Would’ve made an interesting rip in the Rock/Time Continuum, needless to say! If only Mark Shipper had known about this….
Imagine The Seventies if….Jimi, Paul, Miles, and Tony HAD formed "Sky Church" in late-1969 and (inevitably) sold MILLIONS of records—
1. The Beatles might not have had to break up permanently, thereby stanching the FLOOD of questionable “solo” product that has disfigured our eardrums and their post-1970 reputations!
2. Jimi himself might have lived to a ripe old age (70, ca. now, just like Paulie).
3. Miles and Tony might have continued their fruitful collaborations for many more years, thus….
4. Fusion might not have sucked so quickly….or AT ALL!
5. Blood, Sweat & Tears and Chicago might well have been exposed as the soul-less, Sludge-sucking FRAUDS they were, instead of becoming the biggest bands of their time.
6. Wings might never have formed, much less exerted their tedious hold on the Pop Charts all the way through the decade. “Mull of Kintyre” would never have come to pass gas!
7. In Jimi, Paul might have found a new, “John-like” songwriting partner and inspiration (not to forget hot lead guitarist!), and NONE of his hopeless Seventies and Beyond “Treacle” might ever have been written or released!
8. Sonny Sharrock and James “Blood” Ulmer might have had actual careers, right from the early-Seventies, somewhat on the level that John McLaughlin did!
9. Funkadelic might have broken through to Top 40 in 1971 with MAGGOT BRAIN, rather than having to wait until 1978 wit’ ONE NATION UNDER A GROOVE! Much additional Seventies Funkateering would have ensued, across the length and breadth of our once-great nation….
10. Lester Bangs, being FAR LESS depressed by the music of These Seventies, might well have ingested enough LESS cumulative drugs and alcohol that his system could have absorbed that simple Darvon hit in April 1982, and he’d be crankin’ out the crit right alongside Bob, Greil, et many al. to this very day, including an entire shelf of messily hedonic, post-Beat Gen novels, which would’ve established him as The New Bukowski and paid his rent for decades to come! He would also have lived into the laptop/internet/blogging era, which he would likely be DOMINATING even as I write this!
11. With no gauzy specter of McCartney & Wings inhabiting the ether, Michael Jackson and Prince might have joined forces in 1979, or at least by 1982, forming an Arena Funk Behemoth called The Jackson/Nelson Experience that would still be filling soccer stadia the world over! Thus Hair Metal, Madonna, and EDM might well have been averted, though Miz Ciccone would likely have made her mark anyway, as choreographer and lascivious onstage dancer with her Lower East Side neighbors, Sonic Youth and The Beastie Boys.
12. Ably assisted by Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield of Montana, President Ted Kennedy would have rammed through his plan for comprehensive National Health Insurance shortly after the 1974 mid-term elections, thus ensuring that Ronald Reagan would never have left the ranch in Santa Barbara, and that no Bush or Clinton ever came near The White House!
Just some morsels o’ food for Musical/Political Science-Fictive thought. I encourage you to share OTHERS, as they come to mind!
13. Perhaps in this same Alternate Musical Universe MOTT, RAW POWER, NEW YORK DOLLS, RADIO CITY, STRANDED, ALADDIN SANE, SLAYED?, THE SLIDER, BERLIN, and HERE COME THE WARM JETS all woulda gone Top 10 in the U.S. during 1973-74, thereby bringing about a hard-edged, Proto-Punk Revolution five (if not closer to twenty, cf. NEVERMIND) years early!
My god, what a relief THAT would have been!
– Tom
