Muhammad Ali spinning records on his very own car turntable.
 
Though I’d be the first person to admit that drivers don’t need anything else to distract them from the road (I’m looking at you EVERYONE) I’ll also be the first person to endorse bringing back the trend of installing record players in cars immediately. Because it doesn’t get much more romantic than being able to listen to your favorite 45s during a hot car makeout session.

The driving idea behind installing record players in cars was that it would allow people to not only control what they were listening to while cruising around but it also eliminated having to put up with endless radio commercials (which sounds pretty good to me). The first “Highway Hi-Fi” was put out by Chrysler in 1956 and was available to install in several car models ranging from a Dodge to various Plymouths. The component, designed by CBS Labs was only compatible with seven-inch LP’s that were put out exclusively by Columbia Records which contained about an hour’s worth of jams for your road trip. Apparently when you bought the console Chrysler would then hook you up with six selections from Columbia’s catalog—artists like Percey Sledge and Cole Porter. Of course all this tricked out audiophilia was pretty spendy and Chrysler’s hi-fi on wheels cost a whopping $200. Which was a fortune when you consider that the average family was only making about $3500 dollars a year in 1956.

Starting in 1960 other less expensive car record player units were produced by RCA, Norelco, and Phillips that could shuffle through multiple 45s and according to an article published by Consumer Reports in 2014 the consoles worked pretty well on the road with the help of a heavier stylus. Sadly the trend had a short life and was replaced by the next big thing to have in your car in the late 60s—the forever groovy eight-track tape player.

If this post has got you thinking about installing one of these vintage gadgets in your own car I’m here to tell you that while it’s possible it isn’t going to be cheap. If you’re lucky enough to find one that is brand-new in a sealed box it could run you a couple of thousand dollars to say nothing of how much it might cost to install. I’ll leave you to think about all that while you look at images of George Harrison and the late great Muhammad Ali (pictured at the top of this post) playing around with their car turntables as well as other vintage photos of the units themselves in action.
 

George Harrison and his car record player.
 

 
More after the jump…

Black Magic magazine, Volume three, Number two.
 
The rise of interest in New Age and occult practices in the 60s and 70s (with a heavy nod of thanks to satanic merchant Kenneth Anger for picking up where Aleister Crowley left off) helped pave the way for a new crop of niche “men’s interest” magazines that focused on hot girls getting down with the devil as well as witches and other kinds of sexy pagan-flavored pursuits. Nice.
 

Bitchcraft magazine, Volume three, Number one.
 
Inside the covers of such magazines as the wickedly titled BDSM-themed magazine Bitchcraft (which was actually pretty nuts by all accounts) you might find erotic fictional depictions of satanic rituals (such the faux fiends on the cover of Bitchcraft) and others, such as Satan magazine were more like devilish Playboy doppelgangers purporting to be flirting with the dark side when in fact it was just another way to sell pictures of pretty girls and perhaps celebrities (such as gorgeous fireball, actress Tina Louise who played Ginger on Gilligan’s Island who appeared the publication in 1957) in various stages of undress with devil horns on their heads. During the course of researching this very sexy post, I came across this composed yet completely depraved letter that was written by a reader of girl-loving magazine Nymphet back in the March 1976 issue in response to an illustrated image of Anton LaVey and a nude woman. Although it’s a fairly terrifying read it does help support the fact that there was indeed a market for publications to help satiate the sexually deprived Satan worshipers of the world:

I’ve been a fan of skin mags for a long time, now and one of the things that bugs me in particular, is the absence of the occult from sexually oriented material. For a brief spurt about three or four years ago, voodoo, Satanism and the occult were getting a fair amount of play in magazines similar to your own. Now, however, there’s little––if anything, appearing on this shadier side of human sexuality. I find extremely arousing, the rituals and ceremonies involving the symbols of witchcraft and devil worship––especially the idea of sacrificing a virgin and the actual deflowering of the virgin by the Evil One himself. One of the most exciting aspects of that brief period was the popularity of Anton La Vea [sic], occult leader of the 5000-member Satanic Church in San Francisco, California. I thought he was very colorful and the sensual practice of nudity among his worshippers, stimulating indeed! Other than this, I really have no complaints about your magazine. But I would like to see more kinky types of sex handled visually, as well as in the articles––subjects like necrophilia and bestiality.”
J. L. Jackson, Atlanta, Georgia.

