Posted last night (Saturday, 11.23) in response to the famous Terry Valentine / Peter Fonda / Lem Dobbs line from The Limey…a revelatory line that said the proverbial ‘60s thing was “‘66 and early ‘67…that’s all it was.”
HE response, tapped out early this morning…
The most radiant or abundant part of any social-spiritual-musical movement is right before it catches on en masse with the avant garde bourgeois (i.e., plugged-in middle class)…when the spirit electrons and protons have built and buzzed and reached mass combustion levels just before the big explosion.
The ‘60s wave curled and crested and white-foam exploded all over the country with the Summer of Love, which was principally heralded by the June ‘67 release of “Sgt. Pepper” and particularly by that mad marijuana-mescaline glissando rush…that building, crashing, over-lapping orchestra rumble + crescendo in “A Day in the Life” (both of them) along with “Are You Experienced?” (May ‘67) and “Surrealistic Pillow” (released in February ‘67 but fed by ‘66 currents) and “For What It’s Worth” (released in December ‘66) and Michelangelo Antonioni’s Blow–Up (fed by late ‘65 and ‘66 percolations and released in December ‘66) and Country Joe’s “Electric Music For The Mind and Body” (released in May ‘67) and the ‘67 Monterey Pop Festival (June 16, 17 and 18) plus all the amazing activities and inward ruminations and explosions described by Tom Wolfe in “The Electric Kool–Aid Acid Test” (published in August ‘68 but informed by the Ken Kesey–Neal Casady–Merry Pranksters adventures of ‘64, ‘65, ‘66 and early ‘67)…
Way too much to get into here but what Terry Valentine / Lem Dobbs meant is that the huge quaking social orgasm that was felt across the culture in the summer of ‘67 was cooler and more exciting for those who were “there” and had their ears to the railroad tracks in ‘66 and early ‘67 …it felt so much vibe-ier when the spiritual foreplay was happening and building and starting to ignite and come into being and amassing a certain subliminal power — that was when the most exciting and tingly stuff was being felt…”do you feel it? do you sense it? There’s something happening here,” etc.
The Guardian’s Jarvis Cocker, posted on 5.17.18:
“In My Tribe”’s Arnold Kling, posted on 8.16.21:
