00:00:00
This is exactly right. You think you're in control until you realize you're not.
00:00:10
As they're having this gun battle, thousands of feet up in the air, many of the bullets start to puncture the aircraft.
00:00:18
I thought we were going to die then. The Knife is a podcast about the moment ordinary lives take an unexpected turn.
00:00:25
Real people, real stories, and the split second that changes everything. New episodes drop every Thursday on the Exactly Right Network and the iHeart Podcast Network.
00:00:35
Listen to The Knife on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:00:40
This is Special Agent Regal, Special Agent Bradley Hall. In 2018, the FBI took down a ring of spies working for China's Ministry of State Security,
00:00:51
one of the most mysterious intelligence agencies in the world. The Sixth Bureau podcast is a story of the inner workings of the MSS
00:00:58
and how one man's ambition and mistakes opened its vault of secrets. Listen to The Sixth Bureau on the iHeartRadio app,
00:01:06
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You know the famous author Roald Dahl.
00:01:12
He thought up Willy Wonka and the BFG. But did you know he was a spy? Neither did I.
00:01:19
You can hear all about his wildlife story in the podcast The Secret World of Roald Dahl.
00:01:24
All episodes are out now. Was this before he wrote his stories? It must have been.
00:01:28
What? Okay, I don't think that's true. I'm telling you, the guy was a spy. Binge all 10 episodes of The Secret World of Roald Dahl.
00:01:36
Now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hello and welcome to My Favorite Murder.
00:02:00
That's Georgia Hardstark. That's Karen Kilgariff. What? Who? That's Karen Kilgariff with the good blowout.
00:02:07
That's what I was going to say. That's Karen Killed. Go longer. Go longer with your blowout.
00:02:13
I can't stop looking at your blowout, your shiny, beautiful bob. However, right behind you are two of the most beautiful-looking cannolis I've ever seen in my fucking life.
00:02:23
Why are they there? Those were brought to me. Why did you do that to me? Those were brought to me, and that's kind of like a carrot on a stick for you.
00:02:32
Oh. Where it's like, keep going, keep going, and at the end of this, I'll give you one of these.
00:02:35
I can have a bite of one? You can have a whole one and you can pick which one you want.
00:02:40
Okay. That just works for me. I want to say Nick Van Aroso, who works here at Exactly Right with us, brought them to me.
00:02:47
Has brought me a couple because he goes to fucking Pinocchio's in Burbank. Oh, I don't know that one.
00:02:53
Oh, you would love that place. Yeah. It's an Italian restaurant that I feel like has been there since 1942.
00:03:00
That sounds familiar. Okay. And they have amazing gelato. classic Italian whatever you want pizza lasagna I want it all of it booths amazing yes everything
00:03:15
and a whole Italian grocery store oh my god so grocery store in a restaurant is like my passion
00:03:20
right like yes please no cracker barrel I'm in whatever any combination of shopping and eating
00:03:29
yes yes for sure those are two of my faves so those when I walked into my office today
00:03:33
and the light was off. So when I walked in, I thought that I had left a half-eaten burrito on my desk.
00:03:39
And I was like, that's gross. And ants, like what am I doing? And when I flipped the light on,
00:03:44
it was those beauties. And I walked two offices down and I was like, hey, cannoli delivery.
00:03:50
And he was like, I went to Pinocchio's. I thought you'd like it. Is it because, let's transition right into like,
00:03:55
you're going to fucking Italy? It might be. It might be because that was his send-off to me.
00:04:01
That's a great send-off. I'm so it's so exciting to get to go on vacation. But also it is so like to be planning as a person like me who I don't even understand how my brain works.
00:04:14
I have been packing for a week and a half. That's smart. Laying stuff out on the table and being like, that's there.
00:04:20
I need that. Like editing it throughout the week. That's actually really smart because I'm the night before over pack.
00:04:27
Like, I don't know who I'm packing for, but it's not me. It's like not. It's the girl I want to be.
00:04:32
Yeah, it's dream you in a different city. Right. Right. But I think I have gone on enough trips where I try to pretend like I'm the girl that doesn't really care.
00:04:42
Uh-huh. Right? It's the same reason, like the patch of hair that's kind of never brushed.
00:04:46
Yeah. But I do care. Of course I care. I just can't manage my time correctly. I can't conceptualize time.
00:04:53
I think I really have been convinced by TikTok that I have ADHD. I think you and I have different flavors of ADHD.
00:04:59
Yeah. I mean, I've definitely been diagnosed. We're not throwing this fucking thing around, but there's different variants and there's different.
00:05:07
It's a spectrum. Yeah. And you and I have completely opposite ones. But I do think that there's some time management things that would be explained in that way for both of us on our extremes.
00:05:18
Well, and just to not to be defensive, but just to say for myself, the thing that I really identify with is that when they talk about like it's not time management.
00:05:28
I don't understand. Like time doesn't work in my brain the same way. So if I sit somewhere and it's like 15 minutes have passed and then I have to be somewhere,
00:05:36
I absolutely have to hire someone to come in and go, you have to go. It's now. Because if I'm left to my own devices, I'll be like, there's no way 15 minutes have passed.
00:05:44
It's like three hours. That's so interesting. I'll sit there and I won't be able to do anything else because I'm waiting for those 15 minutes to go
00:05:53
because that all I can concentrate on and then I leave three minutes early just to make sure that I there on time Wow Like it just obsessive I won plan a day if I have something at one o because I have to wait until that moment to like that all I can think about
00:06:06
That's not a good combination for you and I. I mean, it explains so many things.
00:06:11
It does. I just think about like our first year on the road. Oh my God. Oh, shit.
00:06:18
Pre-Vince. Even post-Vince. Post-Vince. Remember that time we were in Oslo and he had to come to my room and I was like, had just stepped out of the shower and he's like, we're going on stage in 15 minutes.
00:06:29
I was like, what's this you say? Like, I think that's the night I went on stage in my pajamas.
00:06:34
Okay. We went on stage in our pajamas because our luggage got lost. Oh, thank God.
00:06:39
Thank God. I was remembering as like, I blew it so badly. That was not you. Okay.
00:06:43
Okay, great. Thank you. Yeah. Good to know. That wasn't that. And actually, that was so fun.
00:06:48
It was so fun. That was like, we did a show in Oslo. Yeah. And it was like we were in this beautiful it was like there was a lot of velvet curtains and it was like carpeted walls.
00:06:59
So it was like it was very comforting and like we were in utero. The reason we went to Oslo is so dumb.
00:07:07
It's because I like this song by this super obscure band called Oslo in the summertime.
00:07:13
And we were going to Sweden and I was like, let's go to Oslo, too. So I can say I've been to Oslo in the summertime, in the summertime.
00:07:20
The band is of Montreal. They're fucking incredible if you ever need a band. But that's just a weird reason to get on a plane and go somewhere.
00:07:28
Well, look, if we can sell tickets, we'll show up. And we did. And we did. We fucking did.
00:07:33
And then we met a bunch of amazing Norwegian murderinos who spoke English better than us.
00:07:39
And a lot of expats that were badass. Yes. Which was fun. And our Italians who came to see us.
00:07:45
Yes. We should know their names. Why would we know the Italians' names? I could describe their glasses.
00:07:51
Go find them when you're in Italy. Yeah, that's a good idea. Yeah. I'm excited for you.
00:07:55
That's a really amazing trip. Oh, my God. I'm so excited. I'm so excited that I'm doing a thing where I go onto Netflix and I enter Sicily into the search bar just to see if there's any TV shows I can watch to see people walking around different parts of Sicily.
00:08:11
Is there a Somebody Feed Phil episode? Oh, I don't know. I didn't even think about it.
00:08:15
That's my favorite. Yeah, you love that. I really do. That is to say that this is an episode where only Karen's telling a story.
00:08:21
We've had a couple of those. This is the last one. So we have content while we're out of town, but also can go out of town.
00:08:29
That's right. No one begrudges us a vacation. We're giving them a story. And we save meaty ones for solos.
00:08:36
There should be no complaints. Why am I mad? Why am I defending myself? Who am I yelling at?
00:08:42
I have a book to recommend and then we can get started. It's like a good vacation book that I can't put down.
00:08:46
What if I have a book to recommend? Right. Then we can both recommend books. The way you said it was, and then we can get started.
