There is no end to the Game of Influences.  We are all seven steps from everybody. Our twelve note scale goes back to Pythagoras (died 475 BC) and most all of us use the well tempered version which is dated to near the end of the High Baroque (roughly 1750 AD).

Some years ago I played a song I had written for an older gentleman -- a friend of my parents in a retirement community in Florida. He listened, complimented it, and said that it had Indian influences. He'd heard it in the tonality -- something that I, a sitarist, had not. To me it was a totally western composition. The influence was there, inside me.

And just this past week Mike Stax reviewed The Abstracts "Hey, Let's Go Now" album for Ugly Things and referred to one the of songs, "Without Her", as a "surf-tinged rocker." Without Her "surf-tinged"? Yes!  He was correct - and once MS pointed it out I knew just why and how it was so. It was in my own use of muted strings working against the drums. 

By the time "Without Her," a Bonime/Knight original, was added to The Abstracts' repertoire I was totally out of "surf" - or at least I thought I was. But years of playing it (My love for guitar started with the Ventures) meant that it was not out of me. Nor out of Al Karp, my long term partner in musical crime.

And so this discussion, while sometimes annoying, and sometimes eye-opening, is by necessity endless if we really want to get to the roots of The Beatle's (or anyone else's) music. Which leaves me personally back where I always am when I discuss these things...

"Yeah, but do you like it?"  :D

-don

Everyone's influenced by someome. But some people are innovative enough to create something new from their influences, to rise far above them. When this new thing resonates with enough people, it may be enough to change the world. Thus, maybe we can't really go back two steps and say that Buddy's grandad did anything to The Beatles or anyone after them.

Just a thought, go ahead and shoot holes in it.

EH?

That's your logic not Rockin' Rod's.

They were also influenced by Buddy Holly.If he stated he was influenced by his grandad would that mean by "your logic" The Beatles were influenced by Buddy Hollys grandad!!!

DOG DIRT!!!

RJFait said:

Absolutey. Everybody said they were influenced by The Beatles (they were completey inundated with them, how could they not be). They all (including The Beatles) said Elvis influenced them. Elvis claimed gospel as his biggest influence. So by Rockin' Rod's logic, garage and/or psych music never could have happened without... gospel? (bullshit sneeze) There were enough influences bouncing all around that by removing any one of them, (even the damned Beatles) the end product would have no discernible difference. But if you took away all the numerous influence on any one band (including the damned Beatles) that one band would be very different.

Don said:

But isn't it true that all music cross pollinates? Who are my influences? Some I can name but most I cannot.

Stealing a song or an arrangement without giving credit is one thing, but the rest of this IMO is mostly sour grapes.

Don't want to have anyone influenced by your music? Play in your room with the door shut.

-don

Absolutey. Everybody said they were influenced by The Beatles (they were completey inundated with them, how could they not be). They all (including The Beatles) said Elvis influenced them. Elvis claimed gospel as his biggest influence. So by Rockin' Rod's logic, garage and/or psych music never could have happened without... gospel? (bullshit sneeze) There were enough influences bouncing all around that by removing any one of them, (even the damned Beatles) the end product would have no discernible difference. But if you took away all the numerous influence on any one band (including the damned Beatles) that one band would be very different.

Don said:

But isn't it true that all music cross pollinates? Who are my influences? Some I can name but most I cannot.

Stealing a song or an arrangement without giving credit is one thing, but the rest of this IMO is mostly sour grapes.

Don't want to have anyone influenced by your music? Play in your room with the door shut.

-don

But isn't it true that all music cross pollinates? Who are my influences? Some I can name but most I cannot.

The first thing I generally play when I pick up a guitar is a certain rhythm I use when playing I've Got My Mojo Working. I know just where and when I learned that rhythm -- it was from Chris Zaloom the summer I played with him in the Brave Maggots. But the way I use it -- the arrangement of the song -- is almost if not totally my own.  If I was to record it would I be expected to give Chris credit? Not formally, but when I talk about my influences his is certainly a name I mention.

Stealing a song or an arrangement without giving credit is one thing, but the rest of this IMO is mostly sour grapes and/or a game not too different from pin the tail on the donkey.

Don't want to have anyone influenced by your music? Play in your room with the door shut.

