The back cover of Eric Nuzum's Parental Advisory: Music Censorship in America describes the book as a "thorough and complete chronicle" of music and artists that have been censored or suppressed in Uncle Sam's land. In this sense, it's pretty accurate.
Over the course of several hundred pages, Nuzum covers music censorship according to a variety of themes including race, religion, drugs, and the good ol horizontal tussle. However, Nuzum's book is far from an objective history. Much of it is little more than a very slanted tome that takes far too long to say nothing more than (to use the technical terms) censorship sucks and freedom of expression rules.
At its best, Parental Advisory gives a detailed account of music censorship in the United States. Nuzum covers all the key events including the uproar caused by the skinny Elvis Presley's swinging hips, John Lennon's "bigger than Jesus" comment, the rise and influence of the PMRC (Parents Music Resource Center) in the 1980s, and attempts by various groups to regulate heavy metal, gangsta rap, and goth rock.
The author does a nice job showing how several key characteristics of censorship have been repeated over the decades:
• Some concerned parents, religious leaders, and politicians always feel the current generation's minds and morals are being poisoned by filthy popular music. For them, music of the present day is far more violent, sexual, and dangerous than music at any other point in history. Music now viewed as both quaint and benign (e.g.: Cole Porter, Bobby Darin) was once viewed as threats to the very moral fabric of the nation.
• Violent tragedies (such as the Columbine shooting in 1999) almost always trigger a backlash against certain types of music, leading to the inevitable Congressional grandstanding and calls for tighter regulation of the music minors have access to.
• In many cases, those advocating parental warning stickers, bans on certain albums, and other forms of censorship don't have the first clue about the music's actual content. In one hilarious story, Nuzum describes how wild rebel John Denver's song, "Rocky Mountain High," was banned by radio stations for its supposed drug undertones. Similarly, Frank Zappa's Jazz From Hell was slapped with a parental advisory sticker for explicit content. The album was entirely instrumental.
• It doesn't take much to get the censorship ball rolling. Musicians who have the misfortune of getting on the radar of an overzealous politician, conservative watch group, religious leader, or everyday parent who complains to the authorities can quickly and easily find themselves at the center of controversy.
The book's major drawback is that it is not a balanced history. Nuzum doesn't really question the motives of the performers who find themselves being censored (with the notable exception of Marilyn Manson). In this way, he sees every artist who was ever suppressed as essentially a crusader for free speech and artistic expression.
In many cases this characterization is accurate (Frank Zappa), but in other cases, it's clear certain artists were more concerned with gaining notoriety — however negative it was — than with fighting as First Amendment soldiers (like 2 Live Crew). This is not to say such acts should have been censored (any music fan realizes the grave implications of any form of musical censorship), but it would be naïve to think certain artists didn't exploit the attention for financial gain in the form of increased record sales and sold-out concerts.
The book fails to place censorship in the larger context of how it influences American culture or society. How censorship has impacted artists as they record and release music, whether consumers avoid (or prefer) censored artists, and the long-term impacts of censorship on freedom of expression are never addressed. There is more to censorship than Congressional hearings, altered album covers, and manic reactionary conservatives. Unfortunately, Nuzum rarely covers these areas.
Music fans interested in a thorough, though biased, history of music censorship in America should enjoy this read. However, readers looking for a thoughtful analysis of how censorship has impacted music will likely be disappointed.
Showing posts with label music history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label music history. Show all posts
Friday, February 29, 2008
Saturday, February 02, 2008
Book Review: Eye Mind: Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators by Paul Drummond
With a collective drug intake massive enough to knock out a Clydesdale, frequent harassment and several busts by police, in-fights, mentally fractured band members, one violent death, and one classic album, the story of the 13th Floor Elevators is a music journalist’s wet dream. What’s surprising is that it’s taken so many years after the band’s disintegration to finally get a biography that looks past the myth and provides a detailed account of the band. Paul Drummond’s Eye Mind: Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators is both an exhaustive study of the band’s story and how the band fit (or didn’t fit) into the 1960s musical landscape. Fans of the band or music history won’t be disappointed.
Drummond covers every aspect of the band, including the Elevators’ rise as one of Texas’ premier live acts, the brief national notoriety gained by the single “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” their failed attempts to break out on a national scale, and their record company’s shoddy management techniques. The band’s (primarily Hall’s) psychedelic philosophy of transcendence, drug regimens, and struggle against Texas’ police force and how these influenced their albums, live performances, daily lives, and relationships with each other are also addressed.
Central to the book are in-depth details about the band’s primary members: drummer John Ike, lyricist/jug player Tommy Hall, guitarist Stacy Sutherland, and vocalist/yelper Roky Erickson. While Erickson is probably the biggest draw for fans of the band, Drummond presents all the major and minor players in the Elevators’ twisted tale. Although Drummond is obviously a fan of the band, for the most part he doesn’t let his bias interfere with providing an objective account.
