by Michael Lang
PENNY STALLINGS: Michael just went into overdrive to get the next space. Once it was determined it wasn’t going to work in Wallkill, he was extremely reassuring that somehow this was going to happen.
All the ensuing radio coverage resulted in several phone calls coming in from people suggesting locations. Some were crackpots, but we checked out everything. The day after the verdict, on July 15, Ticia got a call in our Village office from a guy who said he had a place in Sullivan County that would be perfect for the festival.
TICIA BERNUTH AGRI: When we lost the site, Michael told everybody, “Don’t worry, we’ve got it under control!” He told me, “Ticia, you stay by the phones while I’m at the lawyer’s office.” He, John, Joel, and Artie were meeting with their attorney, Paul Marshall, to discuss their options. While he was gone, this guy called and said, “My name is Elliot Tiber and I’ve got land, and we want you in White Lake!” I said, “Oh yeah? We’ll be right there!” I immediately called Michael, and in a few minutes he picked me up to head upstate.
As soon as I heard from Ticia, I called Mel and Stanley and told them to meet me at the address Ticia had been given for the El Monaco Motel in White Lake. My one perk from Woodstock Ventures—a ’69 Porsche 912 I’d rented for the duration of the project—could make it to the location in about ninety minutes. Ticia and I zipped up the New York State Thruway to Route 17, followed it to Route 17B and County Road 52. Our Catskills destination—the Sullivan County township of Bethel—brought back memories of family vacations there when I was a kid.
Following Elliot’s directions, we pulled up to one of the sorriest-looking motels I’ve ever seen. The sagging sign said EL MONACO, so we knew we were at the right place. A chubby guy in his early thirties bounded out to greet us, introducing himself as Elliot Tiber. I discovered that his real name is actually Eliyahu Teichberg and he grew up in Bensonhurst, right around the corner from me. He told us the motel belonged to his parents and that only a couple of its eighty rooms were occupied.
At one point, a seemingly crazed Jewish lady with a thick Russian accent rushed outside, and she and Elliot started screaming at each other. She turned out to be his mother. Despite her bossing him around, Elliot remained cheery and upbeat. It was obvious that this kind of thing went on all the time between them. Elliot seemed overjoyed to see us and determined to somehow involve himself in our festival. He started talking about a theater he’d built in a barn on the property. “I put on a theater festival every summer,” Elliot told us, “and I already have a permit for this year’s production—so you’ve got your permit!” An off-off-off-Broadway troupe, the Earthlight Theatre, was there for two months, crashing in a dilapidated rooming house on the property. We decided to wait for Mel and Stan, who were driving the thirty-five miles from Wallkill to meet us, before seeing the site.
Photographic Insert I
Elvis is king—me at about age twelve
My parents, Harry and Sylvia Lang, and my sister, Iris, circa 1941
My parents and me, circa 1949
Iris and me in Bensonhurst, circa 1949
Ric O’Barry serenading a killer whale, Seaquarium, Miami, 1968
COURTESY OF RIC O’BARRY
Behind the head shop counter with employee Howard Zaitcheck, 1967
Me, Howard (standing), and a customer in front of the Head Shop South, Coconut Grove, 1967
Joint Productions partners (from left): Marshall Brevitz, head of security John Ek, me, Barry Taran, unknown
© EDDIE KRAMER
One of the Hendrix Miami Pop Festival posters, 1968
© KEN DAVIDOFF/WWW.THEMIAMIPOPFESTIVAL.COM
Hendrix lands: Linda Eastman (later McCartney), Jimi Hendrix, and Mitch Mitchell at Miami Pop, May 18, 1968
© KEN DAVIDOFF/WWW.THEMIAMIPOPFESTIVAL.COM
Miami Pop audience on our sunny day, May 18
© EDDIE KRAMER
Jimi Hendrix Experience onstage at Miami Pop, May 18
