Rock School; Altamont

Oh! Scooves! I fall! Am I? I've got a fan, so paid I'm a teacher It's time for school Rock school with your hosts, Dr. Joe Burns Woodstock We can do our own woodstock and Chad P Get on stage Okay Here's long time God! Is that what they said? I don't know Did they go okay? Class is in Good afternoon,

this is Rock School, broadcasting live from the campus of southeastern Louisiana University My name is Joe Burns, I am a professor You want to hear what a former student sounds like? He's sitting right next to me, what's your name? Chad P You've grown since then It's a little bit Hey, puberty and everything How about that? We are putting on a show today and I tell you, speaking of putting on shows we got to do a real quick thank you to everyone who comes Contacted us over email I got emails from places like Montana Sure did, got an email from Montana Unbelievable To part American Pie Show The last two, yeah I can't go downtown without getting mobbed by just a couple of people that already recognize us for the show and already bring up American Pie Gold If you'd like to see it or like to hear it actually by all means go to the website kslu .org Look for the chalkboard on the right Click at the two American Pie shows are up there We'll see if we can't equal the excitement with this one What's this? On December 6, 1969 the Rolling Stones looked around and said Woodstock,

Woodstock We can do our own Woodstock Oh They expected 30 ,000 people to attend what the Rolling Stones expected to be Woodstock West the Altamont Motor Speedway And how many people showed up? Well just about 30 ,000 Everybody knows Woodstock Everybody knows how it turned into the summer of love and wonderful and beautiful But why didn't it continue because Altamont shut the door on it? Wow If the beginning of the summer of love was Woodstock Altamont closed it We're going to take the entire hour and I'm going to tell you what happened at the Altamont Concert All these things Well the Hells Angels were hired to do security No they weren't Well Meredith Hunter was just killed there Just out of the blue he was killed Well Not quite You don't quite have the story just right The Stones wanted their own Woodstock Well you got that one right The Stones weren't the only band that played at Altamont Let me tell you when we get back about how we got to

Altamont It was supposed to be here It was supposed to be there The Stones were supposed to play They were supposed to be the only band that played The Grateful Dead was supposed to play They didn't They said It's not looking like a good scene You know who did play? Who? Who opened it up? Who? Santana You got to change your evil ways This is from their debut album in 1969 First band to hit the stage And by the way The stage was too small Was only four feet off the ground No one could see them Here's Santana You got to change your evil ways Baby Before I stop loving you You got to change Baby In every word that I say is true You got me running and hiding all over town I'm just thinking And I'm running and running down the sky There you go, Santana You got to change

your evil ways I'm waiting for you to sign in This is not the same Santana That played with the Rob Tom Give me your love Make it real or else forget about it I'll sign in Exactly the same guy Good, exactly Sure, that's actually from back from 1969 From their original debut album Santana And Santana himself states When he started the concert at Altamont You could see that the hell's angels were already starting to get a little bit restless Now I don't want to tell the whole story At the very beginning Oh yes, they were already a little bit high And starting to get drunk on the beer That the Rolling Stones were giving them I don't want to jump the gun But you said that they weren't high So what are they doing there? If nobody called them and said we need your services Why are they there? The Rolling Stones were the story goes the fake story The story that most people have it That the grateful dead contact with the Rolling Stones and said to them Hire the hell's angels to be

security That's not true Okay The guy who is in charge of the Oakland chapter of the Rolling Stones is a... I'm sorry The Oakland chapter of the Hell's Angels is a guy named Ralph Sonny Barger Okay And Sonny Barger stated that he never was contacted by the stones To come in and be the head of security What happened is they came to enjoy the concert And when the concert got started The manager of the stones came up to him Dick Carter was his name Actually Dick Carter was the owner of the speedway Sam Cutler was the manager of the stones Yeah They went up to Sonny Barger when he was there And said Would you guys mind keeping an eye on the... The generators Right, that we're powering the amplifiers And he said Well, you know, we're just here to enjoy ourselves And he said Well, would you at least sort of help people You know, over there are the bathrooms, over there is the exit, over there is where you know You would get hospital stuff And he said Yeah, we'll do that And we'll

