Free John Sinclair Rally--December 10, 1971

And now, marijuana is legal in Michigan, where John Sinclair was sentenced to ten years for two joints.  He did more than two years.  This concert kicked ass. Watch the video.....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eqbHsUcuN6I

John has been doing a radio show from Amsterdam for many years....check it out...
http://radiofreeamsterdam.org/shows/the-john-sinclair-radio-show/

Panama Red and Elvis

Elvis died August 16, 1977

https://www.counterpunch.org/2016/08/17/panama-red-and-elvis/

John Perry Barlow.....

Grateful Dead lyricist, psychedelic ranger and internet warrior...
http://stillhomeron.blogspot.com/2018/02/rip-john-perry-barlow.html

Bob Dylan and the Band Play Madison Square Garden January 30, 1974

This show was one of three at the Garden.  It was the first time Dylan had toured in eight years.  He and The Band had just released the album Planet Waves.  Tickets could only be obtained via a lottery.  My roommate at Fordham had scored a couple but he had no spares.  I lucked out, though.  A guy in one of my classes sold me his extra for the January 31 afternoon show at face value.  I was awestruck the entire show. Here's a review.

At the beginning....

An excerpt from the beginning of my book Daydream Sunset...

https://www.counterpunch.org/2013/07/26/stones-hendrix-and-altamont/

1979--The Epilogue

The Epilogue from Daydream Sunset

https://www.counterpunch.org/2009/07/20/recalling-1979/

Doonesbury Comic Goes Nationwide on October 26, 1970

No longer just a comic strip for the Yale newspaper, Doonesbury hit the mainstream newspapers. Not exactly an underground comic, but its leftish political content meant that some newspapers put the trip on the editorial page instead of with the rest of the comics.

Here is that "original" strip

Daydream Sunset on Sale at Counterpunch Books!

Go to this link, Use coupon code MUCKRAKER for 40% off all Books at Checkout....

https://store.counterpunch.org/product/day-dream-sunset/

Peace, Love, and Credit Where It’s Due: Women of the Counterculture

Lemke-Santangelo's book was an important reference for the Daydream Sunset chapter on women in the counterculture.

https://ww2.kqed.org/arts/2017/05/17/peace-love-and-credit-where-its-due-women-of-the-counterculture/

War Is Over 1975

May 11, 1975  War is Over concert in Central Park, NYC.  Saigon was liberated days before....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AqrkPP_g8Xs

I write about another celebration in College Park, MD...in my book Daydream Sunset...

The Italian Spring of 1977

"On March 11, 1977, in the city the Italian Communist Party had governed since 1945, the carabinieri shot an unarmed medical student, Francesco Lorusso, 25, during an autonomist demonstration.  Pitched battles ensued between students and the police, with barricaded streets and Molotov cocktails used on one side, and tear gas and rubber bullets on the other side. Tanks rumbled down Via Rizzoli. French intellectuals Gilles Deleuze, Michel Foucault, Felix Guattari, Jean-Paul Sartre, and others denounced the state’s repressive methods. In September, student groups forced the municipal government to sponsor a three-day, national conference against repression in the city, with free food and use of the sports stadium made available to the 100,000 people who came to Bologna."

I cover the Spring of 1977 throughout Italy in my book Daydream Sunset.  It was a revolutionary moment that freaked out everyone to its political right, including the Italian Communist Party.  The quote above is from the article linked to below.  Make sure you check out some of the links at the bottom of the linked article.....

http://www.iitaly.org/magazine/focus/life-people/article/bologna-1977

Goodbye to all That

On February 9, 1970, the NYC underground paper RAT published an all-women's issue, the result of a takeover of the paper by is female staff and their supporters.  The highlight of the issue--for its militant separatism, right-on targeting of male chauvinism in the counterculture, and its fiery use of language and imagery was the piece attributed to Robin Morgan titled "Goodbye to all That."  Here is a link to the piece:

http://blog.fair-use.org/2007/09/29/goodbye-to-all-that-by-robin-morgan-1970/

The importance of this piece to the early feminist movement of the late 1960s and the 1970s is reflected in its availability online.  I discuss it in my book on the Weather Underground and in Daydream Sunset.

The Seattle Liberation Front

a short lived but fiery organization

http://www.historylink.org/File/2131

https://radsearem.wordpress.com/2014/04/16/april-16-1970-the-birth-of-the-seattle-seven/

Altamont Rock Concert--December 6, 1969

I'll let Rolling Stone tell the story in one of their first (and best) pieces of reportage not written by Hunter S. Thompson...

http://www.rollingstone.com/music/news/the-rolling-stones-disaster-at-altamont-let-it-bleed-19700121

Let it Bleed

Let it Bleed was released in the US on December 5, 1969.  As I wrote in a piece that first appeared in the now-defunct Vermont Times (and later appeared in Counterpunch and other zines: "Musically, the Rolling Stones were touring the country promoting their new album Let It Bleed , another of their adventures in reworking North American blues and folk idioms into hard-driving rock and roll. The song of the summer had been Honky Tonk Women, which appeared on the album as a boozy country funk. Perhaps the most important song on the platter, however, was Gimme Shelter, a blistering indictment of the world of war and greed."

Remembering Another Shitty Election Night--November 7, 1972

After Trump won the election, I was asked if the 2016 results were the most distressing I had ever seen.  I told them that it was actually the 1972 election that held that honor.....with the 1980 Reagan victory over Carter the next.  I may have to rearrange those rankings, with the 2016 results somewhere in that top three....
Here's a remembrance of George McGovern and that horrible night...

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/mcgovern-anti-war-candidacy-us-cultural-landmark

October 21, 1977--Keith Moon's Last Show.....

This clip is not from Keith's last show, but it shows The Who at the peak of their power....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZgubG-MOPT4

Sid Kills Nancy--October 1978

https://www.theguardian.com/music/2013/oct/09/from-rocks-backpages-talk-talk-sid-vicious-nancy-spungen

He wear no shoeshine, he got

On September 26, 1969 the album Abbey Road was released in the United States.  I remember waiting in line to buy my copy.  I took it home and after dinner my friends and I listened to it.  The song "Come Together" (originally written as a campaign song for Timothy Leary's run for California governor against Ronnie Raygun, among others) had been on the radio for a while.  I listened to that album over and over and over.  It is still on my playlist and it always makes me happy these days then when a song from the album plays in my ears on my walk to work.   Abbey Road and the Stones Let it Bleed made it clear that things were going to be a little different in the 1970s.

Letting it Bleed: Joel Selvin Takes on Altamont

http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/09/letting-it-bleed-2/