So It Was Written . . .

by whiteray 

Today’s reading from the Dead Air Scrolls comes from the Book of Onehit, Chapter One:

And in those days when AM Radio ruled the youth of the land of Usa, those young ones heard strange and wondrous sounds come from the speakers. Sundered into small tribes as they were, the youth of Usa listened carefully for their prophets, waiting to hear what wisdom they would send through the little speakers in their plastic appliances.

Messages of music came frequently to those who were members of the greater tribes, the tribes of Beatle and Dylan and Rolling Stone, the tribes of Who and Clapton and Chicago and Bee Gee, and also the tribes of the place called Motown, the Wonder and the Franklin and the Supreme Temptation. And those who heard these AM messages went to their temples and laid down their offerings, and they came away from the temples with their vinyl. And when they played it on their turning tables, lo, it rocked!

There were those whose messages were clearly heard but once. Those tribes were of lesser size, and though the members of those tribes listened intently to the first messages, many thereafter turned away. And soon no more messages were inscribed for those tribes in the Scroll of Top Forty. These were the tribes of Greenbaum, of Robin of the McNamaras, of Lemon Pipers and Blue Cheer, the tribes of Smith and Steam and Spiral Starecase, of Flying Machine and Bubble Puppy, of Jaggerz and Edison Lighthouse, of White Plains and Tee Set, the tribes of R. Dean Taylor and the Pipkins. And the world at large rejoiced at the silence of the Pipkins.

Many members of those tribes went to their temples and laid down their offerings for those first messages. They took home with them their vinyl, most of them wiser and taking only the smaller pieces of vinyl with the original message, the one that AM radio had already sent them. And lo, they ignored the flipside.

Others would commit the sin of over-enthusiasm, offering more at the temple for the larger pieces of vinyl, those with the original message set amid the horror. For when they laid those albums on the turning tables, lo, they sucked. And no one came to their parties evermore.

Those tribes dwindled, their members becoming more careworn and manic as the numbers around them decreased. They would utter pronouncements that were more and more ignored: “Crabby Appleton hath merit!” “Mock not the Ides of March!” “All hail Daddy Dewdrop!”

And the vinyl turned, and AM radio sent them no more messages. Many of them turned from their leaders, who had fallen silent. They sought new leaders, and lo, some of them heard from Climax. And some heard from Sailcat. And some from Miguel of the Rios. And they learned not and would not change their ways.

When the end of their days came, their boxes of vinyl were filled with album after album of Onehit amid the horror, and those boxes went into exile at the thrift stores. Some in later days would avidly seek those Onehit messages and would gain them for small offerings. They would place them on their turning tables, and only those who liked irony would come to their parties.

And some would come to notice in those later days that there had been messages of import amid the dross of Mouth & MacNeal and Skylark and Bullet, of Apollo 100 and Coven and Ocean, of Tin Tin and Bloodrock and Cymarron and Christie. “Wonders,” they called them. And so prospered the cult of Onehit. They sought the odd, the curious, the truly strange and even the profane, so long as it was the only celebrated message from one tribe. Among the treasured remnants on vinyl was the work of Teegarden and Van Winkle of Westbound, whose message of “God, Love and Rock & Roll” had been heard by its adherents in the long-ago autumn of 1970 (reaching something described as No. 22 in the Scroll of Billboard).

Long years later, as no other of their tribal messages had been celebrated enough to be in the Scroll of Top Forty, Teegarden and Van Winkle of Westbound were among those whose names were celebrated by the cult of Ohehit.

And the world at large still rejoiced at the silence of the Pipkins.

Hear now, all of you, the message of “God, Love and Rock & Roll” by Teegarden and Van Winkle of Westbound. It was inscribed in the Scroll of Top Forty in the autumn of 1970. And in years to come it would bring them to the attention of the cult of Onehit, whose parties must be odd indeed.