An Unruly History

The members of N.W.A spoke eloquently about street and gang life, however only one of the members was actually involved in gang life. For the most part, they had no real relationship to the streets, yet they still spoke about the realities of street life. N.W.A. is known for lyrics depicting misogyny, homophobia and violence. The group was frequently compared to Public Enemy, whose socially conscious messages were more peaceful, while NWA featured a more militant style of expression and power. The beat's and compositions within the music of NWA were simple and raw, yet innovative. “F*ck Tha Police” was written in Compton in 1988, one of the most turbulent years for the inner city. The song is said to be a result of an incident in which members of the group were detained for shooting at random people with a paintball gun, just as a fun joke. The cops forced them to lie face down in the street and pointed guns at them. The song criticizes the police force’s stereotypical racial profiling as well as police brutality and the notorious deep tension between African American’s and local law enforcement (most of the police were white).

DJ Kool Herc is known for his “Merry Go Round” technique which used two turntables instead of one. He was one of the first DJs in the Bronx to use 2 turn tables, if not the first. Using multiple turntables meant you could play two songs at the same time. He played funk music, and noticed that the dance floor was the most lively when there were instrumental breaks in the songs. This gave him the idea to use the merry go round technique which meant instead of playing the whole record, he would only play the instrumental breaks.

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David Bowie was the face of Glam Rock n Roll in the 70’s. He had a psychedelic rock persona, dyed his hair abnormal colors, wore makeup, dressed in shiny clothes that were seen as futuristic, experimented with cross dressing and gender switching, and acted/performed in ways that were not seen as acceptable at that time. This is one of the big reasons that Bowie became so famous, because he repeatedly reinvented himself (going from a clean cut man to a dolled up woman) in his performances throughout the years. A few of his characters were Ziggy Stardust, the thin white duke and the cracked actor. He had themed albums that centered on whichever character he exemplified at the time. Bowie eventually got heavily involved in the drug scene, which ultimately led him to overdose on cocaine three times.

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No list of live Jimi Hendrix performances would be complete without this one as he headlined at Woodstock. This performance is hands down known as one of the best live performances of all time. Hendrix closed out the festivities with his own rendition of the national anthem, since he was one of the biggest figures in the hippie movement. He used very heavy feedback and distortion with his amplifier and included some in-between soloing of his own, which was probably intended to simulate war sounds since the US was deep in the Vietnam War. 

Janis Joplin was the greatest female American rock singer in the late 1960′s. She was gifted at singing from a very young age, singing in her church choir. As she got older, she moved away from home to check out the emerging music scene in San Francisco, which was the basically the haven for hippies at the time. She blew Big Brother & the Holding Company away when she auditioned for the group. After she joined Big Brother, Joplin rose to fame and quickly became known for her powerful, raspy, supercharged, emotional, blues-inspired vocals and her ability to play both the guitar and the piano. Joplin became a part of the psychedelic rock era with Big Brother and the Holding Company, which unfortunately came with a lot of drug use. Her fans were aware of her drug abuse since they could see her physical appearance rapidly changing. She left Big Brother eventually to pursue a solo career soon after Woodstock. She died in at the early age of 33 in 1970 from a heroin overdose.

This article outlines what the hippie counterculture movement really was. “Make love, not war. Don't trust anyone over 30. Turn on, tune in, and drop out.” These sayings among others became slogans for the emerging youth hippie counterculture in the 1960s. As more and more children (baby-boomers) of middle-class Americans entered college, they rejected the suburban lifestyle of conformity that was shoved down their throats by their parents. With this anti-establishment counterculture phenomenon,  the youth embraced creativity while displaying blunt new attitudes about drugs and sex, communal lifestyles, with innovations in fashion and music. The counterculture youth of America went against nearly every value their parents had tried to instill in them. The sexual revolution was most prominent on American college campuses, where birth control and a rejection of traditional views of sexuality led to a more casual attitude toward sex. The youth experimented mostly with weed and LSD, sometimes mushrooms and an assortment of pills.

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In 1969, a three day music festival was hosted on a 600-acre farmland in New York. There were 400,000 attendees, which was twice the amount initially intended. Woodstock is now the most memorable music festival known to man, as it nearly every single major artist at the time, including The Who, Janice Joplin, Joan Baez, Jimi Hendrix, Santana, Sly & the Family Stone, Stills, Nash & Young, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Grateful Dead, The Band, Crosby, and so many more. This festival was synonymous with the San Franciscan hippie counterculture, with an abundance of civil rights and anti-Vietnam activists, psychedelic drug use of every kind, wild and exotic dancing, no reports of violence, free speech, etc.

On December 6, 1969, Altamont Speedway held a free rock concert with the Rolling Stones, the Grateful Dead, Nash & Young, and various other rock bands. The concert and is remembered today for violence that occurred, since it quickly became catastrophic as the 300,000 audience members broke out with many fights. The concert was poorly planned and organized, with gang members in the security (known as Hell’s Angels), who went too far and stabbed a man to death. Others were killed as fights broke out all over the place, people were assaulted and injured, and property was stolen or damaged.

The Haight-Ashbury district was notorious for being the birthplace of the hippie counter culture movement during the late 1960s. It was a community in San Francisco that became the epicenter of the hippies after the 1950’s drew in an abundance of people due to the area’s fairly economical and underpopulated conditions. This new hippie epicenter based their culture a mixture of anti-establishment attitudes, drugs, and music. They experimented with LSD, acid, marijuana, among other drugs, right at the same time that the psychedelic rock era became more popular.

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