Curated category
Counterculture of the 1960s
- Bob DylanBob Dylan was born Robert Allen Zimmerman on the 24th of May, 1941, at St. Mary's Hospital in Duluth, Minnesota. His Hebrew name was Shabtai Zisl ben Avraham.
- Jimi HendrixJimi Hendrix died in London on the 18th of September 1970, at the age of 27, from barbiturate-related asphyxia. He was, by then, the world's highest-paid…
- John LennonAt approximately 5:00 p.m. on the 8th of December 1980, John Lennon autographed a copy of his new album for a man named Mark David Chapman outside his New…
- LSDLSD, lysergic acid diethylamide, does its work in quantities smaller than a grain of sand. A dose as tiny as 20 micrograms, roughly one two-hundredth the…
- Psychedelic musicPsychedelic music is a term that covers a sprawling family of sounds, from folk singers in 1960s San Francisco to Chicago DJs building tracks around the…
- HippieHippie culture left its mark on nearly every corner of Western society, from the organic food stores on American main streets to the peace symbol printed on…
- Kurt VonnegutKurt Vonnegut survived the firebombing of Dresden by hiding in a meat locker three stories underground, surrounded by hanging cadavers.
- Marx BrothersThe Marx Brothers made their name on a mistake. One evening in 1909, during a performance at the Opera House in Nacogdoches, Texas, the audience bolted from…
- Rolling StoneRolling Stone launched on the 9th of November, 1967, with a cover photo of John Lennon dressed for battle in a Brodie helmet, fresh from the set of How I Won…
- Hunter S. ThompsonHunter S. Thompson once wrote a line he repeated for the rest of his life. "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've…
- John CageJohn Milton Cage Jr. spent his entire life asking a single question: what is music? He was born on the 5th of September, 1912, in Los Angeles, and for nearly…
- The DoorsThe Doors formed on a beach in Santa Monica in July 1965 when Jim Morrison and Ray Manzarek ran into each other in front of Manzarek's house on Fraser Avenue.
- Ralph BakshiRalph Bakshi was born on the 29th of October 1938 in Haifa, Mandatory Palestine, into a Krymchak Jewish family, and by the time he was a teenager in Brooklyn…
- Philip K. DickPhilip K. Dick died on the 2nd of March 1982, in a Santa Ana hospital, having never seen the film that would make his name famous.
- François TruffautFrançois Truffaut was once called "The Gravedigger of French Cinema." In 1958, he was the only French critic not invited to the Cannes Film Festival.
- Jean GenetJean Genet spent his first seven months in the care of a prostitute mother before she placed him for adoption, and from that beginning he built one of the…
- Michelangelo AntonioniMichelangelo Antonioni died in Rome on the 30th of July 2007, the same day as Ingmar Bergman. Two titans of world cinema left on the same afternoon.
- Jean-Luc GodardJean-Luc Godard once said: "A film consists of a beginning, a middle and an end, though not necessarily in that order." That line, delivered with the offhand…
- WBAIWBAI, broadcasting at 99.5 FM in New York City, was once called "an anarchist's circus" by a New York Times Magazine piece.
- Frank ZappaFrank Vincent Zappa was born on the 21st of December, 1940, in Baltimore, Maryland, into a household where Italian was spoken by his grandparents and gas…
- Summer of LoveJack Kerouac's 1957 novel On the Road ignited a spark that would eventually consume San Francisco. The Beat Generation authors of the 1950s had already…
- Jean-Pierre MelvilleJean-Pierre Melville died on the 2nd of August 1973 while eating dinner with writer Philippe Labro at the Hôtel PLM Saint-Jacques restaurant in Paris.
- British InvasionIn the late 1950s, American rock and blues musicians became popular with British youth. This rebellious tone and image sparked a cultural shift across the…
- Richard LesterRichard Lester Liebman arrived at the University of Pennsylvania at the age of 15, already a graduate of a Quaker school in Philadelphia, studying clinical…