Publication:
HeartttaCk

Author:
Felix Von Havoc

HeartAttack #24
Top Ten:
Septic Death
AC/DC-Let there be Rock
They Live (Film)
What Happens Next?
Nine Shocks Terror LP
Dead Nation LP (advance)
Old Barn Punk Fest 99
The Killing (Film)
Paths of Glory (Film)
Dr. Strangelove (Film)

I turned 30 this summer. No small feat when I consider all the risks I took when I was younger and how many of my old friends didn't make it. I managed to avoid fatal motorcycle accidents, drug overdoses, suicide, stabbing, and drunk driving accidents. I remember well the days before personal computers, compact disks, cable TV, vcr's, fax machines and touch tone phones. When I started college in 1986 I was still typing papers on a manual typewriter. We didn't have a tv at home until I was 11, and then it was black and white. I remember when Space Invaders was hi-tech. I remember old coke and 25 cent comic books. Most of all I remember Rock and Roll. My parents were very young when I was born, 18 and 19. Both were into the hippy drug scene and the rock music that accompanied it. As a toddler I was wowed by the 3-D hologram on the cover of the Rolling Stones "His Satanic Majesty's Request" and the rotary pinwheel on Led Zepplin 3. I have a ticket stub from a Pink Floyd concert I attended in 1972 with my mom. My dad spent much of the 1970's in prison or strung out on drugs. My mom spent most of the 70's on welfare and strung out on drugs. Things got so bad for a while that I had to go live with my grandparents while my mom recovered from Hepititis she'd picked up shooting speed in Dupont Circle. But through it all I was exposed to a lot of 60's and 70's rock. Now later as a record collector and inheritor of my mom's collection I've regained some interest in the great rock music of the 60's and early 70's.

In the mid 1960's America was a very young country. The average baby boomer was in high school or college. Young people were the majority and their popular culture came to the fore for the first time in history. There was an underlying radical, anti-establishment current which found itself manifested in politics and music. Conventions were challenged and rock music was transformed from R&B, to British Invasion, to Psychedelic to Heavy Rock and thus spawned Punk and Metal in the 1970's. For all of you who were born in 1981 or whatever here is the Felix Von guide to 60's and early 70's rock.

OK, first I'm going to back up into the 1950's. To me the all time greatest Rock and Roller would have to be Chuck Berry. This guy was the firstest with the mostest. Berry's guitar style, songwriting, lyrics and delivery were so groundbreaking as to set a standard for the style for all time. Bands are still covering School Daze, Johnny B. Goode, and Berry's other classics today. There are a few popular greatest hits LP's which are pretty common in used record stores for a few bucks. If you can possibly find it the Chess Box set is a crucial compedendium of this great Rock and Rollers work. This man was a titan, to Rock what Louis Armstrong was to Jazz, and Robert Johnson was to blues, if you can't rock out to Chuck Berry you should probably chose another form of music.

Wild Rockers of the 50's aside the roots of punk music lie in the wild rock of the early and mid 60's. The English had been closely studying American Rhythm and Blues and early Rock n' Roll. They improved upon this American product and sold it back to us. The result was the British Invasion.

The Beatles - Fuck the Beatles, one down and four to go. This band sucked, will suck, still sucks.

The Rolling Stones - while I don't care much for their later work, the early Stones played some really great Rock and Roll. The Hot Rocks (hits 1964-71) double LP is all you really need. The Sex Pistols and the controversy that surrounded them was frequently compared to the early days of the Stones.

The Yardbirds - This was a training ground for future rock stars, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck on guitar. The Yardbirds were very blues based but had a heavy rock undercurrent which was of course more developed when Clapton formed Cream and Page formed Led Zeppelin. Many find the Yardbirds to be one of Punk's direct antecedents.

The Kinks - Another great British band more pop and rock than R&B influenced. I think they really laid the whole foundation for heavy rock music with the riff to "You Really Got Me."

The Animals - Much more rooted in American R&B than the rest of the British Invasion bands the Animals had some big hits with cover tunes that were poignant in their social commentary. Eric Burdon was the archetypical working class rocker with a golden voice and Animals tunes like We Gotta Get outta this Place, Don't' Bring Me Down, and Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood grasp at expressing some of the youthful frustration and alienation of later punk groups.

The Who - Since I'm not too crazy about the Mod thing with the scooters and all that shit I won't comment on the Who's style. Their early music though was pretty rockin' the early hits record Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy is a used record store staple and has a lot of good tunes. Recommended is the classic Who "Live at Leeds" LP which (although it has its dull spots) is a pretty energetic live LP.

The British Invasion had a big impact on American groups at about the time Psychedelic drugs and radical politics became hip. The result was the Psychedelic Rock Era. Many of the British Invasion bands I talked about above started dropping Acid and went psychedelic as well, but I still recommend their early rockin' tunes any day.

