San Francisco’s Fillmore Auditorium: From ‘Dance-concerts’ to ‘Concerts’ – Steve Waksman

This week’s guest post is by Steve Waksman, Associate Professor of Music and American Studies at Smith College and author of ‘Instruments of Desire: The Electric Guitar and the Shaping of Musical Experience’ and ‘This Ain’t the Summer of Love: Conflict and Crossover in Heavy Metal and Punk’.

He is currently researching the history of live music in the U.S. from the 19th century to the present and looks here at how archival material about Bill Graham’s legendary Fillmore illustrates changes and tensions in audience behaviour at rock concerts in the 1960s.  

Seeing the Stones in 2003: Why? – Martin Cloonan

To mark the recent fiftieth anniversary of The Rolling Stones’ first gig we revisit Martin Cloonan’s candid examination of his experiences of them live through the years, his motivations set against a wide ranging account of how their career has been intertwined with his own life alongside the popular culture and society of the UK.  

White Bicycles: Making Music in the 1960s – Joe Boyd (2006)

Autobiography of producer, club promoter and tour manager Joe Boyd – details his experiences of working with big names like Bob Dylan, Nick Drake and Pink Floyd, as well as portraitss of figures from jazz and folk. A first hand account of the music scene in the 1960s.  

Pompey Pop – guest post by Dave Allen, University of Portsmouth

In the second of our guest blog posts, Dr Dave Allen from the University of Portsmouth writes about popular music in Portsmouth from 1944 till 1969.  For more about the project, see the website here, or read Dave’s excellent blog. Pompey Pop In 2010 I came to Edinburgh University to describe my project “Pompey Pop” which covers popular music in …