Jump to content

Woodstock 50th Anniversary Releases


felser

Recommended Posts

Started into the 10CD set this morning, will spend the next three days listening.  Just finished the Richie Havens selections and am on Sweetwater right now.  Two observations, the audio work on this edition is nearly miraculous given the source material and the previous releases.   Also, Havens really rose to the occasion and seemed to relish the moment.  I know it will be musically mainly downhill from here.  But I think much of the appeal will be nostalgic/emotional as opposed to purely musical.   The musical quality of, say, a typical Wynton or Branford Marsalis etc. album is light years beyond, say "Wild Thing" by the Troggs or "96 Tears" by Question Mark and the Mysterians,  But the latter bring back memories, have cultural/historical relevance etc., even though they aren't even good musical examples of their genre, so they have value to me where the Marsalis album does not. So I enjoy the oldies, and not so much the Marsalis recordings.  Same thing with Woodstock, I suspect.  The subjective meaning of hearing the recordings has much more than musical aspects.  So I will, by nature, enjoy and value it, where younger members and those inclined in different directions maybe won't.  I'll even dig the Melanie set, I'm sure, though I'll withhold judgment on the Ravi Shankar.  Great moment in cultural perspective on the "Concert for Bangla Desh" soundtrack.    Shankar & Co. play for about two minutes, stop, and the crowd goes into rapturous applause.  Shankar then says something like "Thank you very much, and if you enjoyed our tuning up that much, we're sure you'll really like our performance".

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 166
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Top Posters In This Topic

Just now, JSngry said:

If one will use Wynton & Branford to justify Woodstock, I think that's a perfect example of how damn near everything has failed due to inherent weaknesses being used for prideful exploitation rather than humble rehabilitative purposes.

 

Not totally following.  Who needs humbly rehabilitated?  The Troggs?  Wynton?  Melanie?   I'm just trying to explain how subjectivity vs. objectivity might come into play. What speaks to each of us speaks to each of us, and does so for a variety of reasons, and varies from person to person (and somewhat from generation to generation).   Green Acres was hardly emmy-award stuff, but we aren't trying to humbly rehabilitate Eva Gabor or Hank Patterson.   They were who they were, and to some, that was/is thoroughly enjoyable. while it will be totally lost on others.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Boomers have ruined life for everything and everybody. They've been so busy trying to be all stardust and shit that they've never developed any sense of humbly contributing and then getting out of the way. They want to look young forever, fuck forever with hard-on-demand dicks, have jobs forever, make all the money forever, and hear their fucking lives played back in the mirror and on the radiotv shows forever. They're self-absorbed vainglorious mega-leeches. They don't give anything back to the world, they just hold onto it for themselves.

Boomers have no idea how much younger generations really, truly despise them because they won't get out of the way. We're lucky that they're self-destructive pussies, these younger generations, otherwise we'd all be out of the way now in ways as unnatural as those we use to stay in the way.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

John, I think there is a lot of nostalgia to it as we are from that time. I suspect it will have less meaning for someone younger. I actually enjoyed the Shankar cut although the big box has more, including an explanation by Shankar how the sitar is played, which goes on and on; someone on the Hoffman forum remarked “shut up already.” :D

Getting back to the announcements: there is an announcement or crowd applause between the second and third Canned Heat songs. Without this transition, it wouldn’t have been as good.  At least in this case, I found the talk absolutely necessary. 

Edited by Brad
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Shankar at Monterrey was delightful. Shankar at Woodstock made no sense. One crowd was on the way up (or so they thought), the other on the way down.

But if you were lucky to have access to a good cutout bin, you could get Shankar and other Indian musics out the wazzoo on World Pacific LPs. There were a lot of them!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 minutes ago, JSngry said:

Boomers have ruined life for everything and everybody. They've been so busy trying to be all stardust and shit that they've never developed any sense of humbly contributing and then getting out of the way. They want to look young forever, fuck forever with hard-on-demand dicks, have jobs forever, make all the money forever, and hear their fucking lives played back in the mirror and on the radiotv shows forever. They're self-absorbed vainglorious mega-leeches. They don't give anything back to the world, they just hold onto it for themselves.

