Intriguing Disenchantment
Dear Chris,
Yeah, right: a lot of Velvet Underground, a lot of Hendrix. And
occasionally, they'd kick back with some Milton Babbitt or that guy Ornette
Coleman stole all his ideas from.
If history is written by the winners, is rock history written by the losers?
By wounded fans correcting popular slights, redeeming ignored heroes?
Miller gets his most contentious in the Velvet Underground chapter, when he
challenges critic David Fricke's statement that the Velvets were " 'exiled from
the mainstream' ... greeted with " 'almost total rejection.' " No, says Miller,
the Velvets' debut had an "instant impact," going on to peak at No. 171 on
Billboard's album chart. He then spins this not especially supportive
datum (think how many fewer records were released in 1967) by saying how it
should be compared not with the sales of the Beatles and the Rolling Stones but
with those of minimalist composer La Monte Young, whose influence, via violist
John Cale, the Velvets brought to rock 'n' roll. This has got to be some of the
most tortured logic I've ever seen. Why can't he just say the Velvets were a
great, hugely influential cult band? Maybe he didn't want to recycle the line
about how few bought their records but everyone who did formed a band.
As I skim Flowers in the Dustbin for fresh anecdotes (which we agree
may be the book's real pleasure), I realize how many of Miller's vignettes seem
chosen with an eye to '90s academic interests--gender, thanatos, whiteness
studies. Not too shocking given his day job, but sometimes these pieces of
"evidence" seem pretty chimerical, other times just hilarious.
For instance, did you know ...
That the Beatles singular revolution in rock sensibility was "camp," and
that this was achieved through "the intersection of the band's alienated look
and [impresario Brian Epstein's] longing gaze"--"a reverie of young lads in
leather"?
That the original lyrics of "Tutti Frutti" were not just off-color but full
of, as Miller puts it, "thinly veiled anal eroticism"? And that Little Richard
didn't shop that song to labels because he wanted to be "a straight blues
singer" and " 'Tutti Frutti' was too queer"?
That not just Wynonie Harris and Louis Jordan but also sax legend Lester
Young got their starts with black minstrel shows?
That the strict grammarian Pat Boone made a point of introducing his Fats
Domino cover in concerts as "Isn't That a Shame"? And that, because he
was so proud of his Ivy League education, he posed on the campus of Columbia
for his first album cover?
That when he was playing with La Monte Young, John Cale was given LSD, pot,
and opium to help him "sustain a note on his viola for two hours at a stretch"?
Do you believe this?
Such apocrypha is the envy of any popular historian, and it's definitely a
major selling point for Miller's book. It also serves to make Miller seem a lot
more with-it than he might otherwise. You're right that Flowers is a
personal project. Miller says as much in the preface, beginning with his
magical discovery of rock back in 1956 and going on to share his eventual
disenchantment with this "routinized package of theatrical gestures" in the
'80s. This puts him in an odd, if touching, state for a critical endeavor.
"Intrigued by [his] own disenchantment"--as elusive a mind-set as I've ever
heard--he decides to figure it all out, to clarify "the cultural essence of
rock and roll." Others might have just got into gardening.
Re: The Pretenders. Are you sure you aren't thinking of, say, "Precious"
(with its "fuck off" line) or "Tattooed Love Boys" (with Hynde's quip "I shot
my mouth off/And you showed me what that hole was for")? Both a bit edgier than
"Brass in Pocket," no?
Yours,
Chris
