Rock Archeology – Greenwich Village – visiting the relics of the Folk Culture of the 60s.

At the end of the 60s I visited Greenwich Village, walked down Bleecker and McDougal, ate knishes in the square and looked in on the clubs.

I was too late even then. It had long gone. The days of catching Bob Dylan, Phil Ochs or John Lee Hooker were long gone. The Folk Scene was already history.

Then in 2010 I went back and spent a pleasant day walking around and reminiscing. I was nostalgic for somewhere I hadn’t even been. My experience was of listening to the bootlegs of Dylan playing the Gaslight in 61, of reading about those days of ragged glory where hats were passed around, floors were slept on and scruffy troubadours sang songs of fire and mixed with the old folkies and black bluesmen.

There was little to be seen and certainly nothing of the Beat Poets before that with their fiery sermons. There was a signed first edition Richard Brautigan in one shop priced at $12000. Times sure had changed.

We’re all fossils still walking around.