Boomers have no idea how much younger generations really, truly despise them because they won't get out of the way. We're lucky that they're self-destructive pussies, these younger generations, otherwise we'd all be out of the way now in ways as unnatural as those we use to stay in the way.

 I'm sure you have specifics in mind here, even though you painted your response in broad brush strokes.   Would like to hear your backstories offline some time, as I know you think and care deeply about these things, and I place great value on your thoughts, whether I agree with/understand them or not (and I usually do).   I would not want to offer a response/counterargument without really hearing you out.  We're way beyond the Troggs/Wynton/Melanie here.

13 minutes ago, Brad said:

John, I think there is a lot of nostalgia to it as we are from that time. I suspect it will have less meaning for someone younger. I actually enjoyed the Shankar cut although the big box has more, including how the sitar is played, which goes on and on; someone on the Hoffman forum remarked “shut up already.” :D

Getting back to the announcements: there is an announcement or crowd applause between the second and third Canned Heat songs. Without this transition, it wouldn’t have been as good.  At least in this case, I found the talk absolutely necessary. 

Not to Canned Heat yet, but yes, I do get value from some of the announcements on the 10 CD set, such as the scaffolding, the blue acid, etc.  And I know there are more to come, such as breakfast in bed for 400,000.  Just starting Melanie now, I have always liked "Mama, Mama" by her, so I'm onboard so far.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Troggs - great records, nothing more.

Melanie - Go figure.

Marsailis - fuck that shit.

Why is any of it still more than a curiosity in history's dustbin? What merits it not just going away?

Because people love to be told that they're part of something great. It feeds itself, people love being told that, then they get sold that, because buying makes it so.

So much - SO much of the "Rock Era" was nothing but vainglorious naiveté at the service of limited musicianship and immature intellectual intention. But rather than laugh it off as wow, that was fucked, sure glad we got over THAT, it's held on to as some kind of moral/cultural apex of humanity.

It's bullshit. A bunch of (mostly) mediocre talents executing (mostly) mediocre ideas for a (mostly) too high to tell any difference crowd of young people who (mostly) never figured out just how mediocre the whole damn thing was. No, they were stardust, they were golden.

That generation has not made the world a better place because they have no humility about their place in history. Instead of taking it as a warning, a trap,, they took it - and still take it - as a triumph, and then got busy over the next 50 years not having a clue about what's bullshit, what's a trap, just how big a group of suckers they're being played for, and still are being played for.

The planet is fucked. Societies are crumbling all over the world. Alone is the new community. and then, of course, Viagra.

To look back at this Woodstock thing and celebrate it as a time before all this went wrong without seeing that this is the fulcrum point where it all began to have to go wrong is just one more proof that vanity is the overriding defining characteristic of our generation.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, JSngry said:

Boomers have ruined life for everything and everybody. They've been so busy trying to be all stardust and shit that they've never developed any sense of humbly contributing and then getting out of the way. They want to look young forever, fuck forever with hard-on-demand dicks, have jobs forever, make all the money forever, and hear their fucking lives played back in the mirror and on the radiotv shows forever. They're self-absorbed vainglorious mega-leeches. They don't give anything back to the world, they just hold onto it for themselves.

Boomers have no idea how much younger generations really, truly despise them because they won't get out of the way. We're lucky that they're self-destructive pussies, these younger generations, otherwise we'd all be out of the way now in ways as unnatural as those we use to stay in the way.

:o Guess I should be glad to have been born in 1965. Older siblings are/were boomers but me not so much. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, Dan Gould said:

:o Guess I should be glad to have been born in 1965. Older siblings are/were boomers but me not so much. 

I’m a boomer, born in 1950, and glad I was, not that I had a choice of being born then ;)

I could say more but don’t see the point. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Alone is the new community" deserves its own thread/discussion.  But I don't think that one is on the boomers.  The next generations have had plenty of opportunity to make their mark - how's that going?  And the "greatest generation" before the boomers wasn't necessarily so great if you didn't look the part.  When I was a kid, I lived in Huntsville, AL for a couple years, and still remember the crosses burning on the hill some nights.   And this is the USA - it is (arguably or not) worse everywhere else.  Human nature in need of redemption.  There is so much right and so much wrong about us as people.  My wife and I have not changed the world.  We have tried and do try to make a difference in our corner of it, adopting our daughter, working with abused women, etc.  Whatever God gives us.   I can know the nostalgia has a lot of fiction, and still enjoy it.  

