Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life [Hardcover]

Elliot Tiber (Author), Tom Monte (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 2007

Taking Woodstock is the funny, touching, and true story of Elliot Tiber, the man who was instrumental in arranging the site for the original Woodstock Concert. Elliot, whose parents owned an upstate New York motel, was working in Greenwich Village in the summer of 1969. He socialized with the likes of Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and photographer Robert Mapplethorpe, and yet somehow managed to keep his gay life a secret from his family. Then on Friday, June 28, Elliot walked into the Stonewall Inn—and witnessed the riot that would galvanize the American gay movement and enable him to take stock of his own lifestyle. And on July 15, when Elliot learned that the Woodstock Concert promoters were unable to stage the show in Wallkill, he offered to find them a new venue. Soon he was swept up in a vortex that would change his life forever.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

A humble motel owner and his parents become the heroes in carrying off the momentous 1969 Woodstock rock concert in Tiber's occasionally improbable yet thoroughly entertaining tale. Tiber, né Teichberg of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, put on hold his personal ambition in the mid-1950s as an artist to help his aging Old World Jewish parents run their ramshackle resort motel in White Lake, deep in the Catskill Mountains. Hounded by the guilt that he can't live up to his parents' standards and riven by his own covert homosexuality, Tiber pokes fun at what he calls the Teichberg Curse, a scourge that won't allow the family to escape financial ruin. As head of the Chamber of Commerce in his small town, and possessed of the yearly permit to hold summer music concerts, Tiber gets wind of rock concert promoter Michael Lang's need for a venue to hold the Woodstock festival. A month of frenzied preparations ensues as Max Yasgur's farm is secured, the anticipated numbers swell, and tensions grow in the town. Yet the planning of the concert makes up only one part of Tiber's very human story, which includes affecting side chapters on brushes with artists (Mark Rothko, Robert Mapplethorpe) and standing defiant when the cops raided the West Village gay bar Stonewall. (Aug.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

Review

“[Taking Woodstock] is absolutely amazing! This reviewer couldn’t put it down—in fact, read it twice before writing this review. If you’ve ever dreamed of being at Woodstock or even if you were there, the author Elliot Tiber will take you back.”

(Midwest Book Review )

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 224 pages
• Publisher: Square One Publishers (August 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0757002935
• ISBN-13: 978-0757002939
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #975,234 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "It takes a village" ... and half a million people, September 12, 2007

By 

Bob Lind "camelwest" (Phoenix, AZ United States) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life (Hardcover)

The above would be an appropriate subtitle for this heartfelt but energetic and witty coming-of-age autobiography/memoir by Elliot Tiber, whose main claim to fame is that he fought the petty politics and narrow-mindedness of his small town of Bethel, NY, in order to make possible the Woodstock Festival in 1969.

The author (born Eliyahu Teichberg) grew up in the richly ethnic neighborhood of Bensonhurst, Brooklyn in an emotionally-starved but hardworking family with his Russian-Jewish immigrant parents. His father worked as a roofer, while his mother ran a housewares store in which they all helped out. Elliot finished college and began a moderately successful career in art design, primarily starting out dressing store windows and painting murals for rich Manhattanites. A trip to the Catskills resulted in the family buying a run-down motel right off Highway 17B at White Lake, in the town of Bethel NY, and Elliot found himself splitting his time, working weekdays in NYC and spending weekends doing whatever had to be done to keep the motel operational and barely financially afloat.

At the same time, Elliot came to the realization that he was gay, and - for whatever reason - favored the underground S&M flavored scene that existed in NYC in the mid 1960's. He met and partied with Robert Mapplethorpe, Truman Capote, Tennessee Williams, and even encountered Rock Hudson at one point. Of course, coming out to his conservative parents wasn't an option for him at the time, but his "secret life" during the week somewhat served to make bearable the weekends at the motel, scrubbing toilets and dealing with customer complaints (The Teichbergs cut a few corners in customer service. For example, they had phones in each room, but they weren't connected to anything. The TV was an empty box, as was the air conditioner sleeve below the window. Need soap and a towel? It'll cost ya extra, but you're lucky you made it in today, since Dad has hosed off your sheets - the only cleaning they ever got - just yesterday.)

In early 1969, Elliot read with interest the news accounts that the promoters of the planned Woodstock Music and Art Festival had been denied a permit by the town of Walkill, their planned location. As president (nobody else wanted the job) of Bethel's Chamber of Commerce, he had the authority to issue festival permits, and contacted the promoters about the possibility of moving the festival to Bethel, and offered the meadow of a friend, dairy farmer Max Yasgur, as the perfect venue. Much of the book details the whirlwind events that followed, as the festival took on a life of its own, eventually attracting around 500,000 people to the small town, resulting in threats by locals, payoffs to those who opposed it, nudity, drugs, gangsters, people bathing in the lake, shortages of food and water, but - despite it all - the most historic event in music and counterculture history, after which nothing would ever be the same again for Elliot and his family.

The author has a gift in telling a story, even one as obviously self-centered as this one is, for the most part. Witty and engaging, sure to bring back memories of that era. Loved the reversible (regular/psychodelic) dust jacket! 5 stars out of 5.

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Here's the Woodstock story that we HAVEN'T heard yet!, August 2, 2007

By 

John Tabacco (Stony Brook, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life (Hardcover)

This book was recommended to me by a friend who had read about it in the Cindy Adams gossip column, of all places. Having just finished reading it, all I can say is that Woodstock wouldn't even have happened if Elliot Tiber hadn't found the courage (and the chutzpah) to contact the Woodstock organizers and help them get a permit to stage a show at Max Yasgur's farm (yes, THAT Yasgur's farm).

First of all, this book comes with double dust jacket covers - there's one cover (and an author photo of Tiber) that is very sedate, while the inside cover is full-tilt psychedelic madness accompanied with a photo of Tiber in all his hippie splendor.

This book is a very quick and easy read. The story moves along very smoothly, revealing the agony and the ecstasy of Tiber's life as he explores his homosexuality in New York City with the likes of Robert Mapplethorpe and Truman Capote (just to name two of the more famous paramours with whom Tiber shared a night or two). Equally interesting is how Elliot managed to live a closeted existence every weekend while helping his demanding "old world" Jewish parents try to make a go of their motel, the El Monaco. This motel makes the Waco compound look like Disneyland by comparison - it's a miracle that Tiber didn't lose his mind in addition to losing his money by staying there all those years.

Something I didn't expect to run across in this book is Elliot's participation in the 1969 Stonewall Riot that essentially gave birth to the Gay Liberation movement in America. It's very interesting to see how entwined the struggles for gay rights and the setting of a "peace and love" concert really were - and Tiber stands as the thread-line between the two.

More about finding one's self in America than just sex, drugs, and rock `n roll (don't worry, though - there's plenty of that to go around in this book!), TAKING WOODSTOCK is a story whose time has certainly come.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Taking Woodstock, October 6, 2008

By 

old hippie chick (upstate, NY) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Taking Woodstock: A True Story of a Riot, a Concert, and a Life (Hardcover)

Entertaining, fast moving story about being gay in the 60's, a background on how Woodstock came to be, and an excellent snapshot of the era. Based on a true story, this book shows indeed, that truth is stranger than fiction. The scenes range from bizarre to wildly hilarious. The author touches on the many issues and nuances of the time without getting weighed down by them. I found it a thoughtful rendition of Woodstock experience, from an entirely different perspective. An easy read, I read it in a day.