Curse of Beatlemania

LewRockwell.com ^ | 1/12/2002 | Joseph Sobran

[UnBlinkingEye]

Curse of Beatlemania
by Joseph Sobran

A few weeks ago I wrote some mild criticisms of the Beatles and the sky fell. Angry readers called me "ignorant," "vicious," and various other things displaying blindness to my finer qualities. I hadn’t realized there was a militant Beatle Taliban, and I was an infidel. I was lucky to escape a fatwa.

Some of the Beatles’ fans did make civil and reasonable arguments; they defended George Harrison as a guitarist and reminded me that such musical luminaries as Leonard Bernstein and Frank Sinatra had praised them.

But Bernstein was surely over the top when he called Lennon and McCartney the greatest composers of the twentieth century. What about – sticking to pop music –

Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, Harry Warren, Richard Rodgers, and Frank Loesser? And when Sinatra called Harrison’s "Something" one of the greatest songs of its era, I think it did more credit to his generosity than to his judgment. (Sinatra went to unfortunate lengths to prove he wasn’t an old fogey, as witness his excruciating recording of "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown.")

It’s not that I hate the Beatles; I’ve always liked them well enough. I used to play their tapes on long drives with my kids, and we all enjoyed them.

What I did hate from the beginning was Beatlemania. It made me uneasy for reasons I didn’t quite understand at the time. The main reason was that the enthusiasm was so synthetic. My generation didn’t discover the Beatles in the normal way; the Beatles were imposed on us by publicists and marketers.

Once upon a time, fame was slowly acquired. A man’s reputation spread gradually, and his good name was so hard-won that he might fight a duel over an insult or a libel. Abraham Lincoln nearly had to cross swords (literally) with a man he had ridiculed in a newspaper.

Even in the world of pop music, a singer used to have to perform for years, making contact with small audiences from town to town, before he "hit the big time." He had to earn appreciation. It was hard work, but local fame necessarily preceded national fame.

With the Beatles something new was happening. National fame (at least on this side of the Atlantic) was created instantly. It wasn’t due to their music; it was due to their promoters. Millions of kids allowed themselves to be manipulated into an enthusiasm few of them would have arrived at on their own. Pop music was no longer really "pop" – the result of interaction between music and listener.

As soon as they got off the plane, the Beatles were mobbed. This was not a phenomenon of musical taste. Their screaming fans wouldn’t even allow them to be heard, weren’t interested in listening.

It was weird. I felt a pang of sympathy for the boys, because they obviously wanted to perform; they wanted to be musicians, and their own fans were making it hard. Could they be enjoying that kind of attention, which ruled out any real connection with the audience?

To me it all smacked of the "two-minute hate" in Nineteen Eighty-Four – far more benign, but equally mindless. It wasn’t the Beatles’ fault. Their fans neither knew nor cared who was engineering the mass emotions that swamped the music. Even as a kid, I didn’t want to be part of that, the submergence of the self in the mass.

Since then, what we call "pop" culture has become uncomfortably close to totalitarian politics. Even our aesthetic tastes are increasingly formed by forces of which we know little. It can’t be good for the soul to be subject to so much calculating hype and promotion.

Democracy too has come to mean mass manipulation, with lots of focus groups, demographic studies, and advertising techniques replacing rational persuasion. The individual who prefers to make up his own mind knows he counts for nothing in today’s "democratic process" (eerie phrase!). You have a choice of which mass to join, that’s all. Either way, you’ll make no difference to the outcome.

On the other hand, some people find it thrilling to be part of a stampeding herd, without asking what started the commotion. They should feel right at home in these times.

We live in a world in which the passive and malleable mass has become prior to the individual and the community. Beatlemania didn’t originate this condition, but in its own way it was an intimation.

January 12, 2002

[UnBlinkingEye]

Sorry Mr. Sobran, I thought the Beatles were great! The reaction to the Beatles was much more genuine than the article implies, at least it seemed that way to me. I was in the fifth grade when the Beatles got popular in the U.S. and grew up with them as their music evolved. We liked their funny, irreverent attitude as well as the music, like 'em or not they changed the world!