00:08:52
Oh, I just mean like, you don't. Okay. Yeah. You know what? You're right. I did kind of.
00:08:55
I don't have a book. I can't read. This book's called Olga Dies Dreaming by Xochial Gonzalez.
00:09:04
And it's about this like interesting, badass woman who grew up in Brooklyn in the Puerto
00:09:09
Rican neighborhood of Brooklyn. She's like a badass wedding planner now, but she's super complicated.
00:09:13
And it's also about her family and what they've gone through. And it's so fucking good. I can't put it down. Like this chick is so inspiring, but also so messy that you love her so much. And you're like rooting for her to find herself. And I'm hoping she does by the end because I'll cry if she doesn't.
00:09:31
I mean, I feel like this in the modern day, we've come to understand that we want to hear stories and talk about people who are messy, real, human.
00:09:44
Everything else is so fucking boring. It is. And untrue. Right. Dishonest. Dishonest.
00:09:50
Yeah. That's right. Totally. Messy time. What's your book? Just pick one up. I have a book.
00:09:57
It's called Our Town. It's a wonderful play. by Thornton Wilder. Alondra? Please say it.
00:10:06
Alondra, you went to college. Please say it. Thornton Wilder? Fuck yeah. Did you see that?
00:10:10
That was amazing. Didn't you hear me say it? I did. Yeah. That was great. Yeah. I wouldn't have.
00:10:15
I couldn't have. And I shouldn't. And you never will. And I mustn't. Okay. We have a podcast network,
00:10:21
and we like to tell you things about it, you know, to keep you up to date, because maybe you listen to this podcast.
00:10:27
We've got a bunch of great ones. Handpicked. by none other than Karen and myself.
00:10:32
Yeah. So like you'll probably like them too. That's right. If you go to exactlyrightmedia.com,
00:10:36
you can see them all. If you put in Exactly Right wherever you listen to podcasts,
00:10:39
the network should come up and all our podcasts are there. So many. And please rate, review and subscribe.
00:10:43
Everyone appreciates it. Also, we have brand new You're in a Cult Call Your Dad merch
00:10:48
designed by illustrator Jess Rotter, who makes the coolest rock and roll inspired artwork.
00:10:54
I'm obsessed with this design. There's a t-shirt, a sweatshirt and a tote bag that you can get online
00:10:58
at myfavoritemurder.com. It looks like a poster that would be at the Fillmore in 1968.
00:11:06
Classic. It's such beautiful, cool artwork. It is. You can also follow Exactly Right on social media
00:11:12
and learn more about what's happening this week on your favorite podcasts, those ones we were generalizing about
00:11:17
at the top of this announcement. For example, I Saw What You Did, that's our movie podcast,
00:11:23
Bananas, The Weird News podcast. There's so many. So many. And then episode 15 of Rewind with Karen in Georgia is available now.
00:11:31
And it features crimes from the year 2000. I was listening to an episode of Rewind last night just for like, you know, quality control.
00:11:40
Sure. And it was weird to hear myself back then all bubbly and like a little bourboned up.
00:11:46
Sure. You know? Yeah, yeah. That girl was drinking whiskey straight at the time.
00:11:49
Also imagine that you listening to a podcast of yourself recapping a podcast of yourself Inception I mean it fucking inception Narcissism inception No I just trying to make sure the product we giving people No I not No judgments All judgments
00:12:08
Only judgments. If you love My Favorite Murder, that's what we're doing right now.
00:12:12
Please go rate, review and follow the show wherever you get your podcasts. Yes. It's a
00:12:17
simple thing you can do that helps any podcast out. When you like them, do that. All the ones
00:12:22
you like. Yeah. Touch those stars. Yeah. Even say some nice stuff about it. Sure. It helps. It does. And if
00:12:28
you don't like a podcast, you know, just ignore it. Yeah. Move on. There's other ones. Yeah.
00:12:34
Please. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was. Your
00:12:40
identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Dani Shapiro, and these are just a few of the stunning
00:12:46
stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets. And just then, we
00:12:52
felt the plane turn in the air, so much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind
00:12:58
of flew into the aisle. Each week, we dive headfirst into the complex power of secrecy,
00:13:04
how it shapes our identities and relationships, and how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest
00:13:10
selves. My daughter, she's pretending she doesn't know, but is trying to cook and feed me and keep
00:13:15
me alive because I wasn't eating anything, and me pretending like everything was fine. He kind of
00:13:21
shoved me out of the way and said, move. And he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off.
00:13:26
And that was the last time I saw him. Listen to season 14 of Family Secrets on the iHeartRadio app,
00:13:31
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I'm Nancy Glass, host of the Burden of Guilt season two podcast.
00:13:39
This is a story about a horrendous lie that destroyed two families. Late one night, Bobby Gumpright became the victim of a random crime.
00:13:49
The perpetrator was sentenced to 99 years until a confession changed everything.
00:13:56
I was a monster. Listen to Burden of Guilt Season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:14:06
How much do you weigh, Wanda? Right now, I'm about 130. I'm at 183. We should race.
00:14:10
No, I want to leave here with my original hips. On the podcast to match up with Aliyah, I pair prominent female athletes with unexpected guests.
00:14:17
On a recent episode, I sat down with undisputed boxing champ Claressa Shields and comedian Wanda Sykes to talk about Wanda's new movie, Undercard, the art of trash talk and what it really means to be ladylike.
00:14:27
Open your free iHeartRadio app, search the matchup with Aaliyah and listen now. Brought to you by Novartis, founding partner of iHeart Women's Sports Network.
00:14:37
All right, I'm doing a solo and I'm so excited to get to do this solo. Maren and I talked about this. Maren did such a gorgeous job on this research.
00:14:47
I'm she is Maren McGlashan is my researcher. Ali Elkin is Georgia's researcher. We're so lucky to have such talented researchers.
00:14:57
And so this story Maren and I talked about. And the reason I wanted to do it is because it took place in 1969.
00:15:04
And in 1969, my mom was a psychiatric nurse at a hospital in San Francisco called Langley Porter that was up on the hill above Coal Valley.
00:15:15
Do you remember that like hospital or that spot? Is it abandoned now? That's the barracks that used to be over in like north.
00:15:23
No, no, no. I'm just going to go. Finally answered no. I don't think it's abandoned, but I'm not sure.
00:15:30
But I don't think so. But she told me this unbelievable story about the night that this happened.
00:15:36
Wow. So she worked in the psychiatric unit at this hospital, but it was 1969. So at the time, a lot of parents were sending their kids who they caught smoking pot to mental hospitals as a kind of like, we don't know what to do with you and this is crazy.
00:15:51
It was truly like the cultural revolution of the late 60s was truly blowing a lot of people's minds, not just the ones that are taking drugs.
00:16:00
So there were a lot of true mental patients and people with mental disorders that were getting treatment on this ward.
00:16:07
And then there was just teenagers that got sent there. Wow. So on the night of this, these teenagers and some of the patients on this ward found out this concert was taking place and they snuck out.
00:16:21
And when they came back, they were not the same. So the story takes place December 6, 1969.
00:16:31
It's the Altamont Free Concert. Oh, no. Yes. And your mom was like, witness the people coming and then going?
00:16:39
These poor kids coming back because they were, she was like, you know, they were sneaking out, but she's like, oh, they're just going to go.
00:16:46
And what it was supposed to be was a free concert in Golden Gate Park. Right. Which is truly a couple blocks away.
00:16:53
And Altamont was like kind of far away, right? Livermore. Outside of town, completely.
00:16:57
More than a half an hour. Yeah. Outside of town. So it was supposed to be this one day festival featuring some of the biggest names in music.
00:17:06
And it was free. The superstar lineup includes Crosby, Stills, and Nash, the Flying Burrito Brothers, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, the Grateful Dead.
00:17:17
And the top of the bill is the Rolling Stones, who have just wrapped a very successful U.S. tour.
00:17:23
So it's supposed to be the West Coast Woodstock. Woodstock had just happened in August of 1969 in New York State, so now it's supposed to be California's turn.
00:17:33
And the excitement around this thing is enormous. Everyone's talking about it. But what ended up happening, and we know what happened at Woodstock, where, you know, it was like not really well planned and went on and on.
