Rock and roll his­to­ry is built on hap­py acci­dents, moments where enthu­si­asm and raw tal­ent exceed the lim­its of tech­nol­o­gy. Dis­tor­tion, the sine qua non of mod­ern rock, came from bro­ken ampli­fiers and mix­ing boards, and speak­ers slashed to rib­bons. Such excess­es can be threat­en­ing. Link Wray’s grit­ty 1958 instru­men­tal “Rum­ble” earned a ban from the air­waves for its alleged men­ace. Since then, rock has sur­vived one cru­sade after anoth­er, launched by par­ents, church groups, and scare­mon­ger­ing char­la­tans.

One clas­sic case illus­trates the norm: parental over­re­ac­tion to teenage rumors, incom­pe­tent response from author­i­ties, and, as above, a tech­ni­cal lim­i­ta­tion that led to a styl­is­tic rev­o­lu­tion. The incom­pre­hen­si­ble vocals in the Kingsmen’s 1963 record­ing of “Louie, Louie” are leg­endary, cov­ered and imi­tat­ed by garage bands and rock stars since, and going down “in pop his­to­ry,” Anwen Craw­ford writes at The New York­er, “as one of the medium’s more endear­ing (and endur­ing) moments of ama­teurism.”

The per­for­mance “was a result of acci­dent rather than design.” The Kings­men record­ed the song into a sin­gle micro­phone sus­pend­ed sev­er­al feet above singer Jack Ely and the band. “Ely was wear­ing den­tal braces,” notes Craw­ford, “and his band­mates, who were gath­ered around Ely in a cir­cle, played their instru­ments loud­ly.” The band had learned the song from the Wail­ers, whose 1961 ver­sion cov­ered song­writer Richard Berry’s orig­i­nal, both of which had been region­al hits in the Pacif­ic North­west.

The Kingsman’s “Louie Louie” became an instant garage-rock clas­sic, hit­ting No. 2 on the Bill­board sin­gles charts, despite the fact that no one who had­n’t heard the ear­li­er ver­sions had a clue what it was about. Since the lyrics could have said almost any­thing, it seemed, they pro­voked imme­di­ate spec­u­la­tion about obscen­i­ty. Rock crit­ic Dave Marsh describes the phe­nom­e­non:

Back in 1963, every­body who knew any­thing about rock ‘n’ roll knew that the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie” con­cealed dirty words that could be unveiled only by play­ing the 45 rpm sin­gle at 33–1/3. This pre­pos­ter­ous fable bore no scruti­ny even at the time, but kids used to pre­tend it did, in order to pan­ic par­ents, teach­ers, and oth­er author­i­ty fig­ures. Even­tu­al­ly those ulti­mate author­i­tar­i­ans, the FBI got involved, con­duct­ing a thir­ty-month inves­ti­ga­tion that led to “Louie”‘s undy­ing — indeed, unkil­l­able — rep­u­ta­tion as a dirty song.

So “Louie Louie” leaped up the chart on the basis of a myth about its lyrics so con­ta­gious that it swept cross coun­try quick­er than bad weath­er. Nobody — not you, not me, not the G‑men ulti­mate­ly assigned to the case — knows where the sto­ry start­ed. That’s part of the proof that it was a myth, because no folk tales ever have a ver­i­fi­able ori­gin. Instead soci­ety cre­ates them through cul­tur­al spon­ta­neous com­bus­tion.

The FBI inves­ti­ga­tion into “Louie Louie”’s lyrics began when out­raged par­ents wrote let­ters to attor­ney gen­er­al Robert F. Kennedy and J. Edgar Hoover. Off and on, for two years, the Bureau inves­ti­gat­ed the record­ing. They played it “back­wards and for­wards,” says Eric Pre­doehl, direc­tor of a doc­u­men­tary about the song. “They played it at dif­fer­ent speeds, they spent a lot of time on it–but it was inde­ci­pher­able at any speed.” Why they both­ered is real­ly any­one’s guess. Agents final­ly had to give up and close the case, after a mean­ing­less expen­di­ture of gov­ern­ment resources.

