Synesthete: Tom Wilkes, 1939 – 2009

Grammy Award-winning art director, writer, and photographer Tom Wilkes, who designed album covers for George Harrison, Ringo Starr, Neil Young, The Flying Burrito Brothers, The Rolling Stones, Janis Joplin, and many others, died on June 28 of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (Lou Gehrig’s disease) at age 69. His obituary in the Los Angeles Times is available here. While still in his 20s, Wilkes became art director for the 1967 Monterey International Pop Music Festival, for which he created the festival’s iconic psychedelic poster (at left) that was printed on foil stock, for which he won an award from Reynolds aluminum for the most creative use of aluminum foil. Formally trained in graphic design, Wilkes was one of several Los Angeles area artists, including John Van Hamersveld, Warren Dayton and Art Bevacqua, who would eventually create concert posters. But Wilkes clearly was highly influenced by the posters emerging from the San Francisco Psychedelic Art movement beginning around 1966.

Wilkes’s now quite valuable poster for the 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival obviously is influenced by early psychedelic art: its ornate lettering and highly symmetrical composition, for instance, is a characteristic feature of such art, as well as its collage-like, black-and-white insertion of a photograph of a young woman, gazing at some unseen person or thing off to her right, clothed in garb that would have been considered, in the nineteenth century, both exotic and erotic, her feminine figure surrounded by curlicue-etched cones that imitate, in abstract form, her pronounced breasts. Perhaps that assemblage of spirals is meant to be an ocean wave-inspired motif, given the festival location’s proximity to the Pacific, but they are abstract enough to suggest both rolling waves and female breasts simultaneously (music as a synthesis of nature and culture, both nurturing and nourishing?). In any case, the most pronounced and inspired feature, for me, is that fanciful, pop-arty, Duchamp-inspired necktie, invoking both Duchamp’s goateed Mona Lisa but which also gives the young woman a slightly androgynous appearance. The L. A. Times report quotes Wilkes’ long-time friend, Lou Adler, who observed:

“Most of the artwork in that particular culture was coming out of San Francisco, and what Tom did was he took a San Francisco look, or niche, and made it international,” Adler said. “You can see a lot of the posters from that period and say, ‘Oh, that’s the ‘60s.’ With Tom, it isn’t dated. There's a very special look to it.”

Perhaps what was most influential about Wilkes’ poster for the Monterey Pop Festival, though, was that it was printed on foil stock. That silvery sheen (ink, however, not actual foil) almost immediately graced several covers of rock albums released within the next year, giving each of them a vaguely psychedelic, or at least acidic, aura (none of which, so far as I know, were designed by Tom Wilkes): Steppenwolf’s eponymous first album (1968), Cream’s Wheels of Fire (1968), and the eponymous first album by Quicksilver Messenger Service (1968). The use of faux aluminum stock, in fact, has graced many albums over the years since.

His design of the printed and visual materials associated with the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 led to Wilkes’ career in the music industry, first as art director at A&M Records. He subsequently designed (or provided art direction or graphic design) for dozens of album covers (a list is available here and images of a few are here), some of them among my all-time favorites, including Beggars Banquet (The Rolling Stones), Harvest (Neil Young), Mad Dogs & Englishmen (Joe Cocker), On Tour (Delaney & Bonnie), and Concert for Bangladesh and All things Must Pass (George Harrison). He also took the famous cover photo of Joplin Joplin for her posthumous album Pearl (1971). The particular effectiveness of Tom Wilkes as an album cover designer was that he was a synesthete, explaining why his images always largely formed an enticing visual equivalent to the music to be found inside.

Pick Drag

A consequence of the sonic potential of an amplified electric guitar, pick drag is the sound made when a guitarist slides the tip or edge of his pick along a single string. It is widely assumed that Bo Diddley introduced pick drag, in the song “Road Runner” (1957), in which the sound he made with his guitar is the aural equivalent of a car accelerating from 0 to 60 MPH. (Check out this demonstration of pick drag.) If it is true that from its inception the opposition structuring rock was groove (a redundant riff) versus sonics, then Bo Diddley is an interesting case. Although widely known for the “Bo Diddley beat” (“shave and a haircut, six bits”), his interest in exploring sonics — the size and shape of the imaginary spaces that hold music — is perhaps more influential. Pick drag is an example of exteriorized sound (acceleration, distance as a function of time), while Bo’s uses of reverberation, echo, and delay are examples of interiorized sound, prefiguring psychedelia. Did Bo Diddley ever record “The Pusher,” written by Hoyt Axton but famously recorded by Steppenwolf? For Steppenwolf's rendition owes much to Bo Diddley’s sonic explorations.

Thanks to Stan Ridgway for the suggestion.

