Typhoon Party on Okinawa July 1970 plus Our Fantastic Record Collections

When typhoons hit, we were restricted to our barracks, so we partied. I had my camera on a tripod, and in this shot I'm the guy in front who was so loaded that I damn near fell over backwards after setting off the camera's self timer. I was dealing with jugglin' camera and flash exposure setting numbers in my head, had only been on the Rock (Okinawa) about a week and had just bought my first professional grade 35 MM camera -- an Asahi Pentax Spotmatic. So I forgot to smile as the flash went off right in my eyes and I fell backwards. Oh well, it's still a good photo to see some of my old buddies in.

You can now imagine how fantastic it was for me when, after graduating from Photo Lab Tech School, I arrived on Okinawa and discovered that there were high quality component stereo systems well placed in every barracks and their owners were often cranking out rockin’ sounds from them. They were rockin’ on The Rock.

On The Rock, the variety of recorded music that was available for listening pleasure was outa’ site. Some of us GIs had brought as many of our record albums as we could to The Rock, and the largest retail store on my U.S. Army base over there, the Main PX, not only sold record albums at the lowest prices that I had ever seen, there was an outstandingly large number and selection of them.

I had been collecting record albums since I was thirteen years old. I was one of the first kids in my high school to buy the first albums of John Mayall and the Bluesbreakers, Cream, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Country Joe and the Fish, Zappa, Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, The Doors, Jimi Hendrix, plus I had albums by The Animals, The Yardbirds, The Blues Project, Muddy Waters, West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band, and I could keep on truckin’ with puttin’ names this list. When I flew to Okinawa in June 1970, I took about twenty-five of those albums with me, in a psychedelic art covered record carrying case.

But (Hallelujah!) them army buddies of mine on The Rock turned me on to all kindsa’ new music.

My good friend Bart, from San Francisco, had all of Quicksilver Messenger Service’s album covers displayed on his barracks room wall, because that was his favorite band. I had never heard of them till he turned me onto to ‘um. Bart had grown up living two blocks from the world famous 1960s hippie haven known as Haight-Ashbury. When he was a teenager, hundreds of other teenagers were running away from their homes all over America to go to “The Haight” to “Turn On-Tune In-and-Drop Out” but all Bart had to do was walk up the street from his family’s home to get there. Them other kids were infamous for bumming spare change off of strangers in order to be able to buy themselves some food to survive on. Bart said he knew it was a good thing for him that whenever he got hungry all he had to do was walk home and ask his mother what was in the fridge that he could snack on or what was for supper.

I was in Bart’s two man barracks room one day when one of our barracks buddies walked into the room and said, “Hey man, I really dig this cat from England named Elton John, have any of you guys ever heard this album of his, ever heard of him before?”

Bart, his roommate, and I replied, “No.”

Then Bart told him, “No, man, we ain’t ever heard of him yet, but you can put that record on the turntable when this Pink Floyd one is done playing. We’re gonna’ finish listening to Careful With That Ax Eugene first. Crews never heard it before.” Musical adventures like that happened to us quite often on The Rock.

There are two other notable albums which I heard first, through friends of mine, on The Rock that are still amongst my favorites: First Step by The Faces, with Rod Stewart on vocals and Ron Wood on guitars, and one of the most finely crafted albums of that era–The Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus by Spirit. Friends, buddies, and new acquaintances of mine over there often insisted that I sit down and listen to some record album that I had never had the pleasure of hearing before.

Some GIs had great selections of Rhythm and Blues albums to play for themselves and us buddies of theirs. They’d add to our musical mix the solid soul sounds of Diana Ross and the Supremes, The Temptations, The Four Tops, Areatha Franklin, Junior Walker and the All Stars, and the hardest workin’ man in show business—James Brown.

I love the fantastic 1960s-70s Top 40 songs that are still played on oldies radio stations today, but there are many other dynamite songs on those music artists’ albums that’re rarely ever heard by most people. On The Rock, and in army photo school, we were into what I have always been into, listening to whole record albums, not just the most popular songs on each album which were issued as 45 RPM singles and played over and over again on radio stations.

