“First Punks on the Block
“? And The Mysterians may as well come from outer space. These musical revolutionaries were children of migrant farmers, traveling to Michigan to pick crops and returning to their homes in Texas when the harvest was complete. After the automobile boom in Michigan opened new opportunities for employment, the families moved to Bay City, Michigan. The original trio, consisted of Larry Borjas (guitar), Robert Martinez (drums), and Bobby Balderrama (lead guitar). Not long after the band had formed, Martinez suggested the services of his older brother, Rudy Martinez, an aspiring singer and dancer. With Martinez, who went under the moniker, "?", quickly cementing himself as the group's creative force, they began to develop a blend of gritty rock and roll and pop rock, with a repertoire that encompassed compositions penned by The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. After they started to gain some momentum, fate intervened and the band recruited a keyboard player, Frank Rodriguez, who was a part of another local group, the Trespassers. The acquisition of Rodriguez proved to be pivotal in Question Mark and the Mysterians overall sound, more specifically their song, "96 Tears". Cry, cry cry.
I have a lot of respect for this band's contribution to the garage genre of music, mostly because their hit "96 Tears" helped spawn hundreds of garage bands in the '60s who gave us real classics of the garage punk genre. Later, New York's punk scene would bloom in big in the Bowery in Manhattan's Lower East Side. Places like CBGB'S and Max' Kansas City would introduce the world to a slew of punk rock stars who would carry on the party head-banging legend of rock 'n' roll.
So friends of Zeon, these sons of migrants knew tough times and in turn they made one of the toughest songs ever to blast from a garage, "96 Tears". It's a song that hypnotizes and sends you dancing into the ether.
No?
Maybe No:
Patty Smith.
No Talking Heads.
No Ramones.
No Billy Idol.
No Nirvana.
No Pearl Jam.
“Turned the garage into a castle!”
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Playmate, the Bard, and the Astrologer
The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.
–William Shakespeare from Julius Caesar
With just one look I was a bad mess
'Cause that long cool woman had it all
–The Hollies
As a teen growing up on the beaches of Southern California, Evangeline Daughtry was the very essence of Brain Wilson's Beach Boy's classic song “Surfer Girl.” With her flowing blonde hair, blue eyes and a body that caused whiplash when she walked by, there was no question Ms. Daughtry had hit the jackpot in the lucky gene pool.
By the time she was 19, she had been approached by several agencies with offers to model. Soon one of Hugh Hefner's talent scouts came calling after word of her appearances on Santa Monica Beach came to their attention. Playboy-sponsored appearances at various promotions followed.
After her 1965 Miss January shoot in Malibu, Evangeline's modeling career and social life went into full orbit. The sixties were in full swing, especially in California, and she was involved in the whole groovy scene, some days from dusk till dawn. Playboy, with its full embrace of the new secular, free love revolution, was read by everyone. And so she became a celebrity of sorts, and while that was fun at first (all the bag boys at the grocery store competed to see who could carry her stuff to the car), after a while she began to tire of all the attention. As for the social scene, I mean a girl can only go to so many "Love-Ins" and parties in LA without becoming an alcoholic, a junkie or an acid freak. She had done LSD once and was singularly unimpressed. As far as she was concerned, acid was just another tool to get girls involved in orgies.
Growing weary of all the peace, love and understanding that was part of the cultural firmament in California, her natural wanderlust led her East to New York in the early Spring of 1965, where she quickly got a job at the New York Playboy Club. During the day, she also moonlighted as a swim suit model. New York was a totally different cultural milieu of course, but the one thing it shared with California was a rapidly growing and dynamic music scene. There was a revolution in music during this period and she couldn't get enough of the new sounds and musicians. That's how she met Jonathan Richmond, at an East Village coffee house, where they were both watching this new poet folk singer from Minnesota.
The night Evangeline first met him, at the Village Vanguard, she had brought along a fellow bunny who also loved the new music scene. Jonathan was with his scientist girlfriend, Elizabeth, a slender brunette with sparkling green eyes who was technically his superior in the Space Program. Fortunately for office protocol, they were in completely different departments. Her expertise, being an applied mathematics genius, was in manipulating the Escape Velocity Calculator. They had dating now for a year and even though she was not an overly passionate lover, she was so very bright, skilled and organized that Jonathan felt utterly at ease in her company.
But in the middle of the first set, Evangeline looked up and found him gazing over at her. She smiled back and he continued to look over whenever the chance presented itself. Elizabeth as always, was completely oblivious to his serial flirtations. She was mesmerized by the performer and occasionally chatting with other friends at nearby table. Evangeline was somehow drawn to this stranger. He wasn't by any means classically handsome, but he was cute enough, had an easy smile, and possessed an easy confidence. At the end of the second set, he brushed by her table and left a note on the way to the coffee bar.