make sure nobody actually gets out of line The Hell's Angels apparently all had pool cues Yeah That you know, we sort of break them in half and unscrew them Right, because you don't know how to go to a concert without fear Of course not One guy had the top part, one guy had the bottom part And that's how they were keeping people in line Well, they said to, you know, the head of the Rolling Stones run, this Sam Cutler They said to him, well, what are you going to give us in return? And apparently this guy gave him $500 in cash and the free beer That was backstage The Hell's Angels apparently became more and more violent and pushy as the day went on And this next group were going to play Santana said they were even starting to get pushy and elbowing people while he was playing And that's the opening act Right, Santana leaves the stage And he apparently got out of there when it was still viable to get in a car And whoom While they're getting lost Right Jefferson Airplane takes the stage next That's great slick They're right, with great slick And they're playing and playing and playing And during the next song we're going to play Yeah It's a little in

question over who hit him But Marty Ballon didn't like What was happening in one of the crowds apparently some of the Hell's Angels were pushing people around It was either a guy named Alan Posaro And he's going to come up again in this little discussion Or it was actually the chapter head of the Hell's Angels Ralph Sonny Barger But the guitarist for Jefferson Airplane during the next song we're going to play His name is Marty Ballon the guitarist Yeah Apparently walked out and said to the Hell's Angels guy Hey, stop it, these people are just trying to have a good time You stop it This Hell's Angel stood up, drew back a fist Caught him right up top of the nose No, he didn't No, he didn't No, he didn't No, he didn't If you get a hold of the documentary, Gimme Shelter, which documents this Alta Mont Motor Speedway concert Yeah You can see the punch He lays there on stage While the song finishes up From the album, Blessed It's pointed little head From 1969 You

can't punch the talent This is Jefferson Airplane As we discuss Alta Mont Stones don't hit the stage for two more bands We're coming back Who? Uh -huh Wow Jefferson Airplane Wow For this nice little uh Guitar solo Other side of this life Enjoying on your airfender strata caster there Well, Marty Ballon couldn't play it Because not in the actual live performance I got to tell you let me let me get back to what's happening Or what happened before the concert actually got underway Because you got me off on this whole Ralph Sonny barge Your thing in the Hell's Angels No,

not a concern Well, there was your fault But let me get back on to this thing The Stones wanted to put on Woodstock West They wanted to have their own And I mean they brought along film crews and things like that Originally it was going to be a Golden Gate Park in San Francisco Well, the 49ers are going to play so that put an end to that The City also got upset because the Stones announced they were going to play And apparently the Stones were going to bring in a crowd They didn't really want there It was going to get moved into the Sears Point Raceway And they didn't like that There was a problem with the music and copyright and things like that It was finally moved to the Altamont Motor Speedway Okay And that was good The problem then was there were problems right off the bat No electricity Because the Altamont had been closed for a while at that point in time So they had to go off a generator That's the generator The stage, right? The stage was only four feet tall So all these people couldn't see What's the deal with a four foot stage? You got me a bad story We did a guitar hero thing in the student union A while back and it was a five foot stage Again big mistake

The sound system was nowhere near loud enough Instead of using PA systems they were literally playing like a bar band So they were instead of using PA systems They were playing right off of the speakers on there They didn't have enough toilets They didn't have hardly enough parking Just lots of trouble But instead of fixing all of the problems What they decided to do was say To heck with it We'll just simply run this puppy And it's one night It's not like it's Woodstock And off we'll go And they still produce 30k That's right We'll have no trouble whatsoever So the flying burrito brothers Were the next people to go on And I'll tell you about the flying burrito brothers When we come back in one minute on rock school Home theater, etc. Located on the corner of Morris and Mooney Across from Florida Parishes Bank Supports programming on 90 .9 KSLU Home theater, etc. Offers several brands of outdoor speakers For outdoor functions including Klipsch, JBL, Mirage, Yamo, and MTX

