News — Moratorium

  By Joe Rodriguez Fifty years ago on August 29, 1970, a group of teenage boys who grew up on the same, working-class street in East Los Angeles did something out of character. We joined a protest march. On most hot, smoggy weekends in late summer we’d hang out under the Chinese elm in front of Jerry and Danny Viramontes’s house on Ferris Avenue. We’d argue sports and music to no end. Who was the better rock guitarist, Carlos Santana or Eric Clapton? Mostly though, we’d call around for that night’s parties. We lived for garage rock’n roll. Poor East...