The importance of subcultures in young people’s life

The mod (originally modernist, and sometimes capitalised as Mod) subculture originated in London in the late 1950s and peaked in the early to mid 1960s. The mod lifestyle is sometimes referred to as modism, a term which may have been coined by Pete Meaden when he was famously quoted as saying "Modism, mod living, is an aphorism for clean living under difficult circumstances". Elements of the mod lifestyle include music, clothes (often tailor-made), dancing and motorscooters. From the mid to late 1960s onwards, the mainstream media often used the term mod in a wider sense to describe anything that was (or was believed to be) popular, fashionable or modern.

Origins

The term mod derives from modernist, which was a term used in the 1950s to describe modern jazz fans as well as the musicians themselves. This usage contrasted with the term trad, which described traditional jazz and its players and fans. The 1959 novel Absolute Beginners by Colin MacInnes describes as a modernist a young modern jazz fan who dresses in sharp modern Italian clothes. Absolute Beginners may be one of the earliest written examples of the term modernist being used to describe young British style-conscious modern jazz fans. The word modernist in this sense is believed to refer specifically to modern jazz and should not be confused with the wider use of the term modernism in the context of literature, art, design and architecture.

There are contradicting stories about the origins of the first mods, but one popular belief is that the movement began with a few disparate cliques of middle class teenage boys with family connections to the garment trade in London in 1958. These early mods were obsessed with new fashions such as slim-cut Italian suits, and music styles such as modern jazz and rhythm and blues. It has been suggested that both modernists and their contemporaries, the rockers, evolved from the Teddy Boy subculture. Teddy Boys were influenced by American rock n' roll, wore Edwardian-style clothing, and had pompadour or quiff hairstyles. Other sources suggest a link between the modernist and beatnik subcultures, both of which had a penchant for modern jazz.

Between 1945 and 1960, teenagers' wages had grown at a rate double that of their parents' wages. Many young people had relatively large amounts of disposable income, which along with the increased availability of HP and cheaper credit meant that teenagers could spend more money on tailored clothing and scooters, and could spend more free time in nightclubs and coffee bars.

By the early 1960s, mod had developed to include contemporary fashion and lifestyle elements, such as continental European clothes, Italian motorscooters and -- to a lesser degree -- a taste for French New Wave films and existentialist philosophy (popular also with beatniks).

The original mods gathered at all-night clubs such as The Scene, The Flamingo and The Marquee in London to hear the latest records and to show off their clothes and dance moves. As mod spread across the UK, other clubs became popular such as Twisted Wheel Club in Manchester. Although reports as to the importance of drugs amongst the original mods vary, for some mods, their all-night urban social life was fueled in part by amphetamines like Dexedrine, (sometimes known as blues or purple hearts). The drugs were sometimes purchased from African American GIs stationed in the UK, who were given drugs as part of their ration kit. Some of the drugs were also available over the counter in pharmacies. Black American soldiers also brought over rhythm and blues records that were unavailable in Britain, and often sold these to young people in London. Many mods used motorscooters for transportation, usually either Vespa or Lambretta. At the time, public transport stopped relatively early, and scooters were cheaper than cars and were also available via a Hire purchase scheme. After a law was passed requiring at least one mirror be attached to every motorcycle, mods were known to add four, 10, or as many as 30 mirrors to their scooters. This may have been to mock the new law. The album Quadrophenia, which includes themes related to mods and rockers, features cover art depicting a young man on a scooter with four mirrors attached. komsomol subculture mod hippie

As the lifestyle developed and was adopted by British teenagers of all economic strata, mods expanded their musical tastes beyond American jazz and R&B to embrace soul (particularly records released on the Atlantic, Stax, Tamla Motown and Sue labels), Jamaican ska, and British beat music and R&B; by artists such as Georgie Fame, The Animals, The Small Faces, The Who, The Yardbirds, The Kinks, and The Spencer Davis Group. Lesser-known British artists associated with the 1960s mod scene include The Action, Zoot Money and The Creation. However, many mods rejected British beat groups such as The Beatles (despite their significant contribution to the awareness of mod clothing fashion under Brian Epstein's image makeover in the spring and summer of 1962) and The Rolling Stones because they did not consider those bands' R&B-influenced music to be authentic enough. The television programme “Ready Steady Go!” became an example of mod-inspired programming.