-don

Well, a little false and a little true.  VEry true in terms of Pink Floyd and whatever else was going on in "Swingin'" London.  But i don't believe it for anything leading up to Rubber Soul.  Anything you heard on that record, you already heard on other records by other people.  Dylan, the Byrds, Lovin' Spoonful, Stones, Kinks, Yardbirds....they beat the Beatles to the punch that year.  Revolver and Sgt. Pepper is probably the only time they were able to take in anything that influenced them and release it before anybody had a chance to.  As far as Donovan is concerned though, if that's in reference to him teaching Lennon his picking style on guitar while in India, that's his own fault.  I really can't recall any Donovan records from '68 that he played anything that influenced Dear Prudence or other White album songs.  They also took forever to record that album (in terms of 60s studio time) and it had less going on than Sgt. Pepper.  Donovan had plenty of time to release an album before the Beatles could get one out.  In fact I think he did.  Hurdy Gurdy Man came out much earlier in 1968.

RJFait said:

That last line is absolutely true but probably not merely a money thing. In the last 10 years, McCartney has started coming clean about a lot of stuff. Not only is Lucy in the Sky about LSD, but they also heard the Floyd in the room next door at Apple, and re-wrote Point Me at the Sky into the Lucy melody line. 

Rockin Rod Strychnine said:

I think that last line you wrote was a little false.  Maybe in terms of Hendrix, Cream and Pink Floyd (and a lot of the lesser known bands like Creation) did they get a "psychedelic" record like REVOLVER released before the public heard of those bands that were playing London clubs.  But most of the influences that creeped onto earlier albums came from stuff the Beatles heard on records.  A lot of people just didn't purchase those records until after hearing a Beatles record or could even find them due to not having the distribution that EMI and Capitol had.  Donovan can believe what he wants.  He HAD corporate backing.  His label was just slower in releasing his stuff. 

Thane Cesar said:

Also people forget that because of the corporate backing they had, they could absorb influences into their music, record and release them, before the people who influenced them could release their own records (just ask Donovan).

That last line is absolutely true but probably not merely a money thing. In the last 10 years, McCartney has started coming clean about a lot of stuff. Not only is Lucy in the Sky about LSD, but they also heard the Floyd in the room next door at Apple, and re-wrote Point Me at the Sky into the Lucy melody line. 

Rockin Rod Strychnine said:

I think that last line you wrote was a little false.  Maybe in terms of Hendrix, Cream and Pink Floyd (and a lot of the lesser known bands like Creation) did they get a "psychedelic" record like REVOLVER released before the public heard of those bands that were playing London clubs.  But most of the influences that creeped onto earlier albums came from stuff the Beatles heard on records.  A lot of people just didn't purchase those records until after hearing a Beatles record or could even find them due to not having the distribution that EMI and Capitol had.  Donovan can believe what he wants.  He HAD corporate backing.  His label was just slower in releasing his stuff. 

Thane Cesar said:

Also people forget that because of the corporate backing they had, they could absorb influences into their music, record and release them, before the people who influenced them could release their own records (just ask Donovan).

I think that last line you wrote was a little false.  Maybe in terms of Hendrix, Cream and Pink Floyd (and a lot of the lesser known bands like Creation) did they get a "psychedelic" record like REVOLVER released before the public heard of those bands that were playing London clubs.  But most of the influences that creeped onto earlier albums came from stuff the Beatles heard on records.  A lot of people just didn't purchase those records until after hearing a Beatles record or could even find them due to not having the distribution that EMI and Capitol had.  Donovan can believe what he wants.  He HAD corporate backing.  His label was just slower in releasing his stuff. 

Thane Cesar said:

Also people forget that because of the corporate backing they had, they could absorb influences into their music, record and release them, before the people who influenced them could release their own records (just ask Donovan).

Thank you - you said it better than I managed.

Rockin Rod Strychnine said:

I'm probably going to be one of few that agree with you that Beatles changed everything and also point that you got misinterpreted.  They didn't exactly change the world but they had a hand in how many starting viewing it. They changed the way everybody went about carrying on their careers.  A lot of musicians looked at them as a challenge.  If not for them,  a lot of kids would have turning to modern jazz as a form of sophisticated music instead of updating rock.  Classical would have had a much bigger influence.  Rootsier blues and country groups would have been formed instead of garage bands.  AND that's the other thing, for a group like the Sonics to write the songs they did, for an attitude of "we don't want to sound like the Beatles", wouldn't a Beatles have to exist in order to have an anti-Beatles exist?  The Beatles should get a lot of credit as the one who changed the way we think.

matthew rosedon said:

