by Michael Lang
Artie and I got together very soon thereafter, and I brought the band up to see him. Train didn’t have all their songs worked out. A chaotic kind of band, they were pulling from what Coltrane was doing, a lot of improvisation and jamming on keyboards. Bob Lenox, in particular, was a very interesting jazz player. Though it took them a while to lock in, there were moments when they were on—and when it was all working, it sounded great.
ARTIE KORNFELD: Train was terrible. But I liked Michael, so I gave him a $10,000 budget. I said I’d take them into the Capitol studios and do some demos and see if we could sign them.
Though Train’s trippy sound and political lyrics weren’t Artie’s thing, he trusted me. I thought their music could fit the new, free-form FM radio stations, which favored heavier rock albums, unlike AM radio’s pop-singles fare—which had been Artie’s world. Train, needless to say, was overjoyed by this turn of events.
DON KEIDER: Michael really came through for us with the Capitol deal. Right after that, we showed up at our place to rehearse one night and it was completely empty. Someone had broken in. They took a B-3, my vibes, two sets of drums, all the guitars and amps. All of our personal stuff—clothes and everything—was gone. The place was even swept out! But the money had just come through from Capitol, and Artie and Michael gave us the okay to go ahead and buy what we needed. So I got a dynamite set of drums and another set of vibes, and all of our stuff was replaced, and Capitol gave us a real dynamite sound system.
Artie arranged for Train to cut demos in Capitol’s studio to see if the label would sign the band. Train gigged around town—eventually at Bill Graham’s Fillmore East, which had opened in March on Second Avenue, and at the Electric Circus on St. Mark’s Place. They got booked on some amazing jazz bills with John Cage, Cecil Taylor, Charlie Mingus, Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, and Jack DeJohnette. (Capitol ultimately rejected the demos the band recorded, and Train signed with Vanguard, which released the group’s sole album, Costumed Cuties, in 1970.)
I spent more and more time in the city with Artie and his wife, Linda, hanging out at their apartment on Fifty-sixth Street, off Sutton Place, shooting pool, smoking pot, and talking into the wee hours. It seemed as if Artie and I had known each other all our lives. He and Linda were soul mates—they lived in one of the newer, very posh high-rises with their little girl, Jamie. Eventually he would lend me his company car, a Buick, to more easily make trips back and forth to Woodstock. Sonya didn’t like the city, so I always came down by myself and returned home every night. Later, as I became completely wrapped up in the festival planning and production, Sonya and I gradually drifted apart.
ARTIE KORNFELD: Michael, Linda, and I became like Butch Cassidy, Etta Place, and the Sundance Kid. He was my first hippie friend. We used to smoke a J and we’d look out over the city from the thirty-sixth floor. We’d sit up until three or four in the morning shooting pool. He called me Krombine and I called him Clang. One night he said, “Artie, you’ve already been doing this for years—and you’re jaded.” I said, “What do you mean I’m jaded?” and he said, “Well, you sign acts, you go in the studio, and do that kind of stuff, but you don’t go to clubs anymore like you used to—you don’t go and hear the new acts unless you have to.”
I told Artie about the Soundouts in Woodstock and my festival in Miami. For weeks we talked about creating a version of the Soundouts as a summer concert series. Then during one of our midnight musings, the concept of a Woodstock festival evolved: “Let’s really do something big! Let’s invite everyone and put it all together out in the country where people can camp!” Artie’s excitement propelled the idea forward. We also discussed the possibility of a studio/retreat at the Tapooz property on Yerry Hill Road, and he loved the idea. We decided to pursue both projects.
My friend who ran the Juggler, Jim Young, was involved in real estate, so in December we started looking together for possible festival sites. I paid him a small retainer to help me find a spot, and we visited several properties in Ulster County. There was a seventy-acre open field down on Route 212, east of Woodstock, which at one time was going to become a golf course. In an area called Krumville we found an old racetrack for midget cars and go-carts, which was pretty cool. But I realized these sites were too small and inaccessible for a festival.
