December 11th – Probably in common with a heap of
you guys I try not to make snap decisions concerning people; particularly
people I’m never likely to meet and so unable to find out what they’re really
like; like George Harrison for one.
There are certain acts of songwriting that have to be
recognised as high quality of either music or lyrics…sometimes both. The Beatles were like that for me. For
me there were one or two gems in amongst a back-catalogue of populist tunes that
millions took to with a fervour bordering on the messianic. This is just
personal observations remember, I don’t expect anyone else to share my
obviously skewed opinion on the quality or otherwise of pop music and its
24-carat performers, y’know. Don’t ever forget, you’re reading the ravings of a
guy who can listen to Black Sabbath
immediately followed by a blast of The
Corrs so WTF do I know? As I’ve noted before I was always, and will
continue to be, sceptical of The Beatles
and their mission statement. What started out as a bit of pop whimsy became
something altogether different and, in some ways quite worrying, to the point
where I do believe they could have spent fifteen minutes farting into a
microphone and the faithful would have hailed it as a new musical venture, not just
the aural residue from Mr. Lennon’s macro-biotic diet... a bottle of Irish
awaits the person who can tell me where that quote comes from and who said it.
Band-wagons were made for jumping on, I guess, and the fab
four did their fair share of it in their career and I guess it kept the gas
bill paid. A lot of them were just five-minute wonders that helped shift units
and keep their press office busy, but every once in a while they started out on
something that could and did have far reaching effects, none more so than their
efforts to embrace India and its music. Did they really want to understand the
Indian psyche or were they just trying to find another doorway into the drug
culture that was so prevalent back then? The idea back then was that the
trance-like state gained by playing Indian ragas
had obvious connections with the hippie culture. Trouble was it felt like that
was all the disciples wanted to take from a music whose whole philosophy was
built on religion and the use of trances was there in order to gain a greater
understanding of the self; just another way of getting high but drug-free. To
see the fab four (and their WAGS) promenading in the gardens of the Vishnu like
so many footy-stars was, imho, vomit-worthy, and surprise, surprise, after all
this flower-weaving and chanting, all the long-hair and white robe nonsense
that was de rigueur for the worthy, what was it these holy men wanted as a quid
pro quo, the holy ones who also jumped on the western musician’s band-wagon?
Why money of course; the money and the pussy, just like the popsters they were
playing host to at these garden parties for the learned.
That reads very vitriolic; an explanation is required
methinks. I’m sure their intentions were honourable; misguided, but honourable.
That’s what western rich people, the shallow ones, do, you see. They think
their money and popularity allows them entry into exclusive clubs where they
can buy their way into anything, even things they lack the intellect to
understand, and think they’ve wangled their way into something exclusive when,
all along, it’s just other people who host these exclusive clubs just taking them for a ride, fleecing them for the
completion of their own agenda which is often just as shallow as the victims’. As
far as The Beatles were concerned, so
it seemed, they were honourable in their intentions. It was just that some were
a) faster to spot the charlatans (Mr. Lennon) b) lacking of the ability to
concentrate for long enough to work things out (Mr. Starr) c) too self-obsessed
(Mr McCartney) or d) more prepared to go beyond the façade of the doorman and actually
go into the room to investigate for themselves (Mr Harrison). There. No sitting
on the fence here.
I’ve had the very good fortune to work with a good number of
Indian classical musicians of the very highest order (people whose musical
commitment, self awareness and dexterity on their chosen instrument can
transport the listener to places undreamt of) when I did sound and l/x for the Surdhwani events in Wolves during the
90’s and 00’s and I can say, hand-on-heart, that I’ve never seen any evidence
of them using artificial substances to help them play at the breathtaking
standard they do; not ever. What they do use is meditation, practice,
rehearsal, exercise, humility, an all-encompassing belief in the tenets of
their religion and an absolute affinity with their purpose on this earth, and
they sacrifice everything for it. Everything. No blowing £3m worth of powder up
their nose; no tumbling out of nightclubs six days a week at 04.30 with
sufficient alcohol in their body to launch a space shuttle; no experiencing
more pussy than a cat-flap; no entourage of forty souls evaluating their
pudding and sorting their socks; just years of dedicated, hard bloody work and
that my friend is, in the main, too much commitment for your average white
band.
What the western muso requires is a quick way into any
situation that offers a better way to increase musical longevity. Hence they
think that the use of drugs will turn them from the undoubted talent they believe
they are into some sort of super-performer without having to work too hard for
it; that they can buy the time of the best in the biz as a teacher and bypass
all that rubbish of spending fifty years of your life mastering an instrument…and
that frees them up to party!
Thing was, as far as Mr. Harrison was concerned and contrary
to my jaundiced beliefs surrounding the other band members, I believe he really
did want to embrace all that the Indian musical traditions could offer him, it
just felt that the steamroller that was The
Beatles couldn’t afford to hang about whilst he spent time naval gazing
until he found himself. The result of this was that the powers of the marketing
department had to have some proof that all was worth the while, that the time
and money spent in visiting the Vishnu and Ravi Shankar (who died on this day
in 2012) was going to reap a monetary benefit; in short, that there would be a
pay off. So the use of a sitar was force-fed onto a couple of tracks…(imho way,
way before time and way, way before Mr. Harrison had chance to make any headway
on the instrument at all…I mean, FFS, it takes decades, lifetimes to master an
instrument of such subtlety and intricacy; after fifty years Ravi Shankar said
he was still learning and here was a Beatle
plonking about on one after a couple of years of experience in order to
satisfy the fucks in the book-balancing department…jeeeezzee)…so the use of a
sitar was force-fed onto a couple of tracks on their next album and after that
it, too, died a death…it was no longer fashionable see, trends have moved on
friend, no profit in that left-field, Hari-Krishna shit no more see…gotta move;
next! Next! Next…!
Ravi Shankar was as gifted a musician as you’ll find anywhere
in any culture in any part of the world. From my limited perspective he had a
presence and serenity that was life-changing and an ability with his chosen
instrument that rendered one speechless. Like others of his stature that I’ve
worked with, masters of tabla, sitar, sarod, tanpura, harmonyum or violin, they
too have a wholly professional approach to their craft. They know how they want
to sound, how they want to be lit just like any other western performer.
Difference is they don’t make demands, they make requests, they don’t do
tantrums and sulk when things aren’t as they want them but are prepared to work
to make them so; they don’t see themselves as special they see us all as
special and every time I’ve had the opportunity it’s been a pleasure to work
with them without exception; and that’s not something I can say about working
with the myriad western pop and rock performers I’ve had the doubtful pleasure
of encountering in a professional performing situation.
Bitter? Moi? Whatever made you think that? Nope, not bitter,
just bitterly disappointed in the way the western music machine is prepared to
sell its soul (and anyone else’s) for a bag of weed, is prepared to roll over
the sensibilities of others for the sole purpose of making a buck is all.
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