1975 at a glance:

• US performs nuclear test at Nevada Test Site
• Watergate figures John Mitchell, H. R. Haldeman & John D Ehrlichman sentenced to 2 1/2-8 yrs for conspiracy and obstruction of justice
• The Biological Weapons Convention enters into force
• Microsoft is founded as a partnership between Bill Gates and Paul Allen
• 47th Academy Awards - "The Godfather Part II", Ellen Burstyn & Art Carney win
• Last US helicopter leaves US embassy grounds, Saigon surrenders
• Ron Wood replaces Mick Taylor as Rolling Stone guitarist
• Peter Gabriel quits Genesis

I was nineteen and twenty years old in 1975

Folks were still wearing bell-bottoms and flares, paisley was still going strong, but love beads had almost completely faded into obscurity. Leather and metal studs were beginning to catch on. Chokers, designer denims, clogs, and embroidered shirts — for both men and women were in.incense still burned faithfully bringing the sensoral hits of of sage, sandalwood, or cherry to certain living rooms.

The world however, was not so mellow or inviting. As love beads fell, the world seemed to follow suit. The fall of Saigon came with the North Vietnamese Communists overrunning the city. Hasty evacuations from embassys bookmarked American history as a battle that hadn't been won. In fact, it wasn't even resolved. Life wasn't like television or the movies; the good guys didn't always win. Meanwhile, here in the states, politics and Washington weren't much better, nor more stable. Everything felt edgy and uncertain.

For the first time in my life I was concerned with taxation, and wondered just where I was heading. Certainly there was no future for me in sheet metal.

With the acquisition of my beautiful Lyle Hummingbird Classic acoustic guitar, I was experimenting with writing my own material while still faithfully covering songs by The Rolling Stones.

I was also figuring out on my electric, Pink Floyd songs, and struggling to learn "Fly by Night" by Rush.

For $35, I bought a brand new Cry Baby pedal for my guitar. It was one of the first innovative wah-wah pedals that mimicked Hendrix' pedal. If you pushed it all the way to the forward position and left it, it sounded just like an electric sitar. That was a great discovery!

Come summer I rented a really nice apartment just off 112th and Division. I recall that the layout was very interesting, and it had a window air conditioning unit in it. The summer was long and hot, and that AC saved my life. I remember reading the book "Jaws" before actually going to see the movie. "Shark mania" had gripped America, and everybody was talking about "Jaws."

It was definitely a shark summer as everyone was buzzing about "Jaws". One lone movie single-handedly terrified a nation of going into the water that summer, and for some summers to come. I used to wear "Wind Drift" cologne by English Leather. The smell of it now takes me back to that summer of 1975. I read another book called "The Reincarnation of Peter Proud." It was okay, but the movie that followed was disappointing. In 1975, I discovered a new writer that seemed who was very original. With the novel "Carrie" I was introduced to the wonderful world of Stephen King. I also read a book called "The Rats" by James Herbert. It wasn't a good book at all.

I'd gone to see the movie "Shampoo" at a low-budget cinema where the movies were cheaper. It was an okay movie, and I kind of liked it, but the movie that I absolutely loved was "Rancho Deluxe". I think I went back and saw it twice. I also saw "The Reincarnation of Peter Proud." It too was just so-so. For an evening movie I went to see "Pink Floyd at Pompeii." I took a cassette recorder in with me to record the music from the movie. Yes! That was technology of the '70s!

October '75

My apartment was upstairs and to the right. It was a 2-bedroom. I was still living in the heart of my early '70s hippie chic, and my bedroom consisted of nothing really than a mattress on the floor, lamp and an alarm clock. It was just a place to crash-nothing more. The other bedroom was empty and made for a great studio to play guitar in. I practiced and learned many of my favorite Pink Floyd songs. I recorded a beefed-up heavy metal version of "House of the Rising Sun" using a Cry Baby pedal and heavy distortion. My friends loved it. It was there that I first became turned on to the likes of Rush, and a British hard rock band called UFO. By fall, when darkness fell much sooner than usual, I was listening to UFO's Force It album, along with Pink Floyd's "Shine On You Crazy Diamond," the premiere PFM album, and an album called Slow Motion" by Man.

