Side of the Moon.”  The camera cut from one close-up to the next; from Waters to Wright to Mason to Gilmore.

     Except it wasn’t them.

     It was Australian Pink Floyd.  A faux Pink Floyd.   A “tribute band”. 

     First it was tofu, then turkey bacon, and now Australian Pink Floyd.

     For many years part-time musicians have scratched their guitar-hero itch and gotten together with buddies and played gigs in bars and at wedding receptions.  They make a few bucks, drink some free beer, and get out of the house for a couple of hours on the weekend.  It scratches their creative rash and their wives know where they are.  Their song lists are classic rock and country; tunes from all the bands they emulated in their youth, played as close to the originals as skill allows.  Since they cover all of this familiar musical territory they are known as “Cover” bands.  

     The “Tribute” trend began with Elvis. It started while Elvis was still alive.  Remember the tabloid photos of him all fat and sweaty and bloated and bleary eyed?  Everybody was shocked.  We wanted the Elvis of "Harum-Scarum", and "Spinout", and, my favorite, "Kid Galahad":  sleek, sexy and sneering.  Then he died--or was abducted by aliens, or went to live on that island with JFK and Marilyn Monroe—and we refuse to let go.  It’s not enough to simply celebrate his birthday and his death-day.  We just act as if he is still here…and over there…and practically everywhere we look.

     People step into Elvis’s costume like Patrocles did with Achilles’ armor.  Elvis the logo is fairly easy to reproduce, like Chaplain, and Monroe, and Hitler. Fat guys, skinny guys, old guys, black guys, even women, don bad black wigs, glue mutton-chop sideburns to their cheeks and stuff themselves into white sequined Peter-Pan collared jump suits.  They perform semi-professionally, billed as “A Touch of Elvis,” and “Taking Care of Elvis,” and “The King: One Night with You.”  The shows are referred to not as “gigs”, but as “engagements”, as in, “Me and the band have an engagement at the Excelsior Springs American Legion Post 236 on Tuesday.”

     Some immerse themselves into the impersonation as deeply as an actor embracing “the Method”.   One “Elvis” of my acquaintance would leave text messages signed by “John Burroughs.”  I finally asked him.

           “Who is John Burroughs?”

           “That's the alias Elvis used in hotels when he was on the road.”

     Here is an impersonator with a pseudonym; this guy is committed… or should be.

     The trend spread to The Beatles. Tributes are advertised on posters at VFW posts and marquees at Vegas casinos.  The word on every one of these bands—the first big lie—is:

          “They sound just like the real Beatles!”

      NO THEY DON’T!  They may play Rickenbacker guitars and Ludwig drums and use Vox speakers, and Marshall amps, but they sound like somebody doing an impression of somebody else doing an impersonation of a third party doing an imitation of The Beatles.  The second big lie is:           

          “They look just like the real Beatles!”  

      NO THEY DON'T!  Not even if you sit in the last row, chug a quart of Bacardi 151, smoke fifty joints, and squint.  Holding a Hofner Bass left-handed and singing “Love Me Do” doesn’t make you Paul McCartney any more than baking a Betty Crocker cake makes you Betty Crocker.  It is one thing to believe that wearing a wig makes people think you’re not bald; it is another to make them think you’re John Lennon.

     Rock & Roll may never die but it sure is sick.  

     It is understandable, even normal, that people want to emulate the two greatest acts in rock ‘n roll history.   But “Australian Pink Floyd” played a sold-out concert at the Royal Albert Hall that was videotaped by The Public Broadcasting System and is being given multiple broadcasts on pledge drives that are viewed by millions.  You can purchase the DVD through the PBS website.  You can buy their CDs online, even as the actual Pink Floyd CDs are on “CD Baby” at a lower price.  It’s like me typing out “The Catcher in the Rye” word for word and then putting it in the bookstores as “A Novel by “St. Louis J.D. Salinger”, and you buying it.  It’s like dumping Julia Roberts for a Julia Roberts female impersonator.  It’s as if we can erase the moral concerns of genetic duplication if, instead of calling them “Clones”, we call them “Tributes.”

     I’m forced to rely on similes because I am stumped as to what it actually is.

     It is very American to beat a trend into submission, to flood the market with examples of it, to squeeze it until the last penny of profit rolls under the sofa.  Since Elvis and Beatles tributes worked, we now have “Fan Halen”, “BC/DC”, “Mini Kiss”, “Iron Maidens” and, “No Way Sis” (say it fast).  Those are actual tribute bands.  What next…Larry Manilow?

     It’s bad enough that the “EAGLES” is nothing more than an oldies band (Don’t get all fussy with me:  “Hotel California” was released in 1976—thirty four years ago as I write), or that Mick Jagger, who promised us when he was 25 that he would not be singing “Satisfaction” when he was forty, still sings it now that he is SIXTY SEVEN. 

    So I come to you as a dozing rebel who has been unadvisedly jostled awake.  I’m not here merely to rage against having to qualify our musical heroes; I won’t say “The real Elvis”, “The genuine Beatles”, or even “English Pink Floyd”.  And it would take a curmudgeon to write 1500 words on a problem and not offer a solution.  Here is mine:  Get out your 33-and-a-third rpm vinyl copy of "The White Album".  Run your palm over the front cover, feel the embossed lettering that is the real title—The Beatles.  Take out either disk, put on any side, (you stalwart, your turntable is still in fine working order!)  Put those ancient headphones on, drop the needle and crank it up.  You know every word and every guitar lick, every hiss and pop and skip on that album.  It’s like…

   Well, no similes are necessary.

 

    

 

 

 

 

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