Well said, J.L. Jackson of Atlanta—you sir or madam clearly know how to party. Images from the covers and pages of magazines such as Pagan, Satan’s Scrapbook, Black Magic and of course Satan (because, Satan) follow. Some are NSFW.
 

The cover of a vintage Satan magazine.
 

Actress Tina Louise in the February, 1957 issue of Satan magazine.
 

The giant stone ‘marquee’ on the first drive-in movie theater in Camden, New Jersey that opened on June 6th, 1933.
 
83-years ago this week (June 6th, 1933 specifically) the very first drive-in movie theater opened for business in Camden, New Jersey. Originally conceptualized and patented in 1933 by entrepreneur Richard Hollingshead who astutely recognized that despite the failing economy (the Great Depression was in full swing) people were still going to the movies and would cut back on basic necessities such as food for the opportunity to escape their bleak day-to-day existences in a dark theater for a few hours. Hollingshead’s outdoor theater cost only a quarter a car (plus 25 cents for each occupant) and the sound from the speakers broadcasting the films to the 400 car capacity lot were so loud that they could be heard miles down the road.
 

A print advertisement for Richard Hollingshead’s new drive-in theater in Camden, New Jersey.
 
According to a historical reference noted by the University of Michigan not everyone was happy about Hollingshead’s invention of the drive-in—and aparently a group of teenage girls actually took to protesting its creation as it put a big dent in the booming tween babysitting business since families were now bringing their infants, toddlers and young children along in the car to see the latest celluloid offerings from the comfort of their car. Drive-in theaters started to proliferate all over the country from Massachusetts to New Mexico and by 1942 there were 95 drive-ins with locations in 27 states. Ten years later there were approximately 5000 drive-in movie theaters in operation across the U.S. When the decade of spandex and neon otherwise known as the 80s rolled around drive-in theaters began their decline thanks to urban sprawl and technological advancements such as cable TV and the cheaper price of that in-home movie machine, the VCR.

These days (and according to an article published in 2014) there are still 338 drive-in theaters in operation including one of my favorite haunts in my younger days, the 67-year-old Weir’s Beach drive-in in New Hampshire. Tons of images of drive-ins from the past follow.
 

West Virginia, 1956.
 

A ‘carhop’ at the Rancho drive-in, San Francisco, 1948.
 
Many more after the jump…

Rave Magazine, December 1966.
 
In this fascinating article from the December 1966 issue of English pop-music magazine RAVE, George Tremlett (a pop music writer and author of various cash-in paperback books on David Bowie, David Essex, and The Who) broke down how much each member of The Beatles were worth back back then.
 

 
Armed with data collected from the London Board of Trade, Tremlett was able to ascertain that the fab-four were pulling in approximately £4 million pounds collectively a year with help from such endeavours as record sales, songwriting royalties, films and live appearances. With all that cash floating around you’d think that perhaps the band would had a good grasp on how much they were worth—but John, Ringo and George were fairly clueless when they were asked if they knew how rich they actually were:

John Lennon: We’ve asked them to to tell us how much we’ve got but they can’t—the money comes in from so many places

George Harrison: I never buy anything without asking our accountants—I just phone them up and they tell me whether I can afford it.

Ringo Starr: The accountants say I’m alright—that’s all I want to know.

The English pound sterling was basically a £1 to $2.80 exchange rate back in 1966. £1 in 1966 was equal to £$7.43 in 2016. Considering that the modern music industry was still then in its relative infancy, that’s some amazing earnings, which would only have gotten better for Lennon and McCartney once their songwriting royalties would have picked up in the latter part of the decade. Or at least one would have thought…

Of course that year’s Revolver begins with George Harrison’s lament about the “Taxman” and here’s the rub: The Beatles were in a tax bracket that I cannot imagine most people in Britain found themselves in other than maybe Sean Connery and a few captains of industry. Taxes in 1966 were notoriously confiscatory in Britain in the 1960s reaching as high as 85% for the wealthy, but there was also a “super tax” surcharge of 15% on top of that. For those making over £1,000,000 the progressive tax rate during Prime Minister Harold Wilson’s Labour party administration was 95%. Think about that for a second. No wonder the Beatles seemed to have no idea what state their finances were in.

Rather heartwarming to discover the fact that each of the Fab Four used some of their earnings to purchase homes for their parents (or in John Lennon’s case a home for his Auntie). Awww.