As my original post has been swept up in recent comments I thought I'd respond:

Firstly, the suggestion that EMI throwing money at the Beatles was responsible for their success.  As anyone with a cursory knowledge of the Beatles knows, Brian Epstein was rejected by every major London record label.  In desperation, and as a last chance, he turned to an EMI subsidiary called Parlophone who were known solely, if at all, for producing comedy albums.  The producer of those said comedy albums was, by happy accident, one Mr George Martin - the rest is history.  Similarly, as others have pointed out, Capitol was not interested hence the releases on VJ and Swan before their hand was forced by 'I Want To Hold Your Hand'.  I'm not sure how that constitutes 'buying' success.

One of the posts politely accuses me of ignoring the point that black musicians were doing it first.  Again, anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of popular music knows this to be correct.  The hardline argument tends to say that 'white' music is stolen from 'black' music.  I don't want to get into that here but it is of course true to say that 'white' music is massively indebted to 'black' music.  In all their early interviews, the Beatles acknowledged that debt; they refused to play to segregated audiences.  The Stones were allowed to choose a guest on 'Shindig' (I think); they chose Howlin' Wolf (imagine the shock of that on mainstream US TV at the time); here in the UK Dusty Springfield used her influence to promote a Motown TV special at a time when Motown was barely established here.  It was the first time that a programme consisting of so many black artists had been shown on UK TV.  Now only a fool would say that makes amends for hundreds of years of slavery/imperialist oppression (UK) or slavery/racial segregation (US) but it's a step, an important step, a step in the right direction and a journey of 1000 miles etc. etc.

The Beatles picked up guitars because of Elvis.  Thousands of US garage bands picked up guitars because of the Beatles/Stones/British Invasion and those artists that had already picked up their guitars upped their game e.g. Beach Boys, Dylan, McGuinn etc.  The Beatles didn't block anybodies career, they were, like all great artists, about possibility and hope and about the excitement that lies behind all great art.  Don't be dismissive of teenage girls screaming because they were helping to tilt the word on its axis - John Lee Hooker got it right - 'the men don't know but the little girls understand'. 

I was accused of hyperbole by saying the Beatles changed everything.  I stand by that statement.  In fact, I will go further and say that their artistic achievement is on a par with Shakespeare or Dickens or Picasso or Rembrandt or Mozart.  There I've said it.  Great art does change everything and does make the world a better place.

As an Englishman I am immensely proud that this small island was responsible for The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks, The Who, The Yardbirds etc (not so proud of Herman's Hermits however)  The downside of that is I get a bit defensive when people attack 'our' music.  I am also a firm believer that people are entitled to their own opinion.  However, I draw the line when words like gutless, mediocre, and Backstreet Boys of their day are used in conjuction with the Fab Four or, even worse, when they're patronisingly dismissed as being an insignificant pop combo who created, by some fluke, the odd hummable ditty.  That I'm afraid can only be answered by meeting said proponents of such nonsense on the field of honour at dawn with the weapon of your choice - swords, pistols, or Phil Collins CDs used like Oddjob in 'Goldfinger'.

But you know this is what I love about this site - the breadth of opinion and the passion shown.  You even get shout outs for Haydn and Bach on here.  Now if someone can start a Beethoven v Shadows of Knight thread we'll really see some sparks fly.

Stay cool everybody.  

 

I'm probably going to be one of few that agree with you that Beatles changed everything and also point that you got misinterpreted.  They didn't exactly change the world but they had a hand in how many starting viewing it. They changed the way everybody went about carrying on their careers.  A lot of musicians looked at them as a challenge.  If not for them,  a lot of kids would have turning to modern jazz as a form of sophisticated music instead of updating rock.  Classical would have had a much bigger influence.  Rootsier blues and country groups would have been formed instead of garage bands.  AND that's the other thing, for a group like the Sonics to write the songs they did, for an attitude of "we don't want to sound like the Beatles", wouldn't a Beatles have to exist in order to have an anti-Beatles exist?  The Beatles should get a lot of credit as the one who changed the way we think.

matthew rosedon said:

As my original post has been swept up in recent comments I thought I'd respond:

Firstly, the suggestion that EMI throwing money at the Beatles was responsible for their success.  As anyone with a cursory knowledge of the Beatles knows, Brian Epstein was rejected by every major London record label.  In desperation, and as a last chance, he turned to an EMI subsidiary called Parlophone who were known solely, if at all, for producing comedy albums.  The producer of those said comedy albums was, by happy accident, one Mr George Martin - the rest is history.  Similarly, as others have pointed out, Capitol was not interested hence the releases on VJ and Swan before their hand was forced by 'I Want To Hold Your Hand'.  I'm not sure how that constitutes 'buying' success.