They nev­er both­ered, dur­ing their inves­ti­ga­tion, to lis­ten to the ear­li­er record­ings of the song. (The band swears Ely sung the lyrics as writ­ten ver­ba­tim.)  They nev­er inter­viewed Ely him­self. Nor did any­one have the bright idea to walk down to the Bureau of Copy­right, where they would have found un-sala­cious lyrics to “Louie Louie” on file. Rumor and innu­en­do were as good as evi­dence. Read the Full FBI report at NPR. “Read­er beware,” they cau­tion, “the doc­u­ment describes lis­ten­er the­o­ries that the lyrics of ‘Louie Louie’ were secret­ly vul­gar, and includes the sup­posed vul­gar­i­ties.” 

via Ted Gioia

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

Hear the Only Instru­men­tal Ever Banned from the Radio: Link Wray’s Seduc­tive, Raunchy Song, “Rum­ble” (1958)

A Brief His­to­ry of Gui­tar Dis­tor­tion: From Ear­ly Exper­i­ments to Hap­py Acci­dents to Clas­sic Effects Ped­als

Two Gui­tar Effects That Rev­o­lu­tion­ized Rock: The Inven­tion of the Wah-Wah & Fuzz Ped­als

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

Look­ing for the defin­i­tive guide to the orig­i­nal theme music for the long-run­ning BBC sci­ence fic­tion series Doc­tor Who, com­posed in 1963 by Ron Grain­er and realised by Delia Der­byshire and the BBC Radio­phon­ic Work­shop? Good news, there’s a web­site that pro­vides just that.

Accord­ing to Boing­Bo­ing, the “writ­ers here — Dan­ny Stew­art, Ian Stew­art, and Josef Ken­ny — break down the musi­cal score of each track, point­ing out cool details I’d nev­er noticed (like the fact that there are two sep­a­rate bass tracks that form a nifty coun­ter­point with each oth­er). They include clips of all the indi­vid­ual tracks iso­lat­ed so you can hear exact­ly what they’re describ­ing.” Begin explor­ing here, and find more Doc­tor Who Theme Music posts in the Relat­eds right down below.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via Boing­Bo­ing

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The Fas­ci­nat­ing Sto­ry of How Delia Der­byshire Cre­at­ed the Orig­i­nal Doc­tor Who Theme

Meet Delia Der­byshire, the Dr. Who Com­pos­er Who Almost Turned The Bea­t­les’ “Yes­ter­day” Into Ear­ly Elec­tron­i­ca

Two Doc­u­men­taries Intro­duce Delia Der­byshire, the Pio­neer in Elec­tron­ic Music

Hear Leg­endary BBC Com­pos­er Delia Derbyshire’s Elec­tron­ic Ver­sion of Bach’s “Air on a G String”

Since the start of the pan­dem­ic, we’ve peri­od­i­cal­ly fea­tured Kos­san, a Japan­ese Bud­dhist monk who has a pen­chant for singing punk, met­al and rock clas­sics, accom­pa­nied by gongs, drums and oth­er instru­ments. In the past, he’s cov­ered the Ramones’ “Teenage Lobot­o­my,” “Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” and the Bea­t­les’ “Yel­low Sub­ma­rine”–not to men­tion Judas Priest’s “Break­ing the Law.” In his lat­est clip, Kos­san offers a unique take on Metal­li­ca’s 1991 clas­sic “Enter Sand­man,” then winds down, of course, with a lit­tle med­i­ta­tion. Enjoy.

If you would like to sign up for Open Culture’s free email newslet­ter, please find it here. It’s a great way to see our new posts, all bun­dled in one email, each day.

If you would like to sup­port the mis­sion of Open Cul­ture, con­sid­er mak­ing a dona­tion to our site. It’s hard to rely 100% on ads, and your con­tri­bu­tions will help us con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing the best free cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al mate­ri­als to learn­ers every­where. You can con­tribute through Pay­Pal, Patre­on, and Ven­mo (@openculture). Thanks!

via Laugh­ing Squid

Relat­ed Con­tent:

Japan­ese Bud­dhist Monk Cov­ers Ramones’ “Teenage Lobot­o­my,” “Queen’s “We Will Rock You,” Bea­t­les’ “Yel­low Sub­ma­rine” & More

Bud­dhist Monk Cov­ers Judas Priest’s “Break­ing the Law,” Then Breaks Into Med­i­ta­tion

Japan­ese Priest Tries to Revive Bud­dhism by Bring­ing Tech­no Music into the Tem­ple: Attend a Psy­che­del­ic 23-Minute Ser­vice

