Barefoot in Babylon

by Bob Spitz

  Michael offered his hand, which Artie shook vigorously and without hesitation. He looked directly into Michael’s eyes and knew he was on the brink of an important step in his life.

  “It’s only the beginning,” Michael said, and he disappeared into the night.

  3

  Michael Lang was convinced that Kornfeld would come through with the proposed contract for Train. He considered himself a good judge of character and had an intuitive line on Artie which he believed was invincible. The day after their introductory meeting at the Capitol offices, Lang called the group’s drummer, Don Keiter, and casually dropped their good news in his lap.

  Kieter listened to Lang’s otherwise convincing hyperbole with reticence. More times than he cared to remember, he had been enticed by Lang’s “sleight of hand” into taking part in some sort of flamboyant moneymaking scheme. The only person who ever profited from these schemes seemed to be Michael. Their last commercial adventure, a psychedelic poster business in Miami, was a depressing memory. According to Keiter, Michael had “conned” him and a woman artist into designing a series of Day-Glo posters that the three of them would subsequently distribute to gift shops as equal partners. After a few months’ inactivity, Keiter began seeing their posters displayed for sale in store windows around the area, but neither he nor the woman ever realized a cent from the project. Nor did he find out who made money from the deal. But he had his suspicions.

  Michael continued to promote his relationship with Artie Kornfeld, spending each available evening at the record executive’s Manhattan apartment playing bumper pool and getting high until there was just enough time for him to catch the last bus back to Woodstock.

  One of their few bones of contention was the fact that Artie refused to attend rock concerts. Michael found this wildly sacrilegious coming from a guy who was supposed to be on top of the music scene. Artie attemped to defend himself by explaining that he had more creative matters at heart, especially an idea for a Broadway show.

  “It’s called The Concert, and I’m gonna write it with Anthony Newley,” he boasted. “It has to do with this composer, see, who is a truck driver and leads a Walter Mitty–type existence. He drives during the day but is really composing this fantastic rock symphony in his head all the while.”

  “Outta sight,” Michael said, infatuated by the concept.

  “It gets better. Y’see, no one really pays much attention to him. They think he’s pretty flipped out, but he never gives up. Then, one day, outta nowhere, this record cat gives him a break. The whole thing goes down beautifully. Like, he cuts the rock symphony—right?—and it blows everybody’s fuckin’ mind. It’s sensational. And that’s the whole second act of the play.”

  “What is?”

  “The concert, man. Dig it! This cat just stands center stage and lays down the whole rock symphony in sequence. Y’know, two hours of solid music. And the audience spaces out. I mean, they walk outta that theatre hummin’ the whole fuckin’ score, man. And the next thing you know . . .”

  “They head for the closest record store and pick up the sound track.”

  “Right fuckin’ on!”

  “What a trip!”

  “And I’ll give you one guess who writes the rock symphony, owns all the publishing to it, and produces the original score.”

  Michael shook his head and laughed. “You got it all together, huh?”

  “Bet your ass. I been runnin’ this thing through my head for at least a year. A rock concert and a Broadway show squeezed into one and tossed out there onto the street—man, it’s gotta be the hottest thing goin’. We’ll do the place up in strobes and lasers and send ’em into orbit.”

  “Shit, man—it’s got incredible possibilities,” Michael stroked his smooth chin and looked up at Artie. “Who you gonna get to be the truckin’ dude?”

  “Dunno. I been playin’ with a few angles. Hell, could you dig gettin’ someone like the Beatles or Dylan—or even Sly, man—to do it? It’d be the fuckin’ Who’s Who of hard rock. It could run forever!”

  Lang pondered the concept. “Y’know, I worked on this thing in Florida where a buncha us got together, rented out this race track, and had something like twelve or fifteen groups show up for a two-day gig. A rock festival, sorta. It was a pretty heavy trip. I was just thinkin’ . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  “Now, this is just an idea. Like, we use what you just told me—the show thing—but we do it outdoors and have twenty fuckin’ groups do different parts of the symphony. At a stadium, or someplace that can hold a lotta people. And we do it over a whole weekend. Whaddya think?”

