Pandemic TV Viewing Echo in the Canyon
We finally got around to watching "Echo in the Canyon," the marvelous show about all the musicians and music that cross pollinated in LA and specifically in the Laurel Canyon area of the Hollywood Hills in the early 60's. It opens with those wonderful 6 opening chords from the song above . . . and bang zoom I’m a senior in high school! Why do you think that is? This dude has an answer:
"It has long been held that, just as objective time is dictated by clocks, subjective time (barring external influences) aligns to physiological metronomes. Music creates discrete temporal units but ones that do not typically align with the discrete temporal units in which we measure time. Rather, music embodies (or, rather, is embodied within) a separate, quasi-independent concept of time, able to distort or negate “clock-time.” This other time creates a parallel temporal world in which we are prone to lose ourselves, or at least to lose all semblance of objective time. Perhaps the clearest evidence of musical hijacking is this: In 2004, the Royal Automobile Club Foundation for Motoring deemed Wagner’s “Ride of the Valkyrie” the most dangerous music to listen to while driving. It is not so much the distraction, but the substitution of the frenzied tempo of the music that challenges drivers’ normal sense of speed—and the objective cue of the speedometer—and causes them to speed." JONATHAN BERGER, COMPOSER
That’s exactly what I was thinking! Okay, maybe not exactly but close. Everyone knows/thinks that music has a special effect on us, it’s a real time machine – albeit it only goes in one direction – and we understand how it can launch you back to a specific time and place with as much accuracy as memory allows.
Jakob Dylan (yeah, the son of OUR Dylan) does a great job interviewing many of the prime movers from that time interspersed with some of the best music of the era. Guys like Jim McGuinn and David Crosby of the Byrds, Tom Petty, Brian Wilson, Jackson Brown, Michelle Phillips of Mamas and Papas - even Ringo Starr - and countless others. (Yeah, I know there were a LOT of talented women like Joni Mitchell, Carol King and Judy Collins who, sadly, don’t get nearly enough credit.) This was when American music was just coming out of the old 50’s stuff and the boring folk era in the early 60’s. I won’t ruin it for you but I will just say there was lot more than free love and marijuana going around out there then, hint: a lot of it had to do with The Beatles (duh) and Brian Wilson (who Tom Petty equated with Mozart - who am I to argue?) But enough about them, let’s talk about me.
I listen to a lot music because Mrs. Dear Leader listens to a lot of music. She is more up to date than I but we both still mostly prefer music from past. You know, I admire the people - people of a certain age - who wholeheartedly embrace the most recent music (and I acknowledge that there are a lot of talented people out there now) but generally I’m not one of them. Do I think “my” music is so superior that it’s not worth my time to even listen to new stuff? No - as long as they can top the Beatles or Steely Dan!
Is it because I can’t relate to the people who are creating new music? (Well, Bruno Mars and I do have the same kind of hat.) Maybe I just don’t have the energy, ambition or desire to stay up to date (I’m very busy you know.) Or maybe, like comfort food, there’s comfort music, music that you are familiar with and that you identify with; music that allows you to instantaneously escape your current situation (even a pandemic) and maybe revisit the younger you or at least who the younger you was when that music came out. (Huh?) Anyway, it allows us to forget the whole aging process and slip back to that young, svelte handsome dude of yesteryear.
Perhaps. But perhaps it’s not my fault, perhaps I’m a victim! I read somewhere that another smart guy theorized that like a lot of other things, many of us stop paying attention to new music somewhere in our early 30’s. Thus, we just get stuck in a particular era (sort of like a lot of my friend’s golf wardrobes) and our tastes live there forever. I don’t know, maybe that’s right. As Mr. Berger says, music “distorts clock-time” allowing us to actually relive some other period of our life. And it’s not just the “good” times but also the bad times so it’s an equal opportunity device. On the other hand, it could be more than just revisiting your youth. Time speeds by so fast leaving all in its wake – including our youth – that it’s easy to think that our lives kind of lose their meaning in the debris. So maybe these musical journeys back help to validate us, to prove that, hey, I lived on this planet too, you know!
It occurs to me that during our “prime,” music is just enjoyed in that moment. After all, when we're young we're sure there are certain to be many more moments ahead. I don’t think anyone thinks about how music will affect us in the future – ha, little did we know!
Ah well, on the other hand, maybe this all just bunch of psychobabble. Maybe it’s because we all just turn into fuddy duddies like our parents. Carn sarn that hip hop! Where are The Eagles and Chicago – and The Doors - when you need them?!
If you don’t get anything else out of this just Put Echo in the Canyon on your watch list today.
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