The next morning, Evangeline got up and did her usual four-mile morning run. The fitness craze had just begun and she was inherently what nowadays is called an "early adopter." On the way back on her run, she began to think of the previous evening and how the vibe in that coffee house was so gratifying. As she turned for the final half-mile stretch to her apartment, she saw her neighbor, Melanie Cohen, from two doors down walking toward her on her way to an appointment. Dressed in the latest Bohemian style, this charismatic lady in her late thirties had introduced herself by helping Evangeline carry her clothes when she moved in.
Later that week over coffee, Melanie told her she was an astrologer and psychic with a very eclectic list of clients. Well, Evangeline quickly came under the spell of her clever, artful neighbor. Indeed, she soon had her chart done by Melanie, and became a regular client, on the value plan of course.
Melanie told Evangeline that her stars were aligned for dramatic, life-altering events. One session, after telling Melanie about Jonathan and his advances, despite him being with another girl, Melanie advised her to overcome her inhibitions and call him.
She and Jonathan met a few days later for a glass of wine, with Melanie coming along for comfort, of course. She had requested to be there, so she could further size him up, or so she told Evangeline. And so Jonathan and Evangeline began to see each other for coffee and the occasional glass of wine. But there was nothing more than flirtation at this point in their friendship. She found him engaging, brilliant and witty in a dry way.
Then, at the end of one such encounter, he invited her to come along with his friends to the Newport Folk Festival in nearby Rhode Island. His friend Leigh, who was gay, would be his beard as his girlfriend Elisabeth would be joining them as well. Evangeline asked, “Why is she going along if you're inviting me?” He told her that she was actually his supervisor at work and they were at a critical juncture at work and that he mustn't break off their relationship. "It's office politics. One day you'll understand," he said with a chuckle. From her time at the Playboy Club and on her modeling assignments, she had come to know all about politics, but it still rankled her that he was not totally honest with Elisabeth. But, Jonathan was
the most brilliant man she had ever met, and so she decided to play along.
Despite her misgivings, Melanie told her to go and experience the scene, as Newport gave off "one of the grooviest vibes on the planet. It's just right for your karma," intoned the sloe-eyed astrologer.
Well, Evangeline did indeed go to the Newport Folk Festival in 1965 and the rest is intergalactic history.
Leigh and Jonathan were excited to see their bard, and musical hero, Bob Dylan.
Little did the chameleon-like Minnesota native know but on that fateful day, he was about to make musical history.
As they excitedly waited for him to appear, Jonathan and Leigh were surprised to see Dylan's crew setting up heavy sound equipment before his performance. They exchanged nervous glances with the people around them. Evangeline, while she enjoyed the Minnesota poet a great deal, did not have the seismic expectations that Jonathan and the others had for Mr. Dylan.
They were in for a shock to the system. For on that fateful day, Bob's hard-charging ensemble would ignite a cultural earthquake that would send off waves that are still being felt to this day. With guitarist Mike Bloomfield, keyboard player Al Kooper and members of The Paul Butterfield Blues Band backing him, Dylan took to the stage with his Fender Stratocaster on the evening of July 25, 1965 and launched into an electrified version of "Maggie's Farm." As he and his band tore through the next song, "Like a Rolling Stone," with electric guitars wailing, it became apparent to them that their idol had joined the rock rabble.
Jonathan and most of the crowd booed Bob's performance vociferously and furiously left the festival in a state of shock. Dismay and betrayal were the emotions running throughout the massive throng.
The prophet's spell had been broken.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Reminiscence Bump
All it takes is 1 song to bring back 1,000 memories.
–Unknown
As Trax had told Zorbane earlier about the Shapers’ mind-altering deletion of his musical memories through Aversion Therapy, perhaps we should acquaint ourselves with a technique so critical to our story.
Classical Conditioning is all about transferring an automatic response (such as drooling when you see or smell food) to a new, formerly neutral stimulus (such as hearing a bell ring). As Pavlov famously demonstrated with dogs in Russia, if you ring the bell enough times before presenting food, the dogs will learn to drool when they hear the bell (an unnatural response) because they associate the bell with the prediction that food is about to appear. So, classical conditioning is all about associating one stimulus in your environment with another.
This basic human tendency has been modified slightly in a therapeutic technique called "Aversion Therapy." Here, the therapist tries to modify a person's behavior by teaching him or her to associate the behavior (or even thinking about the behavior) with some kind of negative consequence, such as the pain of electric shock or extreme nausea. In one treatment for alcoholism, alcoholics consume a pill that has no effect unless they also consume alcohol; the combined drugs cause intense projectile vomiting designed to make the alcoholics want to avoid alcohol in the future. This method of behavioral modification was most famously carried out in Anthony Burgess's classic novel, A Clockwork Orange.
Aversion Therapy was applied to Zorbane when his father, Ranno, was discovered in 2003 with vinyl record LPs. The Shapers had to be certain that Zorbane was cleansed of any desire to ever listen to or be moved by such primitive, backward sounds. The banned discs had been smuggled in from Earth via Jonathan's ex Playboy Bunny lady friend, Evangeline Daughtry, who sold the valuable but illegal discs along with some marijuana seeds to Zorbane's grandfather, Parrimore. He was a most clever hustler who had hidden the discs, a turntable and the seeds successfully for years before sharing his secret stash with his son when he was mature enough to enjoy them.
Years later Parrimore's son, Ranno, was found with three bootleg records. One was Wanda Jackson's 1958 self-titled debut album, which featured the amazing "Let's Have a Party." The second was "Elvis is Back" and the third thoroughly illegal record was "Newport 1958" by Earth's gospel superstar Mahalia Jackson. Two jacks and a king got Ranno disappeared.
We flash forward and Zorbane and Trax are cruising through the music/data cloud in Earth's atmosphere. Then Zorbane became violently ill while listening to some of this music in the cloud while orbiting the Earth. After he broke through the trauma, Zorbane experienced what is called a "Reminiscence Bump." He was transported back to those years when his father had played him the provocative forbidden music of Wanda, Mahalia, and Elvis, when they were down in their basement. This bump occurs when you encounter memories of events or stimulus between the ages of 12-22. According to researchers at Earth's University of Leeds, these are the years when 'you become you'. These memories become uncommonly important throughout the rest of your life. They become part of your self-image, an integral part of your sense of self. So when Zorbane heard the alley cat growl of Wanda Jackson seemingly come of out of nowhere like an aural interstellar wrecking ball as they orbited Earth, he was transported back to the happy times in his basement on Zeon when he and his father shared the listening experience like the happy criminals they were.
So, thankfully for intergalactic relations, Aversion Therapy was overcome by a Reminiscence Bump.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Message in a Binary Bottle
Trust is hard to come by. That's why my circle is small and tight. I'm kind of funny about making new friends.
–Eminem
One day a few months after their deflating Newport experience, Jonathan received a call from his friend and colleague Leigh Redmond. He had startling news. Late one evening while working the graveyard shift at the Owens Valley observatory, Leigh had received what he had been waiting his entire life for, a translatable signal from another planet. He could barely contain himself as he immediately called Jonathan. It turned out the transmission was from a planet he didn't know existed: Zeon. It was located right on the edge of our galaxy and its scientists had created an effect that obscured it from our telescopes and listening devices. In their SOS, in English no less, he learned that Zeon had suffered a catastrophe when a comet laden with mosquitoes crashed into the planet and unleashed a primitive but deadly virus, malaria, which wiped out almost their entire civilization except for a few million-favored people who were housed in an underground hideaway. Zeon’s Mountain People, who lived an isolated existence in a massive mountain range where they toiled as farmers and miners for the necessities of the planet, were largely untouched by the disease. Fortunately, the disease had left the planet's infrastructure intact, and a wealth of technology and learning was available on digital drives.
Their SOS read:
"Please intelligent Earthlings, come save our planet before the barbaric Mountain People penetrate our defenses and loot, ransack and destroy all that we have built and achieved. There are perhaps five million of us left hiding underground. We are at your mercy. We plead with you generous Earthlings to bring the substance: DDT. It has been banned on Zeon for decades, but this antiquated chemical will wipe out the mosquito population that is killing us. If you and three friends travel here to help us, that is all our spacecraft has room for, you all will be assimilated into the Shapers Council, the most powerful governing body on the planet. We are an advanced homogenous race who have already cured cancer, banned war, and created a world free of oppression, hunger and want. Basically, we live in what you Earthlings might call a utopia."
Holy Gadzooks, Jonathan thought to himself.
Leigh emphasized to Jonathan that this communication must remain just within their tight knit circle; absolutely no one else must know. The war mongers and Capitalist Roaders who run the US government would want to invade Zeon or bl
ackmail them for advanced weapon systems to use against other countries. But they had to share their secret with someone because neither one of them could figure out the code to respond to the highly advanced super computer that Decleanus from Zeon was communicating with.
Fortunately for the planet of Zeon, there were men who possibly could configure the code. Yes, dealing with them would be difficult, but they were among the best in the world at code and computer science. Most importantly, they had already established a working relationship with Leigh and Jonathan. And, perhaps best of all, the father, Hans, was also disillusioned with NASA and Lyndon Baines Johnson.
Yes, Hans Roper, the certifiable genius who could pull this off, was a protégé of Wernher von Braun. He had been brought to America for Operation Paper Clip in 1945. His son, Kurt, was emerging as his father's equal at computer science. And best of all, Kurt also seemed to share Han’s disdain for America's Post-Camelot leadership.
"Is this hick really the best we can do in this country?" Kurt Roper said every time he read an article on LBJ or saw him on TV.
Poverty Rocks! (Rock n' Roll in Outer Space Book 1) Page 7