Check out the Beatles cash-flow breakdown after the jump…

Hitler the Hells Angel.
 
A gang of British Hells Angels ride into town. They gather at their favored bar in Birmingham, England, the aptly named Oddfellows’ Arms. The bar is the last remnant of a once-thriving working class area. Inside, the Angels drink, chat, and carouse. At one of the crowded tables a young biker has “Mum + Dad” tattooed on his soft white arm.

A film crew documents these activities. When asked, the Hells Angels talk of their rejection of society’s values, their independence, their freedom. They relish their dirty appearance, long hair, and their uniformity of dress. One biker has a jacket covered with the Nazi insignia. He says his parents’ generation fought the Nazis—“The only good German was a dead German,” they said—but he’s never met a bad German. He wears the badges and pins to shock, to disgust, to rebel—to show his “outlaw” status.

Though these Hells Angels consider themselves free of society’s rules, they do have their own codes and rituals by which they live their lives. Outside the bar, a young couple named Sylvia and Hitler get married. They want their relationship to be recognized by the other Angels. The marriage is a genuine ritual. To the rest of society Hitler and Sylvia are “living in sin.” Like any other newlyweds, the couple will have to get a job, some “bread” and somewhere to live.

When Hitler is asked about his name, he explains he was called “Hitler” by the other Angels because he has “proved himself.”

Interviewer: How do you prove yourself?

Hitler: There’s quite a few ways you can prove like. I mean, beat a skinhead up—that’s great. That’s class. I mean, if it was legal we’d go around hanging skinheads.

 

Four skins…
 
The kids were out of control. Or so it seemed. The rise in births after the Second World War saw a massive number of youngsters reach their teens and twenties during the 1960s. There was a fear the country was being swamped by gangs of youths. There was no longer any National Service to dissipate their energy on military maneuvers or war. There was more money. More leisure time. More entertainment. Pop music and television were the new gods. For an older generation, the hysteria of Beatlemania—with its “out of control” mobs of teen girls—was as much a portent to the breakdown in British society as the gangs terrorizing the inner cities. Teddy Boys. Razor gangs. Rockers. Mods. Tribes defined as much by their violence as by their tastes in music, their clothes, their modes of transport, or their goddamn hairstyles.

In the 1950s, poet Thom Gunn wrote a highly preceptive poem called “On the Move” about the rise of rebelious youth and their chaotic, unfocussed energy. The poem describes a biker gang roaming across America “reaching no absolute, in which to rest” always moving “toward, toward.” Gunn was inspired by The Wild One, the Marlon Brando movie, where his character Johnny was asked “What you rebeling against, Johnny?” To which Brando’s character replies, “Whatcha got?” Though Gunn’s admiration for the bikers’ rebellious attitude is obvious, he sees their actions as wasted and inadequate to provoke any real change.

By the late 1960s, skinheads were considered a bigger threat to the British public than bikers. Hell’s Angels kept their business amongst themselves. Skinheads attacked anyone—though primarily anyones of a different ethnicity to their own “pure blood” white skin. Skinheads were thuggishly unrepentant “bovver boys” who’d give you a kicking as much a look at you.
 

Skinhead Steve with his parents.
 
The documentary shifts to a group of young skinheads from London. They brag about “Paki bashing.” They crow about their racism and violence. The film focuses on one young skinhead called Steve. The camera follows him home where he watches TV with his mom and dad. His father had been a Teddy Boy. He understands the appeal of being in a gang. Steve tells him about the thrill of marching through South End a thousand strong. The feeling of being part of something says Steve, would bring “tears to your eyes.”

Steve: It makes you feel proud. It will last for a little while. Then something new will come along. But till then you’ve got us. It’s just the way it goes.

More after the jump…

The Naked i Cabaret in Boston’s old “Combat Zone.”
 
I grew up in a small town just outside of Boston called Somerville. And like pretty much like any other teenager, I worked quite hard at the craft of getting into trouble as often as possible. I ran with a crowd that was comprised of teenage losers that enjoyed passing the time stealing beer from delivery trucks. As far as you (and my parents) know, I (mostly) never did anything more than drink said stolen beer under train track bridges while underage.
 

Combat Zone, 1974.
 
