The Woodstock Festival : Rolling Stone

In commemoration of the 40th anniversary of Woodstock, Rolling Stone is re-issuing the stories of its coverage of the event on the web site.

Check it out...

The Woodstock Festival : Rolling Stone

First Look: Psychedelic “Taking Woodstock” Movie Poster : Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily

Here's a look at the very cool movie poster for Ang Lee's Taking Woodstock movie. Very cool.

Check out the article at Rolling Stone for more info...

First Look: Psychedelic “Taking Woodstock” Movie Poster : Rolling Stone : Rock and Roll Daily

Forty years later: Country Joe's role at Woodstock - Santa Cruz Sentinel

Here's an article on Country Joe MacDonald and what he's up to these days. Check it out.

Forty years later: Country Joe's role at Woodstock - Santa Cruz Sentinel

Crosby, Stills & Nash announce tour plans - UPI.com

Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young will be touring again this summer, according to the following article. They haven't announced tour dates yet, but stay tuned.

This may be one of your last opportunities to see these legends in concert. I thought that might be the case about seven years ago when I shelled out $150 a seat to see them in Phoenix. I don't know that I would do it again, but I can tell you that I thought it was worth it. They were great in concert, especially Neil Young.

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Crosby, Stills & Nash announce tour plans - UPI.com

Woodstock co-founder seeks sponsors for 2009 edition | Entertainment | Music | Reuters

Woodstock promoter Michael Lang has called plans for a 2009 40th-anniversary festival "speculative" but also says that he wants to make them happen.

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Woodstock co-founder seeks sponsors for 2009 edition | Entertainment | Music | Reuters

The Image Works commemorates the 40th anniversary of Woodstock | About the Image

Here's a link to a series of photos of Woodstock--many of which have never been seen publicly before--that a company called The Image Works has put on display on their web site. This link leads to a separate web site called "About the Image" and includes a nice slide show of the images along with a voice-over. There's a link at the bottom of the page to the images on the site of The Image Works.

Check it out...

The Image Works commemorates the 40th anniversary of Woodstock | About the Image

Woodstock Museum Revisits the Counterculture Festival That Defined an Era - NYTimes.com

Here's an article from the New York Times on the recently-opened Woodstock Museum in Bethel, N.Y.--officially called the Bethel Woods Center for the Arts, with the Museum at Bethel Woods being the centerpiece of the complex that includes two outdoor performance spaces. Sounds like a possible car trip for the summer. Maybe I'll see you there.

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Woodstock Museum Revisits the Counterculture Festival That Defined an Era - NYTimes.com

Not Fade Away - San Jose Mercury News

Here's a story from the San Jose Mercury-News about the ongoing legacy of the Grateful Dead, the popularity of Grateful Dead cover bands, and the pending opening of the Grateful Dead Archives at UC-Santa Cruz next year.

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Not Fade Away - San Jose Mercury News

Oscar winner to direct Woodstock documentary for VH1 and History Channel - recordonline.com - The Times Herald Record

VH1 and the History Channel are co-producing a documentary about the events leading up to the 1969 Woodstock festival. The documentary will be aired in August, presumably prior to the 40th anniversary of the event. Woodstock promoter Michael Lang is also a co-producer of the event. It will be directed by Oscar winner Barbara Kopple.

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Oscar winner to direct Woodstock documentary for VH1 and History Channel - recordonline.com - The Times Herald Record

Classic Rock » Blog Archive » Woodstock 2009 Set For New York And Berlin

Here's some of the scuttlebutt that's happening on the Internet regarding the possibility of a 40th anniversary celebration of Woodstock, with one concert/festival being held in update New York and another being held in Berlin. As this story states, promoter Michael Lang and others are trying to get some of the original acts from Woodstock together for this event, including the Dead, The Who, and Santana.

Do you think it will happen? Will it be more like '69 or more like '99 this time?

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Classic Rock » Blog Archive » Woodstock 2009 Set For New York And Berlin

Havens gives Homer a taste of Woodstock - The Homer Tribune :: Homer, Alaska

Richie Havens is on the road this year performing at festivals and solo gigs and promoting his latest CD of 13 cover songs. This article showcases his performance in Homer, AK, and provides a good interview and historical background.

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Havens gives Homer a taste of Woodstock - The Homer Tribune :: Homer, Alaska

Design Artwork for a Shrinking Album Cover

"Back in the day" (as they say), album covers used to offer a broad canvas for artistic expression, as evidenced by many classic album covers, including many from the '60s (such as the Grateful Dead's Aoxomoxoa, above). But the canvas shrunk with the shift from LPs to CDs and has shifted again with the prevalance of the iPod and other portable music devices that limit album artwork to dimensions measured in pixels rather than inches or square feet. This article in Wired magazine laments this trend but also points to some musical artists (and their graphic artists) who are responding to this challenging trend.

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Design Artwork for a Shrinking Album Cover

James Rejects Woodstock Snub - contactmusic.com

Woodstock or Hawaii? Which would you choose? Tommy James and the Shondells were given this option while they were already vacationing in Hawaii and they chose to stay there, and today they wish they had chosen Woodstock because the cultural importance of the event.