Mo' Better Blu

A few days ago I wrote a blog entry on the recently released Blu-ray edition of Woodstock (1970), the 40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition and BD-Live with Amazon Exclusive Bonus Content version that I ordered from Amazon. Subsequently, I’ve learned that the Amazon set is not the only “Ultimate Collector’s Edition” available, but that there are different exclusives included on the “Ultimate Collector’s Edition” on Blu-ray for sale by Target. I was motivated to search out these differences, and with a little help from my friends, I’ve identified the differences here, for those interested:

Exclusive Extras on BD from Amazon.com:
Performances:
The Grateful Dead – “Mama Tried”
Jefferson Airplane – “Volunteers”
Country Joe and the Fish – “Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine”
Featurettes:
“Technical Difficulties: The Obstacles to a Smoothly Run Festival Posed by Nature and Technology”
“Woodstock: A Turning Point - When Organizers Realized a Concert Became a Statement About Peace”
“Food, Lodging & First Aid: Making Adequate Provisions for a Musical Multitude”

Exclusive Extras on BD from Target:
Performances:
Canned Heat – “Woodstock Boogie”
The Who – “Sparks”
Jimi Hendrix – “Spanish Castle Magic”
Featurettes:
“Reflections of an Era: Director Michael Wadleigh on Two Signature 1969 events—Woodstock and the Moon Landing”
“A Farm In Bethel: Reflections on Landholder Max Yasgur’s Legacy”
“Cinematic Revolution: The Origins of the Film’s 3-Panel Look”
“Woodstock Generation: Sons and Daughters of the 1960s Share Their Memories”

Additional Note: The BD edition of Woodstock issued in the UK includes the Target exclusive material, with different cover art.

However, if you really want to assemble as many Woodstock performances as you can, you’ll also need the set of three OOP laser discs issued on VideoArts in Japan in 1994, referred to as Woodstock Diary, a film by Chris Hegedus, Erez Laufer, and D. A. Pennebaker. For convenience, I’ve listed the material available on these discs here:

1969.8.15 (VideoArts Music VALJ-3412)
Richie Havens: I Can’t Make It Anymore; Freedom
Country Joe McDonald: I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-To-Die Rag
John Sebastian: Rainbows All Over Your Blues
The Incredible String Band: When You Find Out Who You Are
Bert Sommers: Jennifer
Tim Hardin: If I Were A Carpenter
Ravi Shankar: Evening Raga
Arlo Guthrie: Walkin’ Down the Line
Joan Baez: Drug Store Truck Drivin’ Man; Sweet Sir Galahad
Interviews with: John Roberts, Joel Rosenman and Michael Lang

1969.8.16 (VideoArts Music VALJ-3413)
Quill: Waiting For You
Santana: Soul Sacrifice
Canned Heat: Leaving This Town
Mountain: Southbound Train
Sly & the Family Stone: Love City
Janis Joplin: Try (Just A Little Bit Harder); Ball & Chain
The Who: My Generation
Jefferson Airplane: Somebody To Love; White Rabbit
Interviews with: John Roberts, Joel Rosenman and Michael Lang

1969.8.17 (VideoArts Music VALJ-3413)
Joe Cocker: Let’s Go Get Stoned
Country Joe and the Fish: (Thing Called) Love
Ten Years After: I’m Going Home
The Band: The Weight
Johnny Winter: Mean Time [sic] Blues
Crosby, Stills and Nash: Blackbird
Paul Butterfield: Everything Gonna Be Alright
Sha Na Na: Duke of Earl
Jimi Hendrix: Star Spangled Banner; Woodstock Instrumental; Villanova Junction
Interviews with: John Roberts, Joel Rosenman, Michael Lang, Lisa Law and Wavy Gravy

In addition, you may wish to pick up the Jimi Hendrix Live at Woodstock 2-disc DVD set (which includes “Spanish Castle Magic,” an extra on the Target set) as well. And go here for Tim Lucas’s discussion of the 2CD set Jefferson Airplane—The Woodstock Experience, consisting of JA’s complete performance at Woodstock.

Mile Marker 150

This morning I discovered that late last night Tim Lucas sent Becky and me an email informing us that the preview of VIDEO WATCHDOG #150 had been posted on the VW website so that Becky and I could get an early look at our opening spread in the “150th smash issue.” Last month I wrote about my and Becky’s decade long plus association with Video Watchdog that began in 1998 with issue #45, 105 issues ago. While we’ve contributed to VW for over a decade, that’s certainly not as long as Steve Bissette (whose name, you’ll notice, is on the cover) who has contributed to VW off and on over the two decades of its existence. As I indicated in my blog last month, Becky and I always have been deeply pleased that Tim and Donna showed an almost instant willingness to publish our work, and we’re especially pleased to be part of issue 150. Publishing 150 issues of a specialized journal in the turbulent economic conditions and the technological revolution of the past twenty years is no small feat—many venerable journals have either folded up entirely, or gone strictly to an on-line format. I know that Tim and Donna are justly proud of their accomplishment, as they should be.

I remember telling Becky, immediately after we had finished our first two reviews and emailed them off to Tim, that even if he doesn’t accept them, at least we’ve learned something. We’ve found that to be true to this day: writing about a film (or book, or record, etc.) has both deepened our understanding of it various complexities (e.g., themes, characters) and ambiguities, but also its special singularity. Our latest long review of 2008’s superhero films required us to do a bit of homework, forcing us to refreshen our relationship with the characters by doing some additional reading as well as view the films more than once. And like always, we learned something. Not only do we learn by writing the reviews, but once we turn over our material to Tim—and the past few years, to a second pair of eyes, those belonging to John Charles—whose combined editing skills are simply outstanding, we have the comfort of knowing that not only will our work be, proverbially speaking, gone over with a fine-tooth comb, but any factual errors will be corrected as well. And since Donna Lucas is so masterful with design and layout—she’s careful, thoughtful, and meticulous in her work—the published product is thoroughly professional. Both Becky and I have profited greatly from working with Tim and Donna over the years, and we heartily congratulate them on landmark issue 150. We are pleased to be part of it.