Other favorites at the time were "Warrior on the Edge of Time" from Hawkwind and "Spartacus"by Triumvirate. "Spartacus" was a theme album that was a direct copycat of all the combined works of Emerson, Lake & Palmer. Triumvirate could claim barely any originality, with one song being a direct rip-off--not copy mind you--but rip off of EL&P's beautiful song "Trilogy".

Interestingly enough, my discovery of this bootleg album from Pink Floyd called "Ohm, Suite Ohm was a highly sought concert from Fillmore West in 1970. It wasn't until later years with the help of the internet that I learned this was the same concert from a television special that ran on PBS one time in the early 70's. I taught myself how to play most of the songs on this record.

These albums all remind me of living at Heritage Green. The time spent in this apartment account for some of my most favorite memories of all.

A Cold and Rainy Friday Night

One of my favorite October memories was of a cold and rainy Friday night listening to music by candlelight. Earlier that afternoon I had to go in to my job to pick up my check. I'd called in sick that day as I had a really nasty cold. Even being sick I managed to enjoy the evening. There was just something about the solitude of that night that brings back wonderful memories.

Later I hiked over to the corner store to buy some of my favorite chocolate bars: Smuggler Bars. They were similar to $100,000 Bars, a sort of krispy crunch with chocolate and caramel. I also bought a Stewart sandwich for the ABC Friday Night Movie.

Pink Floyd's Shine On You Crazy Diamond really reminds me of this night.

1975 The Perfect Stereo

One of my tax returns afforded me the opportunity to buy my dream stereo setup. I had a Marantz 1070 amplifier, Advent speakers, and a BSR McDonald turntable. It was a belt-driven turntable which turned out to be a mistake. I went through a series of turntables until I finally found an acceptable one. My final turntable was a Toshiba. The one component I couldn't afford was a cassette deck, so that had to wait another year.

That stereo system radically changed the way I heard music from then on. I went from a small and cheap little stereo with tinny sound to a fully blown monster that could rock the foundations. The album "Man of Miracles" by Styx was the first album to be played on it.

"AAAAAAGGGHHHH!!! Trilogy of Terror"

Wow! A terrific made-for-television movie called "Trilogy of Terror" blew us all away in 1975. It was a 90 minute anthology movie composed of three parts. The first two were okay, but that last one was intense! It was about a woman who buys this "creepy African doll" that suddenly comes to life when she gets it home. This screaming little monster with the razor-sharp teeth and butcher knife gave Karen Black nothing but hell in her apartment. This movie was so talked about, that some of the girls I knew couldn't get it out of their heads for months. I imagine that the sales of relic African dolls of any kind took a radical plunge in 1975.

Another great TV movie from 1975 was called "The Night that Panicked America" about the infamous radio broadcast of "War of the Worlds" by Orson Welles. The movie was really interesting, and featured a great performance from Paul Shenar who played Orson Welles.

Emerson, Lake & Palmer Live in Portland, 1975

"Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends, we're so glad you could attend, come inside, come inside. There behind the glass stands a real blade of grass; be careful as you pass, move along, move along. Come inside the show's about to start; it's guaranteed to blow your head apart!"

It's funny, when I think about this event as an older man, I can imagine that to Emerson, Lake & Palmer, their 1975 Portland, Oregon concert was just another stop on their big tour. I'm sure they had no idea how they impacted my life, or what an effect they would have on me for years to come. The "Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends" tour was magnificent beyond words. And I can even recall thinking at the show, "they've been on for a real long time, I'm sure it's getting close to being over by now". Those are thoughts I never wanted to have a great concert. I always use the Beatle's Abbey Road as a standard of comparison when describing a band's album. Brain Salad Surgery was EL&P's Abbey Road. This concert featured so much of it, plus so much of their older works. I loved hearing "Take a Pebble" as well as "Karn Evil 9" blended into the show. The big 3-record live set was about as close to this show as one could get. Visually, it was true stunner.

New Discoveries, Choice Cuts

New discoveries in 1975 included: Journey, Rush, and Triumvirate. I was also listening to PFM's "Photos of Ghosts" album quite a bit. Journey was very impressive, as was Rush. I loved Triumvirate's "Spartacus" LP even though it was a direct rip-off of Emerson, Lake, & Palmer. Another older LP I was listening to was Fleetwood Mac "Future Games". The song "Woman of a Thousand Years" got played over and over again.