Home theater, etc. Also offers barbeque pits for purchase The telephone number is area code 985 -340 -7777 Home theater, etc. A proud supporter of programming on 90 .9 FM KSLU We're talking Altamont here on rock school And we're still dealing with the opening acts Don't just don't hit the stage yet The flying burrito brothers Come up next Who are the flying burrito brothers? Yeah They're actually Graham Parsons band He was a member of the birds And a big friend of Mick Jagger and Keith Richards He was also rumored to have written Hockey -Tonk women Every so often somebody will say You know, Hockey -Tonk women doesn't sound anything like any other rolling stone song It kind of doesn't No, it's because Graham Parsons probably wrote it He came out did a very very short set at Altamont And speaking of very very short Had a very very short life Basically drugged himself to death I believe a 26 Don't hold me to

the actual number But didn't go much farther than his mid -30s Here's one of his famous with the flying burrito brothers Six days on the road And he did perform this at Altamont right here Rock School Six days on the road And I'm going to make it home There you go Flying burrito brothers, six days on the road As we talk about the Altamont concert When you're dealing with the Altamont concert A lot of people think about the little section in American pie As I saw him on the stage My hands were clenched in fists of rage And again, about this time People are starting to go stone, stone, stone, stones And they keep bringing out

groups and groups and groups There were to be five groups that were to play At this point in time after the flying burrito brothers got off the stage And Graham Parsons is actually getting out of there At this point in time The grateful dead were supposed to come on But they didn't show They didn't show as a matter of fact When they heard about what was going on Already Marty Ballon has been knocked out Santana has said Okay, we're getting a hay out of here And the people of the people of the hell's angels are starting to take these sticks And knock people around And drugs are starting to really get moved through the crowd There were three deaths at this thing One murder And I'm going to talk about him And a little bit Meredith Hunter is his name One hit and run And one drowning in a drainage ditch of all things And by the way, there were four births So I guess if you're keeping track They're one up Yeah, they made a profit of one So at this point The grateful dead is supposed to play They don't So they

turned to Go ahead Did they agree to play And then back out Or did they say no from the very beginning You know I don't have that It would make sense to me because they're on the poster Okay The posters that push this thing The grateful dead is on that So it would make sense to me that they agreed to play Yes, you wouldn't promote a band that didn't give you the green light Right, and the thing about it is Even though their name is on it And they didn't play They've written songs about it In fact, I have new speedway boogie And I hope during this show that we have time at the end To play new speedway boogie Which is from the workman's dead album in 1970 Which is about the death of Meredith Hunter So they looked around and they went Grateful dead's not here So who's not Who's left Wait, let's have the stones go on We can't Why not? Bill Wyman's not here The bassist? Yeah Okay You three Crosby Stills Nash Pick up your two guitars Get on stage Okay Here's long time God Is that what they said? I don't know Did they go

Okay That's been a long time coming It's gone to be a long time gone I can need a piece to be and not fall A piece to be and not fall A piece to be and not fall It's from their debut LP Are you done? Crosby Stills and Nash You done laughing at you You done mocking me I'm not, I never mock you I would never mock you I think you're wonderful I would never mock you Crosby Stills and Nash long time gone By the way, all the songs that you're hearing Are songs that were played at Altamod By these opening bands I made a point of going on And downloading the set lists That these guys played I'm pointing at it right now Chad can see it I have the

entire stones set list All the songs that you're hearing in the show today Were actually performed by the artist That's right That's right Excellent We are at the bottom of the hour Plus one minute Let me pitch the website to you KSLU .ORG Don't go to com KSLU .ORG Look for the Rock School chalkboard on the right Click on it Show archives And a way to get in touch with us over e -mail And Chad actually has that e -mail for you Go right ahead KSLU .ORG .ORG .ORG At gmail .com KSLU .ORG .ORG .ORG At gmail .com You know when the show first started I used to get depressed Because I would click on the e -mail And we wouldn't have Once in a while Every once in a while And good dog on it I got to tell you now It takes up It takes up a nice little chunk of my day And the e -mail is forwarding to you Answering the ones that are appropriate to me Dude Right now And they're coming to me Some of them are coming to me directly Because they can find me Through the southeastern website And they're coming right

to me In fact, I got a young man today Who is a high school Documentary producer And he's asked if I would sit down and talk to him And be part of his documentary And I said I would love to But I'd like Chad to be in it as well And he said you betcha Go ahead He said good He's not I haven't her back from him yet But I would assume that he's going to say Okay, and if he doesn't You know, I'm going to say How he manned down No deal No deal No deal Okay, and stump on the stones Before they take the stage And outamant Yep Well, you know, you always associate the Rolling Stones With their world -famous tongue and lips design Correct Kind of a Mick Jagger takeoff Exactly Do you know the man responsible for designing that logo? I would assume it was Andy Warhol Nope, it is not Nope Nope, nope I got a two -part to this question I'll give you a chance to redeem yourself Okay What year was it actually incorporated into the Rolling Stones? I think it was the album sucking in the 70s Which would have been about 71