00:17:45
But it was this like free love, good vibes. Success. Yeah. Yeah. It worked out. Yes.
00:17:51
Altamont is the exact opposite. Okay. It will go down in history as some call it the anti Others will say it marks the death of the 60s hippie dream Mick Jagger himself will say quote
00:18:05
if Jesus had been at Altamont, he would have been crucified. This is the story of one of the darkest moments in rock and roll history,
00:18:12
the 1969 Altamont Free Concert. Wow. Yeah. So the main sources Maren used in today's story are the book Just a Shot Away by Saul Osterlitz,
00:18:23
The book Altamont by Joel Selvin and the reporting of Jeff Edgers, which is featured in the Washington Post podcast All Told, which Maren said was great and highly recommend.
00:18:35
Yeah, it's a good podcast. Yeah. And the rest of the sources are in our show notes.
00:18:39
So first we're going to talk about an 18 year old black man named Meredith Hunter who goes by the name Murdoch.
00:18:45
He lives in Berkeley, California, and he is a music fanatic. As many were of the time, but he really was.
00:18:56
Murdoch's childhood was very difficult. His father leaves the family when he's young and his mother, Altha, raises Murdoch and his siblings, not only as a single parent, but while she struggles with schizophrenia.
00:19:09
Writer Saul Austerlitz says, quote, if you were black and schizophrenic, there was little hope of fruitful treatment.
00:19:16
And because of this, Alta struggles to hold down a job. The children sometimes go hungry.
00:19:22
When Murdoch is just 11 years old, he starts getting into trouble with the law, as one would expect.
00:19:28
No support, no services. What else are you supposed to do? Through his teens, Murdoch hangs out with a rough crowd.
00:19:35
Then he gets into drugs. He's in and out of juvenile detention for various nonviolent and for petty crimes.
00:19:41
But he is also a beloved member of this family. when his sister's widowed he becomes a very important part of her children's lives also
00:19:50
Murdoch has a very distinctive charm about him his then 17 year old girlfriend Patty
00:19:55
Bretta Hoff will later say Murdoch didn't walk he kind of floated he had this walk where he was
00:20:02
super cool always in a suit when he picked me it made me feel special plus he was very sweet
00:20:09
We just really had a connection. So at six foot two, Murdoch exudes personality and confidence.
00:20:17
He's always dressed to the nines. His style sets him apart. But his never ending appetite for seeing excellent live music is something he has common with so many other kids in his generation.
00:20:29
And earlier in the year, he went to the Monterey Jazz Festival, had an amazing time.
00:20:35
He's still bummed he didn't get to go to Woodstock. You know, he's one of those people. He wants to be at every big music event. So when word starts to spread that there's going to be this free West Coast version of Woodstock, Murdoch's all in. He has no way of knowing that behind the scenes, Altamont is shaping up to be a serious disaster.
00:20:56
So the idea behind the Altamont Free Concert is lovely. A free concert in San Francisco makes a ton of sense.
00:21:05
At the time, San Francisco is the epicenter of the music-obsessed hippie movement, and free concerts are a well-known part of the culture.
00:21:13
Bands like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane have already hosted free shows at Golden Gate Park to great success.
00:21:20
Have you been to shows in Golden Gate Park? I went to a festival there when I lived there, but I don't remember anything about it.
00:21:27
I mean, it's just because that park is so beautiful. It's so sprawling. And I can't remember what show I was at because I'm sure I was very drunk.
00:21:38
But I just remember the setting, like the size and the setting was so like it was really this kind of this is an event and I'm a part of something.
00:21:46
It's very cool. So the Rolling Stones like the idea of being a part of a free concert for a few reasons.
00:21:54
They want to thank their American audiences who have been so supportive of this tour that they just did.
00:21:59
It also, they're hoping it might silence the critics who accuse the band of charging too much for tickets on this tour.
00:22:06
Plus, the band is currently filming a documentary of that tour with the Maisels brothers, Albert and David.
00:22:13
They're the filmmaking duo behind the legendary documentary Great Gardens and a bunch of others.
00:22:20
And obviously what is soon to be the documentary they're going to make about the Rolling Stones.
00:22:25
Yeah, we watched that a while back. Yeah, fucked up. It's tough. So the Stones know there's real cinematic value in capturing a well-attended concert, you know, like headlining Golden Gate Park.
00:22:37
Totally. It would be an undeniably iconic ending to this film. But in true anti-authority hippie fashion, the plan for this concert moves forward with no central structure or leadership, just dozens of people acting as pseudo-organizers operating under no singular chain of command.
00:22:56
When I read that sentence, I began to sweat. Yeah. You can't do that. So stressful and just a recipe for disaster, no matter what you're doing.
00:23:06
Yeah. So it's just this chaotic group of musicians and managers and promoters. And so kind of together, they decide to set a date that's only a couple weeks away.
00:23:19
December 6th, 1969. And then Mick Jagger is giving an interview on November 26th, which is relatively right before.
00:23:30
And so he confirms the rumors of an upcoming free concert in Golden Gate Park. Oh, my God.
00:23:36
And he does this before anyone has locked down Golden Gate Park as the venue, as the location, really.
00:23:44
So the very hippie-vibed kind of planning about this, no one is considered the bureaucracy that's involved when you want to access a place like the city park.
00:23:56
Permits and shit. Exactly. So while Bay Area... Bands like the Grateful Dead have connections with City of San Francisco and the people that work there.
00:24:04
The Rolling Stones, they're a much bigger band with a notorious reputation, and they do not.
00:24:10
So less than a week before the announced date of September 6th, San Francisco city officials decide that they're not going to grant permits for a free concert in Golden Gate Park.
00:24:20
So suddenly that's all off the table. And incredibly, because there's no central leadership in this group, they don't get together and plan a different, you know, hey, we could do it later on, a different date, same place, whatever.
00:24:36
Instead, they just start looking for other venues with just days to spare. One of those venues is Sears Point Raceway in Sonoma, California.
00:24:46
Oh, your friend? Merely 10 minutes away from Petaluma, possibly 15. Damn. If you want to go to Sacramento, you kind of drive by Sears Point Raceway.
00:24:55
Did you go there? One of the ways to go. As a kid and stuff? We never went to Sears Point.
00:24:59
It's like an adult car racing place. Exactly. Because that's what Altamont was, right?
00:25:02
It's not like a... I'm thinking of little kids driving. Oh, no, no. It's not go-karts.
00:25:06
Yeah. No, no. Sears Point is real. It's like NASCAR. Yeah. I don't know if it's officially NASCAR, but it was very loud.
00:25:14
You could hear it. Oh, my God. I bet. You could hear it sometimes in Petaluma if the weather was correct.
00:25:20
Because there's probably no like regulations on what you could put on your engine and shit.
00:25:23
And it was just like. Back then, I'm sure there was it. That's so crazy. Yeah. And it's still there and it's still a real place.
00:25:29
It's like a, it's a serious place. Nice. We're very proud of Sears Point. Also, it's that kind of thing where I've been hearing all my childhood of like things on the radio being announced where it's like this weekend at Sears Point Raceway.
00:25:42
Oh my God, I love it. So this seems like the best option. It's 30 miles from San Francisco.
00:25:50
But then negotiations fall apart three days before the scheduled concert date. After the venue owners find out that the Rolling Stones want to film there and they demand $100,000 for rights to filming.
00:26:04
That's a lot of money. Guess how much it is in today's money. Okay. Inflation's fucking huge.
00:26:10
It's 1969. And it's $650,000? $650,000? $800,000. Wow. Almost a million dollars.
00:26:17
That's just almost like saying we don't want it here. Here's a fucking made up number.
00:26:21
We know you're going to say no, go fuck yourself. Yes, because I think the people at Sam's point were like, we saw what happened at Woodstock.
00:26:27
Right. All those hippies on drugs taking weird baths in a pond. The insurance alone would cost half of that fucking fee.
00:26:34
Probably. You know what I mean? Yes. No. Yeah. And they're going to fuck the whole thing up and like it'll be dirty and you have to clean it up and everything.
00:26:41
Yeah. So it's kind of smart because then if they got the money, then hey. Sure. So for the Rolling Stones, this is an immediate deal breaker.
