Mo' Better Blu

A few days ago I wrote a blog entry on the recently released Blu-ray edition of Woodstock (1970), the 40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition and BD-Live with Amazon Exclusive Bonus Content version that I ordered from Amazon. Subsequently, I’ve learned that the Amazon set is not the only “Ultimate Collector’s Edition” available, but that there are different exclusives included on the “Ultimate Collector’s Edition” on Blu-ray for sale by Target. I was motivated to search out these differences, and with a little help from my friends, I’ve identified the differences here, for those interested:

Exclusive Extras on BD from Amazon.com:
Performances:
The Grateful Dead – “Mama Tried”
Jefferson Airplane – “Volunteers”
Country Joe and the Fish – “Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine”
Featurettes:
“Technical Difficulties: The Obstacles to a Smoothly Run Festival Posed by Nature and Technology”
“Woodstock: A Turning Point - When Organizers Realized a Concert Became a Statement About Peace”
“Food, Lodging & First Aid: Making Adequate Provisions for a Musical Multitude”

Exclusive Extras on BD from Target:
Performances:
Canned Heat – “Woodstock Boogie”
The Who – “Sparks”
Jimi Hendrix – “Spanish Castle Magic”
Featurettes:
“Reflections of an Era: Director Michael Wadleigh on Two Signature 1969 events—Woodstock and the Moon Landing”
“A Farm In Bethel: Reflections on Landholder Max Yasgur’s Legacy”
“Cinematic Revolution: The Origins of the Film’s 3-Panel Look”
“Woodstock Generation: Sons and Daughters of the 1960s Share Their Memories”

Additional Note: The BD edition of Woodstock issued in the UK includes the Target exclusive material, with different cover art.

However, if you really want to assemble as many Woodstock performances as you can, you’ll also need the set of three OOP laser discs issued on VideoArts in Japan in 1994, referred to as Woodstock Diary, a film by Chris Hegedus, Erez Laufer, and D. A. Pennebaker. For convenience, I’ve listed the material available on these discs here:

1969.8.15 (VideoArts Music VALJ-3412)
Richie Havens: I Can’t Make It Anymore; Freedom
Country Joe McDonald: I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag
John Sebastian: Rainbows All Over Your Blues
The Incredible String Band: When You Find Out Who You Are
Bert Sommers: Jennifer
Tim Hardin: If I Were A Carpenter
Ravi Shankar: Evening Raga
Arlo Guthrie: Walkin’ Down the Line
Joan Baez: Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man; Sweet Sir Galahad
Interviews with: John Roberts, Joel Rosenman and Michael Lang

1969.8.16 (VideoArts Music VALJ-3413)
Quill: Waiting For You
Santana: Soul Sacrifice
Canned Heat: Leaving This Town
Mountain: Southbound Train
Sly & the Family Stone: Love City
Janis Joplin: Try (Just A Little Bit Harder); Ball & Chain
The Who: My Generation
Jefferson Airplane: Somebody To Love; White Rabbit
Interviews with: John Roberts, Joel Rosenman and Michael Lang

1969.8.17 (VideoArts Music VALJ-3413)
Joe Cocker: Let’s Go Get Stoned
Country Joe and the Fish: (Thing Called) Love
Ten Years After: I’m Going Home
The Band: The Weight
Johnny Winter: Mean Time [sic] Blues
Crosby, Stills and Nash: Blackbird
Paul Butterfield: Everything Gonna Be Alright
Sha Na Na: Duke of Earl
Jimi Hendrix: Star Spangled Banner; Woodstock Instrumental; Villanova Junction
Interviews with: John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Michael Lang, Lisa Law and Wavy Gravy

In addition, you may wish to pick up the Jimi Hendrix Live at Woodstock 2-disc DVD set (which includes “Spanish Castle Magic,” an extra on the Target set) as well. And go here for Tim Lucas’s discussion of the 2CD set Jefferson Airplane—The Woodstock Experience, consisting of JA’s complete performance at Woodstock.

Mile Marker 150

This morning I discovered that late last night Tim Lucas sent Becky and me an email informing us that the preview of VIDEO WATCHDOG #150 had been posted on the VW website so that Becky and I could get an early look at our opening spread in the “150th smash issue.” Last month I wrote about my and Becky’s decade long plus association with Video Watchdog that began in 1998 with issue #45, 105 issues ago. While we’ve contributed to VW for over a decade, that’s certainly not as long as Steve Bissette (whose name, you’ll notice, is on the cover) who has contributed to VW off and on over the two decades of its existence. As I indicated in my blog last month, Becky and I always have been deeply pleased that Tim and Donna showed an almost instant willingness to publish our work, and we’re especially pleased to be part of issue 150. Publishing 150 issues of a specialized journal in the turbulent economic conditions and the technological revolution of the past twenty years is no small feat—many venerable journals have either folded up entirely, or gone strictly to an on-line format. I know that Tim and Donna are justly proud of their accomplishment, as they should be.

