FOOL'S PARADISE

LEARNING THE GAME
or: How John Lennon Learned to Stop Worrying and Love His Inner Geek
Perfect Sound Forever

LONG BEFORE "POST-MODERN" became pure jargon, Buddy Holly put quotes around his "normalcy" to disarm rock machismo. Holly, the "King of the Sixth Grade," hiccupped his hormones out loud, flipping everybody's high school jitters into metaphor. His futuristic Stratocaster guitar gave his horn-rimmed glasses sudden but certain panache, and in a style crowded with "hipsters," "Marlon Brando with a guitar" as Jackie Gleason dismissed Elvis Presley, Holly pushed "normal" to extremes. On his records, everyday stuff turned radical. In musical terms, squeezing the eccentric from the banal meant deconstructing all the elements of song as recording, from verse-refrain-bridge constructions to bending analog tape to do your song's will. This persona, the ordinary as cosmic, consumes The Complete Buddy Holly (Purple Chick), last year's underground epic, a 10-CD remaster of everything Holly touched. This grand, sprawling patchwork weaves early 1953 appearances on KDAV with Jack Neal as "Buddy and Jack" with radio spots, alternate takes, even phone messages to reluctant executives. His chart action wedges a creative infinity into two years, from 1957 up to his plane crash on February 3, 1959... more