Med­i­ta­tion for Begin­ners: Bud­dhist Monks & Teach­ers Explain the Basics

A vis­it to William Faulkner’s house once con­vinced me I’d seen his ghost. Mil­lions of peo­ple com­mune with Elvis’s spir­it at Grace­land each year. Some lucky per­son will end up with Toni Morrison’s per­son­al library, and maybe also her Tribeca con­do. No mat­ter how well we think we know a favorite artist, there’s noth­ing like con­nect­ing with the spaces and things they left behind. Since 2016, Jimi Hen­drix devo­tees have been able to make a pil­grim­age to the Lon­don apart­ment he shared with his girl­friend, Kathy Etch­ing­ham, between 1968 and 1969.

The flat on 23 Brook Street has been set up the way it was when Hen­drix lived there, thanks to Han­del & Hen­drix in Lon­don, who also main­tain the house of George Frid­er­ic Han­del just next door. The only oth­er con­nec­tion between the two artists is Hendrix’s own­er­ship of two copies of Handel’s Mes­si­ah, “both of which show signs of wear and tear,” the foun­da­tion notes, and “which would have been uncan­ny lis­ten­ing so near to where it was com­posed.” Jimi taste­ful­ly dec­o­rat­ed the apart­ment to his tastes, and told Etch­ing­ham it was “my first real home of my own.”

Hendrix’s home was made com­plete by a 100-plus col­lec­tion of LPs and a high-end audio sys­tem that has recent­ly been recre­at­ed in col­lab­o­ra­tion with the mak­ers of the orig­i­nal com­po­nents: Bang & Olufsen, Lowther, and LEAK sup­ply the same or sim­i­lar mod­els of turntable, speak­er, and ampli­fi­er, respec­tive­ly, on which Jimi lis­tened to Han­del next door to the ghost of Han­del. Hear­ing those records in Jimi’s space, the way he heard them, says Nabi­hah Iqbal in a video that debuted on Hendrix’s birth­day, Novem­ber 27th, is “a time-trav­el­ing expe­ri­ence.”

Iqbal choos­es her favorites from the collection—Bob Dylan, Ravi Shankar, Mud­dy Waters, Djan­go Reinhardt—discussing them as they qui­et­ly play in the back­ground. For the full Hen­drix expe­ri­ence, we’d need to crank the vin­tage ampli­fi­er to 11. He liked to lis­ten loud. Etch­ing­ham “recalled that they had to ‘stick a ha’penny with sel­l­otape onto the turntable arm… oth­er­wise it would jump up and down the loud­er it got.” He would occa­sion­al­ly blow the rein­forced speak­ers dur­ing par­ties and have to take them in for repair.

The flat also func­tioned as a com­po­si­tion room, and Hendrix’s friends stopped by to jam. (Richie Havens debuted his “anti-war anthem ‘Hand­some John­ny’ to a small par­ty in the flat on Hendrix’s Epi­phone acoustic gui­tar.”) Han­del & Hen­drix in Lon­don have revived the prac­tice with their Hen­drix Flat Ses­sions, invit­ing musi­cians to play in the space. Above, Mar­cus Macha­do talks about what Hen­drix means to him and jams a ver­sion of “Voodoo Child (Slight Return)” while sit­ting on Hendrix’s bed.

See sev­er­al more Hen­drix Flat Ses­sions here. The records in Hen­drix’s col­lec­tion “cov­er blues, jazz, folk, rock, psy­che­delia and even a hand­ful of clas­si­cal LPs.” See Iqbal’s selec­tions, with anno­ta­tions from Han­del & Hen­drix in Lon­don, here. The Hen­drix Flat is cur­rent­ly open to the pub­lic on Sat­ur­days.

via Vinyl Fac­to­ry

Relat­ed Con­tent:  

Watch Rare Footage of Jimi Hen­drix Per­form­ing “Voodoo Child” in Maui, Plus a Trail­er for a New Doc­u­men­tary on Jimi Hendrix’s Leg­endary Maui Per­for­mances (1970)

How Sci­ence Fic­tion Formed Jimi Hen­drix

Behold Moe­bius’ Many Psy­che­del­ic Illus­tra­tions of Jimi Hen­drix

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness