new thread
Hey everyone,
I just saw the thread about the 1972 longhair ad and it made me think back to the 1970's and some wonderful memories I have about that time period, of wearing a leather arm bracelet with my name on it, to listening to really cool music on the stereo, of being in touch with nature out on the farm where I used to live, to sitting in the dark and enjoying the blacklite poster my Sister bought for me on my birthday, to growing my hair out long and feeling more complete inside.
Then the 1980's came...
Well is that a bad thing or a good thing ? :)
From my own experiences, it was a "bad thing". The '70s were a remarkably free-wheeling time, long hair was not just tolerated but fashionable, one could actually get clothes that were comfortable and in fun colours, and society seemed one heck of a lot more "open" than in the preppy-driven '80s (or even worse, the yuppie-driven '90s when it all went to hell in a handbasket).
I've had my long hair since the '70s (and had to fight with my parents to allow me to keep it) with the exception of a while in the '80s when I cut it to please a then-girlfriend (BAD idea!). It took until the early '90s to grow out again, at which time I looked like a hippie in the midst of a sea of Gordon Geckos (and still, pretty much, look today).
I miss the times when diversity was celebrated (unlike today when it's a hollow fallacy that anything "diffferent" is actually tolerated, much less embraced), clothes were fun, and people didn't live in straitjackets and work 70 hour weeks just to make ends meet. Yeah, we've come a real long way....
Sad but true. People make fun of '70s fashions, but I've seen very little on a rack that I wanted to wear since then. I love flares for example, but I haven't seen any for decades at least at any reasonable price and on the men's rack.
Hopefully, things are beginning to turn around. Let's hope so, anyway.
That is a GREAT thing, of course, because it brought Jean 80s/70s into this world! ;-) I have no ideas when your birthday is, but it's good to see people like you in this world...
Hans-Uwe
lol, funny and wierd response. I was born in 1987 so i cannot remember the 1980s. I was only a little baby/toddler back then.
One thing i do know is that in the early 80s long hair became taboo again in maintream society and there was a dominance of "corporate haircuts".
Hello,
As I was a teen-ager in the seventies, all I can remember, is that compared to today, life was WILD :)
Desires for teens back then: A phone of one's own, the privacy of one's own room, freedom to grow long hair, and a car of one's own.
The seventies were called the ME decade because, a lot of culture was centered on the individual, such as the desire not to conform. Paradoxically, as much as one wanted a desire to be him-herself, there was a trend for co-op food stores, co-op housing, which was a moderated version of the communal living arrangements of the hippies. In co-op housing you had more privacy than in a commune, and yet responsibilities of attending meetings, shelling out money out of your pocket for fixing the roof, plumbing etc.
Pop Psych was everywhere as people were disenchanted with traditional religions and their insistance on unfair treatment for people who are different (women, long-haired men, gays). So many self-help books were printed with NEW vocabulary including terms like "Self-realisation", "Self-awareness", "Self-actualization". Often pop psych terms were used to lay guilt trips on people who got in your way. "He is so self-centered and narcistic with his talk about wanting to grow his hair."
More wild than Pop Psych were books like "Chariots of the Gods" by Erik Von Daniken, where it was theorized using "proof" from ancient ruins that aliens visited the Earth thousands of years BC. UFO books were easy to find, and everyone knew someone who knew some one who saw a flying saucer, or had alien contact. ESP, Astral Projection, ghosts, were frequent documentary subjects with TV shows like "In Search Of", (with subjects, like In Search of Bigfoot".
The free beach movement was catching on in California, Florida and New York State. A lot of people felt that the body wasn't shameful and more people wanted a more open society that accepted nudity as a fact of life. Even some theater and Broadway plays featured nudity as part of their scripts in pieces like Hair, Oh Calcutta.
Cults were quite strong and sucking in a lot of my friends. Commonly called "Jesus Freaks", a cult called "The Children of God" were handing out flyers at subway stops warning people in 1973 of impending doom caused by comet Kohoutek. Jesus Freaks were seen in robes, long hair and sandals, preaching at city squares, litnessing (handing out leaflets), and using heavenly deception telling people that money collected was to help drug addicts, but instead lined the pocket of their guru. The Jesus Freaks lured hippies with a long-haired hippy concept of Jesus, and even included free sex to lure new adepts.
