of hippiedom, but most of the big acts were British or Californian. Richie Havens (in a caftan!) represented the NYC folkie turned hippie, and John Sebastain represented the Woodstock community itself. Woodstock the town is maybe the east coast version of hippiedom, with lots of transplants (Van Morrison, the Band, Bob Dylan) and favoring the more rustic style of hippie rather than the psychedelic style. The ‘back to the earth’ hippie’s west coast version was in Marin County I figure.
The Youngbloods are a good one, Mockcarr. Jesse Colin Young is from Bucks County, outside of Philly, if I’m not mistaken. I’ll accept Havens, BigSteve, but not the transplanted border types and would-be Irish singers. I’m thinking specifically of born and bred Northeast Corridor Hippies.
I know Ed Sanders of the Fugs has been in the Woodstock area for decades. Hippie artists on both coasts grew out of the folk scene, and some of the people we associate with California hippie rock were originally easterners, like the Mamas & the Papas.
There may not have been many Eastern Corridor hippie bands, but there must have been hippies. Otherwise who were those million people at Yasgur’s farm?
BigSteve asks:
There may not have been many Eastern Corridor hippie bands, but there must have been hippies. Otherwise who were those million people at Yasgur’s farm?
I respond:
Poseurs.
I also included The Fugs scene as part of my set up. Come on, guys, obviously there were hippies. I was making almost a joking observation, but now I’m throwing down the gauntlet and asking for real debate and discussion:)
All one million of them were posers? (I spell it poser, because I think only a poseur, I mean poser, spells it ‘poseur.’)
In the Northeast, where the hippies were pretending especially hard, they spell it “poseurs.”
Don’t be baited by that hippie-hata, BigSteve. This thread is all about love and idealism. Hrrundi needs to take a shower.
Do any of these Northeast based artists, who performed at Monterey &/or Woodstock count?
Blood, Sweat, & Tears (NY)
Laura Nyro (NY)
Joan Baez (NY)
Arlo Guthrie (NY)
Melanie (NY)
Mountain (NY)
Quill (MA)
Bert Sommer (NY)
And a few that weren’t at the fests:
Mortimer (NY)
The Lemon Pipers (NY)
The Fifth Estate (CONN)
The Cyrkle (NY)-Don’t know if they count as “hippies”. More of a “mod” look
The Critters (NJ)
Blues Magoos (NY)-For their album titles alone (“Psychedelic Lollipop”-“Electric Comic Book”)
Blades of Grass (NY/NJ)
The Youngbloods were New Yorkers, but operated out of S.F., CA.
there’s a long standing EC hippie tradition, related to the earlier folk movement, that settled itself in woodstock and saugerties as well as places in vermont and western mass.
but i DO think a lot of young EC people went west.
but the East Coast will always also be more Euro-culture damaged, and art-damaged, too. at the same time that there’s no way the east coast could have ever produced a pure, armpit hair farming hippie band like the Dead, there’s also no way the WC could have ever produced a whacked out band of Cage / tanglewood-damaged champagne sippers like the Velvet Underground, either.
The V.U. champagne sippers? That crowd were all straight up speed freaks & heroin addicts. Art damaged (in the best way), yes, but hardly effete. From all accounts, The Factory was a pretty scummy lair.
I think a lot of it does have to to with the weather. If it’s sunny all the time, & you’ve got mountains, beaches & deserts to play in, it’s bound to produce a more idyllic-minded, LSD gobbling populace than the long, dark, cold Northeastern winters, which lend themselves more to smack & amphetemines.
Bobbyb asked if the following count in my quest:
Blood, Sweat, & Tears (NY): No, more blues/show band, not really hippies
Laura Nyro (NY): No, more singer-songwriter, but CLOSE…
Joan Baez (NY): No, pure folkie, not a hippie
Arlo Guthrie (NY): Son of a hobo, therefore probably rootless – does not count
Melanie (NY): I’ll accept her, but you’re sure she’s not secretly Canadian?
Mountain (NY): No, this is one of those bands that moved directly to hard rock
Quill (MA): Yes, hippies! Would you believe I own an album by them? I didn’t know anyone had ever heard of them. Some lawyer friend of my Mom’s – about 25 years ago – gave me that album. She dated one of the band members when they were young hippies!
Bert Sommer (NY): Never heard of him – he doesn’t sound like much of a hippie.