[billorites]

"A few weeks ago I wrote some mild criticisms of the Beatles and the sky fell. Angry readers called me "ignorant," "vicious," and various other things..."

Don't forget "cranky" Joe!

"What about – sticking to pop music – Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, Harry Warren, Richard Rodgers, and Frank Loesser? "

Heavens, Sobran is younger than me, but what an old fart!

23 Skidoo, Joe!

[UnBlinkingEye]

23 Skidoo, Joe!

I thought the Beatles were the cat's pajamas!

[MarkWar]

>The reaction to the Beatles was much more genuine than the article implies, at least it seemed that way to me. I was in the fifth grade

I totally disagree with you.

I lived on the south side of Chicago and I was in grade school then, too. I and everyone I know HATED the Beatles.

And our thinking then was pretty clear and I still believe in it today: WHY even "import" the Beatles? We had the Beach Boys and we had Jefferson Airplane and we had The Doors -- any kind of music you wanted to hear, we had already! WHO THE HELL NEEDED THOSE WIMPY MOP TOPS WITH THEIR OH-SO-CUTE PRESS CONFERENCES? ("We turned left at Greenland...") Hell, for that kind of thing, the US biz kids made the Monkees...

And if you think the Beatles music was magic, just magic, I suggest you get (heck, I'd suggest EVERYONE get it anyway):

Mark W.

[UnBlinkingEye]

WHY even "import" the Beatles? We had the Beach Boys and we had Jefferson Airplane and we had The Doors...

When Beatlemania reached the U.S. we had the Beach Boys, but not Jefferson Airplane or the Doors. I lived in Las Vegas when they hit and most of us guys didn't like them at first either, then we noticed all the girls loved them, saw Hard Days Night and wished we were one of them.

[BluesDuke]

Says Joe Sobran: It was weird. I felt a pang of sympathy for the boys, because they obviously wanted to perform; they wanted to be musicians, and their own fans were making it hard. Could they be enjoying that kind of attention, which ruled out any real connection with the audience?

George Harrison probably said it all, Mr. Sobran: I asked to be successful. I didn't exactly ask to be famous.

[BluesDuke]

Says Sobran, re pop composers: What about – sticking to pop music – Johnny Mercer, Harold Arlen, Harry Warren, Richard Rodgers, and Frank Loesser?
Say I: You left out George Gershwin, Cole Porter, Irving Berlin, and Jules Styne, all three of whom could wax the tails of the other four, good as they were. And as far as American music, period, Duke Ellington could eat them all for breakfast.

[UnBlinkingEye]

I lived on the south side of Chicago and I was in grade school then, too.

We lived in Brookfield when Kennedy was assassinated, used to ride my bike to the zoo.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Dittos on that. Yes, we had some good bands (he forgot to mention CCR, the greatest of the American bands). But the fact is the Beatles were fantastic. Along with Floyd and Zeppelin. Are there any bands like them around today with that kind of spirit and energy? Britney Spears?? Cute to look at, not much more.

[UnBlinkingEye]

The Beatles probably did more for guitar sales than any group in history. I'd still like to get a Rickenbacher...

[UnBlinkingEye]

Yes, we had some good bands (he forgot to mention CCR, the greatest of the American bands).

The record company they were with really screwed them, can't remember the details.

[discostu]

I'm with the author. Always hated the Beatles. I think the only "contribution" they ever made to music was the perfection of cookie cutter moronic love songs. Towards the end they actually started writing some music, but it was too late, they'd already cursed the world with sacharine music substitute.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Towards the end was when George Harrison started coming around as a writer. My favorite tunes by the Beatles on the White Album and Abbey Road are by him. Then they split. Ego city took over, fame does that.

[UnBlinkingEye]

Nothing personal, but I always hated Disco music.

[parsifal]

I tend to think Sobran is right. I maintain that "impure thoughts"are perhaps the biggest problem face the human race. By "impure", I mean thoughts that we are led to not thru discussion or reason but manipulation. Let me give you an example. Homosexuality.

I happen to be someone who does not think homos are going straight to Hell. I think it is a problem and not a good life style, by any means, but basically I don' t get torqued out by it, any more than I do schizophrenia or autism. I like to think that I arrived at that conclusion by reading about it and thinking about it.

