A Cultural History of Popular Music in San Francisco (1965-69)

《旧金山和漫长的60年代》是对1965年至1969年间旧金山湾区流行音乐的文化研究。那些年标志着迷幻实验、反文化反抗和音乐革命的时期，我称之为“短暂的60年代”。《旧金山和漫长的60年代》也反映了当代地方社区向地理上不同的反文化活动的传播，以及超越地理和时间空间限制的地方意识形态的延续——我称之为“漫长的60年代”。到1965年，旧金山另类艺术社区的焦点已经从垮掉的北海滩（North Beach）转移到了嬉皮中心海特-阿什伯里（Haight-Ashbury）。就在城外，作家肯·凯西（Ken Kesey）和他的“快乐恶作剧”乐队（Merry Pranksters）开始举办他们所谓的“酸性测试”——多媒体派对、无政府主义剧院，用凯西的话来说，他们试图找到一种“新的现实”。酸的测试，以及随之而来的多媒体活动，塑造了旧金山流行音乐的生产和消费，并最终为美国和欧洲城市的现场音乐体验提供了一个模板。在酸试验的时候，“旧金山之声”还没有被编纂；60年代初期，湾区是一种融合了民谣、乡村和摇滚、哲学、无政府状态和迷幻的流行音乐的发源地。这些音乐自然地从海特社区中涌现出来，并服务于他们的需要。在阿瓦隆舞厅和菲尔莫尔礼堂等场所举行的音乐会满足了社区对当代流行音乐的胃口，无论是本地还是国际，并体现了一种特殊的音乐环境精神，这种精神在今天仍然可以在当地感受到。然而，从“短”到“长”的60年代的转变并不是天衣无缝的，破裂的时刻是1967年，对外宣传的那一刻是“爱的夏天”。到1967年，旧金山已经成为寻求迷幻启蒙的人的目的地；但是，以海特为基础的反主流文化，受到关心周围人民的简单愿望的影响，无法维持人口的涌入。1967年10月，原始社区的成员在海特街举行了象征性的“嬉皮之死”葬礼游行；社区的许多其他成员已经离开了这座城市，在湾区的其他地方过着简单的生活。60年代的音乐反映了这种转变。它不再是关于迷幻之旅，而是关于一种特殊的精神和政治思潮。几乎没有证据表明它含有改变思维的化学物质，它的主要特征是声学乐器和紧凑的和声。像Moby Grape和Grateful Dead这样的旧金山乐队接受了这种音乐风格，从1967年开始，他们的音乐输出允许更直接的地址，经常在他们的歌词中明确从短的60年代收集到的简单事实。《旧金山和漫长的60年代》既是对“短60年代”的历史描述，也是对“长60年代”的口述历史。在奖学金期间，我将写我的专著的前半部分，一个60年代短的历史叙述，分析一些关键的音乐文本，这些文本提供了当代嬉皮意识形态表达的例子。我也将完成我的田野工作，用数字视频捕捉Haight社区原始成员的回忆。这些60岁出头的特工中，有许多人现在已经六七十岁了，虽然他们的经历构成了“活着的记忆”的基础，但这种情况不会持续太久。

San Francisco and the Long 60s is a cultural study of popular music in the San Francisco Bay Area between the years 1965 and 1969. Those years mark the period of psychedelic experimentation, countercultural revolt, and musical revolution, which I am calling 'the short 60s'. San Francisco and the Long 60s is also a reflection on the dissemination of the contemporary local community to geographically disparate pockets of countercultural activity, and the perpetuation of the local ideology beyond the confines of geographical and temporal space - what I am calling 'the long 60s'. By 1965 the focus of San Francisco's alternative artistic community had shifted from beatnik North Beach to the hippie centre of Haight-Ashbury. Just outside of the city, author Ken Kesey and his band of Merry Pranksters started to hold what they called Acid Tests - multi-media parties, anarchic theatre, an attempt to find, in Kesey's words, a 'new reality'. The Acid Tests, and the ensuing multi-media events that followed in its wake, shaped the production and consumption of popular music in San Francisco, and ultimately provided a template for the live musical experience in cities across the United States and Europe. At the time of the Acid Tests the 'sound of San Francisco' was yet to be codified; in the short 60s the Bay Area was home to a popular music that fused folk, country and rock with philosophy, anarchy and acid. The music emerged organically from, and served the needs of, the Haight community. The concerts held at venues such as the Avalon Ballroom and the Fillmore Auditorium satisfied the community's appetite for contemporary popular music, both local and international, and enshrined a particular musical-environmental ethos which is still palpable locally today.The shift from the 'short' to 'long' 60s was not seamless, however, and the point of rupture was 1967, the moment publicized to the outside world as 'the Summer of Love'. By 1967 San Francisco had become the destination for seekers of psychedelic enlightenment; but the Haight-based counterculture, shaped by the simple desire to care for the people in its immediate environment, could not sustain the influx of people. In October 1967 members of the original community staged a symbolic 'Death of the Hippie' funeral march down Haight Street; many other members of the community had already left the city to live simple lives elsewhere in the Bay Area. The music of the long 60s reflects that shift. It became less about the psychedelic journey and more about a particular spiritual and political ethos. It bore little evidence of mind-altering chemicals, and was characterized above all else by acoustic instruments and tight vocal harmonies. San Francisco bands such as Moby Grape and the Grateful Dead embraced this musical style, and their musical output, from 1967 onward, allowed a more direct address, often crystallizing in their lyrics the simple truths gleaned from the short 60s. San Francisco and the Long 60s is both an historical account of the 'short 60s' and an oral history of the 'long 60s'. During the Fellowship period I will write the first half of my monograph, an historical narrative of the short 60s, analyzing certain key musical texts that provide examples of contemporary articulations of the hippie ideology. I will also complete my fieldwork, capturing on digital video the reminiscences of members of the original Haight community. Many of these agents of the short 60s are now in their sixties and seventies, and while their experiences form the basis of a 'living memory', that will not be the case for much longer.