Mods sometimes clashed with rockers, although fights between rival mod gangs were probably more common. In 1964, there were several well-publicised battles at seaside resorts such as Brighton, Margate, and Hastings. The mods and rockers conflict led to a moral panic about young people in the United Kingdom. There is disagreement about how much of the reports of violence were true, and how much was a media or police invention. Some credible sources suggest that the battles were staged for photographers. The media coverage has permanently linked the mod and rocker subcultures in the popular consciousness.

Decline and new beginnings

Mods were the products of a culture of constant change, and by the time Bobby Moore held the World Cup aloft in the summer of 1966, the mod scene was in sharp decline. As psychedelic rock music and the hippie culture rose, many people drifted away from the mod lifestyle. Bands such as The Who and The Small Faces had changed their musical styles and no longer considered themselves as mods. The "peacock" or "fashion" wing of mod culture evolved into the Bohemian style of London hippie culture, featuring a marked interest in previously esoteric ideas and aesthetics, and an arguably more gentle and contemplative outlook on life that certainly differed from the frenetic energy of the mod ethos.

At the other end of the youth culture spectrum, both in philosophy and appearance, were the hard mods. The hard mods were rougher, had less emphasis on cutting-edge fashion trends, and got their hair cropped short. The hard mods soon transformed into the first skinheads.

They retained basic elements of mod fashion -- three-button suits, Fred Perry and Ben Sherman shirts, Sta-Prest trousers and Levi's jeans -- but mixed them with working class-oriented accessories such as braces and Dr. Martens boots. Their style borrowed heavily from the Jamaican rude boy look, which included cropped hair, short-hemmed trousers and very narrow brimmed Trilby hats (commonly referred to in the UK as pork pie hats). Their shorter hair may have also come about for practical reasons; long hair can be a liability in industrial jobs and in streetfights. The 1960s skinheads kept some of the original mod music styles alive; specifically ska, soul, rocksteady and early reggae. These first skinheads had no association with any political movements, and mostly represented working-class pride.

Mods also made up a notable proportion of the northern soul scene, a subculture based on obscure 1960s and 1970s American soul records.

Revival and later influence

The 1979 film Quadrophenia, based on the 1973 album of the same name by The Who, celebrated the mod movement and partly inspired a mod revival in the UK in the late 1970s. Many of the mod revival bands were influenced by the energy of British punk rock and «New Wave» music. The revival was led by The Jam, and included bands such as Secret Affair, Purple Hearts and The Chords. This was followed by a mod revival in North America in the early 1980s, particularly in Southern California, led by bands such as The Untouchables. The mod scene in Los Angeles and Orange County was partly influenced by the 2 Tone ska revival in England, and was unique in its racial diversity.

The 1990s Britpop genre displayed mod influences on bands such as Oasis, Blur, «Ocean Colour Scene».

The mod revival was a music genre and subculture that started in the United Kingdom in 1978 and later spread to other countries (to a lesser degree). The mod revival's mainstream popularity was relatively short, although its influence has lasted for decades. The mod revival post-dated a Teddy Boy revival, and mod revivalists sometimes physically clashed with Teddy Boy revivalists, skinhead revivalists, casuals, punks and rival gang members.

1970s

The late 1970s mod revival combined musical and cultural elements of the 1970s pub rock, punk rock and New Wave music genres with influences from 1960s mod and beat music bands such as The Who, Small Faces and The Kinks. The revival was largely spurred on by the band The Jam, who had adopted a stark mod look and mixed the energy of punk with the sound of 1960s mod bands. Many mod revivalists believe that the Great British Music Festival, with the Jam, at Wembley in 1978 was the start of the mod revival. The revival was also spurred on by small concerts at venues such as the Cambridge Hotel, Enfield, the Wellington, Waterloo Road, London, and the Bridge House in Canning Town. In 1979, the film Quadrophenia, which romanticised the original 1960s mod subculture, widened the impact and popularity of the mod revival across the UK. The original mod revival fanzine, Maximum Speed started in 1979 and spawned a raft of other home-produced fanzines from then until the mid to late 1980s.

