More commentary about this incredible series of articles about how the 60's folk rock was manufactured..
I always liked For What It's Worth for the weird sounds in the opening and the memories they bring back of my childhood. Ever since I've heard the song from my own collection...which has only been a decade or so, it's struck me as a weird protest song. I had the feeling that it was abhoring the protesting, saying essentially don't be a crackpot conspiratorialist, don't be paranoid, trust the man.
In fact as the author deconstructs, it's not about the war, it's about a bar closing, and Stills isn't necessarily, or even at all, siding with the protestors. Stills himself is an authoritarian person, strong law-and-order tendencies, and he didn't like anti-war protestors or hippies.
Despite his intention to make For What It's Worth into a anti-protest song, it got widely misinterpreted (perhaps deliberately) as a real protest song, something that Stills himself didn't like, so he insisted "no more protest songs" from the Buffalo Springfield. So that was about the only memorable song they made.
The same is basically about all the rock, mostly folk rock and country rock, that came from Laurel Canyon in the 1960's. I'm impressed by the catalog, just about every 60's group I can think of, save a few. I had always thought Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young to be from New York State (because of Woodstock) and Buffalo Springfield and most of the others to be from the Bay Area.
And there they were, less than 10 miles from where I was growing up. Though, actually, I didn't know a thing about rock until my friend F introduced me to the Beatles, which had to have been in mid 1968. And then, that was about all I knew. Neither my mother nor sister had any interest in rock music, or any popular music except for theater and movie music.
It was only sometime in 1971 that I learned of another great musician through a new high school friend. And that was Elton John.
OK, sometime perhaps as early as 1970 or so, my friend T prominently displayed his fanship of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. And then Carole King. I somewhat liked Carole King. But the soft rock sound (as I referred to that genre) generally didn't appeal to me much. I only learned to like T's Cat Stevens when it became an audiophile recording in the late 1970's. My my favorite was The Beatles then, and shortly thereafter Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and then Jethro Tull. Yes, I did prefer British rock all the way through the 1970's and probably today, when my favorite is still 1970's Pink Floyd. I got an Eno album early in the day, only now filling in my collection.
I knew LA had a lot of musicians. I thought they mostly lived in Studio City. I never thought that music and movie stars lived in Laurel Canyon. It had a kind of folksy quality, back woods, as if one had gone to Temecula. I figured music and movie stars to live in Beverly Hills and Bel Air. By the early 1970's I thought that some far out musicians lived in Topanga Canyon, but I just never figured that Laurel Canyon had some special affinity for musicians (like almost all the west coast stars of the 60's and 70's).
I was so out of it, I figured Mama Cass was a black jazz singer, fat and on in years, and I believed the story about choking on a sandwich (so much I feared it happening to me...which is not a bad thing to avoid actually). The truth being she was the amazing vocalist behind Monday, Monday (yes I did have that song filed in my brain, having heard it a million times) and a few other top hits. It was downhill for the Mamas and the Papas after their first album, but with 100,000,000 albums sold, geez. Cass, anyway, had some special talent, but the real win that big was through the marketing, etc., with radio stations and all media pumping the new product, specially designed to appeal to the establishment by focusing on the personal and avoiding the political...in the midst of the most politicized generation ever since. Perhaps Cass wasn't going to be sticking to that line as closely.
To think of it, I could have been hanging at her house, only 10 miles away, when I got my first car in 1972. She would still have two years to go, and maybe I could help prevent her heart attack (which btw is very suspicious, one can easily believe she knew too much about too many things...and had now all of a sudden become independent).
I always figured Lennon's murder to have a political motivation. Lennon had not been that political in the actual music of The Beatles--which has universal generational appeal. Much like the manufactured rock from LA the focus is almost entirely on the personal, and decidedly not the political.
