culturecapsule 1964-1980

a collection of artistic and journalistic pieces created during a pivotal era of social reform

[culture-capsule]

1966: The Teenagers Who Didn't Rebel

Much media coverage from the sixties and seventies cover the iconic progressive social and cultural movements. What was happening in the lives of those who were happy with their world? This mini-documentary shows what privileged white teenagers were worried about during this time.

[culture-capsule]

“Frippertronics is a tape looping method popularised by guitar virtuoso Robert Fripp. Looping may not seem like a new idea – you’re likely to find a loop pedal under the foot of most street buskers – however, in 1972, the musical world had never seen anything quite like it...” -enmore audio article

“In September of 1972, the pair [ Fripp and Brian Eno] met in Eno’s London home studio, where he had set up a tape system developed by avant-garde composers Terry Riley and Pauline Oliveros.

The record head on the first Revox tape deck was routed to the playback head on the second deck, which then ran back to the first deck. The result of this constant recording and playing was a delay loop, the length of which (usually 3-6 seconds), depended on the distance between the tape decks. During the session, Fripp played guitar over Eno’s loops, which were either selected for looping or bypassed, allowing Fripp to add to the established loop or solo over what was essentially a backing track.”

Robert Fripp demonstrating Frippertronics in 1979.

[culture-capsule]

Joan Didion’s piece on writer Doris Lessing, New York Times, 1971

“What we are witnessing here is a writer undergoing a profound and continuing culture shock, a woman of determinedly utopian and distinctly teleological bent assaulted at every turn by fresh evidence that the world is not exactly any closer to a happy ending. And, because such is the particular quality of her mind, she is compelled in the face of this evidence to look even more frantically for the final cause, the unambiguous answer.”

[culture-capsule]

Say what you will about Buzzfeed, but this collection of magazine ads published during the first decade of Nixon’s “War on Drugs” is worth looking at. 

[culture-capsule]

(Disco Demolition Night, 1979) From theoutline.com:  “The enduring idea of the nightclub as a place where people take sketchily sourced drugs and dance to repetitive music was invented during the disco era ... The genre was especially popular with racial and sexual minorities, who reached new heights of visibility during this period. 

“Unfortunately, the straight white Baby-Boomer dipshits who now make up the rank-and-file of the GOP were unable to grasp how cool this all was, instead preferring to drink Miller High Life and listen to butt-rock trash like Bad Company and Bachman-Turner Overdrive. The backlash to disco culminated in the Disco Demolition Night publicity stunt at Chicago’s Comiskey Park, which was then the home of the White Sox. Attendees were given a discount for bringing in their own disco records, which were blown up with firecrackers between games. This deeply stupid display excited fans to the point that they rushed the field and had to be dispersed by police in riot gear.

Outcome: Disco still rules. Fuck you.”

[culture-capsule]

(Burning Beatles Records, 1966) From theoutline.com: “The story of conservatives reacting with violent rage to the diversification of pop culture really begins in the 1960s. In 1966, an interview in which John Lennon made an offhand comment that the Beatles were “more popular than Jesus” set off a firestorm in the Bible Belt. 

“A radio station in Birmingham, Alabama asked listeners to send in their Beatles records so that they could be fed into a wood chipper, and other stations in the Deep South followed suit and organized massive vinyl bonfires. The Ku Klux Klan, which was particularly offended by comments from the same interview that criticized segregation, nailed Beatles records to a burning cross.”

[culture-capsule]

This was Cat Stevens' first single. It became a hit on pirate radio stations in England, helping launch his career. 

Stevens wrote this about a dachshund he found tied to a post when he was young. When nobody claimed the dog, he took it home and grew attached to it. 

In 1976, Stevens converted to Islam. This happened after a near-death experience off the coast of Malibu, California, during which time he believes that he was spared to do God's work. After converting to Islam, he changed his name to Yusuf Islam. He continues to answer to the title to this day, having started releasing Islamic gospel music in the 1990s.

source

[culture-capsule]

about this project

This blog is dedicated to the collection and display of media created during years from 1964 through 1980. I mostly focus on media from the US, but international works are included. This time period was rich with cultural happenings, thereby a prolific time artistically and journalistically. 

It began in 1964, in the aftermath of JFK’s assassination, the rise in violence in Vietnam, the escalation of the Civil Rights Movement, and the beginning of Second-wave feminism. The “heart” of the period includes the Space Race, the Vietnam and Cold Wars, and the prevalent political/generational divide of the hippie movement: Summer of Love, Woodstock, Anti-War movement, etc. The period ends in 1980; Ronald Reagan was elected president, and the “Reagan Era” began.