Whereas the original mods looked forward (although maintaining nostalgia for British cultural icons), the mod revival was a conscious effort to harken back to an earlier generation in terms of style. Like their 1960s mod predecessors, revival bands were often self-consciously British (i.e. displaying Union Jack flags and the Royal Air Force roundel). Mod revivalists were usually from working class backgrounds, or aimed to appear so. The mod revival contained a wide range of individuals; from those who were peacockish, colourful, and dandified -- wearing suits and styles of the 1960s -- to others who took a more minimalist approach; wearing basic casual items such as jeans, Fred Perry tennis shirts and fishtail parkas.

Some mod revivalists were mostly interested in live performances by contemporary bands, and others focused on DJ events featuring recordings of 1960s music. During this period, the interest in R&B and soul music increased, with a small number of clubs and bars holding events; such as Henri's at the Bedford Head in London's Covent Garden, 6T's (later to move to the Starlight club in West Hampstead, which in turn moved to 100 Club), the Top Alex in Southend, the Hercules in Lambeth North, The Castle in Tooting, Cheeky Pete's in Richmond, the Mildmay Tavern in Dalston, and the Crystal Palace Hotel. In addition to The Jam, notable mod revival bands include: The Chords, Purple Hearts, The Merton Parkas, Secret Affair, The Lambrettas, Long Tall Shorty, The Jolt, Back to Zero, Squire, Small Hours, 007, Speedball, Teenbeats, The Killermeters, The Mods, the Scooters and The Scene.

Another British tradition that returned at the same time was the penchant for members of youth subcultures to go to seaside resorts on bank holidays and fight members of other subcultures. This originated in the early 1960s with the mods and rockers fighting each other at places such as Brighton. The phenomenon returned in 1969 through to 1970 with skinheads fighting Teddy boys and bikers. In 1977 it returned again, with punks fighting Teddy Boys at Margate, and revival skinheads fighting Teddy boys, bikers and rockers at Southend and Margate. This carried on until 1978. In 1979 and 1980, the resorts became major battlegrounds on bank holidays for young skinheads and mods together against Teddy boys and rockers. By 1981, the unity between skinheads and mods had mainly disappeared, and by the mid-1980s, casuals had joined in the disturbances. Some of the main resorts involved were Margate, Brighton, Southend, Clacton, Hastings and Scarborough.

1980s

In the early 1980s, a mod revival scene more heavily influenced by the original 1960s mod subculture developed at the Shepherds Bush nightclub Sneakers, which was run by Paul Hallam and Richard "Shirley" Early. The club featured rare R&B and soul music, and many of the attendees wore sharp tailor-made clothing. Also in Shepherds Bush through the early to late 1980s was a popular mod venue, Club MOD, at The Bush Hotel, where Tony Class DJed dance music such as 1960s soul, northern soul and songs by mod revival bands. Another main player in the mod revival was Eddie Piller, who went on to develop the acid jazz movement of the late 1980s. In the mid 1980s, there was a brief mod revival centred around bands such as The Scene, The Moment, The Risk, Untouchables (from the United States) and The Prisoners. Fanzines following on from Maximum Speed -- such as Mission Impossible, Patriotic, Roadrunner, Extraordinary Sensations and Chris Hunt's Shadows & Reflections -- helped generate further interest in this stage of the mod revival.

The northern soul scene underwent a change of pace in the mid 1980s, with slower R&B-style records becoming popular at all-nighters at clubs such as Top of The World in Stafford and 100 Club in London. Around this time, some mod revivalists became interested in psychedelic rock freakbeat and rare British and American garage rock. This interest was partly sparked by companies re-issuing recordings by bands such as The Action and The Creation.

Many revival mods joined the scooterist scene, which led to the development of the scooterboy subculture of the 1980s. Several mods enjoyed a mixture of the two styles, although some scooterboys renounced any previous involvement with the mod subculture. The mod revival also had some crossover with the 2 Tone ska revival of the late 1970s and early 1980s; associated with bands such The Specials, The Beat, The Selecter, and Madness. Often these bands wore mod-like clothes, and their roots in black music paralleled that of the original mods.

