#5: Pop!

 

Quantum Anonymous #5:

“Pop!"

 

As previously mentioned, ol’ qTom is rather rattled about this reality. A place where The Get Quick hardly exist.

Probably most of you reading will have trouble imagining another reality: One where rock and roll didn't exist.

Long ago, it did. And I was there. Difficult terrain to picture these days, but a few of us are still bimbling about who remembers the dawn of pop.

And just like Quantum, the pop phenomena depended on a random convergence of various technologies.

Rock and Roll was a collision of elements. The most powerful element was electrified guitars. Through pickups and amplifiers, that formerly modest instrument achieved revolutionary levels of industrial thunder.

The lads who played them achieved the same thunder.

Many of them were like the formerly humble guitar: modest sorts who were suddenly “plugged in” and broadcast to millions of screaming people.

That happened thanks to FM radio and long playing records. The entirely new band of airwaves had lots of space to fill. And long playing records (LPs) were the new medium to fill it.

Prior to that, the plastics and polymers required for producing records limited their size. We listened to brittle little “singles”that shared just a pair of songs on either side. Far from hi-fidelity, these were. But revolutions in material fabrication allowed for new LP (long play) records. These held multiple songs on large record “sides". Played them better, too. Grooves ran deeper, producing a superior sound. And that sound was everywhere, thanks to transistor radios. Big bulky vacuum tubes were gone, and music was everywhere.

So were the people who made it.

Jet travel introduced the “jet set” who dazzled us all. They were like new Gods, flying about the world. Dinner in Hollywood, then stepping off to Paris was brilliant stuff. Never before happened. We didn’t know them, but saw them everywhere. Television brought them into our homes. Movie screens made them giants. Radio poured their voices into our dreams. Catching sight of them in real life was like a revelation. People screamed. They wept. All of this was shown through media, amplifying the waves.

These waves of rock star fame were all new. People who rode them were test subjects, in many ways. People had never been put through such social distortions before. Global, mediated, broadcast pop idols were on their own. No rulebooks to follow, few guardrails in place, running through an absolutely mental business without precedent. For my money, the wonder isn't why so many rock and roll stars imploded. The true miracle is how many of them didn't.

Those who survived such stresses moved culture with the force of tidal waves. The Get Quick was one of those waves. The biggest one, really. In the glorious bloom of the 1960s, they popped on the scene just like… well, Pop!.

Pop! was the Get Quick’s first hit single. Anyone from my generation will tell you where they first heard it. The moment is etched in our hearts. 

Hearts were different back then. That's what the world had more of: heart.

We were all in it together, in a way people aren't, today. We didn't think much about making money because there wasn't much of it to be made. In Britain, long after the war, we still had rations on gas cards. There weren't all these millionaires and billionaires bumbling about. Most of us were regular folk getting by. And that didn't take all that much, really. Wages were right and rent was low. Spirits were mostly high.

Regarding my spirit, it's not British. I'm a Welshman, thank you very much.

Please don't call me English. It’s something most Americans do, and one of the few vexations I have about your wonderful land: You all bloody think I'm British! I'm a Welshman, born and raised in the "Land of Song."

My father was a miner and a fine pianist. I'd rate him higher than most of the session blokes who bumbled their way through the BBC. Had he been born in swinging London, Dad would have been swinging. Although I don't think he would have taken to that lifestyle, really. Family man. Church going, coal digging, proud as the day was long and ready to sing the night away.

When my Mam let him, mind you. She had the voice of an angel. Temperament of one, too. Excepting when she boxed your ears with her shoe. If that happened you were due for it. And those two made a fine family of 8 children, putting the fear of God and joy of song in every one of us.

I was climbing at the piano before I was old enough to reach the keys. Learned my scales like I learned how to tie me shoes. Someone got hold of an old guitar and we all learned to strum it along with Dad's violin and a few tubs for drums. Nights we played; the lot of us. Summers we threw the doors and windows open and people passed through the parlor, all night long. Neighbors and laborers, friends and family. Singing along, bringing a bass fiddle, buckets from the pub, one more tenor and oh, what a time we had.

This was Wales, “the land of song.”

Music was your job once the kitchen was cleaned proper and the steps were swept. Jump in where you're needed and don't rush the tempo!

Oh, they were lovely days, wonderful nights. Lovely people, me Mam a Dad. Lovely place then, Wales. The streets themselves were humming tunes. If you'd ask me as a lad, I'd swear the sod itself was singing. If that drew a laugh, I'd knock you down in it. This was how we handled things in Wales, you see. We'd sort things out with our fists, shake off the dirt when it was done, then shake hands. That was our way.

That’s what I took with me, when I went to University in the UK. That’s the mindset that set me apart from most of the blokes in my business. What helped me survive, I reckon. Music in me blood and plain common sense in the noggin. Most people in the program weren’t really grounded. Reality shifted and blew them away. That was Quantum.

We’ll get there.

Remember…

We’ll get everywhere.

How yours truly blundered into Quantum should be discussed next, me thinks.

Not much to that.

I’m just some bloke who got in the way of it all.

More the morrow