Over the Edge « November 9, 2005

Features

5

food. They tax junk food in seventeen
states in the United States and New
York City and Chicago City. The Aud-
itor General suggested that. The Green
Party led a campaign, by the way, to get
junk food out of schools, and we won
that. At the same time [we] called for a
tax for junk food, we're still calling for
that. We believe that it is possible to
restore some of the tax cuts that were
made on the highest uppet income cat-
egory [of] $150 000 in income a year
and up.

ee

+ we should have
free post-secondary
education, as they
do in a number of
countries around the
world. If Costa Rica
and Mexico can do
[it], let alone coun-
tries like Denmark,
we can, too.’

- Adriane Carr

[T]here's enough wealth there to ac-
tually ask those people who are earning
those incomes to support the things
that I believe are important to them:
the education system, the health sys-
tem, the quality of our environment.
Those are big ticket items to support,
and the higher income people... the
Liberals never actually told people they,

were going to cut taxes across the board,

but they did. We would ask those up- ©

per income people to take a roll back
from that tax cut, and that's a signifcant
amount of revenue. And we also believe
that public resources should be taxed
more fairly, By that I mean, right now,
there are subsidies in the form of tax
breaks in the oil and gas industry and
in the mining industry, there's also sub-
sidies legally in the forest industry, like
25 cents a cubic metre is being charged
for wood, so we think there should be a
fair return, and that would cause com-
panies to also value the resource more
and add more value.

B:Whatis the Green Party’s
stance on marijuana?

A: The war on marijuana has not
been successful, and it's failed really
our youth in our society in that it has
diverted resources into the policing
end of it when we should be bringing
resources into the prevention and the
treatment end of it. We believe, like
the Senate of Canada recommend - the
Senate! A very conservative body, and
like the Fraser Institute actually recom-
mended that marijuana should be legal-
ized. It should be legalized, it should be
taxed, it's production and sales should
be controlled, it should not be available
to underage youth, so, like liquor, there
should be restrictions on its sales. I
think that what that will do is [first] get
rid_of the incredible pushing that goes

on on the street, which is contributing -

to the use and addiction to drugs. We
believe that it will also make sense in
terms of the product itself; right now,
it can be spiked with all sorts of other

drugs, which makes it incredibly haz-
ardous... more hazardous, especially
with things like crystal meth, and num-
ber three it will bring revenue into the
government in terms of taxation. The
Frasér Insitute estimated that it would
be about nine hundred million dollars.
We could immediately wipe out post-
secondary education fees. [laughs]

B: Do you think youth pay
enough attention to en-
vironmental issues?

A: I think that youth are leading the
way. What we're seeing now in youth
in our society is the first generation to
be raised in an education system that
taught them from day one about recyc-
ling, about environmental quality. This
is part of the thinking of youth and it's
not necessarily a part of the thinking
of the middle-aged and older people
in our society. I think that youth know
they havea vested interest in the quality
of environment and the conservation of
resources so that those resources will
be around for them to use, too. I believe
that caring about the quality of our nat-
ural environment is a very strong part
of how youth approach the world, and
it's probably one of the reasons why the
Green Party gets the greatest support
from youth, from the youngest age cat-
egorgy of voters. I just wish they voted.
Youth don't tend to vote, and it's a big
problem, 75% of youth who could vote
didn't. I really believe that changing the
voting system can help, absolutely, so
youth know their vote will count, but
engaging youth in democratic and vot-
ing processes in politics is part of what
the Green Party is about. We have the
youngest slate of candidates of any
patty, seventeen under the age of 25.

B: How would you encour-
age more young people to
come out and vote?

A: As I say, changing the voting sys-
tem. I think many youth are cynical
about their vote counting and so they
figure, “ Well, I'd like to cast my vote for
the Green Party, or maybe some other
third party,’ because youth are adven-
turous. [In] the current voting system,
it's not easy for a third party to break
through. The Green Party has done ex-
ceedingly well in a very-polarized two-
party system. Youth are smart. ‘They
want their vote to count, and I think
that when we change our voting system
- and it’s not just BC that's looking at
changing our voting system. ‘Theres
going to be referendum in Prince Ed-
ward Island on November 28, there's
referendums coming up in New Bruns-
wick, Quebec, Ontarios looking at it,
Canada's looking at it, BC’s looking at
having another referendum. I think this
is.all really, really good and positivie in
terms of reengaging youth in voting.
Secondly, I think youth are justifiably
cyncial about politicians. Politicians
manipulate government, things like the
sponsorship scandals and scandals that
have gone on don't make politicians and

politics look very admirable. So thats.

one of the things that I’ve tried hard
to do, is change the face of politics, to
model a different kind of politics that
is more cooperative, that is longer-term
focused rather than focused on just get-
ting reelected in the short term.

ANDREW KURJATA
NEWS EDITOR

If you're a music fan, it's likely that,
at least once in your life, you have
encountered a list of “The Greatest
Bands Of All Time’. This is an institu-
tion in rock fandom, and has helped
sell numerous magazines, radio shows,
and television specials. These lists at-
tempt to measure the most important
rock artists even to gtace existence,
usually on the basis of two primary
factors: influence and popularity. The
top of these lists always consists of the
usual suspects: the Beatles, the Roll-
ing Stones, Led Zeppelin, Bob Dylan,
Jimi Hendrix. These artists managed
to meld both factors into their career,

and thus came to-experience “Platean.-

Popularity’, which is used to describe
artists who wete successful in their
own time and retain a lasting influ-
ence to this day, The other set of art-
ists that appear on these lists are re-
sults of what I have termed “the Velvet
Underground Effect”. These are artists
that, like the Ramones, Bob Marley
and the Wailers, and, of course, the
Velvet Underground, met with only
limited success in their own time but
went on to be hugely influential in the
music world. Often, these bands were
on the fringes of popular culture when
they originally came into being but,
due to cultural shifts, have become
touchstones for entire genres of mu-
sic, and their albums sell better now
then they did when they were origi-
nally réleased. Ultimately, perceived
influence seems to be more important
than popularity when it comes to be-
ing a ‘great’. This is why you will never
see Tommy James and the Shondells
on one of these lists.

I think it is a fair guess to say that
most people have heard at least one
of Tommy James and the Shondells’
songs. Right now, one of their tunes,
“Crystal Blue Persuasion’, is getting
heavy rotation as the background mu-
sic to the A&W ad, where a young
couple announces their pregnancy
by slyly giving the husband's father a
Grandpa Burger. This is hot on the
heels of a prior ad (the one where the
guy takes wife out for a good-old fash-
ioned drive-in date), which pulled the
genius “Crimson and Clover” out for a
new generation. Both of these songs

" came from the Shondells’ “psychedelic

phase’, which was something that, in
the wake of the Beatles release of “Sgt.
Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band’,
almost everyone on the popular mu-

PHOTO SUBMITTED

sic scene seemed to be experiencing.
Becausé of the seemingly- obvious
fact that the Shondells were cashing

_in on a popular trend, they were, and

continued to be, dismissed as deriva-
tive hacks by music critics. This is in-
credibly unfair. The fact of the matter
is successfully going psychedelic was
not an easy thing to do. The Rolling
Stones tried on “Their Satanic Majes-
ties Request” and produced some of
the most forgettable, annoying, and
out-and-out bad songs of their career.
The Byrds retreated into country, the
Monkees went weird and imploded,
and the Turtles ran away to join Frank
Zappa. Countless lesser bands who
had built their career on making sin-

gles.were.crushed under the.weight of.

trying to adjust to a world dominated
by albums and artistry, In fact, it could
be argued that Tommy James and the
Shondells were the only band, besides
the Beatles, that successfully made the
transition from making rock/pop sin-
gles to palatable psychedelica without
losing momentum. Songs like “Crim-
son and Clover’, “Crystal Blue Persua-
sion, and “Sweet Cherry Win’, are at
once beautiful and other-worldly, and

on their 1969 album, “Cellophane ~

Symphony’, they surprised everyone
by giving Pink Floyd a run for their
money with instrumental experimen-
tation. To give you an idea, this would
be like *NSync suddenly delving into
Radiohead. And then succeeding.

