Complexity and the salvation of rock and roll

Complexity and the salvation of rock and roll

Posted on October 5th, 2011 by Mike Farrell

One of the loose collective of my friends — The Defeatist-Malcontent-Anarchist Slacker Collective and Bait Shop — a Vet who’s trying to get his band going in upstate New York doing kind of boogie rock with metal overtones, spends time he should spend doing something like picking up bottles for the return fee on a Marshall Amp blog, and one of the folks on it posted something about a piece of software that my pal had not heard of. He tossed it out to the collective, and one of the guys explained that it is really kind of an auto-cad system that enables engineers, architechts, and marketing types to overlay everything and walk the customer through the whole bloody thing. He then commented that if he wanted to go back to working for somebody else, he’s take some classes…and then realized what he just said. Commented that he hated his life, and went off to drink copiously in the pine woods of Maine.

This made me realize something. The goal is not 3D confusion but infinite dimensional confusion. Then,
people can do things like compare the budget and expenditures of the United States with your family checkbook, and have people pay attention. This software then is part of the Koch agenda and goal for the brave new world where You can confuse the customer in multiple dimensions, inclucing time, simultaneously! What is it? It’s all of this. When will it be done? When it is done. What will it look like? Like all of this in layers. Why is this here? it’s in the regulations. In France, it would have to be here, but we’re not in France so it has to be there. Don’t blame us, it’s in the regulations. What is it going to cost? What it costs. Cost =f(X,L) where X is the “cost” and L is “a lot” and the relationship is undefined…either you add a lot or you multiple by a lot, but it’s going to really cost a helluva lot.

So, I decided to hide in music for the rest of the day…Anybody besides me remember The American

Breed? 60s garage band that incorporated a trumpet in a lot of their fadeouts. Almost recruited a chick trumpet player for my non-existent but brilliantly conceived garage-punk-blues-rock band…The Barstow Bad News Blues Band. However, she can’t sing and only knows how to play marches. Wouldn’t really help get a unique sound. Have been thinking about substituting kazoo for the trumpet if we do a cover version of their hit, though?

Looking for the one thing led to a lot of others. Here’s some other garage-type stuff from my youth…For example, the Knickerbochers. Guys were from Yonkers, or someplace else in the neighborhood, but everybody thought they were either the Beatles or from Liverpool. Yeah…Liverpool, outside Syracuse, home of Heides Hotdogs…

The Beau Brummels were an interesting group. With that name, in the 60s, they should have been dressed in electric suits (really electric, plugged in like Christmas trees) but I guess they just liked the name. Pretty good song...

The Zombies had an interesting kind of vibe and were a talented band. Sort of stuff the Moody Blues originally did before they discovered psychedelia…and flutes.

Here are the Yardbirds with Jimmy Page supposedly playing the Beck riff because he was off being “brilliant” some place. I hate Jeff Beck, although I think his current bass player is hot. Actually, seeing her with that geezer is something I find scarey… I also think this was lip synching. Here’s the Original with Beck –and, I don’t hear the difference. To complete the circle of jerks and egos at the time, here’s one their first lead guitarist, What’s his name, Dick Crampton or something…I read something recently that said that the Minor Pentomic Blues Scale was what differentiated the three of them. Beck rarely uses it; Page was sloppy with it; Clapton precise and thorough. Yeah…sure.

Now, We Five was an interesting group — kind of folky, with a big voiced lead singer named Beverly. Who had a helluva voice…since by then the folk voices for women were the amazing altos of Joan Baez, Judy Collins and Joni Mitchell, not too surprising that they got lost in the dust. Kind of a shame — she’s dancing, shaking and jiving on stage like she might mean it, in a nice Christian California girl way.

Syndicate of Sound — A classic song, but what a waste of two Rickenbackers including a George Harrison 12. Couple of Japanese Squier knockoffs from Kresge’s before it was K-Mart would have done the trick for that rif. Saw these guys in 66, one of the opening acts for the Stones.

Finish up this nostalgia with two organ songs…despite the legend, not Augie March on both of them. She’s About a Mover was Doug Sahm, Augie and some other guys. Flip side was his attempt at being part of the summer of love, which I think was horrible. MENDI-cino. MENDI-cino. Mover was a helluva number though…\ Then, of course, there’s that great American Band, ? and the Mysterians.

There is nothing about these numbers that doesn’t say the yearning of teenage sex, Budwieser and cold duck on a Friday nite after the dance in the gym…who wouldn’t like that, again?…

That should ruin the weekend for those of you with daughters!