The Fall of Peter Green - Munich, 21-24 March 1970
Peter Green: Give Up Livin' | John Mayall's Bluesbreakers 1965-7 | Live 1967-70 | Munich 1970 |
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| Peter Green in Jesus Christ persona, wearing a white robe, crucifix (hidden) and leather sandals, circa late 1969. Green wore a large crucifix around his neck and evangelized during this period, speaking to reporters and, alongside Jeremy Spencer, about his search for God. Many users of LSD at the time had similar experiences and became known as Jesus Freaks. |
1. No turning back ...
Over a couple of days and nights in March 1970 the world changed for legendary British blues and rock guitarist Peter Green (1947-2020) when he encountered a group of German hippies and musicians experimenting with drugs and what would become known as Krautrock - a mix of freeform jazz and heavy, psychedelic rock. The event consequently affected his many friends, family, fans and band mates in Fleetwood Mac. Fellow guitarist Danny Kirwan was also affected by this event, which is commonly referred to as the Munich Incident (Davis 2009, Taylor 2022). It arose out of a party Green and members of the band and management attended in Munich, Germany, organised by young model Uschi Obermaier and her then partner Rainer Langhans, both of the Highfish Commune, an offshoot of the Berlin-based Kommune 1. The Commune was typical of the 60s counterculture movement in the West, aiming to throw off the conservatism and lifestyle of the recent past, and replace it with a more open and creatively expressive mode of living. For young Germans such a Uschi and Rainer, that past included the spectre and reality of Nazism - a history and reality that their '68 Movement rejected. The use of hallucinogenic drugs was key to this rejection and the discovery of new ways of living. Peter Green, in March 1970, was searching for such an escape from the pressures of fame, and as a result he saw the Commune as a possible way out. For those looking on, his actions and behaviour during this period was out of sync with that expected of a rock guitar God, and as a consequence it did not end well, with Green's eventual descent into mental illness. Many of his closest associates at the time have stated, or came to believe in hindsight, that at that party Green overdosed on LSD and mescaline and suffered permanent psychological damage. On the surface this seems plausible, but when one looks deeper into the life and times of Peter Green, both at the individual circumstances of the Munich Incident and Green's pre- and post-party state of mental health, the picture becomes decidedly murky. Within this article original source material relating to this event is presented, along with an analysis of what likely happened in Munich between Sunday 22nd and Tuesday 24th March 1970.
2. Summary: A Munich timeline - March 1970
* Saturday 21st
- Late evening: Fleetwood Mac finish their concert at the Rheinhalle, Dusseldorf, and the road crew drive 7 hrs by van to Munich. Members of the band and management will travel by air, possibly overnight, but more likely early the next day.
* Sunday, 22nd
- Midday: Fleetwood Mac arrive in Munich by air. Peter Green is met at the airport by two Germans he may have met previously - the stunningly beautiful Uschi Obermeier and her partner Rainer Langhans. He is invited by them to a party after the gig at their commune - a rented, 26 room castle just outside of Munich at Kronwinkl. The band are also reluctantly invited.
- Evening: Concert at the Circus Krone-Bau, Munich.
- Late evening: After the concert Uschi and Rainer 'whisk away' Peter and Danny Kirwan to the castle commune. Peter takes LSD / mescaline and begins jamming in the basement studio of the commune, used by German pioneering Krautrock group Amon Düül II. This continues throughout the night and into the next day. Green is entranced by the music.
* Monday, 23rd
- Afternoon: Rainer drives Peter and Danny in his BMW V8 from Kronwinkl back to Munich for the concert that evening.
- Evening: Concert at the Deutsches Museum, Munich.
- Late evening: After the concert Peter travels with Uschi and Rainer back to the party. Dennis Keene travels with him on this occasion. Dennis gives him some LSD upon arrival at the party.
- Later evening: Jeremy Spencer and others arrive at the party. Spencer takes some LSD and joins Peter downstairs for the jam. Upon arrival a tripping Keene tells Spencer they need to rescue Peter as he is concerned for his welfare.
- It is possible that the road crew and some group members in the van travel on to Nuremberg by road upon leaving the party early the next morning. Peter and Dennis remain in Kronwinkl overnight.
* Tuesday, 24th
- Early morning: Dennis Keene calls the Munich hotel from Kronwinkl and tells them of his concerns for Peter's welfare, due to the influence of the Commune, which he refers to as a cult.
- Midday: Mick Fleetwood, Clifford Davis and sound engineer Dinky Dawson head out to Kronwinkl to retrieve Peter. They bring him back to the hotel and convince him to see out the tour.
- Afternoon: The band and entourage drive from Munich to Nuremberg.
- Evening: Concert at the Meistersingerhalle, Nuremberg.
* Three weeks later, the Germans Uschi and Rainer visit Peter in London and stay with him for a period. He subsequently leaves Fleetwood Mac in May 1970 and goes on to release an LP End of the Game in June 1970 which is a wah wah saturated guitar, free-form and jazz-tinged jam fest, heavily influenced by the music of Amon Düül II.
Prior to Munich, Green's musicianship shone brightly as one of the greatest living electric blues rock guitarists, on par with Jimi Hendrix, B.B. King, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck. After that night, and judging by the available live and studio recordings, his playing changed and, in the minds of many, slowly deteriorated, along with his mental state. It moved away from the blues-based rock he had developed since 1966. This change was, in part, a matter of choice by Green. He has stated that he liked the more free form, jazzy music he played in the basement at the party at Kronwinkl, and wanted to continue down that path. His actions at the time were also obviously the largely unplanned, but naturally evolving result of fatigue and mental stress, exacerbated by constant touring and increasing drug abuse. The combination of many such factors gave rise to the events of 1970, and the true significance of any one of those will perhaps never be known. Whether Green's change in musical direction and mental condition was entirely due to what happened in Munich remains debatable, despite John McVie's unequivocal belief that it was. There is no doubt that it is a point in time that those around Green, and Green himself, can use as a marker, or 'fork in the road' as McVie would call it, in the life of the guitarist. The reality, and truth, was obviously much more complicated.
Information about the Munich event has trickled out over time, such as within Mick Fleetwood's 1990 and 2014 autobiographies, the Martin Clemins' 1995 biography and 22 September 2022 blog update, reminiscences by those associated with the band during 2008-9, an account by Rainer Langhans from 2020, and Green's various interview comments, including those from 1981 and 1994-5. As a result, new and varied analyses, interpretations and opinions continue to appear, further muddying the waters. A spirited debate on a Peter Green fandom Facebook site during March 2023 is a good example, wherein reportage of the event is heavily criticised. In the opinion of the current author, whilst much of that reportage over the years has sensationalised what happened at Munich, there has also been a lot of relevant information brought to light as a result. The event is in and of itself sensational, or at least significant and noteworthy, and for this reason as many of the known 'facts' are presented below, in order to de-sensationalise the story and bring it into the realm of a competently recorded historical event.