The UK mod revival was followed by a mod revival in North America in the early 1980s, particularly in Southern California, led by bands such as The Untouchables. The mod scene in Los Angeles and Orange County was partly influenced by the 2 Tone movement, and was unique in its racial diversity.

Legacy

Paul Weller of The Jam went on to form The Style Council, a mid-1980s soul-influenced «New Wave» band. After the breakup of that band, Weller established a commercially-successful solo career. In the 1990s, Britpop bands such as Oasis, Blur and Ocean Colour Scene were influenced by the mod revival; both in music and fashion. In the 2000s, some indie rock acts, such as The Ordinary Boys, Kaiser Chiefs, The Bluffers and Rinaldi Sings, have been influenced by the mod revival.

Notable mod revival bands

· The Jam

· The Merton Parkas

· Secret Affair

· The Scene

· The Chords

· The Lambrettas

· Purple Hearts

· The Moment

· Untouchables

1.2 Skinhead

Skinheads, named for their close-cropped or shaven heads, are a working-class subculture that originated in the United Kingdom in the late 1960s, and then spread to other parts of the world. The first skinheads were greatly influenced by West Indian (specifically Jamaican) rude boys and British mods, in terms of fashion, music and lifestyle. Originally, the skinhead subculture was primarily based on those elements, not politics or race. Since then, however, attitudes toward race and politics have become factors in which skinheads align themselves. The political spectrum within the skinhead scene ranges from the far right to the far left, although many skinheads are apolitical. Fashion-wise, skinheads range from a clean-cut 1960s mod-influenced style to less-strict punk- and hardcore-influenced styles.

History

In the late 1950s, the United Kingdom's entrenched class system limited most working class people's educational, housing, and economic opportunities. However, Britain's post-war economic boom led to an increase in disposable income among many young people. Some of those youths spent that income on new fashions popularised by American soul groups, British R&B bands, certain movie actors, and Carnaby Street clothing merchants.

These youths became known as the mods, a youth subculture noted for its consumerism--and devotion to fashion, music, and scooters. Mods of lesser means made do with practical styles that suited their lifestyle and employment circumstances: steel-toe boots, straight-leg jeans or Sta-Prest trousers, button-down shirts, and braces (called suspenders in the USA). When possible, these working-class mods spent their money on suits and other sharp outfits to wear at dancehalls, where they enjoyed soul, ska, bluebeat and rocksteady music.

Around 1965, a schism developed between the peacock mods (also known as smooth mods), who were less violent and always wore the latest expensive clothes, and the hard mods (also known as gang mods), who were identified by their shorter hair and more working-class image. Also known as lemonheads and peanuts, these hard mods became commonly known as skinheads by about 1968. Their shorter hair may have come about for practical reasons, since long hair can be a liability in industrial jobs and a disadvantage in streetfights. Skinheads may also have cut their hair short in defiance of the more bourgeois hippie culture popular at the time.

In addition to retaining many mod influences, early skinheads were very interested in Jamaican rude boy styles and culture, especially the music: ska, rocksteady, and early reggae (before the tempo slowed down and lyrics became focused on topics like black nationalism and Rastafarianism). Skinhead culture became so popular by 1969 that even the rock band Slade temporarily adopted the look, as a marketing strategy. The subculture gained wider notice because of a series of violent and sexually explicit novels by Richard Allen, notably Skinhead and Skinhead Escapes. Due to largescale British migration to Perth, Western Australia, many British youths in that city joined skinhead/sharpies gangs in the 1960s and formed their own Australian style.

By the 1970s, the skinhead subculture started to fade from popular culture, and some of the original skins dropped into new categories, such as the suedeheads (defined by the ability to manipulate one's hair with a comb), smoothies (often with shoulder-length hairstyles), and bootboys (with mod-length hair; associated with gangs and football hooliganism). Some fashion trends returned to mod roots, reintroducing brogues, loafers, suits, and the slacks-and-sweater look.