Link to comment
Share on other sites

36 minutes ago, JSngry said:

To look back at this Woodstock thing and celebrate it...

I think that the most important (by far) thing about Woodstock was and is that it was the festival for NEW YORK CITY.  New Yorkers not only think they have the best of everything, they think that everybody else thinks so too!  And everything we read about Woodstock is a product of the New York media.

It was my view then and now that Woodstock never for a moment was as special as the Monterey Pop Festival.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, GA Russell said:

It was my view then and now that Woodstock never for a moment was as special as the Monterey Pop Festival.

Yes, I wish that the Monterey organizers had looked forward more and recorded the whole thing.  Was stunned that there was NOTHING for the 50th anniversary in 2017, but I guess everything they had come out at the 25th in 1992.  The breadth of the performers at Monterey was stunning and gratifying.   

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, felser said:

Yes, I wish that the Monterey organizers had looked forward more and recorded the whole thing.  Was stunned that there was NOTHING for the 50th anniversary in 2017, but I guess everything they had come out at the 25th in 1992.  The breadth of the performers at Monterey was stunning and gratifying.   

It was difficult to get releases from all the performers at Woodstock and some had to be really convinced to agree; the Hendrix Estate wouldn’t fully agree and a couple of the song on the new set has the 2009 mix. So, I think it would take a long time for a new Monterey box to appear. You can still purchase the old boxes on eBay for almost next to nothing. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finished my Day 1 (my days, not the festival) listening to the 10CD.  Made it through Mountain, start with Grateful Dead tomorrow.  Some thoughts:  High point for me was Santana (though I knew that already).  Low point was the Incredible String Band.  The Keef Hartley material was clearly from a different, greatly inferior source than the other artists.  Their long selection sounded really good musically, but not really different than what was on their outstanding 'Halfbreed' album.  I also really liked the Richie Havens.  Other artists tended to have some really good cuts and some not so good.  I found something to like by all of them except ISB and Joan Baez.  Canned Heat were strong, but I could have lived without the 10-minute drum solo on "Woodstock Boogie".  Joan Baez was really a downer.  Tim Hardin and Bert Sommer had some really strong cuts.  Inconsistency of performances did not whet my appetite to lay out the $ or time for the full 38-CD set.  I have the full Santana set already on the standalone release.  Still have almost six CD's to go in this set, am looking forward to that over the next two days.  Quite happy with the 10 CD purchase, which is now going for like $106 on Amazon.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

39 minutes ago, felser said:

Finished my Day 1 (my days, not the festival) listening to the 10CD.  Made it through Mountain, start with Grateful Dead tomorrow.  Some thoughts:  High point for me was Santana (though I knew that already).  Low point was the Incredible String Band.  The Keef Hartley material was clearly from a different, greatly inferior source than the other artists.  Their long selection sounded really good musically, but not really different than what was on their outstanding 'Halfbreed' album.  I also really liked the Richie Havens.  Other artists tended to have some really good cuts and some not so good.  I found something to like by all of them except ISB and Joan Baez.  Canned Heat were strong, but I could have lived without the 10-minute drum solo on "Woodstock Boogie".  Joan Baez was really a downer.  Tim Hardin and Bert Sommer had some really strong cuts.  Inconsistency of performances did not whet my appetite to lay out the $ or time for the full 38-CD set.  I have the full Santana set already on the standalone release.  Still have almost six CD's to go in this set, am looking forward to that over the next two days.  Quite happy with the 10 CD purchase, which is now going for like $106 on Amazon.

I have to agree about the Incredible String Band but glad I heard it. I wasn't familiar with Keef Hartley before but really liked what they did. I'm not a big Joan fan but I liked her selections, especially her talking about her husband; I thought was cool (groovy, in the words of Arlo). I loved the Canned Heat selections and you could tell the Woodstock Boogie really pumped up the crowd; I knew I was. I've always loved Mountain so their stuff was great. I didn't really like Tim Hardin but different strokes, etc. Haven't listed to the Dead yet but it's not considered a vintage performance.