  “You kiddin’? I think it’d be the biggest fuckin’ bash anyone’s ever seen before. A monster. I don’t know anyone who wouldn’t wanna be there.”

  “And kids could crash there and do whatever the hell they wanted to do without gettin’ uptight that some ol’ fucker next to ’em’s gonna blow the whistle on them.”

  “You’re fuckin’ amazing, Lang. But y’know, the thing to do is to buy the land and keep the show runnin’ in cycles. Have the symphony goin’ on for a few days, give the crowd a day or two to clear out, and then do it all over again. Hell, we could even put a recording studio on the property for during the week to keep the groups busy. We’d be booked forever. What an in-fuckin’-credible idea!”

  “It’s not so incredible,” Michael said with a straight face. “Think about it. We get a couple o’ dudes to go for the bread and we’re halfway there. It won’t be any problem gettin’ the groups to go along with it. All you gotta do is pay ’em enough and they’ll materialize outta nowhere.”

  “Think so?”

  “I know so. You start spreadin’ around big bucks, the kinda bread that stuns even these fat cat musicians, well—you’ll wind up holdin’ most o’ the cards. You oughta know, man. Offer someone like Richie Havens a bundle and see if he doesn’t start singin’ round your door.”

  “You got the music business down better’n I thought.”

  “It’s just smart business, man. It’s how you play the game.”

  “We’ve gotta pull something like this off, Michael.” Artie grew intensely serious. “We could record every top name in the business and they could live right there until they got bored with it.”

  “Like a retreat.”

  “Right—a rock retreat. It even makes good sense. These acts could make money comin’ from both ends without movin’ so much as two feet. It’d be a dream come true for them. But it’s gonna take a fuckin’ money machine to float a thing like that.”

  “Not really, man. Truth is, you’ve probably got the bread right at your fingertips.”

  “I couldn’t swing it, man. Linda’d kill me.”

  “No,” Michael said. “Not your own money. Record company money. You got all the connections.”

  Kornfeld clapped his hands together and jumped in the air. “It’s so logical, it’s silly!”

  “How ’bout Capitol? Think they’d go for it?”

  “Not a chance. They’re too fuckin’ straight for something like that, man. We’d be forced to bring the Lettermen up there and that’d blow our deal, for sure. No. But there’s a couple music heavies who’d go for it. At least, I know ’em well enough to ask ’em what they think of it. I’ve only gotta know the answer to one question before I lay it on ’em.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Where we’re gonna have this retreat.”

  Michael only smiled.

  4

  Nobody is quite sure about how Michael Lang came to settling in the village of Woodstock in 1968. Some say he simply appeared out of thin air, like Merlyn, and proceeded to cast a spell over those whose lives he chose to touch. Mothers wanted to mother him, lovers fought to make love to him, pigeons flipped coins over who would take a dive for him. And all the while, Michael Lang kept his mouth shut and smiled wa
rmly; by the grace of guile, he glided through introductions to Woodstock’s charmed circles with unassuming restraint. He had not, however, been there more than a week before he began soliciting money to promote rock shows. Rock was the coming messiah, he proselytized, and five’d-get-you-ten that backing outdoor shows featuring the hottest groups in the country was the quickest route to cornering a substantial piece of the rockpile.

  Lang was the sideshow barker, the charming virtuoso whose every angle had a sterling silver hook attached to it. No one willingly put their full trust in him, yet everyone was eager to take a flier that his friendship would produce excitement for their success-starved existences. And, yet, Lang had nothing tangible to offer these ready-cash customers. What he effortlessly dispensed was a commodity ten times more potent than psychedelic music or marijuana. It was an aromatic blend of personality and dreams, a Utopian illusion for which the common herd sold their souls. It was pure and simple Michael Lang, and, in the words of his father, “Nobody sells Michael better than Michael.”

