The Spike Jones Thing
Evan M Corcoran
emc at m-net.arbornet.org
Thu May 12 06:57:00 CDT 1994
from Entertainment Weekly, May 6, 1994
page 62, bottom half of page
=========================
Thomas Pynchon Pens Liner Notes
UNDER SPIKE'S SPELL
Now let's get this straight: Reclusive, postmodern cult novelist Thomas
Pynchon has written the *liner notes* for *Spiked!* (Catalyst/BMG), a CD
reissue of 18 works by bandleader Lindley Armstrong "Spike" Jones? Well,
yes, and it's not as bizarre as you might think. Pynchon and Jones
actually have a lot in common.
Just compare Punchon's five zany, egocentric, cacophonous, and
chaotically brilliant published works (*V., The Crying of Lot 49, Gravity's
Rainbow, Slow Learner, Vineland*) with the musical concoctions of Jones
("The King of Corn"), who from 1940 until his death in 1965 deconstructed
popular songs, punctuating them with weird vocal effects, whistles,
pistols, cowbells, and saws, among other things. So, is this merely a
serendipitous pairing of an avant-garde literary visionary with a musical
one? Well, no.
In the introduction to *Slow Learner*, a 1984 collection of his early
stories, Pynchon reveals that Jones' music made an impression on him in
boyhood. Enter Catalyst executive director (and Pynchonite) Tim Page, who
recalled the writer's penchant for Jones and approached him through his
agent. "I didn't expect to hear back," says Page. But he did, receiving
3,000 words of what he calls "the best liner notes I've ever read."
(Example: "Kids admired [Jones'] records for nearly the same set of
reasons grown-ups did--the rudeness, the grace of execution, the sheer
percussive dementia." When asked if he tampered with the notes, Page
nearly drops the phone, managing to utter: "I think it would be
presumptuous to edit Thomas Pynchon." --*Erica Kornberg*
[photos: high school closeup of TRP from Mead's book; Jones at a
xylophone; the cover of the new CD]
NOTEWORTHY PAIR: Pynchon (left in '55) became a fan of Jones' (right)
wacky music at an early age
=========================
This infuriates me. The most significant living writer in the country is
a "cult novelist." I suppose that means this mailing list comes under the
jurisdiction of the BATF. America's insistent amnesia will be its doom.
One more thing: I had heard that the "Rodan book" was actually to be the
"Mothra book," what with the two little fairy sisters and all.
-EMC
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