Would there ever have been Sonic Youth if there hadn't been Helter Skelter?

I think Sonic Youth owe more to the Velvet Underground and the Stooges than they do to one isolated Beatles track.

i think the bigger influence was probably on charles manson.

I think [x] will pretty much always exist if [y] hadn't happened. 'Cuz if [y] didn't do it, someone else - [z], or [x] themself - likely would have. And often, [z] (or [m] or [n] etc) did it before [y] anyway but didn't get the acclaim or exposure. Easy to peg influence, harder to peg innovation.

that still doesn't explain where add n to (x) came from.

Sheffield, I think.

'helter skelter' is an awesome track. sy's influences were much broader than just the beatles, but its worth noting that the only reason Pussy Galore covered Exile in its entirety was because SY often spoke of doing the same with The White Album.

I can't be bothered to hoik it out the shelves and read it properly, but Ian MacDonald argues that the Beatles' flirtation with random "Cageian" avant-gardism in eg Revolution #9, has direct and irresponsible responsibility for eg Manson-type misreading-projection and mayhem. MacDonald, less well read than he thinks he is, blames this on "post-modernism" and waxes v.pompous and tiresome.

Sonic Youth's immediate influences are Mars and early Ubu, Branca and Rhys Chatham: then a raft of Forced Exposure-type noise stuff. Their Manson thing was always their weakest card, I think: four basically nice people playing horrible monster.

McCartney playing Horrible Metal is a different matter: of course, White Album was the Fab bid to prove they could do — had always been doing — everything their chart rivals were now up to. At a technical level, McCartney was easily the superior rocker/screamer: yet there's always something somewhat empty and technical about his screaming; he can do it — it's not him. Helter Skelter is a brilliant yet also a chillingly null cut: which Manson, uber-manipulator, picked up on * instantly*, and twisted into his mythology.

Can't remember where I read this, but wasn't 'Helter Skelter' written by McCartney in response to a record that he felt didn't actually live up to its 'heavy'/noisy rep? Have always wondered if this disc was VU+NICO - according to Danny Fields in the Bockris/Malanga bk, Brian Epstein and his lover took a copy of the first Velvets alb with them when they went on holiday to Mexico, played nothing else the whole time they were there, so it's vaguely poss. that Epstein passed the alb onto McCartney when he got back... isn't it? You could therefore MAYBE make a connection between Sonic Youth and 'Helter Skelter' existing in response to the VU sound/myth (all NY bands have to 'acknowledge' the influence of the VU, pos or neg), 'cos otherwise I don't really HEAR much connection at all. 'Helter Skelter' seems to have been a much bigger influence on proto-metal blues handbangers like Led Zep - Ringo's drumming on the track becomes Bonham's whomping unfunky-funk beat/break.

I think it's The Who that McCartney was trying to outdo in noise/heaviness on that song. I wish Thurston Moore had picked up on McCartney's *vocals* instead, but he'd probably make a lousy screamer (Kim Gordon sure does).

is paul mccartney a screamer?

so this means helter skelter should not have ever been written? what about the gordons, they were doing the sonic youth thing first and with much more impressive results.

Helter Skelter is where pop noise music begins Keith.Macca was the man who started it all..

Helter Skelter is where pop noise music begins Keith.

This, of course, is rubbish.

were the who the first major rock band to use guitar distortion? i heard this and am unsure.

Beatles, Ethan. At least on record, at least if major means anything.

Ignore the 50s claimants: Ike Turner, Link Wray, Johnny Burnette. They are American and thus not yet pop.

Late 1963, Townshend/Clapton/Beck/Dave Davies are all inducing fuzz and feedback onstage in London clubs (Davies takes a razor to his amp cone). Townshend is working with amp-designer Jim Marshall (who'd been in a jazzband with PT's dad): he has heard RMOURS of Clapton's approach but not seen it live; he "imitates" it by guesswork.

In the studio, sessionmen Jimmy Page and Big Jim Sullivan use primitive fuzzboxes on P. J. Proby’s 1964 hits ‘Hold Me’ and ‘Together’.

December 1964: feedback intro to Beatles ‘I Feel Fine’ (US/UK #1).

June 1965: Kinks tour: they play ‘Really Got Me Goin’ for 45 minutes. Marshall builds first 100-watter for The Who and the Thames Valley Delta Bluesmob. Hi-volume psychedelia emerges from tour interface between Yardbirds/Kinks/Coltrane-influenced Byrds...

that's not fair because i like the who and i don't like the beatles. the thing about dave davies is cool though.

