Barefoot in Babylon

by Bob Spitz

  Sam Eager nervously tried to smooth things over by indicating that the councilman was simply trying to get the whole picture.

  “Sure,” Mel said faithlessly.

  “You young men talk about cooking, sanitation, camping—all things that require a great deal of water in their operation. Where do you intend to get that much water from?”

  “Whaddya mean?” Mel asked indignantly. “There’s plenty of water on the site.”

  Schlosser walked to the window above his desk and drew the pleated curtains. “Is that the tank Howard said you could tap?” he asked, pointing to the larger of the two turquoise towers nestled in the trees.

  “Yes.”

  “No, you can’t. That’s the town water supply. It can’t handle anywhere near an additional fifty thousand people’s needs. You tap into that and the existing district will be without water.”

  “We’ll be glad to pay for what we use,” Lang offered.

  “That doesn’t make any difference. Howard’s awfully generous with other people’s water. I can’t let you get into those tanks at any price.”

  Lawrence had been prepared for just such an intrusion. He explained that the festival offered him two alternatives to a potential water problem, and they were willing to take action on whichever solution the town board preferred. Firstly, they were prepared to finance and construct a water-processing plant on a portion of Mills Heights, which they would donate to the town at the conclusion of the festival. Schlosser immediately negated that proposal by explaining the town council would have to investigate its feasibility—which meant calling in state and county supervisors at a great expense to advise them on zoning and tax regulations—and then they’d have to put it to a referendum for approval. That would take up to six months or a year before he could even give them an answer. The second option, and one which Lawrence had Stanley Goldstein exploring at that very moment, was for them to import water from other municipalities. They would bring it in in large tankers under the supervision of the board of health. Goldstein had spoken with a number of dairy farmers and local army divisions about renting their water transportation equipment for that purpose. The problem, Goldstein had reported back, was not accumulating the vehicles, but actually getting his hands on that much water. By mid-June, he had still not come up with a large enough source, and the prospects were diminishing. But he and Lawrence decided they would proceed along this line of reasoning until they could come up with another plan.

  “I think you fellas either ought to head over to the Orange County Fairgrounds where they can handle all this for you or look for a different community because we’re not going to allow you to hold your festival here under these conditions,” Schlosser said.

  “What about the zoning board’s approval?” Michael asked somewhat belligerently. He was growing impatient listening to Schlosser destroy his plans.

  “I have a pretty good idea that you young fellas misrepresented your intentions when you went before the zoning board. If that’s the case, well then, I don’t think we’re going to have to stand by that decision. I’m not saying that’s what we’ve decided, but you have to understand our position. It is our job to provide for the health and safety of the community. If we ever think that’s in jeopardy, then we have to take measures to prevent it from getting any worse.”

  “These boys are trying very hard to work alongside the town, Jack,” Eager said. “They’re trying to work out a solution to these difficulties.”

  “I realize that. This meeting tonight is for the purpose of expressing our mutual cooperation.” Schlosser’s perspective was inimitably that of a politician. “If they can meet the standards we impose on them—the same set of standards we impose on everybody who puts on an event up here—then we won’t stand in their way. We’ve got to have some time to study this thing.”

  Lang agreed to have the festival plans in Schlosser’s hands early the following week. He had actually been holding off sending that information for as long as was possible. It was certain to provide the key to their downfall—not that it wasn’t a comprehensive and accurate representation of the crew’s superb efforts. The very fact that it was so precise worked against them. It would place in the hands of the town board that many additional details to debate, delaying progress while Woodstock awaited their consent. They had, indeed, spent a considerable fortune to start the ball rolling, but nothing, it seemed, cost them as much as time. If the town board got their way, it would be the one commodity Woodstock Ventures would never be able to afford.

  5

  Michael chose not to impart a play-by-play account of the Wallkill court martial to his staff in the downtown production office. The activity there had advanced quite expeditiously; there was rarely an evening when the two floors went unoccupied by a working staff, and he took great precautions not to foreclose on their industry.

  Emphasis there had, in the past few weeks, shifted to the building of actual working models based on their previous brainstorming. Some of the staff divided their time between New York City and the site so they could effectively plan their details; others hung out with the Fillmore East staff and discussed the contrasting ways of staging an outdoor event. From this, a tangible working plan evolved.

  Chip spent four days in Wallkill staking out the field in order to determine the best place to put the stage. Using a 100-meter tape measure, he marked off a succession of geodesic angles with stakes and twine to locate the most tractable bowl for acoustic resonance. He took into consideration that part of the land that offered the widest focal span before any trees were removed or the existing grade was rescaled. After that, he strolled along its periphery identifying any obstacles in the line of sight. Remarkably, there were none. His selection, of course, would ultimately be influenced by the plans for security and human traffic flow, but he had established enough of a theoretical foundation for where the stage should sit that he could begin working out lighting and power configurations. The symmetry of the land was such that he would not be off the mark by more than a hundred feet either way when the location was finalized.

