Beatlemania - Rolling Stone N.142 - August 30th 1973

Rolling Stone, Issue 142

Articolo dedicato alla Beatlemania 10 anni dopo la prima uscita dei Beatles.

Roxy Gordon era una studentessa in un college del Texas quando conobbe i suoi due vicini di dormitorio, McMann e Fisher, due amanti di musica. Attraverso la parete ascoltava i loro dischi, li sentiva cantare a squarcia gola e ascoltava le loro discussioni. La storia racconta di come la loro amicizia sia stata messa a repentaglio a causa dei Beatles.

Pagina incollata in uno Scrapbook fatto da William B. Ault 2008

*La foto del magazine non è nostra
 

"This is the story of two people from Eastern New Mexico who were friends once.

They were roommates and they lived next door to me at a college in Texas a long time ago: the spring of 1964.

McMann was the tall ugly one. He wore a flat-top.

The other, Fisher, was neither so tall nor quite so ugly. He wore his hair in a modified ducktail; his mother made him modify it before he came to college.

They both wore wheat-jeans and Banlon socks which matched their Banlon shirts.

They looked just like all the rest of us there in the spring of 1964.

Eastern New Mexico is Buddy Holly/ Buddy Knox/Jimmy Bowen country.

McMann and Fisher came from the same town. They'd played high-school football, baseball and basketball together. They'd puked beer and french fries on each other's floorboard more times than they could remember.

They were happy.

They spent the early spring in peace. They listened to old Buddy Holly, Buddy Knox and Jimmy Bowen records. Chuck Berry and Jimmy Reed. And most of all, the Kingsmen. They thought the Kingsmen were from Kingsville, Texas. 

McMann swore he'd been to a wedding in Juarez where the Kingsmen played.

They knew the words to "Louie Louie."

Every night, their record player would be so loud the whole wing would vibrate. And they'd stamp their feet.

I'd lie on my bed and listen to their records through the wall, and to their musical conversations:

Bruce Channel singing:- Haaaaaay Hay, Baby....

McMann and Fisher (with the record): Haaaaaay Hay, Baby....

B.C.: I wanna know-ho-ho.

McM. & F. (still with record): I wanna know-ho-ho. .

B.C.: If you'll be my girl.

McM. & F. (much louder than the record now): If you'll be my [now a shout and a scream] GIRL!

McM. & F. (stamping their feet and pounding their desks and still screaming so I can't hear the record at all): HAAAAAAY HAY, BABY I WANNA KNOW-HO-HO IF YOU'LL BE MY GIRL!!!

B.C. (now I can hear the record again): When I saw you walking down the street. ...

McM. (no longer singing, but still shouting): That's OB-SCENE!

F. (also no longer singing; also shouting): OB-SCENE!

B.C.: I said there's the one I'd like to meet…..

When McMann and Fisher bought a new record, it was a ceremony. Take for instance when Fisher brought home Fresh Berrys.

Fisher knocked on my door passing.

By the time I got the door open, he was already in their room. He was taking the record out of its sleeve. He handled it correctly, touching it only on the edge.

McMann was lying on his bed. Records were about an inch deep on the floor, the desks, the chairs and on the beds-except for where McMann was lying.

Almost none were in their covers. A week-old glass of milk was sitting on "High Heel Sneakers." Candy wrappers, dirty socks and all kinds of other clothing were intermingled with all the records. McMann's ROTC uniform was piled in the corner, with his hat neatly perched on top and a single, un-spit shined ROTC shoe neatly on top of the hat.

Fisher placed the record player arm down gently and correctly. He raked a half-dozen scratched, finger-printed coverless records off a chair and sat down with the Fresh Berrys cover to read the song titles as they played.

With the first full-volume sounds of Chuck Berry, other people drifted in.

Fisher concentrated. McMann, lying on his back in bed, had an expression which might be best described as goofy.

He smiled vacantly. His eyes were half-lidded and rolled back.

They were both gone, wafted away on a raft of pure musical energy: Chuck Berry.

We all knew about the Beatles. We'd read Life magazine, I guess. But we hadn't heard them. The radio played strictly Top 20 and the Beatles weren't yet. And besides that, the radio station probably felt a little like the rest of us. There was something not quite right about a rock and roll band being from England.

