Rainy Sunday in Hollywood. Dropping the family off to seek enlightenment in the hills of Echo Park, took the hour off to cash in pop-in-law birthday scrip at local Rockaway Records, an old school music collectibles mart where two-weeks-previous I'd seen the complete collection of Yellow Submarine figures with the PID sync of “Two Pauls" (all of which vanished from the walls by the time I returned.)
Mystified to fathom the $1.1K Rolling Stones box set and $750 Madonna 12” available, I settled on a dented copy of the Monterey International Pop Festival cd box set, (1992) mainly for it's odd yellow fabric cover, bereft of any information front or back save for a red print of The Great God Pan and the dates involved:
June 16 • 17 • 18 • 1967
Jammed the whole set after sunset, but not before catching a full rainbow stretching from the dark cloud above Paramount Pictures all the way to Belmont High School. (Side Note: research into the “Arrow of Evolution” mural at Belmont High led to further initiatory mysteries revealed in the murals at a different Belmont High on the opposite coast.) Either way, once home, opening the yellow box let forth a four hour flow of what the late, great John Fahey would demi-reverently refer to as enthusiasm.
Eternal icons like Hendrix's “Rolling Stone” and Redding's “Loving You … Too Long (To Stop Now)” are now joined in epic floordom by the Mamas And The Papas' double drum psych blowout of “Dancing In The Streets” and perhaps the real reason David Crosby was replaced by horse head in The Byrds. Would have kicked in for an entire disc of Ravi Shankar, after all he was the sole act for the entire Sunday afternoon set of the festival, but history has a way of leaving some drones only to the imagination.
The Pop box opened up more questions than it answered: like who decided to fade out the Mama and the Papa's psych-freakout just before the applause? And who was responsible for its singular "Pan" cover? Research into credited art director Geoff Cans reveals very little information, only a brief appearance in an R.E.M. oral biography, detailing his attempts to organize Micheal Stipe's tape collection. Further inquires into the Pan mystery returned strange tales of lost sailing ships uncovered in the deserts of California. The third pass locates original art director for the Festival, Tom Wilkes, designer of, among other things, the “Red and Blue” Beatles box sets, which possibly “prove” the existence of the “Two Pauls.”
Maybe I did get that Yellow Submarine figure set after all.
And one final transportation of Monterey, The Steve Miller Band's hypnotic “Mercury Blues,” of which proved impossible to find footage on Youtube, but whose search provided this excellent footage of a 1954 Mercury being towed down the road, its soundtrack the version recorded for the 1976 LP Fly Like An Eagle.
The Brazilian channel has a hundred-plus other uploads, singularly focused on groovy music-backed home movies of the author's collection of classic cars and family road trips to car shows and visits with other car enthusiasts. Multiple videos of a 1972 VW Beetle and a 1973 Galaxie 500 figure prominently.
Hey, it's not where you're going but how you get there.
Regarding Steve Miller and Mercury Blues- the film "Revolution" and it's attendant soundtrack contain an earlier version of the tune by an earlier version of the band.
Posted by: keith | November 14, 2011 at 12:44 PM
A-ha:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oF8uj4S-BBc
And its scene in the "Revolution" film barely features motor vehicles at all but a band of merry SF hippies walking out of the city and climbing trees ...
"You know in your brain you must leave the Capitol"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RBRD2b7ZZ2M
Io Pan!
http://greatgardenstatues.wordpress.com/2011/11/14/the-great-god-pan-in-my-secret-garden/
Posted by: John Fell Ryan | November 14, 2011 at 01:25 PM
And here's a pic of 1949 Mercury mentioned in "Mercury Blues"
http://www.seriouswheels.com/1940-1949/1949-Mercury-Yellow-FA.htm
We all live in a yellow submarine...
Posted by: John Fell Ryan | November 14, 2011 at 04:17 PM
JFR's syntax is a mystical experience in itself:
'And one final transportation of Monterey, The Steve Miller Band's hypnotic “Mercury Blues,” of which proved impossible to find footage on Youtube, but whose search provided this excellent footage of a 1954 Mercury being towed down the road, its soundtrack the version recorded for the 1976 LP Fly Like An Eagle.'
That paragraph alone transports me to a mongoloid nirvana where everyone wears beards and awesome hats. Don't stop the flow, man!
Posted by: Prof. Chuck Bonghis, Dept. of Subcultural Studies, University of Phoenix | November 17, 2011 at 03:05 PM