One of the posts politely accuses me of ignoring the point that black musicians were doing it first.  Again, anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of popular music knows this to be correct.  The hardline argument tends to say that 'white' music is stolen from 'black' music.  I don't want to get into that here but it is of course true to say that 'white' music is massively indebted to 'black' music.  In all their early interviews, the Beatles acknowledged that debt; they refused to play to segregated audiences.  The Stones were allowed to choose a guest on 'Shindig' (I think); they chose Howlin' Wolf (imagine the shock of that on mainstream US TV at the time); here in the UK Dusty Springfield used her influence to promote a Motown TV special at a time when Motown was barely established here.  It was the first time that a programme consisting of so many black artists had been shown on UK TV.  Now only a fool would say that makes amends for hundreds of years of slavery/imperialist oppression (UK) or slavery/racial segregation (US) but it's a step, an important step, a step in the right direction and a journey of 1000 miles etc. etc.

The Beatles picked up guitars because of Elvis.  Thousands of US garage bands picked up guitars because of the Beatles/Stones/British Invasion and those artists that had already picked up their guitars upped their game e.g. Beach Boys, Dylan, McGuinn etc.  The Beatles didn't block anybodies career, they were, like all great artists, about possibility and hope and about the excitement that lies behind all great art.  Don't be dismissive of teenage girls screaming because they were helping to tilt the word on its axis - John Lee Hooker got it right - 'the men don't know but the little girls understand'. 

I was accused of hyperbole by saying the Beatles changed everything.  I stand by that statement.  In fact, I will go further and say that their artistic achievement is on a par with Shakespeare or Dickens or Picasso or Rembrandt or Mozart.  There I've said it.  Great art does change everything and does make the world a better place.

As an Englishman I am immensely proud that this small island was responsible for The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks, The Who, The Yardbirds etc (not so proud of Herman's Hermits however)  The downside of that is I get a bit defensive when people attack 'our' music.  I am also a firm believer that people are entitled to their own opinion.  However, I draw the line when words like gutless, mediocre, and Backstreet Boys of their day are used in conjuction with the Fab Four or, even worse, when they're patronisingly dismissed as being an insignificant pop combo who created, by some fluke, the odd hummable ditty.  That I'm afraid can only be answered by meeting said proponents of such nonsense on the field of honour at dawn with the weapon of your choice - swords, pistols, or Phil Collins CDs used like Oddjob in 'Goldfinger'.

But you know this is what I love about this site - the breadth of opinion and the passion shown.  You even get shout outs for Haydn and Bach on here.  Now if someone can start a Beethoven v Shadows of Knight thread we'll really see some sparks fly.

Stay cool everybody.  

 

Don, I'm not sure what point you are trying to make. But I was making the point that the Beatles were in a position to (basically) take credit for something that wasn't their idea.

It goes back to the revisionism that has surrounded the Beatles since Lennons death. Would we really be having this debate if Lennon hadn't been killed. The reason Chapman shot him was he believed him to be a fake and a hypocrite. Which could be reasonably argued (not to say he deserved to get shot).

I wouldn't read too much into Lennon's FBI file. The peace activist Lennon is a bit of a myth, even his own son said that Lennon was a hypocrite.

Lots of people had FBI files, the MC5, and while they were a cool band, they were to para phase Lemmy "Dumb as Fuck".

Consider the lyrics to Imagine, and how much wealth he had.

I like the tunes, but the rest of it... Natch.

You're right - a pop song won't end a war but it can be part of a cultural shift that alters the zeitgeist and allows opposition to the war to grow.  I would argue that the Beatles (and of course many others) contibuted significantly to that shift.  The file the FBI kept on Lennon showed at least some were worried.

While I also accept your second point, without the sheer quality of what they produced the corporate backing would have been meaningless (and almost certainly not have existed).

This debate has drifted some distance from the original thread.  In the end the music will endure and these cultural issues will be historical footnotes.

Thane Cesar said:

I would say tho' that at times that can be overstated. All You Need Is Love didn't end the Vietnam war. And the political left has been quite revisionistic about Lennons acheivements, as well as the "uptight, hetro, world of white rock n roll" have been quite nasty about Yoko.