Above all Lennon a rock enterpreneur, and then a musical genius. Such people have less interest in politics generally, and it would hurt sales, if for no other reason than radio play would be avoided, distribution would be limited, etc. If it's not what the corporate system wants, introduce yourself to the street corner. But Lennon himself had been through a lot, and did have some have some political edge, if more in the public imagination than the man himself.* Now the right wing was taking over, and maybe some people therein were scared what a comment from Lennon could do.
(*Lennons solo work became more and more oriented to what could actually be understood as family values, even though not the same as the political issues right wingers mean by that. Even there, it was all about the personal. Almost all.)
And then we have Charlie Manson, the guy who seemingly was everywhere. He had been to the big party houses, knew Cass Elliot as did just about everyone. He was recorded by Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys who fell in love with him, and the Manson Family lived in his mansion for months. Neil Young went to a top Hollywood producer personally insisting that he sign Manson up. But Manson got no contract. (There could even be a conspiracy angle here. They wanted him angry.)
Had Tate ever met Manson before he came by the house months before the murder to see Melcher (who had recently moved out)? If not (and I'd have to finish the whole series to know, or perhaps read it over, or perhaps he doesn't even know) then almost certainly she knew of Manson, the family, his lousy outcome with the record companies.
Now she had herself been through the star making machinery (or in her case, merely polishing, as she was already beautiful since birth and incredibly talented), with agent Ransohoff who got her started in guest slots on The Beverly Hillbillies (she's the hottest one on the show, btw, truly incredible performance in the few seconds she has on Jethro's First Love, for example, I fell in love when I saw that the first time in the 1960's and ever since), but also worked on her with training for diction and body building--that's what it says in her Playboy pictorial of 1967 (and I'm sure I've seen this issue before, it might have been the very first one I ever saw, and I had deja vous when I saw the phrase Tete a Tate in the beginning to describe the pictorial...I think I may have seen this very issue in the bathroom at F's house in 1967. And it has a picture of Polanski who I'm sure F began consciously or unconsciously to style himself after (until he got more into motorcycle chic after the Tate-LaBianca murders).
I always liked For What It's Worth for the weird sounds in the opening and the memories they bring back of my childhood. Ever since I've heard the song from my own collection...which has only been a decade or so, it's struck me as a weird protest song. I had the feeling that it was abhoring the protesting, saying essentially don't be a crackpot conspiratorialist, don't be paranoid, trust the man.
In fact as the author deconstructs, it's not about the war, it's about a bar closing, and Stills isn't necessarily, or even at all, siding with the protestors. Stills himself is an authoritarian person, strong law-and-order tendencies, and he didn't like anti-war protestors or hippies.
Despite his intention to make For What It's Worth into a anti-protest song, it got widely misinterpreted (perhaps deliberately) as a real protest song, something that Stills himself didn't like, so he insisted "no more protest songs" from the Buffalo Springfield. So that was about the only memorable song they made.
The same is basically about all the rock, mostly folk rock and country rock, that came from Laurel Canyon in the 1960's. I'm impressed by the catalog, just about every 60's group I can think of, save a few. I had always thought Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young to be from New York State (because of Woodstock) and Buffalo Springfield and most of the others to be from the Bay Area.
And there they were, less than 10 miles from where I was growing up. Though, actually, I didn't know a thing about rock until my friend F introduced me to the Beatles, which had to have been in mid 1968. And then, that was about all I knew. Neither my mother nor sister had any interest in rock music, or any popular music except for theater and movie music.
It was only sometime in 1971 that I learned of another great musician through a new high school friend. And that was Elton John.
OK, sometime perhaps as early as 1970 or so, my friend T prominently displayed his fanship of Crosby, Stills, Nash, and Young. And then Carole King. I somewhat liked Carole King. But the soft rock sound (as I referred to that genre) generally didn't appeal to me much. I only learned to like T's Cat Stevens when it became an audiophile recording in the late 1970's. My my favorite was The Beatles then, and shortly thereafter Emerson, Lake, and Palmer and then Jethro Tull. Yes, I did prefer British rock all the way through the 1970's and probably today, when my favorite is still 1970's Pink Floyd. I got an Eno album early in the day, only now filling in my collection.