Blu Blues at Woodstock

I finally had a chance to screen most of the material included on the recently released Blu-ray edition of Woodstock (1970)—the 40th Anniversary Ultimate Collector’s Edition and BD-Live with Amazon Exclusive Bonus Content version, to be precise, that I ordered from Amazon about a month ago. Touted on Amazon.com as “one of the most impressive Blu-Ray releases of 2009 or any other year,” the Collector’s Edition has lots of what is called, in marketing lingo, “value-added content.” The box (enclosed in a protective plastic sleeve), for instance, is designed to resemble a faux fringe leather jacket, while inside there’s an iron-on patch with the familiar logo, a Lucite paperweight with pictures, a reprint of the 60-page Life Magazine special issue about the 1969 event, a reproduction of a three-day ticket, and some other memorabilia (of the miniaturized and simulated sort). Such materials make the event no more “real” than it ever was, but serve as an illustration of the conceit that an important social and cultural event presumably can be fully represented as a series of fragments, making the past seem as visible and proximate as the world you see outside the window as you eat your daily breakfast.

To be honest, I was most interested in the Amazon-exclusive bonus content included on the Blu-ray edition, that is, the additional concert footage consisting of performances by the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Country Joe and the Fish, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Johnny Winter, Mountain, and others. Screening the film this time, though, and having viewed the additional footage, I had a rather strong experience of déjà vu, as it occurred to me that many of the artists and bands who’d appeared at Woodstock had already (earlier) appeared at the Monterey Pop Festival in June 1967, e.g., Janis Joplin (with Big Brother and the Holding Company), the Grateful Dead, Country Joe and the Fish (duplicating a couple songs at Woodstock previously performed at Monterey), Jimi Hendrix (ditto), the Butterfield Blues Band, the Who, Jefferson Airplane, and Ravi Shankar, as well as musicians such as Stephen Stills and David Crosby, who’d appeared at Monterey in different bands. Woodstock has always been pitched as a more significant and historic “cultural event” than Monterey, a perception that unwittingly reaffirms the widespread (mis)conception that “The Sixties” consists of events that occurred from 1968 to the end of the decade. It seems to me that the difference between Woodstock and Monterey is all about “authenticity,” which event is seen as the more “authentic” representation of “The Sixties.” My subjective impression is that Woodstock has won out as the more “authentic” event of “The Sixties” . . . but, as Simon Frith has observed, “authenticity” has always been premised on the opposition between “music-as-expression and music-as-commodity.” Hence Woodstock is generally perceived, historically, as being all about “music-as-expression” (expression of historical moment, crystallization of sensibility, and so on), while Monterey has been viewed as being all about “music-as-commodity.” I offer this observation purely as speculation, not as accepted fact.

In any case, this time around I noticed the number of blues and blues-based bands that appeared at Woodstock: Canned Heat, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Joe Cocker, Johnny Winter, Paul Butterfield, Mountain, and Ten Years After—but, ironically, how few black blues artists were represented (none). Black artists were represented at Woodstock, yes, of course; that’s not my point. Blues music was well-represented at Woodstock, but was played exclusively by white musicians—Canned Heat, the Paul Butterfield Blues Band (one of the few bands with black musicians), Joe Cocker, Janis Joplin, and—the whitest of all—Johnny Winter, who gave the best blues performance at the festival (“Mean Town Blues”), in my view, based on the footage included on the bonus disc. By no means am I claiming that the blues played by white artists is “inauthentic,” but viewing the Woodstock material this time was a painful reminder of the way white people have historically exploited black people, particularly in the popular music industry. Black music is the ghostly presence of Woodstock. I do not make this observation as a so-called “white liberal,” but as someone who is simply stating a central tenet of the American musical industry. About 99% of those who attended the Woodstock festival were white kids who had the wherewithal, as well as the leisure time, to be able to burn a weekend listening to rock music. The documentary associates primitive behavior (lack of regimentation, nudity, communal bathing, nature worship, fucking in the tall grass, non-Western religious practices, magical thinking—the “no rain, no rain” chant”—and so on) with authentic expression. Monterey has not had this sort of mythology attached to it, but that ought to make the point(s) I am making all the more obvious. Of course I love the music, and the documentary itself is an example of great filmmaking, but speaking for myself, I have few illusions that hippies (middle and upper-class white kids with lots of disposable income and leisure time, still possible in the 60s) are worth all the ideological obfuscation that have been granted them through the Woodstock documentary. Would that I could believe otherwise.

