Tag: drugs

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We watched “The Beatles 64,” yesterday. Amazing, exciting. Surprising. It features newly unearthed, never before seen footage of the Beatles when they visited the USA, played the Ed Sullivan Show, Carnegie Hall, and chilled out in Harlem with Ronnie Spector and the Ronnettes. Who knew!?

Gil-Scott Heron famously told us: “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised,” but he didn’t mention that Albert and David Maysles were most likely filming it while it was happening. The brothers had cameras rolling for many significant events of that decade, including Monterey Pop and Gimmee Shelter.

A case can be made the 60’s didn’t really start until that fateful night on the Ed Sullivan Show. The Beatles played their music for 70 million Americans, many of them screaming and crying in joy and ecstasy. The nation was still reeling and mourning the murder of JFK. This little group of mop-tops captivated and electrified the youth of the world, and yes, changed the world as it changed them too.  

Turns out the 60’s, and the optimism and good vibes of that decade, seemed to die right around the time (1970), the Beatles broke up. The Rolling Stones at Altamont, and the Manson family murder spree also kind of put the nail in the coffin of that hippie credo: What’s so funny about Peace, Love & Understanding, indeed?!

Hindsight is revealing & deceiving, nothing is all that neat and simple. But it’s clear that you can’t understand the 1960’s if you don’t include the improbably brilliant journey of the Beatles. It is all still sort of astonishing even now. Right time, right place, magic happens. They were one of the few bands that just got better, more creative, and genre-busting with each recording.  Their explorations with fashion, drugs, mysticism, meditation, avant garde art, and world music, became our explorations too. The Beatles became the example, the myth, and the template for everyone else who ever tried to  follow or emulate them.

The craziness of Beatlemania is still pretty unfathomable, unexplainable. As John Lennon says, they experienced it as a sort of ride in the eye of a hurricane. We get an insider’s glimpse of those four lads birthing Pop Culture into being; a magnificent, thrilling, tsunami & joy-ride of new energy.

To see it all now? Another world. Did all really happen? Was it just a dream? A blast of enthusiasm, innocence, good vibes, humor & fun. As Paul said: it was all “A bit of a laugh.” Of course, it was much more than that, but that was close to the heart of the beginning. – Jammer

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elvis-performing-white-jumpsuit neilyoungIf they call you King, or King of Pop, it’s kind of like they kill you off. I mean, it no longer matters what you do, it’s not about the work, or the art you create, it’s only about who you are and what you own… and well, it’s deadening, invalidating and embalming!

So yeah, it’s weird. I’ve been reading Neil Young’s book, and listening to his records, and learning some of his songs.

At the same time, the Lovely Carla and I have been working on Elvis songs for the upcoming Cake and Whiskey Club show. We have been cruising YouTube, watching Elvis performances, (it’s kind of sad and invalidating to watch the Hollywood and Las Vegas versions of “The King”) trying to select songs we can relate to.

I realized I needed to learn some new Neil Young songs as an antidote to working on Elvis songs. It’s The King and the Anti-King. One wears big white suits. The other wears flannel shirts and jeans. One has a big, over-powering voice, the other has a shaky, mournful, fluttery kind of voice. One recorded lots of songs, but all of them are covers, the other pretty much, or almost exclusively, wrote all his own songs, and his music is a record of his mood, his mind and his days.

One represents glitz and in-authenticity, and the other seems homemade, authentic, full of heart and soul. At least this is how it seems to me. I often find the King over-blown and ridiculous, and Neil Young is always compelling and inspiring. One sort of invalidates the whole pop culture/celebrity thing, and the other seems to be working in another realm, deepening the mystery of living and working and getting thru.

Both indulged in lots of mind-altering substances. Legal and illegal. One died fairly young, (43 years old), and one is still doing great work all these many years later. Turns out “It’s better to burn out than to fade away,” is a pretty good line for a song, but not a great blue-print for living! I’m repelled by the pomp, circumstance and drug-addled excess of the King, (although I do love those early r&r Sun Sessions) but I gladly, whole-heartedly embrace the soul-searching, drug-addled excesses of the Anti-King! – Jammer