Press and Release

Dateline: Haight Ashbury, San Francisco
Tuesday, December 12, 2006

What is the Summer of Love?

Here in Haight Ashbury that question has been brewing for the past 6 months. May be to find answers we should look at what really happened in 1967 and its legacy and how it can benefit us today. This is the aim of the Summer Of Love Festival, based in Haight Ashbury San Francisco where it all began. It is also the research mission of their Director, Deborah Paulino, who wasn’t there in 1967 but has enough respect for its legacy to do some homework.

The events in 1967 known as the Summer Of Love spanned from January 14 with the Human Be In at the Golden Gate Park Polo Fields and ended October 6 with the Death Of Hippie parade down Haight St., and may events of different natures and content in between and shortly after there and around the world. The promoters and artists of the time were mostly unconnected. The influences of that time were the cause of their simultaneous happenings, some of which are recorded in history books, others only remembered by those who where there.

Hippies, LSD, and Deadheads were only a small part of what was happening in 1967 San Francisco. There were also the intellectuals from Berkeley, the Beatniks from North Beach, the Flower Children from the evangelistic Christian Churches, Bikers from the Hells Angels, the African Americans and more. This experiment spread out all over the world to Boston, New York, London, Los Angeles, Australia, and other Western centers of culture and education. Summer Of Love in 1967 was about youth and the new ideas from young exploring and re-inventing minds.

It was an era of bringing together and celebrating different urban cultures in a gathering of tribes and a living community experiment called Haight Ashbury. It also was an attempt to find ways to heal the world’s problems, then as now the major issue of war, but also the environment, homelessness, free medical for the needy, freedom of expression, and integration and sharing of cultural exchanges.

It also opened Western eyes to indigenous cultures, then the wisdom of the North American and South American Indians, the Eastern mysticism of India. And since then the Australian Aborigines, the African Tribes, Mahamedism, Eskimo, Chinese, Japanese, Tibetan and more. Western society today is inspired by these cultures and freedom of expression in music, drum circles, natural health care, fashion, dance, spirituality, lifestyle, poetry, astrology, and philosophy.

Their 1967 legacy to us is the ecliptic cultural freedom we take for granted in urban centers today. Other cultural identities developed from and since 1967 like the Punks and Rastafarians in the 1970s, the Rainbow Tribes and environmentalists in the 1970s, the Gay, Lesbian, and Goth in the late 1970s and early 1980, and the Electronic Music or Rave Culture and Heavy Metal Culture of the late 1980s early 1990s. And in the 21st Century many urban cultures often known by their favorite music genres like Hip Hop, Industrial, Grunge, or interests like Geeks, New Age, Neo Tribal, Gamers, and Gothic Vampires.

Summer Of Love today is not about dusting off your hippy beads and bell-bottoms as a fashion statement, it is more about dusting off you philosophy and poetry books and checking out what’s new. The Summer Of Love Festival is about new ideas, new arts, new technology, and new ways to help the planet and its many and varied peoples.

This is all of what Summer Of Love Festival 2007 is honoring and celebrating.

The Summer Of Love Festival is an open program of multiple events presented by various promoters, organizations, and non-profits, which are at this moment gathering on the website’s Presenters list. The events range from one day concerts in the park to 3-day camp out music and lifestyle festivals, to open mics, to BurningMan-esq costume galas, to 60’s tribute cabarets, to sketch comedy, to electronic music street fairs, plus more events joining as they are discovered.

Also on the Summer Of Love Festival project list are compilation CD’s of music and spoken word, and t-shirts with fine art and poetry using print on demand technology. Unlike many namesake anniversaries before, Summer of Love Festival aims to give exposure to its individual artists and actually pay them per CD or t-shirt sold. A portion of the net profits will also be distributed amongst charities.

“Our aim is to honor the events of 1967 by promoting artists and presenters celebrating eclectic culture in their own way in the now. 1967 Promoted the freedom of religion, speech, and self-expression we take for granted today. Not only in events such as USA’s Burning Man and Berlin/SF Love Parade, but it also opened urban eyes to the culture and wisdom of indigenous and ancient cultures in spirituality, health care, fashion, and environmentally friendly lifestyles, technology, and industry.” Deborah Paulino stated.

Please create a free account on the web site at www.summeroflovefestival.com to receive updates and to post your links. To list your event in the Summer Of Love Festival program and be part of the Presenters list is free.


By Deborah Paulino

Director
Summer Of Love Festival

Summer Of Love Festival LLC
www.summeroflovefestival.com
1621 Haight St. PMB 9
San Francisco, CA, 94117