60s Legend Inspires Music Today

It’s Woodstock all over again in Live Oak, Fl this summer. My personal favorite band, 311, will be hosting their first ever multi-day music festival on August 4^th-6^th. The three days full of laid back music will take place at Suwanee Music Park, where camping is allowed and encouraged. More bands will attend the festival including Sublime with Rome, The Dirty Heads, and others. Several activities (besides rocking out to some great music) that are offered at the grounds include: canoeing, hiking trails, mini golf, fresh water fishing, biking, and even indoor activities like yoga, karaoke and stand-up comedy. 

  Woodstock '69

Upon hearing about this, I instantly thought about the Woodstock ’69 Music Festival. The infamous peaceful gathering from August 15^th-18^th of 500,000 people and 32 musical performances on a 600-acre farm in Bethel, NY was definitely an inspiration for many future festivals. The vision of Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld, John Roberts, and Joel Rosenman, the four men who essentially planned the festival, turned out to be a greater success than anyone had imagined.

Michael Lang

Taking Woodstock is a good movie to watch to get a taste of what the festival was like. The film is a true story about Elliot Tiber, who was a local resident of Bethel and gave Lang a permit to hold Woodstock there.

Like Woodstock, 311’s Pow Wow Festival this summer, as part of their Unity Tour, is meant to unite and celebrate the community through music and peace. This will definitely be an experience worth taking. If you can’t make it out to Florida, however, 311 will be touring from July to August this summer. Here’s a link to their shows: 311 Unity Tour

311

Let the sun shine in

The Tony Award Winner for Best Musical Revival, Hair, will soon be returning to Broadway!

The cast is currently on tour, playing in Hartford, Ct, but I suggest to anyone who wants to see a good Broadway show this summer, make your way to this one. 

“HAIR tells the story of a group of friends choosing to speak up and sing out in celebration of love, life and freedom. The first great rock musical, it has some of the most rousing and soulful songs ever written for the stage, including ‘Let the Sun Shine In,’ ‘Easy to be Hard,’ ‘Good Morning Starshine,’ ‘Aquarius’ and the infectious title song, ‘Hair,’” writes the HAIR official site.

I saw this play with my family and I can admit that it was a little awkward sitting next to my parents during one nude scene. Other than that, it’s definitely one of the most fun shows that I’ve been to. The best part was getting up on stage at the end of the show and dancing to ‘Let the Sun Shine In.’ 

Legalize it!?

The topic of marijuana has been blazing in the news these days. There are 15 states plus DC that have legalized the use of medical marijuana but some want to go even further with it. Last November, Proposition 19 was proposed to California voters, which offered to legalize the recreational use of pot in certain amounts for adults over 21 years old.

The proposition was not passed but “Richard Lee, the Oakland, Calif., medical marijuana entrepreneur who sponsored Prop 19 said the fact that 3.4 million Californians cast ballots for legalizing marijuana and that Prop 19 came within 9 percentage points of passing were victories themselves,” as found in an article published by the Huffington Post.

Supporters of the proposition vowed to push marijuana legalization in 2012.

The popularity of this drug sometimes called marijuana, pot, weed, ganja, kush, maryjane, reefer, cannabis, herb… whatever you might know it as… dates back from as you probably know, the 60s!

Many agree that marijuana was primarily introduced by the Beat culture. These were the edgy writers, which experimented with drugs and forms of sexuality, incorporated within the hippie generation. Seemingly overnight, marijuana became the most popular recreational drug during this time.

Hippies are known, among other things, for their excessive use of drugs in the 60s, specifically marijuana. So with all this talk of the legal recreational use of pot, are we all just a bunch of hippies deep down?

Whether you are for this law or not, I think this portrays that there is a little bit of hippie in all of us today and that the effects of this generation are very well instilled upon us.

The hippie style is definitely a trend that has come back into today's fashion world. So, how do you dress the part these days?

Free People has everything you need to give you the perfect 60s look! It's a little pricey, but definitely worth it.

Anthropologie is another one on the more expensive side but you can find everything there from clothes to shoes to furniture.

Forever21 is the store we all know and love. You can get a headache just by walking in there, but if you have the time to dig around, you can find some really cute things.

H&M has a lot of clothes with a bohemian/60s inspiration.