00:26:49
You know, that price at like the idea of doing it without being able to film it, that ain't happening because this is like basically the crucial ending for their documentary.
00:26:58
So it seems like the whole idea is ready to collapse, but not everyone's ready to give up.
00:27:05
I don't think people like give enough credit to fucking cutting your losses and moving on.
00:27:09
For real. Like that's a big thing of mine. Like when I would be like, this relationship is over.
00:27:14
Yes. I'm done. Be done. It's okay. It's okay. Things end all the time. Yeah. Because things could be worse then.
00:27:21
You cut your losses, meaning you're not going to gain more losses. Correct. That's right.
00:27:26
Okay. Well said. So Rolling Stone magazine reports that, quote, Jagger kept saying, well, man, we'll play the streets if we have to.
00:27:36
Which is kind of cool. Yeah. He was almost prepared to pick a street corner in downtown San Francisco and play there.
00:27:43
End quote. So with just two days to go, me with a taut stomach as I'm like going into this document, the organizers find a dusty remote racetrack in the city of Livermore, 60 miles east of San Francisco.
00:28:01
This is the Altamont Speedway. This time, the owner of the racetrack doesn't ask for much aside from the promotional boost that'll come with being associated with this concert.
00:28:10
Okay. But the location is not ideal. What's funny is driving from Petaluma to L.A., I drive by Altamont.
00:28:18
Really? That's how you get from the 580 to the 5 south. Yeah, yeah. You basically go by it.
00:28:24
I mean, I don't think you can see anything from the freeway, not that I know of.
00:28:27
Yeah. But it's right there, basically. So the speedway is far away from the city.
00:28:34
The atmosphere is nowhere as nice, of course, as Golden Gate Park or Sears Point Raceway.
00:28:38
And the largest crowd that Altamont has ever hosted is 6,000 people. This concert is expected to draw 100,000 people.
00:28:48
Wow. I was even going to guess like 25. No. Big time. No. On top of everything else, the organizers have less than 48 hours to now pull this entire thing together.
00:28:59
Just talk about, let's just think about like a festival day, what's involved, what people have to organize to put something like that together.
00:29:08
Seriously. At this point, the Grateful Dead's frontman, Jerry Garcia, thinks the whole thing should be called off.
00:29:14
But because the Rolling Stones are still on board and they're huge, that's all it takes for the motley crew of organizers to basically fall in line.
00:29:22
They start recruiting volunteers from around the Bay Area to help build the stage for bands to perform on and to haul in the sound equipment.
00:29:33
Volunteers building a concert stage? Yeah, no, you don't know how to build a fucking concert stage.
00:29:38
You've got to get your guys that wear those tool belts all the time. You've got to get your union guys.
00:29:46
Contractors who know how gravity works and shit. And people that have done it and done it and done it and done it.
00:29:52
You need to own a leveler. You know what I mean? At the very least At the very least You have to have a mustache or a beard please So they think that parts taken care of Now they move on to the very important task of hiring security
00:30:08
Enter the Hells Angels. I wonder what it would have been like if this part hadn't been there.
00:30:13
It would have been a mess, but it wouldn't have been as bad. It wouldn't have gone down in history, I feel like.
00:30:20
Well, it's interesting you say that. We'll get to that point. It's interesting I say that and I don't know the whole story.
00:30:25
So keep going. But that's the fun part of these kinds of conversations because you don't know.
00:30:31
And what you're citing is interesting. And it will come up. So if you're a millennial or older, then you know the Hells Angels.
00:30:40
If you don't, if you're young or you're uncool, old and uncool. The Hells Angels are an infamous motorcycle gang, notorious around California.
00:30:51
They were California based. and they had become a household name because of their outlaw image and their serious crimes that
00:31:00
they committed constantly they were in the news a lot it was scary yeah even in the late 70s when
00:31:06
i kind of became conscious of that that kind of motorcycle gang energy yeah there were definitely
00:31:12
tons of like hell's angel type people who absolutely were not like that and that were just
00:31:18
like, you know, Harley guys or whatever. But this particular motorcycle gang was at the time not,
00:31:27
it wasn't good. It was like a true gang. Yeah, they were notorious for sure. So it sounds like a bizarre choice for security for an event like this. But like the youth culture
00:31:38
of the time, the Hells Angels typified anti-authority rebellion. The gang's Bay Area
00:31:44
chapter already has a relationship with the local music scene. Grace Slick, who is one of the lead
00:31:49
singers of Jefferson Airplane, talks about it on the All Told podcast, saying, quote,
00:31:54
police didn't like people with long hair. They knew we smoked dope, so they'd try and catch us
00:31:59
doing that. We in turn didn't want them around. The Hells Angels are not going to take us to jail,
00:32:05
but they can be tough like a cop. We'd done a number of concerts in Golden Gate Park,
00:32:09
and the Hells Angels had been there to make sure everything went okay. They never messed with anybody.
00:32:15
They were always okay. And when somebody would get on stage when they're not supposed to be,
00:32:20
they'd just go over and tell them not to. So we said we could get the Hells Angels to be security at Altamont.
00:32:27
End quote. So the Hells Angels aren't interested in acting like cops, and they don't want to be policing the event.
00:32:33
That's not their style. But they do agree to guard the stage and the equipment on very short notice and for a very cheap price, $500 worth of beer.
00:32:44
Which is so much beer at the time. Which at the time is how much beer? Which at the time is $4,000 worth of beer.
00:32:51
And probably cheap beer. Shitty cheap beer for sure. So we're kind of setting that stage of like the expectations and, hey, this has worked before.
00:32:58
And hey, my dad's got a barn and we can go over to Altamont and we'll just throw this thing together for Mick Jagger and for everybody trying to have a fun free show.
00:33:09
Meanwhile, back in Berkeley, Murdoch Hunter is preparing to go to this concert and he is excited.
00:33:15
But not everyone in Murdoch's life feels great about his plan to go to Altamont.
00:33:20
His sister Dixie warns him that he might not be safe as a black man going out where this concert's being held.
00:33:25
she points out because murdoch's girlfriend patty is white that something could happen to them as an
00:33:32
interracial couple this is basically as far out of san francisco as you can get and at that time
00:33:38
yeah it says less urban on the page it was not urban at all it's like rural it's completely
00:33:43
country yeah and you know and it goes country really fast out there because there's so much
00:33:50
farming livestock all that kind of stuff that it's it goes city to country real quick wow years later
00:33:56
dixie tells the all told podcast quote i said that's not a good place for you my husband owned
00:34:03
some trucks he would go collect iron and stuff out there and he would take me i have seen ku klux
00:34:09
clan crosses that have been burnt in those fields wow yeah so the truth is murdoch is determined to
00:34:17
go, it's that he's 18. Yeah. He's got the world on a string. And like maybe one of the most like legendary concerts that will happen.
00:34:25
Yeah. And that he's going to miss it. And it's in his like neighborhood, basically.
00:34:29
Right. But of course he's going to go. Of course he's going to go. So on the morning of December 6th, he puts on a black silk shirt, a lime green suit and
00:34:38
a wide brimmed black hat. Then he takes his mother's boyfriend's champagne colored 1965 Mustang.
00:34:46
God, stop it right now. And he goes and picks up Patty and he heads out to Livermore.
00:34:51
And Patty will later say, quote, Nobody knew exactly what it was going to be like out there.
00:34:56
Peace and love and hippies and all that. We thought, oh, it's just going to be a big party.
00:35:01
Yeah. Your husband is not who you think he is. Your body is not what you thought it was.
00:35:07
Your identity is formed by a secret history. I'm Dani Shapiro. And these are just a few of the stunning stories I'll be exploring on the 14th season of Family Secrets.
00:35:18
Just then, we felt the plane turn in the air. So much so that the bags that were under people's seats just kind of flew into the aisle.
00:35:27
Each week, we dive headfirst into the complex power of secrecy. How it shapes our identities and relationships.
