mosriteforum.com

I'm just a young lad of 39 years old, so that stinky, mudding, dirty hippie fest you all call Woodstock was before my time. However, I recognize that it was important to the music that preceded my generation. My question is simple...are there documented Mosrite players that performed with one on that stage? I think I saw a Celebrity when Sha Na Na was playing, but the camera was flying around so I couldn't tell for sure.

What the heck was Sha Na Na doing there, anyway. Did they play that song "one of these things is not like the other"

Iron Butterfly was scheduled, but didn't perform because they got stuck at the airport and couldn't make it to the site.

What the heck was Sha Na Na doing there, anyway. Did they play that song "one of these things is not like the other"[/quote]

Sha Na Na playing was the single most important "moment" at Woodstock. They came out, greased and ready to kick a$$ and said "we gots just one thing to say to you f##kin' hippies, and that is that rock and roll is here to stay!"

IMHO, far more an eloquent statement has not been made since, unless you count Link Wray saying that "the hippies ruined ruckinroll". Lets face it, by 1969 rock and roll wasn't rock and roll anymore but, interesting things were happening underground.

Now, for a Sha Na Na/Mosrite connection, the Ramones were guests on their tv show once, and what was Johnny playing? A Hamer

Rocco

Not to sidetrack too far, but Woodstock the movie was a major undertaking. There was no such thing as portable videotape in those days. It was shot on 16mm film using a number of crews assigned to cover various parts of the event. Many of the acts were filmed, but not everyone was on the same record label, thus a number of bands were denied by their record labels to appear in a movie made by a competing label. For example, Creedence was filmed, but Saul Zaentz would not allow it in the Warner Bros. motion picture.
Filming the picture was a major logistical challenge, and nothing like it had ever been done before. Realise a 400 foot load of 16mm has a running time of 11 minutes. There was a network of runners and loaders serving the different crews as film had to be unloaded from magazines, and the magazines reloaded and run back to the appropriate crew. The loading station was located under the stage. Also, each crew has a soundman running quarter inch tape on a Nagra recorder running in synch with the film camera.
The first rough cut ran something like ten hours. then Michael Wadleigh (the director) and the editing staff cut it down to 4 hours. In an interview, he said the hardest part was cutting it down to 3 hours. Warners did not want to distribute a 4 hour documentary. Next step was the sound mix, another major undertaking, and then the optical blowup of the 16mm to 35mm, much of it using the multi-panel effect. Cinema Research won a technical Oscar for the specially engineered optical printers used to make a clean blow-up 35mm Cinemascope internegative.
All this other stuff, such as Ang Lee's movie, simply do not impress me compared to the actual filming of the original Woodstock. It is the original Woodstock that has created the iconic images and sounds representing the peak of the hippy years. If Iron Butterfly had made it to the stage, no doubt a Mosrite would have been seen prominently in the movie, as long as they were allowed by their record label.
Sorry, didn't mean to hijack.

Strat-o-rama wrote:Not to sidetrack too far, but Woodstock the movie was a major undertaking...//...It is the original Woodstock that has created the iconic images and sounds representing the peak of the hippy years...//...Sorry, didn't mean to hijack.

Trent, I consider my time well spent reading your excellent contribution to this thread concerning the taping of Woodstock…even if it is –as you say- a hijack, which it certainly is not
----------------------------------------

Well, since I started this thread I must say that it has not been hijacked. That was some pretty interesting stuff. I watched a part of that History Channel documentary last night & they touched on that. None of the bands that played really grab my goat, but if I were a teen in that era, I would've loved that show.

So did Sha Na Na have a Celebrity or what?

Lets face it, by 1969 rock and roll wasn't rock and roll anymore but, interesting things were happening underground.

As a purist I would say that rock n roll wasn't rock n roll anymore the day Elvis went in to the Army. But rock n roll has never been about a style or sound as much as it has been about rebellion and anti-establishment. In this context
the Woodstock generation is as rock n roll as any. Each generation has their own way to express it. Sure the hippies got it wrong about drugs but they got it right on a lot. Indeed, rock n roll is here to stay.
They have a expanded cut of Woodstock with lots of bands not in the original movie out now. It is a shame that Iron Butterfly did not a rate a helicopter to the site I can just imagine 500,000 jamming to Inna-gadda-da-vida Mosrites and Fuzzrite in full effect.
Indulge me if you will since it is the 40th anniversary of Woodstock here is some great albums released in 1969
[*01) The Soft Parade (The Doors)
02) Kick Out The Jams (The MC5)
03) Uncle Meat (The Mothers Of Invention)
04) Hot Rats (Frank Zappa)
05) Volunteers (Jefferson Airplane)
06) In A Silent Way (Miles Davis)
07) The Stooges (The Stooges)
08) Bless It's Pointed Little Head (Jefferson Airplane)
09) Clear Spirit (Spirit)
10) Pretties For You (Alice Cooper)
11) Aorta (Aorta)
12) Second Winter (Johnny Winter)
13) Witchcraft Destroys Minds And Reaps Souls (Coven)
14) Ball (Iron Butterfly)
15) The Velvet Underground (The Velvet Underground)
16) Happy Trails (Quicksilver Messenger Service)
17) Aoxomoxoa (The Grateful Dead)
18) It's A Beautiful Day (It's A Beautiful Day)
19) Stand (Sly And The Family Stone)
20) The Belle Of Avenue A (The Fugs)
]21 Live (Iron Butterfly)

What were Sha Na Na doing at Woodstock? For starters, cutting the gig! They came along with their '50's revival thing a good couple of years before American Grafitti brought it back to mainstream culture (and in some places, the '50's never went away!). Most of their gigs back then were at "hippie" venues, lomg before Bowser became a TV star. I saw Sha Na Na open for the Byrds at the Fillmore West in '69.