Post 9/11 Pet Sounds and Forever Changes
Back in 2001, six or seven weeks before the horrible events of 9/ll, a close family member nearly did herself in after repeatedly trying to do so for a couple of years. It was a particularly lurid, upsetting episode that I tried to stay away from but found myself getting emotionally sucked into anyway. It's hard to sever that umbilical cord.
I was already feeling pretty apocalyptic by the time of 9/11, although that catastrophe certainly put my suffering in some perspective. The national paranoia was the paranoia I've carried my whole life--that feeling of the other shoe about to drop.
While the media focused on the "Why do they hate us so much?" question, I thought, "Why do I hate her so much?" Solipsist that I am, I focused on the roots and setting of our troubles and the loss of our innocence: LA in the Sixties.
In the course of my emotional but zombified wanderings, I began to listen to The Beach Boys (with a little help from my friends Pumpkinhead and brianfromvegas). I finally got past the image of the Mike Love-led Kokomoists and bearded Republicans. I joined the Brian is a genius, Carl sings like an angel, Dennis is a minor and very tragic genius cults. I began to study Pet Sounds. Pet Sounds' themes of lost innocence and worried hope hit me right where I needed to be hit.
Reading about the fucked up Wilson family--born into love and violence in sunny LA; purveyors of an untattainable oceanside nirvana; sad, sensitive, stupid, drug-addled in turns; eaten up by the sixties; suburban naifs nearly devoured by Manson. It's a true California noir story! (check out Steven Gaines's Heroes and Villians for all the wild and weird details) I could easily see that determined to be doomed relative of mine going down slow with Dennis...Pet Sounds helped me; I wonder if it would have helped her...
Meanwhile, I also picked up another sixties album rock classic: Love's Forever Changes. Like Pet Sounds was for twenty four year-old Brian Wilson, Forever Changes was the summary statement for twenty two (!) year-old Arthur Lee. But while Brian slightly hinted at darkness on Pet Sounds, Arthur Lee went straight to the heart of it on Forever Changes. But like Pet Sounds, finds transcendent beauty (or at least survival) in the midst of the fear--as the final song "You Set the Scene" states. What a prescient vision, considering the thirty five years of trials and tribulations that Arthur Lee would face!
Anyway, Love's finger on the violent pulse of groovy LA (and the nation) makes Jim Morrison's bloody visions seem silly. One acquaintance of the band said they should have been named "Hate." They were thugs with an ear for melody. Mansonite mudering cutey-pie Bobby Beausoleil was briefly a member of an early version of the band (although Arthur Lee says he can't recall this).
(And let me tell you this: after seeing a pissed-off Arthur Lee nearly punch a drunken fan at a live recreation of the Forever Changes album, he is still not to be fucked with!)
But anyway, anyway, this was the true soundtrack of my apocalyptic bloody LA in a most bloody apocalyptic season. I doubt my relative has ever listened to this record.
I've spun these two albums hundreds of times over the past four years and have drawn much strength and inspiration from them. I think they're at the musical and spiritual heart of a certain sixties-era family I'm trying to recreate in writing. Just thought you might like to know.
Alphabetical update: a great vinyl gospel compilation of fifties era black vocal groups--Jesus Is the Answer. Featuring The Swan Silvertones; Dorothy Love Coates; The Staple Singers; The Five Blind Boys of Alabama; and so on.
I was already feeling pretty apocalyptic by the time of 9/11, although that catastrophe certainly put my suffering in some perspective. The national paranoia was the paranoia I've carried my whole life--that feeling of the other shoe about to drop.
While the media focused on the "Why do they hate us so much?" question, I thought, "Why do I hate her so much?" Solipsist that I am, I focused on the roots and setting of our troubles and the loss of our innocence: LA in the Sixties.
In the course of my emotional but zombified wanderings, I began to listen to The Beach Boys (with a little help from my friends Pumpkinhead and brianfromvegas). I finally got past the image of the Mike Love-led Kokomoists and bearded Republicans. I joined the Brian is a genius, Carl sings like an angel, Dennis is a minor and very tragic genius cults. I began to study Pet Sounds. Pet Sounds' themes of lost innocence and worried hope hit me right where I needed to be hit.
Reading about the fucked up Wilson family--born into love and violence in sunny LA; purveyors of an untattainable oceanside nirvana; sad, sensitive, stupid, drug-addled in turns; eaten up by the sixties; suburban naifs nearly devoured by Manson. It's a true California noir story! (check out Steven Gaines's Heroes and Villians for all the wild and weird details) I could easily see that determined to be doomed relative of mine going down slow with Dennis...Pet Sounds helped me; I wonder if it would have helped her...
Meanwhile, I also picked up another sixties album rock classic: Love's Forever Changes. Like Pet Sounds was for twenty four year-old Brian Wilson, Forever Changes was the summary statement for twenty two (!) year-old Arthur Lee. But while Brian slightly hinted at darkness on Pet Sounds, Arthur Lee went straight to the heart of it on Forever Changes. But like Pet Sounds, finds transcendent beauty (or at least survival) in the midst of the fear--as the final song "You Set the Scene" states. What a prescient vision, considering the thirty five years of trials and tribulations that Arthur Lee would face!
Anyway, Love's finger on the violent pulse of groovy LA (and the nation) makes Jim Morrison's bloody visions seem silly. One acquaintance of the band said they should have been named "Hate." They were thugs with an ear for melody. Mansonite mudering cutey-pie Bobby Beausoleil was briefly a member of an early version of the band (although Arthur Lee says he can't recall this).
(And let me tell you this: after seeing a pissed-off Arthur Lee nearly punch a drunken fan at a live recreation of the Forever Changes album, he is still not to be fucked with!)
But anyway, anyway, this was the true soundtrack of my apocalyptic bloody LA in a most bloody apocalyptic season. I doubt my relative has ever listened to this record.
I've spun these two albums hundreds of times over the past four years and have drawn much strength and inspiration from them. I think they're at the musical and spiritual heart of a certain sixties-era family I'm trying to recreate in writing. Just thought you might like to know.
Alphabetical update: a great vinyl gospel compilation of fifties era black vocal groups--Jesus Is the Answer. Featuring The Swan Silvertones; Dorothy Love Coates; The Staple Singers; The Five Blind Boys of Alabama; and so on.
posted by ken at 11:34 AM
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