IVIV surf music

[malignd at aol.com]

I think it would be useful to define terms.  Pet Sounds isn't surf 
music, even though recorded by the Beach Boys.

I suppose you can say that some of their early stuff is surf music, 
since it has lyrics about surfing -- Catch a Wave, Surfin' Safari, 
Surfin' USA, etc., but I think of this as just Beach Boy music and 
something likely forced on them, along with their car songs by Capitol 
Records and success.  I doubt Brian Wilson knew a skeg from a cam shaft.

Surf music IMO is Dick Dale and the Ventures and a few others.

Most of the lyrics of early Beach Boy music would drive away anyone who 
didn't start listening to it when they were fourteen.

I gues it's hard to impart to US p-listers just how weird (and not 
necessarily in a good way) surf music sounds/feels to European 
ears/sensibilities. Can't speak for all of Europe, of course, but to me 
the Beach Boys were like aliens. I *still* haven't learned to love Pet 
Sounds. I kinda admire it, and there are loads of interesting noises on 
it, but where are the *songs*?


-----Original Message-----
From: John Carvill <johncarvill at gmail.com>
To: pynchon-l at waste.org
Cc: Doug Millison <dougmillison at comcast.net>
Sent: Tue, Oct 13, 2009 5:39 am
Subject: Re: IVIV surf music






Good stuff, Doug.

I gues it's hard to impart to US p-listers just how weird (and not
necessarily in a good way) surf music sounds/feels to European
ears/sensibilities. Can't speak for all of Europe, of course, but to
me the Beach Boys were like aliens. I *still* haven't learned to love
Pet Sounds. I kinda admire it, and there are loads of interesting
noises on it, but where are the *songs*?

> Aabove all the early 70s "hippie" scene was a
> hard-partying scene, lots of sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, just like in
> Rolling Stone magazine where Pynchon's old roomie was a journo, the
> one who took P to meet the Beach Boys and who knows, maybe that's when

Wouldn't it be nice....to get Jules's opinion on IV? I recall him
saying he went to visit PYnchon just before going to interview DYlan,
and Pynchon saying he would be better interviewing the Beach Boys.

Rewinding a bit to an earlier thread, I also recall Jules saying they
(i.e the counterculture folk) always regarded Tim Leary as "a CIA
stooge".


> Charlie Manson was still connected to the Beach Boys? I don't know.

Neil Young had a lot of interesting stuff to say about all that,
particularly frustrated pop star Charlie's interactions with people
from the pop music world. Wasn't NY's song 'Mansion on the HIll' about
that? Maybe not...  But there are loads of Neil Young resonances in
IV, from the cover art to 'On The Beach' and those sinisted 'dune
buggies' rollin' down the hills... Pulls in Manson, the Kent State
shootings, the yin and yang of 'The Sixties'.

One random scattered thought on Manson: can Ronald Reagan be
considered as Charlse Manson writ large, doing for 'America' what
Manson did for 'The Sixties'?