© KEN DAVIDOFF/WWW.THEMIAMIPOPFESTIVAL.COM
John Lee Hooker waiting to go onstage, May 19
© KEN DAVIDOFF/WWW.THEMIAMIPOPFESTIVAL.COM
Frank Zappa backstage at Miami Pop, May 19
© KEN DAVIDOFF/WWW.THEMIAMIPOPFESTIVAL.COM
Me in the Woodstock production office
© HENRY DILTZ
Artie Kornfeld
© HENRY DILTZ
Our barn office at the Wallkill festival site
© ALBERT/TIMES-HERALD RECORD
Joel Rosenman
© PENNY STALLINGS
John Roberts
COURTESY OF JENNIFER ROBERTS
Sound engineer Bill Hanley and artist liaison John Morris
© HENRY DILTZ
Artist Tom Edmunston (wearing hat) and Mel Lawrence
© RONA ELLIOT
Peter Goodrich
© HENRY DILTZ
Mel Lawrence and Dale from the art crew
© RONA ELLIOT
Lee Mackler Blumer, assistant to Wes Pomeroy
© HENRY DILTZ
Cameraman Michael Margetts and Don Ganoung, who handled community relations
© HENRY DILTZ
Mel’s assistant Penny Stallings
© HENRY DILTZ
Chip Monck and I reviewing site plans
© HENRY DILTZ
Wartoke publicist Sunny Schneer and Billy Soza, one of the Native American artists invited to Woodstock by John Morris
© HENRY DILTZ
My assistant, Ticia Bernuth
© HENRY DILTZ
Finally they arrived and it’s, “Okay, Elliot, let’s go see what you’ve got!”
“Follow me! It’s a natural bowl and perfect for the festival!” Elliot promised with a big grin.
On the way around the back of the motel, we passed all kinds of handmade signs on different run-down buildings named for various celebrities like Jerry Lewis and Elvis Presley. Scattered bungalows were caving in, and there was an empty swimming pool filled with debris. As we walked toward a sloping meadow, the ground felt soggy and springy under my boots. This did not bode well.
We started descending a gradual incline—straight down into a large swamp filled with nubby growth and amputated saplings. As we trudged through, I asked, dreading the answer, “So how much farther to the site?”
“You’re in it!” Elliot answered, with a grand sweep of the arm. “Of course, we can bulldoze and drain all of this.”
“This is the place we’ve been waiting to see?” Mel exploded at Elliot. “What an idiot! What do you think you’re doing? You really think we could use this?”
I agreed, as diplomatically as I could. “This isn’t going to work at all.” When we got back to the motel office, I asked Elliot, “Maybe there’s someone who could show us around?”
“I’ll call a friend of mine,” Elliot offered, perking up after having looked pretty crestfallen. “He’s in real estate.” Stan departed, but Mel decided to go with Ticia and me. About a half hour later, a sleazy-looking guy named Morris Abraham arrived in a big Buick. He was happy to take us to check out some properties.
A few miles from Elliot’s, we drove along 17B through magnificent farmlands—it’s absolutely beautiful farm country with open fields everywhere. We took a right turn off 17B onto Hurd Road. About a quarter mile up, we broached the top of a hill and there it was.
“STOP THE CAR!” I shouted, barely able to believe my eyes. It was the field of my dreams—what I had hoped for from the first. It was not lost on me that we had left Wallkill to arrive in Bethel—“the House of God.” I left the car and walked into this perfect green bowl. There at its base was a rise just waiting for our stage. The others joined me. Mel, Ticia, and I exchanged looks of wonder. “Who does all this land belong to?” I asked Abraham.
“Max Yasgur,” he replied. “He’s the biggest dairy farmer in the county. He owns ten farms and two thousand acres. I can call him and see if he’s interested in renting to you.”
“Yes, let’s do that,�
�� I said. I had to work hard at staying calm. I didn’t want to appear too excited to this guy. We passed a sign that said HAPPY AVENUE, and drove until we got to a pay phone and Abraham reached Max. We drove on to his home—a simple white farm-house—and met Miriam and Max Yasgur, a handsome couple in their late forties.
“These people are interested in renting some of your land, Max, to put on a music festival,” Abraham explained.