Also people forget that because of the corporate backing they had, they could absorb influences into their music, record and release them, before the people who influenced them could release their own records (just ask Donovan).

TC, what you are describing has a name:  LIFE.  Yes life.  In the rain forest vines grow up the trunk of a tree, steals its light, and eventually the tree gets stunted, withers and sometimes dies.  Down below a similar game is being played under and around every rotting carcass. Want to enter that world? Then you'd better arm yourself at least with knowledge and perhaps a rifle.

In other words "fairness" is a construct. And as such it exists only so far as law and custom requires and even then only in the light and when enough people care  (i.e, enough people are personally effected) to take notice.

The Beatles were living things. As was, as a corporate entity, EMI. As is each radio station. As is each consumer of the product of music.

By this I an not saying that ethics should not apply. In my personal life I do my best to make sure that they do. But when I enter the forest it is not with a bible or a sophomore year philosophy book. It is with street smarts (jungle smarts?) and some times, quite literally, a gun.

That the world of art is so effected is nothing new. As Michelangelo. Ask Bach.

and as to their music "changing the world"... Yes it did. If you view the world not as a singular entity or even as the body politic, but as the people individualy. I.e., the way each person in reality views him/herself.

-don

Thane Cesar said:

...because of the corporate backing they had, they could absorb influences into their music, record and release them, before the people who influenced them could release their own records (just ask Donovan).

I would say tho' that at times that can be overstated. All You Need Is Love didn't end the Vietnam war. And the political left has been quite revisionistic about Lennons acheivements, as well as the "uptight, hetro, world of white rock n roll" have been quite nasty about Yoko.

Also people forget that because of the corporate backing they had, they could absorb influences into their music, record and release them, before the people who influenced them could release their own records (just ask Donovan).

Apologies about misattribution of Back Door Man - we all have something to learn (although I could have sworn Hooker recorded it at some point even if he didn't write it).

I wasn't disagreeing with you about black music.  In fact, I totally agree - it's just that many white people have given credit where credit is due and that Lennon's quote about Elvis was a typical Lennon soundbite.  However, there are plenty of examples of him giving credit to black artists.

As for the Beatles, well, of course anyone can like or dislike their music as they see fit.  What I was trying to say that it is much harder to deny their cultural significance and their impact.

  
Thane Cesar said:

I think some one missed the point about the EMI thing. Yes the Beatles were turned down, but when finally sign to a big corp, you do get those benefits.

Doesn't mean thatb they weren't talented, it just means they have an advantage over other bands.

But I do think people tend to forget that they were technically a boy band, the way they were promoted (not the way that they were fairly bright and could ad lib or could write their own stuff).

However Roseden, you attribute "What the men don't know..." to JLH, that's not right, the song is Back Door Man, written by the Blues himself W Dixon.

And my point about black folk doing it before, is more a comment on Lennons quote "Before Elvis", which maybe his opinion, but isn't mine. Remember the Comets?

If you really believe that the Beatles changed everything, well, it's your opinion and I'm not going to try and change that, but think about that statement.

A few years after the Beatles split Lennon was getting called an "Asshole with a tampax on his head".

I think some one missed the point about the EMI thing. Yes the Beatles were turned down, but when finally sign to a big corp, you do get those benefits.

Doesn't mean thatb they weren't talented, it just means they have an advantage over other bands.

But I do think people tend to forget that they were technically a boy band, the way they were promoted (not the way that they were fairly bright and could ad lib or could write their own stuff).

However Roseden, you attribute "What the men don't know..." to JLH, that's not right, the song is Back Door Man, written by the Blues himself W Dixon.

And my point about black folk doing it before, is more a comment on Lennons quote "Before Elvis", which maybe his opinion, but isn't mine. Remember the Comets?

If you really believe that the Beatles changed everything, well, it's your opinion and I'm not going to try and change that, but think about that statement.

A few years after the Beatles split Lennon was getting called an "Asshole with a tampax on his head".

Thanks Don - I couldn't agree more.  It's about trying to embrace rathing than rushing to reject.  I've never understood the argument that says you have to choose between Martha & the Vandellas or Mozart.  It's all there for all of us to enjoy.  In the end disputes over whether the Seeds were better than the Beatles are just playground squabbles.  Let's all just keep our ears open

 
Don said:

I highly value that comment Matthew.  Fact is people need to make a distinction even when there is little difference, and disagreeing with popular opinion is one way for us to set ourselves apart.  That's human nature. If loving humanity is a worthwhile thing (and we're repeatedly told that it is) then we need to love people as they are not as we wish they were.

