Subject: Ethnographic Study
Welcome home, Kell (See Photo)!
From: Randall Tessier
Date: Apr 3, 2009 12:43 pm
Message:
Dear Students:
As an exercise in ethnographic observation, some of you might want to attend a curious cultural event in downton Ann Arbor tonight. One of the oddities of baby boomer culture, and there are many, concerns their rituals surrounding music. Much like the contemporary music you’re accustomed to, they embrace pagan rythmic cadences centered around a shamanic figure whose trance-like intonations seek to open the listener to the spirit within. Professor R. Louis Tessier will be lecturing on American Music 1965-1985. WHERE: The Heidelberg Club Above on Main Street in Ann Arbor. WHEN: 6:15 - 8:30. Refreshments will be served.
Dear All:
As an exercise in ethnographic observation, some of you might want to attend a curious cultural event in downton Ann arbor tonight. One of the oddities of baby boomer culture, and there are many, concerns their rituals surrounding music. Much like the contemporary music you’re accustomed to, they embrace pagan rythmic cadences centered around a shamanic figure whose trance-like intonations seek to open the listener to the spirit within. What’s different about this, now antiquated, movement, is the attempt to simulate altered states of consciousness at a time when cultural attitudes toward individual expression were much more circumscribed. No doubt this circumscription had much to do with the persistence of the 1950’s social, political, and moral conformism, a conservative Zeitgeist the 1960’s would radically displace.
Extended free-form sections of songs like Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride,” Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” The Doors “Light My Fire,” and the like, were all meant to SIMULATE rather than ENHANCE the drug experience. No, it wasn’t because we Hippie Wannabes and Pseudo Beatniks would rather have taken our trips vicariously. In truth, since the demand far outstripped the supply, many of us affected an attitude of psychedelic awareness without having ever been high. Recalling my days on K.I. Sawyer air Force Base, I remember reading “Eye” magazine, and then ratting my hair, donning lensless granny glasses, tearing holes in my jeans, and walking around the deserted streets of Gwinn Michigan trying to be hip.
That drugs were scarce at a time when the exotic attraction of tuning in, turning on, and dropping out, was socially sought after, only made it more imperative that music BE, rather than IMPROVE, the drug experience. Put differently, as a social manifestation of the cultural moment, or, in Jungian terms, as an expression of the collective unconscious, the music sought to provide an escape from a morally repressive social order. You see, all drugs, including organic substances, were simply less available at a time when the Draconian drug laws, now unravelling in the twilight of a failed war on drugs, were firmly in place and fervently enforced.
In light of a prison system overflowing with petty drug dealers and harmless pot smokers, and the soaring costs of maintaining a maxed-out prison system, the need for a public rethinking is at hand.
What has this moral obssession cost us? This unenforceable prohibition has empowered and emboldened our enemies. The Taliban reaps the wealth of Afghanistan’s poppy harvest, and America’s epidemic drug addiction feeds their terroristic aims. Mexican Cartels, bloated with a stream of cash and guns supplied by an instatiable United States demand, have made Phoenix the number one U.S. city in kidnappings, and Atlanta isn’t far behind.
Which brings me back to tonight’s gig. We’re going to start with a song by Oni Werth, “Half Staff Blues.” The content concerns the random waste and carnage that inevitably follows wheh human beings are intent on killing one another. Next comes Procul Harum’s Power Failure. “ This one gives Andy a chance to flex his Rick Wakeman chops (I know that’s a mixed metaphor). “Deep Water” is a 50s R&B number by The Rivingtons. “Little Floater” is by NRBQ. Get out the trumpet, Dave, and by the way, Dave, open the pod bay door, will ya? The trumpet will blow on Love’s “Alone Again, Or.” “Not A Machine” is a new original by Andy Adamson. Let me see, who did “Thin Line Between Love and Hate”? Oh yeah, the…ah…ah…I don’t know…Persuaders! Ohw ysas m’I spliiln? I like to do Bob Dylan’s “Pledging My Time.” Remember The Fortunes “Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again”? We do it. Then a song by Television followed by the set one finale, The Foundation’s “Build Me Up Buttercup.”
Joe Strummer’s “Johnny Appleseed” gets us rolling (It was the theme to some TV show, “John From Cincinnati,” I think). “Article of Faith,” by me, is next. Joan Jett, “Bad Reputation,” follows. Barbara Lewis’s “Hello Stranger” is next. Then we’re gonna do Sly’s, “Sing A Simple Song.” Now a slow one, Al Green’s beautiful, “Lay It Down.” “Testify,” by “Parliament,” anyone? Then some Jackie Wilson, what else, “Higher and Higher.” We’re coming down the home stretch. The aforementioned “Psychotic Reaction,” by The Count Five, then gives way to Wanda Jackson’s “Let’s Have a Party,” and we’re done.