Schools were abolishing dress codes, and corporal punishments. My school even modified the rules of courtesy by making them gender neutral. No more girl's and boy's entrances to the school, no more ladies first rules when leaving class, it was alternated each day: Boys left first one day, and next day girls left first. After a while, everyone left class boys mixed with girls. It was risking a slap in the face to open a door to a lady, and being called "Male Chauvinist Pig".
The term "Natural" was plastered in every ad, commercial one came across. It was a way to sell products to the masses that believed that society was evolving to becoming more "natural". From "Health foods" to Natural Shampoo, the word was over used to the point of meaning nothing.
Lastly, music besides what everyone knows (Glam Rock, Disco, early Punk, and Metal), started to fragment. World Music was very popular as people attended shows of groups like Inti Illimani (Andes Music), Ravi Shankar, Gheorg Zamphir (Romanian folk music, before he turned to Musak), African traditional drums, Cuban salsas, etc. It was not as well knows as Pop Music, but since a lot of young people were bent on traveling to India, Peru, Mexico, or Morroco, people did develop a taste for world music, and there were lots of spots for accoustic music. African drums were a good way to make people dance and forget the winter blues. Some world music lovers had to hide their tastes to friends because a lot of rockers took their musical tastes too seriously and too much like a religion. I had that stance especially towards disco.
I attended my share of mega concerts, and tickets were affordable. I Attended Pink Floyd Animals at the Big O, in 1977 and still have the ticket stub. I also attended Super Tramp in 1979.
So that concludes my perception of what I lived in the seventies.
Have a nice day,
Georges in MOntreal.
Included photo is a street celebration of St-Jean Baptiste in 1978. Notice the lady with the Farah Faucett do.
Wonderful post and pic Georges,
I felt like I was back in the 1970's. I do remember the fascination over UFO's and Bigfoot, I couldn't get enough of books on those subjects. I remember watching one of those documentary style Bigfoot movies at the theatre...what a funtime it was!
Interesting read thanks for taking the time to post.
Here is more scenery from the Seventies, taken with my Zenit 35 mm camera. This was scanned from a slide.
Here is a member of the Rajneesh cult wearing a malla, dansing to Indian music.
Like in my previous message, many people were lured by cults of all kinds, including the Moonies, and meditation cults. Some of these cults were perceived as a "new consciousness" by the media before the late seventies, when people started to become aware of the brainwashing and power trips going on in these movements. By 1978 one heard about the deprogrammer.
Hi Georges, being a free thinker and having an overwhelmingly strong sense of individuality saved me from being sucked into a cult. Cults are led by power hungry control freaks who try to strip you of your individuality and separate you from family and friends. They are life destroyers and the scum of the earth.
I feel life destroying cults are despicable. I would not feel too hurt if they were all put in jail. Those cult leaders can learn first hand what it is like to be under someone else's control.
Of course, a quicker (and cheaper) way would be to drop all of them down a 1000 meter deep abandoned mine shaft. LOL
Absalom
Here is one more: People at a show of World Music : Andean Group Chaskis 1978.
This picture was taken at St-Jean Baptiste, which is also known as Fête Nationale (National Holliday), on June 24, 1978. People celebrated in the street, and in 1978 a lot of people had their hair cut shorter than in 1975, however there were exceptions like the guy in the picture. The over 20 crowd still kept their hair long, while the below 20 crowd was supposed to follow the disco fad, which I refused to follow.
Street fairs were a magnet for longhairs, while the disco crowd prefered to stay indoors, in the discos.
This shows the multiethnic nature of Montreal, with an African Drum show. That was the dance music of the "granolas", a term used to define those who had hippy lifestyles then, it was pejorative, and used by the disco crowd against those who did not want to change with the times.
Notice the afros are less showy, and the guy at the console has a typical seventies hairdo.
The bell bottom pants, the baseball shirts, the elevator shoes the long hair (all of which I still have). The pants and shirts don't fit anymore, but the elevator shoes still do. Still have thelong hair too!!! Yes, those were the days!!! Does anybody have that funny poster they sold back then describing a nerd: the short hair, the plastic frame glasses, the regular pants, the bow tie, etc.? I should have bought it back then, but, as a teenager, I didn't have much money. I thought it was funny!!
and unfortunately this is a lot closer to the style than the long hairstyles of the 1970's are today.
throw in some XTra large baggy shorts and a baseball cap and you fit right in.
Then the 90's came, music started to suck, especially the gangsta stuff, which isnt all that bad realy (compared to today that is). Then the 2000's came. The music sucked even more, the likes of brittney spears and crapstreet boys and n sync came out making music that sounds like a mix of muzak and God knows what. Then the rap stuff is so popular like everything else is so 5 minutes ago. Rock stars gave in to pressures and started producing music that doesnt sound right anymore, more of the death metal nothing but screaming (little music) types, or rap with guitars.
Sometimes I wish I could go back to the 80's...
I try not to look back with rose colored glasses but I do have nice memories of that decade, now school on the other hand sucked, getting picked on by kids was one thing but teachers too! JEEZ!!! I think was attracts me to that decade is the simplicity of things. The 1980's I have mixed feelings about, I had some wonderful times at the arcade and going to the movies but that decade had the beginning of the sell out period to it and personally I felt I had to conform during that time to be accepted. Of course I realized that made me unhappy trying to please others so one good thing about now is I'm finally not conforming so I still have the late '60's-1970's still in me...
yes, as a kid I recall everyone embracing long hair during the 1970's even mainstream newscasters like Tom Brokaw had longer hair back then.
the 1980's seemed like a return to conformity. the "preppy" look was in and the "hippy" look went out. with the exception of the "metal" crowd, guys starting getting shorter haircuts in droves. this has seemed to be the prevailing trend of the last 25 years.
I think the catalyst for 80s short hair was punk circa 1976. The punks thought they were so wild but they had short hair, and they attacked us (usually verbally, but with some unfortunate exceptions) as the establishment. What a joke!
I actually embraced some of that stuff especially the Postpunk scene which followed it. I think they were attacking the music establishment more so than people with long hair. you must remember that long hair was quite common at the time during the 1970's. actually some of the early Punk bands such as the Ramones had longer hair(see pic below).
today, most Punks(not all) have become to represent what they were supposibly rebelling against.
incidentally there's a web site called conservativepunk.com. what a contradiction!
I love the Ramones! Gabba gabba hey! they were the exception that proved the rule, though. Both musically and folically, IMHO.
You have a point about the punks attacking the _music_ establishment, but the latter generally did have long hair at that time, and I still say that it was the punks (except the Ramones) who made it no longer hip to have long hair.
I used to hate Julie Birchill, who was always attacking long haired music in the NME. In retrospect she doesn't seem so bad, but at the time...
Most of the people who criticised progressive rock back then as pretentious were listening to, or (worse) producing, the worst and most tuneless exmples of punk rock.
blame Malcolm Maclaren. he was the biggest offender when he created the Sex pistols.
there were some others, who were lesser known(cannot recall the names).
I liked the Clash, but I didn't hold it against them for having short hair :-)
Who is Julie Birchill?
I'm really amazed by all of this since Long Hair first became fashionable for young men(in the 20th century at least)in England and later in the U.S and elsewhere.
did you grow up in England? sounds like you're quite familiar with what when on over there. what exactly transpired to create such a conflict?
She had a column in the NME, which was a music newspaper. I beleive she still writes (poss. in a regular newspaper?), but I'm not sure that the NME is still going. I think it went out of business.
I lived in the UK until I was in my early 30s (in the late 80s) and then came to the US. I rhink that all that happened was that the punks wanted to be different than the longhairs. Unfortunately, they helped make short hair fashionable again, which it hadn't been for about a decade at that time.
The funny thing was when I came to the US I found all the crewcuts literally frightening, as in if I saw one I would check the positions of the exits, cross to the other side of the street, etc. If you saw someone with a buzz cut in 80s UK they were a skinhead, and probably either a neo-nazi and/or a soccer hooligan (who wore heavy boots especially for kicking people). After I while I realised that a crewcut didn't mean I was in physical danger, but I still have a deep-seated dislike of the style.