Precisely what happened to Green in Munich remains unclear, but the outcomes do not. His stellar recording career with bands such as John Mayall's Bluesbreakers (1966-7) and Fleetwood Mac (1967-70) came to a crashing halt shortly thereafter, as did his song writing, though it is argued below that the crash was in reality a soft landing and not without prior warning or subsequent highlights. The Munich Incident merely highlights what can be referred to as 'The Fall of Peter Green', though it did not stand alone. Prior to it he had discussed leaving the band with his colleagues and giving away a substantial portion of his money to charitable causes. And he was close to actually leaving and joining the Highfish Commune at Munich. After finally leaving in May 1970, Green slowly and sporadically entered a mental state - later diagnosed as schizophrenia - which severely hampered his playing, and was one of the factors which caused him to withdraw from playing as he had done previously. Prior to the fall, he was one of the loudest, most aggressive and most expressive electric blues guitarists on the planet, with an unequaled dexterity and a motto of "less is more", fully expressed in his playing of a 1959 Gibson Les Paul plugged into a Fender reverb tube amplifier. After the fall his aggression and attack on the guitar diminished significantly, as did his dexterity and the noise level at which he played. In many instances during his post 1980s comeback, he was almost inaudible and wanted to merely play in the background, as in the time he shared a stage with Carlos Santana to play Black Magic Woman and refused to allow his amp to be turned up and heard. Yet on Mick Fleetwood's 1981 LP The Visitor his singing on Rattlesnake Shake is as powerful as any version from the Fleetwood Mac days. When this author saw Green at a gig in Sydney during 2002 he came away, as did Carlos Santana, feeling that he had not really heard the guitarist at all, with other members of the band doing most of the guitar work.
The so-called fall of Peter Green was not the result of a single drug-overdose event at Munich in March 1970 - far from it. A study of his life up to that point in time reveals as much, as does a brief analysis of his musical output and use of the electric blues guitar idiom as a form of self-expression and window into his psyche.
3. Havin' the blues
When one looks back to Peter Green's childhood, there is no doubt that there was an underlying depressive condition which affected what happened to him in both his public and private life between 1965-70, and specifically at the Munich party. Some of this can be traced to his Jewish ancestry and the trauma that came with it. As Green himself noted of an inherent melancholy:
I was always a sad person. I suppose I felt a deep sadness with my [Jewish] heritage.
As the Times of Israel noted in its 2020 obituary of the guitarist:
Greenbaum, the haunted Jew, did not feel comfortable in Green’s guitar hero suit. Three days of wild partying at a posh villa in a German forest, during which he consumed surreal quantities of LSD and played for hours on end for tripped-out bourgeois Germans who urged him on, finished him. It was the journey from which he did not return. He turned his back on the ego trip and gave himself to the acid trip.
The vast majority of photographs of Green during his time as a professional guitarist in the 1960s show him smiling, though 'smiling depression' is now seen as a common coping mechanism for those who suffer, in an attempt to hide their true mental state from the people around them (Morin 2021). Modern psychiatric analysis, and a research-based, scientific reassessment of the effects of hallucinogenic drugs such as LSD, point to the fact that in many, if not most instances, the onset of schizophrenia and related long-term mental illnesses is the result of genetic factors, and to a much lesser extent environmental factors, rather than recreational drugs alone. Rainer Langhans, in a 2020 interview, comments on the connections between what happened in Munich in March 1970, Peter Green's subsequent diagnosis of schizophrenia and drug use. He helps explain why the guitarist looked back on Munich as a cathartic, spiritually uplifting, and positive event in his life - a view at odds with basically every other commentary.
Events immediately leading up to Munich were ominous for the members of Fleetwood Mac. During late 1969 and early 1970 the band was at the height of its fame and performance. Yet at the same time, Peter Green indicated to his brothers in the band and intimate associates such as girlfriends, that he was not happy with fame and fortune and looking to leave and find a new direction in his life. He was tiring of the pressure associated with being a public figure, uneasy in regard to the fortune he was accumulating, ambivalent over the path he was taking musically, and looking for spiritual guidance. The physical and mental strain could be interpreted as leading to a breakdown, which culminated in his leaving the band during May 1970. All the while, both in the years before the Munich episode and after, Green was taking various drugs, including mescaline, LSD, hashish and marijuana. The effect of the drugs upon him became especially evident during the latter half of 1969 when he began to wear white robes on stage and adopt an almost Jesus Christ like appearance. This was similar to the many so-called Jesus Freaks who began appearing in 1967 during the so-called Summer of Love and individual 'meeting' with Jesus / God whilst under the influence of hallucinogenic drugs (Gersztyen 2020). This seemingly inevitable move to turn against the tide and rejection fame and fortune is reflected in the words of Green's last great hit single from 1969, Oh Well (Part 1):
I can't sing, I ain't pretty and my legs are thin
But don't ask me what I think of you
I might not give the answer that you want me to
Oh, well
He said, "Sit by me and I'll be your guiding hand"
But don't ask me what I think of you
I might not give the answer that you want me to
Oh, well.
Much of Green's song writing between 1966-70 reflects an inner turmoil. He was primarily a blues guitarist and singer, as was exemplified in his work with John Mayall's Bluesbreakers during 1966-7. However, his time with Fleetwood Mac from July 1967 saw him move towards a more psychedelic and heavy rock mixture of songs and improvisation in order to express that innate sense of melancholy. Green was a consummate blues guitar player because he was prone to a melancholia which he reflected in his playing and song writing. He could play the blues because he had the blues. For example, one of his first compositions, recorded at the age of 19 during October 1966 whilst with John Mayall, was entitled Out of Reach. It included the following sombre lyrics:
Out of Reach
I'm so lonesome, I don't even have a friend
I'm so lonesome, I don't even have me no friend
I've done so much crying - will I never laugh again?
People, evil people, don't hurt me so bad
My mind's been broken, my heart feels so sad
Evil people - well I can't even walk out of my door
I ain't different from nobody, and I just can't take no more
I've got to leave - where I'm going I don't know
I've got to leave - where I'm going I just don't know
And I've had so much trouble I'm out of reach - I can't take no more
Herein he speaks of his mind being broken and the deep feeling of sadness. Green appears to have been subject to melancholia leading to bouts of depression from childhood. Various accounts in Clemins refer to this. It is difficult to know precisely to what degree these feelings affected him, as there was no official diagnosis at the time, and it is only in hindsight that we can begin to guess at what his underlying mental issues were. One of his girlfriends noted in Clemins that Green's dark moods were related to his Jewish heritage and upbringing - something he was very much aware of, just as young Germans were aware of the burden of the recent Nazi past. This could be true and explain the likely hereditary nature of an underlying mental illness.
After leaving Fleetwood Mac in May 1970, Green spent the rest of his life being treated, institutionalised, imprisoned, subject to electric shock treatment, and under strong medication to treat his mental state. To simply label his condition schizophrenia or bipolar is not therefore necessarily correct, and whether these various treatments got to the core of his issues and illness is unclear. We should remember that from the 1960s through to the 1980s treatments of drug-related mental health issues and conditions such as bipolar were in a very rudimentary state. If such were to happen to a young Peter Green today, treatment would be very different and attempts would be made to identify the causes rather than simply rely on medication and radical interventions such as electric shock therapy. For example, it has been noted that Green's desire to help the poor and use some of his earnings in this way was similar to the later Live Aid and other events / causes supported by rock stars on numerous occasions in the years since.