I know some people who have about the same opinion as I do but they never read a book about it, and do not seem to be intellectually informed about the problem. I beleive they got their opinion from TV shows with sympathetic homo characters. In other words, they were slowly manipulated into feeling and believing a certain way without any real brain input. The methods are used by everybody everywhere. That is why I keep tin foil over my head. Down with Madison Avenue! parsy.

[Arkinsaw]

The "Beatles Taliban" can't compare to the "LOTR Taliban." Those freaks/cultists are completely out of control.

The "Harry Potter is the Devil" Taliban are the top of the crop at the moment.

[RayChuang88]

When Beatlemania reached the U.S. we had the Beach Boys, but not Jefferson Airplane or the Doors. I lived in Las Vegas when they hit and most of us guys didn't like them at first either, then we noticed all the girls loved them, saw Hard Days Night and wished we were one of them.

I think the biggest reason why the Beatles had such a huge impact was that in early 1964, there were very few American pop groups that were extremely popular (the Beach Boys being one of them). People forget what happened on that fateful day in 1959 when Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J. P. Big Bopper Richardson were killed in that tragic airplane crash--it wasn't called The Day the Music Died for nothing. These three musicians--had they lived--would have become the second generation of major rock and roll successes.

Along with Elvis Presley being in the Army at that time and Chuck Berry's legal troubles in the same period, no wonder the first wave of rock and roll music was nearly gone by 1960. The Beatles and the subsequent British Invasion of 1964-1967 reinvigorated rock and roll, which set up the second generation of rock and roll music that alas was gone by the end of 1970 with the deaths of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and the fallout from the Rolling Stones' infamous concert at Altamont Raceway just east of Livermore, CA at the end of 1970.

[UnBlinkingEye]

The "Beatles Taliban" can't compare to the "LOTR Taliban." Those freaks/cultists are completely out of control.

I read the LOTR trilogy years ago, saw the movie last week, I liked both the books and the movie but both were a bit long.

[UnBlinkingEye]

Down with Madison Avenue!

Amen. I don't think the Beatles were a product of Madison though.

[Arkinsaw]

Nobody sounded like them before, and everyone sounded like them after. You can find their influence in nearly everything produced these days.

In a couple of hundred years very, very, few groups from this era will be remembered widely. Even some of the one's we consider great classics will just fade away. But I suspect that they will still be remembered and their music examined.

That being said.....I turn them off when they come on the radio simply because I've heard every song a gazillion times (except that Long and Winding Road/Golden Slumbers one which I leave on).

[DoughtyOne]

Wow.  Taliban, infidel, fatwa?  Just because a dumb column was trashed and it's author attacted, it doesn't mean his life is in danger or that a holy war has been called.  Mr. Sobran, get a grip fella

There are reasonable arguements to be made for the Beatles.  Their music which first consisted of simply songs like "Hold My Hand"  and "Baby You Can Drive My Car" progressed continually to those contained in the Sergeant Peppers, White and Abbey Road albums.  The simple songs had given way to works with orchestrated backgrounds and complex impresionistic montages.  That's why it's rather humerous to suggest some of the people you have, as even the slightest challenge to their standing.  As good as those people were, their music was one dimensional by comparison.

You state that Berstein was surely over the top when he called Lennon and McCartney, "the greatest composers of the twentieth century."  What you fail to understand is that the Beatles music wasn't of one variety.  They successfully moved their craft from one spectrum of music to another.  They moved from the mere pop culture to that of the symphonic environment. And this they did, all the while pulling their fans along with them, and winning new converts.  Many kids who wouldn't have been exposed to symphony music, were due to the Beatles.

You mentioned Bernstein and Sanatra.  Here's two musical giants that recognized the contributions the Beatles had made.  But you dismiss these two men as if your contribution to the music industry qualified your opinion to rule the day.  Frankly, I blieve the reverse to be painfully evident.

Let's consider your arguement about the Beatles fame being a product of entertainment industry and image maker's hype.  Well, hype will get your foot in the door fella, it won't win you fans.  If there's no tallent, the albums won't sell and the fans won't swoon.  The hype will soon fade away and the whole effort will go bust and cave in on itself.  Did that happen?

