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THE RE'S A RJOT GOING ON
the demonstration was scheduled to begin, not a single Weatherman was to
be seen in Haymarket Square. Gradually, activists began to trickle into the
city centre, in sheepish tens and twenties. Eventually there were around 300
marching through the city, shepherded by police cars, mounted officers and
scores of cops on foot. 'Is this it? Are these all?' said one incredulous
policemen as the meagre demonstration passed. Suddenly the activists split
into three groups, and for a second there was chaos, as the police reeled
around, trying to determine which direction to follow. Hand-to-hand fighting
followed. Struggling police and demonstrators careered through plate glass
windows, or beat each other to the ground with clubs. Richard Elrod, a
lawyer working for the city council, was photographed as he triumphantly
grabbed hold of a demonstrator. Less than a minute later, he lay on the
ground, paralysed from the neck down. The police alleged that he had been
thrown head first against a concrete wall, but subsequent evidence proved
that he had tripped and fallen into the wall while trying to make a citizen's
arrest. It was the most serious incident of a week in which Weatherman had
promised to strike a decisive blow against the system, but succeeded merely
in demonstrating the sparseness of their support, and their ineffectiveness
when faced with the forces of the state. As the fighting died down, there
was one final statement of defiance. A Weather leader made an impromptu
address to a small group of onlookers. 'We have shown the pigs that we
can fight. We have shown the pigs that they have to overextend themselves
on another front. We have taken the movement a qualitative step further.
We are now going to split into groups of four or five and take to the subways
and buses. We are going to take the lessons we have learned here in Chicago
home with us as we go back. We are going to bring the war home!'
It was a proud but empty call. Weather activist Shin'ya Ono hastily wrote
an 18,000-word defence of the Days of Rage, boasting that it had been a
triumphant justification of the group's political strategy. 12 But numbers spoke
louder than words. Even during the National Action, events organised by
other SDS factions had drawn larger crowds than Weather operations. And
a week later, the first of the Moratoriums proved that traditional SDS
campaigning was far more popular with radical Americans than Weatherman's
street fighting.
As the year staggered to a close, paranoia closed in with claustrophobic
speed. The lunacy of the conspiracy trial convinced the movement that a fair
trial was impossible in Nixon's America. The assassination of Fred Hampton
309
proved that the government was prepared to confront its opponents with
lethal force. It was a time for solidarity, for trusting your sister and brother,
for believing that the movement's divisions could be healed.
That proved to be impossibly naive. The first crack appeared at the start
of December 1969, when Los Angeles police revealed that they were charging
members of Charles Manson's 'hate-filled cult band of hippies' with the
Tate and LaBianca murders. Most of those who sympathised with the movement, from political activists to mellow hippies, stared into the eyes they
saw on Tv, and wondered what linked Manson's madness with their own
imagination; what had perverted the late 1960s ideal of communal living,
sexual freedom and musical expression to the extent that it could become
a springboard for barbaric slaughter.
FREEDOM TO DIE
On the same day that 'nude hippies' were arrested on the Spahn ranch in
Death Valley, MickJagger held a business meeting in London with the Rolling
Stones' newly appointed business adviser, Prince Rupert Loewenstein - a
merchant banker born into the long-deposed Bavarian royal family. Like the
Beatles, who had announced early in 1969 that they were in danger of going
bankrupt, the Stones were facing a financial crisis. Their minimal earnings
from the record contracts they had signed in 1963/64 were being wildly
outstripped by their spending, and the group faced a crippling tax bill.
Loewenstein was recommended to Jagger by a mutual friend, and the Stones
asked him to investigate their business affairs. At their 14 October meeting,
he told Jagger that to improve their tax status they should become residents
of France for two financial years. Jagger realised that April 1970 would be
too soon for the group to organise such a move, and so they fixed April
1971 as the deadline.
Three days after this meeting, the Stones flew to the United States, to
prepare for a lengthy concert tour. Unknown to Decca, their record company
in London, they were also planning to begin work on an album, which they
Would hold back until they were ready to launch their own label after the
Decca deal expired in spring 1970. On 27 October, as Bobby Seale's feud
With Judge Hoffman in Chicago neared its climax, the Stones held a press
conference in New York. While the national media asked predictable questions about the group's image and sexual habits, the underground press
focused on the unprecedentedly high ticket prices that the Stones were
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demanding. Jagger insisted that the issue was completely out of their control:
'We didn't say that unless we walk out of America with "x" amount of
dollars we ain't gonna come. We're not really into that sort of economic
scene. Either you're gonna sing and all that crap, or else you're gonna be a
fucking economist.' 13
Conscious that the controversy was rumbling across the country, Jagger
did his best to maintain his radical image. At each show, the Stones performed
their militant anthem, 'Street Fighting Man'. When they reached Chicago,
Jagger didn't let the opportunity slip. 'This is for all of you and what you
did to your city,' he announced. But the furore over ticket prices refused to
die down. 'Those fuckers are making $2 million on the tour, and Mick Jagger
practically spit in Abbie Hoffman's face when Abbie asked him for some
bread for the Chicago 8,' one fan remarked in Berkeley. As the tour reached
its final stand in New York, the Stones made a fateful decision. They had
heard that the Grateful Dead were planning a free concert in San Francisco's
Golden Gate Park on 6 December. At a Manhattan press conference, Jagger
announced that the Stones would also be appearing at the show. It was news
to the concert's promoter, Bill Graham, who was faced with explaining to
the city's authorities why he had been keeping the Stones' participation a
secret.