Then, soon after New Year’s, close to Saugerties, we chanced upon the Winston Farm. It was perfect—over seven hundred acres, rolling hills, and right off the New York State Thruway. It was owned by a Mr. Schaller, the kingpin of Schaller & Weber meats, famous for their German sausages. Schaller used the land only for hunting and the occasional weekend retreat. After we spoke several times to his caretaker, it seemed Schaller might be open to renting the property. When I told Artie about it, he agreed that it sounded ideal. All we needed now was an investor. Artie put out feelers to various record-company execs.
I’d recently met an entertainment attorney, Miles Lourie, and told him our ideas. He was intrigued by the festival and studio, and he knew a couple of young venture capitalists, John Roberts and Joel Rosenman, who were financing a new recording studio in Manhattan. Maybe they’d back the studio in Woodstock. He set up a meeting for an early February afternoon at the guys’ apartment on the Upper East Side. About our age, they were roommates, and their East Eighty-fifth Street bachelor pad doubled as their office.
Upon meeting them, we realized we were from completely different worlds. A trust-fund kid, John Roberts, at twenty-one, had inherited a million dollars from his late mother’s estate, part of a pharmaceutical empire, and would be collecting more. Joel, the son of a Long Island orthodontist, was a recent Yale Law School graduate. They had formed an entrepreneurial partnership called Challenge International Ltd. Their first big project, Media Sound, was under construction on Fifty-seventh Street. With an open and relaxed demeanor, John had me from hello. He was a forthright, down-to-earth guy, completely without guile. Joel seemed more what I expected from suits. He was somehow less accessible, while at the same time trying very hard to be charming. I wasn’t at all sure about him, but both he and John had great senses of humor, and Joel had a good and open laugh. That put me at ease.
In their 1979 book, Young Men with Unlimited Capital, Joel and John recalled their impressions of us at our first meeting:
Kornfeld has longish brown hair and is wearing an embroidered leather vest over a T shirt…Lang, however, cannot be placed on the spectrum. An enormous halo of dark curls frames a face that is, by turns, evil, wanton, fey, impish, and innocent. Beneath this disturbingly protean countenance: a frayed work shirt, an Indian leather belt, faded Levi’s, cracked and filthy cowboy boots.
There isn’t time to register astonishment. On introducing himself and Lang, Kornfeld grasps first John’s, then Joel’s, hand in both of his and smiles a smile of fraternal commiseration, as though he and they share some painful secret or are about to embark on a dangerous mission behind enemy lines. Lang is cheerfully acquiescent, all-accepting, attuned to unknowable vibrations.
I didn’t say much. My father once told me: “If you’re talking, you’re not learning.” Artie expertly handled the meeting, enthusiastically articulating our concept of the Woodstock studio. We hadn’t intended to discuss the festival in detail, but Artie mentioned it in passing. Once in a while, John and Joel would glance over at me, and I’d smile while Artie made the presentation. Our future partners did not seem too interested in the idea of a studio in the country.
JOEL ROSENMAN: The tale they unfolded was an essentially uninteresting tale about the need for a recording studio in Woodstock, New York. They impressed us with the superstars who lived in Woodstock, but they failed to make a case for spending the money to construct a huge facility for these stars. Even though we hadn’t opened our doors at Media Sound, we knew enough already from talking to the experts about what it takes to make a recording studio profitable, and it takes more than a few albums by a few superstars, no matter how great they are, because the fact that they’re going to sell
a million albums does not increase your rates, and does not increase the amount of time they’ll book at the studio to produce that album.
Of course Joel’s experts didn’t know that a studio where successful albums are recorded will garner a steady flow of business among artists who hope to capture their own lightning in a bottle—as we later saw at the Bearsville Studio. In late 1970, Albert Grossman would open that facility less than a mile from the Tapooz property. One of the country’s most sought-out independent studios for thirty years, Bearsville Studio was the origin of albums by the Rolling Stones, Foreigner, Bonnie Raitt, R.E.M., Patti Smith, Jeff Buckley, Van Morrison, the Band, Dave Matthews, Phish, and dozens of other major artists.
