The Making of Those Fabulous Sixties
THOSE
FABULOUS SIXTIES - A SOUND SCULPTURE
Tape
editing. It all began with tape editing. Take two songs that have
a similar tempo, cut to the downbeat or the front edge of the
snare, splice, and hey! - Magic. No audible sign that the
ear has been tricked into a new reality. Most jokes are like tape
editing, with the actual edit playing the part of the punchline.
In a joke, you tell a story, and at the punchline you send the
listener off on some sort of tangential thinking. Thats
why people laugh. Think of a joke. Think of the inconsistency
that exists within it and realize that its the anomaly in
the story that makes you laugh. You were tricked, and the exact
place where you were tricked corresponds precisely to the edit
point.
Sometime during the 90s I found myself in the middle of
a crazed tape-editing phase. It was like working on a customized
49 Mercury where, with the help of bodywork techniques,
you could blend those custom headlights into the original body
lines seamlessly. Tape editing allowed me to customize sound.
Over the next few years I applied these editing techniques to
many sound sources. Audio collage work took the place in my life
that some reserve for golf, hunting, gardening, or celebrity finger
print collecting. As time progressed the razor, splicing tape
and editing block were retired and more efficient analog and digital
techniques took over. One thing became evident. The editing process
led me to all sorts of places, but it was working with soundbites
from the 60s that always provided a reliable realm for artistic
meanderings. It made me happy.
Those Fabulous Sixties is the result of over 2,000 hours of editing.
Thats a full work-year. Over fifty 40-hour weeks. Why spend
that kind of time on a project that could never be marketed? The
simple answers: joy, passion, nostalgia, academic archiving, history,
aging, love of music, pride in a youth well spent, and the realization
that there would be those who would get it. Those
who would understand that a fast paced, song-packed memory waterfall
would best transport them back to times gone by, and would be
an ideal way for a young person today to learn about those fantastic,
troubling, profoundly foolish and undeniably profound times. More
than ever before or since, the young people of this country and
the world shared the sights and sounds of the sixties. It was
an unprecedented international youth connection. The sixties.
Go now beyond the cliché concept of where you were when
you heard of Kennedy being shot, and try to remember how you felt
the first time you really heard "96 Tears". What did
it feel like when you realized that "I Want To Hold Your
Hand" was not just another song climbing the charts, but
that it signified something heavier, deeper, and far more permanent
and pertinent? How could the Beach Boys make a lake in Pratt County,
Kansas, or anywhere, USA, seem so much like a southern California
beach? What did we think was really going through President Johnsons
(or Kennedys or Nixons) mind as our faces flickered
with the silver glow of TV light? How could "That Was The
Week That Was," the most important show on the tube, be canceled
after one season due to bad ratings? Was Paul really dead and
did Dylan really break his neck in a motorcycle accident and what
made him think that he could release a single that was almost
6 minutes long and still get radio airplay? What the hell was
goin on in Vietnam? How often did we feel comforted that
it was Walter Cronkite giving us the bad news on the evening news
(better coming from him than from someone who wasnt family).
What were the real lyrics to "Louie, Louie"? Remember
holding your breath as those first manned rockets pierced the
atmosphere on their lonely journey to outer space? Just how many
microseconds of "Gimme Some Lovin" did we need
to hear before we knew that we were in for 3 minutes of joy and
teenage bliss, compliments of top 40 radio? What was your draft
number (mine was 6)? Did you send your boyfriend to war. Did you
lose your innocence, faith in America, or your son in Viet Nam?
How could Hendrix have been booked as the opening act for a Monkees
tour? Could Newsweek really tell us what was going on with the
hippies in San Francisco? By the time they reported it something
different was happening, and the fact that they acknowledged it
changed the scene more than anything else. Always something new
fading into time with something even newer taking its place. But
each event, experience and sensation etched itself in our memories,
just waiting for the right trigger to ignite the explosive that
gives us a vision of the past, many times accurately portrayed,
but often colored and altered by the passage of time. We rewrite
history as we live, altering the significance of the past relative
to how we live the present and will live the future. Theres
too much interconnection in life for anything to remain static.
Nothings written in stone but love and God, and The Bible
says God is Love. We can do better than to just have
another summer of love. Summertime ends. Love should not. Too
simplistic? Not by a long shot. Its way too complicated,
but where else can we start?
"
we
cant return, we can only look
behind from where we came and go round and round in the Circle Game" - J. Mitchell
During
the sixties our youthful enthusiasm combined with optimism gave
rise to a visionary, but accessible new world. One where bigotry
and greed and hatred and paranoia were overwhelmed and defeated
by the powers of compassion, trust and love. One where a brotherhood
of man seemed to be an attainable goal. A land where politics
could actually help to attain these lofty goals, and a brave new
world where a whole new attitude about our place on earth was
being formulated. An attitude that sought harmony with our planet
home, where nature became an ally in this long process of life,
and not a foe to be subjugated and defeated.
These were fine dreamsdreams of a wonderland that we, as
the youth of America, could actually have a hand in realizing.
Why couldnt we make changes for a better tomorrow and why
wouldnt we want to try?
Im not pleading a case for the sixties here as much as Im
telling a story of Youth. Of innocence and hope and curiosity
and exploration and discovery. Its an ageless scenario with
a timeless theme, repeated over and over with greater or lesser
degrees of success for each generation. But this was our time,
and we, the new children of the 60s, were going to give
it our best shot. Besides, we felt so vitalized by our music that
anything was possible. We had the greatest soundtrack on earth.
