Word: altamont
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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After 1968, much of the drama lay ahead (the Weatherman's Days of Rage, Woodstock, Altamont, Kent State), and then the long dispersals of the '60s generation into the '70s. But the events of the origin myth ended sometime around the November election of Richard Nixon, when, it may be, history seemed to have been ceded back to the fathers, and recalled from timelessness into time...
Decades have a way of crashing to a close during the blink of an hour. The '60s ended at Altamont, when a knife-and-death climax to a Rolling Stones concert showed that the decade of love, peace and music had trouble, even with the music. The '70s limped along with an inner-directed malaise until Jan. 20, 1981, when the U.S. hostages lifted off from Tehran just as Ronald Reagan was taking office. The '80s, as befits their high-flying adrenaline, may have dissipated a few years early, sputtering to an end during the stock market's terrifying final...
...despite the mythos of such events as Woodstock, Altamont, Jim Morrison's death, and the Summer of Love in San Francisco, rock has always been little more than entertainment or release for the majority of Americans. Why, then, must Palmer insist on making the Stones significant, when it is easier--and probably more gratifying--just to appreciate their music...
...Stones tried to break out of their stupor after Jones' death in 1969 by returning to their roots in this country. The result was the bloody Altamont concert, an event which might have finished the group but which actually snapped them out of their self-destructive cycle of drug crises and inspired them to perform the songs they had produced in the studio. They escaped England and America for Southern France and from there re-emerged in the 1970s with not just one fresh look and sound, but a whole series of them...
...themselves, the Stones were forced to confront a new problem: how to keep the act spontaneous and rebellious after more than a decade of two-four rhythm. The familiar events are all thrown in, but portrayed from new and interesting angles. The drug bust at Redlands, the tragedy at Altamont, the transition from Mick Taylor to Ron Wood, the triumphant American tours and the countless, faceless women--it's all here...