But when it came to a right of passage in Boston, if you were a late teen or mostly of legal drinking age in the late 80s, you hit up Boston’s Chinatown after last call to eat food full of MSG and drink “cold tea.” In Boston, (and perhaps where you grew up, too), “cold tea” was code for “beer” (usually flat) that you could order slightly before or after closing time that was served up in white teapots in certain restaurants in Chinatown. Of course, after a night of youthful boozing, we would occasionally have enough “beer balls” to walk through the red light district of Boston that bordered Chinatown known as the Combat Zone. I remember one particular night when, after a couple of pots of cold tea, someone dared me to sprint through the Zone alone as fast as I could, which I did. Because what could go wrong when a blond teenage girl decides to run through the seediest part of town full of peep shows, dirty book stores, prostitutes and pimps?

Although widely considered a place of ill-repute, the Combat Zone’s history is important to Boston for many reasons. Specifically, thanks to its “relaxed” approach to adult oriented pursuits, the Combat Zone was also home to a wide variety of drag clubs and gay bars frequented by Boston’s LGBT community. Which is in part why in 1976 The Wall Street Journal dubbed the area a “sexual Disneyland.” In other words, there was something for everyone in the Combat Zone. And that wasn’t always a bad thing. In 2010, an art exhibit at the Howard Yezerski Gallery showcased photos taken in the Combat Zone from 1969 - 1978. Many of the images from the show as well as others taken during the Zone’s heyday, follow.
 

 

1978
 
More Beantown sleaze, after the jump…

Haus-Rucker-Co. “Environment Transformer” the “Flyhead,” 1968
 
In the late 1960s, a group of architects in Vienna decided to see what would happen if they created architectural designs that had the ability to alter a person’s state of perception or consciousness, using sensory enhancement or deprivation. 
 

Haus-Rucker-Co. “Environment Transformers” left to right - the “Flyhead,” “Viewatomizer,” and the “Drizzler,” 1968
 
Comprised of Laurids Ortner, Günther Zamp Kelp and Klaus Pinter (and later joined by Manfred Ortner in 1971) the group called themselves Haus-Rucker-Co. In 1967 the group formed around something they called the “Mind Expanding Program” which produced a number of sensory enhancement machines like the “Mind Expander Chair,” futuristic helmets known as “Environment Transformers” with names like “Flyhead,” “Viewatomizer,” and the “Drizzler,” (pictured above), as well as the groovy-sounding, “Yellow Heart” (pictured below).
 

Haus-Rucker-Co. “Yellow Heart” 1968
 

 
The psychedelic architects described the experience of being inside the “Yellow Heart” as follows:

The idea that a concentrated experience of space could offer a direct approach to changes in consciousness led to the construction of a pneumatic space capsule, called the ‘Yellow Heart.’ Through a lock made of three air rings, one arrived at a transparent plastic mattress. Offering just enough space for two people, it projected into the centre of a spherical space that was made up of soft, air-filled chambers. Lying there one could perceive that the air-filled “pillows,” whose swelling sides almost touched one, slowly withdrew, that is to say the surrounding space appeared to expand, finally forming a translucent sphere and then, in a reverse motion, flowed out again. Large dots arranged in a grid on the outer and inner surfaces of the air-shells changed in rhythmic waves from milky patches to a clear pattern. The space pulsated at extended intervals.

 

Haus-Rucker-Co. “Mind Expander” chair, 1968
 

“Mind Expander Chair” II by Haus-Rucker-Co. 1969
 
The idea for Haus-Rucker’s “Mind Expander Chair” was born from their “Balloon for Two” installation, which was a large balloon hung from a window outside a small apartment in Vienna with structures and trees inside of it. The Mind Expander Chair on the other hand was not as precarious, and was created for two people to use at the same time. The idea was that a woman would sit on her male companion’s lap and once everyone was too close for comfort, the large cover of the Mind Expander Chair would be pulled down and something called a “rhythm machine” would be (ahem), turned on.

Haus-Rucker’s CV is rich with sci-fi daydreams, and to feature them all here would be much like their creations, seemingly impossible. There have been a few books published on the history of Haus-Rucker-Co. worth looking into like Haus-Rucker-Co: Architectural Utopia Reloaded that features a large sampling of the group’s space-aged creations. Images from Haus-Rucker’s “Mind Expansion” series, as well as their interactive piece from 1970, “Giant Billiard” follow.

You could grab your bong to enhance your own personal experience, but trust me, you’re not going to need it.
 