Max had a sharply intelligent face and looked me in the eye. “You’re the people who lost your site in Wallkill, aren’t you?” I was preparing for the worst when he added, “I think that you young folks were done a grave injustice over there. Yes, I’ll show you my land—we might be able to strike a deal for your music fair.”
Max got in the car with us and Morris told him we’d seen the field off Hurd Road and would like to start there. As we drove, Max pointed out some of the land he owned. My heart was beating so fast I hoped no one could hear it. We arrived back at the field and I told Ticia and Mel to wait in the car and keep Morris occupied while Max and I took a walk into what had become home in my mind.
“Max, can we talk about this field?” I asked. “This is the perfect place for us. It’s the right size and shape and has great sight lines and great vibes.” Something about the way Max carried himself told me to be completely candid with him: “It feels like we’re meant to be here.” I wanted to seal the deal right there in the field. We walked over the rise above the bowl.
“How much land would you say you’d need?” he asked.
“Well, in addition to this field and whatever you have surrounding it, we need another six hundred acres, including land for camping and parking,” I told him.
“I still have a crop of alfalfa growing here and crops in several other fields as well,” Max said. “How soon do you think you’d need them?”
“Would now be too soon?” I asked, with a smile.
Max laughed and pulled a pencil from the protector in his shirt pocket. He wet the tip of the pencil with his tongue and started to scribble numbers on a pad. A sharp guy, he figured how much he was going to lose on his crop and how much it would cost him to reseed the field. When he came up with a number for the bowl, it seemed a fair price and I said yes immediately. We agreed that he would calculate the other fields in much the same manner, taking into consideration whether or not he could harvest crops before we needed to prepare the ground. It was going to be a hefty sum, but I knew that this land was our Woodstock—and Max was our savior. As we shook hands, I realized for the first time that he had only three fingers on his right hand. But his grip was like iron. I was thinking, He’s cleared this land himself.
Without Max Yasgur, there would have been no Woodstock. He was known in Sullivan County as a strong-willed man of his word. He had grown up on a farm with a boardinghouse where summer guests stayed. His father died when he was a teenager, so he became the head of the household. He’d studied real estate law at my alma mater, NYU, but his dream was to expand his family’s property and create Yasgur’s Dairy, the biggest milk producer in Sullivan County. He continued to buy up farms and land, building his dairy herd, until he reached his goal. He developed delivery routes and built a massive refrigeration complex and a pasteurization plant. All that hard work took its toll, though, and by the time we met him, Max had already suffered several heart attacks. An oxygen tank was kept handy for his use at all times, and he had an oxygen tent in his bedroom.
I called John and Joel to tell them the news: We were back in business—we had the perfect spot for the festival. John was guardedly optimistic on the phone but immediately agreed to come upstate the next day to work out the final arrangements with Max. I hoped he and Joel would recognize this for the miracle it was when they saw the land for themselves. I then called Artie and Joyce Mitchell and told them to let everyone know we had a home. I phoned Stan and told him to gather every set of plans we had and get back to Bethel ASAP. Mel returned to Wallkill to organize the move so the trucks could begin hauling everything on Monday.
The next day John and I met with Max, his son, Sam, who was a lawyer, and their banker. We had agreed on a $50,000 fee, plus another $75,000 to be held in escrow to cover any damages that might occur, and John had brought cashier’s checks in that amount. After negotiating the other terms of the lease, including what we could and could not do to the land, we signed the papers at 10 P.M. that night.
MIRIAM YASGUR: It takes Michael about fifteen or twenty minutes to charm you, and having spoken with him for a while, he really put us at ease. He explained the way it was going to be, and he made it sound like everything was going to be so simple and not anything that big. He has a way of ingratiating himself—I think he’s a born con man. Even though you know you’re being had, you can’t help but like him. John came across as a very straight person—and probably one of the most honorable young men I ever met.
