carried away
02.10.03 @ 11:44 p.m.
How sad am I? I've managed to incorporate both the Who and the Monkees into my Rock Window assignment on Jimi Hendrix. I hesitate to admit that I don't like Hendrix all that much. I mean, I listen to a greatest hits album now and then, and "Castles Made of Sand" is one of my favorite songs, but in general he's not one of my favorites. I just don't like psychedelia, that's all there is to it. For all their transformations, the Who were Shepherd's Bush Mods and didn't much go for the whole peace-love-flowers thing. A book I have on them describes them at Monterey Pop as "a chainsaw through the flowers". Pete cynically saw the corruption that was creeping up on all that hippie idealism even then. They weren't thrilled with the atmosphere of Woodstock, either. Mud and marajuana weren't their scene, they said, and they'd rather go back to Shepherd's Bush where people were people. I laughed out loud when I read that Abbie Hoffman (sixties activist) had the poor timing to try and storm the Who's stage. Pete shouted "Fuck off my fucking stage!" (which is a great quote if there ever was one) and whapped Hoffman off the stage with his Gibson. Muahaha. I would have loved to see that, even if it required wading through the mucky, stoned sea of humanity that is Woodstock.
I wouldn't have minded going to Monterey Pop, though. But still, for all my love of the music of the sixties, I've never much liked hippies (which is where my friends go wrong in their assessment of me, they think that in ideology, I *am* a hippie, but I'm not. If I had to classify myself by sixties standards, I would probably be a Mod. I love the Who. Mike Nesmith, despite all his country flavor, was also in essence a Mod. He dressed neatly, he didn't go in with all that hippie stuff, and his drug use was less hallucinagenics and more abusing Ritalin (see the book Total Control) and smoking pot). I'm too cynical to believe that the naivite and idealism of the hippie movement ever really had a chance. I'm also tremendously distainful of drugs, which is another thing that endears Pete Townshend to me--He didn't much use them after Monterey Pop lead to a bad trip, and right after that, he eschewed them because he was following the teachigns of Meher Baba, whose teachings discouraged drug use.
Music is so powerful. It moves me. I want to move when I hear "Jaguar" or "Doctor, Doctor"... "My Wife" requires serious lip synching when at all possible. I can just feel the euphoria of good music, of loving something like this, flow through me when I listen to something I love. The Who are fucking brilliant. Of course, knowing my own personality, I have to wonder if it's a passing fancy, but I kind of doubt it. I know it's been less than a year and I'm throwing myself heavily into appreciation of this band, but my god, I've never been able to listen to a CD so many times in a short period as I have with Tommy, The Who Sell Out, and The Ultimate Collection. Even now, I'm on a binge with A Quick One. And I don't get tired of it. Maybe I'll grow out of that, so to speak. But I don't want to. It makes me so happy to find some point of brilliancy in my world, to see something I can admire. A lot of things in this world are victims of my sarcasm and cynicism, and while I can laugh at a lot of things, few give me real, unadulterated pleasure that music does.
I should go before I get any carried away any farther by my feelings on music. Besides, I still have a couple of bits of my rock window assignment yet to do.
Previously
fuck it @ 08.01.05
fanciful imaginary sea voyages to come @ 07.20.05
*dies* @ 07.19.05
more ootp @ 07.17.05
harry potter: driving our children into devil worship @ 07.17.05
