Rockin the Summer of Love, OOC & Discussion

[fukensploogin]

PM me before posting with your character idea. Do not post unless you've been approved by myself.


This is the second attempt at this story. We're gonna try a different angle on it. I'm not going to have a main character, instead I'll be playing bit parts, guest appearances, etc., to help move the plot along and keep things interesting, and hopefully keep all our players on their toes.

Ideally, I'd like to see the band have two guitarists, keyboards, bass guitar, drums, and percussion. Singer/blues harmonica also welcome.

If there is enough interest, this thread can easily accomodate a second band!

There is also room for a wide variety of other types of characters, as there were all kinds of young people coming out to San Francisco in 1967. Just let me know what you might have in mind.



This the OOC and Discussion space for a thread I'd like to do about a San Francisco pyschedelic-rock-blues band that tries to make it big in 1967. Kinda like the "I Love Rock n Roll" thread but without the competition. I'm looking for players who typically post a paragraph or two and have a good command of the English language and respect for everyone else in the thread. I reserve the right to determine who gets to play.

This wiki is required reading for anyone who wants to join the thread and is not 60 years old. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Love


The storyline starts in the Spring, actually, at an free show in Golden Gate Park in San Francisco. This is where the people in the band meet, while listening to the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, and Janis Joplin. They start jamming in the drummer's garage. They write some songs, figure out some covers (possibly Beatles, but played with an edge), and manage to get some gigs opening for some of the local bigger bands. (Also in San Francisco at the time was Santana, Big Brother and the Holding Company, Country Joe and the Fish, the Steve Miller Band, and Creedence Clearwater Revival, among others)

They get their big break when they play a midnight set at a party in Palo Alto, which happened to draw a number of people from the Monterey Pop Festival, which was happening that weekend (this is where Hendrix makes his cameo).

From there, it's a no-holds-barred wild ride to the top, or as far as they can make it before crumbling under the pressure. A west-coast tour with the Grateful Dead or the Airplane, recording an LP, maybe an east-coast tour with Steve Miller or Creedence. Being a part of all the madness happening down at the Haight-Ashbury scene. Lots of free love...



Key Events from 1967 that will be part of this thread

April 14: Country Joe and the Fish play the Panhandle at Golden Gate Park on the even of massive anti-war marches.

April 15: 100,000 people march in San Francisco to protest the war in Vietnam

June 16, 17, 18: First and Last Monterey International Pop Festival. See set lists here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montere...ival_(Set_List)

June 20: Jefferson Airplane opens for Jimi Hendrix at the Fillmore

July 21: Opening of Straight Theatre at Haight and Cole St. Neal Cassady performs there on the 23rd.

August 9: Hiroshima Peace Torch arrives in San Francisco. It's on its way to Washington DC for a protest march against the Vietnam War, which will happen on October 21st

September 23: Jefferson Airplane opens for Muddy Waters at Winterland Auditorium.

October 2: SFPD raids the Grateful Dead's house on Haight Street.

October 6: Hippies block Haight-Ashbury and stage a mock "Funeral for the Hippy", who has died.


Player/Character Roster

Sexy_Curves, singer
Tanned_Babe, guitar, back-up vocals
PrincessSexci, keyboards, vocals
Bluemage, guitar
PieTaster in the role of Jive McNeil, bass guitar
PaintaPicture in the role of Opal, drummer
Josu_T, saxophone, harmonica

Lauralicious in the role of Laura McBride, groupie

 

[Josu_T]

I might come up with some sort of profile for this in a few days when I'm feeling better. I'll read this all more carefully then and decide if I'm in or not, and then come up with some sort of character.

 

[sexy_curves]

I'm very in, I'll get something up later today and I'd love to be singer if that's alright.

 

[Tanned_babe]

Thanks for the pm! Im away for the weekend but shall post a longer reply when i get the chance!

I would like 2 take a guitar role and maybe do a little back up singing?

 

[princesssexci]

Hm, well since the singer is taken I'll take the role as the keyboardist.

 

[Bluemage]

*Stares at the game*
Grooooovy man.
Totally Tubular.

I'll likely attempt to play a guitarist if the guitarist roles aren't all taken by the time that I actually manage to make my profile.

 

[fukensploogin]

Hey, thanks everybody for hopping in the VW Bus with me on this one! I'm sure it'll be a wild ride.