An early version of the “Mind Expander” chair, 1967
 

“Oase Number 7,” an installation in progress by Haus-Rucker-Co., Kassel, Germany, 1972
 
Continues after the jump…

Black Sabbath, early 1970s

In 1969 while Black Sabbath was still sort of transitioning from their original name “Earth” (the band had booked gigs late into the summer of 1969 as “Earth,” and continued to billed as such for a few months), they recorded a few demos of songs written by fellow Birmingham musician, Norman Haines. Haines was the keyboard and organist in the Brummy band, Locomotive who scored a hit with their version of Dandy Livingstone’s ska-smash, “A Message To You Rudy”.

In August of 1969, and according to Tony Iommi in his book, My Journey Through Heaven and Hell with Black Sabbath, the band stepped into the same studio that The Beatles recorded much of The White Album in during the summer of 1968, the opulent eight-track room at Trident Studios in Soho, London. Iommi had never set foot in a studio before and had no idea how to mic his own guitar properly. The band recorded “The Rebel” and then a couple of months later a second track that was also written by Haines, “When I Came Down” at Zella Studios, Birmingham in October of 1969 .
 

Acetate of “When I Came Down” an early Black Sabbath demo from 1969
 
Engineer Roger Bain, (who had at time had never worked with Sabbath, but would go on to produce the band’s next three records) tried to reduce the amount of distortion in the band’s sound which resulted in Iommi’s very metal response “Fucking leave it! It’s a part of our sound!” If you haven’t heard “The Rebel” before, prepare to have your mind blown as the rousing, anthemic track is devoid of Ozzy’s usual high-pitch vocals, but not without Iommi’s instantly recognizable, licky as fuck riffs. I’ve also included the very Sabbath-y sounding “When I Came Down” for your headbanging pleasure. “The Rebel” appears on Walpurgis - The Peel Session 1970, along with “Walpurgis,” “Fairies Wear Boots,” and “Behind The Wall of Sleep” that were recorded for a session on John Peel’s radio show in April of 1970.
 
Continues after the jump…

A young Marc Bolan (age 16 or 17)
 
Before he became known as the “Marc Bolan” we all know and still love (you know - the guitar-wielding god-of-glam done up with eyeliner and with tons of hair?), Bolan was still going by his birth name “Mark Feld,” and resembled Donovan more than his soon-to-be bonafide rockstar self. 
 

Marc Bolan (who was still using his birth name of “Mark Feld”) at age fifteen modeling as a “John Temple Boy” in 1962 (far right)
 

A young Marc, early to mid-60s
 
When he was just fifteen, Bolan did a little modeling as a “John Temple Boy,” (for John Temple menswear) sporting a short, mod haircut and Savile Row-style clothing. A far cry from his future, super-glammy “I’m gonna suck you” look that Bolan would go on to cultivate during his days with T.Rex. Even the publicity photos for Bolan’s first single with Decca, 1965s “The Wizard” feature a nearly unrecognizable short-haired version of Bolan.

In the 2001 book, Glam Musik: British Glam Music ‘70 History, Bolan’s future publicist Keith Altham said Marc would frequently walk into a bar called the Brewmaster with his new record in tow proclaiming that he was going to be “the greatest thing since Elvis Presley.” And he sure wasn’t wrong about that bit. Loads of photos of a young Marc Bolan (many of which were taken in the early to mid-60s), follow.
 

 

 
More after the jump…

 
At Babylon Falling I stumbled across this remarkable full-page image of countercultural satire at its sharpest and most dangerous. Fifteen trading cards for the “Outlaws of Amerika,” featuring radical rock stars like Eldridge and Kathleen Cleaver and Huey Newton and less known figures like Cha Cha Jimenez and Roger Priest. This image has been variously attributed to The Chicago Seed and the Black Panther publication Lumpen. According to this article in the Atlantic Monthly, the BAMN Anthology from Penguin claims that it was created for the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

However, according to this listing on abebooks, it definitely appeared in the “Second Birthday Issue” of RAT Subterranean News, March 7-21, 1969. (This reddit thread gets this information substantially correct but blows the year.) Whether it appeared anywhere before that, I can’t say.