Edited by Brad
Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, Brad said:

I have to agree about the Incredible String Band but glad I heard it. I wasn't familiar with Keef Hartley before but really liked what they did. I'm not a big Joan fan but I liked her selections, especially her talking about her husband; I thought was cool (groovy, in the words of Arlo). I loved the Canned Heat selections and you could tell the Woodstock Boogie really pumped up the crowd; I knew I was. I've always loved Mountain so their stuff was great. I didn't really like Tim Hardin but different strokes, etc. Haven't listed to the Dead yet but it's not considered a vintage performance.

Be sure to check out that Keef Hartley album.  

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Finished out the 10CD set today, Grateful Dead through Hendrix.  Glad to have heard it and to own it, don’t feel a need for the 38CD set now – this is plenty.  Again, most all of the performers had some really good moments, and some  not so good moments.  The person who was most done wrong by the historical rewriting of Woodstock was Johnny Winter.  He was on fire for his entire set, these cuts today were a reminder.  I strongly recommend the “Woodstock Experience” CD which combines his entire Woodstock performance and his first Columbia album (and don’t sleep on “The Progressive Blues Experiment, his amazing Imperial Records set recorded just prior to his Columbia albums, and his masterpiece “Second Winter” – if history had been just, he would have been in the movie, “Second Winter” would have sold a couple million copies, and who knows?).   Joe Cocker’s “Dear Landlord” is a great performance, and his entire set is strong.  The Grateful Dead were not good at Woodstock – that is one lackluster “Dark Star”, and the other selections are worse.  Blood, Sweat, and Tears sound really strong, especially on “Smiling Phases”.  Creedence played really well.  Butterfield Blues Band sound great – their entire performance is available on their Complete Elektra Albums box set, though that has somehow not seemed to draw much attention.   Joplin’s band is tight.  Nothing can match her Monterey “Ball and Chain”, but she played a really good set at Woodstock.   Ten Years after sounds good.  The Hendrix set is a mess – the backing band doesn’t cut it, even though he seems to be in good enough form, especially on "Purple Haze".  And I may be in the minority, but I always found his “Star Spangled Banner” quite off-putting musically, and consider his Band of Gypsies “Machine Gun” to be a much stronger musical and much stronger political statement (and that one resonates anew in 2019).  The Who come off well (Abbie Hoffman doesn't ;)).  I love the Jefferson Airplane set, own the whole 100 minute thing on their “Woodstock Experience” release.  They aren’t at all tight, but they are inspired and full of fire.   Willing to let the whole 50 year anniversary thing have a rest now, hope some more full sets get released this year, and realize this is probably the end of the hoopla in my lifetime (and am OK with that).

Link to comment
Share on other sites

"Second Winter" is a fantastic record. Winter is on film within the bonus material of the deluxe version of the Woodstock blu-ray. Interesting to me is that he is playing a Fender twelve string electric, strung with six strings, which probably does have an interesting sonic effect.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I’ve listened through the Airplane, which is the best so far but I was always a big fan so no surprise. Could have been my mood but CCR (and there was not enough of them) and Janis weren’t moving me. Don’t get me wrong, they were good and I probably need to re-listen. Sly were outta sight. So much energy. Following on their heels The Who were everything I remembered them as. The episode with Abbie Hoffman was hilarious. Glad they caught that on tape. I have the Woodstock Experience on the way for the Airplane and will probably spring for the others.  Thought the Dead were ok but I was never a huge fan. The electrical fans could have put them off; Weir was almost electrocuted. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, Brad said:

I have the Woodstock Experience on the way for the Airplane and will probably spring for the others.  

They're all worthwhile.  Though if you have the 2CD Legacy edition of the first Santana album, you have all of their Woodstock performance except for a weak "Evil Ways", and a lot of other good material.

https://www.amazon.com/Santana-Legacy/dp/B00064ADNY/ref=sr_1_1?crid=20YR0DFB3X8CF&keywords=santana+legacy+edition&qid=1566358084&s=music&sprefix=santana+legacy%2Cpopular%2C126&sr=1-1

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...