Still looking for a drummer! And ya'll need to come up with a name for the band.

 

[lauralicious]

I don't actually know anything about playing music or being in a band, but I love this idea and setting, so Fuken has been kind enough to let me join the thread as a fan/groupie/weed hook-up

I'll have my character up this weekend!

 

[Bluemage]

Wait...we need to know something about playing the instruments that we signed up for?

I'm still cool because I can play guitar, but really? I think a chick who knows how to handle a drum stick would be super hot XD

 

[fukensploogin]

You don't need to know that kind of thing necessarily. It was her suggestion, not mine!

And thanks for joining Laura!

 

[PieTaster]

Jive McNeil

Bass player. 21 yr old 5'9" negro with spikey dreads and goatee. Usually in bell bottom jeans and some sort of helf open tie-dye or cowboy shirt. Influences: James Brown, and a couple of these new cats named Hendrix and Sly Stone, and of course who doesn't love Dylan? Plays a big ol' black and gold Fender through a big ol' Kustom head and 15" JBL. Loves to get downright dirty funky, but can do sweet melodic too.

Talks in a raspy voice. Got his name from his first band he was in out of high school down in El Cajon named Jive Turkey. His real name is Jerry.

And for a band name, how bout Zen Child ?

Just throwin it out there to start.

 

[PaintaPicture]

Dibs on Drums!!!

I'll work on a bio and post it asap.

 

[fukensploogin]

helluva band we've got here. Josu, if you still want to play, I'm sure we can make like E-Street and fit in a sax player (perhaps one who likes to get down on some wailin' blues harmonica every now and then?)

Other than that, the only position I could see being filled would be a percussionist, ie, someone who plays: congas, djimbe, triangle, cowbell, shakers, xylophone, chimes, etc

 

[lauralicious]

Laura McBride, 22 years old, long thick brown hair, brown eyes. Laura's just gotten off the bus in San Francisco about a week ago, and has pretty much been having the time of her life ever since. She has a very carefree attitude, and is not afraid to try anything. Lately she's been trying all kinds of new things.

She's from a little town in southern Illinois. Two little sisters that she is always sending postcards to. The only big city she'd ever been to before was St Louis, which ain't that big, and San Francisco has really blown her away.

http://i189.photobucket.com/albums/z290/folkngruvin/brunette-1.jpg

 

[PaintaPicture]

Opal had never been a girl to sit there and be patient. Growing up in the city of Chicago she always wanted something more...and one day she got it. After hearing her mother gripe about those 'heathens in San Francisco' again she decided thats where she needed to be. At 20 years old she shoved some clothes in a bag, grabbed all the money she had and hit the road to hitchhike to San Francisco. The 5'9' beauty was picked up by small time band that was traveling the states to play their music and eventually end up at the flower child mecca. While she traveled with the band(I havent really decided if it was famous or not but i may figure that out in a bit) she learned the ways of the free-spirit...and how to rock out on a set of drums. She became rather talented but never really thought further on the idea.

Once her and her now friends and lovers made it to their final destination they parted ways and hoped to meet again some day. The now 21 year old had finally made it to where she knew in her heart that she belonged. Over the next couple of months she wandered the city meeting tons of people, sleeping where she could, eating whatever people could give to her, and listening and playing as much music as she could handle. She had a decent drum kit that she kept in a nice woman's garage. The woman was a little older but though it was better that Opal had a central location where she could sleep and be 'safe' but still free. Although opal appreciated the offered 'home' she was usually much deeper in the city causing all sorts of mischief and discovering the things she had missed out on for so long.

I dont have a picture but I hope this works.
She's 5'9" with slightly tan skin, long slightly wavvy brown hair that falls to a little below her shoulder blades. Blue eyes, thin but with some curves to her...not a complete stick. She can usually be seen in a somewhat low-cut loose fitting cotton shirt, pants/jeans that have holes and have obviously seen better days, bandanna on her head, sandals, and drum sticks in her back pocket. Rarely seen in dresses or skirts, and sometimes wearing a brown leather jacket that was a taken as a 'gift' from one of the guys she traveled with.
http://i694.photobucket.com/albums/vv301/mh0916/hippy_girlOpalforthread.jpg

 

[Josu_T]

helluva band we've got here. Josu, if you still want to play, I'm sure we can make like E-Street and fit in a sax player (perhaps one who likes to get down on some wailin' blues harmonica every now and then?)