00:35:34
And how it ultimately can reveal to us our truest selves. my daughter she's pretending she doesn't know but is trying to cook and feed me and keep me alive
00:35:43
because i wasn't eating anything and me pretending like everything was fine he kind of showed me out
00:35:49
of the way and said move and he went out the front door and he jumped in a car and drove off and that
00:35:54
was the last time i saw him listen to season 14 of family secrets on the iheart iHeartRadio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts
00:36:25
that, guys. Listen to Hey Jonas on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:36:30
Just listen. We don't care where you hear it. Will Ferrell's Big Money Players and
00:36:34
iHeart Podcast presents Soccer Moms. So I'm Leanne. Yeah. This is my best friend, Janet. Hey. And we have been
00:36:41
joined at the hip since high school. Absolutely. A redacted amount of years later, we're still joined at the hip. Just a little
00:36:47
bit bigger hips. This is a podcast. We're recording it as we tailgate our youth soccer
00:36:50
games in the back of my Honda Odyssey. With all the snacks and drinks. Why did you get hard seltzer instead of beer?
00:36:58
Oh, they had a BOGO. Well, then you got them. Listen to Soccer Moms on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
00:37:06
So, as the couple approaches Altamont, they come upon a massive traffic jam. This is because the event organizers have made no real plan for parking.
00:37:18
Saul Osterlitz writes, quote, The new 580 freeway leading from just north of San Francisco to the eastern reaches of Alameda County, still not fully open to the public.
00:37:30
Which is, I read that. It was like, what? Nobody fucking notified? Anybody? It was a fresh freeway.
00:37:36
Yeah. And it wasn't open yet. Still not fully open to the public. Became a massive parking lot with parked cars filling each of its four lanes four miles.
00:37:48
Holy shit. I'm pretty sure this is now a five or six lane highway. It's gigantic.
00:37:53
But so the idea that people were just kind of turning down it and going then just parking on it is wild.
00:37:59
Yeah. When he says four miles, he means eight miles. Oh, my God. And that's because organizers anticipated 100,000 people coming.
00:38:08
But in fact, 300,000 people show up. It's a one day thing, right? Not like Woodstock where you can come throughout the weekend and everything.
00:38:16
Right? It's a one day thing. That's no. And maybe that's why there are no concession stands.
00:38:22
No. There's no food or water available for a day-long concert. No. And they've only gotten 100 portable toilets.
00:38:29
Oh, my God. For 300,000 people. Oh, my God. Terrifying. And then there's the stage.
00:38:35
So we'll go back to this stage. How'd that go? Assembled by volunteers. How did that turn out?
00:38:40
Here, you tell me. It's cobbled together overnight, and it stands at a mighty three feet tall.
00:38:47
For comparison, the stage at Woodstock was 15 feet high. Yeah. And it took weeks to build.
00:38:54
Plus, the location of the stage is not great. They set it at the bottom of a hill, so the concertgoers basically kind of tower over it.
00:39:03
And because it's just a few feet tall and there's no real barricade or fence around the stage, audience members can easily just walk onto it.
00:39:12
What they did do was put up a piece of string. Wow. And just, it's so insane. One guy was like, maybe we need a barrier.
00:39:23
And another guy was like, how about string? And then they ended the conversation.
00:39:27
Yeah, it was like, and the guy that suggested string pours concrete. And he's like, this will work because no one ever crosses these strings when we pour concrete.
00:39:35
Either that or they were both on acid. And they were like, look how amazingly strong this string is.
00:39:40
Oh my God, this string is like the universe. It's so strong. So basically, a piece of string goes around the perimeter of the stage.
00:39:47
And that is the only boundary between the stage and the crowd. And it gets ripped down immediately, of course.
00:39:55
So the concert is off to a bad start. Then you throw in a ton of alcohol. And of course, the bad acid that inevitably gets circulated among the audience and a powder keg situation is starting to build.
00:40:09
and as you can imagine a chaotic environment lacking basic infrastructure and resources
00:40:16
people getting super intoxicated things immediately get tense. Rolling Stone magazine reports quote
00:40:23
as Santana was setting up a chick toward the front of the stage was telling her old man
00:40:27
it's weird they consulted astrologers before setting the dates for Woodstock but they couldn't
00:40:33
have consulted an astrologer about today anyone can see that with the moon in scorpio today is an
00:40:40
awful day to do this concert there's a strong possibility of violence and chaos and any
00:40:45
astrologer would have told them so oh well maybe the stones know something i don't know girl
00:40:51
believe in yourself believe in yourself and also like sure they could have consulted an astrologer
00:40:58
it didn't sound like they were consulting fucking anybody literally a child and been like is this a
00:41:02
great idea and the kid have been like no the string won't stay up at my school string doesn't
00:41:08
stay up oh my god so unfortunately the rolling stones are not sitting on any special insider
00:41:15
information they like everyone else involved are in for a very rude awakening band member mick
00:41:22
taylor will later say quote about five minutes after we arrived i was with mick jagger i was
00:41:27
with mick and then it says jagger in parentheses and there were a couple security guards with us
00:41:32
and a guy broke through and punched Mick in the face. You can't do that. I mean, yes, you can.
00:41:38
At Altamont, you can. The last thing he says in that quote is, that put me off a bit, end quote.
00:41:45
This chaotic, violent atmosphere sets in on this continually expanding crowd. There's a particularly notorious attendee
00:41:53
who is almost always unfortunately referred to as quote the naked fat guy Cultural critic Greel Marcus who at the time is a 24 writer for Rolling Stone magazine remembers quote and this is about the naked fat guy
00:42:08
he got up when Santana started to play and started dancing. It looked like he was just being free and all that, and he took his clothes off, but he wasn't.
00:42:16
I was close enough to see that he was using his dancing as an excuse to stomp people.
00:42:21
He was actually moving all around and stomping on people. It was really ugly and awful.
00:42:28
Oh, my God. End quote. And here's what's weird. No one's ever figured out who that man is.
00:42:33
Even the Washington Post. Shut the fuck. Could not track down his name or any identifying information about him.
00:42:40
I never heard of that before. That is fucking wild. I know. I haven't either. So that's the vibe, right?
00:42:47
Yeah. It's like people are expecting Woodstock. Right. And they're showing up and being like, huh, what?
00:42:53
I really am getting like heart palpitations a little bit. It gets worse. Okay, great.
00:42:57
On top of all this, you know, all the bad vibes, or maybe at the heart of it is the presence of the Hells Angels.
00:43:04
They ride their motorcycles through the middle of the densely packed crowd, right up to the front of the stage.
00:43:10
And then they line up in this very obvious show of force. Much like the concert goers around them, the Hells Angels are downing drugs and imbibing alcohol and are actively and often violently engaging with the crowd.
00:43:26
If someone gets too close to the stage or one of their bikes, they're immediately punched or whacked with a sawed off pool cue filled with lead.
00:43:34
No. That's their weapon of choice. and the Hells Angels have created a makeshift jail
00:43:41
where they corral guests that they see as making problems. As you would guess, they show them no mercy in this jail.
00:43:50
The naked fat guy ends up being held there and his face and chest are covered in blood
00:43:55
and his front teeth get knocked out. Holy shit. Oh, sorry. It says his teeth have been knocked out.
00:44:01
So it could be a bunch of his teeth, not just the front ones. even marty ballin who was the founding member of jefferson airplane and the co-lead singer with
00:44:09
grace slick is attacked by a member of the hell's angels it happens when ballin jumps off stage
00:44:15
mid-performance to intervene when he sees the gang members attacking another concert goer
00:44:21
ballin mouths off to an angel i'm sure because yeah they were like hey we recommended you totally
00:44:27
Like, you can't be doing this. He's promptly knocked unconscious. When he comes to a few minutes later, he starts telling that Hells Angel off again and is knocked out for a second time.
00:44:40
Yeah. The Hells Angels drunken, drug fueled violence seems to have no limits. During Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young's set, they team up on the young hippies in front of the stage as the band plays behind them.
00:44:55
It gets so bad that Stephen Stills, while he's playing, is actually injured by one hell's angel who is just sitting on the stage poking him in the leg with a sharpened bicycle spoke.
00:45:07
What the fuck? Yeah. Oh, my God. Yeah. I want to go home. And I think that's that thing.
00:45:13
There are so many elements of performance that people don't understand that are it's psychological crowd control.
00:45:19
That is why stages are up high. It's basically saying we're up here. You're not allowed to touch us.
00:45:26
You're down there and you watch what we're doing and you're in the dark down there and we do our thing and then we go away.
00:45:32
When you put everybody on the same level, and I mean ask any stand-up comic who's done like a show in like a restaurant or whatever, that's when you get heckled.
