COL49 Group Read, section 3

[Joseph Tracy]

There is  a popularity struggle indicated between the VWs British cheery style and the greek chorus role of the self named Paranoids that might also point to a change in US culture brought about by the JFK murder.  One odd thing about the Paranoids being directed to sound British is that the Beatles and Stones had learned their style mostly doing American Rock. The music salespeople often prefer imitation to the real , are often the last to get the power of authentic art.  What goes less mentioned  is that one of the transforming forces in both cultures was outsider music  like rhythm and blues Tex Mex and roadhouse music. The resistance to this influence may be being indicated in the cultural  stereotypes projected in PI’s voices.

I’m listening to Robbie Robertson’s Testimony  which includes a telling incident from this time. All the members that became The Band were playing one of the last tours as Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks and played a gig in Dallas in a burnt out roofless building hired by a nightclub owner who called himself Rubinstein and shortly after JFK was killed and they realized the guy who hired them in Dallas was Jack Ruby. Soon after Levon Helm entered a sham marriage to evade the Draft and the Vietnam War. 




> On May 18, 2024, at 2:56 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> MB: "making it one of those artistic
> endeavors created just before & released just after a cataclysmic event -
> in this case JFK’s murder most foul - which might mean something (but
> what?) "
> 
> One thing it meant was this: Walter Cronkite, America's most trusted man,
> who had seen the happy crowds
> at Heathrow when the Beatles landed there when he did.....called up his
> buddy Ed Sullivan---who had booked the four lads
> long before the Sunday after JFK's murder most foul, who of course
> cancelled them as the nation went into mourning for the
> End of Camelot and its Fisher King---called up his buddy Ed Sullivan, I
> repeat, because I'm sure I lost you the thread.---Ed was always moving on
> to the new hot group or thing so The Beatles had missed their chance until
> Walter called him up and said, (I paraphrase), Remember that
> boy band full of happy songs that everyone loved, bring them to America we
> need to overcome the most foul gloom that pervades the
> land.....
> 
> He did and the sixties of optimism, hope, new found freedoms and some
> increased happiness started...
> 
> On Sat, May 18, 2024 at 1:30 AM Michael Bailey <michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com <mailto:michael.lee.bailey at gmail.com>>
> wrote:
> 
>> How does one set up a drum kit on a diving board?
>> 
>> 
>> Very carefully (ba dum tss!)
>> 
>> 
>> - a temporal reference: “the place he’d begun his land speculating in ten
>> years ago”
>> 
>> Also - if Slick Dick and the Volkswagens released “I Want to Kiss Your
>> Feet” the same time as The Beatles released “I Want to Hold Your Hand”
>> (recorded on October 17th, 1963, released in the UK on November 29 and in
>> the US on December 26th of that year, — it entered the US pop charts at
>> number 45 in January, 1964, and
>> became their first #1 hit in America - “starting the ‘British Invasion’”
>> according to Wikipedia) then Mucho probably would’ve been aware of it as
>> early as January 1964 (or earlier if he followed international industry
>> trends)
>> 
>> Placing Pierce’s beginnings as a real estate tycoon in the mid-fifties.
>> 
>> None of which tells us more about when the Mexico trip took place, does it?
>> 
>> 
>> Hey, there’s even a song now called “San Narciso”
>> 
>> https://youtu.be/hoN-vTlnuzo?si=bkgdINxSE8UvkZyR
>> 
>> San Narciso
>> Out to sea we hear
>> Los Angeles calling
>> each one of us falling
>> into vorticist dreams.
>> In the air you see
>> the city cells sprawling
>> like circuits installing
>> these silicon dreams.
>> I run out of mind inside,
>> and so go out to find you,
>> but then something reminds you
>> 
>> Oh San Narciso shines
>> from sea to sea,
>> the message we're sending,
>> we want to believe.
>> Oh concentrate
>> and watch us move the sea.
>> Entropically trending,
>> but we want to believe,
>> yeah, we want to believe.
>> 
>> I can work the phones
>> to sort out these demons
>> with some formal agreements,
>> or you could let down your hair.
>> I can feel your pulse
>> break free from surveillance,
>> now it's the last thing that makes sense,
>> the only reason I care.
>> I ran out of mind inside,
>> and so I'm coming to find you
>> before something reminds you
>> 
>> Oh San Narciso shines
>> from sea to sea,
>> the message we're sending,
>> we want to believe.
>> Oh concentrate
>> and watch us move the sea.
>> Entropically trending,
>> but we want to believe,
>> yeah, we want to believe.
>> --
>> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l
>> 
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l