Dead But Not Buried or, When the '90s Took a '60s Turn
23 May 2008
by Iain Ellis
The heart attack death of the Grateful Dead's Jerry Garcia in 1995,
two years after Frank Zappa succumbed to prostate cancer, signified
for the some the closing of the 1960s rock chapter. However, it soon
became apparent that despite their deaths, the legacies of these two
trailblazers would continue in the hands of legions of '90s bands
marked by their influence. Indeed, through a subcultural army of
young people disaffected by modern trends in culture and music, the
'90s would contort into a fantasy '60s, such that an alternative (and
separate) reality was envisioned through a haze of neo-hippy
idealism, positive humor, and (relatedly) copious amounts of
mind-and-life-altering drugs. Authors Jason Cohen and Michael Krugman
sarcastically suggested in their (middle) finger-on-the-pulse,
epoch-defining book Generation Ecch (1994) that the '90s "fetish" for
all things '60s signified nostalgia for those "giddy" times of
"campus unrest, drug abuse, [and] armed conflict in the streets and
in the rice paddies".
Just as the 1990s neo-hippy subculture was retro-escapist, so were
the myriad "jam" bands that rose up from the underground during the
decade. After years of reigning as America's most popular touring
band, the Grateful Deadin its demiseleft a vast army of Deadheads
with no place to go. The most immediate heir-apparent was Phish, who
co-opted then converted the Deadheads into "Phishheads". Blues
Traveler, Widespread Panic, the Dave Matthews Band, and Big Head Todd
and the Monsters were among the many other contenders to the Dead's
throne. The common denominator of the new wave of post-Dead combos
was that they were all guitar-based jam acts that drew inspiration
from the folk, country, and psychedelic roots of the original San
Francisco hippy bands. Furthermore, they all projected a sense of
humor rooted in the positive vibes and eccentric whimsy that the
Grateful Dead and the Charlatans had once illustratively embodied.
Hippy humor was the in-crowd relief humor of the subculture itself;
it made little sense to the outside world, which was just as well
because it never sought to. Hippy humor was carnival humor, a coded,
celebratory expression filtered through the subculture's drug of
choice, marijuana, and through their social psychology: the desire to
renounce the pessimism and cynicism of their times, and to retreat
into the blissful womb of nature. These regressive instincts found
their correlative humor in a childlike whimsy and the anarchic state
of the id.
Formed in 1983, the Vermont-born Phish came to flourish as the
primary figurehead of '90s hippy-dom. As theatrical minstrels like
the Grateful Dead had been doing for years, Phish ignored the modern
communication outlets of radio and MTV, instead taking its music
directly to the people. Indeed, reflecting upon the sole occasion
when the band had dipped its feet into the world of video
marketingproducing a clip for "Down With Disease" (1994)frontman
Trey Anastasio described the venture as "a momentary lapse of
reason". Ironically, though, the more Phish avoided the television
cameras, the more those cameras came seeking the band; and the more
it eschewed the commercial practices that would bring it success, the
more successful it became. And like a modern pied piper, the more it
played, the larger the Phish "phamily" grew.
Phish's expressions of subversive humorlike its jam band peerswere
rooted/routed through subcultural symbiosis. Both the band and its
fans sought not to assault the mainstream, but to utterly ignore it,
venturing not to correct mainstream practices but to circumvent them
by offering an alternative consciousness. In the "Phishheads" lived a
loyal subculture attuned with a cult-like regimen to the alternative
signals of the band's whimsical antics. Anastasio saw this intimate
interconnectedness between the band and its fans as an on-going
"conversation".
Not surprisingly, Phish's subcultural humor mostly revolved around
its stage shows, where audience participation was standard practice.
The band deflated rock pretensions by closing the gap between itself
and the audience, rejecting "star power" and narcissistic costumes in
favor of an everyman image and modest demeanor. That said, drummer
Jon Fishman was not averse to attiring for the purposes of positive
and/or self-deprecating humor. On the occasions he chose not to go
naked or don a diaper and bonnet, Fishman wowed the crowd with a
striking purple muumuu or fetching housedress. To complete the image,
the eccentric sticks-man would then blow a pseudo-trombone solo
through an Electrolux vacuum cleaner as the band performed its
version of The Jungle Book's "I Wanna Be Like You".
