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Originally Posted by Fiberfar  @ Moonbiter: By Woodstock generation, do you mean bands that played at woodstock or just band formed before or in 1969? |
I mean bands associated with the hippie/counterculture movement, which many claim culminated at Woodstock. This is a big fat lie. By the time Woodstock happened, the hippie movement was already dead and smelled like it. If you look at the line-up of bands at Woodstock, very few of them had anything to do with the hippie/psychedelic movement, but those who did were the ones who made it on to the movie and soundtrack album. Hence the idea that Woodstock was a pure hippie happening. In fact it was the last gasp of a watered-out and corrupt movement which died with a bang at Altamont Speedway later that year. Many of the bands who played Woodstock later regretted it. John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival, the band many claims "killed psychedelia," later sneered "Woodstock was nothing but a bunch of junkies rolling around in their own ****!" The band refused to appear in the movie or on the soundtrack. Roger Daltry of The Who later called the band's appearance "a major mistake. We are nothing like those people."
Equally as famous is the many bands who refused to play the festival. John Lennon, at that point wobbling around with Yoko, wanted the Beatles to play, but the other three refused. Especially George Harrison, who was deeply traumatized by his experiences in Haight-Ashbury during the "Summer Of Love" in 1967, and wanted nothing more to do with the hippie movement. New hard rock bands like Free and Led Zeppelin, who were the inspiration for Aerosmith, simply refused to appear. Why would they play there? The 70s were coming. By the time Aerosmith came out in 1973, the big names at Woodstock were dead or dying, the rest of them had broken up or been forgotten. Glam Rock, Hard Rock and even Heavy Metal was hammering the charts in England and Europe, and English music completely dominated the US charts as well. The world's two greatest bands were called Led Zeppelin and Deep Purple. In the US Aerosmith and Alice Cooper were the only homegrown rock alternatives to the bloody Carpenters. In New York four nutjobs had just started smearing their faces with make-up, but that was in the future.
Hence I can say, with all my heart, that Aerosmith hasn't got anything to do with Woodstock. Period.
Oh, and another thing: When I grew up, Aerosmith was vitually a forgotten band. They had self destructed so thoroughly in the late 70s that nobody remembered or wanted to remember them. If it hadn't been for the Run DMC cover of "Walk This Way" in the 80s, Aerosmith would have gone the way of the hippies.