I knew LA had a lot of musicians. I thought they mostly lived in Studio City. I never thought that music and movie stars lived in Laurel Canyon. It had a kind of folksy quality, back woods, as if one had gone to Temecula. I figured music and movie stars to live in Beverly Hills and Bel Air. By the early 1970's I thought that some far out musicians lived in Topanga Canyon, but I just never figured that Laurel Canyon had some special affinity for musicians (like almost all the west coast stars of the 60's and 70's).
I was so out of it, I figured Mama Cass was a black jazz singer, fat and on in years, and I believed the story about choking on a sandwich (so much I feared it happening to me...which is not a bad thing to avoid actually). The truth being she was the amazing vocalist behind Monday, Monday (yes I did have that song filed in my brain, having heard it a million times) and a few other top hits. It was downhill for the Mamas and the Papas after their first album, but with 100,000,000 albums sold, geez. Cass, anyway, had some special talent, but the real win that big was through the marketing, etc., with radio stations and all media pumping the new product, specially designed to appeal to the establishment by focusing on the personal and avoiding the political...in the midst of the most politicized generation ever since. Perhaps Cass wasn't going to be sticking to that line as closely.
To think of it, I could have been hanging at her house, only 10 miles away, when I got my first car in 1972. She would still have two years to go, and maybe I could help prevent her heart attack (which btw is very suspicious, one can easily believe she knew too much about too many things...and had now all of a sudden become independent).
I always figured Lennon's murder to have a political motivation. Lennon had not been that political in the actual music of The Beatles--which has universal generational appeal. Much like the manufactured rock from LA the focus is almost entirely on the personal, and decidedly not the political.
Above all Lennon a rock enterpreneur, and then a musical genius. Such people have less interest in politics generally, and it would hurt sales, if for no other reason than radio play would be avoided, distribution would be limited, etc. If it's not what the corporate system wants, introduce yourself to the street corner. But Lennon himself had been through a lot, and did have some have some political edge, if more in the public imagination than the man himself.* Now the right wing was taking over, and maybe some people therein were scared what a comment from Lennon could do.
(*Lennons solo work became more and more oriented to what could actually be understood as family values, even though not the same as the political issues right wingers mean by that. Even there, it was all about the personal. Almost all.)
And then we have Charlie Manson, the guy who seemingly was everywhere. He had been to the big party houses, knew Cass Elliot as did just about everyone. He was recorded by Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys who fell in love with him, and the Manson Family lived in his mansion for months. Neil Young went to a top Hollywood producer personally insisting that he sign Manson up. But Manson got no contract. (There could even be a conspiracy angle here. They wanted him angry.)
Had Tate ever met Manson before he came by the house months before the murder to see Melcher (who had recently moved out)? If not (and I'd have to finish the whole series to know, or perhaps read it over, or perhaps he doesn't even know) then almost certainly she knew of Manson, the family, his lousy outcome with the record companies.
Now she had herself been through the star making machinery (or in her case, merely polishing, as she was already beautiful since birth and incredibly talented), with agent Ransohoff who got her started in guest slots on The Beverly Hillbillies (she's the hottest one on the show, btw, truly incredible performance in the few seconds she has on Jethro's First Love, for example, I fell in love when I saw that the first time in the 1960's and ever since), but also worked on her with training for diction and body building--that's what it says in her Playboy pictorial of 1967 (and I'm sure I've seen this issue before, it might have been the very first one I ever saw, and I had deja vous when I saw the phrase Tete a Tate in the beginning to describe the pictorial...I think I may have seen this very issue in the bathroom at F's house in 1967. And it has a picture of Polanski who I'm sure F began consciously or unconsciously to style himself after (until he got more into motorcycle chic after the Tate-LaBianca murders).
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