I could easily get into a discussion of current music and that of the baroque, classical and romantic composers. Hell, we could include jazz, big band, and pre-rock pop too!

Knowledge to me means expanding ones horizons not shrinking them.  But as P.D. James once pointed out shrinking one's world somehow makes people feel safer. There it is again: Human nature. Bless the little children! :)

-don

matthew rosedon said:

As my original post has been swept up in recent comments I thought I'd respond:

Firstly... (little snip) ;-)

But you know this is what I love about this site - the breadth of opinion and the passion shown.  You even get shout outs for Haydn and Bach on here.  Now if someone can start a Beethoven v Shadows of Knight thread we'll really see some sparks fly.

Stay cool everybody.  

 

I highly value that comment Matthew.  Fact is people need to make a distinction even when there is little difference, and disagreeing with popular opinion is one way for us to set ourselves apart.  That's human nature. If loving humanity is a worthwhile thing (and we're repeatedly told that it is) then we need to love people as they are not as we wish they were.

I could easily get into a discussion of current music and that of the baroque, classical and romantic composers. Hell, we could include jazz, big band, and pre-rock pop too!

Knowledge to me means expanding ones horizons not shrinking them.  But as P.D. James once pointed out shrinking one's world somehow makes people feel safer. There it is again: Human nature. Bless the little children! :)

-don

matthew rosedon said:

As my original post has been swept up in recent comments I thought I'd respond:

Firstly... (little snip) ;-)

But you know this is what I love about this site - the breadth of opinion and the passion shown.  You even get shout outs for Haydn and Bach on here.  Now if someone can start a Beethoven v Shadows of Knight thread we'll really see some sparks fly.

Stay cool everybody.  

 

As my original post has been swept up in recent comments I thought I'd respond:

Firstly, the suggestion that EMI throwing money at the Beatles was responsible for their success.  As anyone with a cursory knowledge of the Beatles knows, Brian Epstein was rejected by every major London record label.  In desperation, and as a last chance, he turned to an EMI subsidiary called Parlophone who were known solely, if at all, for producing comedy albums.  The producer of those said comedy albums was, by happy accident, one Mr George Martin - the rest is history.  Similarly, as others have pointed out, Capitol was not interested hence the releases on VJ and Swan before their hand was forced by 'I Want To Hold Your Hand'.  I'm not sure how that constitutes 'buying' success.

One of the posts politely accuses me of ignoring the point that black musicians were doing it first.  Again, anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of popular music knows this to be correct.  The hardline argument tends to say that 'white' music is stolen from 'black' music.  I don't want to get into that here but it is of course true to say that 'white' music is massively indebted to 'black' music.  In all their early interviews, the Beatles acknowledged that debt; they refused to play to segregated audiences.  The Stones were allowed to choose a guest on 'Shindig' (I think); they chose Howlin' Wolf (imagine the shock of that on mainstream US TV at the time); here in the UK Dusty Springfield used her influence to promote a Motown TV special at a time when Motown was barely established here.  It was the first time that a programme consisting of so many black artists had been shown on UK TV.  Now only a fool would say that makes amends for hundreds of years of slavery/imperialist oppression (UK) or slavery/racial segregation (US) but it's a step, an important step, a step in the right direction and a journey of 1000 miles etc. etc.

The Beatles picked up guitars because of Elvis.  Thousands of US garage bands picked up guitars because of the Beatles/Stones/British Invasion and those artists that had already picked up their guitars upped their game e.g. Beach Boys, Dylan, McGuinn etc.  The Beatles didn't block anybodies career, they were, like all great artists, about possibility and hope and about the excitement that lies behind all great art.  Don't be dismissive of teenage girls screaming because they were helping to tilt the word on its axis - John Lee Hooker got it right - 'the men don't know but the little girls understand'. 

I was accused of hyperbole by saying the Beatles changed everything.  I stand by that statement.  In fact, I will go further and say that their artistic achievement is on a par with Shakespeare or Dickens or Picasso or Rembrandt or Mozart.  There I've said it.  Great art does change everything and does make the world a better place.