1971 Okay, so I got that Who's the guy that designed it? His name was John I don't know how to pronounce his last name He spells it P -R -A P -R -S C -H -E So it's either Prashant Prashant Prashant Not me, but I got the 1971, right? 71's correct Yeah, 50 -50 We are at Altamont It is not going well The Hells Angels are drunk They're high They're smacking people around The Stones have taken the stage Before they begin Before they begin The four -foot stage people can't see They got to go to the bathroom It's just not going well They hit the stage The first song that's played Jumping Jack Flash We'll be back to tell you what happens next on Rock School Won't you?

I'll vote in a classify of pain None to hide But I'll vote in the Class by Ok Yeah, we're going to go to the dentist asking for jump and jack flash. It's a gas, gas, gas. All right. I'm going to take in the stage. Yes, sir. I'm going to take in the stage. That's right. Is it getting better now? No. It's getting worse. If you watch the documentary Gimme Shelter, and after I discuss the death of Meredith Hunter, I'll start talking to you about the documentary Gimme Shelter. It's getting bad, bad, bad, and people are starting pushing around and they're starting to push back at the hell's angels and the hell's angels are not liking being pushed back. And as you watch the documentary, there's Mick Jagger standing there with his elbow length, sort of, I don't know what you'd call them, evening gown gloves, sort of covering the track marks on his arm and he's sitting there going, be

cool babies, be cool, my babies, be cool babies, be cool babies and they're not being cool. And things are not going well and when we get back, I'll tell you about the death of Meredith Hunter in one minute, rock school. Support for KSLU programming is made possible in part by home theater, et cetera. In addition to flat panel displays and digital surround sound setups, home theater, et cetera, also offers home theater furniture such as entertainment centers, TV stands, home theater seating, and pop up flat panel lifts. Home theater, et cetera, is located on the corner of Morris and Mooney across from Florida parishes bank. The telephone number is area code 985 -340 -7777. Outamont on rock school, well the stones have taken the stage, they played jumping jack flash, they played carol, they played sympathy for the devil. Now there is an urban rumor going around that the death of Meredith Hunter occurred during sympathy for the devil. Not true. Wrong. Now, it had to be restarted because a riot got underway, but no, Hunter did not die. They then played the son of

Shining, Stray Cat Blues, Love and Vane, here is where the death occurs. The story is often told of Hunter that he's an innocent man just standing there and all of a sudden the hell's angels go crazy and kill him. Not at all true. Hunter taunted the hell's angels, probably because he was high on methamphetamines. It is shown inside of the documentary, Jimmy Shelter, that he draws out of his coat. He was dressed in a white suit and he pulls out of his suit and you can't deny this. Whether he got off a shot or not is whether you can, whether you can, something you can actually discuss and contemplate. He pulls out a chrome, long barrel pistol, whether he gets off a shot or not, whether it's a flash of the light or whether it's actually fire coming out of the barrel. That's what the question is. The barrel comes out. The gun comes out. It gets at the stage.

If he gets off a shot, he's shooting at Jagger and the thing about it is the line inside of American pie, you know, I saw Satan laughing with the light. He's talking about Jagger laughing while Meredith Hunter is dying, beaten to death. Right. Well, beaten to death stabbed. He's actually, now he's stabbed with knives. The pull cues are beating him. He's being beaten, obviously, but also stabbed. The killer is actually Alan Pasaro. They were able to pick out which of the hell's angels actually killed him. He stabbed five times on the scene, dies right there. So when you hear the story that this poor guy is sitting there, he's enjoying himself and lotted out of it on, the hell's angels go, hey, kill him. No, he got it. He got it all true. He brought it on himself. Right. Pulls out the pistol, whether he shot or not, you don't know. He did not die during sympathy for the devil. Well, what song did he die during? This one. This one. Under my thumb. On Rock School.