  Michael was well aware of his gift for creative inveigling. From the time he was ten when the patent for an invention called the electric toothbrush was pulled out from under him, Lang’s ethic (a childhood friend claims) was catch-as-catch-can with a dash of smile and a flash of the eyes. He had what it took, and he took what he could.

  High school was a thorn in his side. Michael’s IQ was exceedingly high, but he rejected any subject that did not come easily for him. He had an inventor’s mind and a mule’s disposition. If it didn’t come to him, he wasn’t interested.

  When he was seventeen, Michael began fantasizing about running away to Florida. He had relatives there, including a cousin, Al, whom he idolized. His mother was pushing him to go to college, but Michael quashed that argument when he failed to graduate from high school with his class. New York University still agreed to accept him, pending his taking a makeup course during the summer, because his aptitude tested so well, but Florida had become something of an obsession. And now his dream entertained a new twist: He wanted to open up a head shop there.

  His ambitions were intensified by two related influences: the cultural revolution that was unfolding in the Village and a twenty-year-old girl named Ellen.

  Hippies had run the Beatniks off MacDougal Street with unpardonable reproof. They replaced that dark era of black turtleneck sweaters and bongo drums with rainbow gaiety, strobe lights, and a softness of dress and emotion never before exhibited by Village inhabitants. Rock usurped jazz, drugs supplanted alcohol and adolescents swarmed in from parts unknown. Michael plugged himself into the eye of the hurricane with a tireless enthusiasm. He’d walk the streets into the early hours of morning turning on to the lights, the pulsating music coming from the cafés and the general environmental excitement.

  Michael begged his parents to help him get started with his head shop. He had estimated an investment on their part of about ten thousand dollars to get him off the ground. He’d relocate in Miami where, he was convinced, he could capitalize on the college and tourist trade. Pretty soon the whole world would be hip to psychedelic paraphernalia—pipes, T-shirts, leather vests, black-light posters, incense—and he’d have the South virtually sewn up.

  His mother was against his going. Two years before, Michael had pleaded with her for a sports car, and she was still blaming that extravagance for his failure to graduate from high school. But Michael threatened to go anyway and to sleep in the street until he found his metier. His parents had no other choice and soon gave in. He could have the money, but they advised him to use it wisely and to make all arrangements for his enterprise before he left Brooklyn. That way, he could change his mind if he found it to be impractical.

  Michael, along with his new partner, Ellen, packed up the car with all the merchandise they had collected and headed toward Florida. But Michael was tired of his little turn-on-a-dime sports car and, instead, rented a spotless new Cadillac with power steering, power brakes, power windows, the works: a perfect vehicle for a hippie out to establish himself among his peers. No particular destination, just Florida. Maybe Miami, or Coconut Grove, whatever carried the most appeal once they arrived.

  Florida, as Lang soon discovered, instead of being the land where dreams came true, turned out to be a state filled with such paranoia and hatred for hippies that they almost turned around and headed back to New York. But they found a beautiful little gift shop for rent in Dade County across the street from the University of Miami and they set up a store called The Head Shop.

  The night they officially opened for business, the street had been cordoned off and a rock group played on the front lawn. The Head Shop was the first establishment of its kind to open in the Miami area, and the students treated it as a sacred event. Business was spectacular; Michael had become a neighborhood celebrity.

  At about eight o’clock, in the heat of the festivities, several patrol cars pulled up to the Head Shop’s entrance. Cops emptied out carrying sledgehammers and descended upon the crowd.

  “Where’s your license?” they demanded. Of course, all Michael had to show them was a temporary license that had been granted by the city a few days before the opening. “Well you can’t open until you have a license. You broke the law and you’ve got to pay the price.” Within an hour, they had completely demolished the store and everything in it.

