Woodstock Memories: Jason Dole’s Conversation with Michael Lang

Talk about Woodstock Lost and Found.

This past weekend, Radio Catskill’s Jason Dole found an interview he’d been trying to recover for years – a brief conversation with 1969 Woodstock Music & Arts Fair organizer, Michael Lang.

Unfortunately, the audio of this conversation is still missing. Fortunately, Jason transcribed the entire interview for an article in a now-defunct web publication, and we can bring you that article below.

At the time, Jason was working at the Museum at Bethel Woods on the original Woodstock site, and Lang was there, autographing copies of his books, Woodstock Festival Remembered (1970), and The Road to Woodstock: A Definitive Look Back (2009).

Lang passed away in 2022.

More overlooked and forgotten Woodstock history can be found on Radio Catskill’s Woodstock Lost & Found Podcast.

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BETHEL, N.Y. (August 17, 2012)

Hundreds of thousands of young people descended on Sullivan County 43 years ago and made cultural history at the Woodstock Music & Art Fair. While things are pretty quiet on the original festival field and performing arts center at Bethel Woods this anniversary, the Museum at Bethel Woods is jumping with commemoration.

They’re celebrating the anniversary in a fine and freaky fashion…literally! Staff and volunteers are dressing in 60s-era clothing. There are also two showings a day of the nearly 4-hour long 1970 Woodstock documentary film, and artists, alumni, and authors have been stopping by. Among them is original Woodstock festival producer Michael Lang.

Lang was 25 and already had one rock festival under his belt (Miami Pop, 1968) when he formed Woodstock Ventures with partners Joel Rosenman, John P. Roberts, and Artie Kornfeld.

When the festival was driven out of its original location near Wallkill, NY weeks before show time, Michael Lang was instrumental in keeping the Woodstock team working on the dream.

However, talk to Michael Lang today, and he has very little to say about himself and Woodstock. To him, the big story will always be the people who came together and the experiences they had.

Michael Lang was signing books at the Museum at Bethel Woods on Thursday [August 16, 2012]. I caught up with him there.

Jason Dole: What do you think of being here here on the 43rd anniversary of Woodstock?

Michael Lang: I think that it’s amazing that it was 43 years ago. It’s always a shocker when you think how long ago it happened. We were kids and many years have gone by since. But it’s always a nice feeling to be here.

JD: Your book, The Road to Woodstock, came out in time for the 40th anniversary. It really seems like you took a trip back for it.

ML: The Road to Woodstock was going to be a serious remember-it-all, you know, describe-the-trip. When it was first proposed by the publisher I agreed. I thought, “what a good idea, this should be a piece of cake.” Soon after I realized I may not remember that much. That’s sort of when the panic set in. But when I started to physically type, everything opened up and I was watching it like a movie, except that it was in Smell-O-Vision.

…It felt like the right time to put it all down. I’ve heard so many versions of what happened from so many people who probably didn’t have a clue, that I thought it would be good to get the story down, at least in the way I lived it.

JD: There are so many gray areas and myths about Woodstock, but isn’t it kind of poetic that we’ll never get a totally clear picture of exactly what happened there?

ML: I think that’s true. There are so many hundreds of thousands of experiences that the people who

were part of this, and made it what it is, have had. People are always anxious to tell me their stories. At some point in the conversation, just about every one of them says that Woodstock changed their life. That’s always kind of been something that I cherish.

JD: There are those who say “Woodstock didn’t change anything.”

ML: You know, you expect the next morning you’re going to wake up and it’s a diffferent world, and that’s not reality. But it certainly did plant a lot of seeds that we’re sort of living under the shade of today.

JD: Speaking of seeds, you were in Sullivan County last year for the FarmStock event. Do you stay on top of agricultural issues in the Catskills since you have such a famous connection to local farmland?

ML: Yeah, I do. We formed an organization called Farm Hearts a couple of years ago. With Mark Ruffalo, Victoria Lessner, and a bunch of people basically from Sullivan County to help support the farmers and hopefully prevent the fracking from coming in and ruining our world. So, yeah. I have a lot of deep roots here, obviously, and I owe a lot to this area.

JD: Woodstock Alumni always have great stories about how they got to the festival. How did you arrive?

ML: I came here by car, by helicopter, by horse, and by motorcycle. (laughs)

JD: What do you remember about the music?

ML: I remember all the music to varying degrees. There were some incredible performances, there were some that were less-than-incredible, but they were all sort of immersed in the spirit that the people who were part of this gave to us. So they were all special in their own way.

JD: The movie has come to define Woodstock for most people, but it doesn’t tell the whole story. What do you want people to know that they don’t get from the movie?

ML: The movie was a pretty good document of what happened here …The personal stories are what we all carry with us. There is no way to tell all of the stories, but you can tell some of them that were common to all of us, and the movie did that.

We’re in the middle of working on a Broadway musical about the Woodstock experience

JD: What’s on the horizon for you? Another festival?

ML: We’re not putting together a festival. We’re in the process of putting together a festival ground which will sort of be a permanent festival site for New York State, which it doesn’t have. Probably in Ulster County.

JD: Well, thanks for talking, and happy Woodstock Anniversary.

ML: Thank you. Happy anniversary to everybody who was part of what we did 43 years ago.

Image: Jason Dole (left) interviews original Woodstock festival producer Michael Lang in 2012. (Duke Devlin)