Exhibit 24: Supergroups

By the late 1960's, demand for rock and roll had increased to such a level that mere music groups were inadequate. As regular music groups were increasingly unable to repel NLF and NVA forces in Vietnam with their shimmering pop hooks and shaggy hairstyles, or stop the Watts Riots with their renditions of "Mrs. Brown You've Got A Lovely Daughter" on Wilmington Avenue, the need for more awe-inspiring combinations of pop musicians escalated.

To compensate for the power diminishment of regular music groups, General William Westmoreland ordered the creation of supergroups, amalgamations of the most popular components of other, smaller groups (sometimes unfortunately and mistakenly called "semigroups") into one standard-sized group with considerably more oomph, zazz, kapow, hotcha, and woof-woof.

Based loosely on Nietzsche's concept of the Übermensch, supergroups were designed to jolt the consciousness of music listeners with a cumulus of almost unbearable star quality, such that if the listener was to experience even a few moments of the supergroup's music, his or her very intestinal fortitude would be rewired and compromised, to the point of actual physical upheaval. This facet of the supergroup at least partially explained the epidemic of people throwing up at Damn Yankees concerts in the late 1980's.

The first supergroup prototypes, alas, were hastily planned, with little concern or attention given to cultural relevance or context. Dow Chemical's foray into the arena was Ginormous, featuring Sonny Bono, the Fugs' Tuli Kupferberg, Petula Clark, the Lollipop Shoppe's Fred Cole, and drummer Jim Keltner. The supergroup was ill-advisedly allowed to write their own material, which resulted in the confusing hit single "I Got Your Existential Uprising In Swinging London Right Here, Babe":

My hair's too long, my spirit is free
The city-state engulfed in its own glut
I just bought a new purse dooooown-tooooown
Pammie's on a bummer
Thwack.

The United Kingdom took the lead in supergroup excellence, offering these groups into classic rock hsitory:

• Cream (Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Jack Bruce) recorded several unassailable rock staples and also cured diabetes.
  
• Blind Faith (Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, Steve Winwood, Ric Grech) recorded an eponymously titled album that defined the supergroup ethic and also rid the world of rabid dogs.
  
• Derek And The Dominoes (Eric Clapton, Duane Allman, Bobby Whitlock, Carl Radle, Jim Gordon) made "Layla" a classic rock staple and also cleaned the streets of London with their tongues.
  
• Emerson, Lake & Palmer (Keith Emerson, Greg Lake, Carl Palmer) wrote the book on rock pomposity even as they were performing six open-heart surgeries a day.
  
• Asia (Carl Palmer, Steve Howe, John Wetton, Geoff Downes) helped eliminate insomnia by their mere existence.

America was not to be outdone, though, and gave the world the musical gift of Crosby, Stills, Nash, Young, Morgenstern, Schmidt, Rosenberg, Rosenberg, DeLillo, Feinstein, Fierstein, Blomstein, Gluckstein, Springstein, Abramsky, Fleischer, Bomberg, Jacoby & Meyers, Bartles & Jaymes, Mankowitz, Rabbinowitz, Rothschild, Shapiro, Zangwill, Monash, Lehmann and Liebermann. The group sued themselves for breach of contract and represented themselves in court.

Other notable supergroups in rock history include:

• Warped Gnutella: Paul Kantner (Jefferson Airplane), Jerry Garcia (Grateful Dead), Barry McGuire (“Eve Of Destruction”), Ray Manzarek (The Doors), Jim Keltner. Best-known work: “I Just Got A Job At Woolworth’s!”
• The Important People: Keith Emerson, Roger Waters (Pink Floyd), Jim Morrison (The Doors), Jeff Lynne (Electric Light Orchestra), Jim Keltner. Best-known work: “The Bathroom, Parts I-VI”
• The Floundering Wilburys: Pete Best (Beatles), Slash (Guns ‘n Roses), David Lee Roth (Van Halen), Jim Keltner. Best-known work: “Severance Package Blues”
• The Big Sleepers: John Tesh, Kenny G, Enya, George Winston, Jim Keltner. Best-known work: "I Could Do PCP All Night!"
• The Bleakles: Trent Reznor (Nine Inch Nails), Robert Smith (The Cure), Morrissey (The Smiths), Edith Piaf, Jim Keltner. Best-known work: “No, Everything’s Going Great – Why Do You Ask?”
• The Moving Vans: David Lee Roth (Van Halen), Sammy Hagar (Montrose, Van Halen), Gary Cherone (Extreme, Van Halen), Jim Keltner. Best-known work: “Who Told Cherone Where The Studio Is? Don’t Let It Happen Again.”
• The Jim Keltner Experience: Jim Keltner, Jim Keltner Replicant #1, Jim Keltner Replicant #2, Jim Keltner Replicant #3, Jim Keltner Replicant #4. Best-known work: “Actually, Yeah, I Do Have Free Time This Weekend”
• Toto: Steve Lukather, David Paich, Bobby Kimball, Jeff Porcaro, Steve Porcaro, David Hungate. Best-known work: “Maybe We Wouldn’t Have Sucked So Hard If We’d Hired Jim Keltner”