In 1977, the skinhead subculture was revived to a notable extent after the introduction of punk rock. Most of these revival skinheads were a reaction to the commercialism of punk and adopted a sharp, smart look in line with the original look of the 1969 skinheads and included Gary Hodges and Hoxton Tom McCourt (both later of the band the 4-Skins) and Suggs, later of the band Madness. From 1979 onwards, skinheads with even shorter hair and less emphasis on traditional styles grew in numbers and grabbed media attention, mostly as a result of their involvement with football hooliganism. These skinheads wore punk-influenced styles, like higher boots than before (14-20 eyelets) and tighter jeans (sometimes splattered with bleach). However, there was still a group of skinheads who preferred the original mod-inspired styles. Eventually different interpretations of the skinhead subculture expanded beyond The UK and Europe. One major example is that in the United States, certain segments of the hardcore punk scene embraced skinhead style and developed its own version of the subculture.

Racism, anti-racism and politics

In the late 1960s, some skinheads (including black skinheads) had engaged in violence against random Pakistanis and other South Asian immigrants (an act known as Paki bashing in common slang). Although these early skinheads were not part of an organized racist movement, by the early 1970s there were skinheads who aligned themselves with the white nationalist National Front. However, there had also been anti-racist and leftist skinheads from the beginning, especially in areas such as Scotland and northern England. As the 1970s progressed, the racially-motivated skinhead violence in the UK became rougher, and groups such as the National Front and the British Movement saw a rise in skinheads among their ranks. Although many skinheads rejected political labels being applied to their subculture, some working class skinheads blamed non-white immigrants for economic and social problems, and agreed with far right organizations' positions against blacks and Asians.

By the late 1970s, some openly neo-Nazi groups were largely composed of skinheads, and by this point, the mass media, and subsequently the general public, had largely come to view skinheads exclusively as a subculture promoting white power. However, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, many skinheads, suedeheads, ex-skinheads and football casuals in the UK rejected the dogma of both the left and right. This anti-extremist attitude was musically typified by Oi! bands such as Cockney Rejects, The 4-Skins and The Business.

Some skinheads countered the neo-Nazi stereotype by forming anti-racist organizations, such as The Minneapolis Baldies, who started in 1986, Skinheads Against Racial Prejudice (SHARP), which was founded in New York City in 1987 and spread to several other countries; and Anti-Racist Action (ARA), which was founded in the late 1980s by members of the Minneapolis Baldies and other activists. Other less-political skinheads also spoke out against neo-Nazis and in support of traditional skinhead culture. Two examples of this were the Glasgow Spy Kids in Scotland (who coined the phrase Spirit of 69), and the publishers of the Hard as Nails zine in England.

There are several different types of skinheads in terms of style. Some skinheads don't fit into any of these categories, and many display characteristics of more than one category. The usefulness of these terms is to explain the dominant skinhead styles. There are no reliable statistics documenting how many skinheads have belonged to each category.

Traditional skinheads, also known as trads or Trojan skinheads, identify with the original 1960s skinhead subculture in terms of music, style, culture, and working class pride.

Some skinheads, particularly highly political ones, attach significance to the colour of boot laces, braces, and (less commonly) flight jackets. Some use them to indicate beliefs or affiliations. The particular colours used have varied regionally, so only skinheads from the same area are likely to interpret them accurately. The "braces and laces game" has largely fallen into disuse, particularly among traditionalist skinheads, who are more likely to choose their colours for fashion purposes.

1.3 Hippie

The Hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that began in the United States during the early 1960s and spread around the world. The word hippie derives from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's Haight-Ashbury district. These people inherited the countercultural values of the Beat generation, created their own communities, listened to psychedelic rock, embraced the sexual revolution, and used drugs such as cannabis and LSD to explore alternative states of consciousness.

In 1967, the Human Be-In in San Francisco popularized hippie culture, leading to the legendary Summer of Love on the West Coast of the United States, and the 1969 Woodstock Festival on the East Coast. In Mexico, the jipitecas formed La Onda Chicana and gathered at "Avбndaro", while in New Zealand, nomadic housetruckers practiced alternative lifestyles and promoted sustainable energy at Nambassa. In the United Kingdom, mobile "peace convoys" of New age travellers made summer pilgrimages to free music festivals at Stonehenge.

