On my street in the mid- sixties, about twenty-five houses with a choice of two designs curved around adjacent to a school yard; bordering a small creek that flooded in a big rain, bushes filled with black and straw berries, and the remnants of Illinois prairie. Besides being the perfect setting for a dusky game of Kick the Can, the houses on this small suburban street also provided the basements and garages for no less than four teenage rock bands.
On any given night while walking the dog, one could hear the approximations of Secret Agent Man or Louie Louie bashed out in exuberation from any one of these houses. Every once in a while, the garage next door would swing open and we kids would sprint from wherever we were playing when we heard the opening line, “My baby does the hanky panky”. It seemed like every teenager in America had a band, and we were all in love with rock and roll.
Radio fueled the fire. WCFL broadcast the soundtrack of my life- I would set the timer on my Sears Silvertone and lay in the dark too thrilled to fall asleep listening to the Who and I Can See for Miles or Incense and Peppermints by Strawberry Alarm Clock. Garage bands had regional hits in every part of the country. Television shows like Hullabaloo cranked it out too. I remember some show with Paul Revere and the Raiders hosting. The British Explosion of art school kids enamored by American blues tsunamied onto our shores. My Uncle Jay went off to Vietnam in 1967 and left behind his record collection and turntable. Otis Redding’s Sitting on the Dock of the Bay and Out of our Heads by the Rolling Stones were in the rotation. In fourth grade I pulled my grades up and was allowed to by my first record, Meet the Monkees. My baby-sitter’s Beatles obsession led me to my next purchase; a 45’ of Hello Goodbye which caused some true cognitive dissonance due to the flipside (I am the Walrus).
So what’s the point of my prattling on about my Wonder Years trip down memory lane? Well, to an old punk rocker like me, much of the sixties embodied everything good about music; the DIY attitudes, musicians who were fans first, and cheap or free access to the music. Maybe I’m totally wrong; I’m blogging nostalgically here, not writing my dissertation, but when there is an explosion of something new, you can’t beat the pureness of it all. For a short time it’s not about the money. But, as Ian Dury sang, it wasn’t going to just be about rock and roll.
I guess nothing can ever retain the qualities that make it great once it catches on with the masses. Money does become an issue simply because it is being generated like water pouring from an open fire hydrant. The savvy know how to siphon it, and the musician, who is usually getting a first taste, is happy just not to be thirsty anymore and doesn’t notice who is taking the biggest gulps. I imagine that the music biz as we know it today was taking shape seriously in the latter part of the Sixties: band or artist as celestial body with a complement of managers, lawyers, booking agents and accountants playing the role of sycophantic satellites. At least artists finally found ways to hang on to royalties. But the question might be asked: Did Albert Grossman make Bob Dylan or vice versa? I imagine that having Grossman manning the turnstiles at the gates of Eden ensured top dollar for the hordes that wanted a piece of his Zimmy.
It’s pretty well documented by film makers that by the end of the decade, the magic was unraveling. The monetary greed alone though (Let’s see how many people we can cram into a speedway or onto a farm) wasn’t the entire undoing of an era. Drugs in the short term proved to be inspirational to many a songwriter, but gosh, they tend to be addicting; and while the party in someone like David Crosby’s head was bound to be a colorful trip man, it tends to get a little tedious for the listener. Now, I’m hardly one to poo-poo the guitar solo, but for it to hold up, it has to also sound good when you aren’t doing drugs. And drum solos? Unless it’s John Bonham, I’d rather join a bunch of neo grunge-hippies in Grant Park beating trash can lids than listen to one. There were many talented bands (I’m up for feedback on who those bands were- I could list a dozen here- but please, not the Dead!) that could pull off a song over five minutes; after all, the Velvet Underground appeared on the scene. But that was the orchestration of madness into something sonically beautiful, not “checking yourself out in the mirror” wankery. The bottom line is that by the end of the sixties the music world was gearing up for the ego trip of the seventies in which the title of many records could have been called, “More Me”.
That said, the positives of the sixties far outweigh the negatives. I wasn’t quite old enough to live the hippie dream, but as a pre-adolescent it left indelible marks and a proclivity for women that look like Lulu’s classmates in To Sir with Love. As an era, the Sixties were simultaneously ecstatic and tragic, but strictly musically it lies as the frontrunner in my mind. The only era that comes close is the, gulp, Seventies.
Next time- The good (Gabba Gabba Hey), the bad (death disco), the ugly (satin jackets/ a&r coke fiends)
Nice piece Rick!
...although I now am picturing you as that hippy teacher on the Simpson’s who is cross-legged on his desk asking his students, "Have I ever told you kids about the sixties?". Hot!
Wonderful entries on the 50s and 60s. Close to my memories too. I look forward to more.