00:45:41
That's when people are like, oh, you're just me. I'm part of this. I'm part of this.
00:45:44
Exactly. And you're just another me standing there and you're making me feel uncomfortable because you're kind of vulnerable.
00:45:50
I got to do something about it. It's that vibe. So the stage thing, I personally think, is a huge element to this.
00:45:58
Where it's like, oh, we can all just do whatever we want. Yeah. Oh, also acid. Oh, right.
00:46:03
That'll do it. That'll do it, too. So Stephen Stills is slashed so many times, he bleeds through his pant leg on stage.
00:46:11
He can't tell this guy to stop because all of his fucking bros are there. And also because he's doing four-part harmony in the middle of a song, getting his leg fucking...
00:46:22
It's so crazy. So the band ends their set a half an hour after they start and immediately just go back into the city.
00:46:30
Years later, David Crosby tells the All Told podcast, quote, I was terrified. We thought get out of here as fast as you can before somebody gets killed in front of you before you get killed.
00:46:42
Wow. Yeah. End quote. So members of the Grateful Dead who are slated to play right before the Rolling Stones are so unnerved by this out of control violence from both the audience and the Hells Angels that they just bail.
00:46:57
Yeah. Which I love. Yeah. I felt so much relief when I was like, fuck yes, get out of there.
00:47:02
You're done. So at this point, Murdoch Hunter and his girlfriend Patty are taking a break back in their car with a couple other friends.
00:47:11
Patty wants to leave. She's over this whole thing. Some sources say that the couple were seen being harassed during this concert.
00:47:20
As Saul Osterlitz writes, quote, Glancing around the concert venue, Hunter may have silently taken note of how few other black men were present that day.
00:47:29
This was overwhelmingly a white affair, and at least some of the African-Americans in the crowd seemed to be targeted by the Hells Angels.
00:47:37
A long-haired biker threw one young man to the ground for no apparent reason, then proceeded to mouth obscenities at the fallen concertgoer.
00:47:45
This was undoubtedly a familiar feeling for anyone like Hunter, who had spent time at the parties and celebrations of the overwhelmingly white counterculture.
00:47:56
End quote. So the problem is Murdoch is not ready to lose. Eve. Patty later says, quote, I didn't really want to go back again, but he persuaded me,
00:48:06
end quote. But before they go, Murdoch opens the trunk of his car and pulls out a gun.
00:48:12
Patty remembers asking, quote, what do you need that for? And he says, just for protection,
00:48:19
which he's right. Yeah. But it's like at that point. Gotta go. Maybe if that's the situation.
00:48:25
I mean, the Rolling Stones are an amazing band. And you kind of get to see them like right there.
00:48:33
You're right there. Yeah. But if you need that to go back to the concert to feel safe, then it's like, then that's not a safe place to be.
00:48:40
No. So I'm going to just say all of this right here. All of this has been happening during the day.
00:48:48
The sun hasn't gone down yet. Since the Grateful Dead have left. and because the Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman isn't there yet
00:48:57
and because the band and the Maisels brothers have always envisioned that performance to be a nighttime performance.
00:49:06
Oh, right. The Rolling Stones don't go on stage for two hours. No. You have hundreds of thousands of worn out, hungry, thirsty,
00:49:15
strung out, unruly concert goers and Hell's Angels. Yeah. So at this point, the vibes are absolutely terrible at Alkma.
00:49:23
So there's just nobody playing for two hours. Just sitting there and people are just stewing in the shit.
00:49:30
And also, don't forget, it's no small part that bad acid. What's that? Who's that from?
00:49:37
Like, acid can be bad and still be good. Like, what's the deal? No, not quality-wise.
00:49:44
It's the same thing happened at Woodstock. Like, don't eat the brown acid, I think is what they said.
00:49:48
where it's like it's giving people terrible trips. It's dosed with something else.
00:49:52
Yeah, it's badly made. Got it, got it, got it. So people are, instead of kind of going up and away to good times,
00:49:59
they're immediately freaking out. Okay. So they actually have to set up what's called a bummer tent,
00:50:06
which they also had to do at Woodstock, where people on psychedelics who need help can get it.
00:50:11
But there, things are reaching a fever pitch of horror. Joel Sullivan reports, quote, volunteers and staff were overwhelmed and moans and screams can be heard coming from within.
00:50:23
By the end of the day, the four psychiatrists working the tent would treat more than 200 patients by themselves.
00:50:31
The tension was so great that somebody witnessed two doctors getting into a fistfight over an argument about treatment protocols.
00:50:39
I want to hear from them. So, I mean, the astrology, you can't be argued with at this point.
00:50:46
It's like everybody is, it's all bad. And in the midst of this, Murdoch Hunter is angling to get up close to the stage.
00:50:54
Okay. I bet you, and my guess is, it's like, let's make all this worth it. Totally.
00:50:59
And really be right there. Totally. For a band at the height of their fame, I think.
00:51:05
Well, not really, because they're still performing. Yeah. So not the hype, but truly an amazing time.
00:51:11
Yeah. Pinnacle? Opening? What's the opening? Starting line. No, I can't think of any.
00:51:19
The starting line of their fame. Just like the coolest. Yeah. You know. Sure. It's too bad I can't think of words anymore being that I do this job for a living.
00:51:28
I mean, try having not been able to do that for eight and a half years. It's rough.
00:51:33
Stop. It's something. I don't know what. It really feels like something. Something else.
00:51:39
It's a bad trip. It's bad vibes. Okay, so somehow Murdoch and Patty actually do manage to get through this enormous crowd, and they get very close to the stage, which means they're right by those Hells Angels that are standing in front of it, holding the line, battering people with lead-filled pool cues.
00:51:58
so when the rolling stones finally do take the stage the crowd surges murdoch and patty try to
00:52:05
hold their own but when a song starts like basically they get separated and that's we've
00:52:11
all been at concerts like that where and it's no surprise it happened here where it's like people
00:52:16
don't just stand there like oh cool i'm so happy now it's like totally and they're right there on
00:52:23
your level. They're like, right. It's like, you can't control your movements too. When you're
00:52:29
in that big of a crowd where you get pushed forward, it's not like you're wanting to go
00:52:34
forward. It's just the rest of the crowd is being moved. They're moving. They're high drunk. They
00:52:40
want to be there. They want to punch Mick Jagger in the face. I mean, so insane. So every time
00:52:47
the band starts a new song, there's a new crush toward the stage and the couple gets separated
00:52:52
Before long, it's clear that the typically powerful, captivating Rolling Stones have completely lost control.
00:52:58
The Hells Angels have all the power in this situation, and they know it. Gang members are flagrantly walking across the stage.
00:53:08
As the band members, who are skinny little British rock stars, much smaller than many of these motorcycle gang members, look increasingly unsettled and scared.
00:53:19
At one point, the usually smoothest silk Mick Jagger bumps into a mic stand and knocks it over.
00:53:26
But the show goes on, although the band stops several times either to check in on audience members who don't look good or to implore the out of control crowd to settle down.
00:53:37
At one point, Mick Jagger repeatedly begs people to cool out. Keith Richards calls out the Hells Angels directly.
00:53:45
He says, quote, listen, man, either these cats cool it or we don't play. But as Griel Marcus puts it quote the stones couldn stop because they were surrounded by hell angels who were telling them to play or else At one point an angel came up to Keith Richards grabbed him and said play fucker you
00:54:05
going to play. They had no idea that they would not be beaten or killed themselves if they didn't play.
00:54:11
They didn't give a shit about this fucking... No. No. No. It's like, play brown sugar.
00:54:16
I want to hear it right now. Yeah. Sorry, we're still on the quote. So they had to play.
00:54:21
They didn't have the option of leaving. Okay. End quote. Meanwhile, Jerry Garcia is whistling on the fucking 580.
00:54:28
Thank God. Truly like a perfect example of what you're saying of quit if you need to quit.
00:54:34
Plus the sheer size of the audience and the low positioning of that stage makes it impossible for the band to do anything but perform because where would they even go?
00:54:44
And how would this rowdy audience react if the Rolling Stones were like, we're done, bye.
00:54:49
Right. Years later, the Stones tour manager, Sam Cutler, will mull this over. He says, quote, it could have resulted in maybe the deaths of the Rolling Stones.
