"You are entering a world of sound. You are entering a world of sight. You have crossed over into the land of shadow and substance," of course paraphrased from Rod Serling's Twilight Zone. It was a show that left an indelible mark on the nascent television viewing audience; we of the Mad Magazine generation, snarky and offbeat. We were known to daydream about the idea of bohemian living. We fantasized about slipping the tight coil of peer pressure and status quo. Everybody was just so, I don't know, NORMAL back then. At least that was what you led with. Because if anyone found out you were DIFFERENT...well you just wouldn't be POPULAR!!!! Oh how I dreamed of the day when I didn't have to care about that stuff anymore. And I am so glad we broke the societal chains, what with Woodstock and Hippiedom, and emerged on the other side of that with a much richer acceptance of others, of different kinds of people. Of acceptance. I might have told you this before, but one of the things I loved best about working at XM Radio is that we were everyone. Old, young, male, female, every national heritage imaginable. We were a regular Star Trek cast. Yes, I suspect there even were aliens among us, too.
One has to think that cult hero Dan Hicks might also have been influenced by some of the same early media stirrings of individuality. He is a hipster for the ages, for four decades-worth, anyway. And hark, Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks have just released a swinging and swaying seasonal album called Crazy For Christmas. Dan began his career in 1965 as the drummer for San Francisco band The Charlatans, heavily psychedelized, before forming the acoustic ensemble Dan Hicks and the Hot Licks. The original girl singers were called The Lickettes. Of course they were! He blends and mindbends styles; folk, jazz, blues, swing, and The Great American Songbook, to which is added a cunning and ironic twist, his sense of humor. Tom Waits says, "Dan Hicks is fly, sly, wily and dry." Yes to all of the above, and yes to this zany and imaginative treatment of "Carol Of The Bells."
- Jessie Scott
PS I miss Space Ghost Coast to Coast!