You state that your remarks were not as a result of you not liking the Beatles.  I can't imagine what you'd have said if you didn't like them, but your words come pretty close to my minds eye view.  First of all you dismiss their tallent as no better than the forgotten that you mention.  You state that their music couldn't stand on it's own, their popularity was only a result of hype and that albums sold simply because kids wanted to "belong."  Then you dump on musical giants that do recognize their tallent.

When I was a kid of sixteen years of age, I purchased the only single I've ever bought.  On one side was Strawberry Fields Forever.  On the opposite was Penny Lane.  I didn't buy that single because hype forced me to.  I bought it because I appreciated the music.  I would suggest you seek those two songs out sometime.  Listen to their complexity and perhaps you'll be able to obtain the same understanding that 16 year old kid did.  The Beatles music was far more than you give it credit for.

As you stated, hype didn't start with the Beatles and to attribute their succes to hype is to reveal to the public how shallow and ignorant one human can be.

In the future, if you wish to address the evils of focus groups and such, please address it and refrain from trashing un-related groups or topics with the smoke and mirrors routine.

One valid arguement that you didn't make, which truly revealed your ignorance on the topic of best composers, was the omission of show tune greats of the twentieth century. Some of those would have been an excellent challenge to the claim that the Beatles were the best. Even so, the Beatles versatility and growth made them my favorites. Others may disagree on that point. Never-the-less, the Beatles were a major tallent.

[Arkinsaw]

There's nothing wrong with disliking something, but sometimes radicalizing that dislike will create radicals in response where none would have been created.

[BluesDuke]

The Beatles probably did more for guitar sales than any group in history. I'd still like to get a Rickenbacher...

This isn't exactly true, though they did put a kind of steroid shot into guitar sales. (Gretsch, for example, enjoyed some additional sales power thanks to George Harrison's use of two of their models, as they would in 1966 when they got a sponsorship deal to supply the Monkees with guitars and basses for the first season of that show - but Rickenbacker enjoyed a pickup in sales thanks to Harrison's and John Lennon's use of Rickenbacker guitars and, shortly afterward, the Byrds, whose Roger McGuinn used a Rickenbacker electric 12-string when they hit big.)

The real steroid shot for guitar sales came with the emergence of first Mike Bloomfield and then Eric Clapton as major stars who did it with nothing more than their guitar playing, and in the unlikeliest of ways: Bloomfield in 1966 switched from a Fender Telecaster to an old Gibson Les Paul, during the sessions for the second Butterfield Blues Band album, East-West. (Gibson had discontinued the original Les Paul in 1960, replacing it with what was called at first the "Les Paul SG" in 1961); Clapton, who played a Telecaster as a member of the Yardbirds, switched to a Les Paul he found second hand in a shop when he joined John Mayall's Blues Breakers in 1965. (Clapton's guitar had an interesting feature: a Bigsby tailpiece and tremolo bar, a feature Les Pauls never made standard on any model in its original life.)

Gibson noticed something striking: when each musician made the switch, sales of Fender Telecasters dropped and aspiring and professional guitarists alike were hunting down old Les Pauls. Bloomfield and Clapton (Gibson customarily creidts Bloomfield first) triggered the revival of the model, to the point where Gibson finally returned it to production in 1969. (Following them, Jimi Hendrix ambled along with his Fender Stratocaster, and sales of that guitar began to jump.) But musicians began prizing the older guitars, on the Bloomfield and Clapton impetus (Bloomfield's, I believe, was a 1957 model; Clapton's, a 1959), and the collectible guitar market was born.

An irony: Clapton's prize Les Paul was stolen shortly after he finished the sessions for Fresh Cream in 1966 (very few photographs exist of Clapton playing that guitar with Cream), and he found a replacement - a 1961 Les Paul SG Standard, the one he had painted (famously) psychedelic. He played that guitar throughout most of his time in Cream (though he also used a semi-hollowbody Gibson ES-345, similar to one B.B. King is seen with on the rear jacket of Live and Well, and a Firebird, such as he is shown playing on the front jacket of Live Cream. These latter two guitars he played at Cream's famous farewell concert at Royal Albert Hall; he also played the ES-345 at Cream's final New York concert, at Madison Square Garden.)

