Sunday, October 28, 2012

Music


And who could forget those days of yesteryear when sex was dirty and so was the air? A couple of bucks for allowance and a trip to the platter store. Flipping through the stacks hoping to find something in the top ten at a bargain. Could always send away for a K-tel sound alike. An imitation band at a rock bottom price, must have been made up with the producers sons. Just enough changes to avoid the copyright laws. And who wasn't fooled at least once by the imitators. The cover looked so genuine to a prepubescent youth on limited funds. 


The Beetle Beat
Some would have you believe this was some type of tribute band but by the deceiving cover a less knowledgeable consumer could be easily fooled. After all there was no way to fact check until after being stung. Like today you broke the plastic you owned it.

But then there was the sell out of sell outs when "Light my fire"  a gutsy Doors ditty that suddenly became part of a car ad complete with a Kostelanetz  type accompaniment. Oh go gag me with a spoon I think I'm going to barf. Who after all doesn't have etched in their gray matter those melodic sounds between floors in the elevator? Exactly how that avoidance of copyright infringement happened is still a puzzle. I can only guess that it was one of the requirements for paying off the damage to the hotel room. Just how the Lincoln Continental made it into the swimming pool on the second floor will always remain one of lifes' mysteries. Funny to think that Andre actually made a "Greatest hits of the 60s" album that's probably now collecting mold in somebody's basement. As it should be.

Where are my tastes in music at the moment? Kind of hard to say. Much of the techno beats of today I equate to a wash cycle of the old Kenmore with a sneaker in the dryer for good measure. May have a good beat but you can't dance to it. Must be the lack of ravey type drugs required to fully appreciate the experience that I'm missing something there. On the other end of the spectrum is the torturous (add your own prefix descriptive adjective here) metal. I'm no musicologist by any stretch but I'd bet a five spot it can't be transcribed to sheet music. I'm fully aware that things tend to progress to their natural ends but it makes one wonder what the limits are. Even a kitchen blender or the garbage disposal hits a few harmonic notes every now and then.

There is some rather interesting stuff coming out of the middle east these days but with the current hostile climate it may be some time before it makes mainstream which anymore is Youtube.  But it seems we can never reach that balance between sequin sweet and ear splitting total destruction. No fears though eventually everybody loses the lust for an adrenaline rush along with better part of their hearing.       

3 comments:

Tom Harper said...

There's some good techno/electronica music from the Middle East. I can't think of any names, but I taped a bunch of those tunes off a public radio station, back in the '90s.

I bought a 45 back in the early '60s, with condensed fake versions of hits by Elvis and Gladys Knight & the Pips, among others. It was somewhat enjoyable but a pisspoor imitation of the originals.

BBC said...

I've never gotten deep into music.

Roger Owen Green said...

my father bought us that Beetle Beat album!