But on this day in February 1969, John and Joel primarily wanted to know more about the festival—though I thought that the studio idea had begun to grow on John. They asked about the festival’s size and location, ticket prices, and the overall budget. We said we were not prepared to discuss the festival. John and Joel seemed an unlikely pairing as festival partners, but more suited for the studio project. They were smart and had a great staff in place to design and set up a studio operation. Artie and I could provide the right aesthetic and ambience. Artie told them, “We’re already pretty far along with some other people on the festival, but okay, we’ll come back and bring the budget.”
Artie and I had been discussing a possible festival partnership with both Alan Livingston, who brought him to Capitol Records, and Larry Uttall, head of Bell Records. A couple of days after our meeting at Challenge, Larry called Artie to say he wanted to meet to discuss Bell’s involvement in the festival. We were thrilled by the news, and Artie contacted John and Joel to let them know what was up. “We’re already set with the festival,” he told them, “but we’d still like to follow up on the studio.”
John and Joel were bitterly disappointed—from our brief description, they’d been bitten by the whole idea. I believe they were viewing it as a somewhat unconventional but lucrative investment possibility—and one that might be fun. “Every time we find a project we like, some big corporation comes along and grabs it out from under us,” Joel told Artie. Artie and I talked it over and decided to go back and see them again before making a final decision. We both liked them, and the thought of working with a couple of guys our age appealed to us. If they would agree to both projects, we’d consider going with them.
As we were still in the early stages of planning, I had not put together final numbers for a festival. Extrapolating from the Miami budget, I had figured a total cost of about $500,000. I drew up a rough plan requiring a cash investment of $250,000. The balance would come from advance ticket sales. I figured $100,000 for talent deposits and $150,000 for pre-event staff, legal, office, site leasing, site prep, and production. I hoped to rent the Winston Farm for $5,000, but that was still up in the air. As a model, we figured 100,000 people attending a two-day festival at $5 or $6 a ticket per day. We could have our dream and make a profit. (Of course, this would all change as the concept evolved and the festival went to three days with an estimated audience of 200,000 per day.) After a few additional meetings, John agreed to finance the festival and the studio. We would become partners, and because the projects were based in Woodstock, we decided to call our company Woodstock Ventures.
The contract was drawn up, and it began:
Whereas, Rosenman and Roberts are sole shareholders, officers, and directors of Challenge, which is in the business of investing funds in new business ventures.
Whereas Lang has presented to Rosenman and Roberts two business ventures, one calling for the establishment of a music festival in Saugerties, New York, and the other calling for the creation of a sound studio in Woodstock, New York.
The contract called for an investment of $200,000 plus a 10 percent contingency fee for the production of the festival and $275,000 plus 10 percent for the creation of the studio. The company would issue 200 shares. As it was his money, John would receive 60 shares, Joel 40, and Artie and I would receive 50 each. I was to provide a life insurance policy on myself worth $500,000 with Woodstock Ventures the beneficiary, and it was my responsibility to acquire any additional funds if the agreed-upon cash commitment was not sufficient to finance either the festival or the studio. Based on the Winston Farm property that Jim Young and I had found, I had to warrant that the festival would be located in upstate New York. I would be personally responsible for any loss or expenditure by Woodstock Ventures or Challenge if the site or permits could not be obtained. Up through the festival, I would receive a salary of $400 per week.
Because he was under an exclusive two-year contract with Capitol, Artie couldn’t sign a partnership agreement, but we agreed I’d hold his share until he could legally participate. On February 28, 1969, the contract was signed.
Joel worried that since Artie and I had clear-cut roles and the expertise to put on the festival, that John wouldn’t need him as a partner.