[sharktrager]

Even in the world of pop music, a singer used to have to perform for years, making contact with small audiences from town to town, before he "hit the big time." He had to earn appreciation. It was hard work, but local fame necessarily preceded national fame.

Joe's ignorance is really showing here. In case he didn't notice, the Beatles paid their dues in Liverpool and Berlin long before Beatlemania. His problem stems more from the notion that they didn't pay their dues in the US, hence it didn't count. By that token, I guess the UK should have dismissed Elvis and Chuck Berry.

[geaux]

The Beatles = A very early model for N Sync, Boyz-2-Men, Menudo, Backstreet Boys, Duran Duran, New Edition, etc., etc., etc. Find some cute, semi-talented guys, put them together into a band making pre-fab music, market them to 7th grade girls, make money, disperse and let the guys try it on their own. Now they're starting with the girls; see Britney Spears.

Flame away.

[UnBlinkingEye]

When I was a kid of sixteen years of age, I purchased the only single I've ever bought. On one side was Strawberry Fields Forever. On the opposite was Penny Lane.

Strwaberry Fields Forever was also one of the first, if not the first, MTV type music videos made.

[Shooter 2.5]

In the days that followed George Harrison's death, I almost called a radio station to ask them to please play some Beatle's songs. I was tired of hearing Rolling Stones music.

I'm sorry to say that I never made the call.

[Reaganwuzthebest]

Some of the earlier Lennon stuff I never tire of. She Said She Said, And Your Bird Can Sing, Rain, Tomorrow Never Knows, I'm Only Sleeping are just as good today as they were then. The radio stations tended to play McCartney songs, many of which were good also but only because they were more pop oriented love songs.

But Lennon was better in a different way. He was proud that his songs were of the "underground" nature, not AM but FM rogue music. He ridiculed McCartney for "selling out". His first solo album was as uncommercial as you could get. But in the end the Beatles couldn't be one without the other. Their styles came together to sound better than anything before or since. Unfortunately, when they split, Lennon became too sour, and McCartney saccharine.

It was good they didn't reunite. I think the myth of perfection would have been shattered. Their creative abilities had slipped somewhat, and there would have been the danger they couldn't come up with a Strawberry Fields Forever again. The public might have dissed them. Probably not, but there was that chance.

[UnBlinkingEye]

The real steroid shot for guitar sales came with the emergence of first Mike Bloomfield and then Eric Clapton as major stars who did it with nothing more than their guitar playing, and in the unlikeliest of ways: Bloomfield in 1966 switched from a Fender Telecaster to an old Gibson Les Paul, during the sessions for the second Butterfield Blues Band album, East-West.

You may be right but I thought I had read that guitar sales exploded when the Beatles hit the scene.

I've got Butterfield's East-West album and another old album with Mike Bloomfield, Stephen Stills and Al Kooper called Super Session. I think I might have an old John Mayall and the Blues Breakers album with Eric Clapton in his pre-Cream days somewhere around here. I also have a Les Paul Custom sitting next to me as I type.

[gcruse]

Since then, what we call "pop" culture has
become uncomfortably close to totalitarian politics.

Joe Sobran's brain is officially dead.  It follows the
death of his reputation by several years.

The individual who prefers to make up his own
mind knows he counts for nothing

Sorry, Joe.  Didn't know you felt so muzzled.
I guess writing nationally syndicated columns
puts you at a disadvantage to the rest of us.

[DoughtyOne]

Good call.

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks for the good comments.

[UnBlinkingEye]

The Beatles = A very early model for N Sync, Boyz-2-Men, Menudo, Backstreet Boys, Duran Duran, New Edition, etc., etc., etc. Find some cute, semi-talented guys, put them together into a band making pre-fab music, market them to 7th grade girls, make money, disperse and let the guys try it on their own.

The difference between the Beatles and most, if not all of the others you mention, is that they came together on their own initiative, wrote their own songs and played their own instruments. They also had a much greater impact on the world as whole than any of the other groups.

[jwfiv]

That long East-West tune has been a favorite for 33 years now. GREAT little masterpiece, it was/is.