Avant Garage

For some reason, I awoke this morning thinking about the role of the recording engineer in rock and pop music. The best analogy I can think of to understand the role of the recording engineer is that the engineer is to a record what the cinematographer is to a movie. If the latter makes artifice and theatricality seem “natural,” the recording engineer makes sounds seem “captured,” not created. It is therefore not surprising that the contributions of the recording engineer and the cinematographer are recognized within their professional disciplines by prestigious awards (e.g., the Grammy and Academy Awards). There have been, and are, many revered engineers in the history of popular music, many of them known for their contributions to the success of various groups, for instance, Dave Hassinger (early Rolling Stones), Roger Nichols (Steely Dan), Hugh Padgham (Peter Gabriel, The Police), Alan Parsons (Pink Floyd), and Bill Szymczyk (The James Gang, The Eagles). A lesser-known engineer whose career has always interested me, primarily because of his association with the experimental, avant-garde band Pere Ubu, is Kenneth (Ken) Hamann, who began his career at the Cleveland Recording Company in 1950. According to the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History website, Ken Hamann was named the chief engineer of Cleveland Recording Co. in 1956,

and over the next decade, in addition to engineering award-winning remote broadcast recordings of the yearly Bach Festival and Oberlin College Contemporary Music Festivals, helped build the studio into a state-of-the-art recording and mastering facility in which many regional and national hit records were produced. These included the Outsiders’ “Time Won't Let Me,” the Human Beinz’ “Nobody But Me,” the Lemon Pipers’ “Green Tambourine,” and albums by the James Gang and Grand Funk Railroad.

The encyclopedia entry goes on to say that in 1970 Hamann and production engineer John Hansen purchased the Cleveland Recording Co. from original owner Frederick C. Wolf. I discovered that a few years later, in 1977, they sold the company, and Hamann moved to Painesville, where he set up Suma Recording Studio. According to this site, Hamann died in January 2003, but his son Paul Hamann continues the family tradition of engineering and recording as the owner and chief engineer of Suma. While by no means definitive (it’s a work-in-progress), here are a few rock albums engineered by Ken Hamann over the years. The problem with compiling a definitive list is that the engineer wasn’t always acknowledged in an album’s credits, but I have done my best.

Tiffany Shade – Tiffany Shade (1967)
Yer’ Album – The James Gang (with Bill Szymczyk) (1969)
Smooth as Raw Silk – Silk (with Bill Szymczyk) (1969)
On Time – Grand Funk Railroad (1969)
Damnation – The Damnation of Adam Blessing (1969)
Grand Funk – Grand Funk Railroad (1969)
Closer to Home – Grand Funk Railroad (1970)
Bloodrock 2 – Bloodrock (1970) (“D.O.A.”)
Survival – Grand Funk Railroad (1971)
E Pluribus Funk – Grand Funk Railroad (1971)
Live–The 1971 Tour – Grand Funk Railroad (issued 2002)
Thirds – The James Gang (with Bill Szymczyk) (1971)
Mom’s Apple Pie – Mom's Apple Pie (1972)
Bloodrock Live – Bloodrock (1972)
Bang – The James Gang (1973)
Wild Cherry – Wild Cherry (1976) (“Play That Funky Music”)
Jesse Come Home – The James Gang (1976)

For me, though, Ken Hamann’s most interesting work is for the self-proclaimed “avant garage” band from Cleveland, Pere Ubu. I’m not quite sure about Ken Hamann’s age when he began working with Pere Ubu, but I remember reading (or being told by someone) that he was nearing retirement when the band approached him about recording their music. My memory may be incorrect, but this fact seems intuitively correct since he had been in the U. S. Navy during World War II, and hence would have been around sixty years old when he was introduced to the band in 1976—just a few years from retirement. In any case, according to The Hearpen Singles, a box set containing reissues of the first four 7” singles released by Pere Ubu in the 1970s, Ken Hamann engineered all of the band’s first singles except the very first (“30 Seconds Over Tokyo”/”Heart of Darkness”), released in December 1975. The band began recording at Cleveland Recording Co. in February 1976 (“Final Solution” and “Cloud 149”). Hamann is also credited as producer on the single “The Modern Dance”/“Heaven” (1977). He is credited as engineer and co-producer of the band’s first three studio albums as well:

The Modern Dance (1978) (Three songs recorded at Cleveland Recording Co.; the remainder at Suma Recording in Painesville in 1977)
Dub Housing (1978)
New Picnic Time (1979)

For whatever reason (retirement?), he ceased working with Pere Ubu after 1979’s New Picnic Time, but he later engineered Variations On A Theme by David Thomas and the Pedestrians, released in 1983. His son, Paul, engineered all subsequent Pere Ubu albums beginning with The Art of Walking (1980) through Cloudland (1989), and continued to engineer various tracks on subsequent albums thereafter, while also remastering and mixing live tapes from the 1970s and early 1980s for release on CD (e.g., One Man Drives While The Other Man Screams, 1989). Ken Hamann’s contribution to Pere Ubu’s sound is acknowledged by David Thomas in this article from 2006. Moreover, Hamann’s work also inspired one doctoral dissertation. According to this article, Susan Schmidt Horning, who met Hamann in 1968 and marveled at his ability to manipulate sound, was later inspired to investigate the relationship of music and technology in sound recording studios. She authored Chasing Sound: The Culture and Technology of Recording Studios in America, 1877-1977 (Ph.D. dissertation, Case Western Reserve University, 2002), which won the Ohio Academy of History’s 2003 Outstanding Dissertation Award.

Below is a list of books exploring the link between technology and music. If anyone can contribute to my on-going list of records engineered by Ken Hamann, or additional information, please feel free to send me an email.

Additional Readings:
Michael Chanan, Repeated Takes: A Short History of Recording and Its Effects on Music. Verso, 1997.
Mark Katz, Capturing Sound: How Technology Has Changed Music. University of California Press, 2004.
David L. Morton, Jr., Sound Recording: The Life Story of a Technology. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006.
Paul Théberge, Any Sound You Can Imagine: Making Music/Consuming Technology. Wesleyan/University Press of New England, 1997.