  Back in the New York office, Lang called a meeting of the production executives for the purpose of getting the design and construction of the stage underway. This was one of the most fundamental aspects of the production since all physical structures on the site would derive their utility from its functional design. The person who would undertake this had to be able to consult with and accommodate all other divisions and heads of the production staff without compromising his task. And he had to be able to withstand mental fatigue; the job at other festivals had proven to be irksome and, at times, overwhelming.

  Chip Monck, Steven Cohen, Bert Cohen, and Chris Langhart had been working independently on designs for the stage. Their guidelines consisted only of Michael’s request that it be both rustic and practical.

  The situation, however, had created an unnecessary rivalry among the staff. Bert Cohen had designed the stage for Miami Pop and was under the impression that, by rights, his firm would inherit the same assignment for Woodstock. Chip and Mel, however, considered Cohen’s job in Miami a travesty, one that was neither aesthetically nor functionally suited for this festival. They were categorically opposed to Bert’s having a hand in this production and said so.

  Cohen was characteristically persistent. He frequently cornered Lang in the office and complained that it was he and Michael Foreman who had spent so much time with the four principals in the early stages of planning and had, in good faith, provided them with expertise. Because of that, he had assumed that when it came time to apportion the enterprise, he and Foreman would be afforded first choice of the prime assignments. Now, however, Concert Hall’s involvement had been reduced drastically to the point where they were doing little more than supplying ad copy to the underground press. He was calling in a debt; he wanted Lang to give them the stage assignment.

  For the first time
, Cohen’s request was met with open resistance. Michael contended that Concert Hall had “fucked up the uptown offices” and was doing an uninspired job coordinating the underground media. That very morning, he had received a call from Jane Friedman at Wartoke complaining that festival ad copy wasn’t getting to radio stations on time—a crucial part of Concert Hall’s job. Additionally, Jane didn’t think Woodstock Ventures was getting its money’s worth in underground print ads. The promoters had advanced Bert a substantial sum for that purpose, and now Lang found himself in the position of having to ask his friend for an accounting of the money. The staff would revolt if Michael awarded Concert Hall the stage. He’d lose their support, and right now, he was banking on that very commodity to see him through the next two months.

  The disaccord was not limited to Bert Cohen. Chip Monck campaigned for his friend Steve Cohen to oversee the stage design based upon the latter’s experience building platforms for the Philadelphia Folk Festival. Cohen, a stocky, balding youth with a drooping moustache, was a graduate of Carnegie Tech and had a background in the technical arts as well as being a skilled draftsman. But John Morris crusaded even more vigorously for Chris Langhart whom Morris (and just about everyone else on staff) considered a technical genius. Langhart, too, was an alumnus of Carnegie Tech, but whereas Steve Cohen’s skill was acquired while he was a student there, Langhart’s began in grade school and developed over the years to the point where he was offered a position teaching scenic design, technical directing, and lighting at New York University.

  Lang wanted to maintain harmony more than anything else. The disagreement had blown up into a contest of personalities between Monck and Morris, both of whom were devoting too much time to the campaign. The best thing to do, Michael decided, was to make a formal contest of it. He’d examine each entry, and the best one would be built on Howard Mills’s land.

  Within a week, miniature models of stages had been submitted to Lang by Bert Cohen, Chris Langhart, and Steve Cohen. Bert’s was a replica of the design they had used without much success at Miami Pop. It consisted of two 40-foot circular platforms linked by a trolley track. Both circular stages were constructed to detach in the middle so that while a group was performing on one, another band could set up and tune their instruments on the platform across the tracks. That would eliminate the unnecessary thirty-minute intermissions between each set for equipment changes. Lang had been worried about the crowd’s getting restless during those interruptions; Cohen’s method would certainly solve that problem. When one act had finished performing, the back half of their stage would detach and carry them away while the front part of the other one would bring the next group, ready to play, to the fore. The trolley would then swing into operation and transport any other essentials from one performing area to the next one. Two shafts between the platforms rose into the air and spanned outward, covering both stages like a giant umbrella. Beneath that, lights would be fastened and could be controlled from backstage. The top of the tentlike covering was encircled with twenty-five colorful flags and a twirling top. Lang thought it “looked like a cross between a birthday cake and a carousel” and dismissed it out of hand as being too slick.

  By comparison, Langhart’s stage model was prosaic and considerably more practical. It was a single-pitch platform, circular, with a spiraled springlike canopy balanced on top of two 80-foot telephone poles. The crossbar above it was shaped like a gigantic peace sign. A cable was attached to each part of the covering from both poles so that it would not twist and sway in the wind. The base was fashioned from plywood 2-by-10-foot planks, and raised off the ground by a herculean white pine scaffolding. As in Bert Cohen’s design, a system of multicolored lights would be contained in a niche around the inner seam of the soft covering. It did, however, lack a mechanical device for changing bands without a lengthy layover. Langhart was not overwhelmed by his own design. It fell short on originality, and he knew that Lang aspired to something more imaginative, something with a Woodstock signature to it.

  At first, Michael could not figure out what to make of Langhart’s scale model. He had not been prepared for something so plain, and yet it fit his needs perfectly. He called Langhart into his office and asked him if it were possible to use more natural wood in his design. He wanted something that adapted to rock and roll performance, but resembled a log cabin. Langhart thought about it for a few minutes and consented to reconstruct his model, but with the expressed instruction from Lang that it would be used as the performers’ pavillion. As far as the stage went, Langhart had struck out. Strike two.

  Steve Cohen’s design was the only one left to be judged. He and Chip Monck had spent several nights formulating its elaborate mechanical skeleton, a 100-foot turntable based on the Japanese-style horticultural tent in Sacramento, California. The turntable was constructed from two detachable semicircles attached by a central core with bearings and wheels underneath it. While one group performed on the front half of the moon, the next act would be setting up behind them, after which an electrical switch would be thrown and the semicircles would reverse. Two 70-foot telephone poles were lowered through the floor of the stage and sunk into a 6-foot cube of cement in the ground. Guy wires were attached at various points along the poles and stretched outward to absorb the incredible thrust of tension supporting the platform. The most spectacular feature, however, was a mushroom cap balanced on top of the poles which was devised by Monck to hold a bank of 280 individual lighting units. As one imaginative observer remarked, it looked like a scheme for increasing the illumination of Yankee Stadium. It was dazzling.

  Michael made a few suggestions for a more woodsy effect, but as far as he was concerned, Steve Cohen had his vote. The young Philadelphian would assume the responsibility of constructing the Woodstock festival stage—the largest one anyone on the staff had ever been asked to assemble. A budget was submitted along with the design; it would cost almost twenty thousand dollars to build.

  Langhart, meanwhile, had presented another working model to his employer, which was unanimously approved for the performers’ pavilion—a design which had, by far, come closest to Lang’s ideal. It was a Lincoln Log–type structure of thirty-four telephone poles; seventeen were to be sunk into the ground, and the rest were perfectly balanced on top of them to create an open roof over which cheesecloth would be draped. After discussing layout with Mel, it was decided that the pavilion would be constructed behind and to the left of the stage for easy access. They had hired a man named David Levine, who owned a restaurant across from the Fillmore East named David’s Potbelly, to cater food for the performers’ exotic palates. It was hoped that an atmosphere of relaxed conviviality would predominate there throughout the festival.

  • • •

  John Morris spent most of his free time filling in the few gaps left on the performing bill. He and Lang had arrived at a formula for sequence whereby Friday evening would showcase folk-oriented artists to build the audience’s enthusiasm slowly and to ease them into their new surroundings. Presenting an acid rock show the first night might whip the kids into an uncontrollable frenzy, and, at all costs, they wanted to avoid a riotous mood. Joan Baez had finally given her consent to appear (for a very convincing $10,000 fee) on Friday, and Lang hoped her performance carried enough of a political message to pacify Abbie Hoffman and his cohorts. In addition to Richie Havens, Tim Hardin, Arlo Guthrie, Ravi Shankar, and the Incredible String Band, who were already under contract, Michael had commissioned a friend named Leon Auerbach to fly to Scotland to persuade Donovan to round out that night’s activities. Donovan was something of an international phenomenon, and Lang and Morris felt they could justify the added expense of sending a man overseas for that purpose.

  Saturday’s show was to feature American bands from the Bay Area—most notably the Jefferson Airplane, Creedence Clearwater, the Grateful Dead, and Janis Joplin, all of whom were already booked. Although the Grateful Dead were being counted on to contribute one of
their typically hypnotic five-hour sets, Morris calculated that there weren’t enough groups scheduled for the second day to take them from late morning on through to the middle of the night without a break. They had room for three or four more groups without overloading. Lang was still hoping to attract Bob Dylan, whose music could be integrated nicely into that afternoon’s show, but even Dylan’s appearance wouldn’t serve to lengthen the presentation by all that much. Simon and Garfunkel, another superstar choice of Lang’s, were having personal differences and had not scheduled any personal appearances for the summer months. Lang had several conferences with their manager, Mort Lewis, but not even Lewis could persuade them to change their minds.

  Morris looked to Bill Graham, his former employer, to bail them out. Graham, at the time, was artfully soft-peddling several acts from San Francisco that he claimed were heirs to the throne of rock gods. Two months from their conversation, he contended, these acts would undoubtedly be pulling in king’s ransoms for stadium-size appearances. Timing, he reminded Morris, was everything in the rock music business, and if John acted promptly, he could have them immediately for a pittance. Graham noted that if Morris exercised his intuition by taking the groups he offered him, John would be recognized as a true booking genius in six months’ time. It was one of the oldest ploys in the book, one which Morris had watched Graham use effectively over and over again while working for him. But that was just it—Graham was extraordinarily convincing, such a master of hyperbole that Morris bought the whole pitch without question. He jumped up, and ran into Lang’s office proclaiming Bill Graham their official savior.