Hippie fashions and values had a major effect of culture, influencing popular music, television, film, literature, and the arts. Since the 1960s, many aspects of hippie culture have been assimilated by the mainstream. The religious and cultural diversity espoused by the hippies has gained widespread acceptance, and Eastern philosophy and spiritual concepts have reached a wide audience. The hippie legacy can be observed in contemporary culture in a myriad of forms--from health food, to music festivals, to contemporary sexual mores, and even to the cyberspace revolution.

Origins of the movement

A hippie (sometimes spelled hippy) is a member of a subgroup of a counterculture that began in the United States during the early 1960s. By 1965, hippies had become an established social group, and the movement expanded to other countries before it declined in the mid-1970s.Hippies, along with the New Left and the American Civil Rights Movement, are considered the three dissenting groups of the 1960s counterculture.

Originally, hippies were part of a youth movement composed mostly of white teenagers and young adults, between the ages of 15 and 25 years old, who inherited a tradition of cultural dissent from the earlier Bohemians and the beatniks. Hippies rejected established institutions, criticized middle class values, opposed nuclear weapons and the Vietnam War, embraced aspects of Eastern philosophy, championed sexual liberation, were often vegetarian and eco-friendly, promoted the use of psychedelic drugs to expand one's consciousness, and created intentional communities or communes. They used alternative arts, street theatre, folk music, and psychedelic rock as a part of their lifestyle and as a way of expressing their feelings, their protests and their vision of the world and life. Hippies opposed political and social orthodoxy, choosing a gentle and nondoctrinaire ideology that favored peace, love and personal freedom, perhaps best epitomized by The Beatles' song "All You Need is Love". They perceived the dominant culture as a corrupt, monolithic entity that exercised undue power over their lives, calling this culture "The Establishment", "Big Brother", or "The Man" Noting that they were "seekers of meaning and value", scholars like Timothy Miller describe hippies as a new religious movement.

After 1965, the hippie ethos influenced The Beatles and others in the United Kingdom and Europe, and they in turn influenced their American counterparts. By 1968, self-described hippies had become a significant minority, representing just under 0.2% of the U.S. population. Hippie culture spread worldwide through a fusion of rock music, folk, blues, and psychedelic rock; it also found expression in literature, the dramatic arts, fashion, and the visual arts, including film, posters advertising rock concerts, and album covers. Eventually the hippie movement extended far beyond the United States, the United Kingdom and Europe, appearing in Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Japan, Mexico, Brazil and many other countries.

Etymology

«Numerous theories abound as to the origin of this word. One of the most credible involves the beatniks, who abandoned North Beach, San Francisco, to flee commercialism in the early 1960s. Many of them moved to the Haight-Ashbury area of San Francisco, where they were idolized and emulated by the young university students who lived in the neighborhood. The beats (the hip people) started calling these students "hippies", or younger versions of themselves. Actually, the counterculture seldom called itself hippies; it was the media and straight society who popularized the term. More often, we called ourselves freaks or heads. Not until later did we begin calling ourselves hippies, and by then we were "aging hippies". An alternate spelling seldom used in the United States by people in the know was hippy, but it was spelled that way in England. --John Bassett McCleary»

Lexicographer Jesse Sheidlower, the principal American editor of the Oxford English Dictionary, states that the terms "hipster" and "hippie" derive from the word "hip", whose origins are unknown. The term "hipster" was coined by Harry Gibson in 1940, and was often used in the 1940s and 1950s to describe jazz performers. The word "hippie" is also jazz slang from the 1940s, and one of the first recorded usages of the word "hippie" was in a radio show on November 13, 1945, in which Stan Kenton called Harry Gibson, "Hippie". However, Kenton's use of the word was playing off Gibson's nickname "Harry the Hipster." Reminiscing about late 1940s Harlem in his 1964 autobiography, Malcolm X referred to the word "hippy" as a term that African Americans used to describe a specific type of white man who "acted more Negro than Negroes."

Although the word "hippie" made isolated appearances during the early 1960s, the first clearly contemporary use of the term appeared in print on September 5, 1965, in the article, "A New Haven for Beatniks", by San Francisco journalist Michael Fallon. In that article, Fallon wrote about the Blue Unicorn coffeehouse, using the term "hippie" to refer to the new generation of beatniks who had moved from North Beach into the Haight-Ashbury district.

