- 1968: First day of the 1968 Sky River Rock Festival and Lighter Than Air Fair
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On August 30, 1968, the Sky River Rock Festival and Lighter Than Air Fair opens a three-day run in a pasture near Sultan, in Snohomish County, Washington. This is one of America's first multi-day, outdoor rock concerts. Among the bands and performers playing at the Sky River Rock Festival are Santana, Big Mama Thornton, James Cotton, Country Joe and the Fish, Richard Pryor, Dino Valenti, Byron Pope, It’s a Beautiful Day, Peanut Butter Conspiracy, Alice Stuart Thomas, the Youngbloods, New Lost City Ramblers, and local groups such as Juggernaut and Easy Chair. On the last day, The Grateful Dead arrive unscheduled.
Piano Falls out of the Sky
The Sky River Rock Festival and Lighter Than Air Fair was born of the “Piano Drop,” an event held four months earlier in Duvall on April 28, 1968, and sponsored by radio station KRAB and the Helix newspaper. The Piano Drop answered the musical question, “What sound does a piano make when it’s dropped from a helicopter?”
More than 3,000 inquiring people made a pilgrimage to tiny Duvall to witness this earth-splattering event and to see a show by Country Joe and the Fish. The Piano Drop was a countercultural success. The event also made money, causing Paul Dorpat, publisher/editor of the Helix, to speculate, “If 3,000 people come to hear one band, how many would come to hear a dozen, or two dozen, or ...?”
The idea appealed to sundry circles that intersected at the Helix office. Social revolutionaries, hippie communalists, psychedelic evangelists, musicians, and music fans all saw the value of holding some kind of event –- but what kind, and under what name?
An Instant, or a Millennium
It was magic. Even the drunken rowdies who intruded with the sole aim of kicking hippie butt were swept up in the collective wonder of the thing. When the festival ran short of drinking water, the Sultan townsfolk gladly trucked it in for free. Clouds and drizzle returned, but pervasive good cheer prevailed against every adversity and every shortage and could not be doused.
The three days passed in an instant, or a millennium. “It’s a Beautiful Day” finished the last set on the afternoon of September 2. The stage was disassembled, the tents struck, the cables coiled, the litter collected, and a final caravan of beat-up trucks, VW buses, and vans headed south toward the real world.
The following year, the second Sky River Rock Festival was held near Tenino, south of Olympia. By that time, outdoor rock concerts had become popular nationwide, and the second Sky River Rock did not achieve the successes garnered by the first. For many, experiencing something wonderful for the very first time was a hard act to follow.
(http://www.historylink.org)
- 1969: First day of the 1969 Sky River Rock Festival and Lighter Than Air Fair
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1969 Mississippi Fred McDowell 1960
The festival was held Labor Day Weekend August 30 and September 1, 1969, in Tenino, Washington. The lineup had James Cotton, Country Joe and the Fish, Flying Burrito Brothers, Buddy Guy, Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, Dr. Humbead's New Tranquility String Band, Kaleidoscope, Mississippi Fred McDowelll, The Steve Miller Band, New Lost City Ramblers, Pacific Gas & Electric, Billy Roberts, Sons of Champlin, Mark Spoelstra, Youngbloods, and many others. "Dr. Humbead's New Tranquility String Band and Medicine Show" consisted of Sue Draheim, Jim Bamford, Mac Benford, and Will Spires.[7][8] Steve Miller Band 1969
Most counties in the state of Washington had outlawed rock festivals by 1968, although Gov. Dan Evans said, “We can’t ban a rock concert, per se." Promotor John Chambless, who otherwise taught philosophy at the University of Washington, first found a site near Enumclaw, that was offered and then taken away, before settling on the Tenino site.[9] A day after the Woodstock festival began, the Sky River II festival began to be noticed. When Woodstock was over, Tenino-area residents held a public meeting to oppose Sky River II. It was billed as the Stop the Rock Festival Committee, meeting on August 21, led by a leader of the local John Birch Society, who claimed they couldn't allow an event that was the “glorification of communist movements in foreign countries.” Landowners and the Tenino Chamber of Commerce filed suit, the suit claimed there would be a noise impact on cows (“…it would cause them to lose flesh. They won’t be grazing.”) the local court stepped in to stop the festival; the State Supreme Court over stepped them to allow it on the day before it was to open. It was held at the Rainier Hereford Ranch, mostly dry grassland, near Tenino, south of Olympia. The crowd was estimated to be 30,000.
