by the time they got to woodstock

“The curly-haired kid is booking every act in Christendom”, lighting specialist Chip Monck’s agent told him in June 1969.  Immediately Chip knew he wanted a piece of the action.  He’d lit Monterey in red two years before, and now wanted in on this.

 Of course, the curly-haired kid was Michael Lang, and the rest is history.   

Michael was booking bands for the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, these days simply known as Woodstock.  The event has just celebrated its 40^th anniversary worldwide. 

And Chip is still famous as the man who, as impromptu MC,  talked about the “brown acid” at the Festival and, not once but twice announced Jimi Hendrix’s “Gypsy Sun and Rainbows” the “Jimi Hendrix Experience.”

Hendrix’s full performance at Woodstock is readily available, has been for some time, and you still hear Chip's well-mannered announcements at the commencement and finale of Hendrix's performance, “Ladies and Gentlemen, the Jimi Hendrix Experience”.  Imagine that, introducing Jimi Hendrix at Woodstock. Chip did it, and lots of other things as well.

He built the light towers, over which Michael Lang always had concerns (that's the curly-haired kid and Chip discussing the building of the towers in the photos, courtesy of Henry Diltz/Morrison Hotel Gallery, Chipmonck Archives) and a revolving stage, which never worked because there were too many people sitting on it.  

Initially hired by Michael Lang as the lighting guy, Chip Monck quickly became THE MAN.

When you see the full rundown of acts who appeared at Woodstock 40 years on, you realise Chip’s agent was not exaggerating.  Notable exceptions of course, the Rolling Stones, whom Michael didn’t want because he felt it would make Woodstock “just a Rolling Stones concert”, John Lennon, who couldn’t get a visa for the US, and the Doors, who just couldn’t make it. 

But history tells us that none of that really matters now.

I did see the Rolling Stones at the Palais in Melbourne in 1965, then 11 years later at Knebworth in the UK (Billy Preston was unbelievable, made Jagger look like a cripple). And Led Zeppelin at Randwick Racecourse in 1973 (my memory still tells me it's the best I've seen).  

Fairly satisfied with that, but Hendrix at Woodstock.  I WISH.

You gunna need somebody on your bond

I mentioned Ornette Coleman in a previous blog, and how Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) used a wind instrument Coleman had given him on an early recording, “You’re Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond”  from the 1967 Mirror Man Sessions.  I’ve been listening to that a lot lately.  It’s wild, as is most Beefheart stuff.  Ornette’s Town Hall 1962 has also been on my playlist, as has Joe Henry’s Scar. Ornette played on some of the tracks on that album, the best of all is the unlisted track at the end.  It reminds me of the some of the stuff on Soapsuds Soapsuds, an album Ornette did with Charlie Haden in 1977.

 Joe played the Corner Hotel in Richmond quite a few months back, performed a lot of the songs from Scar, just him, his voice and guitar, an an upright-bass player.  No Ornette to be heard, but it was mesmerising.  And Charlie was in Melbourne a little later in the year. We saw him too, in the cold ole Town Hall, Bill Frissell on guitar.

Here’s a portrait of Beefheart (Van Vliet) by Anton Corbijn.  We used it for my article, “Sounds of Shadows”, in World Art.  Van Vliet is a painter too, a good one at that.  If you can, listen to his “Carson City (Owned T’ Alex) from The Original Bat Chain Puller.  It will blow your mind.