In 2002, photojournalist John Bassett McCleary published a 650-page, 6,000-entry unabridged slang dictionary devoted to the language of the hippies titled The Hippie Dictionary: A Cultural Encyclopedia of the 1960s and 1970s. The book was revised and expanded to 700-pages in 2004. McCleary believes that the hippie counterculture added a significant number of words to the English language by borrowing from the lexicon of the beat generation, shortening words and popularizing their usage.

History

The foundation of the hippie movement finds historical precedent as far back as the counterculture of the Ancient Greeks, exemplified by Diogenes of Sinope and the Cynics. Hippies were influenced by the philosophy of Jesus Christ, Hillel the Elder, Buddha, St. Francis of Assisi, Henry David Thoreau, and Gandhi. From 1896 to 1908, the youth counterculture of Der Wandervogel became popular in Germany, attracting thousands of young Germans who rejected urbanization and yearned to return to nature. These beliefs were introduced to the United States as Germans settled around the U.S. Young Americans adopted the beliefs and practices of the new immigrants. Songwriter Eden Ahbez wrote a hit song called Nature Boy inspired by Robert Bootzin (Gypsy Boots), who helped popularize yoga, organic food, and health food in the United States. The Beat Generation of the late 1950s influenced the development of the counterculture of the 1960s, with terms like "beatnik" giving way to "hippie." Beats like Allen Ginsberg became fixtures of the hippie and anti-war movements. The stylistic preferences of the beatniks, such as somber colors, dark shades and goatees, gave way to the colorful psychedelic clothing and long hair worn by hippies.

Early hippies (1960-1966)

During the early 1960s novelist Ken Kesey and The Merry Pranksters lived communally in California. Members included Beat Generation hero Neal Cassady, Ken Babbs, Mountain Girl, Wavy Gravy, Paul Krassner, Stewart Brand, Del Close, Paul Foster, George Walker, Sandy Lehmann-Haupt and others. Their early escapades were documented in Tom Wolfe's book The Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test. With Cassady at the wheel of a school bus named Furthur, the Merry Pranksters traveled across the United States to celebrate the publication of Kesey's novel Sometimes a Great Notion and to visit the 1964 World's Fair in New York City. The Pranksters were known for using marijuana, amphetamines, and LSD, and during their journey they "turned on" many people to these drugs. The Merry Pranksters filmed and audiotaped their bus trips, creating an immersive multimedia experience that would later be presented to the public in the form of festivals and concerts.

During this period Cambridge, Massachusetts, Greenwich Village in New York City, and Berkeley, California, anchored the American folk music circuit. Berkeley's two coffee houses, the Cabale Creamery and the Jabberwock, sponsored performances by folk music artists in a beat setting. In April 1963, Chandler A. Laughlin III, co-founder of the Cabale Creamery, established a kind of tribal, family identity among approximately fifty people who attended a traditional, all-night Native American peyote ceremony in a rural setting. This ceremony combined a psychedelic experience with traditional Native American spiritual values; these people went on to sponsor a unique genre of musical expression and performance at the Red Dog Saloon in the isolated, old-time mining town of Virginia City, Nevada.

In the summer of 1965, Laughlin recruited much of the original talent that led to a unique amalgam of traditional folk music and the developing psychedelic rock scene. He and his cohorts created what became known as "The Red Dog Experience", featuring previously unknown musical acts--Big Brother and the Holding Company, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, The Charlatans, The Grateful Dead and others--who played in the completely refurbished, intimate setting of Virginia City's Red Dog Saloon. There was no clear delineation between "performers" and "audience" in "The Red Dog Experience", during which music, psychedelic experimentation, a unique sense of personal style and Bill Ham's first primitive light shows combined to create a new sense of community. Laughlin and George Hunter of the Charlatans were true "proto-hippies", with their long hair, boots and outrageous clothing of distinctly American (and Native American) heritage. LSD manufacturer Owsley Stanley lived in Berkeley during 1965 and provided much of the LSD that became a seminal part of the "Red Dog Experience", the early evolution of psychedelic rock and budding hippie culture. At the Red Dog Saloon, The Charlatans were the first psychedelic rock band to play live (albeit unintentionally) loaded on LSD.