Other stage gestures included guitarists Trey Anastasio and bassist
Mike Gordon jumping on trampolines while trading guitar licks or
wearing slippery socks to facilitate group dance maneuverseach
symbolic gestures of self-deprecating rock whimsy. One common band
practice was to quote (with a so-called "tease") a line from The
Simpsons' theme song, to which the union of Phishheads would shout
"D'oh!" in imitation of Homer. The band even established on-going
chess matches between the band and the audience, the latter making
their moves during the intermission at live shows. Phish always took
full advantage of the potential of carnival humor within its festival
environs, giant hot dog rides and water-spewing mechanical elephants
offering counter-imagery and implicit escape outlets from the
angst-ridden atmosphere inhabiting and inhibiting much X'er rock of the era.
Phish's practical humor was subversive not by virtue of the acts
themselves but because of what they signified the band and its
followers were and were not. By unifying band and audience, a
subcultural identity was solidified. And within its cult of
childhood, mutual trust was established, as were common value
systems. Phishheads respected how the band operated as an outsider.
While contemporary rock trended towards videos, studio trickery, and
image-manipulation, Phish represented the authenticity once sought by
'60s rockers in stellar musicianship, value-for-money shows, and live
performances. And as the mainstream dismissed or ignored such
retro-philosophies, the jam band troubadours and their carnie
drop-outs merely retreated to gatherings like H.O.R.D.E. (in the
'90s) and, more recently, the Bonnaroo Music and Arts and Wakarusa Festivals.
Some projected that the jam band explosion that followed the death of
Jerry Garcia would gradually fade. Yet, quite the opposite has been
the case. We are currently living through what some call the fourth
generation of jam bands, and the subculture remains strong. The
festival circuit is now larger than ever, and the eclecticism of
talent is broader than ever. Contemporary bands like the Disco
Biscuits grew up under the influence of Phish rather than the
Grateful Dead, and innovators like Band of Horses and My Morning
Jacket suggest that while the jam aesthetic continues, the form is
far from static. As the carnival continues, one can conclude that as
long as there are young people disgruntled with modern culture,
alienated by modern music, and depressed by modern cynicism, the
Grateful Dead will be alive in the communitarian values and uplifting
humor of those gratefully perpetuating their legacy.
If the Grateful Dead symbolized the neo-hippy whimsy of the 1990s
counter-culture, Frank Zappa marked a more warped and frenetic
manifestation of a contemporary '60s sensibility. The Zappa school of
humor was more directly inherited by the independent or alternative
rock culture of the '90s. Less light, positive, and childlike than
the neo-hippies, post-Zappa humorists exhibited their mentor's more
irreverent, anarchic, and incongruous instincts. And if marijuana was
the symbolic drug of neo-hippy whimsy, nitrous oxide represented the
frenetic madness of the post-Zappa set.
Primus and Mr. Bungle were indie humorists in the Zappa tradition.
They shared traits with the post-Dead bandshybrid styles, impressive
musicianship, the jam-workout impulsebut their musical sources and
lyrical sensibilities were not necessarily retro-active. They often
opted for the grotesque over the whimsical, the irreverent over the
referential, and abstract sarcasm over uplifting good humor. Like
Zappa, his successors had unlimited imaginative scope, often creating
incongruous musical comedy from forcing multiple genres into ironic
juxtaposition with one another. Rather than the comforts of innocent
relief, such sonic mayhem envisioned the sounds of madness, neurosis,
and warped wit. Theirs were the dark forces of the carnival.
Primus drew from the spirit rather than the sound of Zappa. Its
bass-propelled funk-metal twitched and tweaked like rhythmic
disorders, as Les Claypool used his goofy voice and abstract lyrical
one-liners to undercut everything with an insane humor. Like Zappa,
Claypool broached political topics with abstract commentary, creating
fictional characters as his vehicle. "Those Damned Blue-Collar
Tweakers" (1991) spoke to working-class meth-dependence, while the
Grammy-nominated "Wynona's Big Brown Beaver" (1995) still has fans
speculating as to the song's meaning. The bizarre accompanying video,
which features the band members in plastic, cartoon cowboy outfits,
certainly provides few clues. Claypool is kitted out in pig suit and
tuxedo for the "Mr. Krinkle" (1993) video, encouraging interpretative
speculation and defying common sense.
