LOUIE LOUIE - the book by DAVE MARSH
http://www.theroc.org/roc-mag/textarch/roc-16/roc16-19.htm
Book Review by: Scott Pfeiffer
Dave Marsh is probably best known to readers
of THE ROC as the author of 50 Ways To Fight
Censorship and as the editor of the
anti-censorship newsletter Rock & Rap
Confidential. But through his rock 'n' roll
writing, Marsh has really been fighting
censorship for over 20 years. Marsh's book
"Louie Louie" is an investigation of the
mystery of, as well as the questions raised
and the answers given by, that cosmic and
banned rock'n'roll classic "Louie Louie."
Marsh has never been a typical rock critic,
he cares too much about reaching everyday
rock fans to be that. Marsh thinks marginal
the "progressive rock" that most critics
like to write about. Likewise, the singles
oriented music that most critics don't like
is the stuff that Marsh is interested in
listening to, talking about and writing on.
Hence, a full book on "Louie Louie." Marsh
has been called "America's best rock
critic," and "Louie Louie" shows again why
he's also the best.
"Louie Louie" demonstrates Marsh's tenet
that all great pop music, despite its almost
casual and tossed-off surface, is the
product of much hard work and effort. The
sloppy trash that is the song's greatest and
most famous version, the one cut by the
Kingsmen in 1963, wasn't simply invented on
the spot by a bunch of amateurs. As Marsh
wrote in The Heart of Rock & Soul, his great
book about the 1001 best singles ever made
(in which the Kingsmen's "Louie" is #11),
"Naturally, this Parthenon of Pop didn't
spring from the head of the Muse. A Muse
would probably have slain it on sight, or
passed away herself from the shock of
something so crude and fine."
Indeed, by 1963 "Louie" had history, and
Marsh traces the song's inspiration back to
Rene Touzet's cha- cha number, "El Loco Cha
Cha. " Hearing that songs "Duh duh duh, dub
duh" opening inspired Los Angeles R&B singer
Richard Berry a consummate professional at
age 21, to write and record "Louie Louie" in
1956. Berry's version was a regional hit.
The song later became a staple among Pacific
Northwest garage bands, thanks to Seattle
singer Ron Holden, who used "Louie" to win
the area's fierce battle of the bands.
No one suspected the mystery at the heart of
"Louie Louie" until Seattle's own Rockin'
Robin Roberts and the Wailers did their
version in 1961, however. The spirit and
mystery is in Robert's shouted injunction,
"Let's give it to 'em, right now!" Two years
later in Portland, Oregon, two up-and-coming
bands, The Kingsmen and Paul Revere & The
Raiders, recorded the Northwest's favorite
song in the same week. By telling the story
of the Pacific Northwest rock scene, Marsh
proves that rock & soul was definitely not
dead between 1959 and 1963, despite what
almost history of the MUSIC says.
Marsh recounts all of this like the skilled
storyteller that he is, but readers of THE
ROC will be interested in the book because
of the anti-rock forces are such a large
part of the story. Buck Ormsby of the
Wailers recounts the way that
Seattle/Tacoma's rock scene was attacked by
the "city fathers, the city mothers, trying
to protect the kids from rock & roll music."
Of course, "Louie Louie" is legendary as a
dirty song, and you'll laugh at the story of
the myth of the Kingsmen's dirty lyrics, the
stupidity of the 2-1/2 year investigation of
"Louie Louie" by J. Edgar Hoover's FBI, and
how the tune came to be banned in Indiana.
Yeah, Marsh does print the "real" dirty
lyrics in Louie Louie, and they're evidence
that anyone who claims that the American
imagination was more innocent in the "old
days" is basically full of shit.