For a few days, the confusion seemed to settle. Besides the Stones and
the Dead, the show would also feature the Band, Dr John, Fred Neil and
Ali Akbar Khan; and it would be filmed by a crew under the direction of
Haskell Wexler, whose most recent movie, Medium Cool, was a critically
acclaimed drama-documentary set during the 1968 Democratic Convention.
Proceeds from the film would be diverted to 'groups that do things free'.
Yet the Stones continued to chip away at the radicalism of their gesture.
Quizzed about his commitment to the revolution at the New York press
conference, Jagger laughed and said: 'You can't ask a question like that at a
thing like this.' According to radical DJ Roland Young, the Stones' true
colours were being revealed: 'Mick Jagger was contacted and asked to make
a public appeal for the Black Panthers' defence fund. He said not only would
he not do that, but if any political speeches were made on the stage, they
wouldn't play. And this is the group that put out "Street Fighting Man". See,
it's a shuck and it's a sham.' The San Francisco Mime Troupe had intended
to confront the Stones about their apathy; instead they were told that their
presence at the free show would not be welcome.
THERE'S A RIOT GOING ON
311
As the concert date neared, permission to use Golden Gate Park was withdrawn: San Francisco's city council were concerned that the crowd would be
unmanageably large. On 4 December, local news bulletins were divided
between the arrests in the Tate/LaBianca murder case, the court appearance
by Charles Manson, and the uncertainly surrounding the Stones' concert.
Meanwhile, the group were down in Alabama, recording at Muscle Shoals
studio, and that evening, the night Fred Hampton was murdered, they were
told that a new site had been found for the show: Altamont Motor Speedway,
some fifty miles north of San Francisco. As radical journalist Sol Stern and
his friends discovered, 'Altamont was just a few miles from Santa Rita, the
prison farm where several hundred people had been taken and brutalised by
the Alameda County Sheriff's deputies during the People's Park fighting in
Berkeley. "Far out", said one of the more imaginative Berkeley activists. ''Why
don't we turn the whole thing into a march on Santa Rita after the concert
and demand that all the prisoners be freed". And for several minutes, some
of us were captivated by the image of several hundred thousand marching
rock enthusiasts approaching the prison, chanting "free the prisoners".'
It was never going to turn out that way. What happened next has passed
into rock mythology as the antithesis of Woodstock; the end of the 1960s;
the death-knell of hippie idealism. Around 500,000 people fought their way
to the barren location, to discover inadequate sound and sightlines, no food,
water or toilet facilities, unbearable desert heat, and little refreshment beyond
cheap booze and downers. Security was left to the Hell's Angels motorcycle
gang, who were hopelessly incapable of coping with a crowd so large and
restless. Doom clouded the air from the beginning; the Hell's Angels
responded to any annoyance, such as an audience member staring them out
or daring to touch one of their bikes, with mindless violence.
Any hope of political awareness had vanished. Sol Stern reported: 'The
first disastrous experience of the day came to the Berkeley radicals who tried
to relate to the crowd in a political way. Some of them circulated with buckets
collecting money for the Black Panthers' legal defence fund and met with
indifference and even hostility from the solidly anti-political rock audience.'
After an opening set from the Flying Burrito Brothers that barely stirred
the massive, sullen crowd, the first big-name band took to the stage. Jefferson
Airplane prided themselves on speaking for revolutionary youth, but they
\Vere powerless in the face of so much darkness. As they performed their
most radical anthem, 'We Can Be Together', fighting erupted, and the band
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were forced to stop playing. When singer Marty Balin leapt into the crowd
to stop Hell's Angels from beating up a spectator, he too was clubbed to
the ground and briefly left unconscious. That set the vibe for the day: for
the first time, rock stars had to appear in front of spectators who were
patently not in awe of their fame. Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young delivered
an abridged, faltering set, clearly disturbed by the violence unfolding before
them. 'Watching [David] Crosby's discomfort on the stage,' Sol Stern recalled,
'I remembered that the same group had played in Golden Gate Park at the
November Vietnam Moratorium before a quarter of a million peace marchers.
