“Name an iconic Sixties rock moment and Ellen Sander was probably there. A beautifully written, sweeping yet intimate account of America’s cultural awakening in that decade. Massively entertaining” — Rolling Stone.

As a pioneering rock journalist for Hit Parader, Vogue, Saturday Review, and other publications, Ellen Sander had a backstage pass to the hottest music scenes of the 1960s. In this feast of juicy anecdotes and keen social commentary, she draws upon her professional and personal experiences to chronicle pop culture’s highs and lows during the turbulent decade. Join her for weird and wild road trips with companions ranging from Yippies to the members of Led Zeppelin. Stops along the way include the folk music clubs of Greenwich Village, Haight-Ashbury in its riotous heyday, and the euphoric festivals at Monterey and Woodstock.
“It is a memoir, a sourcebook, and a love letter,” Sander writes, “a recollection of a time, parenthesized by ambivalence and apathy, a search for the ultimate high, a generation with an irrepressible vision, its art, artists, its audience, and the substance of its statement.” This expanded edition of Trips adds “The Plaster Casters of Chicago,” Sander’s seminal piece on groupie culture, the lengthy “Concerts and Conversations,” as well as a new Preface and chapter postscripts.

“Simply one of the best pieces of rock reportage ever written.” — Los Angeles Review of Books