12 Comments

Great piece Robert. This brings back so many good memories. While at RPI in Troy NY, I was lucky to be selected for a summer course at Stanford in the summer of 1967. I wasn't really interested in the design course (our project was a more efficient shower head) but what was happening in the Haight. At the time a friend was transferring to UC at Berkeley and he drove out with my RPI room mate and we all met up. Three groups at The Fillmore for $3! The Electric Flag, Steve Miller, Gábor Szabó, The Dead for free in Palo Alto plus others. Haight St on Saturday night was a literal freak show. We had assigned reading at Stanford and went to a professor's home in the Palo Alto Hills to discuss the books. I remember the host professor saying to us "You should all go into the Haight and see what is happening there". The only downside was that there were grifters looking to rip off young innocents. We got ripped off twice. What did we know at 20 years old?

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Very cool, Robert! I was someone who experienced the Sixties in the flesh, but at age 12 in 1967, the Haight, the summer of love, and the psychedelic musical output thereof was probably as far from my orbit as it all was from you and yours!

While I was all about music in '67, my record pile was British Invasion, and pretty much anyone who was featured in the Tiger Beats, Flips, and 16 Magazines I collected voraciously! I could've used this article by you in 1975, when I started spinning discs at the first of two FM rock radio stations I worked at!

I quickly had to learn what the Airplane actually sounded like (beyond the articles and reviews in the rock press of the day I was reading...like fellow Substack-er Wayne Robins!) on record before I hit the station's console chair! Thankfully, most albums were pre-marked with which cuts we jocks were "allowed" to play!

Anyway, very enjoyable trip, Robert, and thanks!🎶😎👍

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Their tunes in the Hunter Thompson / Depp film Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, fantastic. I lived through that period, the best. Cassidy and a few are still out there playing.

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A great set, Robert.

I still have the program that came with the Woodstock movie, which my amazing and patient grandmother took me to in Amsterdam for my birthday. I gave her lots of chances to change her mind.

Sadly I cut out the Jefferson Airplane model plane, permanently marring the book, and yet that was what you were supposed to do in a world where they knew they wouldn't live forever.

I never knew that Grace Slick played recorder, especially with such a distinctive voice. I would have thought flute to be more likely given she doesn't appear to have had folk or classical music origins, but why not.

As to Jorma, Hot Tuna! He continues to perform and there are some excellent solo performances where he shares his artistry with Blues stories.

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May 19, 2022Liked by Robert C. Gilbert

Haight, Amoeba.... I liked this immediately. Now for a more in-depth read :)

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I think it might be when hunter talks about ‘the high water mark’ anyway, very well used in the film…..

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