The Monterey Pop Festival
Excerpt from The Psychedelic Rock Files

In 1967 the Beatles released three of their most psychedelic singles; in February I Am the Walrus, in July Baby You’re a Rich Man, and in November Strawberry Fields Forever. This was also the year labeled as the “Summer of Love”, and two of the Beatles, Paul and George made a special point of visiting San Francisco. Then at the beginning of June the Beatles released an album that forever changed the face of pop and rock music, Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. In many respects Sgt. Pepper and the follow-up Magical Mystery Tour were the culmination of the Beatles travels into the world of psychedelia. 

One of the most significant events, as far the psychedelic music scene was concerned was the Monterey International Pop Festival, which was staged in an attempt to bring the divergent musical scenes of San Francisco, Los Angeles and London all together. Lou Adler and John Phillips of the Mama and the Papa’s eventually put the festival together. Needless to say the Haight-Ashbury crowd who’d always considered Los Angeles as a “synthetic” scene viewed the event with more than a little suspicion. Leading up to the weekend the event was fraught with planning difficulties. At first the San Francisco bands didn’t want to sign away the royalties for the movie being shot, then one-by-one they acquiesced. The lone holdout was the Grateful Dead and as a result they never appeared in the finished film. Following a powerhouse performance Janis Joplin and Big Brother were signed to Columbia Records. Manager Albert Grossman realizing the benefits of having Joplin included in the film, negotiated with the promoters to schedule Janis and Big Brother for a second performance the next day. That second performance was filmed and included in the final document. From a business perspective, the Monterey Pop Festival was an extremely successful event and brought about a number significant record deals for the Haight-Ashbury bands. Most notably, Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Electric Flag who were snapped up by Columbia, and Steve Miller Blues Band, and Quicksilver Messenger Service who were shortly thereafter signed to Capitol. Already out there with a disc, was the Jefferson Airplane who had signed with RCA in late 1966 getting $25,000 up-front, an unheard of sum for a new rock band. Soon others followed. Steve Miller set the music business on notice when they signed a record deal consisting of a $50,000 advance plus bonuses. In total the deal amounted to $750,000, a staggering amount of money for 1967. The Quicksilver Messenger Service recording deal included a $40,000 advance. And this was just the start. The psychedelic scene had started to go mainstream.

Unfortunately what few realized was that it was also the beginning of the end for the psychedelic cultural phenomenon. Barney Hoskyn’s writing in Waiting For the Sun correctly points out that “What Monterey really represented was the transition from Pop to Rock – from toe-tapping teen discothèque music to FM Art for young adults.” In the end there was perhaps good reason for the suspicion felt by the San Francisco psychedelic scene. Fred Goodman writing in Mansion On The Hill summed it up this way, “The Monterey Pop Festival wound up serving primarily as a commercial showcase for the record companies. Executives flocked there, and the price for bona fide underground San Francisco bands skyrocketed.” After the Monterey Pop Festival it became a lot easier to be heard at the record company level. Record companies now seemed to be accepting the psychedelic bands with out-stretched open arms. The trade-off to this acceptance was that bands started to relinquish control of their lives as recording demands took over and longer tours began keeping bands away from their neighborhoods for longer periods of time. 

The political climate of the day was not always love and flowers, charged as it was with the goal of seeing an end to the Vietnam War. Anti-war marches were becoming commonplace. The level of protest in some cases took on a sideshow approach as religion, Yoga and dissent came together in a strange attempt to levitate and exorcize the Pentagon! Many cities across America began seeing race riots, with arrests and deaths. The committee that had been created in San Francisco to promote 1967 and the Summer of Love as an event unto itself failed to see the downside to such an influx of people. Unfortunately the community of Haight-Ashbury was ill prepared for the massive onslaught of transient youth. 

The music scene was changing as well. In the beginning the dance-concerts at the many ballrooms were all participatory events. The crowds were a mass of movement as people danced and rarely sat down. Poster artist and one of the founding members of the Family Dog, Alton Kelley comments, “The audience was as good as the bands. The only people sitting down were the ones worn out from dancing.” They were one-with-the-music so to speak. But by the end of 1967, even the bands were noticing a difference. People were now watching more than participating. In addition the hero worship was starting, as bands could play a good set and a bad set but still hear the same applause in response. So while the crowd was hearing they didn’t seem to be listening. Many were there because it was the place to be. Gone were the days when the band would interact with the audience from a low stage and know many in the crowd because they lived down the street from most of the people there. Now they were becoming rock stars. For some it was distasteful and disheartening. Others adapted and grew into the new status.