Other than that, the only position I could see being filled would be a percussionist, ie, someone who plays: congas, djimbe, triangle, cowbell, shakers, xylophone, chimes, etc

Sure, why not? I'm in as the sax/whatever happens to be needed in a song where sax is not needed guy. I'll come up with a bio by tomorrow.

 

[sexy_curves]

Lexi James
19 years old
5'8
blonde wavy hair, ends a few inches past her shoulders
icy blue eyes
thin figure with feminine curves

http://thumb.visualizeus.com/thumbs/08/05/05/blonde,bridget,hippie,innocent-32dcb3cede56b028d2abd5a78049bc7f_m.jpg



At 18, Lexi left her home in Milwaukee for California. She packed what she could use and share in a couple bags, and emptied the account her parents had started for her college and future. She took a bus to Missouri, and met some people with the same plans who had a van with an extra seat to San Francisco.

She shared what she had with others, and they did the same for her. Concerts, rallies and parties were her life, and where she met friends who could always tell her where the next big thing was going to be.

While her style could change day to day from a flowing cotton dress to jeans and tie-dye shirt, her hippie attitude and life style never did. She loved music, and sang with local bands here and there to make a couple dollars. While she never had any lessons, her voice was a gift, still undiscovered by many. When she had the money she stayed in someone's house and when she didn't, she could always find her friends and crash in their van.

 

[Tanned_babe]

After leaving high school at 18 and working in a quiet local diner Zara was bored, after turning 19 and feeling like she had gained nothing in the past year she decided it was time for a change and had had enough of listening to the radio rave on about this phenomenal new culture! She wanted to experience it for herself! Knowing that every so often a group of hippies would pass through the little diner Zara started to bring a bag of clothes and her acoustic guitar to work and it wasn't long until this paid off and she was on her way to the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco for a 'Summer of Love'.

Once she got there Zara couldn't beleive what she was missing, throwing her old worn leather bag over her shoulder, which contained a ripped pair of jeans, underwear, a baggy green t shirt, guitar picks and some weed Zara started to make her way through the crowds.

Zara had spent her first her first gew nights at the golden gate with different groups of people, not that it really mattered as the final result was always the same, sitting down in a circle playing her guitar and singing along to Jefferson Airplane or something to the effect, getting stoned and hooking up. She was having the time of her life!

http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3080/2707261567_8cd340b6d1.jpg?v=0

 

[fukensploogin]

Hey everybody, the bios are great! We're gonna hold off getting this whole thing started til SexyCurves comes back from her little vacation, cuz I luvs her and I don't want her to miss anything! And that'll give me time to get some things plotted out storywise, so I'll have some curveballs up my sleeve for ya'll.

 

[Bluemage]

Sorry about dragging my feet on making a profile.

Name: Felix Castman
Age: 21
Height: 5'11"
Appearance: Dark green eyes, shoulder length dark brown hair, week old stubble, thin and scrawny looking guy, usually wears a green baseball cap, and baggy clothes with long sleeves so that he doesn't look so scrawny.
Biography: At the age of 10, his grandfather passed away, and left him his guitar, and at that moment, Felix dedicated himself to the guitar. He dropped out of high school in the interest of hitting it big as a guitarist for a rock band, which was really a pity, because he's actually pretty book smart when it comes to things like that. Really, there is very little else that is worth noting about him.

 

[PieTaster]

Ok, point of order here sploogin ...

That INCREDIBLE gif you got there in your sig is quite distracting. One moment while I distract myself again.

 

[sexy_curves]

aww thanks for waiting for me!!

 

[fukensploogin]

Ok, point of order here sploogin ...

That INCREDIBLE gif you got there in your sig is quite distracting. One moment while I distract myself again.

Bouncy, bouncy, bouncy...




And no problem at all, Sexy. I'll try to keep everyone excited about the idea in the mean time while you're gone. I'm gonna miss you like hell though.

 

[PieTaster]

Huh, what?

 

[fukensploogin]

Huh, what?

Oh, that last bit was directed at Sexy_Curves, my bad. She's gonna be gone for a week and i'm gonna miss her quite a bit. We have entirely too much fun writing together.