00:54:59
Who knows? You got to realize we were on a stage that was knee high. The height of your knees above the ground in the middle of 300,000 people.
00:55:09
How would the Rolling Stones escape from that if they hadn't played? I bet there's no green room.
00:55:14
I bet there's no backstage if they fucking built that overnight. No. There's nowhere to go.
00:55:19
I would. Now I really want to watch Gimme Shelter and see exactly what it looked like.
00:55:23
because all of those elements are, it's like the reason over time, things like that, like high stages.
00:55:30
This is a big thing in standup comedy. Nobody ever wants to do outside shows because sometimes people are like, yeah, just outside and you can just talk.
00:55:38
And it's like, no, no, no. It has to be, you have to have nice loud mics and you have to have like, you have to have walls and a ceiling
00:55:46
because when energy dissipates, then you're just like shouting into a barrel. It's like pointless.
00:55:51
the comic never feels like they're doing good you can't there's no monitor blah blah blah yeah
00:55:57
like there's a lot of ways for things to go wrong and you have to kind of like the way you control
00:56:02
an audience is by being amazing but like this audience it didn't matter how amazing the rolling
00:56:08
stones were they were right down on everyone else's level yeah so the band continues their set
00:56:13
but what happens next what's remembered as the breaking point of this nightmarish event
00:56:18
is still unclear to this day. Most sources agree that Murdoch, who has been fighting his way toward the stage,
00:56:26
climbs up onto a speaker box as the Stones play Under My Thumb. Presumably, he wants a better view of the band,
00:56:33
but Murdoch is pulled off by a member of the Hells Angels. The two men have some sort of hostile exchange,
00:56:40
and the Hells Angel punches Murdoch in the face. Patty misses the first few moments of this fight,
00:56:45
but she sees her boyfriend as he's knocked to the ground by a team of two or three Hells Angels.
00:56:51
And then she sees Murdoch hop back up onto his feet. He rushes back into the crowd as those gang members chase him.
00:56:58
Oh, my God. And he winds up back at Patty's side. Then he pulls out the gun and aims it in front of him.
00:57:05
There's no other way to put it. This is a terrible, dangerous decision he makes.
00:57:09
But as Saul Osterlitz writes, quote, Hunter was not just another concert goer. He was a black man amid a sea of white faces
00:57:16
and perhaps his reckless calculation was predicated on the knowledge that he had already been singled out for punishment
00:57:23
by a group of white men known to target black people. Yeah, I don't think it would have gone well for him
00:57:28
even if he didn't have had a gun on him. Correct. You know? Yes. Before Murdoch can even fire that gun,
00:57:35
even if he was planning on firing the gun, no one will ever know, one of the Hell's Angels stabs him with a hunting knife.
00:57:43
He falls to the ground and the crowd around him scatters, except for Patty, who was standing there horrified.
00:57:51
The Rolling Stones are only about 20 feet away, but they don't know what's happening down in the audience.
00:57:57
Murdoch is injured, but he's still alive at this point. He's not holding the gun anymore, and he's literally on the ground.
00:58:04
In any other scenario, he would have been hauled off site by, like, security, maybe arrested on a gun charge.
00:58:11
Instead, the Hells Angels stab Murdoch several more times, including in the neck.
00:58:18
They kick him in the face. They throw a garbage can at his head. Murdoch Hunter is murdered by the Hells Angels to the sound of the Rolling Stones.
00:58:29
Patty says, quote, I remember screaming and trying to get him and people pulling me back, trying to protect me.
00:58:35
And then I remember this one Hells Angel turning around and grabbing me and telling me,
00:58:39
Why are you crying over him? He's not worth it. End quote. Oh, my God. 18-year-old Meredith Murdoch Hunter is pronounced dead at 6.30 p.m., halfway through the Rolling Stones set.
00:58:52
His body is moved to an office on site until transportation can be arranged. Someone gives Patty a sedative to help her cope with the shock.
00:59:02
So much has been said and written and debated about Murdoch's decision to brandish that gun that night.
00:59:08
Some have painted him unsurprisingly as an aggressive intoxicated gunman whose decision could have resulted in many more deaths and put the band at risk.
00:59:20
Others, including Patty, insist he was only trying to defend himself after being singled out and that his murder was not justified.
00:59:28
A jury will eventually acquit the gang member who fatally stabbed Murdoch after that Hells Angel claims self-defense.
00:59:35
But as Greel Marcus once wrote, quote, a young black man murdered in the midst of a white crowd by white thugs as white men played their version of black music.
00:59:45
It was too much to kiss off as a mere unpleasantness. End quote. Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
00:59:54
That framework like that framing is so important And I never thought about it that way before wow yeah so eventually the rolling stones finish their set they leave the stage they run to a
01:00:07
helicopter that's waiting to take them back to san francisco their assistant at the time a woman
01:00:13
named georgia bergman tells the all told podcast quote there's this rush of people on this helicopter
01:00:19
I can't remember how many people it should have held, but maybe seven or eight, something like that.
01:00:25
There's 15 to 18 people trying to get on and we take off. It's quiet. People are quiet.
01:00:32
I'm thinking, well, never mind the Hells Angels if we crash. We're flying at a very unhealthy angle.
01:00:38
And when we land, it's a pretty abrupt landing. And we're all really thankful. I don't think I ever wanted to get on a helicopter again.
01:00:47
End quote. Fuck. I mean, you know, part of it is like, thank God that helicopter was there.
01:00:56
But who planned the helicopter? Because someone was fucking smart enough to plan for a helicopter, which means you could have fucking planned for other shit, too.
01:01:04
It was a Rolling Stones party, I bet. Of course. I don't think it was like anyone planning the festival.
01:01:09
It was. But what a shitty I got mine kind of like. I don't know. But at the same time, it's like the vibe was let's all just get together and have this fun, cool thing.
01:01:21
Now hundreds of thousands of people at Altamont, many of them intoxicated, walk back along the brand new highway to their cars in the dark of night.
01:01:31
So like I'm imagining there weren't even like the freeway lights. It was an unopened freeway.
01:01:39
Yeah. It's so weird. Anybody that's driven on the 580, picturing it as a brand new freeway that hasn't been open yet and is so mind-blowing.
01:01:47
Yeah. It's so weird. I'm just going to keep saying that throughout the rest of this podcast.
01:01:51
So these people also leave behind a mess that takes three months to clean up. And it has spread over the surrounding roadways and fields, all used as impromptu garbage cans and bathrooms all day long.
01:02:06
Jesus. In addition to the murder of Murdoch Hunter, three other Altamont attendees are killed that night.
01:02:15
19-year-old Leonard Krijak is pulled under by the current in a nearby irrigation canal and drowned.
01:02:22
Oh, God. And both 22-year-old Richard Salove and 19-year-old Mark Figer are killed outside of the venue in a hit-and-run accident that remains unsolved to this day.
01:02:33
Holy shit. But of course, it's believed the driver was intoxicated. Sure, yeah. And there's no fucking lights anywhere.
01:02:39
Right. Worst case scenario. Immediately after the story of the Altamont nightmare breaks, the public looks for someone to blame, of course.
01:02:49
It's a question people still wrestle with today. But as Joel Sullivan points out, quote, the organization and structure of the event was so shadowy, the chain of command so circuitous and the work so improvised, nobody could ever tell who was in charge.
01:03:03
When there is nobody in charge, nobody is at fault. End quote. In the weeks after Altamont, Greel Marcus visits Murdoch Hunter's mother while he's working on a piece about the concert for Rolling Stone magazine.
01:03:18
He learns that no one associated with Altamont, including the Rolling Stones, have reached out to her.
01:03:24
So her son is murdered at this concert and everyone's just moving it along. Marcus goes on to describe Altamont as, quote, the worst day of my life.
01:03:36
I don't care if I never hear another rock and roll record again. Wow. Yeah. And this is a young man who works at Rolling Stone.
01:03:46
It's his life. Yeah. One year after the concert in early December of 1970, the Maisels finally release the Rolling Stones documentary Give Me Shelter.
01:03:57
Its climax is the moment when Murdoch Hunter is fatally stabbed, which has been captured by the documentary crew's cameras in real time.
