Scarlet Disko: How old were you during Woodstock? Stephen Conley: I had just turned twenty in June. SD: What were you doing at the time? SC: I was a college student going to the University of Virginia, majoring in political science. SD: Were your parents aware that you were going to Woodstock? SC: No, by that time I had been going to college for 2 or 3 years so I was living independently. SD: How did you get to Woodstock? SC: We hitchhiked from a little town called Pound in Virginia. We didn’t get far the first day, but the next day we caught a ride that took us all the way to White Lake. This guy was bringing his children from Georgia back to his wife who was a nurse in White Lake. He was driving a Mercedes Sedan, and we sat in the back drinking beer the whole way. There was a bucket in the car that him and his kids peed in so we didn’t have to stop once. When we got to White Lake to drop off his kids, we spent the night at their house and the next day his wife dropped us off about three miles from the festival on her way to work. SD: What day did you get there? SC: Mark and I got there on Tuesday and nothing was ready; we camped up on the hill, not far from the lake. The first night that we heard music we wandered around to find that it was the Hog Farm playing the Beatles’ “A Day in the Life.” They were playing at an open stage and that was the first time I had granola, not knowing what it was. The Hog Farm was playing it so well that we thought the Beatles were actually down there. The Hog Farm was able to recreate how the orchestra rises and rises in the song with just a few simple instruments. We were stunned by how well they performed, it was an incredible opening music act that we experienced. SD: How many friends did you go to Woodstock with? SC: There was supposed to be six of us in a station wagon going to Woodstock together. However, the guy’s dad who we were borrowing the station wagon from was worried about it breaking down on us and decided not to let us use it,...
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Joel Rosenman shares some thoughts on the...
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Scarlet Disko: How old were you during Woodstock? Barry Shapiro: 18. S: What were you doing at the time? B: I had graduated high school in June. The following fall I would be going to film school at the School of Visual Arts in New York. After graduation I had been living with a bunch of people in a house in Rego Park, Queens (New York), Bobby [Torres], then the conga player in Joe Cocker’s Grease Band was one of them. He wasn’t around that often since he had been on the road with the band, but he had a room there. It was a house full of musicians and there was always music going on in the basement. S: How did you get to Woodstock? B: I went with my friend David who was a best friend at the time. We went in the back of a friend of David’s car. I didn’t know them and we didn’t stay with them during the festival. We were driving up Friday night when all of a sudden we’d reached a point where traffic had completely stopped. After awhile, out of nowhere, this guy in a pickup truck shows up and he gathered together a caravan of vehicles and said, “Follow me, I will get you there.” He had been doing this all evening, going back and forth from where he got us to where he took us. When he dropped us off as close as he could get us to the festival he told us, “Sleep here tonight, and when you wake up just follow the music.” (I think it was about a 3 mile walk from there.) If it weren’t for that guy in the truck we might not have ever made it to the festival. We followed the music in the morning. At some point I got separated from David and didn’t see him again until after we got home. I wound up getting into the festival and eventually I came upon 10 or so people I had just graduated high school with…it was perfect. I spent the next two days with them. We were directly in front of the stage up the ridge of the bowl, in other words not all the way in the back but certainly not near the front of the stage. It was a good spot, the sound was really good, and it...
