The great magic moments of rock'n'roll
By Michael Herr. Excerpt from the book 'Rock Dreams', by Guy Peellaert and Nic Cohn.
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Culture dreams, where your wonderful taste won't do you any good, love dreams where you don't know who's on display and who's the voyeur, or even if you really saw it or dreamed it: Like that fabulous time at The Peppermint Lounge when Jackie Kennedy got down with Jean Cocteau to twist the night away, and even though her tits were coming out of her dress there wasn't a whisper of impropriety or heat in the entire room; like the look on Phil Spector's face at the very moment when he decided to take his unathletic self out of this mock-Christian towel-snapping homoerotic scene and go with the girl groups for a while; like passing through states where all the weights and measures have been changed so you can't judge anymore, you're not sure whose case is more extreme, Hank Williams dead in the back of his wagon or the lonely teenage girl sobbing in her pillow because Fabian has sent back her high school ring.
Bob Dylan, exclusive as a renaissance prince in his fortress limo, is somehow more exposed than Sam Cooke, face down in his underpants and socks. Smokey Robinson as Poetry Incarnate and Jerry Lee Lewis as King Lear, Chubby Checker gets the good news and Del Shannon gets the bad news, Little Richard gets his ya-ya's out and Janis Joplin lies so small and still in her hotel bed that she's almost not in the frame. Charlie Chaplin tends bar for Bo Diddley and Gene Vincent, and Esther Williams in triad presides at the twilight of the household gods in a scene more brilliant and moving than a sunset over Manila Bay. The California Girl confronts you with a look and an impossible series of choices (You don't know which one to look at, you can't see where the orange ends and the girl on the left begins, and the girl at the back is distracting you, and if you did look back into their eyes what would happen? Would you fall in love and be happy for the rest of your life, or would you just turn to stone?) Bill Haley recites his Credo, P.J. Proby tortures his constituents, the killer awakes before dawn and puts his boots on, Elvis prepares to convert his enemies, Diana Ross considers her heritage, The Who face the future, and Big Joe Turner and his friends let it roll like a big wheel. The Rolling Stones evolve and violate our wildest hopes and fears about them, and The Beatles approach the stairway to Paradise for the final ascent of their paranirvana, and no matter how many times we dream it or wish it, we know that they didn't take anybody with them.
First communion (1954-59), second communion (1963-69); confirmation was deferred. Nobody could have ever questioned the intensity of our fan love, only its duration. As love, it was obviously conditional, and it seems to me now that the conditions were nothing to be proud of. So that when The Beatles split or Bob Dylan ran a little dry or Jimi Hendrix died or Mick Jagger flirted and flirted and didn't even die, great reserves of love and energy were drawn out of the rock body, and most of it went for candy. It was never supposed to be an infantile art form. It was supposed to be an adolescent art form.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Culture dreams, where your wonderful taste won't do you any good, love dreams where you don't know who's on display and who's the voyeur, or even if you really saw it or dreamed it: Like that fabulous time at The Peppermint Lounge when Jackie Kennedy got down with Jean Cocteau to twist the night away, and even though her tits were coming out of her dress there wasn't a whisper of impropriety or heat in the entire room; like the look on Phil Spector's face at the very moment when he decided to take his unathletic self out of this mock-Christian towel-snapping homoerotic scene and go with the girl groups for a while; like passing through states where all the weights and measures have been changed so you can't judge anymore, you're not sure whose case is more extreme, Hank Williams dead in the back of his wagon or the lonely teenage girl sobbing in her pillow because Fabian has sent back her high school ring.
Bob Dylan, exclusive as a renaissance prince in his fortress limo, is somehow more exposed than Sam Cooke, face down in his underpants and socks. Smokey Robinson as Poetry Incarnate and Jerry Lee Lewis as King Lear, Chubby Checker gets the good news and Del Shannon gets the bad news, Little Richard gets his ya-ya's out and Janis Joplin lies so small and still in her hotel bed that she's almost not in the frame. Charlie Chaplin tends bar for Bo Diddley and Gene Vincent, and Esther Williams in triad presides at the twilight of the household gods in a scene more brilliant and moving than a sunset over Manila Bay. The California Girl confronts you with a look and an impossible series of choices (You don't know which one to look at, you can't see where the orange ends and the girl on the left begins, and the girl at the back is distracting you, and if you did look back into their eyes what would happen? Would you fall in love and be happy for the rest of your life, or would you just turn to stone?) Bill Haley recites his Credo, P.J. Proby tortures his constituents, the killer awakes before dawn and puts his boots on, Elvis prepares to convert his enemies, Diana Ross considers her heritage, The Who face the future, and Big Joe Turner and his friends let it roll like a big wheel. The Rolling Stones evolve and violate our wildest hopes and fears about them, and The Beatles approach the stairway to Paradise for the final ascent of their paranirvana, and no matter how many times we dream it or wish it, we know that they didn't take anybody with them.
First communion (1954-59), second communion (1963-69); confirmation was deferred. Nobody could have ever questioned the intensity of our fan love, only its duration. As love, it was obviously conditional, and it seems to me now that the conditions were nothing to be proud of. So that when The Beatles split or Bob Dylan ran a little dry or Jimi Hendrix died or Mick Jagger flirted and flirted and didn't even die, great reserves of love and energy were drawn out of the rock body, and most of it went for candy. It was never supposed to be an infantile art form. It was supposed to be an adolescent art form.
Page [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]
Superstar Bob. Soon his fame spread and he toured, grew rich and was worshipped. Messianic, he need only point his finger and the temples trembled before him. Now he travelled the world, a potentate, whose person was sacred, whose every word was scripture, and the multitudes flocked to see him, and touch him, and bend to kiss his feet. But these things were not possible, for Zimmerman was no longer reachable. Brooding in grand hotels and limousines, he sat in judgment, or presented parables, but lived behind bullet-proof glass.
Jimi Hendrix. Backstage, Hendrix as leaning up against a fire hydrant between sets and listening to something infinitely far away, when a reporter approached him in a toupee and a plastic raincoat. "I'm from the New York Times," said the reporter and Hendrix, halfopening his eyes, smiled the very faintest and weariest of wry smiles. "Please to meet you," he said. "I'm from Mars."