Marsh's personal world view is expressed in
his work through recurring themes. His most
important theme is the rock audience, and
the nature of its identity as a productive
community. At its best, the rock audience
does not just take, but is involved in an
interactive process with bands. A sense of
community developed the Pacific Northwest's
battling bands, with the audience shouting
for "Louie Louie," the soundtrack to a rock
ritual. Of the early 70's rock scene, a time
when the "Louie Louie" spirit was almost
dead, Marsh writes, "Rock fans went from
being active participants capable of raising
forbidden faces into the spotlight into a
pulling wad not forced but willing to choose
among slim picking without a peep of
protest. Even rebellion had been codified,
and, within the codes, circumscribed." And
in the pot-latch tradition of the Pacific
Northwest's Native Americans, Marsh finds a
terrific metaphor for the rock audience that
gives of themselves.
Another theme of "Louie Louie" is race, and
how the segregation of black music from
white music is what truly kills the spirit
of rock'n'roll. "Louie Louie" prospered in
an integrated Seattle club scene. The people
who helped create "Louie Louie" included
African Americans, Filipino-Americans,
Native Americans, and whites. Also, "Louie
Louie" has been recorded as every form of
rock'n'roll, from heavy metal to disco to
reggae to hard-core punk to rap to R&B.
Other themes explored with verve and
vivacity in "Louie Louie" include success,
contradiction, adulthood, reconciliation and
rebellion.
One of Marsh's ideas is that if you immerse
yourself deeply enough in rock & roll, it
will help you find yourself. "Louie Louie"
itself tells the story of rock 'n' roll, and
Marsh writes, "Embrace "Louie Louie" tightly
enough and you may come to know more about
yourself than it's easy to contemplate, let
alone tolerate." So although you'll learn
from "Louie Louie," it'll tell you things
that you won't necessarily understand. So
Marsh keeps asking questions--what the hell
is the story? Why did these things happen?
Is the universe an orderly system or is it a
"vast practical joke," in Melville's words?
Dave ponders the "Louie" legacy, writing
about what the song has given to such modern
pop music styles as gangsta rap (NWA, Ice T)
and grunge (Pearl Jam, Nirvana, Alice In
Chains). He points out that the song's
persecution by the FBI was a portent of
NWA's "Fuck tha Police" being censored by
that bureau in 1989. He goes looking for
clues to decipher "Louie" in Nirvana's
"Smells Like Teen Spirit," hearing in the
Seattle band's song a "Fuck you if you don't
get it" attitude similar to that expressed
by the Pacific Northwest garage rockers of
the early '60's.
Ultimately, the song's legacy is freedom,
including freedom from embarrassment. As
true termite trash, "Louie" broke (or should
I say ate?) through barriers, and that's a
legacy that rock is sorely in need of today.
Also, this book has the potential to
reinvigorate rock & soul, or at least
discussion of it, because it isn't about any
of the predictable rock heroes. Certainly
Richard Berry, Rockin' Roberts and Jack Ely
have never before been subjects of such
extended writing. But the full scope of the
book is only hinted at in this review, which
ain't supposed to be the Cliff's Notes of
"Louie Louie", anyway. Go read it, you won't
be sorry! "Louie Louie" works do well its
story allows Marsh to further amplify his
favorite themes. Not only that, it's his
most wildly funny book yet, reading it is a
kick. Plus, you will learn about the history
of music censorship.
As far as I can tell, the book contains only
one error. A newspaper report which Marsh
reprints that states that "College students
from 'Miami University' in Athens, Ohio"
sent copies of the dirty lyrics to
censorious Indiana Governor Matthew Welsh.
There is no Miami University in Athens , and
there never has been. I ought to know, it's
my town. But the possibility that students
in Athens snitched on "Louie" makes perfect
sense to someone like myself, who actually
suffered through four years at the school
that is there, Ohio University.
"Louie Louie" is really the story of a
dream, and what's best, it's a true story.
More than any other rock writer, Dave Marsh
has nurtured the dream of rock 'n' roll. At
heart, it's a dream of a better world. I'd
like to say "thank you" to Dave Marsh for
sharing that dream with us, for encouraging
us to ask questions, for getting us together
to cry, "Let's give it to 'em, right now!"
at the censors, and for "Louie Louie," this
strange and wonderful book of secret stories
and hidden histories.
LOUIE LOUIE by Dave Marsh
Tom Barger
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