Tommy Hall, depending on one’s point of view, was either a certified genius or a misguided druggie with half-cooked ideas about LSD, the path to enlightenment, the meaning of life, and other HEAVY concepts, and how the Elevators’ music could be used as a conduit for communicating cosmic truths (what that term actually meant to the band is a convoluted mess).
This portrayal of Hall is often unflattering; the lyricist comes across as a pompous ass, a bully, and the worst kind of drug user. Convinced that LSD was central to a greater understanding of life (one story even recalls how Hall attempted to distribute acid to young schoolchildren), and filling his head with writings by philosophers whose names seriously need to buy a vowel, Hall insisted the band take acid prior to performing, in an attempt to convey the psychedelic experience to the audience. Drummond shows how this dogmatic insistence to play on LSD, coupled with Hall’s abrasive and conceited personality, led to numerous fights within the band, and more than one lousy live performance.
Of course, Roky Erickson remains the central figure throughout the band’s history. Either a cautionary tale about the dangers of consuming LSD like Mentos or a misunderstood left-of-center genius (or both), the singer’s tale is one of addiction, mental instability, and varying degrees of recovery. Drummond’s book traces Erickson’s life carefully, with a central question being when the singer’s mind cracked, what caused it, and whether Erickson either faked or exaggerated his mental illness.
What becomes clear is that at some point starting around 1967, Erickson’s behavior became increasingly erratic and bizarre. The singer would often get sidetracked and turn up at the wrong venue or not all, became increasingly paranoid, and claimed that he was receiving transmissions from Russians and Martians in his teeth. In one famous story from the 1980s, Erickson was discovered in his home with several TVs and radios turned to different stations at maximum volume; another time, he was arrested for driving zero miles an error. With symptoms that included traces of autism, schizophrenia, and the inability towards self control, it’s certainly hard to accept Erickson’s later claims that his mental illness was largely a ruse.
A number of causes for this mental decline are proposed. Erickson’s liberal use of LSD, often fed to him by Hall, clearly had its adverse effects, although the singer’s coddling by his religious mother and friends, the various chemicals he received at the sinisterly-named Rusk Maximum Security Prison for the Criminally Insane, and Erickson’s sensitive personality cannot be ruled out either.
Despite a few relapses – by 1999 Erickson appeared to be completely helpless and lost man-child when he didn’t have a guitar in his hands, as shown in the You’re Gonna Miss Me documentary – he appears to have largely recovered. Some of his solo “Horror Rock” work almost rivals anything from the Elevators’ classic Psychedelic Sounds album, and Erickson’s also managed a few concert appearances in the last few years.
At its depressing worst, the Elevators’ story reads like a from-the-depths-of hell version of VH1’s Behind the Music. All of the clichés are there: regional fame and a failed attempt at national stardom, massive and naïve drug use, gross negligence from a record label, band squabbles, time spent in both prisons and mental institutions, failed reunion attempts, and tragic personal stories for the band’s members (especially in the case of Sutherland, who was accidentally shot to death by his wife in a drunken/drug-fueled argument). Yet despite the Elevators never achieving the attention in their heyday that should have, the band has been cited as an influence by bands such as Spacemen 3 and R.E.M. In some cases, specifically that of Roky Erickson, the band’s story is one of perseverance and survival.
Drummond’s book was meticulously researched and is deeply detailed. It’s the first definitive history of the Elevators and also serves as a nice study of 1960s psychedelic culture. With many new photos and interviews with the band and other key players in the Elevators’ scene, Drummond’s book is a great read for both fans of the band and fans of music history.
Drummond covers every aspect of the band, including the Elevators’ rise as one of Texas’ premier live acts, the brief national notoriety gained by the single “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” their failed attempts to break out on a national scale, and their record company’s shoddy management techniques. The band’s (primarily Hall’s) psychedelic philosophy of transcendence, drug regimens, and struggle against Texas’ police force and how these influenced their albums, live performances, daily lives, and relationships with each other are also addressed.
Central to the book are in-depth details about the band’s primary members: drummer John Ike, lyricist/jug player Tommy Hall, guitarist Stacy Sutherland, and vocalist/yelper Roky Erickson. While Erickson is probably the biggest draw for fans of the band, Drummond presents all the major and minor players in the Elevators’ twisted tale. Although Drummond is obviously a fan of the band, for the most part he doesn’t let his bias interfere with providing an objective account.