Best - RT
As an exercise in ethnographic observation, some of you might want to attend a curious cultural event in downton Ann Arbor tonight. One of the oddities of baby boomer culture, and there are many, concerns their rituals surrounding music. Much like the contemporary music you’re accustomed to, they embrace pagan rythmic cadences centered around a shamanic figure whose trance-like intonations seek to open the listener to the spirit within. Professor R. Louis Tessier will be lecturing on American Music 1965-1985. WHERE: The Heidelberg Club Above on Main Street in Ann Arbor. WHEN: 6:15 - 8:30. Refreshments will be served.
Dear All:
As an exercise in ethnographic observation, some of you might want to attend a curious cultural event in downton Ann arbor tonight. One of the oddities of baby boomer culture, and there are many, concerns their rituals surrounding music. Much like the contemporary music you’re accustomed to, they embrace pagan rythmic cadences centered around a shamanic figure whose trance-like intonations seek to open the listener to the spirit within. What’s different about this, now antiquated, movement, is the attempt to simulate altered states of consciousness at a time when cultural attitudes toward individual expression were much more circumscribed. No doubt this circumscription had much to do with the persistence of the 1950’s social, political, and moral conformism, a conservative Zeitgeist the 1960’s would radically displace.
Extended free-form sections of songs like Steppenwolf’s “Magic Carpet Ride,” Iron Butterfly’s “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida,” The Doors “Light My Fire,” and the like, were all meant to SIMULATE rather than ENHANCE the drug experience. No, it wasn’t because we Hippie Wannabes and Pseudo Beatniks would rather have taken our trips vicariously. In truth, since the demand far outstripped the supply, many of us affected an attitude of psychedelic awareness without having ever been high. Recalling my days on K.I. Sawyer air Force Base, I remember reading “Eye” magazine, and then ratting my hair, donning lensless granny glasses, tearing holes in my jeans, and walking around the deserted streets of Gwinn Michigan trying to be hip.
That drugs were scarce at a time when the exotic attraction of tuning in, turning on, and dropping out, was socially sought after, only made it more imperative that music BE, rather than IMPROVE, the drug experience. Put differently, as a social manifestation of the cultural moment, or, in Jungian terms, as an expression of the collective unconscious, the music sought to provide an escape from a morally repressive social order. You see, all drugs, including organic substances, were simply less available at a time when the Draconian drug laws, now unravelling in the twilight of a failed war on drugs, were firmly in place and fervently enforced.
In light of a prison system overflowing with petty drug dealers and harmless pot smokers, and the soaring costs of maintaining a maxed-out prison system, the need for a public rethinking is at hand.
What has this moral obssession cost us? This unenforceable prohibition has empowered and emboldened our enemies. The Taliban reaps the wealth of Afghanistan’s poppy harvest, and America’s epidemic drug addiction feeds their terroristic aims. Mexican Cartels, bloated with a stream of cash and guns supplied by an instatiable United States demand, have made Phoenix the number one U.S. city in kidnappings, and Atlanta isn’t far behind.
Which brings me back to tonight’s gig. We’re going to start with a song by Oni Werth, “Half Staff Blues.” The content concerns the random waste and carnage that inevitably follows wheh human beings are intent on killing one another. Next comes Procul Harum’s Power Failure. “ This one gives Andy a chance to flex his Rick Wakeman chops (I know that’s a mixed metaphor). “Deep Water” is a 50s R&B number by The Rivingtons. “Little Floater” is by NRBQ. Get out the trumpet, Dave, and by the way, Dave, open the pod bay door, will ya? The trumpet will blow on Love’s “Alone Again, Or.” “Not A Machine” is a new original by Andy Adamson. Let me see, who did “Thin Line Between Love and Hate”? Oh yeah, the…ah…ah…I don’t know…Persuaders! Ohw ysas m’I spliiln? I like to do Bob Dylan’s “Pledging My Time.” Remember The Fortunes “Here Comes That Rainy Day Feeling Again”? We do it. Then a song by Television followed by the set one finale, The Foundation’s “Build Me Up Buttercup.”
Joe Strummer’s “Johnny Appleseed” gets us rolling (It was the theme to some TV show, “John From Cincinnati,” I think). “Article of Faith,” by me, is next. Joan Jett, “Bad Reputation,” follows. Barbara Lewis’s “Hello Stranger” is next. Then we’re gonna do Sly’s, “Sing A Simple Song.” Now a slow one, Al Green’s beautiful, “Lay It Down.” “Testify,” by “Parliament,” anyone? Then some Jackie Wilson, what else, “Higher and Higher.” We’re coming down the home stretch. The aforementioned “Psychotic Reaction,” by The Count Five, then gives way to Wanda Jackson’s “Let’s Have a Party,” and we’re done.
Best - RT
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