Exhibit 5: Aleister Crowley

Aleister Crowley (1875-1947) was a British spiritualist, occultist, writer and alleged Freemason frequently cited as a philosophical influence on rock and roll musicians, especially in heavy metal and hard rock. Like the Marquis de Sade, Crowley was a hedonist and provocateur whose proclivities made him a scourge to moralists. Crowley and de Sade were also similar in that their embrace of debauchery and amorality obscured, but did not dismantle, the intellectual context of their manifest vices. Despite, or possibly because of, the legacy of Crowley's approach as societal critic, many religious and conservative commentators condemn musicians as Satanic or evil if they express an interest in him.

Crowley's own musical career was brief and uneventful. He toured England in 1900 as part of a two-man vaudeville act, Crowley And Howdy, who sang original compositions at impromptu minstrel shows in taverns and public squares. One of their dance songs, "I'm Going To Eat Blood Sausage With My Saucy Girl Tonight," was a sizeable sheet-music hit in Britain, with reported sales of 500,000 in London alone. Half of these sales were made to grade-school choir instructors. The musical team parted ways acrimoniously when Crowley ate Howdy's gall bladder at an Oktoberfest celebration in Heidelberg, Germany.

Shortly after his entertainment career faltered, Crowley began receiving mystic messages and transcribed them into doctrine as The Book of the Law, which in its time served roughly the same purpose as Tuesdays With Morrie and Rachael Ray's 30-Minute Meals do today. After a lifetime of some benefit to himself and major inconvenience to others, Crowley passed away in 1947. Hobbyists in the realm of spiritualism and the arts began studying his written works. Rock musicians, particularly, took interest in his espousal of hedonism, since it encouraged them to engage in wild behavior without having to settle their hotel or fishmonger bills personally.

Led Zeppelin admitted a fascination with Crowley's works, and sometimes ruminated that the occultist's ghost had "guided" their songwriting, as if by supernatural imposition of his will upon theirs. The band's belief in this matter was confirmed by this transcript of a tape-recorded songwriting session for their best-known song, "Stairway To Heaven":

ROBERT PLANT: Hey, what about this? "If there's a bugle in your pocketbook, don't be distressed now"?

JIMMY PAGE: I like it.

ALEISTER CROWLEY: Oh, come on. It's crap.

PLANT: What are you talking about? I've been working on this for hours.

CROWLEY: So what? It's crap! Sounds like crap, feels like crap, smells like crap, you hear me? C-R-A-P, crap.

PAGE: Right, then, what do you suggest?

CROWLEY: Something with zazz, man! Something the kids'll dig! You gotta have that groove, man, 'cause if you ain't got it, you're nowheresville! Listen, I got somethin' for ya… "I wanna rock the boat/I wanna root beer float/I wanna dance the twist/I wanna give you a kiss/Drink the blood from the crushed sacrificial skull and betroth yourself to the cloven hoof/Hot pants!" See? How's that? Ya gotta play to the kid at the soda fountain counter, holdin' hands with his best girl and chewin' his bubblegum! Ya gotta zing 'em, Bobby! Show that Brill Building who's wipin' its windows!

PLANT: But… but you're here because we want to transcend the physical with our art! We need you to guide us through the deadlocked passageways of metaphysical…

CROWLEY: Ah, save that guru jive for David Crosby, buddy! What you need is the beat, ya get me? That swingin', swingin' beat! That ha-ha-hotcha! Bing, pow! With a perky bounce and some wah-wah! Hey, I hear Frampton's got this great new thing that lets you talk through your guitar! I'll see if you can borrow it! Girls go nuts for it, gaga, man! Outta sight! "Do-oo, you-oo, oo, YOU! Feeel like I…"

PAGE: Aleister, I don't think you grasp what we're….

CROWLEY: Hey, mudshark man, they ain't payin' you to think! Just gimme some hooks, space boy! I gotta dance!

PLANT: I don't think this is working out, Ally…

CROWLEY: Hey, whoa! That's outta line, mister. Nobody calls me Ally. Call me that again and I'll do to you what I did to Victor Neuberg. Ya won't have an orifice left to pee outta.

PAGE: God... why didn't I just call Eric Clapton?

CROWLEY: Oh, sure. Cheap white blues licks. That's your answer for everything. Where's my goat? I'm starvin'.