On this 40th anniversary of the summer of love, the classic rock era is still buzzing with enough electricity to keep this generation of baby boomers going all summer long.   There are alot of salutes to the Monterey Pop Festival, where Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin both leaped from the local stage into the national spotlight.

There are several very nice CD box sets to celebrate these historic moments in rock history as well.  Time Life  & WEA just released a new deluxe box set to rival the ones already out from Rhino Records and the Criterion Collection.  It’s called Summer of Love: Hits of 1967, and includes 2 CD’s of the best of that year’s music from The Association, The Mamas & the Papas, The Beach Boys, The Lovin’ Spoonful, The Monkees, Jefferson Airplane, The Spencer Davis Group, Van Morrison, Donovan, Big Brother & the Holding Company, Paul Butterfield Blues Band and the Yardbirds.

There’s also a bonus DVD with video performances of The Grateful Dead, Cream, The Who, Crosby, Stills & Nash, and Janis Joplin.  Now there’s a trip worth taking! 

Classicrock.about.com has a nice article about collecting vinyl records and the art of the album cover, a subject near and dear to my heart and soul.  They also turned me onto this great website www.vinylrecordday.com which celebrates the LP.  Vinyl Record Day is the First Nonprofit organization dedicated to The Preservation of the Cultural Influence, the Recordings and the Cover Art of the Vinyl Record.

Genesis is on tour, their first in 15 years and their new show is selling out arenas all over the world in Europe, the UK and the US.  Other hot tickets this summer are tours from other high profile classic rock acts like Eric Clapton , Steve Winwood, Stephen Stills, and Paul McCartney doing some surprise small venue gigs to promote his new album Memory Almost Full.   

So I guess we can call this the Summer of 007.  Net Streaming Real Audio in QuickTime through your Windows and into your iPod.  It’s enough to put the “dig” back in digital again.  Yeah baby!