In the process of investigating (re: "Googling") a compilation of late 60s/early 70s heavy psychedelic Christian rock called "Holy Fuzz", I have stumbled across some really fascinating websites about this subject, containing lots of great period photos, newspaper articles, info on bands and movies, wonderful poster art and so on. I guess there is an element of what I'm gonna call Christploitation to all of this. There is a kitch, camp value to record sleeves, badges and psychedelic posters containing Christian iconography. Jesus looks like a member of Creedence Clearwater Revival anyway, so his image in the late 60s was about as perfectly sell-able as it could be. I mean, I'm thinking about buying a Jesus People badge if I can find one, which - considering I ain't really a Christian of any sort - is kinda awful and disrespectful I guess, apart from I really mean no disrespect. But camp appeal aside, The Jesus Movement scene does resonate with me on some genuine level, 'cos I can see what these kids got out of it, and why they would get into it. Here's this guy, looks real hip, like one of them infact, and he's saying, y'know, hey, you can play rock music if you want, you can drop out of the rat-race if you want, keep your hair long, live off the land and I can dig it, in fact I'm gonna help you do all those things, you just gotta promise me a few things in return. So yeah, I can see it.
Wednesday, 25 February 2009
Christploitation: The Jesus Movement Era
In the process of investigating (re: "Googling") a compilation of late 60s/early 70s heavy psychedelic Christian rock called "Holy Fuzz", I have stumbled across some really fascinating websites about this subject, containing lots of great period photos, newspaper articles, info on bands and movies, wonderful poster art and so on. I guess there is an element of what I'm gonna call Christploitation to all of this. There is a kitch, camp value to record sleeves, badges and psychedelic posters containing Christian iconography. Jesus looks like a member of Creedence Clearwater Revival anyway, so his image in the late 60s was about as perfectly sell-able as it could be. I mean, I'm thinking about buying a Jesus People badge if I can find one, which - considering I ain't really a Christian of any sort - is kinda awful and disrespectful I guess, apart from I really mean no disrespect. But camp appeal aside, The Jesus Movement scene does resonate with me on some genuine level, 'cos I can see what these kids got out of it, and why they would get into it. Here's this guy, looks real hip, like one of them infact, and he's saying, y'know, hey, you can play rock music if you want, you can drop out of the rat-race if you want, keep your hair long, live off the land and I can dig it, in fact I'm gonna help you do all those things, you just gotta promise me a few things in return. So yeah, I can see it.
Monday, 23 February 2009
Obsessing About The Whole Schoolhouse Rock Thing
While the best British kids telly of the 60s and 70s was all acid-folky wooziness a la Bagpuss and The Clangers, the equivilent Quality Educational Programming being done in America adopted a tone of street-smart funkiness a la Sesame Street, The Electric Company..and Schoolhouse Rock. First airing on ABC in 1972, Schoolhouse Rock was a series of Saturday morning animated shorts which used a broad range of pop music idioms to teach the Youth Of Nixon's America about all sortsa useful things, from politics to science. The recently re-issued Multiplication Rock LP is one of I think two LPs put out during the show's original run, and is quite simply a wonderful selection of kooky, fun, pop-folk-funk songs, including Schoolhouse Rock's 'hit record', 'Three Is A Magic Number'. After purchasing the record at the weekend and a subsequent 48 hours of obsessive Googling, I'm very happy to report that for Fans Of This Type Of Thing, 'Three Is A Magic Number' represents only the tip of an exceptionally funky iceberg.
The thing about This Type Of Thing is that in so many ways the music produced for Schoolhouse Rock and similar enterprises is more interesting, original, useful, fun, cool and witty than most anything being put out by 'legitimate' pop performers of the time. There is care and craft here, a dedication to making Good Music, but there is not an ounce of the other bullshit which rock and roll culture wades around in. There's no navel gazing, there's no ego, there's no money-drugs-girls, there's no portentous statements or leather trousers. I like the fact it has a purpose, and that the purpose is an inarguably righteous purpose, and the fact that the people who put it together had the good taste and sensibility to tie the purpose to genuinely hip music. In 1972, James Taylor and Joni Mitchell and John Lennon were releasing entirely self-regarding records about themselves, and trying to convince us that The Pop Artist can write honestly only about themselves, or else it ain't art. Bob Dorough, the key architect of the Schoolhouse Rock sound, was releasing records which featured songs as good as anything Taylor-Mitchell-Lennon were putting out, and contained about a zillion better ideas, and were - to some extent, certainly to greater extent than Taylor-Mitchell-Lennon's out-put - for somebody else's benefit.
Anyway, here are a couple of examples, I think they're pretty great, and so what. The best thing Dylan ever did was that song about God naming all the animals from 'Slow Train Coming', and that's about as Schoolhouse Rock as Zimmy ever got. Dig, y'all.