[BluesDuke]

The Beatles = A very early model for N Sync, Boyz-2-Men, Menudo, Backstreet Boys, Duran Duran, New Edition, etc., etc., etc. Find some cute, semi-talented guys, put them together into a band making pre-fab music, market them to 7th grade girls, make money, disperse and let the guys try it on their own.

Question: Did the 'NSyncs, et.al., slog away for the better part of seven years, from the time they were teenagers, in some of the seediest dives and roughest halls in Liverpool and Hamburg grinding it out for sometimes four or even five sets a night? And as for "pre-fab" music, be advised that, from practically the outset, the Beatles insisted on their own compositions going onto their singles. (It should be noted that the few non-Beatle-written songs which made it as hit singles happened in the U.S., at the behest of their American record labels: "Twist and Shout" most famously, but also a Carl Perkins rewrite of an ancient Blind Lemon Jefferson blues, "Matchbox," and their rippling version of Larry Williams's "Slow Down". "Act Naturally," a Russell-Morrison song which Buck Owens had made a country hit, was put on the flip of "Yesterday" and, unlike other Beatle singles, didn't chart in its own right. In England, in those years, extended-play singles of four songs each were often released to help promote albums; the Beatles once in awhile included a cover version on these, such as their version of Chuck Berry's "Rock and Roll Music" appearing on an EP single telegraphing Beatles for Sale)

The mania they provoked from 1964-66 makes it only too easy to forget that the Beatles were no overnight sensation; they had (as the saying used to go) paid their dues with interest, before an obscure kid wandered into a Liverpool record shop in late 1961, asked for a record the Beatles had cut backing another British singer in Germany (legendary conductor Bert Kaempfert - who later produced Frank Sinatra's "comeback," "Strangers In The Night" - produced the session), and piqued the shop owner's curiosity enough that by early 1962 he became the Beatles' manager. And I doubt sincerely that, forty years hence, a CD gathering up 'NSync's number one hits (they may not even rack up enough to fill out a full CD) will sell comparably to what their albums sold a couple of years ago.

No flame. Fact.

[gcruse]

Thanks for the history. I learned to play on my father's 194* Martin. The first guitar of my own was my high school graduation present, a Les Paul Junior in 1960. I eventually traded it in for an ivory Les Paul Custom in 1962. The fretless wonder was the easiest fingerboard I ever found. My last guitar was an ES350. I'll always be a Gibson man.

[The Wizard]

What about the great one, Mr. Berlin

[jjbrouwer]

The greatest contribution the Beach Boys made to pop music was splitting up.

[JimVT]

the Beatles were imposed on us by publicists and marketers

I absolutely agree!

First of all...I love the Beatle's music.

I was a dj in the 50-60's and my faves were Benny Goodman, Les Elgart, Vic Damone, Frank, Ralph Flanagan, et al.

When the "Haircuts" came over I was really pis*ed at the attention they got..........but as years went by I began to appreciate their music and even started picking a few numbers on the guitar...."When I'm Sixty-four" still breaks my wife up.

But we got sucked in by the Madison Avenue "suits" who decide who is gonna be a big seller regardless of their talent.

How many trumpeters other than Winton Marsalis (sic) have you heard about in recent years? HOw many cellists other than Yo Yo Ma. Remember Fabian? Is Britanny Spears all that hot?

Hell NO!

These media moguls sit around and decide that Vanilla Ice or whoever is the 'hot' group and then hammer the kids with the appropriate propaganda.

Teeny-boopers are not known for perspicacity.

I wish there were a way to teach kids earlier to ignore the hype and avoid the media's latest attempt to sell more CDs, etc.

[DoughtyOne]

Excellent point. The Beatles were a proven talent before comign to the US. I do feel that first US appearances were somewhat as a result of hype. But that melted away almost immediately when the songs were heard and liked. It's ludacrist to lay off the Beatles instant popularity simply to hype. Fans have to buy into the product. The hype as Sobran addresses it, was simply a P.R. campaign. The kids were introduced to the Beatles. They liked. The rest is history.

As I said before, if the P.R. had been orchestrated for a non-deserving group, there'd have been empty seats at performances and albums would not have sold.

