Joshua Tree Festival Research Paper

Their dissatisfaction with the consumerism values and goals, with the work ethic, and with the dependence on technology (Edgar and Sedwick, 2008) fuelled their belief to set themselves free from this mainstream culture using drugs such as LSD to open their minds and become spiritual and free. Their fashion consisted of floral headbands and clothing, flared jeans and bare feet. In January of 1967, a Human Be-in in Golden Gate Park San Francisco publicised the culture and this lead to the Summer of Love (The Naked Truth……….., 2014). According to Philippa(Toturhunt.com, 2015), this culture has since moved on and developed, in the sense of beliefs, to become what is now known as the rave culture. Which followed on from the hippie culture of listening to music in fields, with spiritual and honing on values that counter the popular culture whilst using recreational drugs to open the mind and push the beliefs of the hippie culture of their predecessors. Rather than psychedelics this new culture used amphetamines such as MDMA and brought together every different kind of person. Either way, drugs have played part in counterculture for a very long time, and it didn 't end at with the hippies.

Hippies are good representation of the counter culture movement, it usually involve drug abuse, sex and abortion. History professor Theodore Roszak points out the hippies and radical students have a same point, which is counter-culture. (Roszak, 1995) In his views, counter-cultural movement is all social protest movements in the United States, such as democracy movement, women's liberation movement, black civil rights movement, and anti-war movement.

The 1960’s presented Hippies with the chance to express their beliefs and attitudes in a number of diverse

The hippie movements of the sixties were driven by a plethora of factors. There were many new technologies that were being introduced in this period, a war against Communism around the globe, internal struggles against several types of injustices, a growing drug culture, and several other important developments. To say the least, it was a volatile period in American history and many sub-cultures were actively seeking to carve out new paths that were starkly different than the traditional norms. These generations who rejected traditional culture helped carve out a new trajectory for the United States and the movements influences can still be felt to this day.

“Dallas is an amazing city, so I hope that when people come here they don’t see this as the Wild Wild West in terms as the cowboy stereotype,” King said. Hopefully this festival will achieve just that, for people from all over the world have expressed interest in Dallas, and this festival gives incentive for tourists and Dallasites to explore the

Around the same time within the late 1960’s, a new hippie movement was forming, which was often described as a counterculture.

These include popular music, television, film, literature, and the arts. The music industry in particular was helped tremendously by the Hippie movement. They help many rock festivals including Woodstock which was free to get in and featured performers such as Jimmie Hendrix and . Hippies help set the standards for cultural and religious acceptance. Even fashion was impacted as the popularity of the necktie and other business apparel declined and was replaced by more casual dress standards.

The 1960s Hippie movement was a major point in the American history. In the 1960s a certain class of young people associated their lifestyles with the ideas of freedom, peace, and love. Hippies acted against white upper middle class lifestyle because they thought it was based on the wrong ideology. Hippies were against consumerism and American suburban life of the late 1950s and early 1960s was embodied in itself the idea of consumerism. Hippies, on the other hand, felt better about communal life with equal distribution of social goods. Traditional “bigger share” and consumerist greed as concepts of American society were despised by Hippies.

The people that would become associated with the new teenage counter-culture movement were known as the hippies. The movement began in the mid-sixties in the United States. The hippies often believed in peace and pleasure. They even ushered in a new music genre of psychedelic rock. The Grateful Dead as well as the Beatles was famous artists coming from the movement and genre. The hippies created their own communities where they criticized the mainstream society and middle class. One thing they revolutionized was sex. The sexual revolution moved from traditional ways of behaving to more promiscuous activities and pleasures. The norms of American sexual culture would change greatly. Hippies were promoters of free love in the sexual revolution. They taught that the power of sex and love should be a part of everyday teenage life. In some colleges, they started to make dorms coed; in which the males and females could come together freely. “A

The Hippie Counter Culture began in 1960. The hippie era was influenced more by personal happiness in which books, music, and fashion followed as result of their personification of a blissful society. Hippies did not care what others thought of them and their motto was “if it feels good, do it”. Hippies were seeking a utopian society. They participated in street theater and listened to psychedelic rock. As part of their culture they embraced more open sexual encounters amongst each other in their community and believed in use of psychedelic drugs which consisted of marijuana and LSD. The fashion choice that hippies dressed in was due to set them apart from the mainstream society. They choose to buy their clothing from thrift shops and flea markets (Haddock, 2011). Clothing choices are described as “brightly colored, ragged clothes, tie-dyed t-shirts, beads, sandals (or barefoot), and jewelry” (Haddock, 2011, para 7). Hippies also referred

El Paso best defines itself as the truest wafer of Wild West. Its streets are so ancient that they have witnessed the existence of the likes of Billy the Kid, Wyatt Earp and other lawless times. This is the same place where the unfortunate “Four Dead in Five Seconds” shootout occurred. However, these are not the events that have put El Paso in the limelight but it is the blending of culture and traditions that take place in the city. After all, it is the meeting point of New Mexico and Old Mexico. Annually the city holds the Neon Desert Music Festival and Sun City Music Festival each with over forty music artists from the dominions of soft and hard rocks, hip hop, RnB and blues and other captivating performances (Molinar). But the festival that is awaited with a lot of expectation is the Neon Desert Music Festival. So what is so captivating about the Neon Desert Music Festival that makes tens of thousands of feet pound

The Hippie Movement changed the politics and the culture in America in the 1960s. When the nineteen fifties turned into the nineteen sixties, not much had changed, people were still extremely patriotic, the society of America seemed to work together, and the youth of America did not have much to worry about, except for how fast their car went or what kind of outfit they should wear to the Prom. After 1963, things started to slowly change in how America viewed its politics, culture, and social beliefs, and the group that was in charge of this change seemed to be the youth of America. The Civil Rights Movement, President Kennedy’s death, new music, the birth control pill, the growing illegal drug market, and

John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Artie Kornfeld, and Mike Lang were the minds behind the creation of these “Three Days of Peace and Music”, the oldest of which was only 27. This festival, and all the music played during this time, was extremely influential. Americans at this time needed a weekend of peace, for tension was high. At this time Nixon was threatening to bomb North Vietnam, over 35,000 U.S. military personnel have died in the line of duty, and communism was terrifyingly close to America. Friends and family were overseas, and this music festival was a way to spread the idea of peace and love through a medium that was understood by all: music. This festival would not have occurred if it was not for the high tensions and influence of countureculture through popular music at the time.

These concert goers enjoyed no rules, drug use, sex, and loud rock music. Some of the best known artists from this concert were; Creedence Clearwater Revival, The Who, The Grateful Dead, The Rolling Stones, Sly & the Family Stone, and Jefferson Airplane.

The American hippie movement of the 1960s was strengthened by the increase of youth population. Many believe the official beginning of this cultural event started with the youth of the 1960's but it really started with their parents. In the late 1930s and early 1940s America was just coming out of a disheartening depression.(About the Great Depression.) America's unfortunate fate led them into another unlucky situation, World War II. Many youthful men and women joined the service, in fact over an estimated sixteen million total were sent into the war.( GI Bill History - U. S. Department of Veterans Affairs. ) In the late 1940s soldiers coming back at the end of the war were now onto the next stage of their lives and made families. This is what started the baby boomers. After so many hardships and losses the last thing anyone expected was an approximately seventy-six million babies born between baby boomer era of about ten to fifteen years. (BBHQ: Boomer Statistics. ) Many of these children had strict parents who had become disheartened from losing childhood