(https://en.wikipedia.org)
- 1969: First day of Texas International Pop Festival
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The Texas International Pop Festival was a music festival held at Lewisville, Texas, on Labor Day weekend, August 30-September 1, 1969. It occurred two weeks after Woodstock. The site for the event was the newly-opened Dallas International Motor Speedway, located on the east side of Interstate Highway 35E, across from the Round Grove Road intersection.
History
The festival was the brainchild of Angus G. Wynne III, son of Angus G. Wynne, the founder of the Six Flags Over Texas Amusement Park. Wynne was a concert promoter who had attended the Atlanta International Pop Festival on the July Fourth weekend. He decided to put a festival on near Dallas, and joined with the Atlanta festival's main organizer, Alex Cooley, forming the company Interpop Superfest.
Artists performing at the festival were: Led Zeppelin, B.B. King, Canned Heat, Chicago (then called Chicago Transit Authority), Delaney and Bonnie and Friends, Freddie King, Grand Funk Railroad, Herbie Mann, Incredible String Band, James Cotton, Janis Joplin, Johnny Winter, Nazz, Rotary Connection, Sam and Dave, Santana, Shiva's Headband, Sly and the Family Stone, Space Opera, Spirit, Sweetwater, Ten Years After and Tony Joe White.
North of the festival site was the campground on Lewisville Lake, where hippie attendees skinny-dipped and bathed. Also on the campground was the free stage, where some bands played after their main stage gig and several bands not playing on the main stage performed. It was on this stage that Wavy Gravy, head of the Hog Farm commune, acquired his name. (At Woodstock, he was Hugh Romney.)
The Merry Pranksters, Ken Kesey's group, was in charge of the free stage and camping area. While Kesey was neither at the Texas event nor at Woodstock, his right hand man, Ken Babbs, and his psychedelic bus, Further (Furthur) were. The Hog Farm provided security, a trip tent, and free food.
Attendance at the festival remains unknown, but is estimated between 120,000 and 150,000. As with Woodstock, there were no violent crimes reported. There was one death, due to heatstroke, and one birth.
High-quality soundboard bootleg recordings of almost the entire festival are circulated on the internet. Led Zeppelin's set is one of the most popular Led Zeppelin bootlegs due to the high technical and musical quality of the performance.
(https://en.wikipedia.org)
- 1970: Last day of the 1970 Isle Of Wight Festival
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The 1970 Isle of Wight Festival was held between 26 and 31 August 1970 at East Afton Farm an area on the western side of the Isle of Wight. It was the last of three consecutive music festivals to take place on the island between 1968 and 1970 and widely acknowledged as the largest musical event of its time, greater than the attendance of Woodstock[citation needed]. Although estimates vary, the Guinness Book of Records estimated 600,000, possibly 700,000 people attended. It was organised and promoted by local brothers, Ronnie, Ray and Bill Foulk. Ron Smith was site manager and Rikki Farr acted as compere.
The preceding Isle of Wight Festivals, also promoted by the Foulks, had already gained a good reputation in 1968 and 1969 by featuring acts such as Jefferson Airplane, T. Rex, The Move, Pretty Things, Joe Cocker, The Who and Bob Dylan in his first performance since his 1966 motorcycle accident.
The 1970 version, following Woodstock in the previous year, set out to move one step forward and enlisted Jimi Hendrix. With Hendrix confirmed, artists such as Chicago, The Doors, The Who, Joan Baez, and Free willingly took up the chance to play there. The event had a magnificent but impractical site, since the prevailing wind blew the sound sideways across the venue, and the sound system had to be augmented by Pink Floyd's PA. There was a strong, but inconsistent line up, and the logistical nightmare of transporting 600,000 people onto an island with a population of less than 100,000.