Tommy Hall, depending on one’s point of view, was either a certified genius or a misguided druggie with half-cooked ideas about LSD, the path to enlightenment, the meaning of life, and other HEAVY concepts, and how the Elevators’ music could be used as a conduit for communicating cosmic truths (what that term actually meant to the band is a convoluted mess).
This portrayal of Hall is often unflattering; the lyricist comes across as a pompous ass, a bully, and the worst kind of drug user. Convinced that LSD was central to a greater understanding of life (one story even recalls how Hall attempted to distribute acid to young schoolchildren), and filling his head with writings by philosophers whose names seriously need to buy a vowel, Hall insisted the band take acid prior to performing, in an attempt to convey the psychedelic experience to the audience. Drummond shows how this dogmatic insistence to play on LSD, coupled with Hall’s abrasive and conceited personality, led to numerous fights within the band, and more than one lousy live performance.
Of course, Roky Erickson remains the central figure throughout the band’s history. Either a cautionary tale about the dangers of consuming LSD like Mentos or a misunderstood left-of-center genius (or both), the singer’s tale is one of addiction, mental instability, and varying degrees of recovery. Drummond’s book traces Erickson’s life carefully, with a central question being when the singer’s mind cracked, what caused it, and whether Erickson either faked or exaggerated his mental illness.
What becomes clear is that at some point starting around 1967, Erickson’s behavior became increasingly erratic and bizarre. The singer would often get sidetracked and turn up at the wrong venue or not all, became increasingly paranoid, and claimed that he was receiving transmissions from Russians and Martians in his teeth. In one famous story from the 1980s, Erickson was discovered in his home with several TVs and radios turned to different stations at maximum volume; another time, he was arrested for driving zero miles an error. With symptoms that included traces of autism, schizophrenia, and the inability towards self control, it’s certainly hard to accept Erickson’s later claims that his mental illness was largely a ruse.
A number of causes for this mental decline are proposed. Erickson’s liberal use of LSD, often fed to him by Hall, clearly had its adverse effects, although the singer’s coddling by his religious mother and friends, the various chemicals he received at the sinisterly-named Rusk Maximum Security Prison for the Criminally Insane, and Erickson’s sensitive personality cannot be ruled out either.
Despite a few relapses – by 1999 Erickson appeared to be completely helpless and lost man-child when he didn’t have a guitar in his hands, as shown in the You’re Gonna Miss Me documentary – he appears to have largely recovered. Some of his solo “Horror Rock” work almost rivals anything from the Elevators’ classic Psychedelic Sounds album, and Erickson’s also managed a few concert appearances in the last few years.
At its depressing worst, the Elevators’ story reads like a from-the-depths-of hell version of VH1’s Behind the Music. All of the clichés are there: regional fame and a failed attempt at national stardom, massive and naïve drug use, gross negligence from a record label, band squabbles, time spent in both prisons and mental institutions, failed reunion attempts, and tragic personal stories for the band’s members (especially in the case of Sutherland, who was accidentally shot to death by his wife in a drunken/drug-fueled argument). Yet despite the Elevators never achieving the attention in their heyday that should have, the band has been cited as an influence by bands such as Spacemen 3 and R.E.M. In some cases, specifically that of Roky Erickson, the band’s story is one of perseverance and survival.
Drummond’s book was meticulously researched and is deeply detailed. It’s the first definitive history of the Elevators and also serves as a nice study of 1960s psychedelic culture. With many new photos and interviews with the band and other key players in the Elevators’ scene, Drummond’s book is a great read for both fans of the band and fans of music history.
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Book Review: 33 1/3 If You're Feeling Sinister by Scott Plagenhoef
Continuum’s 33 1/3 series is an interesting concept: take an author with a sometimes shaky level of qualifications and turn said author loose for about 100 pages to explore the influences, origins, inspirations, and critical and commercial responses of a classic album. At its best, this approach leads to a better understanding and appreciation of an album and its creators (Kim Cooper’s excellent take on Neutral Milk Hotel’s In the Aeroplane Over the Sea). At its worst, the end result is little more than a mind-numbing exercise in recycled minutia, wild speculations, or overblown lyrical analysis (Dai Griffiths’ dismal book on Radiohead’s OK Computer).
Scott Plagenhoef’s study of Belle and Sebastian’s 1996 album, If You’re Feeling Sinister, falls somewhere in between. Plagenhoef, associate editor-in-chief for much loved/hated online music website Pitchfork Media, does an excellent job in exploring general music themes and trends against the backdrop of the album. He expertly shows how listeners now learn about and discover indie music in the Internet and mp3 age, whether it’s even possible for a band to remain “mysterious,” and how a band’s image is often shaped by online media before a listener has an opportunity to form an independent opinion of an artist and its music.
However, the book is severely flawed in that there is little discussion about the album itself. The book is more a treatise as to how music dissemination and consumption have changed in recent years than a study of the actual album.