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http://www.contactmusic.com/news.nsf/article/james%20regrets%20woodstock%20snub_1095523

Nazi Airport Meets Flower Power: Woodstock Coming to Tempelhof? - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

A 40-year-anniversary celebration of Woodstock on an old Nazi air base in Germany??? Don't believe me? Read it for yourself...

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,606886,00.html

'1969': The year, and a book, that defined an era - USA Today

While many people might feel like 1968 was a more momentous year, but author Rob Kirkpatrick makes a claim for 1969's honor to that distinction in his new book 69: The Year Everything Changed (Skyhorse Publishing, 288 pp., $24.95). For our studies on Woodstock, this is a good thing. Pick up the book and see if you agree.

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http://www.usatoday.com/life/books/news/2009-01-25-1969-book_N.htm

The Associated Press | San Francisco weighs ban on new head shops

San Francisco civic leaders are attempting to crack down on the proliferation of head shops in the Haight-Ashbury district. Since I visited the area when I was last in San Francisco about three years ago, I'll do my scholarly duty and try to get back down to the Haight while I'm there in March to get a first-hand impression of how the situation has changed in only three years. I certainly don't remember the district being overrun with head shops when I was there. Stay tuned.

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http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5i9rZ_yYn6PuxmBik79yl12vSTDywD96B0SS80

R. Crumb on display at Mass. Art - Arts

The work of noted counterculture cartoonist R. Crumb will be on display Massachusetts College of Art in Boston. Who is R. Crumb? You've probably seen his work, but here's what the Suffolk College campus newspaper said about him:

Crumb was born in 1943 in Philadelphia, Penn. After high school, he moved out to Cleveland where he took a job designing greeting cards for the American Greetings Corporation. After experimenting with LSD, Crumb left for San Francisco, where he created Zap! Comics and co-founded the underground comix movement, a trend of self-published comics spawned by the 1960s counterculture that often took aim at sexual taboos, drug use, and the establishment in general.

...

Crumb's work is a monument of the counter-culture movement, a virtual middle-finger pointed at the monotony and conformity of 1950's middle America and in many ways, the formulaic, basic approach being taken to comics up until that point in time. Crumb works to ridicule not only the establishment, but the middle-class hippies who rebel for the sake of rebelling.

One comic called "Squirrelly the Squirrel" works to lampoon Tom-and-Jerry-like antics that are all-too repeated in cartoons. After Squirrelly finds out that his arch-nemesis, the Fox, has become a vegetarian, he stomps all over his garden and permanently blinds him with insecticide. Squirrelly later runs into the Fox, who strangles him after Squirrelly tricks him into burning himself, and is thrown in jail.

Crumb also satirizes counter-culture with a comic called "Jumpin' Jack Flash" about a miscreant who tricks his followers into stabbing each other for his sexual pleasure. The comic ends with Crumb telling us that it "proves women are no god dam good!"

Another comic on display is Crumb's iconic "Fritz the Cat." The comic chronicles how Fritz mischievously manipulates some na've young hippy girls into coming with him to a friend's apartment for a smoke session and bathtub orgy. As the orgy grows in numbers, the police kick in the door and Fritz escapes in the confusion caused by a toilet exploding. Fritz then mugs a socialite on the street to disguise himself and makes his way to the park he was originally staying at.

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R. Crumb on display at Mass. Art - Arts

Spreading Woodstock's stardust - Albany, N.Y.: Timesunion.com

Taking Woodstock, a film about the Woodstock Music and Arts Festival that is being directed by noted director Ang Lee of Brokeback Mountain fame, has finished shooting in New Lebanon, N.Y., and is set to be released in August in time for the 40th anniversary of Woodstock.

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Albany, N.Y.: Timesunion.com - Print Story

Patrick McGoohan has died | Prime-Time TV commentary | '60s mind-blowing, Television | Ken Tucker's Watching TV | EW.com

Most of us won't remember him, although his name may sound oddly familiar, but counterculturally-based spy actor Patrick McGoohan has died at the age of 80. Appearing in the British T.V. show The Prisoner,, McGoohan's character was stripped of his name and known only as Number Six, prompting his character to scream defiantly, "I am not a number, I am a free man!" McGoohan also appeared in the movie Ice Station Zebra and more recently in Braveheart

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Patrick McGoohan has died | Prime-Time TV commentary | '60s mind-blowing, Television | Ken Tucker's Watching TV | EW.com

Lang book to explore height of counterculture - poughkeepsiejournal.com

A new book, The Road to Woodstock, is being written by Woodstock concert promoter Michael Lang and will come out this summer, in time for the 40th anniversary of Woodstock. Had the book been published last year, my frustration in trying to find a definitive text for this course could have been alleviated. (*sigh*) Even so, the book should make for excellent reading. Look for it.

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Lang book to explore height of counterculture - poughkeepsiejournal.com

End Comes for Outpost of East Village Counterculture - NY Times

This month marks the end of a New York vintage clothing and bric-a-brac shop that has endured as a psychedelic oasis for 42 years. Love Saves the Day (aka "L.S.D."), located at the corner of 2nd Ave. and 7th St. in the East Village, is closing after the death of the owner's wife left the store "without its soul," according to owner Richard Henson.

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End Comes for Outpost of East Village Counterculture - NY Times