Political and logistical difficulties resulted in the organisers eventually realising that the festival would not make a profit and declaring it to be "a free festival", although the majority of the audience had paid for tickets in advance, and the event was filmed contemporaneously. However, at the time, the commercial failings of the festival ensured it would be the last event of its kind on the Isle of Wight for thirty-two years.
Sunday 30th
* Good News: American acoustic duo. * Kris Kristofferson (Second set) * Ralph McTell: Despite an enthusiastic reception from the audience, he did not play an encore, and the stage was cleared for Donovan. * Heaven: English answer to Chicago and Blood Sweat & Tears * Free: Their set list consisted of "Ride on a Pony", "Mr. Big", "Woman", "The Stealer", "Be My Friend", "Fire & Water", "I'm a Mover", "The Hunter", their classic hit "All Right Now", and concluded with a cover of Robert Johnson's "Crossroads". * Donovan: He first performed an acoustic set, and then an electric set with his band Open Road. * Pentangle: British folk combo. A German woman interrupted their set to deliver a political message to the audience. * The Moody Blues: A popular British act and veteran of the 1969 festival. Their rendition of "Nights in White Satin" can be seen in Message to Love : Their set is featured on Threshold of A Dream Live at the Isle of Wight 1970. * Jethro Tull: Their set is featured on Nothing Is Easy: Live at the Isle of Wight 1970. * Jimi Hendrix: The star of the festival performed in the early hours of 31 August with Mitch Mitchell on drums and Billy Cox on bass. His set has been released on CD and video in various forms. In the beginning Hendrix had technical problems, which at one point during "Machine Gun" involved the security's radio signal interfering with his amp's output. * Joan Baez: Her version of "Let It Be" can be seen in the film Message to Love. * Leonard Cohen: Backed by his band The Army, his tune "Suzanne" can be seen in the film Message to Love. In October 2009 came out audio and video (both DVD and Blu-Ray) record of his show, Live at the Isle of Wight 1970 (Leonard Cohen album). * Richie Havens: The musician who opened Woodstock closed this festival with a set during the morning of 31 August. As Havens performed his version of "Here Comes the Sun", the morning sun rose. Havens' set, which is available as an audience recording, also included "Maggie's Farm" by Bob Dylan, "Freedom", "Minstrel from Gault" and the Hare Krishna mantra.
(https://en.wikipedia.org)
- 1974: Aloysius Juodakis pleads guilty to possession following his mescaline manufacturing lab bust
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Mescaline Possession Plea Made
I-J Special Report SAN FRANCISCO — A man arrested in a raid on a San Rafael mescaline factory pleaded guilty Friday [August 30, 1974] in U.S. District Court to a charge of possessing the hallucinogenic drug with intent to distribute it. Judge Lloyd H. Burke ordered Aloysius G. Juodakis, 36, to return to his court Oct. 11 for sentencing on the guilty plea and decision on a motion to dismiss a second charge — of manufacturing the drug. Federal and San Rafael agents on April 11 raided what they called one of the largest mescaline factories in the United States, in a warehouse at 26 Medway Road. They arrested Juodakis in the chemical plant. San Rafael Police Detective Roy G. Hendricks said at the time that the plant could produce about $180,000 worth of the drug weekly.
( Daily Independent Journal (San Rafael, California), 03 Sep 1974, Tue, Page 1)
- 1982: Calvin Sweet loses his $3.9 million lawsuit against the US Army for subjecting him to LSD experiments at Edgewood
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Gl not entitled to money for LSD tests, court says By DAVID EGNER Associaled Press PIERRE, S.D. — An ex-soldier who t claims Army LSD experiments in 1957 drove him mentally ill isn't entitled to 83.9 million he sought in government compensation, an appeals court has ruled. The decision, which is the first ruling in the nation by a federal appeals court involving Army LSD experiments, may be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the lawyer for the former GI said Tuesday. "We're going to sit down and take a look at it," Rapid City lawyer Gregory Eiesland said, referring to Monday's [August 30, 1982] ruling by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis. "We need to see if we can show there are constitutional issues involved that the Supreme Court would want to rule on."
