Rolling Stone magazine has been celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, and the two issues they’ve put out so far specifically celebrating this milestone are well worth tracking down. The first installment, which came out in May, featured a gaggle of fantastic interviews with musicians such as Paul McCartney, Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, Neil Young and our own Bob Weir, writers Tom Wolfe and Norman Mailer, filmmakers Steven Spielberg, Martin Scorsese and Michael Moore, and political and cultural figures ranging from Jimmy Carter to Stewart Brand. Great reading!But it’s their latest anniversary special, dated July 12-26, that will be of particular interest to Dead Heads. The entire issue focuses on the year 1967 and includes excerpts from Rolling Stone’s first issues; fine essays on the cultural and musical revolutions that erupted in that magical year; reflections on how the Summer of Love played in different areas, including L.A., New York, London, Memphis and, of course, San Francisco; a colorful reminiscence by Bob Weir (called “LSD Forced Us to Listen to Each Other”); stories about Monterey Pop and the making of Sgt. Pepper; and perhaps most interesting of all, a fascinating profile of Owsley Stanley (aka Bear), the Dead’s innovative first sound man, benefactor, chemical explorer and the driving force behind the famous Wall of Sound. Bear lives in Australia these days and still does occasional sound and recording work—all of it to his famously exacting standards—as well as work in art and jewelry. To find out much more about Bear, check out his thought-provoking web site, thebear.org.
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the annoying questionmarks...
whats up with all the annoying questionmarks? throughout? all? the printing?
Rolling Stone
I agree that the article about Owsley was very interesting.
rolling stone
i just got the issue last week end and havent read it all. but so far its is on of the best issues to date. when i start reading it i dont want to put it down. peace/love/and happyness
Rolling Stone Magazine and the "Summer of Love?"
If you need RS to find out what went down in '67, you'll know less than you do now.
Jann Weenie?
Richard William Narlian This J.Werner guy claims to be THE founder of R.S.
I remember when he was healded as'the WUNDERKID.
Rolling Stone began as a very small newspaper,published out of an office about as big as the current R.S.'s janitor closet.
The REAL GENIUS behind the beginning of R.S. was a long forgotten(or,memory shoved aside to make room for Werners ego)Ralph J Gleason.
Well,SOMEBODY had to recognize the departed genius.
I have many old issues...
of Rolling Stone. I started to read it back around September-October of 1967. I saved many of the original issues, in my archive. It truly was a different newspaper back then. It was indispensible then.
And narly1 is quite correct; Ralph J. Gleason made that newspaper.
The less said about Jann Wenner, the better.
Rolling Stone format change
...shall we go, you and I while we can...
The most hilarious thing I ever read in the magazine was a guy writing to complain that when the format changed from newsprint to magazine format , he could no longer use it to separate out his seeds from the grass. He was cancelling his subscription. Gotta admit,it was kind of a sea change for the magazine.
be here now
Yeah, Rolling Stone did lose it's counterculture/antiestablishment edge 35 years or so ago. They sold it at the Greyhound Bus Station in the Iowa farming community I lived near (5 miles away) during late 60's to mid 70's. It was a voice of salvation for me, along with Bleeker Street am radio late at night, underground newspapers from Iowa City and KUNI - a public radio fm station. In RS I got to read about all the bands in the Bay Area (not Green Bay) and England and got turned on to Gram Parsons, Iggy and the Stooges, Hunter Thompson and Philip K. Dick. Might be in part responsible why some Iowa farm kid is now writing in this forum. In college I wrote a paper about how the RS had become corporate (this was late 70's).
However, I do pick up an issue now and then like the Summer of Love one. I read this cover to cover. Probably hadn't done that with a RS since mid 70's. I highly recommend it and the earlier issue Blair mentions.
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Walt Whitman-Song of Myself
And let's not forget
that the truly fabulous Signpost interview was originally for Rolling Stone.
rolling stone
rolling stone had definitley lost its underground/counter culture status years ago--it even forgets that it is about rock-n-roll nowadays(timberlake,50 cent)---though I still get my VERY cheap sub--something like 56 bucks a year for me and 8 other friends--cool xmas gifts----once in a while they will have a decent issue ( ie. more than one article worth reading)---they still love the environment-Al Gore and RFK Jr--and cant stand ol president shit for brains----so I think it is still worth reading every two weeks---maybe if readers of this site wrote to them and reminded them that good old rock-n-roll still is alive and well--do they even know who Warren Haynes is????---rolling stone can return to covering the stuff it was born and raised on
Rolling Unstoned
There was a piece by Warren Haynes about the Grateful Dead in Rolling Stone - April 5, 2005 that is very nice. Check it out, you can Google it. He says this in it "They bucked the system and encouraged their fans to do the same: to be free thinkers."
As for myself, I started reading this magazine called Dead Relix, than Relix to fill the gap that Rolling Stone didn't fill. Also downbeat and a friend would loan me a Spin (though I didn't connect with many of the bands, but did want news about new music).
Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)
Walt Whitman-Song of Myself
It was the first RS that
It was the first RS that I've read even half of in at least a couple of decades.My daughter buys them because Green Day or Fall Out Boy is on the cover and I look desperately for a sign from Hunter S. Thompson. At least I could relate to and appreciate the moments covered in the 40th anniversary issues they've put out so far. Am waiting hopefully on the 3rd.
Stand corrected
Upon reading the Summer of Love Anniversary edition #2 from cover to cover twice and then thrice, I could only feel like I had realized I was wrong about something I believed for a very long time. Being born in '66, I feel like part of the living breathing essence of that era, a living end product of the up and coming summer of love. Anyhow, after reading the entire edition numerous times I came to realize that my belief that the 60's was an era of over indulgence, escapist utopianism and wreckless abandon; the music didn't do all that much to change the world. Oh sure, an incredible amount of new young talent being introduced, musicians and artists, all the mind altering drugs was all very ground breaking and precedence setting. yeah yeah yeah....lets get high and have fun. But, here it is 40 years later, I'm 41, and I was completely wrong in the belief that nothing changed, EVERYTHING CHANGED! People thought outside the proverbial box, their minds were open to something new, even radical ,social concerns were being shattered left and right, not to mention the birth of the now trendy GREEN MOVEMENT. What an eye opener that Rolling Stone issue was, WOW> I am now feel even more connected to an era I was only born into. Thank the powers that be that people tuned in, turned on and dropped out, WAY OUT!!!
what a long stange trip it truly has been.. I am still enjoying the ride.