  The next week, Michael and Ellen packed the car, took what little money they had left and opened the Head Shop South in Coconut Grove, an artist’s community twenty miles from Miami Beach. They were still harassed by the local police, but so were all the other store owners, and as long as they behaved, they were allowed to remain open for business.

  One evening in 1967, Michael and Ellen closed the store early and took an acid trip together. Michael had the tendency to babble profusely while under the influence of LSD, and this night, he talked at length about his “concept of a Nation” which he had set out to create, similar in structure to that of a tiered cake. His visions about it were quite lucid. “The first tier was the store with all the paraphernalia, nice karma, peaceful music. The second floor would have subtle changes, the sound and the texture maybe. The walls would begin to lose their shape, items that had a substantial feel would feel different on the next level. Everything would begin to shed its former skin as you climbed higher and higher. As you became accustomed to one experience, you’d want to seek the next. And by the time you got to the top, you were, in fact, free. Nirvana. A floating feeling and sounds, sensations, tastes—all free. A total environment. A nation away from war and racism, where drugs were easily accessible. With rock music and toys everywhere you turned.”

  Ellen became so excited by his discourse, she thought it was going to take place right then and there. When they finally came down from the trip, they continued their discussions about this “Nation” concept and about how it could become a total media environment. “We can do it, kid,” he assured her. “I know it was just a trip, but it can be done. I know it.”

  But it wasn’t to be done with Ellen. Soon thereafter they separated and Lang decided it was time to make his move on the Miami rock scene, to branch out into other directions. He met a dapper older man named Peter Goodrich who catered to Lang’s fancy for stories about scams and cons in which Goodrich had been involved.

  To Lang, Goodrich represented all the things that were appealing. He led a life of intrigue, spent money on the finest clothing and food, spoke several languages fluently and travelled in fast company. And, above all, Goodrich presented himself as an international playboy. “The guy has style,” Lang observed after making Goodrich’s acquaintance. “He’s got plenty of bread, and he knows people with the right connections.”

  Through Goodrich, Lang began laying his own groundwork for a move into the music business. It didn’t take him long to organize a clique of investors under the corporate title of Joint Productions whose purpose it would be to stage a series
of rock shows at the Gulfstream Racetrack on the fringe of Miami Beach. One of his partners in the co-venture was Don Keiter who introduced Lang to agencies handling rock bands and to an entirely new population of road managers, equipment men, and groupies. Gulfstream was organized much to the dismay of the local government and featured such performers as the Mothers of Invention, Jimi Hendrix, the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, John Lee Hooker, and Chuck Berry. Unfortunately, two of its three scheduled days were rained out and promoters suffered a sixty-thousand-dollar loss. More instrumental in the corporation’s dissolution was the ugly scene going on backstage during the final day of the show. Lang had hired an ex-cop from Fort Lauderdale to act as a private security official to guard the box office receipts. He, in turn, hired several other men to assist in that task. When it became apparent that the promoters stood to lose their shirts, the private security force attempted to stop a Brinks truck from entering the gates so that they could transport what money there was to a local bank. The head of security had an alternate plan; he was going to lock his men in the money room and make sure they got paid first—in cash—before any money was taken from the track. The Brinks forces managed to reach the counting room at the same time as the private patrol and both sides drew their guns. It was up to Michael Lang to settle all accounts.

  Michael made one phone call. One of his associates was a prominent Miami businessman with “connections” and, within minutes, he had the entire matter under his control.

  Lang, to no one’s surprise, made a beeline for New York until things cooled off back in Miami.

  Once there he found himself drawn to a place upstate called Woodstock. He had read a few articles about the village’s arts and crafts reputation and about how it was opening up to the popular arts because of rock musicians who had recently made their homes there. Among the names mentioned in the articles were Bob Dylan and his backup group, the Band. The name Woodstock had a strange mystical ring to it, Lang thought, some kind of hip allusion to fertile land and rivers. Woodstock was synonymous with nature in his mind. He didn’t know why, and therein lay its allure. It must carry some spiritual significance. The Promised Land: Woodstock.