Jacksonism: Michael Jackson, 1958-2009

I think it was Greil Marcus who observed that Michael Jackson was a god who became a mere celebrity, and there is a terrible truth to this observation. For the last quarter century of his life—that is, the second half—Michael Jackson’s career seemed like nothing so much as an apocalyptic spiral that served as an illustration of the Platonic allegory of the consequences of the inevitable deviation from the Good. He resembles no rock star so much as Elvis, for reasons, I suspect, that will emerge in those inevitable biographies sure to be published, controversial and otherwise, in the coming years. Who shall be to Michael Jackson what Albert Goldman was to Elvis? Jacksonism’s biggest year, arguably, was 1984, the year during which the tidal wave crested and broke, but by then he could claim a world record no one, not even Elvis or the Beatles, had managed to achieve: he had made one monumental, colossal LP—THRILLER, produced by Quincy Jones—which was the source of more hit singles in the Top Ten (seven) than any other record, rock or otherwise, in history. He even trumped that claim to immortality by marrying, briefly, King Elvis’s only child, Lisa Marie Presley, in 1994.

THRILLER contained “Billie Jean,” a tremendous single and perhaps the best song he ever recorded. Michael Jackson’s future career could be read in that song, not only in its lyrical substance (about the perils of stardom), but in what he did with the song, subsequently transforming it into “You’re a Whole New Generation,” that is, a Pepsi commercial jingle. (He did the same thing with other of his songs as well.) The anger and indignation of “Billie Jean” was transformed into a mere soda pop advertisement, but his legions of fans forgave him—as they always did. For THRILLER sold so many copies in its first year and a half of release that its significance was not only measured in total sales, but in terms of its social impact and in its implications. Elvis and the Beatles did that, too, of course, but the phenomenal popularity of that album even surpassed their vast sales.

Michael Jackson’s fascination with the Peter Pan myth became a well-known and idiosyncratic fact of his biography; he even built Neverland Ranch, a juvenile’s attempt (not a juvenile attempt) to equal Hearst Castle. But since Michael Jackson died a celebrity and not a god, it’s unclear whether Neverland Ranch will be named a National Historic Landmark like Hearst Castle was; it may even be torn down. Nor is it clear whether Neverland will be transformed into the shrine to Jackson that Graceland is to Elvis. While Elvis spent compulsively, lavishly, and extravagantly, he never built a shrine to himself remotely like Neverland: compared to the other homes of the rich and famous, Graceland is a very modest home. Elvis never well understood the American myth that he represented; he wore sideburns, for instance, because he thought they made him look like a truck driver. Michael Jackson, likewise, misread the myths he embodied; while he may have had a fascination with the Peter Pan myth, he didn’t understand the myth very well at all. For Michael Jackson reminds me of no one so much as Tennyson’s Tithonus, the mere mortal who fell in love with Aurora, immortal Goddess of the Dawn. Because he had fallen in love with an immortal goddess, Tithonus asked the gods for Eternal Life. His critical mistake, though, was that he forgot to ask for Eternal Youth: only a fool tries to negotiate with the gods, that is, Fate. Tithonus, as Tennyson tells his story, just grew older and older, more and more decrepit, enjoying the blessings of Eternal Life but not that of Eternal Youth, until he haunted the woods alone, afraid to show himself to other mortals, while his body slowly, but not quite, disintegrated. His blessing was a singular curse, one that no one, not even Peter Pan himself, would ever have to suffer. Even late his career, just before the train was about to run off the tracks, Elvis could laugh, and laugh heartily, perhaps most deeply, at himself. I don’t remember Michael Jackson that way, and perhaps that makes all the difference.

Garage

“Garage rock” is meant to invoke a “tradition” in rock music, but it is a tradition that has been created only in retrospect. For it is a fact that no group of amateurs, inspired by the Beatles to pick up a guitar and do covers of British Invasion songs, ever imagined themselves as a “garage band.” The difference between a so-called “garage band” and a “rock band” is that the latter achieved stardom, while the former did not. Limited largely by economics and by technical deficiencies, garage bands never broke free of the local scene, and failed—although not, presumably, by choice. No doubt they would have preferred to have been successful. A local band may have a local hit, but very few local bands are able to transform a local hit into a national hit; there are exceptions to this rule, of course, but as always, the exception proves the rule.

Jack Holzman and Lenny Kaye’s NUGGETS collection, issued in 1972, invented the faux tradition within rock culture named “garage.” What they were really doing was celebrating the abject, that which had been ignored and forgotten. Although that wasn’t its explicit purpose, the NUGGETS anthology served to remind fans of the sacrifices, largely personal, that those who failed made in order to maintain rock music as a significant cultural value. By the mid-1970s, a decade after the Beatles’ annus mirabilis of 1964 and by which time the Beatles no longer existed as a band, the cultural ruin created by the Beatles—rather like a massive tsunami destroys the cities built too close to the shore—could be surveyed, catalogued, and celebrated. NUGGETS did just that. But like any historical reconstruction that attempts to make the past intelligible, such ruins can only be assembled from fragments, which is precisely what the first NUGGETS collection is, an assemblage of abject fragments, of proverbial “diamonds in the rough.” So what, precisely, is meant by “garage”? Michael Hicks conveniently provides us a set of features:

A garage is a rougher, dirtier place than where humans typically reside; a place to store heavy machinery and marginally useful possessions. It is a place of noise of alienation, a psychological space as much as a physical one. In this light “garage band” implies a distancing from more respectable bands (and from more respectable social enterprises in general). The Clash put it well in the chorus to one of their early songs: “We are a garage band/We come from a garage land.” (Sixties Rock: Garage, Psychedelic, and Other Satisfactions, p. 25.)

