This
is no ordinary psychedelic adventure, for only black cherry Smirnoff
laced Dr. Pepper was ingested.
April 1st 2007:
One
day after my
meeting with Benador Associates freelance affiliate
Seva Brodsky, I had on my mind the subject of people who are
ideological opposites but who agree in most matters. I had just
completed reading a book on Vintage Synthesizers (by Mark Vail).
This
afternoon, I
ate cracked pepper crackers with imported danish
swiss cheese and ham slices, lime chili chips, guacamole, whitefish
caviar, and drank black cherry vodka enhanced Dr. Pepper, which is like
Dr. Pepper on steroids.
I have been
playing fuzz
pedal guitar (Coleman Astro Fuzz) with the amp propped up on my
couch. As I am working on my next album, I have been periodically
pulling songs from my record collection, ripping them to computer and
digitally remastering them. My readings and my listenings have taken me
to Voltage Controlled analogue synthesizer music, those machines with
knobs and wires but no keys. I have been listening to Andre Previn
(Rollerball), The United States of America, The Mystic Moods, Soft
Machine, and this happened:
While honing
in randomly on various records with songs of a particular
sound, I pulled "Kelly's Heroes," "The Big Bounce," and "The Strawberry
Statement." The sound I was honing in on is best described as
stereotyped, almost parodied white bread countercultural electronic
music. Coming off the weekend meetup, I have been deeply entranced in
"real 1960s" versus "asshole modern lefty" activists, and have been
looking for some great connection between all of these things.
Long story short, it turns out that the Kelly's Heroes song "Burning
Bridges" is by Mike Curb Congregation. "The Big Bounce" was produced by
Mike Curb. And again, The Strawberry Statement, a hippie tear gas movie
was produced by Mike Curb, 1969 head of MGM records.
I has selected these records by sound and feeling with disregard to
title and producer. And lo, three are produced by the same guy. Loving
this amusing goocher I decided to look up Mike Curb and find what must
be the salient connector of all this emerging nexus. And so I find what
I am looking for:
"A "boy wonder" in business, at age 21 [Mike Curb] started his own
record company [...] sold it out for a large amount of money,[... ] was
then appointed head of MGM Records in 1969. [...] he was perhaps best
known for his culturally conservative policy of ridding the company of
bands that were associated with drugs or hippies, thus dumping the
Velvet Underground, the Mothers of Invention and others. [...] he
organized his own group, The Mike Curb Congregation, which along with
the Osmonds was accused by critics of presenting a "white bread" sound
but which sold millions of records. [...] Curb was encouraged to enter
politics in part by Ronald Reagan. Curb was elected lieutenant governor
in November, 1978, at the same time as the reelection of Governor Jerry
Brown."
Thus emerges the self-assembling synthesis of my random acts of today
into an understanding of what I must do in the recording of my new
album: I must resurrect the experimental psychedelic electronic sound
of 1969 while using it to endorse values that are extremely right wing,
oppressive, capitalistic, and reactionary. At the same time, I must
continue to lavishly miscegenate with the black musical idiom and
produce something which is both utterly facile, and technically
mesmerizing and incomprehensible.
Nota Bene:
The
Strawberry Statement cast: Bruce
Davison, Kim
Darby, Bob Balaban, and Michael Margotta
director:
Stuart Hagmann
108 minutes
(R) 1970 MGM
NTSC VHS retail Also
available to buy on
DVD
RATING: 6/10 reviewed by
Gary Couzens Simon (a
very
youthful-looking Bruce Davison, actually 23 at the time) is a student
in San Francisco. A member of the rowing team, he's vaguely liberal in
politics but generally unaware of what is going on - namely, student
protest at the University's plans to repossess black-occupied
tenements. As much through his developing romance with the more
activist Linda (Kim Darby), he gradually becomes more involved.
Needless to
say, The Strawberry Statement (based on a book by James Kunen) is very
much a product of its time. In the wake of the success of Easy Rider,
major studios green-lighted many 'youth' movies like this, hiring
younger directors who were - they hoped - more attuned to a demographic
than the older studio heads. Some very strange and interesting films
were made; including some that would be far too arty for a major studio
to touch before or since. Taboos were being broken too, a process to
which The Strawberry Statement contributes: it contains brief nudity
and three 'fucks' in the dialogue.
The
Strawberry Statement has quite a few things in its favour: excellent
performances from a fine cast, a strong sense of San Francisco at the
time, and a literate screenplay by distinguished playwright Israel
Horovitz (father of Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz). Horovitz also appears
in the small role of Dr Benton. The film is clearly on the side of
students: the title refers to a teacher's comment that a student's
opinion is as relevant to him as whether or not the student likes
strawberries. However, it's not too simplistic: one scene with one of
Simon's rowing colleagues demonstrates that some of the students are
very much on the side of authority against 'commies'. There's also an
excellent soundtrack, featuring Joni Mitchell's The Circle Game (sung
with much vibrato by Buffy Sainte-Marie), Thunderclap Newman's
Something In The Air, Crosby, Stills and Nash with or without Neil
Young, Young solo, not to mention John Lennon's Give Peace A Chance
sung by the protestors. Unfortunately, that music selection may well
preclude a retail video or Region 2 DVD release in the near future,
unless someone spends the time and money to clear the rights for home
viewing. (Apparently ex-rental videos can be bought online - presumably
very old tapes released before someone realised that the music in the
film was only licensed for theatrical and TV showings.) In the
meantime, you'll have to keep an eye out for television screenings. In
the UK, the cable/satellite/digital channel TCM has shown it more than
once recently.
What lets
the film down is its direction. Stuart Hagmann was a TV director, with
several episodes of Mission: Impossible to his name. The Strawberry
Statement was his theatrical debut. He directed one more film (Believe
In Me, 1971) before returning to the small screen, and the IMDb lists
no credits after 1977. His penchant for odd angles and tricksy cutting
is also very much of its time, and becomes distracting. His pacing is
off, making the film drag in places, and the switches in tone (comedy,
romance, stark tragedy) don't entirely work. He has a strange liking
for overhead shots, taken to an extreme at the film's ending (some
shots of protestors looking like something Busby Berkeley might have
devised), distancing us when we should be most involved.
Despite its
flaws, The Strawberry Statement is an interesting film from a time of
considerable changes in Hollywood, and it remains worth tracking down
today.