01:04:07
This film divides critics. Some describe it as a masterpiece that captures the brutal end of the idealistic but tumultuous 1960s.
01:04:16
Others see it as exploitative and criticize the Maisels for using Murdoch's killing as the emotional crux of the film.
01:04:23
Yeah. Meredith Murdoch Hunter's name is forever associated with this chaotic event.
01:04:28
But for many years, his story and the nuances of who he was get lost in all the noise.
01:04:35
This has changed recently with the release of Saul Austerlitz's book, Just a Shot Away, which is heavily focused on Murdoch and the role that systemic racism played in his death.
01:04:45
Joel Sullivan, who, like Austerlitz, is a prominent writer and expert on this event, sums up the tragedy and legacy of Altamont very well.
01:04:54
He writes, quote, at the height of rock's golden year, 1969, the Stones did reign as the world's greatest rock and roll band.
01:05:02
An open air free concert in Golden Gate Park might have made a picturesque victory lap, but the innocent hippie dream was not to be.
01:05:11
Instead, the band blindly willfully stumbled into catastrophe. If Woodstock had been the rock's promised land, Altamont was its hell.
01:05:19
The killing of Murdoch Hunter so flagrantly flew in the face of the Woodstock myth,
01:05:24
all men do not live like brothers. And that's the story of the death of Murdoch Hunter and the disastrous 1969 free concert at Altamont.
01:05:34
Holy shit. And here's my mom in her nurse's whites. Oh my God. Watching these kids walk back onto the ward with their eyes like they've all been traumatized.
01:05:47
Like she was like, I didn't even want to get them in trouble because they'd already gotten in trouble.
01:05:55
They got themselves in trouble I wonder like what their stories were Did they change their lives Did you know like what did that change in your life when you were that kid and you saw such horrible things
01:06:06
Right. And also anyone else that was there. Anybody, all the people that were showing up thinking, yay, we get Woodstock.
01:06:14
Yeah. Or even what about some of those Hells Angels? Like, what happened after that?
01:06:20
It's like you just stab a person to death. Yeah. And then it's like, what? Move on.
01:06:26
Yeah. I don't know. That's so fucked up. The whole thing is just so like, oh, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
01:06:34
We can't do acid and drink $4,000 worth of beer and then everybody makes great decisions.
01:06:41
Or that idea of like peace and love, peace and love just doesn't work when there's fucking greedy motherfuckers who are just in it for themselves.
01:06:49
also peace and love is like peace and love is situational and it's also you gotta plan for it
01:06:57
you gotta make sure that people don't get stressed to their limits as a crowd it's almost like the crowd follows the crowd
01:07:05
as we all know let's fucking do some what are you even doing right now no I want to keep on talking about why it's the worst
01:07:13
fucking thing in the world let's end this the day before a vacation on a fucking high ass
01:07:19
note. Good idea. Please. Let's take some good acid to fucking repair that bad acid trip. Let's take the good acid
01:07:27
of what are you even doing right now? The hashtag. That's right. Okay, we end our episode. We always end our episode, or most
01:07:34
of the time end our episode, with you telling us in the comments on social media,
01:07:38
in our email, wherever, what you are doing while you're listening to My Favorite
01:07:41
Murder so we know where you are and we can keep an eye on you now so we can have some fun.
01:07:47
We can watch you in your private life. Okay, this is from Instagram from Kenzie underscore Alina.
01:07:54
What are you even doing right now? I'm on my way to my first ever night working at a haunted house as a scare actor.
01:08:04
I've wanted to do this since I was in middle school. And finally, at 31, I'm taking the plunge.
01:08:11
Happy spooky season. Pumpkin emoji. a scare actor also known as an actor i love it oh so funny okay well this one
01:08:23
these are like a perfect hand-in-hand combo this is from instagram from s rosen 6620 and it says
01:08:32
what are you even doing right now i'm driving through mcdonald's while listening to karen
01:08:35
in episode 428 tell me about the monopoly scam i'm 19 weeks pregnant and there's currently
01:08:42
nothing more refreshing than a McDonald's Diet Coke. SSDGM, Sarah. Damn. Sarah, I can't agree
01:08:50
with you about a McDonald's Diet Coke more. There is something strangely perfect and delicious.
01:08:56
Like, well, of course, everything else about fast food is so addictive, but that's the kind of thing
01:09:03
Bill and I were driving somewhere one time. I can't remember where. Our CFO and I were driving
01:09:08
somewhere and I was like oh wait you go to this drive-thru real quick I need a good diet coke it's
01:09:13
confounding to me to go through a drive-thru to get a drink like I just to get a drink because I
01:09:19
don't take care of myself like that you know what I mean well Bill was also confounded he goes we
01:09:24
have diet coke at the office I'm like it's not the same I want it do it I love that recently
01:09:29
Vince and I got the wrong order at McDonald's but it came with like one of the Sundays old
01:09:34
school Sundays and I fucking like ate it and cried and was just like I'm so glad about this
01:09:40
mess up yes it's perfect you know what's funny the last time I had a mess up and I was like
01:09:45
don't order Taco Bell through Postmates then idiot like what are you doing but it was like
01:09:53
the worst order where it was like everything it was like something with no like a quesadilla with
01:09:59
no cheese or something where I'm like, what are you doing? The weirdest drink, the drink was green.
01:10:05
Everything was like, didn't have a thing on it where I'm like, just don't get fast food
01:10:09
then. You don't want fast food. No, but I get to eat those cannolis now. Thank you very much.
01:10:14
Oh, it is cannoli time. Oh my God. I'm so excited. Would you like to choose one?
01:10:17
Yeah. There's a chocolate covered one, like the shell chocolate covered, but I think I'm going
01:10:22
to go classic. Oh, good. Because I want that chocolate one. Yes. Yay. Pinocchios.
01:10:27
Thank you. What's up? Do, do, do. Happy vacation. Oh, my God. What a way to celebrate.
01:10:33
So perfect. Last show before vacation. Yay. Boom. Cheers. Cheers to you. Stay sexy.
01:10:40
And don't get murdered. Goodbye. Goodbye. Elvis, do you want a cookie? This has been an Exactly Right production.
01:10:55
Our senior producer is Alejandra Keck. Our managing producer is Hannah Kyle Creighton.
01:10:59
Our editor is Aristotle Acevedo. This episode was mixed by Liana Squalache. Our researchers are Maren McClashen and Allie Elkin.
01:11:07
Email your hometowns to myfavoritemurder at gmail.com. Follow the show on Instagram and Facebook at myfavoritemurder and Twitter at myfavemurder.
01:11:15
Goodbye. Goodbye. Oh my God. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Lucky out. Mmm! Holy shit. That's so fucking good.
01:11:31
Can you guys try that one? Mm-hmm. Oh my God, there's chocolate in it. You think you're in control until you realize you're not.
01:11:39
As they're having this gun battle, thousands of feet up in the air, many of the bullets start to puncture the aircraft.
01:11:46
I thought we were going to die then. The Knife is a podcast about the moment ordinary lives take an unexpected turn.
01:11:53
Real people, real stories, and the split second that changes everything. every Thursday on the Exactly Right Network
01:12:02
and the iHeart Podcast Network. Listen to The Knife on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
01:12:09
When you feel uncomfortable, what do you put on? Biggie. You put on Biggie when you feel uncomfortable?
01:12:14
Because I want to get confident. This is DJ Hester Prynne's Music is Therapy, a weekly podcast from me, a DJ and licensed therapist.
01:12:21
It's Mental Health Month. Let's figure out what actually works. I didn't care about my life circumstance
01:12:26
when I listened to that stuff. It didn't matter to me. This isn't just a podcast. It's unconventional therapy for you every day.
01:12:33
Open your free iHeartRadio app, search DJ Hester Prynne's Music is Therapy, and start listening now.
01:12:38
Before NXIVM, Nancy Solzman wanted to help people. Being able to help somebody, it's probably the biggest motivator of my entire life.
01:12:46
She trained in something called neurolinguistic programming. People loved our training.
01:12:51
Then, everything changed. Yeah, and they called it a cult. How does a method designed to improve lives end up in a cult?
01:12:59
A knife in the hands of a surgeon is an amazing tool. A knife in the hands of a murderer is a weapon.
01:13:06
Listen to Mind Games on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.