Plagenhoef persuasively shows how Belle and Sebastian might be one of the last groups to initially maintain an air of mystery about both themselves and their music. Whether it was deliberate or purely accidental, the band’s limited pressing of debut album Tigermilk, eventual refusal to engage the music press, and sporadic, scattershot touring all contributed to a certain myth about the band. It was essentially left to curious indie music fans to discover the band through their own efforts and small circles of like-minded fans.
Plagenhoef argues that this will likely never happen again in indie music. Now a band’s biography and recorded output can all be accessed via a good Internet search engine. In addition, listeners can no longer hear artists without preconceived notions of what that band is supposed to represent, and in the worst cases, how listeners are expected to react to the music. Plagenhoef also discusses how the simple act of listening to an album as a single activity, instead of as part of background noise to another activity, even seems antiquated.
If Plagenhoef’s argument sounds a little reactionary, a close review of the examples he gives shows that it’s hard to disagree with him. If the author can be criticized for anything in this argument, it’s that he glosses over some of the benefits artists now experience from this changing landscape, including easier ways to get their music heard by a wider audience than even a decade ago.
However, this book is advertised as being “about” Sinister. Although Plagenhoef gives a nice history of both the band and of indie rock trends in the 1990s, and addresses the major themes that emerge in the lyrics of primary songwriter Stuart Murdoch, the album is not discussed in any depth until around page 90. This is a shame really; Plagenhoef does a nice job analyzing the album’s themes, especially those centered around childhood, generational gaps, and the role of religion and sex in shaping people, but it’s almost an afterthought in the book. Other areas that are not addressed in any real depth include the album’s possible cultural, literary, and musical inspirations, the album’s place in indie music history, and how the album influenced other artists.
As an analysis of shifting trends in how new music is discovered and how perception of a band is shaped Plagenhoef’s book is an insightful read. However, it’s a stretch to call it a study of Sinister. Belle and Sebastian fans looking for an in-depth analysis of the album might be underwhelmed after reading this book.
Scott Plagenhoef’s study of Belle and Sebastian’s 1996 album, If You’re Feeling Sinister, falls somewhere in between. Plagenhoef, associate editor-in-chief for much loved/hated online music website Pitchfork Media, does an excellent job in exploring general music themes and trends against the backdrop of the album. He expertly shows how listeners now learn about and discover indie music in the Internet and mp3 age, whether it’s even possible for a band to remain “mysterious,” and how a band’s image is often shaped by online media before a listener has an opportunity to form an independent opinion of an artist and its music.
However, the book is severely flawed in that there is little discussion about the album itself. The book is more a treatise as to how music dissemination and consumption have changed in recent years than a study of the actual album.
Plagenhoef persuasively shows how Belle and Sebastian might be one of the last groups to initially maintain an air of mystery about both themselves and their music. Whether it was deliberate or purely accidental, the band’s limited pressing of debut album Tigermilk, eventual refusal to engage the music press, and sporadic, scattershot touring all contributed to a certain myth about the band. It was essentially left to curious indie music fans to discover the band through their own efforts and small circles of like-minded fans.
Plagenhoef argues that this will likely never happen again in indie music. Now a band’s biography and recorded output can all be accessed via a good Internet search engine. In addition, listeners can no longer hear artists without preconceived notions of what that band is supposed to represent, and in the worst cases, how listeners are expected to react to the music. Plagenhoef also discusses how the simple act of listening to an album as a single activity, instead of as part of background noise to another activity, even seems antiquated.
If Plagenhoef’s argument sounds a little reactionary, a close review of the examples he gives shows that it’s hard to disagree with him. If the author can be criticized for anything in this argument, it’s that he glosses over some of the benefits artists now experience from this changing landscape, including easier ways to get their music heard by a wider audience than even a decade ago.
However, this book is advertised as being “about” Sinister. Although Plagenhoef gives a nice history of both the band and of indie rock trends in the 1990s, and addresses the major themes that emerge in the lyrics of primary songwriter Stuart Murdoch, the album is not discussed in any depth until around page 90. This is a shame really; Plagenhoef does a nice job analyzing the album’s themes, especially those centered around childhood, generational gaps, and the role of religion and sex in shaping people, but it’s almost an afterthought in the book. Other areas that are not addressed in any real depth include the album’s possible cultural, literary, and musical inspirations, the album’s place in indie music history, and how the album influenced other artists.
As an analysis of shifting trends in how new music is discovered and how perception of a band is shaped Plagenhoef’s book is an insightful read. However, it’s a stretch to call it a study of Sinister. Belle and Sebastian fans looking for an in-depth analysis of the album might be underwhelmed after reading this book.
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