American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

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Favourite clip

Jefferson Airplane
13
87%
Pink Floyd
0
No votes
The Doors
2
13%
 
Total votes: 15

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The Modernist
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American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby The Modernist » 23 Nov 2017, 23:44

Some very interesting clips for your delectation and comments.
They are great as performances from iconic bands of course, but fascinating time capsules too. We're all so familiar with the 60s narrative, and of course most of us didn't experience it first hand, that it's easy to forget how radical and shocking psychedelia and the whole hippie movement must have been. I really got a sense of that from watching these clips, I mean this stuff was going into ordinary homes across America. Dick Clark is polite, interested even, however there is still an awkward tension there, a real sense of a them and us divide.
Oh and I've attached a poll for your favourite clip as I know you like a poll, but it's your thoughts I'm interested in, so take it where you will..






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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby PresMuffley » 24 Nov 2017, 00:08

My first thought is that it kinda blows how American Bandstand didn't adopt the color format until 1967. Psychedelia doesn't quite work as well for me in black & white.

The best clip from what you posted was "THE" Jefferson Airplane as it seemed to be some sorta proto-goth thing. Very cool. I'm sure I would have been much more impressed with the lot had I grown up during that period.
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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby The Modernist » 24 Nov 2017, 00:16

PresMuffley wrote:The best clip from what you posted was "THE" Jefferson Airplane as it seemed to be some sorta proto-goth thing.


Yes that's what I thought! They come across as quite foreboding and threatening, not fluffy flowers in the hair at all. Grace Slick pretty much invents Nico and Siouxsie Soux right there.

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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby naughty boy » 24 Nov 2017, 00:24

I have so many thoughts - I've actually been watching a lot of this stuff recently - but I'm not sure I have anything substantial or conclusive to say.

But you're dead right to highlight the 'us vs them' thing - and in some ways it's more obvious precisely because they're all treading carefully around each other. There's a distance between performer and presenter you didn't get even just a few years later. He asks some odd questions to the Airplane and you can imagine parents in middle America being...I don't know if scared is the appropriate term (I never really bought it when people said it about the Pistols in '76), but almost certainly worried about their kids.

And of course there's a sense of menace in all the performances. The Floyd are 'lighter' but in some ways the 'weird druggie' thing is more strongly suggested as a result. But the intro to 'White Rabbit' retains every bit of its strangeness. That must have caused a few forks to drop onto plates in 1967!
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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby PresMuffley » 24 Nov 2017, 00:48

The Modernist wrote:
PresMuffley wrote:The best clip from what you posted was "THE" Jefferson Airplane as it seemed to be some sorta proto-goth thing.


Yes that's what I thought! They come across as quite foreboding and threatening, not fluffy flowers in the hair at all. Grace Slick pretty much invents Nico and Siouxsie Soux right there.


That's the only clip that the B&W benefited due to its already dark tone. It would've been nice to see an actual LIVE performance since Grace's vocals are so unique.
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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby Charlie O. » 24 Nov 2017, 01:00

DC: "Older people worry - they see the way you're dressed, they hear your music, they don't understand it - do parents have anything to worry about?"

PK [smiling a little smugly]: "Uhh, I think so! Their children are doing things that they didn't do, and they don't understand."

DC: "Yeah, alright, that's a square answer!"

That's always been one of my very favorite AB clips and I'm voting for it although the Doors one is great, too. (I feel sorry for Marty, though, having to pretend to play a piano on songs that clearly don't feature one. This was his band just months before!)

The Pink Floyd clip was a disappointment/relief when I finally saw it after years of reading about it. The legend was that Syd was completely catatonic and refused or was unable to move his lips - which is demonstrably untrue. I do wonder if they didn't all feel a bit ridiculous miming to such an inane song, though.
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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby Charlie O. » 24 Nov 2017, 01:04

Shame there isn't a clip of the full segment - or at least the full interview with the kids - but this is appropriate:


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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby fange » 24 Nov 2017, 01:10

Fabulous stuff, G, thanks for those. They really brightened my morning.

So many thoughts, but so little time. First, the Airplane clip is so brilliant musically and visually that it has to be my fave, but the others - especially the Floyd - aren't too far behind. The Floyd look wonderful in that clip! I'm a hetero guy, but i don't mind saying that Syd looks absolutely beautiful.
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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby zoomboogity » 24 Nov 2017, 01:32

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Last edited by zoomboogity on 24 Nov 2017, 01:40, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby zoomboogity » 24 Nov 2017, 01:32

Pink Floyd is my favorite band of the three, but their clip here is my least favorite. Maybe I know too much about Syd's backstory, maybe it's such an odd choice for a single, or maybe I just don't like this song that much.