We didnt invent it. Decades of blues, country and folk artists
built the foundation on which our music would rise, but rock and
roll came alive at just the same moment that we did. The day that
"How Much Is That Doggie In The Window" turned into
"You Aint Nothin But A Hound Dog" and Pattie
Pages "Come Onna My House" became Presleys
"I Wanna Play House With You" was the day we realized
that we werent just being handed a world in which to live,
but we were being given a world that we could contour to our own
tastes and dreams. We were not helpless victims, but could scream
our defiance with the strength of our demographically bulging
numbers and the power of our music. The times were indeed changing,
and we refused to be victimized by those changes and demanded
that our voices be heard.
We watched as the world changed before our eyes. There was free
music and free love and free dope and a freedom to imagine a world
propelled by a whole new set of values. Never mind that some of
those trendsetters had little understanding of the deeper aspects
of the movement. Never mind the slim possibility that there never
was real depth to the movement. Never mind that the excesses of
drugs and sex were sometimes irresponsible and ill-advised, with
bad consequences. Never mind that the beauty and love of San Franciscos Summer of Love turned dark and ugly in the fall when too
many came to make the scene, encouraged by the mass
medias coverage of this outlandish series of events. The
Frisco phenomenon took root because of its underground nature.
It was therefore destined to die as the periodicals exploited
and trivialized the stories, and the record companies realized
the sales potential. But so what if Elvis got fat! Does that mean
that he wasnt great in his prime? Does the fact that he
made embarrassing movies in the 60s alter the fact that
he was more powerful than politics, more influential than television
and more explosive than the atom bomb when he hit the scene? Listen
to his early recordings and tell me Elvis is a joke to be taken
lightly. He was all shook up, and thats what he did to the
world! Weve not been the same since. A decade later the
children of the 60s carried the same banner defiantly.
Forget the hippie jokes. Concentrate on the Skinny Elvis. What
I remember from that period are the beautiful people. Gifted,
sensitive, thoughtful kids with bright inquiring minds, and a
steadfast commitment to question the world handed to them, desiring
to make it better. The flower children. The Love Generation. Love
is profoundly more important than profit, power, or patriotism.
Let the Summer of Love be just that. A summer of love. Why wouldn't
we want every year to have a summer of love. Peace? Of course.
Why not?
History is being re-written and re-defined and re-interpreted
every minute. The book isnt closed til all the chapters
are in, and thats not about to happen anytime soon. So may
I make a suggestion? RECYCLE LOFTY THEMES! They dont wear
out. They can be used over and over again, each time more effectively.
Go for the jugular with that peace and love thing. Lets
get it right this time!
....In
the summer of love across the land
We were all a part of Sgt. Peppers band
As revolution drifted in the air
And the San Francisco Bay was everywhere
Someone beautiful accepted me
For who I was and what I hoped to be
- J. Ratts
The
Haight-Ashbury today. Those amazingly steep San Francisco streets.
Those quaint little Victorian apartments and houses that are better
painted now than they were when Janis and the Airplane and the
Dead lived there. Spare-changing and head shops and street singing
and tie dyed anything and fashion shops and Ben and Jerrys
Ice Cream and Hendrix posters and Jefferson Airplane still loves
you and old hippies and young hippies and youth in general trying
to write their own book of freedom, independently of the successes
and failures of what has now become the older generation. Its
all there. Its just like America. And the times are still
achangin and this new generation will age into the
old and the great mandela will continue to revolve, in and out
of phase, on and on.
It is my aim in Those Fabulous Sixties to epitomize that
period of our youth in two hours and thirty minutes of sound bites,
song bits and any trick in the book I can come up with to transport
the listener back in time and give the uninitiated a glimpse of
the period. Everyone brings with them to the listening either
actual memories or preconceptions about a period they may have
missed completely, or been involved with only peripherally. For
those of us who were there each guitar riff or notable lyric is
a tap to a reservoir of memories. Each tap, when opened, floods
the mind with a reminiscence of the past. Each reminder flavors
and intensifies the next. Its a waterfall of memories, those
fabulous sixties!
Abbie Hoffman gives a fine retrospective:
"We
are here to make a better world. No amount of rationalization
or blaming can preempt the moment of choice each of us brings
to our situation here on this planet. The lesson of the sixties
is that people who cared enough to do right could change history.
We didnt end racism but we ended legal segregation. We
ended the idea that you could send half a million soldiers around
the world to fight a war that people do not support. We ended
the idea that women are second class citizens. We made the environment
an issue that couldnt be avoided. The big battles that
were won cannot be reversed. We were young, self-righteous,
reckless, hypocritical, brave, silly, and scared half to death.
And we were right."
Im
thrilled to think of todays youth stepping boldly into their
adult lives onto some platform of progress that has been put in
place for them, and I trust that many will choose an honorable
path. Id like to think that we of the post World War 2 generation
have left a legacy that has done much good and little harm. Itll
always be a long, difficult road, but as each successive generation
approaches their own dawn of awakening, I wish for them the good
fortune that we, the children of the sixties, enjoyed. I suggest
to them that they demand greatness from their musicians and politicians,
that they become fully aware of the planets finite resources
and act accordingly, that they maintain a youthful perspective
on life til in death do they depart, that they try to come
to some kind of terms with this "brotherhood of man"
dilemma, and that they fill their entire lives with hope and innocence,
spiritual intensity, visions of mythical lands, peace, love and
endless possibilities.
Summer 2004, JR
Those Fabulous Sixties |