Urban Outfitters adds to the list of stylish, trendy clothes with hint of hippie.

"An artist is somebody who produces things that people don't need to have." -Andy Warhol

Among many other things, the 60s was one of the most monumental time periods with some famous names like Andy Warhol, Roy Lichtenstein and Claes Oldenburg. What am I talking about? …ART!

These artists reinvented the way we see our everyday things in a whole new mass-produced way known as pop art. Most of the paintings from this time are prominent all around the world, like these:

Warhol's 'Marilyn Monroe' and 'Campbell's Soup Can'

 

Lichtenstein's 'Sunrise' and 'Gall' 

Oldenburg's 'Clothespin' and 'Apple Core'

   

"I like to pretend that my art has nothing to do with me." - Roy Lichtenstein 

Today, we can see famous 60s art popping up in galleries all over. As I recently found out in an article posted by the LA Times, the Norton Simon Museum is featuring "Surface Truths: Abstract Painting in the Sixties.” The showcase will focus on a few abstractionists who were notable in the 60s: Helen Frankenthaler, Ellsworth Kelly, Ralph Humphrey and Kenneth Nowland to name a few. “Their work was minimalistic with little brush work resulting in a magnitude of color, stripes and geometric shapes.”

Other famous 60s works appearing in art museums today include Wayne Thiebaud at the Crocker Art Museum, the Weisman Museum hosted an exhibition of 60 works by Lichtenstein, “Psychedelic: Optical and Visionary Art Since the 1960s” currently exhibited at the Telfair Museum of Art, and many more.

Movie Review: Across the Universe

"Across the Universe" is about love, war, passion, peace, and music! The story follows a poor artist from Liverpool and the girl he falls in love with, an upper-class American, in the 60s. This musical includes 34 Beatles' originals that go along with the storyline.

The film is directed by Julie Taymor and stars Evan Rachel Wood (Lucy), Jim Sturgess (Jude), and Joe Anderson (Max), with appearances made by Bono, Eddie Izzard, Joe Cocker, Salma Hayek, and others.

This movie goes right alongside with "Forest Gump" in best films made to try to understand the 60s. It was a 2007 Golden Globe Nominee for Best Picture and 2007 Academy Award Nominee for Costume Design. 

To give a brief description of the film, Jude starts the movie off as a young worker from Liverpool who leaves his home in hopes of finding his father in America. In his path of doing so, he comes across Max, who eventually drops out of school and moves to New York City with Jude. Jude also meets Max’s sister, Lucy, whose boyfriend is serving in the Vietnam War. However, sparks fly when the two meet and as their relationship grows throughout the movie.

When Lucy visits her brother, Max and Jude in the city, she finds out that Max is drafted into the army and becomes more involved in the anti-war movement. 

One of my favorite scenes from the movie:

This movie allows you to see an artistic point of view in all aspects of the 60s from the groovy hippies to the fighting soldiers, while following the lives of two very different teens in love and the effects of the 60s on them and their relationship.

There are a lot of moments in this movie that will give you the chills, whether it be from the reality of the 60s or the love between Jude and Lucy. If you haven’t already done so, I would definitely recommend buying this movie because you’re going to want to watch it over and over!

Across the Universe- Official Site 

Jack Johnson has that modern day hippie thing going for him, which I am absolutely in love with. 

If this isn't feel-good music, I don't know what is. Not to mention the video is awesome!

Pattie Boyd

 

Pattie Boyd is one of my favorite 60s icons.

She was married to George Harrison and Eric Clapton and was the inspiration of a lot of their works like Clapton's song, "Wonderful Tonight." 

She is a fashion icon, supermodel, photographer, and author- her number one Best Selling book, which I was addicted to for weeks, is called Wonderful Today.

"All you need is love, love is all you need"

Beatlemania is back! “Enter The Beatles. Long hair. Loud music. Radical yet cool look. Beatle boots. Tight suits. Witty personalities and great humor not mention four very distinctive and recongnizable voices. Add to this, harmony with good looks.”

There is no dispute that The Beatles has left a huge impact on music, fashion, art, and pop culture in general. The Fab Four is now taking over another entertainment element that’s not music, movies, or books… can you say Cirque Du Soleil. The Mirage in Las Vegas is currently presenting The Beatles LOVE, where “Cirque du Soleil celebrates the musical legacy of The Beatles through their timeless, original recordings.”