And a few that weren’t at the fests:
Mortimer (NY): I’m guessing I’d say no
The Lemon Pipers (NY): Definitely not hippies
The Fifth Estate (CONN): I’m gonna say no based on their name alone
The Cyrkle (NY)-Don’t know if they count as “hippies”. More of a “mod” look – Definitely not hippies
The Critters (NJ): Is this some early Billy Joel band? In all fairness (for once) I can’t judge
Blues Magoos (NY)-For their album titles alone (“Psychedelic Lollipop”-“Electric Comic Book”) – Nah, more dregs of psych
Blades of Grass (NY/NJ) – I can’t recall if they would count more as “dregs of psych” or not
Nice work, Bobby! I think you added more to this short list than all other Townspeople combined.
bobby, two of the velvets were major champagne sippers:
Cale had a legit pre-velvets classical pedigree (Goldsmiths College, aid from Aaron Copeland, infiltration into the new york classical music scene), and then an avant classical phase that included performances of John Cage and Erik Satie compositions, sometimes under the direction of John Cage.
Pre-Rock, Nico, was connected to several major European film directors, including Papatakis (her boyfriend), Fellini, Lattuada, Poiternaud, and Maté, all the while, modeling upscale products (like champagne) for fashion mags like Elle, Vogue, and tempo.
the velvet scene was filled with people like cale and nico who had dropped out of those scenes but brought that damage with them to it. Andy LOVED that shit.
pretty effete if you ask me.
Mr Mod, it sounds like you’re either defining hippies as Californian by nature or you’re defining the Northeast Corridor as the NYC to Philly to DC urban sprawl. As saturn suggested, the eastern hippie was geographically north of NYC, up the Hudson and into Vermont.
Also you seem to be equating hippiedom with LSD, and I think there was more to it than that. Plus I know that if I lived in a big city like New York of Philadelphia, acid is the LAST drug I would want to take.
Yes, BigSteve, I’m geographically thinking of the cities from DC to Boston. Woodstock, Vermont, et al might as well be Canada or Minnesota. They’re rural places, more apt to the hippie ethos as I’ve unscientifically identified it.
Honestly, I was kidding around a bit and can’t believe how much play my off-the-cuff comment has received. Thanks for helping to make my day less focused on all that I had to do. I do, however, sincerely think The Rascals were a rare East Coast, Northern Corridor band with true values representative of our cities that made the natural transition to hippie music without leaving their city roots. In other words, as you might put it, they were a rare band coming out of the ’60s East Coast dance music scene that dropped acid and didn’t have that bad a trip. They say it can be done.
See the “Extremely White Music” Thrifty Music segment for some Critters. Not in the least bit hippie!
That Bert Sommers guy was a poster boy for hippie. Look him up on Wiki if’n you don’t believe me.
Isn’t psychedelic music just another term for acid-head hippie music?
Laura Nyro DID write “Stoned Soul Picnic”.
Arlo doesn’t count ‘cuz Woody was a hobo? He didn’t take the family with him. Look at that “Alice’s Restaurant” movie, & then tell me he’s not a hippie (from NY).
Lemon Pipers’ “Green Tambourine”, a gateway to hippie. Hippie bubblegum.
Sat, Wow man, thanks for filling me in on the history of The Velvet Underground’s members. Golly, I had NO idea. Big deal, Cale was classically trained. They made their least hippie sounding (or sounding like anything else) music for the 2 albums he was in the band, so I guess I LIKE effete.
As for Nico, Andy managed to foist her on the band for a few songs on the 1st album. She barely counts as a member. Warhol liked damaged people, period. They weren’t ALL from Edie-type backgrounds. I don’t think Joe Dallesandro or Holly Woodlawn had trust funds. Cale didn’t come from money, he had scholarships & grants, not money from mumsy & pooh-pah, or whatever those old money losers called their parents. Is he effete for being educated? If there was a lot of champagne flowing at The Factory, Ondine & Rotten Rita were probably pissing in it before serving it to the lookey-lou’s that came to see the freakshow. At most, I’d say it was 70% street, 30% effete. Maybe you think Valerie Solanas was just a maladjusted debutante.
bobby…
i called them champagne sippers. you contested that.
i was simply explaining why that label is accurate.
never said that was the only kind of damage on andy’s scene.
have a nice day.
Sat, Are you mad at me? I thought I was simply giving a rebuttal to your explanation. I didn’t mean to offend.