Great Scott: The Day the Music Died
Scott Towler has spent the last few months at the Canadian Grammar Rodeo and catching Andy Williams shows while talking to Samson in Branson, Mo.
Don Mclean was never a hippie, but I was. At least I thought I was. I wore patchouli oil. I had patchwork pants and parkas. I tried to turn my hair into dreadlocks. I even partied with a friend named Ginsberg. OK, so Allen and I weren’t that close, but I was there man. I was part of the revolution. The only problem was the fact that I was born in the generation of neo-hippies, where the word ‘revolution’ was merely a song by the crappy frat-band O.A.R.
In the summer of 1995, when I was in 7th grade, I got offered tickets to see the Dead on what would be one of their last shows before Jerry died. My parents wouldn’t let me go and it’s irked me ever since. Sure, I hadn’t heard The Grateful Dead at the time, but I was familiar with the culture, and had a general sense of how it much it affected me.
Yeah, that’s me on the left.
A few years later, I attended my first Phish show and got hooked, eventually going on to see 22 of their shows, not like it matters. What does were the discoveries that occurred a little later on, when I finally plowed through my Dad’s record collection to discover the roots of the music I loved. Hendrix. Led Zepp. The Doors, The Dead, The Who. The good drugs. The now-canonized stuff that went down before the deluge, when any punk kid with garage band and a knowledge of q-base or pro-tools could put out a record.
Do you smell that? Damn, It’s Just Me.
It’s different today obviously. Every show is brought to you by Supafly Productions. And they want you to know that. It’s branded, polished, and no glass is allowed (oh, save for all the crystals and bongs and pipes). There’s been like 12 Bonnaroos now. Like, are you kidding me? I went to the first one thinking it would mean something, and even that one wasn’t good enough to merit a second trip. These festivals preach going green and saving the Earth. Then everyone leaves the campground, and there’s more trash there than the city of LA produces in a week. Seemingly no one has a job, but everyone has drugs to sell (hey, some things never change). You ask someone about peace, and they say “Sorry, all I got is papers.” The point is, it’s all fake. It’s candy land. And I finally had enough.
So I came to a realization recently, as the last traces of MDMA and psilocybin left my system: for me, it’s over. No more poser-hippie bull shit. No more five-year-old kids in Dead tee shirts, running around barefoot while mommy tokes a doob. I’m done. I just can’t look at those people anymore. And you know, for the longest time I’d been trying to figure out why. When did I shift from being a tree-hugging wanna-be to some button down version of my father?
I guess it’s just part of getting older. After a certain amount of time, we give up on the idealism of our youth. We make decisions about what we want in life, and then we go for them. isn’t about the music. The music never stopped. Even when Jerry died, the band played on. And maybe that’s just it. I’m grounded here. My life is ramblin’ on with no end in sight and I couldn’t be happier with the direction it’s going. Hippies, on the other hand, have no where else to go but on the road. They spend their entire lives searching for meaning through music because they never really knew what they wanted to begin with. And I’m not saying that I don’t want that feeling back. I do, very much so. If Phish were to come back and tour, I’d fly half way around the world to see them play again. This time though, I’d stay in a hotel, bring more than one change of clothes, and shower. Maybe.
Download: (Because even if you hate Phish, you might like these songs, the ones that Phish fanatics hate to admit are their favorites because sober people actually sometimes like them too).
MP3: Phish-”Bouncing Round the Room” (From Live Phish 19)
MP3: Phish-”Fee” (From Live Phish 19)
Stumble It!
July 31st, 2008 at 2:11 pm
The first show I ever went to was the Dead back in ‘93 when I was 10 years old or so. I was bored to tears. Even back then I knew I wanted nothing to do with hippies. I enjoy showering, too much.
July 31st, 2008 at 5:01 pm
Oh snap, Scott is on his way to becoming a Hipster. I knew it was only a matter of time…
July 31st, 2008 at 6:21 pm
Phish will be back by next summer…so, um, go purchase some body soap and get ready for a late-night lot combo: grilled cheese and nitrous.
July 31st, 2008 at 8:06 pm
Oh man…I feel your pain but…you have no idea.
You haven’t felt post-hippie scorn until you’ve seen a group of 500 backpackers in purple hemp fishermen pants argue over the equivalent of 64cents on the price of a shwarma sandwhich out on a tourist street full of bootleg “Buddah Bar” cds (because Asians don’t get rock music) while all planning to go to a “full moon” party full of shitty techno music, overpriced restaurants serving bland food while playing endless “friends re-runs” (why? I don’t have a clue) and suffering through an endless field of mostly British poseurs “going native” and proceeding to turn the same color as Regie Noble and/or a lobster.
Hippies may be scary in America but you can always make fun of them. In a place where they are not only accepted but considered more or less the defacto form of white person (along with increasingly visible hipsters) its enough to go republican.
I still like the drugs and the music (and fishermen pants are fucking comfortable) but the fake idealism…they can shove it up their incense burning, carbon footprint leaving ass. At least the beer-drinking 50 year old sex tourists are interesting to hang out with in a bluesy “hey, at least MY life’s not ruined yet” Rolling Stones/Sly Stone kind of way.
On that note, back to North America on Monday.
July 31st, 2008 at 8:19 pm
Sach, can you write a book or something. I will pay to read it.
August 4th, 2008 at 7:20 am
Every motherfucker out here claims he’s going to write some sort of revolutionary travel diary/novel/collection of thoughts. I’m going to avoid that pitfall for at least a couple of years when I have enough stories to make the damn thing worth the reader’s 5$ (no one buys originals when bootleggers have photocopies out on the street).
Unless Continuum Press wants to pay me to write a fierce anti 00’s screed disguised as a book about the Happy Mondays’ “Pills n Thrills n Bellyaches”. Then, sure.