JOEL ROSENMAN: I remember saying, “You’re well on your way, Jock. You’ve got a good project and good partners. You don’t need me. You’ve got Michael and Artie.”
John took me aside and asked if I could find a role for Joel. I was impressed by his concern and more than happy to have Joel’s involvement. There was certainly going to be enough work to go around. With the paperwork signed, we divided up the responsibilities. Artie was in charge of publicity and advertising. John and Joel would be handling the business administration and ticket distribution. My job was to be the hands-on producer of the festival, book the talent, design and prepare the site, and put together the production team. My first thought for the studio was Stan Goldstein. It occurred to me that he could also be of help in fleshing out plans for the festival.
Our number one priority: Nail down the festival location and get it ready in six months’ time. That seemed like a piece of cake. We were off and running.
four
WALLKILL
“Is that ‘Miss Lang’ or ‘Mr. Lang,’ a girl or a boy?” I hear people snickering as I walk toward the dais. Amid catcalls and whistles, I focus on the task at hand: convincing the people of Wallkill to let us keep our festival in their township and show them there is nothing to worry about. The Wallkill Town Hall meeting room is packed, standing room only. Emotions run high. Middle-aged housewives, small-town businessmen, and weather-beaten farmers are trading horror stories about hippies. There’s a real fear that they’re going to be overrun and molested by hordes of long-haired freaks. Wallkill town supervisor Jack Schlosser raps his gavel on the table, where he sits among six town board members. “Let Mr. Lang have his say.”
On this balmy night in mid-June, I’m here to present our festival plans, accompanied by my ace production team. While I’m prepared for a bit of push-back, I’m surprised by the depth of their concern.
“Look,” I tell them, “we’re here to bring something to Wallkill that will be good for everyone. We’re not aliens and we’re not drug addicts and we do know what we’re doing. We are professionals in our fields.” They act a bit surprised that I can speak an English they understand, and begrudgingly they begin to lose some of the hostility.
It quiets down in the room as I explain our plans in a down-to-earth way. “We’re going to have music and art, food and fun. We’re going to camp out in the country—the kind of thing you did when you were kids. We’ve hired the best professionals in the business to make sure the event is safe and that the community is inconvenienced as little as possible. It will be no more intrusive than the Orange County Fair that comes to town every year.”
While I continue my talk, the temperature in the room lowers. Calm is overtaking agitation, and I figure I’d better quit while I’m ahead. I wrap it up. “Are there any questions?”
“Yeah!” says a guy who looks like he could be a high school football coach. “You’ve told us about these famous musicians who are going to be performing up here. But what about all those people who are coming to see these musicians? Wh
at kind of people are they?”
“They’re like your own kids,” I answer without hesitation. “They’re music lovers.” The younger members of the audience applaud and even some of the suits laugh.
Our intention is to stay here—no matter what—and put on the festival in two months’ time. I’m optimistic that the opposition can be overcome.
As for Woodstock Ventures, during the early weeks of our partnership, Joel, John, Artie, and I developed an uneasy rapport. One night we all met at Artie’s apartment. We sat on the floor, passing a joint and discussing our plans. I couldn’t help thinking how interesting this partnership was—what they wanted from us and what we wanted from them. John and I got into a discussion about “vibes.” I could tell he was out of his comfort zone, but the joint softened the edges and we had a good laugh. They seemed intrigued by this world we were opening up to them, yet our experiences and approaches to life were entirely different. I relied on intuition and instinct, and they relied on experts, surveys, and marketing tools—proven business techniques in their world. Artie was talented in songwriting and music promotion and fit somewhere in between.
I knew if Woodstock was to succeed it had to be authentic from top to bottom. We were setting out to create a new paradigm in festival events, while attempting to bring together various factions of the counterculture community. Overall, I envisioned the festival as a gathering of the tribes, a haven for like-minded people, where experimental new lifestyles would be respected and accommodated. I knew flexibility and adaptability were key to creating this never-before-seen commingling of art and commerce. John and Joel were too conservative to make my idea into a reality.