Zappa's polemical zaniness is evident in Primus' more coherent songs,
too. "Too Many Puppies" (1990) bemoans the needless sacrifice of
soldiers, "Year of the Parrot" (1995) mocks the pervasive plagiarism
of contemporary bands, and "Pudding Time" (1990) offers a critique of
"consumer" materialism. Each uses quirky images that speak to
Claypool's imaginative eccentricity. Primus also promoted an
endearing strain of self-deprecating humor that contrasted with the
egocentrism of many of its peers. From its catchphrase "Primus
Sucks!" (which it encouraged its fans to chant), to their They Can't
All Be Zingers: The Best of Primus (2006) album title and "The Beat a
Dead Horse Tour" of the same year, the band displayed an unaffected
modesty that gave it a greater air of authenticity.
New York hip-hop met jazz fusion in Soul Coughing, one of the more
idiosyncratic bands of the decade. They brought smug satire and a
smart-ass attitude to their avant-garde music, reminding '90s
audiences of Zappa's enduring relevance. Like Zappa, singer-poet M.
Doughty used a deadpan delivery to make often scolding comments, each
set to a backdrop of neo-beatnik "slacker jazz". Their Ruby Vroom
(1994) debut album is full of stream-of-consciousness poetics,
unlikely style fusions, and laid-back irony. "Casiotone Nation" uses
Zappa's satirical zap in surveying '90s materialism, while "Bus to
Beelzebub" draws from his more abstract leanings with lines like,
"Your words burn the air like the names of candy bars."
Irreverent humor and an ironic fascination with doo-wop were but two
of the features that Mr. Bungle shared with its spiritual mentor,
Frank Zappa. Both acts drew from imaginations that could not be
contained, and both applied virtuoso musicianship to a song-craft
that made stylistic juxtaposition ironic and evocative. Adopting its
moniker from an old children's cartoon character, Mr. Bungle had the
anarchic spirit of children and the sharp vision of avant-gardist
adults. Like the neo-hippy jam bands, Mr. Bungle created alternative
fantasy worlds through improvisational adventures. Unlike those
bands, the cinematic sound-scapes that emanated from its instruments
cast visions of Fellini freaks and David Lynch psychotics. Its
metal-rooted carnie evocations were beautifully grotesque, suggesting
a modern-day musical rendition of Antonin Artaud's "Theatre of Cruelty".
There is dizzying, dark humor to a Mr. Bungle song, whereby
instruments, sounds, styles, and time changes can all be transformed
within the span of a bar; charging metal might turn to bossa nova, a
Middle-Eastern jam could morph into a lounge retreat, or Mike
Patton's harrowing scream could switch to a gentle lullaby in a
second. The band's zany schizophrenia, where light and dark humor
interplayed, was further underscored in its stage shows, where
bassist Trevor Dunn would head-bang frantically while sporting a
dress and pigtailed hair, or the band would wear grotesque masks and
S&M outfits, taking conventional horror humor into disturbingly unusual areas.
Ultimately, the '90s retro-acts sought to subvert the prevailing
trends towards crass commercialism, individual greed, and phony
superficiality. In nostalgic retreat, they used humor as a coping
mechanism, as relief from the "accelerated culture", and as
inspiration to create an alternative subcultural unity and new
musical adventures. Some, like the post-Dead jam bands, withdrew into
the id of childlike innocence, expressing a positive, unifying humor.
Others, like the post-Zappa indie bands, welcomed the neuroses of
their age as they affixed it to the more outlandish eccentricities of
'60s humor. Whether innocent children or irreverent eccentrics, these
"separatist" bands turned the '90s on its head, creating a neo-'60s
imaginationif not realityin the process.
--
The above essay is an excerpt from Rebels Wit Attitude, a forthcoming
book about subversive rock humorists to be published in November 2008
by PopMatters and Soft Skull Press.
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