JOHN ROBERTS: After the deal was closed, we were driving toward New York, and Michael Lang, as usual, had the final word. “You know,” he said, “when we start working on that pasture up there, there’ll be so much going on, we’ll lose track of the provisions of the contract that we’ve violated. Of course,” he added after a considerable pause, “Max’ll probably lose track too.”
JOEL ROSENMAN: Max wanted to make sure he got that fifty thousand before some other dairy farmer did. Having said that, I’ll say this about Max, he never asked us for another dime after we paid him.
By Friday, July 17, it started hitting the papers that we were moving to White Lake. At first Max was a bit coy about it, telling the press that he was still deciding whether or not to rent us the land, but I knew Max’s handshake was his bond. He was a man of integrity and an idealist. I don’t believe the money alone was what motivated him. Max was willing to rent to us to give us a fair chance to accomplish our dream—much as he had done with the dairy. We showed him all our maps and detailed designs for Wallkill, and he was impressed by our diligence—this wasn’t something just thrown together. He wanted to be paid for his land, but in return we also got his loyalty.
We still had to meet with the White Lake officials and get any necessary permits. After what we’d just been through, we were nervous about that. Max promised to help us as much as he could, and we had a preliminary meeting with Bethel town supervisor Daniel Amatucci over the weekend. He didn’t think there would be a problem but set up a special meeting for us with the town board for Monday, July 21. We were moving as fast as we could.
As Wallkill officials were preparing a cease-and-desist order to be served on Woodstock Ventures to kick us off the Mills site, we were already out of there. Talk about closing the barn door after the horse has gone! We’d started by emptying the barn of everything and moving the furniture, files, and supplies to White Lake. I made a deal with Elliot to rent his entire motel through the festival and into September, in the process pulling the El Monaco out of foreclosure. The motel also became a ticket outlet. We set up offices in three shabby rooms, and moved ourselves and some of the staff and crew into the rest. We also established festival headquarters in the old New York Telephone Building in neighboring Kauneonga Lake. Near Max’s property, Penny found a shuttered hotel called the Diamond Horseshoe that could house 150 or so workers. It needed some renovation to be habitable, but the owners rented it for a song. Chris Langhart and his team started making enough repairs so that it had running water and electricity—but not much else.
By Monday, we were already contacting the electric company, the phone company, and other suppliers to bring power and communications to the property. Jim Mitchell ordered some trailers to use for production offices on-site near the spot where the stage was to be built. At the Mills site, we’d planned to truck in water, but Max’s fields were conveniently located adjacent to a small, crystal-clear lake named Fillipini’s Pond.
On July 19, the Kingston Freeman reported:
Woodstock Ventures have contacted two sources in Sullivan County about the prospect of h
olding the exposition in the area. The Freeman contacted Max Yasgur, owner of a 2,000 acre farm in the Town of Bethel, who confirmed…the possible use of his property as the site for the exposition. Yasgur stated that he had not yet decided whether to make his property available but added that he expects to speak with representatives of the exposition tonight.
The mystery surrounding the homeless happening was further heightened today when a Town of Bethel resident stated that he will hold a press conference Monday to reveal information about a “White Lake Music Festival”—Elliot Tiber refused to confirm rumors that the Aquarian Exposition and the White Lake Music Festival were one and the same.
While I owed Elliot a lot for making the call that had brought us here, the last thing we needed now was a loose cannon. I canceled the press conference and told him if he opened his mouth again before checking with me, we would be gone from his motel in a heartbeat. I did not want anyone to jump the gun by announcing anything before getting through the session with the town board.
Another problem came to us compliments of our real estate agent, Morris Abraham. He told me that we had to come up with ten thousand dollars for some unnamed officials if we wanted to be sure any approvals or permits necessary would be granted. We had planned to give him a finder’s fee for connecting us to Max, but this reeked of extortion. I felt that if we paid them off, it would taint the entire effort and somehow come back and whack us in the head. Karma works in every direction. Stan and I talked it over and we decided to let Max know what was happening. On the way over to Max’s, we agreed that instead of paying off Morris and his partner on the board, it would be wise to donate the money to the local hospital fund as a sign of our good intentions.