In
understanding and identifying the long term nature of Green's illness,
we can turn not only to statements by the guitarist and his family and
friends, but also to the lyrics of many of his songs. These include The World Keep On Turning (recorded 22 November 1967), Trying so Hard to Forget (April 1968), Man of the World (11 January 1969), Oh Well (Part 1) (April-July 1969) and the nightmarish The Green Manalishi
(November 1969). Perhaps the earliest of his Fleetwood Mac recordings to
reflect some of the inner darkness and turmoil was the semi-acoustic The World Keep on Turning from the first Fleetwood Mac album.
Worries and troubles come around
Yes, I don't look for no worries, people
Worries and troubles come around
The world keep on turning
I got to keep my feet on the ground
Nobody knows the way I feel
Nobody saw me cryin'
Nobody knows the way I feel
Yeah, the way I love the woman
It's bound to get me killed
She made my low down butter come
Loved the little girl so good
She made my low down butter come
I need the woman so bad
I need her like the sky needs the sun
Sometimes you just sit right down and cry
You know life can be so sad
Sometimes you just sit right down, and you cry
Maybe you'd be better off if you should die
Yes I've tried so hard not to remember
And people I've tried so hard to forget
I've tried so hard not to remember
And people I've tried so hard to forget
Back to the days I was just a down trodden kid
Some folks have such a good life
You know they just get on that big train, and you ride
You know some folks have such a good life
They just get on that big train, and you ride
Running and hiding from the world outside
If I ever get to heaven
You know, that sure would ease my worried mind
Yes, if I ever get to heaven
That sure would ease my worried life
You know when I find that place in the sky
People I'm gonna leave this old world behind
Man of the World [1969]
They say I'm a man of the world
I've flown across every tide
And I've seen lots of pretty girls
I wouldn't ask for more
And there's no one I'd rather be
But I just wish that I'd never been born
To make me feel like a good man should
I don't say I'm a good man
Oh, but I would be if I could
And keep you amused I'm sure
About all the times I've cried
And how I don't want to be sad anymore
And how I wish I was in love
As Green's concerns manifest from 1968 and his hallucinogenic drug intake increased, an inner turmoil was revealed, though not always recognised by those around him, including fellow band members and management. This is best seen in the last song recorded in the studio with Fleetwood Mac, namely The Green Manalishi. It was based on a dream / nightmare and referred to his concerns over money, as represented by the devil.
The Green Manalishi with the two prong crown [1969]
Now, when the day goes to sleep
And the full moon looks
The night is so black that the darkness cooks
Don't you come creepin' around
Makin' me do things I don't wanna do
Can't believe that you need my love so bad
Come sneakin' around tryin' to drive me mad
Bustin' in on my dreams
Makin' me see things I don't wanna see
'Cause you're the Green Manalishi with the two prong crown
All my tryin' is up, all your bringin' is down
Just takin' my love then slippin' away
Leavin' me here just tryin' to keep from followin' you
These lyrics reflected the darker aspects of his subconscious, and his ongoing search for an inner, spiritual peace. Perhaps Green's Jewish faith precluded him going down the Jesus Freak path as taken by his friend and colleague Jeremy Spencer, who, during the Fleetwood Mac period, was the instigator of some of the most outrageous and deviant behaviour by the band, whilst at the same time an avid student of the Bible and later longtime member of the so-called Children of God. As an indicator of Green's deteriorating mental state, during his last year with Fleetwood Mac, between April 1969 and May 1970, Green featured the B.B. King song All Over Again - I've Got a Mind to Give Up Living, whose lyrics were as follows:
All Over Again
Yes and have myself pronounced dead.
Baby when I read your letter this morning
You know now that's when I decided
Now she said it no good you looking for me
Because it's all over now
These repeat and reflect the comments seen in his own songwriting, whereby he has a depression which gives rise to almost suicidal tendencies, though of course he need went down this path as far as we know. But it did give rise to the perhaps his most intense and emotional guitar playing of his whole career. The known live recordings of that song are also some of his finest work and most heartfelt. For example, he said the following when introducing it at the New Orleans concert on 1 February 1970:
This one's a B.B. King number... He did it a long, long time ago. I think it's one of his best slow ones, and I feel that I agree very much with the thing, you know. I sort of imagine myself in the same situation. So that's why I like it, that's why I'm doing it. It's called All Over Again.
All Over Again, Warehouse, New Orleans, 31 January 1970.
It was in such a tenuous state of mind that Green undertook a European tour which included a stopover in Munich. And it seems this may be the root cause of what happened after Munich. As others who attended the party and tripped alongside Green that night walked away largely unscathed, it would seem that the blame game is misplaced and that the guitarist was already heading down a route of radical change and the onset of mental illness prior to it. What happened that night may have had little, if anything, to do with his ultimate fate, both as musician and friend, for there is ample evidence leading up to the Munich incident pointing to Green's disenchantment with aspects of his life and the onset of depression. His copious use of LSD and other drugs may simply have exacerbated his condition, as it did with countless other users.
For a long period after Munich, Green's professional career faulted, with sporadic highlights. Personally, and professionally, he was never the same guitarist as he had been between 1966-70. When asked in November 1994 why he left the band, Green answered with a specific reference to the mescaline taken at the Munich party, and the fact of the band members refusal to give a lot of their hard earnings away to charitable causes, as he wished them to. He made similar comments in a 1981 interview, referencing LSD. Peter never blamed anybody for what happened in regard to his departure from Fleetwood Mac in May 1970, at least as far as this author is aware. Yes, he did point out reasons for leaving, but blame was not part of that. It did, however, become part of what others felt, and feel, about his ultimate fate, especially John McVie. In an attempt to unravel what happened in Munich, one needs to go beyond the band and bring together contemporary accounts and reminiscences by people who were there, in order to inform the ongoing debate and discussion.
All of the aforementioned inner turmoil affecting Peter Green was in the mix by the time the band arrived in Munich. It is therefore difficult to tell to what degree any single episode influenced the path the guitarist was on. There is no doubt, however, that the use of LSD and other hallucinogenic drugs by an individual who is suffering mentally in this way, was, and is, a danger which is liable to cause permanent damage - to have, as the song goes, a psychotic reaction to the chemical. Green is now seen as one such person - an Acid Casualty - similar to other 60s rock musicians including Syd Barrett of Pink Floyd, Skip Spence of Jefferson Airplane, and Danny Kirwan of Fleetwood Mac. Greens song lyrics and guitar playing clearly reflect his mental state during this period - a mixture of the high and the low.
Peter Green: Man of the World, BBC, 2009, YouTube, duration: 1.27.05.
4. The 'Jet Set' Castle
Jeremy Spencer, in a 2009 interview for the BBC documentary Peter Green: Man of the World, provided a great deal of first-hand information on the Munich Incident. He referred to the building where the party took place as a hugh, mansion-like place - a castle - located out in a forest at Kronwinkl, northeast of Munich. Mick Fleetwood, in turn, referred to the couple who instigated the event as the German Jet Set and members of the aristocracy. John McVie, meanwhile, was very skeptical and believed they were keen to hook up with Peter due to his wealth and influence, hoping to siphon funds off of him to support their commune and its various 'Pop Company' projects, including hosting a large Woodstock-like music festival. Road manager Dennie Keene likened them to a cult, and most members of the band went on to blame Uschi and Rainer for Green's transformation as a result of the LSD and mescaline consumed there, and the music he was introduced to - free form, jazz rock, rather than the blues-based and psychedelic rock repertoire of Fleetwood Mac at the time.
