IVIV music

[Robin Landseadel]

And you have to take in consideration that one level TRP is  
purposefully pointing to "The Wrecking Crew," at least that's one of  
my takes on "Coy." At at certain time in the sixties—a time well  
covered in "Inherent Vice"—an inordinate number of top 40 hits and  
wanna-be top 40 hits were churned out by the "Wrecking Crew."

http://tinyurl.com/yk6vrqn

In spite of the illusion of incomparable variety in the sixties, a  
remarkable number of hit singles were performed by a rather limited  
number of musical performers.

Headphones have always meant a lot to me. I guess my scariest musical  
moment was hearing John Lennon's "God" over Koss Pro-4a's soon after  
the song came out. but now I'm cured of headphones, at least for the  
moment. Those nasty little earbuds in the I-Pod are a major turn-off  
and my STAX headphones are worn out. And now I play music with other,  
living, breathing people every week.

"You ought to be made to wear headphones."

A lot of "Listening Alone" came out of the experience of music in  
cars. There's a lot of that sort of thing in Inherent Vice. Hell,  
there's even music about cars and about "Music in Cars," "Peter Gunn"  
being the best of that genre with "Route 66" not so far behind. The  
whole Fast American Metal/Vibrasonic thing got a lot of folks used to  
hearing music blissfully alone:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26-y128gvWg

Of course, the aesthetic bliss of this Splendid Isolation was presaged  
by Marcel Proust 'n Glenn Glould, but it's a meme that went deep and  
took over a long time ago. What with a set-up that includes a STAX SRM- 
T1 headphone amp with Vishay Resistors, bypassed MIT caps, internal  
wiring replaced with Van den Hul OCC Silver-clad 18 gauge, A/C  
filtered though a Bybee filter and topped off by a power cord  
consisting of braided Van den Hul 12 guage Silver-clad OCC and a  
hospital plug you could say I took the whole headphone thing too far  
out there, though it did turn out to be a super tool for editing  
classical music.

Music no longer equals community, or at least the Illusion of  
Community that the Beatles maintained during what most of us think of  
as "the Sixties." We are all witnesses to the fracturing of musical  
communities that once were thriving, like the evaporation of the  
Classical scene and the calcification of musical cultures that were  
all about youth back when youth was immortal. Meanwhile, even more  
outré musical communities—string quartet tributes to Metallica?  
Ukulele Orchestras? You have to be kidding. .  .          :

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PfK-UzQ48JE

. . . now are thriving.

Susan Boyle, anybody?


On Jan 12, 2010, at 2:29 PM, malignd at aol.com wrote:

> In the sixties we all gave up hootenannies and round singing and  
> glee clubs and doo wop on the corner and church choirs for records?   
> This was in the sixties!?  I'm so out of it ...
>
> lnherent Vice, the big drop in music quality came at some point in  
> the 60s when we abandoned making our own music and performing/ 
> listening/singing to it in groups and for free, and instead started  
> isolating ourselves with headphones and privately stimulating  
> ourselves with music that we pay for.
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Mark Kohut <markekohut at yahoo.com>
> To: dougmillison at comcast.net
> Cc: pynchon -l <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Mon, Jan 11, 2010 9:52 am
> Subject: Re: IVIV music
>
>
> Now that's the way to thematically connect two seemingly disparate  
> threads, Doug....way to go...Pynchon knew.--- On Mon, 1/11/10, dougmillison at comcast.net 
>  <dougmillison at comcast.net> wrote:> From: dougmillison at comcast.net <dougmillison at comcast.net 
> >> Subject: IVIV music> To: "pynchon-l" <pynchon-l at waste.org>> Date:  
> Monday, January 11, 2010, 9:24 AM> Judging by the way it's depicted  
> in> lnherent Vice, the big drop in music quality came at some> point  
> in the 60s when we abandoned making our own music and> performing/ 
> listening/singing to it in groups and for free,> and instead started  
> isolating ourselves with headphones and> privately stimulating  
> ourselves with music that we pay for.> Another pornography, another  
> example of taking the fake in> place of the real. >
>