Tape Spaghetti

Last week Scott & Blake dove into the birth of the Rolling Stones' touring empire.

In Part II, they find out what it cost. After reinventing the modern mega-tour in 1969, the Stones faced backlash from a counterculture that suddenly saw them as corporate villains.

Their response, a massive free concert celebration in Northern California, was meant to be an olive-branch. Instead, the Altamont Speedway Free Festival became the moment rock lost its innocence.

Poor planning, a ground-level stage, and hundreds of thousands of restless fans turned the show into a pressure cooker.

The "security" detail, Hells Angels paid with beer, only exacerbated the slow-motion disaster.

By the time the Stones took the stage, violence was already erupting in the crowd.

What followed was a tragedy and a cultural rupture, immortalized on film and etched into rock history.

This is the finale of the tale of rock idealism's brutal collision with reality—and why, ultimately, the 1960s dream of peace and love couldn’t survive the business it created.

In the 1960s the Rolling Stones were already rock royalty. In 1969, they became an empire.

In this week's Tape Spaghetti, Scott & Blake hone in on the year the Stones built the model by which all future mega-tours would function. For the first time, rock shows became carefully choreographed spectacles, with the band providing total oversight to sound engineering, lighting, transitions, tempos, merchandise, and box office financials.

But scaling came with consequences. Ticket prices soared. Crowds grew enormous. Security risks mounted. And the counterculture that had embraced the Stones accused them of selling out.

This pivotal moment, when rock rebellion met with big business, set the template for every major tour to follow.

For the Rolling Stones, it was the beginning of another 60 years of legendary live shows – but it was also an inflection point of growing pains and the looming disaster that brought the peace and love movement to its bloody, terrifying conclusion.

Welcome aboard the Mothership. In this episode of Tape Spaghetti, Scott & Blake are joined by special guest Richard Oliver (Wampler Pedals, Chasing Tone, Amplify Creative) who shares his personal history and expertise in a deep, joyful, and occasionally unhinged journey through the universe of Parliament-Funkadelic.

P-Funk’s unexpected evolution from 1960s doo-wop into a genre-shattering collage of funk, rock, psychedelia, and Afrofuturism included a rotating cast of unreal musicians (see: Bootsy Collins, Bernie Worrell, and Eddie Hazel) and some of the most influential grooves ever recorded – all under the acid-drenched supervision of George Clinton.

But, what’s the difference between Parliament and Funkadelic? Is Maggot Brain the most cathartic guitar solo of all time? And… what have lightsabers and diapers got to do with it?

Whether you’re simply funk-curious or knee-deep in the P-Funk universe, don’t miss this one.

Welcome to The Source – a buzzy Sunset Strip health-food restaurant... that also happens to be the intersection of kale, celebrities, and the cosmic control of a self-proclaimed deity calling himself Father Yod.

Sound weird? That's because it is weird. And why is this the subject of this week's Tape Spaghetti? Because in the cult of The Source, music is mandatory – but sounding good is forbidden.

Yep, get ready for a trip through a bizarre take on 1970s "wellness" in which, Jim Baker, a magnetic guru also known as the aforementioned Father Yod, recruited runaways and rich kids alike with food, shelter, and a 4:00am bootcamp of chanting, cold plunges, and fingertip pushups.

And while music was a must, anyone who was *talented* was considered an ego-infused enemy.

After Father Yod decided he definitely knew how to hang glide with zero experience, the cult dissolved – but the recordings lived on as collectible, psychedelic evidence of a truly unhinged chapter in music-adjacent history.

Why are music's biggest megastars cashing out their catalogs for jaw-dropping sums—and who’s buying? If you've ever seen a headline like “Queen sells catalog for $1.27B” and wondered "…how does that even work?" – this episode's for you.

Scott and Blake break down the recent gold rush of music rights sales, including the acquisitions of Bieber, Dylan, and Springsteen's oeuvres.

They also turn back the clock to some legendary/infamous cases of royalty bonanzas. Little Richard got fleeced. David Bowie sold "Bowie Bonds." And after the drama of the Beatles' publishing saga, Paul McCartney set the King of Pop on a path to buy the crown jewels.

From copyright basics to the present day money grabs of Primary Wave and private equity, this one is a financial thriller where great tunes are the principal currency.