1968-1969

Small introduction:

To all readers, hope you are having a splendid start of 2019. 

Eventually I would´ve written more, but it concerns an era in which I had not been born yet. Do not consider this as one of my other "stories" because it isn´t. 

If my sixties inspiration would come back then maybe this little posted will get a couple of lines extra.

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Probably you´ll all have seen Back to the Future, where Marty flies black three decades. Imagine you would have a Delorean and you could fly back to see what your old folks were doing in their adolescence. Interesting detail here is that, according to the movie, Marty was born June 12^th 1968, since he is aged 17 in the movie.

A few of the most popular rock bands were established in 1968, e.g. Black Sabbath, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Rush (from Canada). In late ´67, the also Canadian band Steppenwolf started their career, resulting in their first albums in ´68.

One of the great songs from 1968, without a doubt, is from that bloke who screams that he´s the God of hell Fire (Arthur Brown), after which you hear a marvellously distorsioned Hammond organ and a crazy tune about getting burnt in somewhat psychedelic style.

Let´s get back to our German Canadian friend Joachim Fritz Krauledat (John Kay), born in 1944 in East German (Prussia) Tilsit what nowadays is Sovetsk (Сове́тск) in the Russian Kaliningrad oblast. Being able to get away from the eastern front, he emigrates to Canada in 1958. Ten years later, Steppenwolf has success with the smash hits Born to be Wild, Magic Carpet Ride and The Pusher. In fact, they invented the heavy metal. For roughly 10 years, rock was the most popular music style. But in 1976 came a turning point with (british) punk music and 1978 brought the disco.

The middle and end sixties established rock bands are generally more “melodic” than the late seventies and early eighties rock bands, at least in my opinion, and with exception of The Stranglers. The organ or keyboard is much more important.

Deep Purple would’ve been a completely different band without organ, can you imagine their songs without that sound?

It has been fifty years now since:

The implementation of VAT in the Netherlands

The strange case of 4 countries winning Eurovision: Spain, France, the Netherlands and the UK

Death of Brian Jones, 1^st member of the club of 27

Neil Armstrong and his crew with their moonlanding

Premiere of Tommy, the Who´s rock opera

Woodstock

The movie Easy Rider