lues ay, May I P 1 ItHE MlI-IAN DAiL Page Five
Rock: The beginning of the end r AA
FRANK ZAPPA
and the MOTHERS OF INVENTION
with LIV INGSTON TAYI OR and
, ~BAMIBIT
Saturday, 29 May 1971
8:30 P.M.
Oakland University Outdoor Pavillion
$5.00 General Admission
TICKETS AT J.L. Hudson's
Head West in Rochester & Birmingham
Marshall Music in Lansing
LITTLE THINGS IN ANN ARBOR
TOWN HALL PRODUCTION
NEW YORK (A') - Two years
ago, 400,000 rock fans jammed
an upstate New Y o r k alfalfa
field in a massive demonstra-
tion of love and peace as a way
. of life. But now, disillusionment
with the rock scene has spread
far and wide. Rock performers
have turned money mad. The
deaths of some prominent rock
stars and t h e ecology move-
ment's call for purity have
turned many young people off
AV drugs, and the music itself is
undergoing drastic alterations.
The announcement by r o c k
impresario Bill Graham recently
that he would close his two em-
poria of I i v e music, Fillmore
East in New York and Fillmore
West in San Francisco, was seen
as heralding an end of an era in
rock.
The groups who once were
willing to brave the rain and
mud of Woodstock to play had
turned, Graham said, into high-
ly structured corporations de-
manding higher and higher pay-
ments for their services. Top
bands, like the Jefferson Air-
plane and Sly and the Family
Stone, command fees as high as
$50,000 for a single night's per-
formance and, Graham charg-
ed, income has taken a prece-
dence over music.
"Rock is joining America," be
said. "It's becoming a General
Motors, a Pacific Gas & Elec-
tric, or any other big corpora-
tion you can name.
"When we started in 1965, 1
associated with a n d employed
'musicians.' Now more often
than not, it's with 'officers and
stockholders' in large corpora-
tions - only they happen to
have long hair and play gui-
tars."
Woodstock was in many ways
the beginning of an era, an as-
sertion by American youth that
they had their own culture and
. their own way of celebrating.
Woodstock was the end also, for
no matter what its success was,
the myth it created could never
be matched by the reality of
any successor.
The next major festival in Al-
tamont, Calif., was a free con-
cert offered by the Rolling
Stones. Members of the Hell's
Angels motorcycle gang were
hired to keep the crowd under
control and before the evening
was over one youth was dead.
While Altamont may h a v e
been taken as a warning, the
attractions of the outdoor con-
cert especially when compared
to the smaller incomes provided
by indoor performances, were
1/5 OF CPA'S IN USA
ARE FORMER STUDENTS OF
Becker CPA Review Course
DETROIT (313) 864-0128-
too obvious to the big time ar-
tist.
"He'd rather p 1 a y the one
concert with 20,000 people and
spend the other three days rest-
ing on his yacht," Graham com-
plained.
The year of the rock fest was
1970: Love Valley, Goose Lake,
Strawberry Fields, Powder Ridge,
Buffalo Party Convention and
Roast, Beaufort Water Festi-
val.
However, only 18 of 48 major
festivals scheduled came off, ac-
cording to Jon Northland, as-
sistant editor of the rock week-
ly, Rolling Stone.
"The major reason is politi-
cal," he said. "The day after the
festival is announced, the city
council and the police come up
with some emergency ordinance
that makes it impossible to hold
it.'.
Don Friedman watched his
Randall's Island Festival in New
York City crumble under pres-
sure from radicals until the
doors were finally thrown open
to the public.
"The love, peace thing of
Woodstock has gone out," Fried-
man said. "It's been replaced by
anarchy, complete total anar-
chy."
The only type of site left in
which crowds can be controlled
are the sports arenas, like Mad-
ison Square Garden. Promoters
can jam 21,000 youths into the
Garden, a n d because of this,
groups prefer to play there, de-
spite the poor amplification.
In the last year or so, major
-Richard Lee, Inc.
upheavals wracked the rock mu-
sic scene. The Beatles, who dom-
inated the music of the 1960s
split and squabbled over their
fortune.
Within days of each other,
singer Janis Joplin and guitar-
ist Jimi Hendrix died, of appar-
ent drug overdoses.
In the meantime, a new mus-
ical style emerged to challenge
rock. The ear splitting roar of
10,000 watts of amplification
have begun to give way to the
soft strum of nylon guitar
strings. "Country style" bands
like The Band, soft-voiced
singers like James Taylor, vocal
groups like Crosby, Stills, Nash,
and Young have come on ithe
scene.
To Timothy Ferris, New York
bureau chief of Rolling Stone
magazine, that may have been
part of the decline of the rock
scene.
"Music starts to die whei peo-
ple can't d a n c e to it," Ferris
said. "Country Is not goiig to
have that magnetism, that great
power over masses of people."
At the Fillmore East, it was
business as usual and most kids
seemed unconcerned about Gra-
ham's announced closing date,
June 26.
"I'll tell you the truth," said
one young m a n, "the crowds
have b e e n such bummers, it
really doesn't upset anybody."
"I think he should give it to
the people," said one girl. "Make
it free. Get the bands free. Put
acid in the water and let every-
body drink free,
"EYE OPENING... TALK ABOUT A SWINGER"
-.Bob Salmaggi, Group W Network
"WOMEN AND MEN LOVE 'RELATIONS'."
Show Magazine
"BREATHLESS"
-N.Y. Times
liii lhaiet,
~ ~ - -
I
r.i
persons under 18 7:15 and 9:00
not admitted
a FIF ~PTH Forum
DA 66-24 STATE & LIBERTY "STS. No
Fudpucker
UN IVERSITY
A Campus Conglomerate
Humorous BOOK MATCHES
How to be POPULAR in one easy lesson:
Be the hit among all your friends by showing these
matches and joking about Your Alma Mater
FUDPUCKER U.
Great conversational item:
*With your golf cronies
t During a heated bowling contest
* Scattered around at your fraternity or sorority
0 Distraction at Friday night poker
w At the coffee break
SPECIAL OFFER:$ 00
100 match books COIN, CHECK or
PREPAID MONEY ORDER
MATCH ES-Gibson
820 S. Yale Ave.
Villa Park, le dl. 60181
.Allow'severol weeks for delivery,
HELD
NOW THE ELECTRIFYING
BROADWAY HIT IS ON THE SCREEN!
OPEN
12:45
OVER
SHOWS
AT
1, 3 5,
& 9 P.M.
.,iAV1 '