It's a little difficult to attribute record sales and sold out appearances as purely the result of hype. And it's a losing proposition to do so, as Sorbran is about to find out.

[UnBlinkingEye]

What about the great one, Mr. Berlin

He was a little before my time, but I loved the score to White Christmas. I'm sure there are many more Irving Berlin songs I know and like, but I'm not very well educated on his music.

[scouse]

wrote their own songs

This isn't quite true. In fact their first big record was named My Bonnie, which is something of a folk song. Actually it was the demand for this song that brought them to the notice of the owner of the record store (NEMS). The owner's name was Brian Epstein and through him they became famous.

I still prefer the Searchers.

[geaux]

Maybe I should have said it this way: Producers got the idea after they saw the Beatles and realized how much money could be made. That's more of what I meant; it gave them the idea for bubble gum pop.

[ActionNewsBill]

The Beatles and the Aquarian Conspiracy

An outstanding example of social conditioning to accept change, even when it is recognized as unwelcome change by the large population group in the sights of Stanford Research Institute, was the "advent" of the BEATLES. The Beatles were brought to the United States as part of a social experiment which would subject large population groups to brainwashing of which they were not even aware.

When Tavistock brought the Beatles to the United States nobody could have imagined the cultural disaster that was to follow in their wake. The Beatles were an integral part of "THE AQUARIAN CONSPIRACY," a living organism which sprang From "THE CHANGING IMAGES OF MAN," URH (489)-2150-Policy Research Report No. 4/4/74. Policy Report pre-pared by SRI Center for the study of Social Policy, Director, Professor Willis Harmon.

The phenomenon of the Beatles was not a spontaneous rebellion by youth against the old social system. Instead it was a carefully crafted plot to introduce by a conspiratorial body which could not be identified, a highly destructive and divisive element into a large population group targeted for change against its will. New words and new phrases--prepared by Tavistock(1)-- were introduced to America along with the Beatles. Words such as "rock" in relation to music sounds, "teenager," "cool," "discovered" and "pop music" were a lexicon of disguised code words signifying the acceptance of drugs and arrived with and accompanied the Beatles wherever they went, to be "discovered" by "teenagers." Incidentally, the word "teenagers" was never used until just before the Beatles arrived on the scene, courtesy of the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations.

As in the case of gang wars, nothing could or would have been accomplished without the cooperation of the media, especially the electronic media and, in particular, the scurrilous Ed Sullivan who had been coached by the conspirators as to the role he was to play. Nobody would have paid much attention to the motley crew from Liverpool and the 12-atonal system of "music" that was to follow had it not been for an overabundance of press exposure. The 12-atonal system consisted of heavy, repetitive sounds, taken from the music of the cult of Dionysus and the Baal priesthood by Adorno and given a "modern" flavor by this special friend of the Queen of England and hence the Committee of 300.

Tavistock and its Stanford Research Center created trigger words which then came into general usage around "rock music" and its fans. Trigger words created a distinct new break-away largely young population group which was persuaded by social engineering and conditioning to believe that the Beatles really were their favorite group. All trigger words devised in the context of "rock music" were designed for mass control of the new targeted group, the youth of America.

The Beatles did a perfect job, or perhaps it would be more correct to say that Tavistock and Stanford did a perfect job, the Beatles merely reacting like trained robots "with a little help from their friends"--code words for using drugs and making it "cool." The Beatles became a highly visible "new type"-- more Tavistock jargon--and as such it was not long before the group made new styles (fads in clothing, hairstyles and language usage) which upset the older generation, as was intended. This was part of the "fragmentation-maladaptation" process worked out by Willis Harmon and his team of social scientists and genetic engineering tinkerers and put into action.

The role of the print and electronic media in our society is crucial to the success of brainwashing large population groups. Gang wars ended in Los Angeles in 1966 as the media withdrew its coverage. The same thing will happen with the current wave of gang wars in Los Angeles. Street gangs will wither on the vine once media saturation coverage is toned down and then completely withdrawn. As in 1966, the issue would become "burned out." Street gangs will have served their purpose of creating turbulence and insecurity. Exactly the same pattern will be followed in the case of "rock" music. Deprived of media attention, it will eventually take its place in history.