Under my thumb. On the girl who was. She had me a death. Under my thumb. On the girl who once pushed me around. That's under my thumb, rolling stones. Or stoutamons. Yeah. So I was going to have such a good group to it. Yeah. Hell's Angels probably got into a little bit of a rhythm. He's dead at this point. He dies right there on the scene. And at this point in time, literally, people are going nuts. The concert has to be stopped at this point during a riot. Now, what I'm about to tell you, I found on a couple of websites. This was not in the documentary Gimme Shelter. But I found this on a couple of websites. And it was written so that it sounded viable. So I'm going to give it to you. One of those concepts I've never let the facts get in the way of a good story. I don't know who actually was holding the gun. One website

stated that it was actually Ralph Sonny Barger. But I'm not really sure who it was. Apparently, even though they didn't know that somebody was killed, this was the second time that the show had to be stopped during a riot. And apparently Keith Richards took off his telecaster. He had a beautiful telecaster guitar. Sat it down and said, curse word this. Put it down, goes walking off stage. And one of the Hell's Angels pulls out a snub nose pistol, raises it, and puts it right between his eyes. And says, play or die. Good grief. And for about three seconds, Richard Starrism dead in the face and goes, play. Walks back up on stage. The very next song is the live debut. The first time it had ever been performed live. Brown Sugar on Rock School. Oh man, I said it before,

I'll say it again. Rock and roll needs more horns. That saxophone is brilliant inside of that thing. I really did that guy. If I had a pistol pointed at my head, play or die, I'd play. Something tells me it wasn't the first time he had a pistol pointed at his face. I would play in a heartbeat, but it wouldn't sound good. Gimme shelter, the documentary. It is a documentary not only of Altamon, but of the entire tour of the stones that year. I have it. I have a copy of it. I actually bought it. It was one of those close -out bins. And I thought, oh, I'll give you $2 for this. It's all the stuff that they did at the Muscle Show sound studio. It's the stuff for the Get Your Ya Ya's out live concert. It's him with Icon Tina Turner. It's got Jefferson Airplane on it. You can see Marty Ballon get crashed into. You really should get a hold of it. It's in fact the lead track and run from the lead LP, really a good documentary. Let me tell you about the picture that's on the front of it. When you look at the Gimme Shelter DVD, there's a picture of Mick Jagger kind of staring at you blank face. You don't know until the very end of it what the picture

is. He is. He Mick Jagger is looking at raw footage in the documentary. And he sees Meredith Hunter pull the gun out and shoot at him. And the question is the guy who's the director, his name is David Marseless. He keeps saying, no, I don't know if he shot at you or not. If he did, he got off a lucky shot. And if he obviously he missed you, but I don't know if he shot at you or if that's a glint off the gun. But obviously the gun came out and you can just see Jagger's eyes getting bigger and bigger and bigger. And he gets up as if he's a walking man who's lucky to be alive and he turns towards the camera and when those two saucers of his eyes look at you, it goes dead. That's the front cover of it. So that's the thing. They leave the stage. Their last song, Street Fightin' Man on Rock School. There you

go, they leave with Street Fightin' Man. So it ends the ultimate concert completely contrasts with Woodstock, the festival that took off the three days for peace, love and music at the beginning of 1969 comes to a screeching, crashing halt critics call Outamont the death of the Woodstock nation. All future rock concerts completely banned at the Outamont Motor Speedway. And with rightful reason, I you would think the death of Meredith Hunter and the Rolling Stones you'd like to say that they were crashed out of it that people looked at them poorly. They had such a nasty reputation going in that it probably did little more, but bolster. Yeah. Who they were. We're going to end up with a song by the grateful dead who decided, nope, we're not going into that quagmire. They wrote a song that appears on the workman's dead LP in 1970, The New Speedway Buggy. I would like to call them the smart man's man. Yeah, you're not good. Listen for some lyrics. They talk about a man that they knew at the Speedway.

It's dedicated to Meredith Hunter. New Speedway Buggy. This is Rock School. My name is Joe Burns. I'm Chad P. Class is dismissed. Please hold Dominate the rap track if you've got nothing to say. If you please go back up the track, this train's got to run to D. I spent a little time around the town.