Bones: Deuce Coupes, Little Hondas, Beatles Help Dylan Go Down, Lord Sutch Arrested Nude

Nowadays the music industry just puts out the lamest crap imaginable and dictates peoples taste or lack thereof. Our generation would have never bought industry made rock clones or people that came up through corporate shows like American Idol or The Voice.

Things have changed so much but it was turning back in the day enough for Frank Zappa to elicit the notion that “America craves mediocrity” which isn’t a far leap of the mind when you consider the 2016 presidential election wannabes.

Back in 1963 the airwaves were being ruled by Hot Rod songs. There were a million of them and I’m sure you know all of them. Capitol Records, in promoting the Beach Boys new song “Little Deuce Coupe”, actually sent a glossary of car slang and cool phrases to all the radio stations along with the single.

It was the time of Wolfman Jack and protracted summer Hot 100 Countdowns with chants of “Ooga Chukka” between each song. As kids we didn’t, or weren’t allowed, to sit around in the house all day and back then there were a lot of kids.

We ran wild, partied in our then innocent little ways, danced, shagged and frugged to things like the Hondells “Little Honda” and Jan & Dean’s “Deadman’s Curve” or “Little Ole Lady From Pasadena” while waiting for darkness to fall to be able to play ‘Spin the Bottle’ with the girls in the hood. Here’s the lead in track to this little spiel, the Beach Boys’ “Little Deuce Coupe” live in 1963.

Two years later and the face of music had changed so much. The pre-fab four, those presumably adorable Mop Tops, the Beatles, had pretty much nailed the lid shut on the Hot Rod music scene although its shuddering corpse lingered on for a while like Hillary Clinton seeking political office. Today, July 29th, is the day back in 1965 that the Beatles second movie had its screen debut at the Pavillion in London. The Beatles later claimed the whole film was shot in a haze of marijuana smoke. Ringo said that during the filming of the curling scene that he and Paul ran over the hill to blaze away while the cameras rolled.

We’ve all heard the story about Dylan turning the Beatles on to weed but drugs weren’t a new thing to either entity. The Beatles used speed to play all those hours of shows in Germany in their early years and Dylan used it extensively in order to write. I don’t know if Bob was using the day he was bringing his Triumph 55 in for repairs which just happens to also be today back in 1966.

On the way to the chop shop Bob’s rear wheel locked up and threw our potted and shrimped poet over the bike’s handlebars and broke a vertebra in his neck. Dylan spent quite some time inactive and reclusive while a lot of his fans awaited an outcome one way or the other. They soon got that when Bob re-emerged with his new deeper voice.

During his downtime Bob had spent considerable time with Johnny Cash whose influence could be felt all over the, at that time, new album, “Nashville Skyline”.  Once again music and youth culture had changed so much that Hot Rod music and even the British Invasion now seemed so quaintly remote from reality that if you hadn’t lived it, you would have never believed it.

To go from the Monkees to the assassinations of Martin Luther King and Robert Kennedy, the travesty of Viet Nam, kids rioting in the streets and everybody getting high on the CIA’s new drug, LSD, is quite a journey. With all these things going on it’s interesting that Dylan chose to make a commercial country album. It’s not that interesting if you take Joan Baez’ word for it. She said he did all the protest stuff to make money and become a star.

He never showed up for the demonstrations and causes and that he used his relationship with her to advance himself. He was clearly not in love. They fought over an appearance she wanted him to make at some protest. He didn’t go. She did. She came home and he was gone. No note, no nothing. She didn’t hear from him for decades. Way to go Bob, you chauvinist pig.

Few probably care anymore that the Doors started their three-week run at number one on the US singles chart with the Robbie Krieger penned “Light My Fire”. It didn’t ignite too many fires in the U.K. where it only hit number 49 on the charts.

Most of the Doors’ hit songs were penned by Krieger and Morrison was often embarrassed to play them live. Also today, last century ala 1968, the by now Flab Four began the first recording sessions for what would become “Hey Jude”. Dancing at junior high sock hops with that drivel was horrible unless you were short, and your dance partner had balconies you could do Shakespeare from.

I think the best rock moment for today occurred back in 1972 when Screaming Lord Sutch was arrested for jumping off a London double decker bus on conservative Downing Street in the company of four stunningly beautiful and outrageously nude stacked honeys on his arm to promote his upcoming London shows. Wonder if Pagey bailed him out? Here’s the Lord himself live.

and another vid tagged 1972…

Well, flags are at half-mast all over the world today to pay tribute to Mama Cass and a ‘ham sandwich’ that presumably took her life on this day back in 1974.

I know you are all thinking of that joke about if Mama Cass had shared that damned ham sandwich with Karen Carpenter, they’d both be alive today.

Kicking ham sandwich addiction is very though. I think that if it hadn’t been that particular sandwich, it would have been another very much like it. However, I have recently read John Philip’s book, and he claims the ham sandwich in question was actually a dose of heroin … apparently in disguise.

 John said the whole band was strung out on heroin and using almost as much cocaine as a White House cowboy or a Wall Street executive.

On this day, today, no one shouts it out better than X doing “The World’s A Mess (It’s In My Kiss). As usual, a tip of the hat to BRICS, to everyone in Greece, Russia, Ukraine, China, Pakistan, France and other once sovereign nations the US is trying to turn into plantations.

Peace mofos, and an apology on their behalf from me and my friends. The show Night Flight New Wave is now on Youtube. All glorious 25 episodes are there and that’s where this clip of X is from. The opening act for this little vignette is none other than Inland Empire sensations, the Stepmothers, doing ‘If I Were You’ and its sound advice for world government and a shredding little ditty all at once. Enjoie!

A little Rat Fink nostalgia for you gear heads out there………