Synopses & Reviews
Summer 1970. Portland, Oregon.
President Nixon was about to speak at the American Legion convention. The FBI told governor Tom McCall he should expect 25,000 Legionnaires and 50,000 anti-war freaks to clash in the Rose City and make Chicago '68 look like a "tea party."
A few hippies proposed a rock festival to give peace a chance. They asked McCall, a Republican battling for re-election, for a place to hold it. He gave them a state park and told the cops to lay off. Did they ever.
"I've just committed political suicide," said McCall after approving the only state-sponsored rock festival in American history's name: Vortex I: A Biodegradable Festival of Life.
What a short strange trip it was for the 100,000 who attended...far out in a way that only Oregon used to be. Vortex I, now a legend; now documented for the first time; now even more legendary.
The book includes over 150 photographs and a bonus CD of McCall's historic Vortex I speech and circa 1970-music from the first band to play the festival, Jacob's Ladder.
Review
"A treasure trove." PSU Alumni Magazine
Review
"Unruly...simply hell-bent on preserving a piece of Oregon's past...a hash brownie of a book." The Oregonian
Review
"The document of record on a nearly lost chapter in the rich lore of Oregon's '60s-era flower-power counterculture." Willamette Week