Barefoot in Babylon

by Bob Spitz

  Where they differed, however, was on their perception of a realistic approach to the situation at hand. Roberts saw the new law as a serious, although not fatal, problem. It was just another problem in line for his and Joel’s attention. His initial reaction was anger. He was particularly disturbed over the influence of people like Cliff Reynolds and the other concerned citizens inasmuch as they were decidedly interfering with his constitutional rights as a competitive businessman. The ordinance, he reasoned, was discriminatory and aimed specifically at Woodstock Ventures. They had two means by which to fight Local Law #1 and prevail: (1) to challenge it through the court system, in which case he was certain they would win; and (2) to complain loudly enough so that the dilemma might be resolved fairly and quickly. Either method was fine by him, as long as it produced a settlement in their favor.

  Rosenman was more skeptical. As an attorney, he had already seen how flexible the law could be when it came down to passing final judgment. In this case, he felt “there was a series of extralegal maneuvers with legal clothes on” going on about them and bringing considerable weight to bear on the outcome of their endeavor. By virtue of the money already invested in the project and the verbal commitments issued in front of witnesses, he thought the net result would produce an understanding between Woodstock Ventures and the Town of Wallkill enabling them to proceed as scheduled. Concessions would have to be made; they’d undoubtedly have to come up with a better security plan and post a substantial bond for damages, but when the smoke cleared, they would still hold the festival in the Town of Wallkill.

  A secretary in the field office had been instructed to canvass a sampling of the larger metropolitan dailies for coverage of the town board meeting. The appearance of negative publicity might discourage the advance sale of tickets (which, until July 2, had been overwhelming). In order to head off any misleading information, it was imperative they check out all related news stories as they appeared. Wartoke was to issue a public statement later that afternoon; however, by the time it was in print, it might conceivably be too late.

  By noon the next day, most of the papers had been examined and had turned up nothing. Only the New York Times remained. The front section was chock-full of items on the coronation of Prince Charles and not a word on Woodstock. Then, as the secretary worked her way through the theatre pages, her attention was drawn to a familiar picture at the top of the page.

  “Aw, shit,” she said, folding the paper commuter-style to get a better look.

  A member of the art crew was standing nearby, working on a blueprint of the staging area. He had heard the secretary’s reaction and walked over to her desk. “Bad, huh?”

  “Worse. Brian Jones is dead.”

  “What! That’s impossible!”

  But, in fact, it wasn’t. A small item sandwiched in between a human interest story on Lou Brock and the Broadway theatre directory related how the Rolling Stones’ twenty-six-year-old rhythm guitarist had been fished unconscious out of his swimming pool and had died later that night. The coroner’s report ruled that Jones died as a result of “drowning by immersion in fresh water associated with severe liver dysfunction caused by fatty degeneration and ingestion of alcohol and drugs.” Further studies had turned up traces of pep pills, sleeping tablets, and alcohol in his bloodstream.

  “What a waste. He was my favorite Stone, too. I just can’t believe it,” she said, tossing the rest of the newspaper onto the pile at her feet.

  The artist compassionately rubbed her shoulder and eased himself up onto the corner of the wooden desk. “Everything’s coming down on us all at once. I’m not feelin’ real good about our future here,” he said.

  “It’s probably just a coincidence.”

  He smiled and kissed her on the forehead. “Or maybe it’s a sign of the times.”

  • • •

  Preparations for the Woodstock Music and Art Fair continued without interruption. If the town board’s new law was simply a stumbling block, then the outcome depended heavily upon their maintaining forward progress at all times. Money continued to be “no object.”