Some reports have stated that the party apparently lasted over 3
days; that Peter was spiked; and that he was forced to play continuously until he had a sort of breakdown. None of that is entirely true, though he did spend a great deal of time with the Germans whilst in Munich, away from the band; he did take drugs with them - LSD, mescaline, and possibly STD; and he did jam extensively. Peter and his Fleetwood Mac associates eventually escaped
the party due, in part, to the actions
of road manager Keene, who, once the acid trip had worn off of him,
realised the
dangerous situation they were all in and helped extricated Peter and the others in
attendance, including Jeremy, Danny and Mick (BBC 2009, Mayo 2020). There is no doubt there there were cult elements to the Commune and the beliefs of Rainer Langhans, with Peter Green in a state which was ripe for the picking. In fact, he wanted to become a member of the Commune because of the intensely pleasurable experience he had with them, on many levels. John
McVie was a drinker, rather than drug taker, and may not have been at
the party, or at least did not imbibe in the drugs whilst there and looked on with some angst at what was taking place. As a result, he remained critical of the Commune and its effect on Peter.
Mick Fleetwood mentioned the Munich incident briefly in his
two autobiographical accounts of his life and times with Fleetwood Mac
(Fleetwood & Davies 1990, Fleetwood & Bozza 2014). Martin
Clemins, in the fulsome 1995 biography of Green, and its 2022 expanded update, gives a fairly
comprehensive account of the incident, though does not focus greatly on the detail
(Clemins 1995, Firlej 2021, Clemins 2022). Even so, a reading of
Fleetwood and Clemins highlights the fact that what is spoken of as
Green's 'illness' did not suddenly appear overnight, or was necessarily
the result of a single incident such as Munich, but rather, it evolved
slowly and over many years, as we can see from the above. The account below tries to unravel some of what is
known and what is not known about the Munich episode, and why it is
commonly believed that the career of this incredibly talented guitarist
was so drastically affected by his attendance at a post-gig party in a
castle at Kronwinkl, on the outskirts of Munich, sometime between Sunday,
22nd and Tuesday 24th March 1970.
5. Munich - the Cast of Characters
The following individuals are all known to have attended the Kronwinkl castle at some point during the Fleetwood Mac visit to Munich in March 1970.
 |
| Uschi Obermaier |
Peter Green (1946-2020) - blues rock guitarist and leader of Fleetwood Mac, b. 29 October 1946. Formerly with Peter B's Looners, Steam Packet and John Mayall's Bluesbreakers.
Jeremy Spencer - slide guitarist, singer and performer, b. 4 July 1948.
Mick Fleetwood - drummer, b. 24 June 1947.
John McVie - bass player, b. 26 November 1945.
Danny Kirwan (1950-2018) - second lead guitarist in Fleetwood Mac, b. 13 May 1950.
Dennis Keene - Fleetwood Mac road manager.
Stuart "Dinky" Dawson - Fleetwood Mac sound engineer.
Clifford Davis - Fleetwood Mac manager.
Rainer Langhans - German writer, b. 19 June 1940. Co-organizer of the party.
Uschi Obermaier - German model, b. 24 September 1946. Partner of Rainer Langhans and groupie during the late 1960s and early 1970s. Co-organiser of the party.
6. Going to München
After forming Fleetwood Mac in July 1967, and touring and recording almost continuously after that, by the beginning of 1970 Peter Green was showing signs of burnout and the effects of the use of hallucinogenic drugs, especially LSD. Alongside this, his generally quiet demeanor, dedication to leading his band, and outside appearance of contentment - the smiling depression referred to above - masked the extent of the inner turmoil to his many friends, including his band mates. These young men were on a slippery slide, unaware of what was coming. Some were also suffering from the hectic schedule and use of alcohol and drugs, especially Jeremy Spencer, who went on to join a Christian cult, and Danny Kirwan who later had a mental breakdown and ended up on the street. All were oblivious to their band mate's fragile condition at the time of Munich.
Following an extensive, and successful, US tour, the band headed straight over to Europe, and in March 1970 played the following gigs in Germany:
March
 |
| Rainer and Uschi in Munich, 1969. |
- Tuesday & Wednesday, 15th & 18th, Hanover
- Thursday, 19th, Sportpalast, Berlin
- Friday, 20th, Musikhalle, Hamburg
- Saturday, 21st, Rheinhalle, Dusseldorf
- Sunday, 22nd, Circus Krone-Bau, Munich
- Monday, 23rd Deutsches Museum, Munich
- Tuesday, 24th, Meistersingerhalle, Nuremberg
- Wednesday, 25th, Konzerthaus, Vienna, Austria
- Thursday, 26th, Sporthalle, Boblingen (recorded)
The band were in likely in Munich between the morning of Sunday, 22nd and midday, Tuesday, 24th March 1970 for gigs, prior to heading off to Nuremberg where they played on the evening of the 24th. A number of accounts exist of what happened to Green whilst in Munich, and they all vary to a substantial degree in regard to when the party actually took place, how long Green was there, what other members of the band and management were there, and what the guitarist actually did whilst at the party. Numerous first-hand accounts and reminiscences thereof are referred to and discussed below. The most significant to this current article are those by Jeremy Spencer and Dennis Keene from 2009 and Rainer Langhans from 2020, plus those by Green himself. For example, on 11 April 1970 Green announced in the New Musical Express his intention to leave Fleetwood Mac. The reason given was:
I want to change my whole life, really, because I don’t want to be at all a part of the conditioned world and as much as possible I am getting out of it.
This would have been seen at the time as somewhat vague. However, in light of Langhans' comments during 2020, they become much clearer and reflect some of the language and philosophy of the Munich Commune. The earliest public mention of the Munich incident being connected with the departure comes from a 1974 Jeremy Spencer interview in the New Musical Express:
I don't know why Pete left the group exactly. It looked like it was coming up. He met some of these people in Germany - I didn't in fact have anything to do with it - but we took some acid and played some music. It was pretty weird. I didn't like what he was playing. He was just jamming. But there was no point in trying to stop him leaving (cited in Clemins 1995).
Peter made passing reference to the incident in a 1981 interview. Regarding the German commune he states:
... I was with them there, in Germany, but I stayed at a hotel. However, I
was in company of those people. That was in Munich, yes. I had a
girlfriend there, Alice. She was a beautiful woman, and we were having a
great time.