(Argus-Leader (Sioux Falls, South Dakota) 01 Sep 1982 Wed Page 13)
The Nation in Summary; Army Cleared In LSD Trial
By Michael Wright and Caroline Rand Herron Published: January 3, 1982
Calvin Sweet, a former soldier, claimed that Washington owed him $3.9 million because in 1957 he had been required to participate unknowingly in Army LSD experiments that had left him mentally ill - afflicted with ''paranoia, schizophrenia and chronic depression'' - and unemployable.
Last week, at the conclusion of a non-jury trial that got under way in April in Pierre, S.D., Federal District Court Judge Donald Porter said Mr. Sweet wasn't entitled to compensation because, for one thing, he hadn't filed his first claim against the Government until 1978, long after a two-year statute of limitations had expired.
For another, said the judge, Mr. Sweet hadn't shown that his mental condition was affected by a lack of follow-up medical attention.
During the trial, said to be the first of its kind, Government witnesses admitted that Mr. Sweet had taken part in drug experiments at the Army Chemical Warfare Laboratories at the Edgewood Arsenal in Maryland, but said that their records didn't indicate what substances he might have been given. A psychiatrist and a clinical psychologist, testifying for the Government, said that LSD experiments hadn't caused Mr. Sweet's mental problems.
Mr. Sweet said he would appeal the decision ''all the way to the Unit ed States Supreme Court because I believe I've been judged unfairly.'' M r. Sweet testified that between 1961 and 1980, when he stopped tryin g to work, he held almost 60 jobs.
(http://www.nytimes.com)
- 1984: Michael Hollingshead dies
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[August 30, 1984 as told to me by Andy Roberts, author of Albion Dreaming: A Popular History of LSD in Britain, who has his death certificate as well as other information from his family.]
Michael Hollingshead (pseudonym of Michael John Shinkfield ), born 30 September 1931 in Darlington (England), was an English researcher in the field of psychedelic drugs . He played a very important role in the spread of LSD in both the United States and the United Kingdom, starting with Timothy Leary and many others. He was the father of comic actress Vanessa Hollingshead .
Biography
Hollingshead had a difficult relationship with his father, who sent teenager Michael to a London school for bright but troubled children. Hollingshead claimed that he was a patient of psychoanalyst Anna Freud , but there is no record of it. After serving in the Air Force, he worked for the London travel agency Thomas Cook.
During his stay in London, he shared a flat with pediatrician John Beresford. At this time he changed his surname to Hollingshead, making a play on words with the expression hole in his head ('a hole in the head').
In the late 1950s he moved to New York and took over the executive secretariat of the Institute for the Anglo-American Cultural Exchange. He also shared there floor with Beresford, who had made friends with some psychedelic pioneers of Greenwich Village . Hollingshead, who had read Aldous Huxley's works on these substances, phoned him and asked for advice. Huxley told him about LSD, warning that it was much more potent than mescaline .
Asked by Hollingshead, Beresford used his hospital job to order a gram of LSD (a legal drug at the time) to the Sandoz laboratories in Switzerland , supposedly to perform bone marrow experiments. The order cost $ 285 and contained enough powdered LSD to prepare 5000 doses.
Hollingshead mixed the powder with distilled water and confectioner's sugar, until a sticky paste containing 5,000 doses of 200 μg was placed in a 16-ounce mayonnaise jar (this boat acquired a legendary status in the psychedelic world). During the process, Hollingshead sucked his fingers several times, absorbing the equivalent of five potent doses. When the drug began to take effect, he climbed onto the roof and remained there for the next fifteen hours, completely absorbed in its effects, experiencing the death of his body and passing into another reality he called "ecstatic nirvana."
Beresford accompanied Hollingshead in the experience and since then became a drug enthusiast, whose discovery in 1943 considered a divine compensation to the 1942 development of the atomic bomb.
Unable to integrate the extraordinary experience he had had in his daily life, Hollingshead called back to Huxley and he suggested that he contact the researcher Timothy Leary of Harvard University to discuss the potential of LSD.
