Posted on 11/16/2004 10:17:00 PM PST by maikeru
Woodstock performer Joe McDonald (Country Joe and The Fish) leads crowd in singing 1960s antiwar songs
Thin, clean-shaven, balding and slightly stooped, the 62-year-old McDonald says he's still a socialist but confesses he's now part of the middle class.
Organizers had tried to get people out. Groups involved in the protest included the Edmonton Coalition Against War and Racism, Marxist organizations, non-Muslim supporters of the Palestinian cause, members of the Unitarian Church and the occasional Vietnam war draft evader and army deserter.
McDonald's sound system was handled by Mike Tulley, an American army draftee who arrived in Canada in April 1971 after fleeing Fort Lewis, Wash. "The Vietnam war was raging. I didn't want to go," Tulley said.
McDonald had warned about the fate that awaited draftees like Tulley when he took the stage at Woodstock to sing Feel Like I'm Fixing to Die Rag.
"One, two, three, what are we fighting for,
"Don't ask me, I don't give a damn.
"Next stop is Vietnam."
When McDonald sang the song again on Saturday, older members of the crowd remembered the lyrics and sang along.
Most younger members, like 22-year-old Amber Larson couldn't. She'd never heard it before, just as she had never heard of the famed Berkeley band, Country Joe and the Fish.
Larsen admitted she hadn't even seen the movie Woodstock as she lit a sprig of sage. "I'm doing this for clarification," she explained. "I want to clear the energy auras."
After several speeches condemning genocide, the bombing of cities, international oil cartels and American imperialism as well as a half-dozen songs, the crowd paraded out of the park.
(Excerpt) Read more at canada.com ...
I thought that Country Joe had died of an overdose by now...
Probably the same place his talent went...
By the way, what exactly is "country" about Country Joe. And where did he learn rag time?
So how is chanting the "f" word going to accomplish that? Unless Country Joe dropped the "fish cheer" part of his performances.
How does it feel to be completely irrelevant?
Funny thing is he was a Navy vet.
kent state, a good start.
From a woman child known as Not So Sweet Lorraine.
MMMMM...(oh how I'm trying to stifle)...can't say it... wouldn't be good...(sitting on my hands)...won't go there.
Politics aside for a moment, it must have been a hell of a party for four years or so. Got to admit that.
welcome to the official World Wide Web home of the 60s band that stopped the war in Vietnam. Bring flowers, godseyes, and boxes of air.
Dude, I thought we were surrender our egos, come into being, man.
To kids coming up now Vietnam will be as remote as WWI was to us born in the fifties.
I was at CRC Korea when Saigon fell. I can't remember anyone even mentioning it.
What rage is this fool talking about?
---Politics aside for a moment, it must have been a hell of a party for four years or so. Got to admit that.---
It might have been the greatest party ever thrown!
so he wonders where the rage has gone... why doesn't he ask Michael Moore... or Al Gore... or Howard Dean... or all those stupid "anti-war" anti-American protestors that nobody pays attention to
If he ever gets near me, I'll beat his tired old, unrepentant a$$. He wants rage? I'll provide it.
I just wish all his fellow liberal socialists would follow his lead & move to Canada... we keep thinking they won't actually leave but this hippie loser did... why can't they all? GET OUT & STAY OUT
You bet...' Psychedelic music ', ' Fillmore West ', ' Big Brother and The Holding Company ', 'Quicksilver Messenger Service ', 'The Jefferson Airplane', 'Grateful Dead', 'Led Zeppelin', 'Iron Butterfly', 'Monterey Pop Festival', 'Woodstock'....those were the days !!
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