As an Englishman I am immensely proud that this small island was responsible for The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks, The Who, The Yardbirds etc (not so proud of Herman's Hermits however)  The downside of that is I get a bit defensive when people attack 'our' music.  I am also a firm believer that people are entitled to their own opinion.  However, I draw the line when words like gutless, mediocre, and Backstreet Boys of their day are used in conjuction with the Fab Four or, even worse, when they're patronisingly dismissed as being an insignificant pop combo who created, by some fluke, the odd hummable ditty.  That I'm afraid can only be answered by meeting said proponents of such nonsense on the field of honour at dawn with the weapon of your choice - swords, pistols, or Phil Collins CDs used like Oddjob in 'Goldfinger'.

But you know this is what I love about this site - the breadth of opinion and the passion shown.  You even get shout outs for Haydn and Bach on here.  Now if someone can start a Beethoven v Shadows of Knight thread we'll really see some sparks fly.

Stay cool everybody.  

Once we settle this can we move on another equally important, but never quite resolved issue... Just how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?

:D~

-don

Plus I've read countless 60's Garage band interviews...I read it time and time again ''We saw the Beatles on television and we just knew we had to start a band.''

A whole lotta stuff would have been different but the sixties scene would have been made up of more bands like the Fugs and the Holy Modal Rounders and a lot more folk groups.  Other bands would have been going for a more rootsier blues sound than comercializing it.  Bands like the Bobby Fuller Four would have been bigger and Paul Revere and the Raiders would have stayed true to their New Orleans meets Jerry Lee Lewis sound.  Link Wray would be getting more credit instead of Dave Davies for a dirty sound.  You can deny the Beatles and the rest of the "Invasion" all you want but facts are facts and a lot of the scenes wouldn't exist the way we know them if certain circumstances didn't happen.

I keep getting off track. My original point: The whole notion that "this band" couldn't have existed without "that band" is total horseshit. Maybe Sgt. Pepper wouldn't have been if it weren't for Pet Sounds. Maybe it would have been something better or just all together different. I'm constantly bombarded with the whole "punk started in American" "no it started in England" crap. Research the bands! In a very similar way to pyramids in Egypt, Mexico and Mesopotamia, it just happened. They built them because it was time for them to be built with no knowledge of the others having been built. Punk was created in many places simultaneously because it was time for punk to exist. I know 100s of people who have never met each other who were all part of the first hip crowd to call McDonalds "Mickey D's". I just thank God I wasn't one of them. If two cavemen hadn't come up with the idea to hit each other with sticks at about the same time, there would have only been one tribe left. OK, I think I've made my original point now.

RJFait said:

And if The Beatles denied the influences of other (mostly American bands) they'd have been liars. But, they didn't "Nothing really affected me until I heard Elvis. If there hadn't been Elvis, there would not have been the Beatles." -John Lennon. McCartney lists The Beach Boys "Pet Sounds" as one of his biggest influences. "Without Pet Sounds, Sgt. Pepper wouldn't have happened ... Pepper was an attempt to equal Pet Sounds" -Paul McCartney. Johnny Thunders is one of my biggest influences. I may have played slightly different without him, but I would have played... and it would have been dirty rock 'n' rocll. So, everything I've said (other than the Backstreet Boys exaggeration) still remains true. The 'scene' would have happened - with or without The Beatles.

But its true! I mean think about it... the average person, we are told, has an IQ of 100. Have you ever tried to have a conversation with a person with an IQ of 100? (And fully half of the population, I suppose, has less)

Too, pop music appeals mostly to teenagers.  Now since we all enter the world knowing nothing, and most people die knowing little more, how much can even a bright teenager know? How much discernment can they have?  Five years earlier mommy was telling them to clean up their room (maybe she still is doing so) and yet we expect them to know good art from bad?  Teenagers like boxed macaroni and cheese for gods sake!

Now many years ago teens -- pre-teens even! - were exposd to fine art, fine music, and fine literature.  Just exposed mind you. I.e., able to repeat what was "good" about it. But today even that foundation is gone.

When I listen to the lyrics of most of the brit bands I hear literacy. Mix that with teen angst and you can have the basis for art. But mix the nothingness of mall life and reality TV and video games with teen angst and whatuya got?

I won't even attempt to answer that RJF or your wife will tell you that I'm opinionated too. :D (and that's my wife's job!)

-don

RJFait said:

On an unrelated (?) note, one of my all time favorite quotes is actually from the TV show 'Frasier', "Popularity is the hallmark of mediocrity." I'm sorry, that was uncalled for.