The works created during this time can be seen as responses (or, in the less considered works, reactions) to the tumultuous outside world-- a constructive way for the creators to process the events and share their views.

I am interested in these “responses” because they represent the public’s attitudes toward certain issues, events, and cultural phenomena. I wasn’t alive during this time, but getting a general idea of the moods and tensions during that time helps me better relate to those who were.

Of course, this blog will never be able to provide a complete picture of the time. Rather, it is intended to be a fragmented portrait, one the viewer can casually look at without the pressure of understanding how every piece fits together. The posts I make are based on where my research has flowed; I am not going out of my way to include every important event of the period. 

Most of all, the viewer is meant to leave with a better understanding of the feelings of someone other than themself. In a word, empathy. 

See what they saw, hear what they heard, know what they felt.

I have included an accompanying illustration for each section of the blog. The viewer’s visual perspective is “placed” in a position of observing others interacting with the given form of media. It is reminder that the viewer is looking at historically rich work; each piece included made an impact on viewers when it was created. At the time of its creation, the work was relevant and current-- immediately important. In a way, we are secondhand viewers, and it is crucial to acknowledge the experiences of those who were first.

[culture-capsule]

[culture-capsule]

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band 1967 (album cover)

McCartney’s concept of recording an entire album as the fictional Sgt. Pepper band allowed the group to explore more experimental musical choices under the guise of alter egos, making Sgt. Pepper’s difficult to categorize.

Along with taking stylistic notes from jazz, vaudeville, Indian sitar music (among other influences), the Beatles turned to Western classical music for inspiration, effectively blurring lines between “popular” and “high” art and expanding the notion of what was possible with rock music. -source

[culture-capsule]

Roots (1977) TV adaptation of Alex Haley’s 1976 novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family

Based on author Alex Haley's family history. Kunta Kinte is sold into the slave trade after being abducted from his African village, and is taken to the United States. Kinte and his family observe notable events in American history, such as the Revolutionary and Civil Wars, slave uprisings and emancipation.

[culture-capsule]

John Cage, “Bird Cage,” 1972.

about

[culture-capsule]

Joni Mitchell, “Woodstock” 1970.

“When the dust settles, Joni Mitchell may stand as the most important and influential female recording artist of the late 20th century. Uncompromising and iconoclastic, Mitchell confounded expectations at every turn; restlessly innovative, her music evolved from deeply personal folk stylings into pop, jazz, avant-garde, and even world music, presaging the multicultural experimentation of the 1980s and 1990s by over a decade. Fiercely independent, her work steadfastly resisted the whims of both mainstream audiences and the male-dominated recording industry. While Mitchell's records never sold in the same numbers enjoyed by contemporaries like Carole King, Janis Joplin, or Aretha Franklin, none experimented so recklessly with their artistic identities or so bravely explored territory outside of the accepted confines of pop music, resulting in a creative legacy which paved the way for performers ranging from Patti Smith and Chrissie Hynde to Madonna and Courtney Love.” -Jason Ankeny, Allmusic

[culture-capsule]

Richard Estes, Double Self-Portrait, 1976.

Considered a founder of the Photorealist movement, Richard Estes is best known for his paintings of city scenes in New York. Compiling his compositions from multiple source photographs, Estes reconstructs reality in highly convincing renderings. He often incorporates reflective surfaces, such as shop windows and shiny cars, yielding mirrored imagery that serves to enhance what the naked eye is capable of perceiving. In Double Self-Portrait (1976), for example, the artist and an entire street scene behind him are reflected in meticulous detail against the glass façade of a diner.

-Artsy

[culture-capsule]

Santa shows off the Altair 8800 personal computer in December 1975.

photo source

[culture-capsule]

The Blue Marble, December 7, 1972. Taken spontaneously during the Apollo 17 mission.

This image became a symbol of the environmental movement, illuminating Earth's fragility and isolation in the vastness of space.

[readbetweenmylines]

Joni Mitchell has always been a very heavy influence on me. I owe to her the ability to write down what I want to without worrying about what somebody else is going yo think. Joni Mitchell seems, and has always seemed, to be very honest in her writing, very willing to put down the fact that she messed up, that she blew a relationship or that she was at fault. A lot of writers won’t do that. So I have tried to do the same thing, to write about my faults and about the ways that I don’t hold up. In other words, that has a lot to do with letting go of some of your ego..

Stevie Nicks, The New Music Magazine - August 1978 (via readbetweenmylines)