The artist was Lester Dore, who went by the nickname “Wanderoo” (you can barely read his signature at the bottom). The All-Stars are classified into “Social Deviants,” “Third World Revolutionaries,” and, in a single instance, “Native Americans.” The cards wittily use icons such as a raised fist (protest), a bomb (use of bombs), an M-16 (violence), a tomahawk (Indians’ rights), a marijuana leaf (drugs), an electric chair (outlaw is on death row), and an ohm symbol (resistance). On the right hand side, in small print, it reads “Save a complete collection ... If sent with a Wanted Poster or reasonable facsimile thereof, good for: a wig, a complete set of phony I.D., and am M-16.” On the bottom it reads, “Wait for the second series of Amerikan Outlaw Trading Cards ... You may be next!!!” The logo on every card is “KOPPS,” a play on Topps, which had well-nigh monopolistic control of the baseball card market for many years until rival companies entered the market in the 1980s.

(In case you are wondering, yes, Afeni Shakur is Tupac‘s mother.)
 
(Click below for a larger version of this image.)

 

 
More of Amerika’s outlaws, class of 1969, after the jump…

 
Despite former Mayor Giuliani’s highly successful war on the homeless, the destitute faces of “Old New York” remain some of our most recognizable mascots. One of the misconceptions about present-day NYC is that the streets are now “scrubbed” of the homeless, but nothing could be further from the truth. The post-Giuliani policing of the poor was however, an unmitigated success when it came to dispersing indigent bodies—in other words, busting up homeless communities. Simply put, it’s not illegal to die in the street, it’s just illegal to fraternize with your fellow undesirables.

The video below, shot in 1960 and 1961, doesn’t dig deep—it doesn’t have to. Men are quick and open about their lives. The tragically predictable culprits of addiction, prison, disability and the lack of work brought them to the Bowery, and they’re rightfully resentful of their grim sanctuary. Still, it’s an odd thing to be wistful for a time when the homeless were at least able to commiserate fraternally in New York City. Like the gentlemen say, “misery loves company.”
 

 
Via Bowery Boogie

 
Alternate history is a fascinating genre of fiction. You have your anachronistic nostalgia, like steampunk, but that tends to be largely aesthetic, and I’m not that into parasols or goggles. (Also, the glorification of less technology tends to overlook some really inconvenient historical realities, like how inefficient steam power actually was.) I prefer my alternate histories to be horrifying dystopias, and “what if the Nazis won?” certainly fits the bill. There are some critically acclaimed novels based on that very premise—Philip K. Dick’s The Man in the High Castle,  Robert Harris’ Fatherland, and Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America, but this has to be the first time a video game has been set in a world where Hitler triumphed.

The Wolfenstein video game franchise has produced nine editions in total (the original in 1981), all of which are based on fighting Nazis. The latest incarnation, Wolfenstein: The New Order, takes place in the 1960s, where the player navigates a Nazi-controlled Europe in hopes of launching a counter-offensive against the regime. What appeals to me, of course, is the custom-made soundtrack—the “commercial” below is for a compilation of the 1960s “Nazi pop” that will play throughout the game.

The pre-order for Wolfenstein also includes a package of “artifacts,” like postcards and military patches, but it’s the soundtrack that really establishes the mood for a game. There’s prom-worthy slow-dances, bubblegum pop, growling rockabilly, beach-blanket bingo surf rock, and even some Teutonic psychedelia. You can listen to the whole thing here. I feel like the fact that I speak absolutely no German actually frees up my ear to recognize the attention to sonic detail.
 

 
Via A.V. Club

Hearing stories about traveling on the Hippie Trail from Western Europe to India in the late 1960’s and 1970’s always makes me jealous. I can’t even imagine traveling in a time when Americans weren’t despised in other countries or when violence and terrorism weren’t issues that crossed a young traveler’s mind thousands of miles away from home. When I hear about how beautiful and fun Afghanistan was back then I wonder if any of us will ever be able to see it again without being interrupted by soldiers or the Taliban.

According to Hans Roodenburg’s website “On the Hippie Trail”:

In the late nineteen sixties and early seventies, hundreds of thousands of youngsters from both sides of the North Atlantic took the journey overland from Europe to India, Nepal and beyond. Simultaneously, quite a few travellers from Australia came in via Southeast Asia and made the trip the other way round. From Western Europe the road led through former Yugoslavia, Greece or Bulgaria, Turkey, Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India and Nepal. The one-way distance along this so-called ‘Hippie Trail’ was approximately 11.000 km (7.000 miles). An old Volkswagen van was the favourite choice of those who provided their own means of transport. Trains, cheap buses and hitchhiking were the modes of transport open to the others. Along the Trail, specialized budget hotels provided shelter and a place to meet other travellers.