Hollingshead wrote to Leary indicating his difficulties with the acid. Leary asked his friend George Litwin to come to Hollingshead's house and make sure he was all right. Litwin took Hollingshead to his house and, making sure he was not suffering from any mental disorder, took him to meet Leary.
Leary invited Hollingshead to live at home and take a course at Harvard. Although at first Leary was reluctant to try the LSD, he finally proved it and was so impressed by the experience that he spent several days without speaking, raising the alarm of his closest friends, such as Richard Alpert . For a while, Leary took Hollingshead as a guru, convinced that he was an emissary of a higher power.
A member of the Harvard group, in 1962 Hollingshead participated with Leary, Ralph Metzner and others in a psychedelic therapy experiment conducted with prisoners at Concord Prison.
When Leary and his right hand, Alpert, were expelled from Harvard for administering drugs to students, Hollingshead moved with them to live in a mansion in Millbrook , New York. The mischievous mood of Hollingshead and his tendency to impose his will on others made many of the Psinauts harbor doubts about him, but Leary had great confidence in his friend's ability to drive the lysergic travels and solve any problems Pose on them.
He later created an own project in New York along with Jean Houston , organizing guided tours of LSD and collecting data, which served as the basis for the book Masters and Houston Varieties of Psychedelic Experience .
In October 1965 he moved to London, where he opened the World Psychedelic Center, a body dedicated to popularizing and spreading psychedelia as it was understood and practiced at Millbrook: travel had to have a ritual structure and had to follow the instructions of an expert guide Who knew the Eastern sacred texts, like the Bard Thodol . This approach did not reach much popularity in the English psychedelic community, which generally preferred a more playful view of the psychedelic journey, open to improvisation.
In January 1966 police raided the Psychedelic Center and arrested Hollingshead, accusing him of possessing heroin and morphine and allowing cannabis to be consumed at his premises. When he was free, Hollingshead went on vacation to Switzerland to ski. On May 24, the trial was held against him; Hollingshead resigned to have a defense lawyer and defended himself, arguing that the heroine and morphine that had been found did not belong to him. The judge sentenced him to twenty-one months.
During his stay in the London prison of Wormwood Scrubs, he met the double agent George Blake , sentenced to 42 years for passing secrets to the KGB . According to Hollingshead, Blake asked him to initiate him into LSD, and after an enlightening trip he decided to escape as soon as he could be in prison. A few weeks later, he had fulfilled his plan and was in the USSR .
When he served his sentence, Hollingshead moved to Sweden and later to Nepal . After his Eastern experience, he decided to found a psychedelic ashram for those who found the western civilization overwhelming. He reached an agreement with the English religious authorities and initiated a commune called the Ashram of the Pure Land on the Scottish island of Greater Cumbrae. The church ended up forcing the closure of the ashram and Hollingshead and his friends moved to London to resume their lifestyle there. On their way, they stopped at an Oxfordshire mansion, where Hollingshead proposed to try a new set of LSD while two psychologists watched them. One of them was David Solomon , who wanted to test the LSD he had begun to produce, and which dominated the British scene from the 1970s to Operation Julie .
In 1973 he published an autobiographical book called The Man Who Turned On The World . He detailed his dealings with many of the leading figures of the 1960s, such as William Burroughs , John Lennon , George Harrison , Roman Polanski , Allen Ginsberg , Keith Richards , Paul Krassner , Paul Lee , Richard Katz , Pete LaRoca , Charlie Mingus , Saul Steinberg , Alan Watts and Paul McCartney . Hollingshead presumed to have initiated many of them into LSD consumption.
In the late 80's or early 90's, it disappeared in South America. There is no record of his death.
Works
Michael Hollingshead (1973). The Man Who Turned On The World . Blond & Briggs Ltd., London. ISBN 0-85634-015-4
Hollingshead was part of the Castalia Foundation and collaborated in the Psychedelic Review magazine. He interviewed Robert Anton Wilson for High Times magazine in 1980.
(www.wikipedia.org)
Edited by Learyfan (08/28/21 06:13 AM)
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