Garage is perhaps the only “tradition” in rock that is defined strictly by economics and by the professional stature of the band members. But as Hicks reveals, the values celebrated by 1970s punk transformed music that had been marginal in an earlier era into an “authentic” form of rock music in a later one. But if it was so obviously authentic, why had it been marginalized? Collections such as NUGGETS are premised on the assumption that they rescue masterpieces from undeserved neglect, and while that is a powerful myth, it is just that, a myth. The fact that it is just another “sales pitch” goes unremarked. I suppose I’m jaded, because the discourse of popular music has always pitted the “authentic” (The Real) against the “conventional” (The Popular) for the purpose of selling records to a broad (as opposed to a narrow few) audience. It is an old ploy. Listeners are encouraged to find “authenticity” in the marginal (“alternative,” once “underground” rock), the canonical (“classic” rock), or the unfamiliar (e.g., Delta blues). The same holds true for “garage” rock, a faux tradition where listeners are told they may also find the “authentic.” Am I “anti-garage”? Not at all: the NUGGETS collection contains perhaps nine great songs, but what a great nine they are. Not everything is genius, or the word has no meaning. And a great song is a great song, regardless of its putative “tradition.”

Progressive Rock Redux

I’ve blogged on the subject of so-called “Progressive Rock” (or “Art Rock,” a collocation presumably derived from the phrase “high art,” as in “high art pretensions”) previously, but since yesterday’s entry on Ali Akbar Khan, I’ve been thinking again about the subject. My earlier rumination on the subject of progressive rock argued that its development is inseparable from developments in recording technology, i.e., studio engineering. By the early 1970s (and possibly sooner), the recording engineer began to be listed on an album’s credits right along with band members, suggesting his essential role in the recording process. The trouble with writing about something like prog rock is that the bands normally associated with this kind of music (e.g., King Crimson) were stylistically adventurous, and hence did not consciously identify themselves with one style of music: the term has been applied only retrospectively, in order to explain a certain stylistic direction in rock music that developed during the late 1960s. By way of analogy, think of the history of “Punk Rock.” Punk, as a term used to describe the culture around a type of rock music, had no currency until 1975. Soon after, the word punk gained currency, people identified themselves and their culture with the term and they started piecing together a history, memorializing certain figures that preceded them and ascribing to those figures their own desires, which these predecessors could not have fully known. Thus, some punks memorialized the MC5 and The Stooges, while others memorialized the Velvet Underground, and so on. The point is, historical narratives were formed around punk rock, the function of which was to create predecessors for the music (and hence legitimate it), but these predecessors could not have fully understood the future they supposedly authored.

On albums such as RUBBER SOUL (1965) and REVOLVER (1966), which incorporated Eastern music and instruments (the incorporation of novel timbres) uncommon in rock music at the time, the influence of Khan is somewhat easier to trace, although certainly this influence doesn’t explain the actual songs themselves, nor does it explain the use of the symphony orchestra or orchestral instruments, or songs with large sectional forms distinguished by textural contrast between the sections, certain stylistic features of progressive rock. In addition, prog rock characteristically employs what Charlotte Smith calls linear through-composition:

. . . the text is generally divided into short phrases that are introduced and imitated. As each phrase ends in the imitating voice, a new theme is entering in the other voice, overlapping the conclusion of the previous phrase. The overlapping, or dovetailing, technique makes it possible for the melodic flow to continue, as it would not if both voices rested at the same moment. As each theme is imitated, the original text setting is repeated, and the voices, after the imitation is dropped, continue toward a cadence. The same procedure is then repeated for successive phrases, the cadence interrupted each time with the new theme in one voice overlapping the conclusion of the previous phrase in the other voice. This style of through-composition, each interior phrase knit to the preceding phrase, is made more convincing by having the linear emphasis reinforced by the devices of imitation. (A Manual of Sixteenth-Century Contrapuntal Style, pp. 65-66).

My candidate for an excellent (very) early example of this songwriting technique in rock music would be the Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” (October 1966), which also happened to be heavily dependent on studio technology. Certainly “Good Vibrations” qualifies as an instance of prog rock: novel timbres (orchestral instruments; the Theremin), sectional forms distinguished by textual contrast, and linear through-composition (“each interior phrase knit to the preceding phrase,” as well as the way each theme is successively imitated). (Youtube video here.) According to Paul McCartney, the Beatles’ “Strawberry Fields Forever” and “A Day in the Life” (both on SGT. PEPPER’S, June 1967) were inspired by Brian Wilson. And in November 1967, the Moody Blues released DAYS OF FUTURE PASSED, which virtually codified prog rock, particularly with the songs “Tuesday Afternoon” and “Nights in White Satin.” (Given my definition, memorable songs from this period such as Procol Harum’s “A Whiter Shade of Pale” don’t really qualify.) Thus it seems to me to understand thoroughly the stylistic development in rock music known as progressive rock, the late 1966 - late 1967 period is key.