Once a person made it to Turkey, whether by hitchhiking through Europe, driving some questionably competent vehicle, or taking a boat from Marseilles, the Hippie Trail really began. The Magic Bus booking agency used small private bus enterprises picked up travelers in London and Amsterdam to make the overland journey. The place to find travel mates or advice about where to go along the way was the Pudding Shop, a cafe in Istanbul near the Blue Mosque owned by two brothers, Idris and Namak Colpan. One UK bus owner offered to advertise the Pudding Shop on his bus, rechristening it The Pudding Shop Bus. The cafe’s bulletin board was the early DIY version of BIT and Lonely Planet guides.

The trail led through, unbelievably, Iran and its Great Salt Desert, Tehran, and then Afghanistan. Some stayed in Kandahar or Kabul, and others went on to Nepal, Tibet, Bangkok, or to Goa, India, where a hippie commune was set up near a stretch of beach. Kathmandu’s street Jochen Tole is still nicknamed Freak Street thanks to the colorful characters who went through..

The U.S. and Soviet Union had jointly built an amazing, incredibly smooth highway that ran through central Afghanistan. Once in Kabul, there were like-minded hippies everywhere, especially around Chicken Street and the Street of Green Doors. Some hippies did a decent import-export business in handmade Afghani wedding coats, which were fashionable in the UK and Europe in the very late ‘60s. Others were attracted by plentiful drugs like hashish and opium.  One way of smuggling hash back through Iran and Turkey was by having it sealed inside a jam tin before heading home, jokingly referred to as “Kandahar jam.”

Richard Gregory wrote in his “Brief History of the Hippie Trail”:

While other travellers—those who were not “freaks”—quite reasonably refer to the route as “the overland”, there really was a distinct hippie trail. In every major stop along the way there were hotels, restaurants and cafes that catered almost exclusively to the pot-smoking westerners, who networked with each other as they wandered east and west - there were no Lonely Planet guides in those days, and (of course) there was no internet.

This influx of long-haired western youth must have been a curiosity to the locals, who were largely unaccustomed to tourists of any sort back then. But they were generally hospitable, and many found welcome ways to derive extra income. Their experience was caricatured in the 1971 Bollywood movie Hare Rama Hare Krishna, which featured a scene involving chillum-smoking hippies, accompanied by the enormously popular Asha Bosle song “Dum Maro Dum.”

The hippies tended to spend more time interacting with the local population than traditional sightseeing tourists—they had no interest in luxury accommodation, even if they could afford it (which few could), and some would “go native” after a fashion, particularly in India. Of course, they were still tourists really, albeit of a different sort, and hedonism was the primary aim.

This idyllic time ended with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 and the Iranian Revolution, in addition to civil war in Lebanon and tensions in the Kashmir region. The overland route was closed to Western travelers. Enterprising travel agencies have continued facilitating travel from Europe to Asia, but they have had to be resourceful and come up with alternative routes on a regular basis.

Australians remembering traveling in Afghanistan in the 1970’s, below:

 
Via Consequence Of Sound:

Italian disco producer and recent Daft Punk collaborator Giorgio Moroder must have multiple vaults of material just screeching to be heard. Because not only is he uploading hours of rarities on SoundCloud, but he’s now releasing a 51-track (!) compilation cleverly titled, Schlagermoroder (Volume 1: 1966-1975).

As the title insists, the release collects Moroder’s earlier non-disco and film work, specifically tracks like “How Much Longer Will I Have to Wait”, “Doo-Bee-Doo-Bee-Doo”, and “Son of My Father”. If these go over your head, it’s probably because most of it was released under the pseudonyms Giorgio, George, or Snoopy — and were released in various languages over several territories.

The remastered album features liner notes by journalist Michael Heatley and surfaces April 22nd via Repertoire Records. Consult the entire tracklist here

It seems inevitable that this track will be on the compilation. Can you spot the sample? It’s not that hard…

Giorgio “Tears”:
 

 
Previously on Dangerous Minds:

The legendary Giorgio Moroder returns to ‘live’ performance with a dj set in NYC

Yummy yummy yummy: Giorgio Moroder posts more rare gems form the 1960s to Soundcloud

 
Sixties Japanese garage band The Cougars perform “Aphrodite” in this beautiful black and white video. Go go heaven. This looks like it could have been directed by Seijun Suzuki.