  Jim Mitchell, the purchasing agent, had been given the go-ahead on the proposed advertising and printing job that he had submitted to Lang for approval. A few weeks before, Lang and several of his cohorts in the downtown office had decided on utilizing two posters to promote the festival. One, depicting a naked young woman pouring water from a jug hoisted upon her shoulder (the servile Aquarian), was the official souvenir poster. Patterned after the garish, psychedelic posters that announced the Fillmore West’s concert schedules, the limpid figure was ensconced in a nervous maze of traditional red and blue curliques and dazzling flowers. Across the bottom was printed: “An Aquarian Exposition, Wallkill, New York, August 15-16-17.” Nowhere did it say who would be appearing there, nor did it inform potential customers where they could purchase tickets. This poster was the chaser—the “artistic” follow-up to all the hoopla about the grandest festival of all time, the poster that could be taken home and framed without the legend scrawled across the front. Mitchell had ordered ten thousand of them to be printed, along with a smaller postcard version of which twenty thousand would be made.

  To hawk tickets, Lang had commissioned an artist named Arnold Skolnick to do artwork for a publicity poster that listed the performers, described events at length, in terms of an art show, crafts bazaar, campground, and gastronomical delight, and informed people where they could purchase tickets. Skolnick’s concept was to incorporate the dove of peace into a design that would also convey the musical ingredient of the festival. Together, its simplicity served to offset all the information that had to be plugged into the surrounding space and to give it a gentle push from behind the garble of print. Skolnick came up with just the right blend. His original sketch of an expressionless dove perched on the neck of a guitar had the right feel to it and was adopted as the logo for all future Woodstock festival literature. The dove, whose only discernible feature was a red beak and a tenuous, yellow claw, was printed in white. It was well contrasted against the red matte background and still retained some of the psychedelic texture of the genre. The guitar was bright shades of blue and emerald green, and a pale yellow hand reached around the neck of the instrument to form a chord over the stunning list of performers. It was a memorable design worthy of its distinction.

  Jim Mitchell ordered 35,000 copies of the Skolnick poster, which was used as a garnish for store windows and bulletin boards in schools around the area. Additionally, the posters were to be slapped on the wooden fences that surrounded every construction site in New York City and on lamp posts and street signs. Wherever one looked (if all went according to plan), one would be greeted by the dove and guitar until the logo became synonymous with the event. Of course, that kind of identification would cost money. Appropriately, when Mitchell submitted the bill for the posters, along with the printing of 100,000 brochures and envelopes, it totaled $8,917.

  The ever garrulous John Morris, in between duties of executing the performers’ contract riders and arranging for their lodging, took it upon himself to troubleshoot various arrangements that were underway in other departments.

  “We have the opportunity through this festival to do a great deal of good,” Morris said in a report to Lang commenting on festival publicity, “as well as put on a good show and make money. That is through the charity record.” Several weeks before the public hearing on Local Law #1, Morris had brought up the idea of negotiating a Woodstock record deal and then turning the proceeds over to a charity. At the time, a few staff members in the production office expressed their interest in hearing more about it and sent Morris on his way with a sniggering pat on the back. Little did they know he would carry the idea to such extremes.

  Morris met with the people at UNICEF to determine their interest in participating with Woodstock Ventures in such a project. UNICEF, he reasoned, was a safe charity as far as the countercultu
re was concerned inasmuch as the contributions went to children and not to support big business. They’d also provide the festival with a touch of institutionalized class—something of which he thought they were in dire need considering their frosty reception in Wallkill. As he had suspected all along, his proposal was received cordially by the United Nations organization, and he soon went flying off to see Jac Holzman, the president of Elektra Records, to begin his drive for record industry support.

  Holzman was even more gracious than the people at UNICEF had been. He agreed to provide them with Elektra’s record-processing plant, which would press the festival albums at cost. He also volunteered to distribute the album gratis, but advised Morris to call Clive Davis, who presided over the Columbia Records Group, to see if CBS was interested in distributing it. That way, he said, more than one record company would be involved, so as not to alienate the rest of the industry. Considering the excessive number of Columbia artists on the bill, it would accelerate Morris’s obtaining permission to record their sets.