Ali Akbar Khan, 1922-2009

The Los Angeles Times reported this morning that Ali Akbar Khan, the master Indian musician and composer who was a key figure in introducing the music of India to the United States, has died at age 87. Khan was born 14 April 1922, in Shivpur, East Bengal (now Bangladesh), and began playing the sarod (a 25-stringed instrument that is similar to the Middle Eastern oud) and other instruments as a boy. He became a legendary sarod player and music teacher, but for many his greatest significance was in the popularization of Indian music to the West. Remarkably, he recorded more than 95 albums, was nominated for five Grammy Awards, and composed scores for both Indian and Western films, including Satyajit Ray’s DEVI (1960), Merchant-Ivory’s THE HOUSEHOLDER (1963), and Bernardo Bertolucci’s LITTLE BUDDHA (1993). The L. A. Times obituary said:

“He was instrumental in transforming Indian music into an international tradition in a way that was unprecedented,” said David Trasoff of Los Angeles, a senior student of Khan’s who has studied north Indian classical music and sarod performance for the last 36 years. “What he attempted to do and, I believe, succeeded in doing was to transplant this very deep musical tradition by committing himself to a level of teaching that resulted in a number of protégés who have gone on to present this music throughout the world,” Trasoff said.

Khan’s earliest record in the West was issued on the Angel label in 1955; Odeon began issuing his records in the early 1960s (available in the U. S. as imports), followed by a series of records issued in the United States by the Connoisseur Society beginning in 1965. Additionally, Khan’s duets with Ravi Shankar were a key factor in introducing the latter musician to rock culture. By the late 1960s, the music of the sarod became frequently associated with the psychedelic experience, that is, with transcendence and transformation, and while Khan recorded very few pieces for films in the West, his influence can be heard, for instance, in soundtracks such as that of Jack Nitzsche’s for PERFORMANCE (1970). As I indicated earlier, Khan recorded many dozens of albums, but here are few of them that had some influence on the rock music of the 1960s:

Morning & Evening Ragas (Angel, 1955)
Music of India (with Ravi Shankar) (Odeon, 1960)
Classical Music of India (Odeon, 1961)
Ali Akbar Khan (Odeon, 1965)
Master Musician of India (Connoisseur Society, 1966)
Predawn to Sunrise Ragas (Connoisseur Society, 1967)
Flowers of Evil: Six Poems By Baudelaire narrated by Yvette Mimieux (Connoisseur Society, 1968)
Shree Rag (Connoisseur Society, 1969) (1970 Grammy Award Nomination)
Concert for Bangla Desh (with Ravi Shankar) (Apple, 1971)
In Concert 1972 (with Ravi Shankar) (Apple, 1972)

Although there many sites on the web featuring Khan playing the sarod, for convenience I've made a link to one of them here.

Now In Its 20th Year

Today, over on his WatchBlog, Tim Lucas announced that Donna had informed him VIDEO WATCHDOG has officially entered its twentieth year of publication. Donna remembers receiving the copies of VW #1 from the publisher on June 15, 1990, nineteen years ago yesterday. That bit of news prompted me to think about my and Becky’s long association with the venerable magazine, and I realized that our association with VIDEO WATCHDOG has now entered its twelfth year: our first reviews for the magazine were published in VW #45 (May/June 1998), eleven years ago last month (cover pictured). We have therefore been involved with the ‘DOG for over half of its life. Becky and I have cherished our association with the magazine, primarily because it has been one of the happiest and more fulfilling activities of our professional lives.

I remember sending an email to Tim very early in 1998 saying Becky and I would love the opportunity to review for the magazine, and asking if he would be both interested, and willing, to have us send our reviews of the Criterion Collection laser discs of THE NIGHT PORTER (1974) and VICTIM (1961), issued by Criterion at the same time in December 1997. As I recall, he responded to my email rather quickly, saying sure, he would be happy to consider publishing our reviews of these discs—but they would be considered merely as “spec” reviews, meaning there was no guarantee they would be accepted for publication. I wrote back saying I was delighted that he had agreed to consider reading our reviews, and also that I perfectly well understood that he, as editor, had the right to reject them. But secretly I was very sure he wouldn’t.