In garages across America rock bands were forming. Most played parties and frat houses in complete obscurity. Some scored hits with singles then faded into obscurity. This underground garage punk scene of the mid 60's is what spawned the true percussors of punk rock, the MC5, the Stooges and the Ramones. Since most of these bands were one hit wonders they lend themselves easily to compilation hence the great Pebbles and Nuggets comp. series'. Bands like the Standells, the Shadows of Knight, the Seeds, Question Mark and the Myseterians, Sam the Sham and the Pharohs, the Music Machine, the Sonics, the Wailers, the Chocolate Watch Band, the Count Bishops, Syndicate of Sound, the 13th Floor Elevators, and Minnneapolis own Trashmen just cranked out great raw, youthful, energetic rock that still sounds great today. There was and excellent article on this scene in Maximum Rock N Roll number 10. And the zine Ugly Things continues to cover garage punk of the 60's and today. If you ever see any of the Nuggets or Pebbles comps pick them up right away, really great classic AM radio garage punk. I'd have to say none of the current bands playing in this style seem to have the impact as the 60's groups, but they sure do try.

After the Yardbirds Clapton went on to form Cream. I personally really dig Cream's mix of R&B with Psychedelic rock. Don't forget that MDC used to cover the Cream song "politician." Clapton busted out some really mind blowing riffs for Cream then degenerated into the terrible FM adult contemporary dude he is today.

Led Zeppelin - OK you can say whatever you want, but I still love Zeppelin. The first two albums are some of my all time favorites going back to childhood. I love the wild, driving rockers like "communication breakdown" or "whole lotta love" and the raw, dirty blues influenced stuff like "the lemon song". I think Zeppelin got a little too pretentious after the first two LP's but certainly had their moments on the later albums. Zeppelin also kicked out some really weak hippy sounding shit. So this is one of those bands you have to patiently make a tape of to edit out all the weak folky stuff and the ballads and shit.

In the Psychedelic Era you had all this crazy drug hippy shit going on in San Francisco and this music like Jerfferson Airplane the Greatful Dead and Country Joe and the Fish. Well you gotta be on drugs to like that stuff because it just doesn't rock. What did rock was the greatest guitarist probably of all time Jimi Hendrix. I can't really dig the beads and paisley and shit but all of Hendrix stuff just rocks. This guy was an all time great no one can touch. With R&B roots he pushed music forward about ten years with his incredibly heavy and driving guitar sound and amazing solos. Hendrix is one case where I'd say steer clear of the greatest hits packages and just buy the three main albums, Axis Bold as Love, Electric Ladyland, Are You Experienced.

The Doors - Jim Morrison was supposedly a poet, influenced by Rimbaud, Verlaine, Baudelaire and all those cats. The Doors music was dark and eerie and Morrison's lyrics were, poetic. In fact I'd say that the Doors are more at the roots of Goth than Punk, but they are still pretty good. I don't think the Doors really rock hard enough but if you are in the right mood the music does seem to reflect some of the alienation of an outsider in society. Avoid the Oliver Stone movie at all costs.

Pink Floyd - The early Pink Floyd albums, Piper at the Gates of Dawn and Ummagumma are great heavy Pychedelic rockers. You can really see a direct influence on bands like Neurosis coming from this period.

Blue Cheer - The Vincebus Eruptum LP is one of the best heavy psychedelic rock albums ever. A really sludgy driving wall of noise attack. At times you can almost imagine you are listening to Flipper but then you realize it's a bunch of drug influenced dudes from SF but with the wrong haircuts.

King Krimson - another big influence on bands like Neurosis, this band started out more psychedelic and ventured into more Prog Rock territory.

Traffic - Another band on the Prog. Rock/Psychedelic fence. A big influence on Fugazi and Rocket From the Crypt although I think Traffic was much better than both the above bands. There is a greatest hits LP you can find in any used record box.

Prog Rock, Progressive Rock or Krautrock whatever you want to call it is where the hard rocking influence of 50's rock and R&B started to be overwhelmed by technogology and "musicianship". Bands like Yes, Can and ELP turned rock songs into fully orchestrated ten minute long symphonic arrangements. Taking rock to this "next level" divorced it from its more visceral hard rock roots. This process was instrumental in bringing about the birth of both punk and metal which stripped rock down to its essential ingredients. It is about this point at which I would start to get into either bands that spawned metal like Deep Purple, AC/DC, Judas Priest, Black Sabbath and Blue Oyster Cult or bands that spawned punk such as MC5, Stooges, Ramones, Modern Lovers or New York Dolls. But since I've already discussed both those strains of rock music now you know where it was coming from.

I should note that, like 60's rock, punk started out as something raw, untamed and brutal. Yet now in the 90's much of the 'mainstream' of punk simply does not rock. Its either overproduced "by the numbers" pop-punk, generic so-called Straight Edge mosh-core, or lilting emo indie rock. I don't particularly care for Oi or garage rock but at least those forms of music have tried to stick to the driving rock four piece formula. Still, little of this music seems to have any energy. It is all so commercial and soulless. Only the really aggressive fast hardcore seems to have any emotion behind it anymore. Now I doubt anyone is going to start giving props to Cream and Hendrix but if it rocks, it rocks. So Let There Be Rock!

Publication Date:
January 1, 1988

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