Episode #46 | 12.3.19

The Rolling Stones at Altamont: Bikers, Blood, and the End of the Sixties

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In this episode

The Rolling Stones, the most dangerous band on the planet, envisioned their free concert at the Altamont speedway outside San Francisco as the triumphant capstone to their 1969 tour: a west coast Woodstock, and a celebration of free love and hippiedom. But the festival, thrown together in under seventy two hours and with security managed by Hell’s Angels paid in beer, was fated for a tragic and violent end... just like the sixties itself.

 
12_Rolling Stones.jpg

Sources

Altamont: The Rolling Stones, the Hell’s Angels, and the Inside Story of Rock’s Darkest Day, by Joel Selvin

The Hells Angels Try to Murder Mick Jagger:
Source 01 Source 02 Source 03 Source 04

Stones Let It Bleed Tour:
Source 01 Source 02

Altamont:
Source 01 Source 02 Source 03 Source 04 Source 05

Meredith Hunter:
Source 01 Source 02

Disgraceland is a podcast about musicians getting away with murder and behaving very badly. It melds music history, true crime and transgressive fiction. Disgraceland is not journalism. Disgraceland is entertainment. Entertainment inspired by true events. However, certain scenes, characters and names are sometimes fictionalized for dramatic purposes.

 

Music

Score by Jake Brennan. 

Mixed and Engineered by Sean Cahalin.

Disgraceland theme song, "Crenshaw Space Boogie" written and produced by Jake Brennan. Performed by Jake Brennan, Bryce Kanzer, Jay Cannava and Evan Kenney. Mixed and engineered by Adam Taylor.

*illustrations by Avi Spivak @avispivak