And he didn’t. A couple of weeks after I first initiated contact, I sent him our reviews of those discs, and happily, he accepted them for publication, thus beginning our long association with the magazine. In his email accepting them, he asked me if there were any feature articles we might be interested in writing for VW. I wrote back telling him that we would love to write a piece on the EVIL DEAD trilogy, a proposal that he thought was a great idea, and one we later wrote for the magazine. Moreover, given the fact that the “blood red” edition of EVIL DEAD 2 had been recently issued on laser disc, he asked us to review that LD as well. So those three laser discs—the “blood red” LD issue of EVIL DEAD 2: DEAD BY DAWN, THE NIGHT PORTER, and VICTIM, were our first unholy three published in VIDEO WATCHDOG. We still have those laser discs, but they are now, a mere eleven years later, artifacts of a now moribund era of home video. They are not without a little monetary value, of course, especially for collectors, despite being a form of déclassé technology. But I strongly suspect that Becky and I will always hold on to those discs, because they represent our very first association with VIDEO WATCHDOG. I remember times, early on, when the VHS and LD reviewers for VW were Tim, longtime contributor John Charles, Kim Newman, and Becky and me, with Douglas E. Winter doing soundtrack reviews and, as I recall, Anthony Ambrogio writing the book reviews. Soon after, by the next year, I think, Richard Harland Smith had joined on, and The Kennel continued to grow from there. We have learned and profited from the writing of all the contributors to VIDEO WATCHDOG, and are delighted to be among such esteemed company. Through our association with VW, Becky and I were able to meet some people who would later help us considerably with our book on Donald Cammell, including David Del Valle and Brad Stevens. Just a few years ago, I was able to meet Richard Harland Smith in Los Angeles, when he stopped by to see the Drkrm.com exhibition of art from the Corman Poe films that David Del Valle had arranged and curated. Thus, my and Becky’s association with VIDEO WATCHDOG has been to our great professional advantage, among other benefits, including allowing us the opportunity to meet new friends.

We didn’t actually meet Tim and Donna until several years later, in July of 2006, when we swung through Cincinnati on our way back from Montreal, where we’d attended the official North American release of our book, DONALD CAMMELL: A LIFE ON THE WILD SIDE. Accompanied by our young son John, Becky and I enjoyed a memorable evening of laughter and conversation with Tim and Donna, the kind of evening that made me wish we lived closer together, a sentiment that I know Tim has expressed as well. (You can read all about our meeting in his WatchBlog entry of July 17, 2006.) Tim and I are very close to the same age, although I’ve always prided myself in being the oldest (“senior”) member of the current VW Kennel—and how often does a person brag about being older than his peers?

So here’s to you, Tim and Donna, and the first nineteen years of VIDEO WATCHDOG! Becky and I have thoroughly enjoyed our association with you and your venerable magazine, thank you for the opportunities you have given us, and look forward to its continuation as long as you wish to pursue publishing it. We also look forward to spending another evening or two (or ten) of conversation and laughter with you, accompanied by fine food and wine, of course, and the pleasure of the company of friends we just don’t see often enough. Alas. And here’s to all of our fellow Kennel members as well, with whom we’ve often disagreed, but always learned, and been frequently astonished by the range and scope of your erudition.

Take Your Girlie to the Movies

“Take Your Girlie to the Movies” was originally a hit in 1919 by famed vocalist Billy Murray, the most popular male singer in America before Al Jolson. The song reveals how quickly the movie theater became a popular setting for the courtship ritual, and includes references to popular movie stars of the Teens (for instance, Billie Burke, perhaps best known to modern audiences as Glinda, the Good Witch of the North, in The Wizard of Oz), as well as social mores of that earlier era. According to journalist Jim Walsh, Billy Murray sold more records than any other pop singer in America between 1910 and 1920. Prior to the era of the compact disc, Murray’s legacy was kept alive by acoustic era record collectors and students of the early history of the phonograph. They exchanged discs and cylinders as well as dubs on open reel tape and cassettes. Because Murray spent much of his professional time in the studio rather than performing live, his recordings comprise the bulk of his legacy.

Murray was an extremely popular singer as early as 1905. By June 1906, Murray’s recording of “The Grand Old Rag” was the biggest-selling record in the Victor Company’s history. Songs recorded by Murray in 1905, such as “In My Merry Oldsmobile” and “Everybody Works But Father,” remained in record catalogs until the early 1920s, suggesting their popularity. In 1909 Murray formed the American Quartet (known as the Premier Quartet on Edison cylinder releases), best known for its interpretations of ragtime and novelty songs. Among the group’s early bestsellers were “Casey Jones,” “It’s A Long, Long Way to Tipperary,” “Moonlight Bay,” and “Oh, You Beautiful Doll.” By the 20s, Murray wasn’t quite as popular as he had been (his “old-fashioned” music was being displaced by jazz), but he still had hits with “(Down by the) O-H-I-O (I’ve Got the Sweetest Little O, My! O!)” (with Victor Roberts), “Strut, Miss Lizzie,” “That Old Gang Of Mine” (with Ed Smalle), and “Don’t Bring Lulu.” The latter song, “Don’t Bring Lulu,” was re-recorded by Kay Kyser’s band in 1935, although the song had been part of his band’s repertoire for at least a year. At the same time, Kyser also recorded Murray’s earlier hit, “Take Your Girlie to the Movies” (Sully Mason, vocal), and likewise had a minor hit from it. Hence from the Teens on, the movies had been a subject of popular music.

A Few Pop Songs Referencing the Movies:
The Beatles – Act Naturally
Jimmy Buffett – Grapefruit Juicy Fruit
Johnny Cash – Ballad of a Teenage Queen
Cher – Bang Bang (My Baby Shot Me Down)
Dennis Yost & The Classics Four – Spooky
The Drifters – Kissin’ in the Back Row of the Movies
The Drifters – Saturday Night at the Movies
The Everly Brothers – Wake Up Little Susie
Bertie Higgins – Key Largo
Alan Jackson – Here in the Real World
Kay Kyser and His Orchestra – Take Your Girlie to the Movies
Buck Owens – Act Naturally
Stan Ridgway – Beloved Movie Star
Yes – Cinema