Crosby had taken an obvious slap at some of the political speakers who had
preceded him- Black Panther David Hilliard, Dolores Huerta of the Delano
grape strikers and Rennie Davis of the Chicago 8. The musician told the
crowd, "We don't need any politicians, politics is bullshit". He implied that
all we needed to get everything right was the music. But at Altamont his
music failed him; it was unable to affect the violence that was engulfing his
band, and he watched dumbfounded as the Angels kicked his fans in fro nt
of his stage.'
Sensing that the situation was beyond their control, the Grateful D ead
refused to perform, and escaped back to the safety of the city. 'There was
one thing beforehand that we all should have spotted,' recalled guitarist Jerry
Garcia wryly. '[Emmett] Grogan wrote up on the blackboard up at the
Grateful Dead office, just as the site had been changed from whatever the
first one was, a little slogan which said something like "Charlie Manson
Memorial Hippie Love Death Cult Festival". Something along those lines,
something really funny, but ominous.' So there was a lengthy delay until the
Rolling Stones were prepared to perform, heightening the tension and malevolence of the crowd. The Stones' reluctance was understandable; Jagger
had been punched in the face backstage as he arrived at the venue. Among
the masses, journalist Lester Bangs allowed himself a moment of elation:
'My God, THE STONES, there they are, and suddenly you're transfigured
at the sight of Jagger bursting onstage in an incredible capelike orange-andblack robe.' But the Stones and their majesty soon became irrelevant, with
fighting breaking out at their feet, and song after song interrupted, as Jagger
called out dolefully to the crowd, 'Brothers, brothers, why are we fighting?'
By now, brotherhood had long since fled the speedway. Instead, an 18-yearold black kid, Meredith Hunter, drew a gun and was stabbed to death by
Angels. Or maybe he was stabbed first and drew later. It scarcely mattered.
THERE'S A RJOT GOING ON
313
}lis body was left bleeding in the dirt, a gaping wound in the side of his
skull, while the Stones stumbled through 'Under My Thumb'. The world
premiere of their sex'n'slavery drama, 'Brown Sugar', passed unnoticed; they
hustled through the customary finale of revolutionary defiance, 'Street
Fighting Man', in their desire to end their ordeal as quickly as possible. Then
it was over, and Meredith Hunter's body still lay in the dust.
It took a while for the news to spread, but even without the murder or
a clear sight of the Angels at their most demonic, anyone who was at
Altamont knew that it hadn't been a festival. That didn't stop the leading
pop paper, the New Musical Express, from rating it as 'the world's most
fantastic pop concert ever'. Their starry-eyed reporter misread the main
event: 'Mick came in for a bit of bother when a long-haired blond youth
jumped on him with intent to kill, but the ever-present Hell's Angels were
on hand to deal with the bother.' But the paper did provide a tantalising
piece of information that was soon forgotten: 'Though the concert was free,
proceeds from TV coverage and ftlms will all go to an orphanage for
Vietnamese babies.' In 1970, Altamont was the focus of a documentary ftlm
entitled Gimme Shelter, fully endorsed by the Stones. There was no more talk
of Vietnamese babies. For a free concert, Altamont turned out to be very
lucrative.
Unlike the NME, the West Coast underground paper, the Berkeley Tribe,
realised what Altamont symbolised. 'Stones Concert Ends It', blared the headline on the front page; 'America Now Up For Grabs'. 'Bringing a lot of
people together used to be cool,' mused George Paul Csicsery. 'But at Altamont
· . . the locust generation came to consume crumbs from the hands of an
entertainment industry we helped to create. Our one-day micro-society was
bound to the death-throes of capitalist greed. America at Altamont could
only muster one common response. Everybody grooved on fear. One
communal terror of fascist repression. America wallows in the hope that
someone, somewhere, can set it straight. Clearly nobody is in control.' Over
the page, his colleague Henry Dankowski erected a mirror for his readers:
'We're turning into a generation whose thing is to be an Audience, whose
lifestyle is the mass get-together for "good vibes". "What do you do?" "I go
to concerts."' The debate about how Altamont had happened, what it meant,
What it signalled for the 1970s, raged for weeks. One writer interpreted
Altamont as proof that 'Underground Music is Dead' and that 'we should
dig the music and forget the imposed social relevance of the musicians'.
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Another said that it represented 'rock as commodity': 'as long as the preoccupation with material acquisitiveness dominates the rock scene, rock will
be almost (not quite) as managed as news releases in Vietnam'. Only two
things were certain. After their 1969 US tour, nobody would ever mistake
the Rolling Stones for political radicals. That particular piece of mythology
was now defunct. And in the wake of Manson and Altamont, it could no
longer be assumed that the counter-culture was a storehouse of moral virtue.
If hippies could kill and watch others being killed in the name of rock and
the revolution, then maybe everything the movement accepted as true had
to be rethought. The 1960s were over, and so was the assumption that good
vibes arid righteous rhetoric could change the world for the better. Activists
prepared for 1970, and a push towards a revolution that would be built on
violence rather than love.
SECTION III