Despite reports in the mainstream press that the Summer of Love had crashed and burned in the wake of the Manson murders and then Altamont, when I got to the Haight in 1976 it wasn’t the Summer of Love anymore, but it was full of young artists and musicians and there were still plenty of hippies around.
The youth movement in the Haight Ashbury in the late 1960s was, without question, one of the most impactful countercultures in American history. It contributed to the ending of a war, cemented the ideals of freedom of expression and the questioning of authority, provided a foundation for future activism in areas like environmentalism and feminism, and encouraged young people to believe in their ability to change the world. And as the heat dissipated from a decade of rapid changes in the wake of the Summer of Love, a new counterculture called Punk began to emerge.
It was a perfect alignment of the planets. The neighborhood had been through a period of rebirth; it was still affordable and there was a new scene starting to overlap all things hippie. It was like a solar eclipse of two distinct countercultures coexisting in that time and place in a neighborhood full of collaborative young artists, all burning with a passion dipped in rebellion and driven by a D.I.Y aesthetic that comes naturally when there is no money, and I was in for all of it.
I had fallen in with a commune of hippies on my first day and as I began to be immersed in their world, meeting artists, actors and other myriad characters that were associated with their scene, I was also meeting people out on the street. Soon enough I came back to the hippies with a friend in tow. He was a punk rock drummer, needing both a place to live and some kind of job. I knew the hippies would take him in, providing both. Darren and I became fast friends, sharing an apartment in their run-down building. Soon he would become the drummer for the Dead Kennedys, and I would become the manager of a little comedy club, but in the meantime, the hippies gave us work, kept us stoned, and fed us. And I became exposed to the punk subculture through Darren.
The Haight, with its eclectic mix of record stores, tattoo parlors, dive bars, and vintage clothing shops, was a magnet for young artists, musicians, and anyone seeking to stave off the creeping malaise that was settling in, a growing corporate influence that, like a python consuming a rat, threatened to swallow the counterculture whole.
And though they seemed diametrically opposed, there were many similarities between them. While the hippies preferred a laid back, peace, love and brotherhood approach, the punks adopted a raw, unfiltered, take-no-prisoners ethic steeped in political fury. The high idealism of the Summer of Love may have given way to the more confrontational punk subculture, but both were born of the same mistrust of authority and shared the DNA of the Beat era.
The art, literature and music of the Beats paved the way and opened the door for the two counterculture movements that followed. There is a deep connection between the art and music of all countercultures. If not for Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger, there wouldn’t have been a Bob Dylan, without Burroughs, Kerouac and Rimbaud there would be no Doors or Patti Smith, and if not for Frank Zappa, Abbie Hoffman and Jerry Rubin, how likely would Jello Biafra or Henry Rollins exist? Without the surrealist and Dadaist artists, Ernst and Duchamp, there would be no Crumb, Kelley or Mouse and without them, there could never have been a Winston Smith, whose subversive collage album art set the tone of graphic anarchy that influenced untold thousands of punk show flyers.
A new era was evolving. And though I didn’t consider myself either a punk or a hippie, I considered myself counterculture. But there couldn’t be a counterculture without artists and musicians. They are the ones who provide the soundtrack and point the way.
The Haight still exudes an unmistakable authenticity, giving off an indefinable sensory overload that gives the street its distinct personality. It is a place where you still feel the pulse of the underground, from a time when the energy was raw and unfiltered and individuality and gritty rebellion thrived. If you are fortunate enough to live in the Haight, consider doing whatever you can to support young artists. Rent them that room or give them a job to help ensure that they can still live here. Think of it as an investment.