One of the most telling accounts is contained in Mick Fleetwood's 1990 biography, subsequently expanded upon in his 2014 Play On. He highlights how Green left the band around the time of Munich but agreed to stay on until the end of their committed dates, which included gigs in Europe and England. Of the dramatic turn of events in Munich he writes:
We were in Munich when a bunch of well-to-do German hippies got a hold of him and took him to their commune. They all lived in a big old house where Peter joined them in getting fried on LSD for a few days. He met us at the gig and played with us, but it was the last we saw of him for quite a while.... We weren't sure what to do and after a few days our road manager and I went to fetch him. We found him tripping but lucid enough to tell us he was through. 'I'm not coming with you,' Peter said. 'I'm going to live here now. I have everything I need.' Those Germans were taking advantage of him and whether he stayed in the band or not, we weren't going to leave our brother in their care. 'That's fine Peter, you can come back and live here for the rest of your life, but you need to come with us now,' we said. 'You have some things to settle before you come back here for good.' 'I do?' 'Yes. Peter. Come with us, it won't take long.' With much coaxing we succeeded in getting him out of there and back to our hotel. We tried to convince him to finish the tour, but were unsuccessful because Peter was in a panic like we'd never seen before... Once he'd come down somewhat, Peter didn't change his mind about leaving the band,, but he did decide that he wanted to play the rest of the shows on our tour.... (Fleetwood 2014)
This reveals that whilst in Munich Green did not spend much time with his band mates, but rather with Uschi and Rainer. The tradition of the legendary 'three-day acid binge' mentioned by Clemins is based on the fact that Fleetwood Mac was in Munich for that period of time. Green discussed the incident in greater detail within a 1994 interview with MOJO magazine:
They had a mansion, a great big place. I went back with one of the road managers [Dennis Keene]. He gave me some LSD, I ate it and as I'd got my guitar we played with some music for a while. Then I just sat around thinking and thought about everything. I was thinking so fast. I couldn't believe how fast I was thinking! And I ran out of thoughts. I must have been thinking solid for about an hour. Just sitting down on my mattress... And when we played the next night's gig, I felt marvelous, kind of fresh, not grubby. When we jammed, I couldn't believe what I was coming out with. I was playing things that I didn't know I could play and the notes seemed to be going all round the room.
It is obvious from this that the trip/s Green underwent at Kronwinkl were powerful and profound. He added some more detail in an interview published in the November 1994 issue of Guitar Player magazine:
In a May 1981 interview with Serbian journalist Dragan Kremer for Yugoslav rock magazine Dzuboks (Jukebox), recently translated by Misa Drezgic for the Facebook ‘Peter Green Blues Society’ group, Green stated:
…. I left the band after that thing with a commune in Germany. I wanted
to go back and live with those people. And I also wanted to do more
things like those we did on Then Play On with more jamming – but we lost that … The rest of Mac didn’t want that, they preferred more commercial stuff. (Clemins 2022)
According to the 2009 BBC interview with Jeremy Spencer, Peter was met at the airport on the band's arrival in Munich (supposedly on the morning of Sunday, 22 March 1970) by Rainer Langhans and Uschi Obermaier - two enthusiastic fans who he may or may not have met before and who invited him to a party at their commune in Kronwinkl following the gig that night at the Circus Krone-Bau. Obermeier was an attractive, apolitical, 23 year old model with a propensity for nudity and sex, whilst her colleague was a 29 year old writer, with frizzed hair and John Lennon glasses. They lived a life of sex, drugs and music, and were prone to take in visiting musicians, with Uschi having notable sexual encounters with other guitarists such as Mick Jagger, Keith Richards and Jimi Hendrix. A 2007 German film Eight Miles High chronicles this period of her life. It would appear that Green went off with the Germans to their commune after this first Munich concert, possibly accompanied by Danny Kirwan.
Spencer's first-hand account is crucial to what we know about the Kronwinkl party, though, like many of the other accounts, it does not necessarily tie in with what those other individuals remembered. This is the result of both the Roshomon effect and the fact that any single event observed by a number of individuals can, and will, often be remembered, recalled and interpreted differently. The fact that they were all likely on some form of drug and/or drunk at the time also leads to confusion, as does the length of time between the actual event and the date upon which individuals were asked to recall it in detail. Despite this, their testimony is vital to any attempt to replicate the events of the party and its context. The relevant section of the Spencer interview and other comments on Munich is presented below:
Pop-Music with Security Bullies
“I am ashamed that something like this can happen during our concert.” said Peter Green of Fleetwood Mac, after two Circus Krone security controllers roughly manhandled an audience member, who had sat down at the side of the arena, and then pushed him through the crowd and threw him onto an unoccupied seat. Another concert-goer who sat down in front of the band was saved from the same treatment thanks to the quick-wittedness of two Fleetwood Mac sound technicians. They forcefully waved aside three more security staff who arrived to haul away the “disruptor”. After that, the organisers requested that the circus director should allow some of the audience to enter the arena. The clearly displeased security controllers, who were now out of a job, watched what then happened. First hesitantly - understandably so because of the sense of terror that the security staff had created, but then really fast and willingly – about one hundred people accepted the invitation to quietly come down into the arena.At once there was tacit understanding and empathy between the band and audience members, quite in the spirit of the happy and unquestionably optimistic music of Fleetwood Mac, a group which had begun years ago playing the serous London-Blues of John Mayall, but now without hesitation pays homage to the eclecticism of pop music, to sure applause from their audience.
Illuminated by colourful rays from the spotlights, the young audience moved freely and relaxed on the arena’s sand-covered ground.. Some danced, others sat down and listened silently to the music, others surrounded the five musicians, who were at ease about this. Soon, the fearful atmosphere at the beginning of the concert had turned into a joyful party. But towards the end Peter Green, the band’s leader, had another reason for feeling ashamed. Because the bullying security controllers - who form a fist when they see young people with long hair - put themselves into gear; it was as if they could not bear the fact that just one of the concerts in Circus Krone could be peaceful and harmonious..... as if they would like to show those who partied peacefully, what they were able to do.
A young man who was sat in an upper balcony, immersed in listening to the music and smoking even though that was prohibited, was ordered to put out the cigarette. He did not do so immediately and before he even knew what it was about and dared to resist, four men took him by his arms and feet and dragged him like a piece of slaughtered cattle out of the hall, some hundred metres through the corridors and locked him in a room. After that they called the police and reported that bodily harm had been done to them. It is unbearable that things like that happen again and again at pop-concerts in Circus Krone, and that obviously nobody considers it necessary to intervene in such cases , and that the management of Circus Krone, a renowned enterprise, knows that their employees repeatedly commit bodily harm and deprivation of liberty for concert-goers (and not at all vice versa as the controllers, camouflaged thugs, described it). Employing security controllers like this should not be tolerated if Circus Krone wants to continue to promote and stage pop-concerts there. For sure there are other venues in Munich where pop-concerts could take place, for example the tram depot in Schwabing or the exhibition halls on Theresienhöhe. One should realise that the above mentioned incidents do not take place anymore for example in Essen, or probably never happened at all.”
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| Uschi and Rainer circa 1970. |
7. At the party
According to Jeremy Spencer, the whole band was invited to the party, though the focus of Uschi and Rainer was always on Green. In regard to what happened in Munich and at the party, Mick Fleetwood gave the following account in his 1990 autobiography:
When we arrived in Munich in early March [1970], we lost Peter Green for good. Munich was the beginning of the end for the original band. Somehow Peter had been surrounded by a bunch of rich German hippie brats, a group we called the Munich Jet Set. They had a commune in a big old house with a lot of LSD floating around. During our stay in Munich, Peter was whisked out there and spent all his time getting stoned. We never even saw him, except for the gig, and to this day, John and I always say was it. Peter Green was never the same after. After Peter had been there for a few days, our road manager Dennis Keene and I went out to this commune to try to get him back. Peter was tripping but lucid. He told us he wanted to stay and live in this commune with these Germans. We would see these brats were taking advantage of Peter and were succeeding in pulling him away from us. Appealing to his sense of duty, we persuaded him to come back with us and finish the tour. But that night, back in the hotel, he told us he was finished. He said he was in a panic, that he couldn't handle the money, that he was just a working class person, and he was going to leave Fleetwood Mac as soon as possible. When Clifford Davis told him that the band was committed through to May, Peter agreed to stay with us till then. (Fleetwood 1990)
Dennis Keene, then Fleetwood Mac road manager / minder, was at the party - he appears to have arrived there with Peter - and gave the following account in a 2009 interview, part of which is included in the Jeremy Spencer interview listed above:
I didn't realised what was going on until I tried to talk to someone and realised they were German, and I was on this trip and didn't understand what was going on. Then I see Pete, in this studio, playing this guitar with all these like .... it was just mayhem. Pete was laughing, and, you know, he thought he was great.