“Dominic Champagne, who directed and wrote the original concept for the show, explained his vision for LOVE: ‘I wanted to create a Beatles experience rather than a Beatles story, taking the audience on an emotional journey rather than a chronological one, exploring the landscapes and experiences that have marked the group's history.’”

A few of my favorite Beatles’ originals that will be heard and seen during the show include: Eleanor Rigby, I Am the Walrus, I Want to Hold Your Hand, Abbey Road, Something, Help!, Blackbird, Yesterday, Strawberry Fields, Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, Lady Madonna, Here Comes the Sun, Come Together, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, Hey Jude, and All You Need is Love.

If you need any more excuses to go Vegas, let this show be it! 

Cirque Du Soleil,  Zimbio

Is Michelle-O the new Jackie-O?

This probably isn’t the first time you’ve heard some comparison about First Lady Michelle Obama and former First Lady Jackie Kennedy. The two have a lot alike, especially in regards to fashion.

Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis was one of the many 60’s fashion icons and was known for her ladylike style and grace. She brought into the White House a new look, that was fresh and youthful from the past First Ladies before her. She admired French couture and designers like Oleg Cassini and Valentino. It was her style that influenced a lot of women during the time and still continues to today.

Her style lives on which we are reminded of when we see Michelle Obama, one of our own generation’s fashion icons. A few of her favorite designers include Thakoon and Jason Wu but the First Lady has worn other well-known designers like Alexander McQueen, Michael Kors, Isabel Toledo, Talbots, J. Crew, Isaac Mizrahi, and others. She is certainly being talked about for her fashion choices, as some argue that her style can be too daring and bold at times but others come back saying that she always appears elegant and classy.

I’m not sure why Jackie and Michelle decided to stick to fashion's high road, but I imagine that it's because they're two of the youngest First Ladies. I’m not a huge fan of politics, and in no way is my opinion influenced by any political matter, but I love what these two women have done and what they are continuing to do. The First Lady has a status that no one else really has and to take a clean, young and elegant look has a big impact on how people might dress. We might not see as many Michelle-O clones running around America as we saw for Jackie-O, but it still gives hope that others will take their fashion choices into account and we’ll see as much of the beautiful fashion today that we saw in the 60’s.

Articles like this one: Huffington Post and Vogue

"All we are saying is give peace a chance."

 

The Vietnam War was to the 60’s as the war with Afghanistan is to the 2000’s. There are many similarities and differences with both wars but the question remains, what are we fighting for?

In both wars, there haven’t been any great battles, just American forces exerting their influence over the territory and trying to eliminate terror. But, as an article on NeonTommy.com points out, what Americans apparently haven’t learned from the Vietnam war is that “you can kill a terrorist, but you cannot kill terror.“

Another comparison you can find when looking into both of these wars is the costs that Americans have had to pay for a war that they don’t all believe in. During Vietnam, it was the lives of soldiers that were claimed by the government, some 58,000 lives to be exact. Today, it is money that we are putting into the war- $378 billion and growing, along with the amount of deaths that we have seen thus far. Although the economy is a current issue in America today, no amount of money is ever more significant than the American lives that we have seen lost for an opposed war.

So what did Americans do 50 years ago about this questionable war? Why, they protested of course! One of the main differences between the war in Vietnam and in Afghanistan is the draft. People rebelled against the war by burning their draft cards, holding teach-ins and sit-ins, music, and marches. I don’t think there will ever be a draft again in this country because of the controversy that history has shown us. Thank you for that, 60’s protestors!

Still, I think Americans should get up and actively show the government that we don’t support this war. A poll taken by the Washington Post states that 51% of all adults say that the war is not worth fighting but we haven’t seen a demonstration like any from the 60’s yet. Maybe it’s because the war in Afghanistan has already surpassed the Vietnam War so people are starting to lose interest and concern for it. Or maybe it’s because we don’t have a draft that is forcing our brothers, friends and boyfriends to fight. Whatever the reason, we can compare the aspects of both wars but there is no comparison as to what we have seen Americans actually do about it. 

Check out other comparisons at: Washington Post, NeonTommy and CNN