She's Not There


Let's continue the musical interlude, shall we?  The Who are a great reminder that the 60s were not all about peace and love.  The Who are in the vortex of garage rock, the Velvets, the Fugs, etc etc out of which punk rock slouched to Bethelhem to be born.

It is hard for me to shake the idea that the vampires first came out into the light of day in the 70s, but this clip from 1968 is for all intents and purposes a concert in Transylvania:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hje28F-IhLo.

The woman at 1:12 doing the Monster Mash while smoking a cigarette has turned on and then dropped straight into the abyss.  If we could plug into the soundtrack in her head, all we would hear is feedback.  Metal Machine Music.  Pure noise into oblivion.  Or maybe the companion piece to Reed's opus, Cage's 4' 33".  Silence shifting into white noise.  The music's over and to look into that woman's eyes is to know somebody has turned out the light.  She's not there.

The 60s were dead before the Manson Clan killed the beast with their steely knives, before Meredith Hunter was sacrificed like Col. Kurtz in the apocalypse that was Altamont.  In the above, clip The Who play at the wake, but as the shots of the audience makes clear, they will never be able to awaken the walking dead.

JB

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