Face it: The 1960s was the best time for rock 'n' roll. David Crosby, who was in the middle of it all, calls it "an explosive period, like the Impressionist era or the Renaissance."
But while Crosby is still tearing up the big stages on the current Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young tour, there are dozens who have slipped out of the public eye or essentially retired. How do you top the perfect single? What do you do when the captains of industry are no longer interested, but there is still much to say? And how do you keep in touch with all the screaming fans?
Go online, of course.
Recently, 1960s rock musicians have established an official online presence, to keep them active and visible.
Link with their fans
Not to be confused with the plethora of annoying and sycophantic fan pages, these sites allow musicians to tell their story and market their music, even if they slip out of the public eye or lose their recording contract. Fans can log on, if only to tell a once-relevant rocker that they are cool.
There is no formula for success. The unlikely pair of Roger McGuinn (Byrds) and Peter Noone (Herman's Hermits) thrive, while The Who's Pete Townshend and Eric Burdon have so far stumbled. Todd Rundgren will fulfill his potential any day now, while the brothers formerly known as The Kinks offer a split decision.
Direct connection
While the quality varies, the most attractive aspect is the ability to attract the fan base directly without the encumbrance of a record company.
"We're seeing the birth of the musician business, taking the place of the music business," said John Perry Barlow, who has written lyrics for the Grateful Dead. "Musicians are now in the position to interact with the audience without the intermediaries who have made money from music without contributing anything."
For the past few years, fans of 1960s rock have been able to see their old idols in small venues, at close distances that were once unimaginable.
Online, they can reach out and touch in unprecedented ways. There may be nothing tangible to save, but this interaction can mean a lot more than an autographed picture.
Eight Miles Higher than Everyone Else: Roger McGuinn
http://metalab.unc.edu/jimmy/mcguinn/index.html
The site is first defined by what it is not: There are no self-serving paeans to the artist that inflate or exaggerate his importance (although considering McGuinn's 1960s presence, it would be hard to overstate his influence). There are no flashy graphics or tricky videos; rather the site is almost primitive.
Each month he posts a new version of a traditional folk tune to the "Folk Den." After four years there is a profound selection of traditional songs.
McGuinn, who was a session wizard before his Byrds tenure, is mining his roots to yield a truly original product.
The songs include a few recorded in the 1950s, when McGuinn was a teenager. All are traditional (to avoid royalty charges) and provide a cross-section of American music. He provides the history of each song along with lyrics and chords, but no specific guitar instruction. He explains "tablature is tedious. If you want to learn to play it, you can just listen carefully and pick it out." Just like "real" folk music.
McGuinn takes no advertising (and makes no money) on the page, calling it a "global community service." He also uses the page to keep up with fans in his own way.
Most Likely to (Eventually) Succeed: Todd Rundgren
http://www.tr-i.com/
Rundgren's idea is the flip-side of McGuinn's: He creates new music and uploads it to the site, where it is accessible to fans who have paid a subscription fee. There are several options, with online access or offline products, videos and other "filler" (his word, not ours).
This is the ultimate take-it-to-the-people move. Rundgren's fans are nothing if not dedicated, and would pay far more than the $60 required for the "Die Hard Package." Some fans spend that much on bootlegs in a month.
The idea is to have a "Folk Den" full of original music and works in progress that is unrestricted by the minds of the music business.
But Rundgren , who announced this idea a few years back, hasn't been able to get it off the ground. It's that gnarly business angle rearing its ugly head again.
So while we wait for him to pull it together (the target date is sometime this spring), there is still a lot to enjoy on this site.
A hilarious backward "Time's Arrow" (the Martin Amis novel where time moves in reverse) style biography highlights all of his accomplishments and offers some insights into his past lives. If there was a price of admission, this would already be well worthwhile.
Rundgren's daredevil, left-of-center approach has deliberately pushed many people away. His entire career seems to say, "If you are stupid, then I don't want you at my party." Unfortunately, most of us are just a little bit stupid.
Right now, it appears that his last great album was 1985's "A Capella," but Todd's never been a guy that you get right away. The Web is his oyster; the pearls just take awhile to become apparent.
Who Cares?: Pete Townshend
http://www.petetownshend.com/
http://www.eelpie.com/
http://www.thewhodirect.com/
The peripatetic Rock Operameister recently established three different sites. One is to celebrate his continuing solo career and another to commercialize it. The third site is devoted to merchandising The Who. These official pages are notable because they actually provide less depth, information and personality than your average fan site.
There is some promise. Eeelpie (presumably Britishspeak for "LP") will begin to "exclusively" market his six-disk solo opus "Lifehouse Chronicles" later this month. On the other hand, The Who site's offering of bassist John Entwistle's original art for $9,000 is, to paraphrase an old drug saying, a divine way of telling us that we have way too much money. As an artist, Entwistle is still one of the best bass players on the planet.