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Scarlet Disko: How old were you during Woodstock? Barbara Moore: I was 19. S: What were you doing at the time? B: I was living at home in Long Island and working at a finance company, doing clerical work, to make some money to go back to school at the community college where I was studying business at. S: Were your parents aware that you were going to Woodstock? B: My parents didn’t know I was going to the festival. They thought I was just going out with some girlfriends for the weekend to hear some music and would be back Sunday night. S:Did you go to Woodstock with friends or alone? B: There was four of us. I had never gone camping, growing up on Long Island, and hadn’t really gone anywhere in general since my family didn’t have a lot of money. We decided it’d be a good idea to rent a tent since none of us had one. S: What did you think you were going to exactly? B: All I was to assume was that there would be some very cool music. But, I had no idea that people were actually going and knew of the festival’s existence. S: Why did you go? B: As I was working, most of my friends were at college. So, I was around a different crowd of people that I worked with. These friends who wanted me to go to Woodstock with them weren’t the college type. I was told I should go since I like concerts and music. The difficulty was making it work with my schedule as I had recently started working with this company. S: Did you buy a ticket, or did you get into the festival for free? B: Yeah, we wanted to be sure to get in, so we bought them. S: What was your most favorite memory of the festival? B: That the tractors didn’t run us over when we were in our tent during the rain. We were lucky to have the tent as I’d never slept in an open field like that before. It was also really shocking because I had never been around that many people. I’d never been around people on drugs before, I had never seen people tripping on acid or smoking pot. It was all a whole new experience. The...
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Scarlet Disko: How old were you during Woodstock? Judi Grunstra: I was 19. S: What were you doing at the time? J: I was going to school in Buffalo, NY, majoring in art history/humanities, and was home for the summer. I lived in Rockland County which was south of the festival in the suburbs of New York City. I was living there with my mom and working at the New York Public Library. S: Were your parents aware of you going to Woodstock? If so, did they allow it? J: I had bought my tickets with some good friends of mine that my mom knew. So, I think she was ok with it but was mad when I got home since she thought I had been running around nude like the people she’d seen on TV. As I was in college at the time, I felt that I belonged and associated with the hippie/counter-culture; I’d gone to several protest marches and was loving the music. S: How many people did you go with? J: I went with two really good friends and some of their friends who I didn’t know as well. S: What did you think you were going to exactly? J: A music festival. Three days of music and peace, it sounded like it was going to be a big countercultural event that would be a significant memory for my life. S: When did you arrive at Woodstock? J: We arrived Friday and some friends pitched a tent. However, I don’t remember being in the tent that often, we mostly stayed on a blanket that we had laid down on the hill. I know I fell asleep through the Who, but other than that, I don’t recall sleeping that much. There was so much going on and you didn’t want to miss anything. S: Was it the first festival you went to? J: It might of been the first festival I’d gone to, but I had seen the Beatles at Shea Stadium and the Rolling Stones at Carnegie Hall. I really enjoyed going to see live music and being around that atmosphere. S: What was your favorite memory from the festival? J: It was more of a feeling, that people were tied together and that maybe this generation was going to change society somehow. S: Who were your favorite...
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“Every grown up I’d talked to was  angry at me for being against the war. I wanted to get with my own kind of people for a little while before going back to college and enjoy some great music.” – UNCLE MORT Scarlet Disko: How old were you during Woodstock? Uncle Mort (Jan Senten): I was 19. I had just finished my first year of college at Amherst Collge of Massachusetts which is a small elite school. S: What where you doing at the time? M: I spent the 60’s growing up abroad, my father was an overseas manager for an allied chemical corporation. In 1961 we were relocated from suburban Connecticut to Mexico City. The Beatles had recently arrived to NYC and I was now on the outside of the American culture that I longed for as a 10 year old boy. I latched on to music at a pretty early age as a need for my emotions and connection with the states. In 1968, I graduated and started collge right after the Chicago riots. I was angry and confused at the time, like many, as the American promise was being shattered by war and the assumptions I had were being tossed sideways since I’d been out of the states. S: Where your parents/family aware of you going to Woodstock? If so, did they allow it? M: The following spring, my parents had relocated to New Jersey from Mexico City. I ended up spending the summer with my grandparents in Rhode Island while they were getting situated. I went to the Newport Jazz & Blues Festival and I saw Johnny Winter, BB King, and Led Zeppelin. That was one of my first tastes of live rock & roll. When I heard about the Woodstock festival I figured I could go since I’d be back in New Jersey by that time and could afford to pay for two days. My parents didn’t have any particular objections at the...
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