Spencer and other members of the band appear then to have arrived later at the party in the band's van, and were met by Keene who told them what was going on:I was down in the cellar of this country house playing music with
some other people. I had taken LSD and was playing guitar with a wah-wah
pedal... It felt as though I was breaking through the blues notation
I'd been playing for years into something new. The drummer was playing a
rhythm which was very different to any blues rhythm. The people I
stayed with gave me a tape of some of my playing that day and I kept
listening to it from time to time afterwards. I wish I could hear it
again today but I accidentally left it in America a few years later. (Clemins 2008)
Green also referred to the Munich party as follows in his 2009 BBC interview:
So I really was, you know.... you can't play with no one listening. I enjoyed myself, whatever it was. I got a sound that was interesting, a curious sound... That was the most spiritual music that I've ever played in my life.... I had a good play there. It was great. I recorded there, though I didn't [do the actual recording], someone else recorded and they gave me a tape. There was other people playing along, just a few of us, just foolin' around, and it was great.
The band's manager, Clifford Davis, later said:
Peter Green and Danny Kirwan both went together to that house in
Munich. Both of them
took acid, as I understand. Both of them, as of that day, became
seriously mentally ill. It would be too much of a coincidence for it to
be anything other than taking drugs, as of that day.
Rainer Langhans discussed the Munich party during a number of extensive
interviews in 2020-21 (refer videos below). In summary, he recalled how
he and Uschi met Peter after the Munich gig - likely the one held at the
Deutsches Museum on 23 April - and drove him to the party at the
headquarters of the Highfisch-Kommune in Kronwinkl, Lower Bavaria. This was located approximately 63 km north east of Munich. A 2020 article by Roderich Fabien provides an account of what happened at the party, based on an interview with Langhans. It is reproduced below, translated from the original German:
One night in Lower Bavaria How a drug trip with Rainer Langhans Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green changed forever
After a concert in Munich, the couple Langhans and Obermeier brought Peter Green to their community in Lower Bavaria. Music was played and drugs consumed all night long. Fleetwood Mac later blame the trip and the community for Green's mental decline and band exit. When the album "In the Skies" was released in 1979, it was widely hailed as a kind of resurrection of Fleetwood Mac founding member Peter Green. The guitarist had spent a lot of time in psychiatric hospitals in previous years, worked as a gravedigger in a cemetery and otherwise withdrew. But with “In the Skies” he showed the world that he could still make beautiful music. Most of them no longer thought he could do that after the key dramatic experience that Green had after a concert in Munich. The then co-guitarist Jeremy Spencer recalled this in a 2009 BBC documentary: “When we showed up at Munich Airport, these people suddenly showed up: A very beautiful woman in a black velvet coat and a guy who looked like John Lennon in his wire glasses. They met Pete there as if they had made an appointment."
Tripping and making music in the Highfisch community in Lower Bavaria
These people were Uschi Obermeier and Rainer Langhans, the model couple of the German counterculture in 1970. Langhans confirmed the encounter with Peter Green in an interview in 2016: “That's all true. We always did that with groups and so on. We invited them and said: “Come on! Tripping, making music. The way you do it. That was all there was." Langhans and Obermeier picked up the musician after the concert in Munich to make music and "tripping" - that is, to celebrate with the hallucinogenic drug LSD - and then drove with him to the headquarters of their so-called "Highfish Commune" in Lower Bavaria, between Moosburg and Landshut. "That was called Kronwinkl," continues Spencer in the BBC documentary. "And that was such a small castle, a small chapel and a large estate around it, completely overgrown. And then we just took our trips." Even then, Obermeier and Langhans were not at all comfortable with the other Fleetwood Mac members. For Mick Fleetwood, who is more of a proletarian, the chic, classy hippies looked like they are from another world. "There was definitely money involved," he says in the documentary. "They were somehow so German-aristocratic."
Tape recordings from the music session on LSD are missing
Rainer Langhans found out from the press that he is made responsible for Peter Green's psychological problems and for his departure from Fleetwood Mac. “At some point the English Rolling Stone did a cover story about Fleetwood Mac,” he tells us in an interview. “And that's when I read it for the first time: 'Back then there were jet-set Nazis'. That's what they said in it. And then I thought: “This is US! That was US!'" On the fateful night of March 1970, however, not only trips were thrown in. Music was also made, as Langhans explains: "Of course we had a large studio downstairs in the basement, and then we just jammed there with Peter. There is also a tape of it. But that was never found again - a big mystery! Peter says to this day: “There is the music on it, the actual music!" In the BBC documentary, Green actually says of the session, "That was great. Somebody recorded it and gave me the tape." However, these recordings never reappeared. In return, Fleetwood Mac got back an allegedly psychologically badly damaged Peter Green the next day. In any case, bassist John McVie scolds the German "bastards" in the BBC documentary and considers the event to be a turning point in the band's history.
According to Langhans, Green was previously dissatisfied
Peter Green left Fleetwood Mac shortly thereafter. The rest is history, as the saying goes. Whether the night in Kronwinkl was decisive for his subsequent problems or whether the experience opened his eyes - as Rainer Langhans believes - we can unfortunately no longer ask Peter Green: "We found out everything afterwards, of course, much later, that Peter was very dissatisfied with this whole pop star number and wanted to get out. We were a commune. He could see that. And that was so convincing for him that he said afterwards: “I want to live like this and make music like this - and not always that pop star shit."