“So why are they
sO overlooked?

Simply, it is an in-

verse of the “Vel-

vet Underground

Effect”. A band

that was incred-

ibly popular fades
into obscurity.’

This was only one aspect of the
band's career. They also made an in-
credible number of straight-ahead
rock and pop songs that endure to this
day. They began their career by record-

ing the definitive version of “Hanky
Panky”. When most bands were writ-

The “Tommy James Effect”

ing protest songs about Vietnam, they
released the garage-rock great “Mony
Mony,’ now better known by the Billy
Idol cover version. Interestingly, in the
eighties, Billy Idol's version of the song
duked it out for the number one spot
with Tiffany's “I Think We're Alone
Now’, which was a cover of another
Shondells great. Both songs hit the
top of the charts, meaning Tommy
James and the Shondells were domi-
nating a decade after they ceased to
exist. R.E.M. also payed homage, cov-
ering Tommy James’ first solo song,
“Walking the Line’, which marked yet
another successful transition in his
career, from psychedelica into coun-
try/folk. It should also-be noted that
from the period of 1967 to 1970, the
Shondells outsold other popular art-
ists of the time, including the Doors,
Van Morrison, Creedence Clearwater
Revival, and the Rolling Stones.

So why are they so overlooked?
Simply, it is an inverse of the “Velvet
Underground Effect’. A band that was
incredibly popular fades into obscu-
rity. This is sometimes deserved, like
when the band kind of sucked. In the
case of Tommy James and the Shon-
dells, more explanation is needed.
While declining to play at Woodstock
certainly hurt their chances at immor-
tality, I chink the most likely reason is
simple snobbery. They were, after all, ~
a“pop” band, and pop music isn't seen
as being respectable by rock ctitics,
never mind that Elvis and the Beatles
started out as a pop acts, too. Despite
how good their music was and ‘how
much they changed their sound, they
simply could never shake the “pop” la-
bel, in part because their songs were
so good they kept meeting with radio
success, no matter how different they
were. This relates to another factor:
the songs eclipsed the artist. While
the songs endure to this day, the band’s
overall image fails to capture the pub-
lic imagination. There is no fire and
brimstone, as in the case of Led Zep-
pelin and the Doors, no romantic
implosion like Jimi Hendrix or Kurt
Cobain, and no strong personalities
like those of Bob Dylan or the Beatles.
‘They were simply a band that wrote
good songs, and that doesn’t make for
a good VH1 “Behind the Music’.

In terms of influence, they suffer
from not having influenced the right
people. While. R.E.M. are the critics’
darlings, both Tiffany and Billy Idol
are looked down upon as untalented
hacks, as is most anyone in the pop
world that may try to imitate the
Shondells beautiful tunes. There is
also the fact that they aren't generally
seen as innovators, but simply follow-
ers, In a way, this is fair. It is true they
didn’t usher in the album era like the
Beatles or forge heavy metal like Led
Zeppelin. On the other hand, the
Beatles had their way paved for them
by Chuck Berry, and Jimmy Page cut
his chops in the Yardbirds. The fact is
that just because you werent the first
doesn't mean you arent good. Mi-
chael Jordan didn't invent basketball,
but he sure did a good job of playing
it. This is the case for Tommy James

and the Shondells. Whether rock,

pop, psychedlica, or country, they may
not have invented the game of experi-
menting with rock and roll, but when
it came to playing it, they were among
the best.