I remember telling Becky, immediately after we had finished our first two reviews and emailed them off to Tim, that even if he doesn’t accept them, at least we’ve learned something. We’ve found that to be true to this day: writing about a film (or book, or record, etc.) has both deepened our understanding of it various complexities (e.g., themes, characters) and ambiguities, but also its special singularity. Our latest long review of 2008’s superhero films required us to do a bit of homework, forcing us to refreshen our relationship with the characters by doing some additional reading as well as view the films more than once. And like always, we learned something. Not only do we learn by writing the reviews, but once we turn over our material to Tim—and the past few years, to a second pair of eyes, those belonging to John Charles—whose combined editing skills are simply outstanding, we have the comfort of knowing that not only will our work be, proverbially speaking, gone over with a fine-tooth comb, but any factual errors will be corrected as well. And since Donna Lucas is so masterful with design and layout—she’s careful, thoughtful, and meticulous in her work—the published product is thoroughly professional. Both Becky and I have profited greatly from working with Tim and Donna over the years, and we heartily congratulate them on landmark issue 150. We are pleased to be part of it.

Blu Blues at Woodstock

I finally had a chance to screen most of the material included on the recently released Blu-ray edition of Woodstock (1970)—the 40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition and BD-Live with Amazon Exclusive Bonus Content version, to be precise, that I ordered from Amazon about a month ago. Touted on Amazon.com as “one of the most impressive Blu-Ray releases of 2009 or any other year,” the Collector’s Edition has lots of what is called, in marketing lingo, “value-added content.” The box (enclosed in a protective plastic sleeve), for instance, is designed to resemble a faux fringe leather jacket, while inside there’s an iron-on patch with the familiar logo, a Lucite paperweight with pictures, a reprint of the 60-page Life Magazine special issue about the 1969 event, a reproduction of a three-day ticket, and some other memorabilia (of the miniaturized and simulated sort). Such materials make the event no more “real” than it ever was, but serve as an illustration of the conceit that an important social and cultural event presumably can be fully represented as a series of fragments, making the past seem as visible and proximate as the world you see outside the window as you eat your daily breakfast.

To be honest, I was most interested in the Amazon-exclusive bonus content included on the Blu-ray edition, that is, the additional concert footage consisting of performances by the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Winter, Mountain, and others. Screening the film this time, though, and having viewed the additional footage, I had a rather strong experience of déjà vu, as it occurred to me that many of the artists and bands who’d appeared at Woodstock had already (earlier) appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, e.g., Janis Joplin (with Big Brother and the Holding Company), the Grateful Dead, Country Joe and the Fish (duplicating a couple songs at Woodstock previously performed at Monterey), Jimi Hendrix (ditto), the Butterfield Blues Band, the Who, Jefferson Airplane, and Ravi Shankar, as well as musicians such as Stephen Stills and David Crosby, who’d appeared at Monterey in different bands. Woodstock has always been pitched as a more significant and historic “cultural event” than Monterey, a perception that unwittingly reaffirms the widespread (mis)conception that “The Sixties” consists of events that occurred from 1968 to the end of the decade. It seems to me that the difference between Woodstock and Monterey is all about “authenticity,” which event is seen as the more “authentic” representation of “The Sixties.” My subjective impression is that Woodstock has won out as the more “authentic” event of “The Sixties” . . . but, as Simon Frith has observed, “authenticity” has always been premised on the opposition between “music-as-expression and music-as-commodity.” Hence Woodstock is generally perceived, historically, as being all about “music-as-expression” (expression of historical moment, crystallization of sensibility, and so on), while Monterey has been viewed as being all about “music-as-commodity.” I offer this observation purely as speculation, not as accepted fact.

In any case, this time around I noticed the number of blues and blues-based bands that appeared at Woodstock: Canned Heat, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Joe Cocker, Johnny Winter, Paul Butterfield, Mountain, and Ten Years After—but, ironically, how few black blues artists were represented (none). Black artists were represented at Woodstock, yes, of course; that’s not my point. Blues music was well-represented at Woodstock, but was played exclusively by white musicians—Canned Heat, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band (one of the few bands with black musicians), Joe Cocker, Janis Joplin, and—the whitest of all—Johnny Winter, who gave the best blues performance at the festival (“Mean Town Blues”), in my view, based on the footage included on the bonus disc. By no means am I claiming that the blues played by white artists is “inauthentic,” but viewing the Woodstock material this time was a painful reminder of the way white people have historically exploited black people, particularly in the popular music industry. Black music is the ghostly presence of Woodstock. I do not make this observation as a so-called “white liberal,” but as someone who is simply stating a central tenet of the American musical industry. About 99% of those who attended the Woodstock festival were white kids who had the wherewithal, as well as the leisure time, to be able to burn a weekend listening to rock music. The documentary associates primitive behavior (lack of regimentation, nudity, communal bathing, nature worship, fucking in the tall grass, non-Western religious practices, magical thinking—the “no rain, no rain” chant”—and so on) with authentic expression. Monterey has not had this sort of mythology attached to it, but that ought to make the point(s) I am making all the more obvious. Of course I love the music, and the documentary itself is an example of great filmmaking, but speaking for myself, I have few illusions that hippies (middle and upper-class white kids with lots of disposable income and leisure time, still possible in the 60s) are worth all the ideological obfuscation that have been granted them through the Woodstock documentary. Would that I could believe otherwise.