In a September 2020 interview, Rainer outlined how the old, rented, 26 room castle, was especially used for drug parties. He stated that, after picking up Peter from the airport and asking if he wanted to join them:
He just answered 'Sure, I'm in.' it was no big deal. It had been so self-evidently for people being experienced to meet with each other without any reservation and suspicion. But also to follow each other and swing with them. Back in the days it was uncomplicated and very simple. There haven't been any agreements, no organisation, nothing! Only, 'We have a nice place. Do you want to join us?' ... We didn't invite Peter Green to our [Munich] flat, but right away to Kronwinkl. We assumed it's more pleasant for him and us. Especially since we planned to so some music.So we asked them at the airport if they are interested to participate. Peter and Jeremy were the only ones who were in. They joined us in driving over there in car. I had an old BMW V8 - you'd call it oldie now. The others drove kind of Volvos. We sat down in the bigger rooms and floated through the different rooms. This is where the memories start to skip. The only thing I remember there have also been some guys of Amon Düül II present ... These guys have been every once in a while with us in the castle and rehearsed there. Therefore they had their instruments there. We also had some in our flat in the city and made music on our own. And that's when we jammed together in the castle. So Peter has been with us as well, but I don't remember the details. But I remember it was very ecstatic, very beautiful. Everyone was flying and dancing around. You didn't notice what happened, but you knew it was beautiful. Downstairs there were Revox recording machines in the rehearsal room. There had been most of the instruments. we also kept the machines recording. Afterwards Peter told us it was the most beautiful music he ever made, when we visited him in London three weeks later. The tape existed, but of course nobody knows where it is now. Like always, a big secret. Somewhere it must be, but I never listened to it. We just recorded it and that was it. The next day we drove them back and everything was well... We visited Peter Green again in London three weeks later. He drove around quite like a rock start in his E-type Jaguar and picked us up at the airport. Then he introduced us to the Rolling Stones, because Uschi wanted to meet the Rolling Stones. He was a friend of Mick Taylor, who took the place of Brian Jones. Actually, there was no impression of him being troubled, or the intention to change something in a big way. Actually, we didn't know about it, flew back and everything was fine. We heard about his exit just later on, and thought of it like 'Okay.' I think in the begining of the 90s when Rolling Stone magazine released it, we read about the horror-story being told by the other Fleetwood mac members: Jetset Nazis spiked him with bad LSD and got him kicked out of the band. Actually, we realised he was the soul and most important member of the band. We shook our heads and realised that they had to be mean to us! ... So they made a horror-story out of it, because apparently it seemed so inexplicable to them, that Peter Green left this most successful band at its peak.
Green's comment about this being the most beautiful music he had ever played more than likely reflects the effect of the strong drugs he encountered, rather then the playing itself. As Rainer says in the interview in regard to the effects of the drugs during the parties:
...playing music isn't very easy, because you're actually busy with the images in your head. Everybody is looking mostly on the inside. For outsiders it seems like there's not much going on. You're just seeing people staring blank around or have their eyes closed listening to the inside... Mostly he was open minded to the things we embodied at this time. He seemed to be feeling well in our presence. So he had afterwards [at the castle] a very intense experience with the music due to the things he really desired, instead of the commercialization he felt very massively. So he experienced this exactly over there. 'This is the way I want to make music. I want to be together with this kind of people. I want to live in a commune and play music.' This is what we experienced with him, very naturally and easy. 'Are you experienced?' 'Yes, we are one.' Lots of us had this feeling in the past. This feeling started with him right from the beginning, that's why he went with us - we thought of it as being natural and did what we always did over there. We got connected in a special way. We spoke the same language, because this experience doesn't exist in the western culture.
- Late evening: Fleetwood Mac finish their concert at the Rheinhalle, Dusseldorf, and fly / drive (7 hrs by car/van) to Munich.
* Sunday, 22nd
- Midday: Fleetwood Mac arrive in Munich. Peter Green is met at the airport by Uschi and Rainer. He is invited to a party by them. The band are also reluctantly invited. Peter possibly spends time with the couple prior to the concert.
- Evening: Concert at the Circus Krone-Bau, Munich. After the concert Uschi and Rainer drive Peter to the castle commune and party at Kronwinkl. Peter takes LSD / mescaline and begins jamming in the basement studio. He continues throughout the night and into the next morning. It is unclear if other members of Fleetwood Mac attend the party, though it is possible that Danny Kirwan did.
* Monday, 23rd
- Afternoon: Rainer drives Peter from Kronwinkl back to Munich for the concert that evening.
- Evening: Concert at the Deutsches Museum, Munich. After the concert Peter travels with Uschi and Rainer back to the party. Dennis Keene travels with him.
- Late evening: Mick Fleetwood and others arrive at the party, including Jeremy Spencer. A tripping Keene tells them they need to rescue Peter.
* Tuesday, 24th
- Morning: Fleetwood and others, including .... travel to Kronwinkl to rescue Peter. They bring him back to the hotel and convince him to see out the tour.
- Afternoon: The band and entourage drive from Munich to Nuremberg.
- Evening: Concert at the Meistersingerhalle, Nuremberg.
Whilst at the party Green spent some time in the downstairs basement jamming with local musicians, and possibly members of the German group Amon Düül II. As it was set up as a
studio, some recording was carried out, however none of the tapes have subsequently come to light. We can nevertheless get an idea of what took place, and what effect it had on Green, by listing to some of the Fleetwood Mac live concert recordings and his End of the Game LP released shortly thereafter, in June 1970. Listening to the 2 April 1970 (?soundboard) recording of Fleetwood Mac at the Konserthuset, Gotenborg, Sweden concert, Green's playing is still strong and masterful, but it now features heavy use of the wah-wah pedal during extended improvisations and lead breaks. To this observer the sound of Green's guitar is different - his fret work is not as fluid and bluesy as it was previously, and the sound emanating from his '59 Les Paul guitar is not as clean. Prior to this his playing did not feature the use of any distortion pedals such as the wah-wah or fuzz tone. The post-Munich preference for wah-wah and distortion produced a more psychedelic sound, and his playing was more jazzier and free form, moving away from the familiar song-based constraints of heavy rock and blues. This can easily be seen on the opening track Rattlesnake Shake and the flow into the extended instrumental Underway. Green had, of course, been moving down this path since at least early 1969, influenced no doubt by his time in the United States and increasing use of hallucinogenic drugs.
Fleetwood Mac - Konserthuset, Göteborg, Sweden, 2nd April 1970. Duration: 1.15.31 minutes.
The power and intensity so evident in Green's playing at the Boston Tea Party between 5-7 February 1970, just over a month earlier, was now gone. Similarly, Danny Kirwan, who apparently also suffered from the effects of the Munich party LSD, is more restrained than normal, though this could be a result of the recording focusing on Green's guitar work. There is no doubt that the transition from the Then Play On album recorded late in 1969, through the Boston Tea Party and New Orleans live recordings of January - February 1970 to End of the Game is evident in Green's playing at the April 1970 Göteborg concert. However, as one fan commented during February 2021 in regards to Green's playing following the Munich incident and during April - May 1970:
Peter's playing simply blows my mind. This is Peter at his peak in 1970. I don't care what people say about the Munich LSD incident, Peter played his wildest and [most] creative just before leaving Fleetwood Mac after Munich in 1970. He was free to expand his flow of notes. The wha wha pedal adds some psychedelic grooves to his songs. This is as good as it gets!
Fleetwood Mac played a number of concerts in Europe and the UK after the German gigs in March, with that on 28 May at the Roundhouse, Chalk Farm, London, being Green's last official performance. He subsequently filled in on a couple of concerts during 1970-1 when Spencer or Kirwan were indisposed, however for all intents and purposes he was no longer the leader of the band or a permanent member. After leaving Fleetwood Mac, Green pursued his new wah-wah / jazzy free form sound. He was active during 1971, even recording with B.B. King in that year, but by 1973 he had slipped away into obscurity. It would not be until the end of the decade that he would reappear with his In The Skies LP - a somewhat subdued recording, featuring lyrics by his then wife Jane. He also appeared in some rather eccentric European and American performances with the band Colors in the early 1980s. From the mid' 1990s worldwide tours his return to recording and performing was more substantial as a result of stabilisation of his mental condition and support within the Peter Green Splinter Group. He eventually retired from performing as the new millennium rolled on, and passed away during 2020 at the age of 73. The following chronology contains links to relevant articles, videos and recordings relating to the Munich incident, and its apparent effect on the life and professional career of Peter Green.
