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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
 Posted - 24/12/2015 : 14:11:31
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I wonder if the crackdown on the teens that resulted in "riot on Sunset Strip"....if it was partly due to those 40's & 50's era stars and artists' (the Rat Pack etc) resentment at having their Strip hangouts taken over by hippies and freaks!? Were the Doors playing the Strip during the riots, beginning sometime in the summer of 1966 (that would have been The Whiskey)? Nov 12 1966 was the day that posters named as the "official" day to protest the curfew placed on the hippie teens that frequented the Strip.
Of course the legendary Pandora's box was leveled as a result of the riots, partly due to get rid of one of the key the hippie hangouts and to make way for street improvements.
The club was located at 8118 Sunset Boulevard, at the corner of Sunset Boulevard and Crescent Heights Boulevard. In 1962, the club was bought by deejay and Shindig! host Jimmy O'Neill. O'Neill's trendsetting booking policy made Pandora's Box the center of the Sunset Strip youth scene.
In 1966, annoyed residents and business owners in the district had encouraged the passage of a strict 10:00pm curfew and loitering law to reduce the traffic congestion resulting from crowds of young club patrons. This was perceived by young, local rock music fans as an infringement on their civil rights, and on Saturday, November 12, 1966, fliers were distributed along the Strip inviting people to demonstrate later that day.
Hours before the protest one of L.A's rock 'n' roll radio stations announced there would be a rally at Pandora's Box. The Los Angeles Times reported that as many as 1,000 youthful demonstrators, including such celebrities as Frank Zappa, Sonny and Cher, Jack Nicholson and Peter Fonda (who was afterward handcuffed by police), erupted in protest against the perceived repressive enforcement of these recently invoked curfew laws.
In November 1966, the Los Angeles City Council voted to acquire and demolish the club. The club was demolished in early August 1967. The 1967 film Riot on Sunset Strip is a fictionalized depiction of the events. Buffalo Springfield's 1967 hit single, "For What It's Worth (Stop, Hey, What's That Sound)," was written by group member Stephen Stills in response to the riot. -wiki
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So much music, so little time. |
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lemonade kid
Old Love
USA
9876 Posts |
Posted - 24/12/2015 : 14:12:14
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BUSTED FOR BEING TOO YOUNG
JULY 5, 2015 DENNIS KANE
This month marks 48 years since I was busted for breaking curfew on the Sunset Strip and had to spend a week in a Hollywood juvenile hall before getting kicked out of the country.
The Summer of Love, 1967, and I was 16. IÕve written about this before but had said I was 17, which was wrong. Although I suppose it doesnÕt make much difference.
IÕd taken a train from Orillia to Vancouver, sitting in a seat for 3 1/2 days, not old enough for the bar car, and from Vancouver found my way to the border where officials phoned my mom back home to make sure I wasnÕt running away. From there I hitchhiked to Los Angeles.
I kind of remember the trip south. I didnÕt have much money, and I slept in my sleeping bag in fields near the highway. IÕm sure I also cursed my two buddies in Orillia several times for backing out at the last minute.
Eventually a potato farmer in an old truck picked me up, in Oregon I think, and we drove all the way to Watsonville, CA, saying almost nothing to each other as we sailed on down the highway. He didnÕt care about my story, and I didnÕt care about potatoes.
I guess it was just a day or two later that I made it to L.A., and the first thing I did was take a city bus to West Hollywood and the Sunset Strip, because that was where it was all happening.
It was where the infamous riots on Sunset Strip had begun the previous fall, and where clubs that lined the colourful street regularly hired bands who would some day find themselves in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
The riots arose after people who lived and worked in the area didnÕt like the idea of so many long-haired kids hanging around. Police got involved, there were arrests and lots of commotion, and kids got clubbed in the head and banged around. I feel mighty confident in saying that the world ÒpigÓ flew around quite a bit.
Not long after, after things had calmed down, I showed up.
Buffalo SpringfieldÕs ÔFor What ItÕs WorthÕ describes a bit of the situation, which you can see and hear below.
The problem with the riot is that a 10 oÕclock curfew for those under 18 was ordered. I knew about this curfew, but it wasnÕt something that seemed to matter. I didnÕt have a lot of places to go anyway, and walking the streets was what I did, regardless of what time it was.
I almost know the exact date when I got busted, after searching the internet for ÒPaupers and Youngbloods at Whisky a Go GoÓ, which was the night it happened.
The Paupers played at the iconic club from July 14 to 19 of 1967, opening for different bands on different nights. I saw them with the Youngbloods on one of those nights, and was promptly busted while walking down the street afterward, which was probably around the midnight hour.
The cop handcuffed me and took me to the local station where I stayed the night behind bars, and the next morning they moved me to a juvenile hall with big walls, where I wore inmate clothing, had to get up way too early, took classes in U.S. history, played cards in the dormitory, and I had no idea how long IÕd be there for. It truly sucked, and I was such a lousy card player.
One morning, while eating breakfast with my new buddies, somebody called my name out and took me to get my street clothes because I was going back to Canada. My parents had sent money for a ticket, and an employee from the prison drove me to the airport and saw me right to my seat on the plane.
Several hour later the plane touched down in Toronto and I made my way up to Orillia. My parents told me they werenÕt mad at me and that was thatÉ..
É.until the fall of 1968 when I went to England for much of the winter, to the Atlantic City Pop Festival in the summer of Õ69, hitchhiked across Canada three different times, and did all sorts of things, legal and illegal. I probably worried my parents sick. At least I like to think they were worried.
And one last thing to mention about my time on the Sunset Strip. IÕd been staying wherever I could, and it was around this time that Charles Manson and his girls were beginning to set up shop in the L.A. area, including hanging around the Strip. All it wouldÕve taken were a couple of friendly young Manson ladies offering me a place to stay and lots of loving, and I easily couldÕve ended up in some seriously wrong company.
I guess getting busted for breaking curfew might have been a good thing. Although it didnÕt seem so at the time.
Buffalo Springfield - For What It's Worth 1967
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f4jvnY9K4LY
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So much music, so little time. |
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underture
Fifth Love
482 Posts |
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RIOT ON SUNSET STRIP 1966-The Curfew Riots
