“Even though music has been a huge, important part of my life, I’ve never been a big record collector. I have two older brothers who amassed extensive collections while we were growing up, so I would more often spend my money on musical instruments and equipment.”
“Because of this, the few records I decided to buy became very special to me, and one such album is The Beatles, better known as the ‘White Album.’ I have a distinct recollection of going shopping in the local mall, after the Christmas holiday in 1968, to spend some gift money and I remember being shocked and awed by the stacks and stacks of that record piled up throughout the store.
I was immediately taken with the impact of the stark blank cover and the repetition of the image so prominently displayed. ‘Are you going to buy the new Beatles record?’ I asked my brother. ‘No, I don’t think so,’ he replied. ‘Their last one (Magical Mystery Tour) wasn’t too good, and judging by the cover of the new one, they seem to have run out of ideas.’
Well, something about the package spoke to me and I decided to buy the record and it soon became my favorite. I liked the fact that it mixed acoustic based, intimate songs with loud electric rockers, and that it covered so much ground with it’s array of atmospheres and wealth of musical styles.
Regardless of my listening mood, I could always find something in the grooves that seemed to resonate with how I was feeling. I even grew to like “Revolution 9,” John’s experimental sound collage, that often serves to test many a listener’s patience. Also, in retrospect, I find it interesting that the back-story regarding the record is filled with many deep mystical and spiritual elements, both light and dark.
A lot of the songs on the record came during the band’s time in India while meditating, and the whole Manson connection is as fascinating as it is disturbing. Made at a time when the individual members were beginning to feel estranged from one another, the album has been criticized for being self indulgent.
But I also hear and feel the vibe of John, Paul, George, and Ringo as they began to liberate themselves from the confines of the ‘fab four’, ‘teen idol’, machine that had trapped them.”
—Glenn Mercer
Glenn Mercer’s Incidental Hum is on store shelves now via Bar None Records—on vinyl. The TVD review is here.
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PHOTO: FUMIE ISHII