  Morris’s negotiations for the charity recording never got much farther than that. In order for him to authorize anything concrete regarding a record deal, Lang not only had to be consulted but be in agreement with the terms. One can only imagine Michael Lang’s reaction to Morris’s proposal, but certainly, it must have been one of absolute horror. Here, Lang had spent months working toward a future of infinite wealth, and now Morris proposed to donate perhaps the largest chunk of his nest egg to the United Nations! That was about as half-assed a plan as he had ever heard in his life and he discounted it without another word. He simply ignored it, pretended that Morris had never mentioned such a curse, and instructed Artie Kornfeld to step up negotiations for their own lucrative, profit-sharing deal. He also directed Morris to secure permission from the artists’ managers for record and film rights to their Woodstock performance. If necessary, he was to offer them an additional fifty percent of their booking fee for the record and another fifty percent of that for motion picture rights. It was essential that they be able to represent to a movie or record company that the performers were under contract to them, otherwise they had no package.

  Undaunted by the rebuke, Morris renewed his labored analysis of the production, striking out at the festival’s deceptive appellation. “What concretely is being done to turn people physically headed for Woodstock to Wallkill?” he wanted to know. No one had given that likelihood much thought. Was it even necessary, what with all the publicity their efforts were receiving in Wallkill? Morris, in fact, had contested the use of the name Woodstock on their posters and brochures since he had joined the executive staff. “It’s misleading,” he argued, “not to mention dishonest. We’re going to give the kids the impression that the festival is a tribute to the performers who live in Woodstock—including Bob Dylan—which just isn’t so. Half the ticket holders are going to wind up there looking for our show, and they’re gonna be pissed. We’re going to be held responsible for making good on their tickets.”

  Again, Lang treated the objection as simply another display of John Morris’s skittishness. All indications are that he dismissed it without further ado (however, a sign was finally erected in Woodstock to deter those people who had not figured it out for themselves). Morris persisted, though, in his effort to do away with the name Woodstock altogether until Michael was forced to confront him head-on about it. Lang advised him to drop the matter quietly before he was compelled to take more drastic measures that would tie John’s hands. Morris had been nothing but trouble for him of late. A few nights before, John had researched the employment files, making a thorough study of Chip Monck’s contract with Woodstock Ventures. Needless to say, he had discovered that Monck was not, as he had been assured, receiving a fee equal to his own. There was a $1,000 discrepancy in Chip’s favor, and something had to be done to put them back on a matching pay scale; Morris’s suggestion to Lang the next morning was that he be awarded a $1,000 boost in salary.

  Michael was furious. For the first time during his tenure as a producer, he lost his temper. He warned Morris about snooping around in matters that did not concern him. He said that if John persisted in creating political situations within the office structure, he would be dismissed. Lang had been on the verge of firing Morris for some time. Lang was particularly irked by Morris’s insistence on importing a council of American Indians from Santa Fe, New Mexico, to provide atmosphere for the festival. Not that he was opposed to the idea. On the contrary, he thought it was a wonderful suggestion and authorized Morris to give him more details about it. In this case, John had learned about the Institute of Indian Art from a writer for the Village Voice. Time had also run a story on the school, and on a trip to Los Angeles, he stopped off in Santa Fe to see for himself what all the excitement was about. He was completely fascinated by what he found: hundreds of paintings done by Indian students that were overlooked by the commercial art world. Without hesitating, he made a deal with the school’s director to bring twenty-five Indian artists—mostly those who came from Shongopovi, Second Mesa, a thousand-year-old Hopi village, consisting of stone dwellings cut into the side of an eroded desert bluff—to Wallkill where they’d be given the opportunity to exhibit and sell their wares. The festival was already sending a plane to New Mexico to pick up members of the Hog Farm; he was certain they could arrange for a few additional passengers on the same flight. John organized the exhibit with an Apache named Billy Soza, and before long they had assembled the artists who most represented the spirit of American Indian art.

