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In order to preserve the temporal integrity of this blog, I present a new name for an established feature. You will see it on the Saturday evenings when circumstances force me to click the "Publish Post" button after midnight.So here, After Hours, I present to you a rock performance that in my opinion represents the precise origin lummox rock, and possibly even its apex.
At a neighborhood garage sale this morning I heard from inside the house this dirt simple, highly familiar guitar power chord vamp. But something about it seemed out of the ordinary to me --- way too mellow --- and I couldn't place it. The neighbor manning the cash box, an incorrigible "Deadhead," told me it was a Jerry Garcia composition called "Standing On The Moon." I suppose that it was, but not in my universe it wasn't. The vamp was supposed to be encrusted with thick distortion and reverb tomfoolery.
And then, while contemplating this disconnect, I immediately had a fleeting impression of an early '70s Chicago TV host, Svengoolie, who screened delectable monster movies late Friday nights on channel 32. Chicagoland natives of a certain age will remember the AM disc jockey Jerry G. Bishop, caked in white foundation makeup, raccoon eyes, ratty longhair wig and hippie headband, performing shtick in a Transylvania accent during the interstices between commercial and movie. And those individuals, like me, will likely remember the theme song for Svengoolie's Screaming Yellow Theater: "Rumble," by Link Wray. "Composed by Jerry Garcia," my foot. If George Harrison could be successfully sued for "subconsciously" plagiarizing the Chiffons hit "He's So Fine" when composing "My Sweet Lord," (a horseshit lawsuit, incidentally, in my highly learned opinion), then Garcia should have been thrown in a penitentiary for trying to disguise the heartbeat and pulse of "Rumble" with insignificant variations, noodling accompaniments, and lyrics that should have been used somewhere else if at all.
Few rock historians doubt that "Rumble" is a seminal rock performance that inspired the next generation of garage musicians, etc. etc. But in my opinion that doesn't mean Wray was a musical visionary, as many contend. I don't mean that as a criticism of Wray and the Ray Men. It's just that I think "Rumble" was probably less a work of genius and more the product of some guys hypnotizing themselves with heavy guitar tones, primitive beats, studio effects, and about three quarts of Schlitz apiece.
Rumble, Link Wray (1958, Cadence single 1347, b/w The Swag), via YouTube.
Excellent find, young feller. Can you untangle this sound from Les Paul before and Duane Eddy, whenever? Like science, it seems everyone borrows a little bit from everyone else.
ReplyDeleteIn the late 90s there was a 1 or 2 year TeeVee series called American Gothic, now rerun on the cable channel, Chiller. In occasional episodes they used (or wrote) some really great riffs that smoothed this sound into a very cool background-- used to best effect when the incredibly hot, sultry school marm was featured.
Find that, will ya....
BO: a musicologist or historian could probably deconstruct that fairly quickly. My half-baked knowledge of this stuff tells me that Les Paul was most importantly a technology innovator, and lots of punk teenagers experimented with the sounds the technology could produce, especially when used "wrong," in combination with many quarts of beer. A quick fact check sez that Duane Eddy recorded Rebel-Rouser the same year that Link recorded Rumble. Lotsa musical ferment in those days. Emerging technologies gave each rock "era" its characteristic sounds.
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