Usually if someone says “you’re history” they mean you are no longer applicable to what’s going on. It’s like “you’re history” doesn’t really have a nice ring to it. The Webster’s dictionary definition is “an account of what has happened in the life of a people, country, etc”.
So you’re a memory, a used to be. Be it an employment situation, living situation, sport situation; you are what once was! Of course ultimate history is if you’re no longer with us and they put you in a book!
Well, the last time I checked I was still alive, had a job writing and enjoying life, so when I got a call from a friend in California and the first thing he said was “you’re history” I was worried. But it wasn’t bad, he give me a link to a web site about a Museum of the “History” of rock and roll in Sacramento. “I went to it and checked it out and you guys are hanging on the wall.” There it was again; “you’re history”. My girlfriend immediately started calling me a historical relic!
Its actually kind of funny because my becoming historical came from working at The Sound Factory, a long gone concert and dance hall in Sacramento. It was in the late sixties and the height of the west coast music explosion. I was part of the action and what was hanging on the wall were posters of the shows we’d put on. “Presented by The Sound Factory” was at the bottom of all of them. The acts had ranged from Muddy Waters to Pink Floyd, Santana to the Chambers Brothers, Fleetwood Mac to Jethro Tull, Canned Heat and Country Joe and The Fish, and more that went on to become well known. I did have to agree, it was history, a unique one at that.
I had been going to college at the time and with some fellow students produced several concerts at the college gym. They were hits, Janis Joplin and Big Brother and the Holding Company and Jimi Hendrix were the big ones. I was the person with my name on the contracts so after a few shows a guy approached me about opening a concert/dance hall with all the up and coming groups. Long story short; I rounded up some people and with our benefactors cash turned an abandoned hardware store into a rock hall. We had no idea we’d be part of any history, we were just guys and girls that wanted to rock and roll. We were so naïve we didn’t even realize that some of the businesses in the neighborhood were worried we’d ruin their neighborhood. Soon the battle began, we keep doing shows but myself and one other guy spent at least one night every other week at city hall pleading to keep our “dance” license. It was classic.
The police were for us; we hired 6 off duty officers per show, and the restaurants loved us because all the concert goers went to them, but the car dealerships were arch enemies. They were old line, old school businessmen afraid our clientele, young people and college kids, would ruin their business by scaring customers away or vandalizing their cars parked outside. We knew that was ridicules, it was the mellow sixties, the summers of Loves, no bad vibes, no vandalism. However, we had to surrender our dance license and eventually The Sound Factory folded because it couldn’t keep up with other promoters who could do more dances without fighting city hall.
Now I realize it was historical in the sense that a lot people were doing what we were doing at the time, and that time will never be replicated, but we’d been fortunate to have been able to provide some excitement and music and color to it! In fact, “you’re history” has a nice ring to it now!!
You can reach Rick Schultze by emailing yarick@pioneer.net