"This is a song U2 stole from Charles Manson, and ILM is stealing it back."

Ignore the 50s claimants: Ike Turner, Link Wray, Johnny Burnette. They are American and thus not yet pop.

This was probably a facetious comment, but if not: huh ?! I'm sure all three of 'em were hoping to get played on the radio and sell tons of records, not merely recording for a cult audience. Or maybe your definition of pop is different.

I guess we woudl have to ask Thurston. HE is getting into noise art these days, he was at my school feedbacking his ass off during a sound art show. I wonder if he has blisters on his fingers. BUt I agree it hard ot poin to one song as influence of SY. THey were probably most influenced by 1975 punk.

Patrick: "thus not yet pop"

Sorry, yes, one of my condensed jokes amusing only to me. Ethan asked abt "major rock groups", and orig. I deflected the 50s guys on the grounds they were "not yet rock" (a point of definition that's perhaps a wee bit more consensus). Then I realised that aoccrding to MY canons, Beatles/Yardbirds/Kinks/Who in 1964 weren't yet "rock" either, but still pop (because "rock" comes into being as a communal celebration of amplified noise in 1965/66: year of the festivals, year of the full-on US response to the UK invasion, and when did Crawdaddy start publication?) - so I just swapped the words, to see what happened. The result seemed argumentative AND incomprehensible, a blend I like, so I left it.

A more interesting thread than I thought it would be.

Mark nails McCartney well, as often. I don't agree with MacDonald that the Beatles were a shit rock band or that "Helter Skelter" was a contrived crappy noisy mess but I would agree with Mark that Paul doesn't sound as though he *means* it. Doesn't make "Helter Skelter" any less effective for me; I like it (far better than rock'n'roll revival piffle like "Birthday"), but like most Beatles tracks, it's been overrated by quite a few people (though not, on the whole, the *same* people who overrate Revolver or the early singles).

The White Album is where all the strands of late 60s music, the nascent 70s, come together for the last time, apart from occasional reconciliations as with Zep's folk-influenced side, but also where the Beatles for the first time start to chase clocks (not just attempts at early metal, but the quasi-Incredible String Band of "Mother Nature's Son", "Ob-La-Di Ob-La-Da" which sounds even in its original form exactly like the written-to-order bubblegum number one it became for Marmalade, etc., etc.). It's the beginning of the creative end, I'm afraid, but easily my favourite Beatles record despite everything.

The White album's flaws make it my fave too. Help/Rubber Soul/Revolver etc sound just too *neat* to satisfy like TWA does. Helter Skelter isn't much good - it needs to be a whole lot heavier and rougher to work IMHO. Paul just can't cut 'nasty',the tempo's too fast and the guitars are too polite. Considering that real mayhem was possible with an electric guitar by 1968, maybe Paul had stopped listening (distracted by internal Beatles politics?) and mistakenly thought this would pass muster as 'heavy'. I'd need to reach for MacDonald to check on the background to the song, what else was happening at the time, who else played on the track etc to get any further with this.

Long,Long,Long, on the other hand, is breathtaking - George not trying to compete with John and Paul for 'songwriterly acclaim', just creating something of his own.

Interestingly, I listened to more Beatles in the summer of 1996 than at any other time of my life. I formed my preference for the White Album partially because it sounded messy enough that it couldn't be coralled into the sentimental myth of the 60s being propagated at the time; it struck me as, simply, far more interesting. Revolver, in that time, has gone for me from pretty good to, with a couple of fairly obvious exceptions, grotesquely overrated, almost unbearably mediocre.

The White Album's easily Harrison's best work, as well.

The white album is half-assed.

Robin, I'd say that George's 'It's All Too Much' (from the 'Yellow Sub' S/T) beats any of his contribs to the White Alb, but p'raps I just prefer 'feel good' psych-out rave-ups to the whimsical 'satire' of 'Piggies' etc.

Piggies is obviously shit, yes. But It's All Too Much?? Jesus, that's a real stinker. I second the pro-Long Long Long faction.

Oh yes Nick, "Long Long Long" will always be my favourite. I meant Harrison's contributions to that album *on the whole*, obviously not "Piggies".

I even quite like "While My Guitar Gently Weeps", though MacDonald's obviously right that the song structure anticipates stadium rock and AOR.

I wish Thurston Moore had picked up on McCartney's *vocals* instead but he'd probably make a lousy screamer

the snarls on "kill yr idols" could rape the liverpool out of any puny whingeing michael jackson backup. chuck eddy can fuck himself.