Rockhunter, Issue 34, 6 March 2007
Generic Psych and the Realism of Sublime Repetition, II
Christian’s Generic Psych: Side A, Track 1: “Action Painting” by The Ricketts
Some have called The Ricketts’ 1969 version of this tune a freakbeat classic, and others have simply referred to it as a tedious psychey workout by that was too late to fit its niche. However the vinyl cookie crumbles — and all records must fall to dust, leaving only reverberations in the aether — it’s a perfect, understated example of the instro-mentality . That is, take a tune you know and play it under your own title to people who haven’t cottoned on to what it is. Bingo! You’ve got an extra number on your set list for very little effort expended. And it’s always best to do as The Ricketts do: wait a few years till the prototype’s been consigned to the rock ‘n’ pop oubliette. Oh, and play it in another country where the original’s hard to find. And give it a more uptadate title.
From chord one, The Ricketts launch themselves with the discipline of showtime troupers into a controlled-feedback creep through a much-loved live number. It takes its time, like only a 1960s instrumental B-side can. It’s all about the players and the playing. It’s not the most immediate choice for a first track, but perhaps Dig the Fuzz was going for a “live set” feel, putting an opening number first.
The form and ideology of the rock instrumental is a much-understudied area of research. For one thing, instrumentals defy rock ‘critics’ to come up with readable copy. That’s why they’re rarely, if ever, written about at length. Rock writers only know enough about music to comment on the clothes and overt musical references. They know nothing else.
To put the toon in context, it’s a total rip of The Rolling Stones’ “2120 South Michigan Avenue”, recorded by Nanker, Phelge and the lads in a 1964 session at Chess Studios, one of the greatest beating hearts of black culture in the whole world. Bo Diddley, Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon and Chuck Berry had recorded there a couple of times before the Stones flew over, just to check it was okay for The Fauntleroys (as the Chess regulars lovingly called ‘em) to use. But it seems the Stones were happy with the facilities and liked the place enough to name a whole song after the studio’s Chicago address.
The Stones’ version of this tune was first released in the UK on “Five by Five” EP in the summer of 1964, then in the US on the “12×5″ LP that winter. A version was also recorded for a BBC Radio session in 1964.
As Band 1, Side 1, “Action Painting” is the signal for the volutionary cycle of Generic Psych to commence afresh. Despite the title, this is less pop art than an industrial product. When The Chantays ditched the title of their instrumental number, “Liberty’s Whip” and renamed it “Pipeline” they leapt from rockin’ dance-band stylings to Surf and thence the record charts. The Ricketts, by way of contrast, did something far more interesting with their retitled instrumental number, which self-consciously reanimates a moribund popular conception of the pop art process. Like The Timelords in the late 1980s*, The Ricketts redirected a discarded discourse through the medium of the rock, or pop, instrumental. Like “Naughty” Cauty and his glowering pal after them, The Ricketts took it upon themselves to act as cultural divines and comment, from that lofty position, silently, in music, on the aching void (Ooh, me Emmas — Healthcare Ed.) that had apparently opened in pop culture after London had ceased, in the popular imagination, to move in a pendular fashion. It’s a bit like if the Pet Shop Boys did an instrumental called “Conceptual Death Camp”. Or something far funnier, if you’d prefer it. Don’t get me wrong, the 1960s got a whole load more industrial than The Ricketts. But theirs ain’t no meaned achievement for a tune with no words.
The Ricketts are not to be confused with (Jimmy &) The Rackets (”Skinny Minnie”/”O Mona”, Elite, 1964/65, and other releases), an English band who rocked in exile in Deutschland, playing for US servicemen and on package tours with The Beatles and The Kinks.
* The Timelords, “Doctorin’ the Tardis” (1988) was that rarest of pop beasts, the instrumental with words.
All the best
Ed.
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