Following the Beatles, who incidentally were put together by the Tavistock Institute, came other "Made in England" rock groups, who, like the Beatles, had Theo Adorno write their cult lyrics and compose all the "music." I hate to use these beautiful words in the context of "Beatlemania"; it reminds me of how wrongly the word "lover" is used when referring to the filthy interaction between two homosexuals writhing in pigswill. To call "rock" music, is an insult, likewise the language used in "rock lyrics."

Tavistock and Stanford Research then embarked on the second phase of the work commissioned by the Committee of 300. This new phase turned up the heat for social change in America. As quickly as the Beatles had appeared on the American scene, so too did the "beat generation," trigger words designed to separate and fragment society. The media now focused its attention on the "beat generation." Other Tavistock-coined words came seemingly out of nowhere: "beatniks," "hippies," "flower children" became part of the vocabulary of America. It became popular to "drop out" and wear dirty jeans, go about with long unwashed hair. The "beat generation" cut itself off from main-stream America. They became just as infamous as the cleaner Beatles before them.

[BluesDuke]

If not for Bloomfield's and EC's switch to the LP, the '57 - '60 models would most likely be just another vintage guitar.

They weren't even considered vintages before Mike Bloomfield and Eric Clapton picked them up. The old Les Paul line was all but worthless until those two began playing them. Bloomfield and Clapton had each bought theirs at bargain prices in the second hand shops. I'm not entirely sure, but I think Bloomfield might have been moved to buy his after picking up on Freddie King's earlier music, since Freddie King in the beginning played a 1954 Les Paul goldtop model; in fact, he is shown playing one on his early 1960s album (and it's a classic album for any blues lover), Let's Hide Away and Dance Away with Freddy King (as King Records was spelling his name in those days). He didn't switch to the bigger ES-355 until somewhere around 1969.

It was Bloomfield's and Clapton's popularity which triggered the unexpected upswing of interest in the old Les Pauls, provoking Gibson to revive the line (they'd made the SG into its own series, without the Les Paul designation, in 1964; Les Paul himself, interestingly, wasn't as thrilled with the SG as with the original Les Paul, though he played an SG on his 1967 album, Les Paul Now). Likewise, it was Clapton's popularity which put a huge jump into SG sales when his psychedelic-painted model became so familiar to Cream audiences (though John Cipollina of Quicksilver Messenger Service, Sam Andrew of Big Brother and the Holding Company, and - believe it or not - Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead turned up playing SGs in the earlier psychedelic era; not to mention, George Harrison played an SG for some numbers on the Beatles' final American tour in 1966).

The original Les Pauls were well along the way as hunted collectibles by the time Jimmy Page ambled along slinging his Les Paul Deluxe - Page had played a Fender Telecaster for his earlier career (with a God-awful botched psychedelic paint job on it, yet), including his entire term in the Yardbirds (1966-68); if anything, Peter Green (Clapton's successor in the Mayall group, before he formed the original Fleetwood Mac - his Les Paul was legendary for its pickups being set backward, producing a particularly distinct tone to its sound; Gary Moore is said to own that guitar now) and Jeff Beck had actually beaten Page to the Les Paul, playing one for most of the life of the original Jeff Beck Group. But it was Mike Bloomfield and Eric Clapton who got there first and launched, without exactly thinking they were doing so, the resurrection of the line and the collectible interest, pretty much as Jimi Hendrix would do with the Fender Stratocaster. (I remember, after CBS bought Fender, musicians catching onto differences and advertising guitars for sale as "pre-CBS" for extra value; interestingly, Hendrix didn't seem to mind playing the CBS-era Strat as well as the pre-CBS model. Hendrix was also known to sling a Gibson Flying V once in awhile, though that model is better associated with a fellow southpaw - blues giant Albert King - and with the Kinks' Dave Davies.)

[UnBlinkingEye]

That long East-West tune has been a favorite for 33 years now. GREAT little masterpiece, it was/is.

I haven't listened to it in a long time, my albums are all boxed up and put away in a closet. I still have a turntable though, probably be fun to pull the old albums out again.