DJTees Blog

This is where I indulge in my passions - VINYL & ROCK 'n' ROLL

USA Best Selling Singles of 1969

USA Best Selling Singles of 1969

Authored By John Nicholson

Well I think we can do without hearing the Archies even once more. I was sick of it in 1969 and remain so, but the second on the list by 5th Dimension remains one of the glorious late 60s anthems. A song of real hope and optimism that everything was going to be alright. From Hair of course, which was such a big cultural force in 1969 and not to be underestimated in its profundity. The 5th Dimension was massive and so classy. At the time, they seemed middle-of-the-road to me, but now I see them as experts in the...

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Man-Pop Festival, Winnipeg, Canada 1970

Man-Pop Festival, Winnipeg, Canada 1970

Authored By John Nicholson

On August 29, Man-Pop Festival - Winnipeg 1970, one of Winnipeg's first outdoor rock festivals, took place at the Winnipeg Stadium. ManPop was part of the youth festivities for the Manitoba Centennial celebrations. Concerts had been held across the province all summer long and Man-Pop was the grand finale. The Centennial Corporation budgeted $230,000 for the event, expecting to make back $100,000 of that through ticket sales. In July 1970 the lineup was announced. The show would be headlined by Led Zeppelin. Their fee was $50,000. It also included a mix of local, national and international acts: Iron Butterfly; The...

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Knebworth Festival 1976

Knebworth Festival 1976

Authored By John Nicholson

The Rolling Stones were booked to play at Knebworth and entered right into the spirit of the 'Knebworth Fair' vibe. Earlier in the summer of 1976, they hired two brave souls to dress up in Harlequin outfits - the symbol of the event - and run onto centre court at Wimbledon on finals day with a banner 'Stones At Knebworth'. Even better, they got two topless girls to do the same at a televised Sussex cricket match. That must have caused some choking on pink gins. 'I say, old boy, are those breasts?' 'I think so, Major. Long time since...

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A History of the Woodstock Festival - Part 2

A History of the Woodstock Festival - Part 2

Authored By John Nicholson

This new quartet of businessmen - Lang, Kornfeld, Roseman and Roberts - were worried. They were worried that they might not get enough people to their festival. Crazy, huh? They genuinely hoped to get a mere 50,000 there and were concerned that might not be be possible because there had been very few big festivals in 1968. No-one was sure in early 69 that the demand was still there for such a thing. So in early 69, they started to advertise it, even though they didn't even have a venue tied down or any bands booked. Ads were placed on...

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A History of the Woodstock Festival - Part 1

A History of the Woodstock Festival - Part 1

Authored By John Nicholson

If you've seen the Woodstock movie, you'll have seen Michael Lang, one of the guys who helped put Woodstock on. A forever hipster riding a horse or a motorbike, with wild hair and one of those beatific smiles that suggests he's permanently stoned. In 1970 he seemed like a new type of business dude who was interested in art more than bread. A man who spoke the language of the alternative community. A man who knew a good vibe from a bad vibe. And, in some ways, that's exactly what he was and continues to be. And we should celebrate...

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The History Of The Woodstock Festival - Part 5

The History Of The Woodstock Festival - Part 5

Authored By John Nicholson

As volunteers started cleaning up the site, the media swung into gear, quickly painting it as a 'nightmare' in the New York Times. They called the fans 'lemmings' and asked what sort of culture could create such a colossal mess? But the trouble with taking that angle was this: it didn't sell. People felt good about Woodstock, not bad. Monticello's police chief praised the kids as most courteous, considerate and well behaved. The day after festival, the Times softened its stance and praised the communal spirit. Almost overnight, Woodstock became more than just another festival that came and went. It...

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The History Of The Woodstock Festival - Part 4

The History Of The Woodstock Festival - Part 4

Authored By John Nicholson

As the rain came down and turned the whole site into a quagmire, the dirt that had covered the main electricity cables was washed away, leaving them exposed. Gradually the insulation on those cables got worn away by the ceaseless trudging of the masses. So now there were thousands of wet people set to be fried. Errr...no pressure man, but we need to make that not happen. The dude who was the chief electrician and thus responsible for the whole site not turning into an electric fire got hold of Joel Rosenman and told him that they'd have mass electrocution on their...

