Mick Montgomery is a Wright State BA graduate, local musician since the ‘60s, experienced the Haight/Ashbury scene in San Francisco, taught art in public schools for nine years and owned Canal Street Tavern from 1981-2013. He booked and mentored countless local bands, national acts, giving several national acts their start. His path to Wright State started with a definite love of art but an uncertain long term focus. “I knew that I loved art and knew I wanted to study it but had no idea what I could do with it.”
Montgomery started the year the first issue of The Guardian was published. “I started in 1965, graduated in 1970,”Montgomery took a two year hiatus going to California in the late ‘60s, returning to finish school in ’70. “I went to California after going to school for a while. I wasn’t getting good grades. I just wasn’t applying myself and wasn’t getting inspired to create a lot of art.” Montgomery’s focus was sculpture and painting. At the end of the semester the students had a museum-like showcase and were graded on their bodies of work. “In ’66, one of those came up, I had a few paintings but (not) really anything I was super proud of. It really made me realize that I wasn’t into it,” Montgomery admits. “If I was gonna be involved and cared about it, I should do it right. That was when I decided to leave Dayton. It was the beginning of the summer of love and if you’re going to San Francisco be sure to wear flowers in your hair.”
“Part of the reason, I wasn’t getting into school was because I was living in a commune house in East Dayton, that was a mad house and a band house,” Montgomery reflects. “The artsy bohemian people came to that house. It was a crazy scene. At least a dozen people shared that house.” Montgomery found it hard to concentrate with all the distractions at the time.
He was playing in a band called Tonto’s Headband featured as Dayton’s first psychedelic rock band. It was somewhat unheard of (at the time) to do originals. They were doing originals and “rocking” up old traditional tunes, with louder volume and more energy. “I really wanted to see what was happening in the San Francisco music scene. There were a couple bands I was totally obsessed with in that psychedelic scene.”
Montgomery went cross-country with five friends from the commune. The driver was from Middletown, home from Vietnam, decorated and very straight laced. He had the military hair cut so he stood out like a sore thumb. One of the girls persuaded him to drive.
That was when, military personal and hippies “didn’t get along.”
Hippie is a common blanket term now but back then Montgomery said it had a much harder meaning. “People don’t realize that the term hippie was the same as being called (something) derogatory. It was the meanest, worst thing you could call somebody. Usually when someone was called that they were looking to see if you’d back down, they were trying to start something.”
Next week Montgomery discusses the mid-‘60s Dayton music scene, cultural diversity and how “hippies” were treated, before leaving for San Francisco and the Haight/Ashbury district.