We GIs had some great Rock ‘n Roll and Rhythm ‘n Blues and Blues and a bit of Folk and some Jazz and a little Classical music listening times in our barracks on The Rock, during the time that I was stationed there in 1970-71.

We loved our music.

Life in our barracks even got a lot better when, sometime in late 1970 or early 1971, an official U.S. Army directive came down from somewhere way up above which stated that we lowly, low ranking GIs living in army barracks could redecorate our places of residence to suit ourselves (with some reasonable limitations of course). At least it was that way on The Rock. The stated spirit of the deal was, “Make ‘um up just like home, after all, they are your home away from home for now.”

Nice coffee tables were issued all around to every one who wanted one in every army barracks on The Rock, and, if I remember correctly, floor and/or table lamps too; portable, wooden, chest high, eight-foot wide office type room dividers were issued. I can’t remember all that they issued, but I do remember that I got one of everything that they did issue. I also got my hands on a comfortable, living room type, well cushioned, bamboo framed chair from somewhere. Can’t remember if the Army gave the chairs out, or I bought it off of somebody, but it was great to have it right next to my bunk were it would have been against Army Rules and Regulations prior to that directive making things more homey.

There were men living in double occupancy, semi-private barracks rooms, and they were told to paint their rooms any color that they wanted to–as long as it was all one color. And they could chose their roommates. My good friend Doug from Florida and his roommate painted their room bright red. Doug loved walking up to our barracks with a few of us barracks mates of his and pointing out the way that his beeerite red room appeared to be jumping right out through the windows.

Men in the twenty man barracks squad bays were given permission to rearrange their bunks in what ever pattern that facilitated their maximum achievable privacy, comfort, and social needs.

In some army barracks, groups of the closest buddies living there would all form various sized living pods in their squad bays. They lined their wall lockers all up into nifty room dividers, that went in a semicircle or squared U shape from the wall then out and around their bunks and back to the wall again; then they put a rod with a curtain hanging down from it across a door sized opening which they had left between two wall lockers in the semicircle.

The pod buddies and the two double room residents, always liked the same kinds of music, which they had amassed in their individual record collections.

I’d go visit some Janis Joplin or James Gang fans for awhile, walk out through their barracks afterward and hear some Otis Redding or Ike and Tina Turner albums playing in a different pod or room, some Beatles playing in just about any pod or room, and the music of my all time favorites, The Rolling Stones, was liable to come wafting towards me from any direction at any time from any barracks on The Rock.

Barracks buddies often followed the same professional and college sports games with a passion, but not always the same teams, we were all from too many places back home. Athletes, science guys, electronics buffs, history buffs, outdoorsmen, book worms (most of us had a bit of that in us) all formed close friendships in their living quarters. Any combination of common interests that could help a wide variety of heterosexual American men to live together comfortably and peacefully in such limited privacy and personal space was the glue that binds.

Due to that Army directive, every barracks received government funds to redo their day room (recreational room). We all were given permission to buy new stuff for our day rooms, paint them up nicely, and arrange them as we felt was best for all. Anything that was still good stayed, anything that needed replacing was replaced.

Day rooms generally had a TV, a stereo, a Ping-Pong Table, you know they had to have a Pool Table, a reading room stocked with a few books and magazines, plus there were board games and decks of cards for all to share. There was always at least one soft sofa and several soft, comfortable chairs in the TV viewing area. Nice digs, 'ey?

An American GI On Okinawa In 1970-71
A popular saying and bit of graffiti amongst us GIs in those days was "F.T.A."
okinawa1970-71.blogspot.com

email: ursusdave at yahoo dot com

© David Robert Crews {a.k.a. ursusdave}

Taken on: July 27, 2009

Tags:

ursusdave

Okinawa

Photography by David Robert Crews

Sets appears in: • Family, Friends and I • I was a US Army Photographer on Okinawa 1970-71

Groups appears in: • soulful journey • Music,Quotes,Lyrics,etc of the World more » • a new world • summer and spring seasons • The Sixties Male (1960-1969) « less

Stats: 38,327 views / 13 comments

go back