What did the English know about rock and roll?

Could you imagine Jerry Lee Lewis with an English accent?

So we were curious, but not anxious.

And when McMann brought home Meet The Beatles, it wasn't anything particularly special. To us, it wasn't. To McMann, as it turned out, it was something else entirely.

It's the same scene as Fresh Berrys.

Except it's McMann who knocks on my door, passing. And it's McMann who gently removes the four mop-tops' record from the sleeve. Fresh Berrys is by now coverless and mixed up with the other records on the floor, bed, etc.

Fisher is hunched over his desk where he's been studying. Now he is relaxed, waiting for the record. McMann does the ceremony. He places the arm down gently. He sits in the title-reading position. He should concentrate. Fisher should get goofy.

But a strange thing begins to happen.

McMann is not concentrating; he isn't reading the liner notes. His initial expression is something like when he was listening to Fresh Berrys.

But its fast moving on. Halfway through "I Want to Hold Your Hand," it's already way past goofy.

And Fisher, who should at least make it to goofy, hardly even starts.

He doesn't seem to understand. He looks at McMann's face and to the record player. He keeps his mouth shut through "It Won't Be Long."

In the silence after "All I've Got to Do," Fisher asks McMann (and us all), "What is that shit?"

The Beatles record didn't find its way to the floor. It was never fingerprinted.

McMann played it a half-dozen times a day. Each time, he replaced it carefully in its cover and rested it on the window sill. It leaned against the window, its front cover visible. Up there, it was like a God-record, lording over all the others.

Fisher wouldn't have replaced it so carefully. But Fisher never played it. He thought it was some kind of fluke. McMann had bought an obviously bad record. Soon, McMann

would see it belonged somewhere around Bobby Vinton and forget it.

But night after night, I'd hear the Beatles through the wall. And McMann's one-sided musical conversation.

Fisher never made a sound.

One night, a week of the Beatles later, McMann was singing along with "I Saw Her Standing There." It was really getting to him.

On the subdued scream after the line, another.. "She wouldn't dance with something like, "ooo-ooh," —McMann couldn't take it any-more. "OB-SCENE!" he yelled.

Barely above the record, I heard Fisher say, "Rat's ass."

Their door slammed and a couple of seconds later, the outside door slammed. I saw Fisher from my window. He was going to the library. For a little peace and quiet, I guess.

One day Fisher sat down with me in the dining room. "You know what that son-of-a-bitch hasn't done?" Fisher wanted to know "What son-of-a-bitch?" I asked him.

"McMann," he said. I said I didn't know what McMann hadn't done. "Well, listen," Fisher said,"you know he always gets a haircut once a week for ROTC. Well, he ain't now for four weeks."

"Maybe he forgot," I said.

"That ain't all," Fisher said. "I been watching him at night. He's been combing his hair down toward his eyes. He stands there at his mirror and combs his hair down. He keeps it down with flattop wax."

I'd noticed McMann's hair looked a little weird.

"The son-of-a-bitch is growing fucking bangs," Fisher said. "McMann's growing fucking bangs."

That was near the end of the semester and I left that spring. I never went back to that college and I never saw Fisher or McMann again. But I think about them a lot. I wonder what happened to them.

I see several choices.

McMann and Fisher may both live in L.A. now and have their hair grown out to their asses. Except McMann's is neat to his ass while Fisher's is dirty and standing out in strange directions.

Or they both may live in Eastern New Mexico where McMann manages a Penny's store and has bangs and a moustache, while Fisher runs a gas station and has sideburns. Or maybe McMann went ahead and got his Ph.D. and teaches a pop culture American Studies course somewhere and is a personal friend of Tom Wolfe. If so, does that mean Fisher dropped out of college, got married, has six kids, rides a motorcycle and shoots speed?

I guess it does.

Or maybe it's Fisher who has neat hair in L.A., manages a Penny's store, or teaches pop culture. And maybe McMann does all that other stuff.

I can't figure it out. I don't have the slightest idea whatever the hell happened to McMann and Fisher. But I think about them a lot. And what they mean to us all almost a full decade after the spring of 1964.

Whatever it is, the Beatles' robust, roaring sound has stimulated a reaction the English themselves describe as "Beatlemania”