Rise of the Hippie Counterculture Psychedelics drugs, bell-bottoms, tie-dye, and rock & roll, the hippie counterculture movement was a powerful influence on youth culture in the middle of the 60’s mainly through musical expression and communal values. According to David Dodd’s annotation of the Grateful Dead’s song “That’s it for the Other One,” the counterculture became popularized In San Francisco due to the treks and travels of Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. The Merry Pranksters were known for using LSD, magic mushrooms, and cannabis, and often filmed their Volkswagen bus trips across the United States. This filming gave birth to an interactive media experience which would later become presented to the public in the arrangement of festivals and concerts. …show more content…
Laughlin and a community of 50 people who shared Native American values decided to sponsor a new genre of music that encourages shared communal values among the listeners. Laughlin set-up a performance at the Red Dog Saloon which became known at the “The Red Dog Experience,” which starred the original geniuses (unknown at the time) that developed into the psychedelic rock scene, such as: Greatful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Big Brother and the Holding Company, and a few others. After the Red Dog Saloon performances, the bands, Laughlin, and his coordinators went on to set up and perform at various locations in the San Francisco Bay area from January 21-23, 1996.
Peter Tamony’s (“Tripping out From San Francisco,” American Speech 98-103) describes a festival; namely, “The Trips Festival,” which attracted more than 6,000 people to consume punch spiked with LSD and listen to this newly formed genre of music with the Grateful Dead and Big Brother and the Holding Company headlining on stage. This marked the first fully developed music and light shows of the era. This led to the movement becoming much more widespread, especially in