I was talking with Bobzilla a while back about seeing these shows in their first run and having my memories jogged by seeing them again on youtube - two that stand out are The Beatles on Ed Sullivan in 1965 and The Who on Smothers Brothers in 1967. He said how exciting it must have been, and after thinking for a moment, I thought that it must have been more exciting to a teenager who grew up in the '50s. To me, it's just "what was on TV that night" - I was six in 1967, I wasn't following pop trends, nor were my classmates. The kids in my neighborhood were all roughly the same age, so no hip 22-year-olds to turn us on to The Mothers or Stockhausen or drive us up to see Monterey Pop. It's all we saw, so we didn't see it as an "alternative" to what had come before. It just seemed natural that you'd see The Doors on a variety show after Jimmy Durante or a ventriloquist or a "Sabre Dance" plate spinner. Same with the radio, everything just blended together. I mean, I could tell the difference, and I knew I liked The Who more than the plate spinners, but it would have seemed more "revolutionary" to me had I been born ten years earlier.

If this poll were from 1966, and this were up against Love and Count Five, this would be my pick for best clip (with Psychotic Reaction my favorite song).

Last edited by zoomboogity on 24 Nov 2017, 01:49, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby The Modernist » 24 Nov 2017, 01:46

Yeah that's amazing. Thanks for posting it.

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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby Jimbo » 24 Nov 2017, 04:02

"When the truth is found to be lies." I can dig it. 8-)

Airplane and Doors for me. The songs and the recordings are wonderful, especially how the compositions end up in the most dramatic crescendos. Morrison's last croak, my god! Thanks for posting.
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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby Deebank » 24 Nov 2017, 18:12

Who melted Nick Mason's kick drum?
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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby Goat Boy » 24 Nov 2017, 18:18

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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby The Modernist » 24 Nov 2017, 20:55

Stick to the subject! :x




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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby clive gash » 24 Nov 2017, 22:25

It takes a big man to cry, but it takes a bigger man to laugh at that man.

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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby The Modernist » 24 Nov 2017, 23:28

I still think there's more to be said here. A couple of thoughts/questions..

1. Does Grace Slick get enough credit? She was quite a pioneering force. I never seem to hear much about her, is it another case of a woman being excluded from the male written classic rock narrative?
2. Why on earth did Pink Floyd go for Apples and Oranges as a single?

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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby Sneelock » 24 Nov 2017, 23:53

I’ll go with “the Crystal Ship” because it doesn’t have a good beat and you can’t dance to it.
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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby Jimbo » 25 Nov 2017, 01:46

I had thought the hipper bands eschewed ABS because of the phoniness of lip synching songs. Maybe because Light My Fire (the abbreviated version) and White Rabbit were among the earliest "underground" songs so perhaps word hadn't gone out that lip synching isn't cool, man. It was a little disconcerting to see such hip bands going along with the shtick but it's been 50 years. Jimbo forgives you guys.
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Re: American Bandstand 1967 What the f*** is going on?

Postby Charlie O. » 25 Nov 2017, 05:06

The Modernist wrote:I still think there's more to be said here. A couple of thoughts/questions..

1. Does Grace Slick get enough credit? She was quite a pioneering force. I never seem to hear much about her, is it another case of a woman being excluded from the male written classic rock narrative?

I think she fared better than most women rockers in that regard. Especially considering she was never terribly prolific as a writer (though many of the songs she did write for the Airplane were astonishing). And especially especially considering she ended up singing dogfood like "We Built This City".

The Modernist wrote:2. Why on earth did Pink Floyd go for Apples and Oranges as a single?

I can only assume that EMI was demanding a single and the band simply didn't have anything that seemed more suitable. In retrospect they'd have done at least as well to make "Paint Box" the A-side, though that probably wouldn't have been a hit either.


Jimbo wrote:I had thought the hipper bands eschewed ABS because of the phoniness of lip synching songs. Maybe because Light My Fire (the abbreviated version) and White Rabbit were among the earliest "underground" songs so perhaps word hadn't gone out that lip synching isn't cool, man. It was a little disconcerting to see such hip bands going along with the shtick but it's been 50 years. Jimbo forgives you guys.

Good for you. One reason the Airplane and Doors clips work so well is because they aren't taking the piss - a LOT of bands did, thinking it made them look hip and above-it-all, but it usually only made them look self-conscious. I was thinking of that, watching both Slick and Morrison - they're both absolutely invested, committed to the performance. (The Small Faces were really good for that, too.)
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