Townshend, as one of the most introspective and repetitious rock musicians (in the most positive sense), has so far missed the opportunity to move such narcissism online. Instead of enhancing he is only repeating himself.
Witness his imperious message, which reads in part, "I have promised to make all kinds of contributions whenever I can, and (Webmaster) Matt has promised to present me with any vital issues he feels I should address." Uh-huh. This is the 21st century version of the 1960s fan club, without the interactivity.
This Site Swings Both Ways: Peter Noone
http://www.peternoone.com/
http://www.hermanshermits.com/
Older fans remember The Who opening for Herman's Hermits and literally blowing them off of the stage. On the Web, it's now reversed. As leader of Herman's Hermits, 17-year-old Peter Noone was responsible for some of the most endearing pop of the British Invasion.
Trouble was, the one-two punch of "Sgt. Pepper" and the Summer of Love made them pretty much irrelevant. Things have settled down, and Noone - while he decidedly did not contribute the best music of our favorite decade - now, at 52, has one of the best Web pages.
The trick is he doesn't take himself too seriously. He knows his music, which he continues to perform, is still pretty good, but it's not rocket science. He claims to log on at least once a day, to interact with fans and leave his own posts, which are somewhere between autobiography and cockeyed revisionist history.
"I'm a closet writer, and this page has given me the opportunity to explore this," he said. As a writer, he's a pretty good writer. His eye for detail (he wrote a whole treatise on cabbage) gives fans new insight to the person who made their childhood a little brighter.
If Noone has done nothing else, he has remade the idea of a fan club. "When I was touring back in the '60s, fans would send letters to my management or record company and it would take months to get to me, if I would read them at all," he said. "Today I get them right away, and if someone wants to hear a particular song at a particular concert I can fill their request."
He recalls ironic advice once offered to him by John Lennon: "Fans are great, if you don't let them breathe on you." And Noone is still taking online compliments for his old records. "If we knew people would still listen to them in 30 years we would have cleaned them up," he now says.
Hey, Hey, We're the Has-Beens:
http://www.ericburdon.com/
http://www.neverenough.com/dolenzonline.html
http://www.marklindsay.com/
The flip side of the disc comes from Noone's old label mate, Eric Burdon, whose nasty Animals provided a rough counterpoint to the wholesome Hermits. Opposite to Noone, Burdon's page is dark and self-aggrandizing as he appoints himself the keeper of the Jimi Hendrix legacy.
The rest of the site lets us know how cool he is and how much he has contributed to rock. This may be true, but it is better form to let someone else say such things. Burdon's art isn't much better than Entwistle, but at least he has the perspective to not ask ridiculous prices.
Burdon is not the only one to excessively toot his own flute, so it's perhaps unfair to single him out. Which brings up Mickey Dolenz. Dolenz pretentiously opens his site with blue type on a black background, listing the various options, which include "artwork," "scripts" and something called "demoiselle."
Here's the truth for Mickey: A lot of fans wonder how you are doing, what your latest effort may be and why it is necessarily more exciting than "I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone." But a lot of people care about only one thing: What do you look like today? We want a large, clear shot that was taken three days ago in your back yard.
While (Paul Revere and the Raiders singer) Mark Lindsay gives us a nice opening shot, he manages to violate every other remaining rule of Web design. He uses varying fonts, bright colors and exclamation points like they were on sale. An entire section has different sickly colored lettering on a background that can only be described as a bubbling tarp. Reading this for any period of time will make you sick or dizzy. An irony, because "Kicks" was an antidrug song.
Jeckyll and Hyde: The Davies Brothers
http://www.raydavies.com/
http://www.davedavies.com/
Ray Davies led the Kinks through three decades of occasionally brilliant music, while younger brother Dave always loudly challenged his authority. The kid's won on the Web. Ray's site is not only pretty limp, it's outdated.
Fans want news, and when we read that Ray will be appearing somewhere in Ireland in November there is little incentive to return. Dave, on the other hand, smears his own fingerprints all over the site. Even with the annoying third person references he comes across as a real rather than a plastic person.
Furthermore, he has actually fulfilled the Internet's greatest promise: recorded some brand new songs (not repackages of old hits) and is selling an online CD. This six-song selection definitely operates “out of the box.”
Once, artists needed to fill certain time limits and pay attention to release schedules. Now, they can just record a few songs, press them on CD or just upload them to the site. There are no limits. You go, Dave.
Charles Bermant is a regular contributor to the Personal Technology section of The Seattle Times. His e-mail address is ptech@seatimes.com .
Copyright © 2000 The Seattle Times Company