  Back in New York, it seemed to Morris that everyone had a comment on one aspect or another of his plan. Where would the Indians be lodged? How were they to eat? Would they help out with grounds construction? Were they going to be paid a salary? Who was taking care of getting liability releases from their parents? Was it absolutely necessary to get involved with this when there were so many other important things yet to be done? Morris felt as if there were an organized conspiracy to squelch the ideas he proposed. “Our reward for diligence in financial areas has been rewarded with argumentation on each point,” he complained in a memo to Lang, “and . . . it seems we must fight like hell to try to add an individual artistic effort by bringing an Indian crafts exhibit to the festival.”

  “Stop being such a crybaby,” Michael admonished him. “Bring your Indians in with the Hog Farm, but for Christ’s sake, John, be cool about it, will you.”

  Lang had more important business to transact. Time was running out for them to prepare and submit an application for a permit to the Wallkill Town Board. They had to come up with something that merited widespread acclaim to counteract the united front of opposition that was armed and preparing for legal war against them. Their wearied troops couldn’t withstand another defeat. They had one discernible shot left: the permit had to be secured.

  Lang was prepared to do battle on all sides. He and Don Ganoung arranged for a Boston rock group called Quill to play benefit performances at the state hospital in Middletown, the Catskill Reformatory in Ellenville, and the Mid-Hudson Rehabilitation Center in Beacon. Their hope was that the gesture would establish Woodstock Ventures as a civic-minded organization willing to make its contribution to the county’s social service institutions. Moreover, the places ultimately chosen for Quill’s concerts were selected on the basis of their unassailability. “Who in their right mind would come down on us for entertaining the inmates of a mental hospital?” Ganoung asked wryly. “This will be one event from which we emerge smelling like heroes.” He must not have picked up on the scent, however, as he also arranged for the group to play weekend dances at the Middletown Teen Center and similar socials in neighboring Goshen and Monticello. The general consensus around the field office was that this was one act of kindness that could not be overextended. Quill would perform as often as the situation warranted.

  While community relations were being fostered on the bandstand, the executive staff’s attention turned
to the areas of security and traffic, clearly the two dominant obstacles that separated the promoters from inheriting the much-coveted permit. Pomeroy contended it would be an uphill struggle for them from here on in, more a game of cat-and-mouse than one of forthright representation. There were certain facts that had to be kept in the background of their talks with town officials if they were to continue on in Wallkill. It was up to all of them, he said, to keep moving at all times, to become inaccessible if they had to, so that the board never was afforded enough of an opportunity to pick apart their proposals.

  Pomeroy’s badly shaken confidence in gaining the town’s formal approval teetered on a growing disenchantment with their site. If indeed, their success hinged on convincing the town board of a trouble-free flow of traffic, their future in Wallkill was in serious difficulty. As far as he could determine, the roads around Mills Heights would most certainly be congested, if not completely choked off, by the number of cars they expected. He discussed this problem with Lang and Mel Lawrence, both of whom assured him that the festival’s crew were doing everything possible to forge new roads in and out of the grounds. It would be taken care of by August, in plenty of time for the first arrivals. If, on the other hand, they could present the town board with a plausible method for vehicle control, one that looked better on paper than it actually worked, they could buy time to figure out a solution so that, come August 15, traffic would appear to be under a semblance of control. It was decided they would go with the latter plan of attack and pray that it would buy them a permit.

  They determined that shuttle bus transportation would make a better first impression on the councilmen without arousing too much skepticism on their part. On Saturday morning, July 5, Ganoung and John Fabbri, Pomeroy’s second-in-command, were dispatched to New York City where they met with transportation representatives from the All-State Bus Corporation, a private chartering company, and Murray Vidockler, president of Intermedia Sound, which the festival had retained for traffic coordination. (Vidockler was related to the principal owners of All-State Bus Corp.) Fabbri explained the festival’s traffic predicament to them, utilizing a map of the site and its surrounding roadways to explain the restrictions. All-State’s people examined the alternatives and told them it wouldn’t be a problem to meet the transportation needs of the festival.