10. Chronology & References
The following chronology deals with events leading up to, and following the Munich party of March 1970. More detail relating to Green's time with Fleetwood Mac is available here. Also interspersed below are references to publications and articles dealing with the incident and relevant mental health issues.
1968
- December: Fleetwood Mac take their first LSD trip together after a gig at the Fillmore East, New York. The drug is supplied by Grateful Dead sound engineer Stanley Owsley. The band would repeat this on other occasions, as a bonding experience, whilst Green and Spenser would take the drug individually (Fleetwood & Bozza 2014). The band was split between those who took drugs, and the drinkers, of which John McVie was the main culprit.
1969
- April - July: Green continues to take LSD and mescaline sporadically. Mick Fleetwood notes a change in his personality around the time of recording Then Play On.
- circa December: towards the end of the year Peter Green becomes more spiritual and talks of giving his money away and leaving the band.
 |
| Peter Green wearing a crucifix circa 1970. |
1970
- 30 & 31 January, 1 February - recording of three concerts at the Warehouse, New Orleans. The often incredible and energetic playing of Green at these events can be compared with those of lesser quality post-Munich gigs. This event took place in association with a series of Grateful Dead concerts. The whole band were dosed with LSD for the first gig by Owsley Stanley, the Dead's sound engineer. Apparently Green was not able to play properly the first night, though the second night he was at his best (Fleetwood & Davis 1990, Fleetwood & Bozza 2014).
- 5 to 7 February 1970, Boston Tea Party, Boston. High quality recordings
made over three nights for a live album. Duration: 3.08.20. Similar high quality and energetic performances by Green.
- 22-25 March - likely date of the Munich party.
- 2 April - recording of a Fleetwood Mac gig in Sweden.
- 28 May - Peter Green's last official recorded performance with Fleetwood Mac, at the Roundhouse, London.
- June - Peter Green, End of the Game LP released.
1979
- In the Skies LP released.
1982
- Peter Green tours the US and Europe with Colors.
1990
Mick Fleetwood and Stephen Davis, Stephen, Fleetwood: My Life and Adventures with Fleetwood Mac, Sigwick & Jackson, London 1990, 232p.
1995
Martin Clemins, Peter Green, Founder of Fleetwood Mac: The Biography, Castle Communications, Bath, 1995, 229p.
2006
The Munich Incident, The Ledge Rumours - Everything that is Fleetwood Mac [online discussion forum], 25 June 2006.
2008
Martin Clemins, Peter Green, Record Collector, November 2008:
That he was determined to leave the commercial keep-the-hits-coming world behind became crystal clear a month before he quit Mac when the band played in Munich. Much controversy still surrounds 'the Munich incident': Fleetwood, Spencer and McVie remain convinced that their leader was somehow stolen from them by a rich hippie commune who gave him some potent LSD. He was never the same again, and he began to fixate about Mac becoming a charity band and playing for no money.
Nearly 40 years on, Peter insists that the big change that took place at Munich was a musical one:
"I was down in the cellar of this country house playing music with some other people. I had taken LSD and was playing guitar with a wah-wah pedal... it felt as though 1 was breaking through the blues notation I'd been playing for years into something new. The drummer was playing a rhythm which was very different to any blues rhythm. The people I stayed with gave me a tape of some of my playing that day and I kept listening to it from time to time afterwards. I wish I could hear it again today but I accidentally left it in America a few years later."
Facets of Munich's musical metamorphosis found their way onto vinyl on Green's late 1970 solo album for Reprise, End Of The Game which comprised studio jamming with friends such as bassist Alex Dmochowski and keyboardists Zoot Money and Nick Buck:
"I spent a long time afterwards
trying to edit those sessions and I'm not sure that I chose the best bits for the finished album. I'd really like to hear all the tapes we recorded again some day."
2009
Peter Green [documentary], BBC [video], 2009.
2011
Peter Green schizophrenia, [online discussion forum], Classic Rock Forums, 4 February 2011.
2012
The Munich LSD Party [video], 2012, duration: 7.42 minutes. Extract from the 2009 BBC Peter Green documentary, featuring detailed comments by Peter Green, Jeremy Spencer, Mick Fleetwood, band manager Clifford Davis and tour manager Dennis Keene.
Peter Green's Munich Trip [video], 14 August 2012, duration: 3.46 minutes.
Music video compiled around the song Oh Well (Part 1) with clips related
to the Munich incident and commentary from Jeremy Spencer and Clifford
Davis. Produced in association with the publication of Ada Wilson's
novel Red Army Faction Blues (2012).
2013
Peter Green - The Munich LSD Party Incident, Route Blog - Books One Way Or Another, Route Publishing, 13 November 2013.
2014
Mick Fleetwood and Anthony Bozza, Play On: Now, Then & Fleetwood Mac - The Autobiography, Hodder & Stoughton, London, 2014, 344p.
2019
Peter Green - The End of the Game: Unrecognized Krautrock Masterpiece, carwreckedebangs - music, madness and sundry literary devices [blog], 8 July 2019.
2020
Bob Mayo, Peter Green, Judas Priest and the acid-induced nightmare of The Green Manalishi, Classic Rock, 25 July 2020.
Peter Green - The Munich Story [podcast / audio], Radio Gordo, 30 July 2020, duration: 7.23 minutes. A compilation of the 2012 documentary interviews, with brief intro and outro voiceover.
Roderich Fabien, One night in Lower Bavaria: How a drug trip with Rainer Langhans changed Fleetwood Mac guitarist Peter Green forever, Bayern2 Radio, Belgium, 3 August 2020. [German].
Rainer Langhans - Peter Green's Schicksalsnacht [podcast / video], 17 September 2020, Guitar Magazin, Germany. Duration: 25.07 minutes. [German].
Bob Gersztyn, Psychedelic mind expanding drugs and the Jesus movement, Jesus Rocks the World [blog], 13 December 2020.
Felix Behr, The sad reason Peter Green left Fleetwood Mac, Grunge [blog], 16 December 2020.
2021
Liam Firlej, The Munich Incident - Peter Green's son Liam Firlej interviews Rainer Langhans [video], 17 January 2021, duration: 1.22.12 minutes. [Deleted].
Amy Morin, What is smiling depression?, verywellMind [website] 22 February 2021.
2022
Tom Taylor, The night that Fleetwood Mac lost Peter Green and Danny Kirwan to acid [blog], Far Out, 10 August 2022.
Martin Clemins, Peter Green - Founder of Fleetwood Mac, Revised and Updated Edition, Omnibus Press, 29 September 2022, 304p.
-----, Mythic Munich: Additional Perspectives [blog], Omnibus Press, 22 September 2022.
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Peter Green: Give Up Livin' | John Mayall's Bluesbreakers 1965-7 | Live 1967-70 | Munich 1970 |
| Blue Fender Bronco 1968 | Cream Gibson SG | Fuzz Tone | Jimi Hendrix Flying V | Jimmy Page Dragon Telecaster | Jackson C. Frank | Jo Ann Kelly | Kahvas Jute & Chariot | Music | MC5 | Nick Drake Guitars | Peter Green | Shocking Blue | The Leftards - Gong punk 2017+ | The Vamps 1965-77 | Yardbirds |
Last updated: 27 March 2023.
Michael Organ, Australia
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