Michael Lynch's Rock And Roll Myth Book

For a long time, I thought something really horrible had happened at the Woodstock Festival in 1969.

When both Woodstock and I were about ten years old, there was a TV special on about the festival...Basically just clips from the movie, but with a guy introducing each one. Well, I had to go to bed midway through, and the last segment I saw ended with the guy saying "Coming up next, something that almost ruined the entire festival."

I know now that he meant the rainstorms, but I didn't know that then.
Since I couldn't stay up to watch, I asked my brother "What happened that almost ruined the entire festival?"

He said "The Vietnamese flew over the festival and dropped a bomb on Crosby Stills And Nash."

And I believed him.

When I think back on this, I soon recall other bits of false musical information I believed for a while during my single digit years. Some were alleged factoids stemming from the same source as the above. Others I can only blame my own lousy sense of logic and deduction.

From the former category, my brother told me that Led Zeppelin formed when Jimmy Page met John Paul Jones when they were both members of Herman's Hermits!

I don't know if my brother was putting me on or if he truly believed this...perhaps he had heard about how both Page and Jones had played as session musicians on some Hermits' tracks and misinterpreted the information. But I do remember him finding pictures of Herman's Hermits from books we had and pointing to them. "See? There's Jimmy," he said as his finger rested on Keith Hopwood's part of the photo, "And there's John," he continued, having moved his finger to Karl Green. I forget if he offered a reason why the bassist in the photo was left-handed when John Paul Jones wasn't.

Some other myths I unfortunately can't blame him for. My mother put *this* horrible thought in my head for years: I believed the cause of the death of Mama Cass was...eating so much and getting so fat that one day she blew up. I swear that's what she told me once. She denies this. She would, wouldn't she?

And then there were my own faulty assumptions: I thought for sure Ray Davies was Mexican. Why else would his voice on "I believe that you and me last forever" sound like one of the buzzards in those hopelessly un-PC Looney Tunes cartoons?

I thought all of the Monkees, not just Davy, were British.

I thought The Who and The Young Rascals were black. I thought Jimi Hendrix was white (but then again, so did he.)

I thought Simon and Garfunkel were their first names. (Yeah, I'm sure I'm the only one guilty of that.)

I thought, despite the lyrics suggesting otherwise, that the lead singer on "Bread And Butter" was a woman...Come to think of it, I STILL think that!

As I got older, my reasoning, or unreasoning, became, well, more interesting and detailed. I thought when a record was made, a fadeout was done by having the musicians and singers slowly walk away from the microphones and out of the studio and, I guess, down the hall and just keep going until you couldn't hear them anymore. I imagined carts with drumsets or pianos on them being pushed out of the room.

And here's one that really amazed me: I thought a band or singer re-recorded a song for every release. In other words, they had to record one version for the album and another for the single, yet another for any greatest hits album years later, not to mention overseas releases.

Naturally, when I was a little kid, I had absolutely no sense of historical or cultural context. So in the long-hair and colorful clothes days of the mid 1970s when I was in school watching all those educational films where every guy has a crew cut, every girl has some conservative hairdo that never went past the shoulders, and every article of clothing is either solid black or solid white (good thing they shot with color film, which of course by the 1970's had degenerated to that lovely reddish-brown tint. Too bad we didn't have digital preservation back then to save these things before the images completely faded to skeletons, to ensure that future generations can enjoy the celluloid drama of Mary and Joe sticking toothpicks in an avocado just as we did), I was too young to deduce that the reason things on the screen looked so different from the modern world's shag haircuts, paisley shirts and orange hip-huggers that I considered normal was because I was looking at a film made a long time ago. Instead, I'd look at the weird hair and clothing styles and wonder "What the hell town is this where they make all these films where people are so damned ugly?" Sometimes the action took place outdoors, and when big vintage Thunderbirds and Edsels rolled down the street, I was convinced I was watching something made on another continent...or planet.

Anyway, all that windup was so you'll understand why, upon seeing a Little Rascals film (Mike Fright) which featured that week's version of the gang and their garage band (well, garage band by 1930s standards) entitled The International Silverstring Submarine Band, I instantly came to the conclusion that such a long and wacky moniker just had to be some kind of takeoff on Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band. I guess I tended to lump both The Beatles and The Little Rascals into one big easy category entitled Before I Was Born and didn't think much beyond that of what came first and by how much time. Such a mindset permitted me to think...no, KNOW...that something from 1967 was clearly the inspiration for something about 35 years prior.

And don't even start me on cases of "I thought that song was by that artist." I'll just get to the one that most disturbs me...In the summer of 1980 I was heard on several occasions to bring up, when talking to friends, the subject of "Another One Bites The Dust" by asking them if they had yet heard the new Led Zeppelin single. In the fall of 1980 I was heard on several occasions getting jeered by the same friends.

Mistaking Queen for Led Zeppelin? I'm not sure which group should feel more insulted. (Can't say as I mind insulting either one, though)

Okay, I'd better stop soon. Too many cited cases of my faulty beliefs may scare you off reading my future Fufkin rants and raves. So I'll bring things to a halt. Besides, I need to go find out which current rock star it is that used to be Paul from The Wonder Years.

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