Retro69

About me:

Visit www.retro69.net

Our Mission

To help revitalize the great genre of music from the great Pop festivals of the late 60's - early 70's To use music as a vehicle for doing good To create opportunities for musicians young and old to relive the genre and get back on the stage.



About Our Retrofests

I started booking bands in 1986 and have been hitting the bars on a weekly basis looking for work for our various blues - 60's groups. Sometime in 2005 I had a compulsive thought to have a Woodstock Tribute concert with local Long Island bands. We held our first Retrofest on June 25 2005 at the Blue Parrot in Massapequa. About that time I started feeling empty with what was going on at work (call it a mid life crisis!) and started questioning about if there was a way to do something more meaningful that can make a difference. Seeing how many wonderful people were using their gigs to help the victims of the Katrina Hurricane, my band and I decided to turn our next Retrofest into a fundraiser. From that point on (we are up to Retrofest 20), each event raises money for a different charity. Most of them are related to helping children who are suffering from illness.

One of the things that emotionally have been so uplifting is to see the faces of older musicians get back on the stage and play the music they loved so much as youth. As these bands and individuals get involved in the project, they feel less marginalized and less jaded by the difficult bar scene that has made it harder and harder for players to perform.

The music is a tribute to the great Pop Festivals of the 60's and 70's. With each attempt at tributing Woodstock, we try to come closer and closer to the original arrangements performed in August 69, often following the same order of the set lists (A subset of course!) As word gets out, some of the original performers have worked with or volunteered to work with us such as Ira and Maxine Stone, who played with Bert Sommer on the first day of Woodstock, Jimmy Kunes of Cactus, David Bennet Cohen of Country Joe and the Fish, and Andy Pratt, author of "Avenging Annie". We have also been in contact with Steve Knight from Mountain and Mark Naftalin of the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, both great pinnacle keyboardists.



On a one by one basis, the concerts have yet to be big fundraisers. Our best event raised a little over $3000, most average $1200; however, collectively, we have raised over $25,000 since 6/2005 and with the Woodstock 69 Tribute for LI Cancer Care planned in the spring, we hope to hit $30,000. This is done as of now with a zero budget, and no paid publicity. The only expense we have is paying the house band members $60 a man to work a 6 hour event and share their back line with all the other bands; often that cost is covered by the bar or sponsors. Thus, the energy and enthusiasm of all the musicians allows us to create something wonderful out of nothing.

It has long been my dream to team up with others and take these events to a larger level. This means running the event out on a farm, a campgroun.. with much more PR and better resources. The show would run a full day, covering one act from Woodstock after the other. Every band and performer would be represented, so when a band could not be sampled it we would play a recording of it. The event would bring together people who had been at Woodstock to share their experiences together with those who were too young to have been there. All bands would perform for free, just as done at Monterey Pop in 1967. Hopefully we would be blessed with the appearances of some performers from the original event, just like at the reunions done at Bethel over the past decades. We hope you help us spread the word and join us at our bext Retrofest!



Allan Spielman allan@retro69.net

 

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Walkin' Blues Video by LdyBluz - MySpace Video
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids....

IRA STONE (Bert Sommer at Woodstock 1969) Performs Smile Video by Retro69 - MySpace Video
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids....

IRA STONE (Played with Bert Sommer at Woodstock 1969) Jeniifer Video by Retro69 - MySpace Video
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids....

IRA STONE (Bert Sommer 1969) Performs AMERICA at RETROFEST Video by Retro69 - MySpace Video
http://vids.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=vids....

Check out this event: Retrofest 21
http://newyork.going.com/event-645300;Retrofest_21...