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The History of the Woodstock Festival - Part 3

The History of the Woodstock Festival - Part 3

Authored By John Nicholson

The Woodstock festival was due to start on the Friday, but by Thursday of that week, traffic was in gridlock. On the quiet, Lang et al had begun to expect 200,000 to attend because they knew that big fests in 69 were pulling those kinda numbers. Besides, all roads were jammed from midweek onwards, so that was a good indication that a lot of people were heading towards to the festival. But even so, spirits where high. On the Thursday it was already dawning on those stuck in traffic on the New York thru'way that this was clearly A Very...

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Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival, Griffin, Indiana 1972

Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival, Griffin, Indiana 1972

Authored By John Nicholson

This was one of those times in rock history where the sex and drugs and rock 'n' roll cliche was really true. From '67 onwards, every time a festival was proposed anywhere in the world, the straight folk panicked, fearing that a bunch of long haired freaks would arrive, get stoned, get naked, start humping in their gardens and create some form of mayhem. Mostly they never did. But at the weirdly named, Erie Canal Soda Pop Festival 1972, that actually all happened, and then some. Maybe by calling it a 'soda pop festival' the promoters aimed to make it...

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What's The Real Best Selling Live Album Ever?

What's The Real Best Selling Live Album Ever?

Authored By John Nicholson
Do you know what the best-selling live album of all time is? If you're around my age of 54, you'll probably think it is Peter Frampton's Frampton Comes Alive. But you'd be wrong. That record is only certified as 6 x Platinum in USA, therefore commonly stated that it sold 6 million copies in America [...]
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Knebworth Festival 1974,

Knebworth Festival 1974,

Authored By John Nicholson

The first Knebworth festival in 1974 was the UK’s initial major excursion into the very big one-day festival idea that had become so popular in the USA. Up to this point, even the big Isle Of Wight and Bath festivals had been at least as much counterculture gatherings as music festivals, often marked by some flavour of anarchy and shambolic organisation, all of which was part of the charm, of course. The Reading Festival was an annual event but was spread over three days. But by 1974 things were quickly becoming more corporate and the business had worked out how...

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Pilton Festival 1970

Pilton Festival 1970

Authored By John Nicholson

The first show put on at Worthy Farm, which the next year would become titled the Glastonbury Festival, was inspired after Michael Eavis saw an open-air concert headlined by Led Zeppelin at the 1970 Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music at the nearby Bath and West Showground in 1970. It was small scale affair with 30 stewards and 24 toilets. Held on Saturday 19 September 1970, the day after Jimi Hendrix’s death and attended by anywhere from 1,000, to 2,500 people when 3,000 were needed to break even, the original headline acts were The Kinks and Wayne Fontana and...

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Palm Springs Pop Festival 1968

Palm Springs Pop Festival 1968

Authored By John Nicholson

An early example of what was actually merely a rock gig, attracting the ‘festival’ tag. Uniquely, at least as far as I know, in that it was held in a Drive-In Movie Theatre. Advertised as ‘An Out-Door Concert Under The Stars' at Sun Air Drive-In (movie theater), 68050 Highway 111, Cathedral City, outside Palm Springs, Riverside County, California  For a mere $2.50 in advance, or $3 on the gate you got to see Eric Burdon and The Animals headline a bill that also included Blue Cheer, Sweetwater, The Collectors, and Dirty Blues Band. Lights were by the Picadilly Light Show....

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Myponga Festival, Australia 1971

Myponga Festival, Australia 1971

Authored By John Nicholson

Despite being all the way down at the bottom of the map, Australia had its own emerging freak and head scene in the late 60s and early 70s. It’s an interesting scene too because it was largely self-generated. It was such a haul that a lot of bands simply never, or only rarely, played Down Under so they had to get their own groove on, mostly powered by their own bands. The town of Myponga is situated on South Australia's Fleurieu Peninsula, about 60 kilometres south of Adelaide.  The Myponga Festival - its proper title was "The Australian Festival of...

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New York Pop Festival, Randall's Island 1970

New York Pop Festival, Randall's Island 1970

Authored By John Nicholson

In July 1970 on New York's Randall's Island, an event billed as "New York's Pop Festival" was held. It was nothing to do with 'pop' music, of course. This was to be different to a 'normal' festival. For a start it was to be held in Downing Stadium and there'd be no camping. It was billed as a series of concerts rather than a 'traditional' festival. However, three weeks before the shows, groups representing the Black Panthers, yippies and Free Rangers - styling themselves as the RYP/OFF Collective - presented the promoters with a list of frankly bonkers demands. They...

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