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This is where I indulge in my passions - VINYL & ROCK 'n' ROLL
In 1960, Russell Solomon opened the first Tower Records store on Broadway, in Sacramento, California. He named it for his father's drugstore, which shared a building and name with the Tower Theatre, where Solomon first started selling records. The first stand-alone Tower Records store was located at 2514 Watt Ave in Arden Arcade, a suburb of Sacramento, California. By 1976, Solomon had opened Tower Books, Posters, and Plants at 1600 Broadway, next door to another Sacramento Tower Records location. Seven years after its founding, Tower Records expanded to San Francisco, opening a store in what was originally a grocery store...
A significant festival not so much in itself but for the fact that its success inspired a bigger and more famous show in the summer which was broadcast on TV. Held on Thursday Mar 26, 1970 at Cincinnati Gardens, Cincinnati Ohio, it was organised by Mike Quatro (brother of Suzi and Patti and quite the mover and shaker in the Ohio/Michigan rock promotion scene at the time) and a chap called Russ Gibb. He’s an interesting dude. He was from Dearborn, Michigan, best known for his role in the "Paul is dead" phenomenon, a story he broke as a disc...
Held between Fri Sep 30, 1966 and Sun Oct 02 this was a three-day event which featured the last legal Acid Test (shortly before LSD was criminalized) with Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters, the Grateful Dead, Mimi Farina, The Only Alternative, The Committee, Wildflower, the San Francisco Mime Troupe, and many others. The handbill was designed by Stewart Brand (of the legendary Whole Earth Catalog fame) and features his handwriting. It was organised by something called ‘the Experimental College’ which sounds like a far out sort of college to go to, man. A local TV station sent out a...
A fundraising gig for a specific cause is commonplace today but it was not always so, especially in the rock and roll world. But 18 months before The Concert For Bangladesh came the Winter Festival For Peace held on Wednesday Jan 28, 1970 at Madison Madison Square Garden This was one of the first times major acts came together and donated their performances to aid a specific social/political agenda. Organised by Sid Bernstein and Peter Yarrow (of Peter Paul and Mary fame) everyone played for free and all proceeds of the event would go to the Vietnam Moratorium effort. Sid...
The idea, so commonplace now, of putting on gigs to raise money for local causes really got going in the late 60s. This one held in San Francisco at California Hall on Polk Street (long a gathering place for people who didn’t fit the mainstream) was a benefit for Haight-Ashbury Karmic Ball Fund and the Church of ONE. Far out man. Who doesn’t love a Karmic Ball? The Haight-Ashbury Karmic Bail Fund provided financial bail assistance primarily for those arrested under the marijuana and LSD possession laws. How cool. They’d send someone with a fistful of green to spring you...
This was a week-long festival that took place in March 1970 at the Roundhouse in London which was a regular gig for counterculture bands, and as the 70s went on, would be host to thousands of gigs by pretty much every touring band that ever trod the boards. It was billed as “Seven Nights of Celebration” and as you can see, it was a wild affair! People stood around and smoked and everything. It was a collaboration between regular performers at what were called the Sunday Implosion gigs and The Living Theatre, a radical experimental theatre company, indeed the oldest radical...
For some reason, the early 70s saw festivals in the UK played out on bleak hillsides and rain-lashed moorlands. It was as if the upstanding straight folk had banished the patchouli-drenched hoards to the most punishing extremes of society, as some sort of penance merely for liking the Groundhogs. The Buxton Festivals of 1973 and 1974 have gone down in British rock history as legendary in this respect. People like this turned up and had themselves a real good time, despite the environment resembling a post-nuclear apocalypse. The bill was Canned Heat, Chuck Berry, Nazareth, Edgar Broughton Band, The Groundhogs,...
Abilene lies 180 miles west of Dallas out on the I20, out in the hot heart of the Lone Star State. It was where Mason ‘Classical Gas’ Williams was born and on Sunday May 2nd, 1971 it held its first rock festival. Well, I say festival but in reality it was a one-day outdoor gig. The line-up was a handful of local rock bands plus CSNY were due to play as headliners. Photos show that this was no more than a small wooden platform erected as a stage and placed in a field. To say the least, they kept things...
Whilst almost totally unknown, this is an important UK show in the history of rock because this was pretty much the first one-day rock fest in this country. And what a stellar line-up it was too. Cream, Geno Washington, Pink Floyd, Sounds Force Five, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Move, Zoot Money Held on bank holiday Monday May 29, 1967 at the Tulip Bulb Auction Hall, Spalding, Lincolnshire which is basically a massive metal shed. Towards the end of 1966, Grantham promoter, former footballer Brian Thompson, set about booking Geno Washington and the Ram Jam Band and The Move. Their...
This is a mysterious festival. Due to be held Sat Jun 10 - Sun Jun 11, 1967, did it actually take place? No-one is quite sure. The only evidence that it was scheduled to happen is the lovely poster made for the event by Joe Gomez. There are no reports of it happening and no reports of it being cancelled. This was at the time Ali was becoming a counter culture hero for resisting the draft as a conscientious objector. It was due to be held at Hunters Point in SF at a time when most such benefit gigs were held...