Post #108503 by donhonyc on Sun, Aug 15, 2004 8:28 PM

Another milestone anniversary for the mother of all outdoor music festivals is here. Funny thing because yesterday I went to the Little Steven Underground Garage Festival at Randall's Island. Not many parallels with Woodstock other than that it was a large group (a fraction of the Woodstock one, but still cool) of people converging to hear some great music. Although this group of people was there more for the music and not so much united as some sort of cultural movement. By the way, the New York Dolls, now only with David Johansen and Syl Sylvain remaining, were AMAZING. Other highlights were The Dictators, and of course, Iggy. Yeah...The Strokes were there, but ya know what.....f*ck those guys. Two words: Rich kids. In fact I think if they changed the name of the band to The Rich Kids, I'd have more respect for them.

Now a little word about the 60s and the hippies and all that. Over the years the whole hippie thing has got such a bad rap due to it's sub-mental nostalgization. For me that whole era wasn't just about getting high and wearing funny headbands. The fact that (at least part of) the youth culture of the 60s was united behind some sort of alternative way of thinking and rejecting the establishment on the political and cultural fronts is/was pretty cool. The complete opposite of the youth of today which seems more interested in a Girls Gone Wild meets Johnny Knoxville/Jackass mentality. Youth at large don't give a damn about much these days. The 'Digital Youth' of today that look like a bunch of Paris Hiltons dating a buch of guys that look like Joey Fatone blows! Glad I got to be in my 20s ten years ago. But I'll stop here at the risk of sounding like a cynical goofball.

I'll just add one thing. When I was at the fest yesterday Kim Fowley, arguably one of the more important architects and scenesters of the rock and roll underground was a guest MC. Alot of the kids who came to see The Strokes, and even some of the adults, had absolutely no idea who this guy was. Yeah he looked like an embalmed lanky Frankenstein who was babbling on, but he was still cool and funny. At one point he was wearing a bright yellow sport coat and slacks and some of the kids were yelling things like 'sit down bannana man!!' , 'f*ck off old man!!' 'get off the booze!!' and stuff like that. Little did they know that if it wasn't for him the world wouldn't have had a band likeThe Runaways. Even if that isn't important ya gotta admit that at the very least this guy had his hands in the rock n roll pie before any of these kids was even a Hershey Bar in their dad's back pockets.

Fer Real! :drink:

[ Edited by: donhonyc on 2004-08-15 20:41 ]