I’ve just read two books — JIM MORRISON: LIFE, DEATH, LEGEND by Stephen Davis (author of HAMMER OF THE GODS one of the best rock’n’roll books ever) and READY, STEADY, GO!: THE SMASHING RISE AND GIDDY FALL OF SWINGING LONDON by Shawn Levy and they’ve made me nostalgic for the sixties. I think what I most admire about that time was the AMBITION of the age, how people weren’t just trying to have a hit record or become famous but really wanted to change life and modify perception. The DOORS did not just want to become successful but also wanted to live their ideals, both political and artistic, as evidenced by their egalitarian power and money distribution in the band and their improvisatory live appearances. The principle figures of the swinging London scene, fashion designers, photographer, musicians, art dealers, all intended to create a new aesthetic, and, if nothing else, shake up the hidebound, dull, class ridden society of the day. Thanks to e-bay I’ve also finally been able to own some sixties artifacts of legendary sixties events like a video of early ROLLING STONES live appearances or a CD of the infamous DOORS Miami concert. What strikes and impresses me about them is their sheer impact, the performers’ desire not just to entertain but to somehow TRANSPORT, of an era where TRANSGRESSION was assumed to be one of the responsibilities of the artist. To see Mick Jagger camping it up, threatening and ironic at once, playing with the gender ideals, camping it up in the middle of such stifling, traditional TV venues as the Ed Sullivan show is to see a performing genius, walking the tightrope of taste, the effect so powerful today that it’s hard to imagine how shocking it was then, juxtaposed with dreck like Pat Boone or even the firmly show biz rock groups like the Dave Clark Five. The fabled MIAMI CONCERT of the DOORS is another event whose reputation is misleading — rather than a drunken freak out by Jim it’s a deliberate provocation to the dynamics of the teenie bopper rock show, to all those ditto heads screaming for LIGHT MY FIRE. And Jim is actually in great vocal form, his voice as searing and strong as is any live performance of his I’ve heard. He wanted, as he says, to CHANGE THE WORLD, to create something rather than just tiredly reenact the same old act, to take it to the edge, the edge of sanity, of disaster, of meaning. Of course he eventually fell off that edge, and I’ve always been drawn to all those other sixties figures that did, like Brian Jones, or those that even managed to record an album or two between the edge of the cliff and the ground, like Syd Barrett or Skip Spence. In a way those casualties were just too sincere, took the whole thing too seriously, unlike the survivors who followed the ring of the cash registers to blandness. I think because I was a child in the sixties I probably took those ideals to heart more than the boomers did — when the draft was over anti-war sentiment was too, and when they could actually get good jobs the anti-materialism evaporated too. And like any other time a lot of the attitudes were embraced to get chicks or just because of fashion. But still, you can’t help contrasting those vibrant, revolutionary times to now — Antonioni and Godard versus Spielberg, or the putrid BONO’s brand of "activism," palling around with revolting pols like George W. Bush, not realizing that the Rove publicity machine is using him for a credibility lending photo op and hasn’t any intention of helping any of the world’s poor vs. the MC5’s firebrand revolt. And of course that’s who the stupid Boomers allowed to lead them, not the earnest idealists like Gore or Kerry, but the guy who was yelling through a megaphone at a pep rally while the real guys were on the barricades. The freshness of POP art has NEVER been followed, and what we have in galleries now are commodities or absurdities, comprehensible only by their prices or some thesis hung next to them on the wall. Will there ever be any novelists as avidly devoured (and still avidly devoured) by the young as Kerouac, Burroughs or Salinger? Do any musical bands want to change things rather than exploit them? Certainly not the rappers, much as they whine, they’re more than happy to be bought off and play the show biz game. Then there’s GREEN DAY, being fresh and daring by aping third generation punk of another country and another decade, safely following the demographic rather than creating it, echoing a music style rather than making us hear a new kind of noise. Will there ever be another time like that? It’s been too long already — we might have to wait until all those hypocritical, tyrannical Boomers who started the last one have finally kicked off — in which case UBU might be too old, blind and deaf to notice anyway!!!
YR PAL,
UBU
A Leak In The Safe 
BRAVISIMO bandito!!