23 skidoo [bonus tracks]

[Robin Landseadel]

On Oct 10, 2009, at 9:17 AM, Bekah wrote:

> So you are suggesting (or not) that Coy is a "ghost musician" for  
> the Boards and actually plays with them as an associate,  like the  
> Wrecking Crew?   Just wondering.
>
> Bekah

Yes, that's one suggestion.

Coy , like members of the "Wrecking Crew," is a musician from some  
higher or more complex musical discipline then one usually finds  
involved in "Surf Music." If you have any musical sense—say maybe  
you're familiar with Beethoven and Rossini— you realize that one sax  
player really sticks out in the surf music scene on account of  
actually soloing as opposed to filling in with two-note fills.

Listen to the bulk of big-label top forty from L.A., 1964/1970 and  
you're hearing the Wrecking Crew.

I'm also playing the "6 degrees of separation" game with Terry  
Melcher, Dennis Wilson, Phil Spector and Charles Manson, tying some  
threads together I've seen in other books of Pynchon's.

I've long had a sense that the Paranoids best matched the Byrds. All  
the talk about surf music in Vineland and Inherent Vice obviously  
points to the Beach Boys. The Boards are a fictional band, as are the  
Paranoids, but they both have recognizable features from well-known  
and analogous bands of the same times and places.

If you have any musical sense—say maybe you're familiar with Jan &  
Dean and Dick Dale— you realize that one musician really sticks out in  
the surf music scene on account of actually composing as opposed to  
filling in ready-made musical structures like the twelve-bar blues:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NDfH_J4MAUQ

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OcUeSDMll5s

Though the Beach Boys LP "Surf's Up" was issued in 1971, the Boards  
circa 1970 have issues and virtues analogous to the Beach Boys of  
1970. And "Surf's Up" has so very much to do with "Inherent Vice."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3xrZPBdYGVE&feature=related