- Leni Sinclair in John Sinclair's book GUITAR ARMY (1972, reissued in 2007).
MESS Survey #1 by Gerry Fialka:
*War of the Worlds by H.G. Wells - Warren Cuccurullo
*the "drug wars" the battle over the interior landscape of the Chemical Body and the public administration of its spectrum (or ecology) by industrial bureaucracies. See the second column on the left of my Tiny Note Chart:"Paranoia," "Schizophrenia," "Hysteria," "Panic," and "Ecstasy" -Robert Dobbs, fivebodied.com
*the birth of the messiah - Tommy Mars
*Teenage Nervous Breakthroughs - Germy Folkways
*the answer is blowin in the wind - Elijah Wald
*Frank Zappa - Rip Rense
*premature hair loss, hearing loss, tooth decay - Don Mearns
*Korean War - Suzy Williams
*audience increase and proliferation of more electric guitars - Larry Selk
*the danger of youth culture - Matt Johnson
*the awakening - Eddie LaGrossa
*World War III -Xaos
*Vietnam - John Humphrey
*the 60's and the opposition to the War in Vietnam - John Sinclair
*a sense of detente or continuity between radio and the emerging environment of television with all its psychedelic qualities intact and amplified - Dave Newfeld
*the emergence of youth culture as the dominant culture in society -Andre Cynkin
*rebellion -Gary Guttman
*"Do Not Pass Go" track 4, disc 1 from the Frank Zappa CD:GUITAR -Simon Prentis (the railway caused WWI)
*reclaimation of spontaneity, and the simultaneity and resurrection of live music -Paul Richley
*creativity - Julie Patterson
*acid and maryjane - Theresa Hulme
*hoochie-koo - Leon Rubenhold
*feedback - Jeff Norman
*is the electric guitar cause a charity? - Kahlil Sabbagh
*sex, drugs and rock'n'roll - Nick Porcaro
*virtual sex! And of course, virtual sex caused mass consternation in the oligarchy because having fun is not the point. War machine is the point. So Rap was invented. No more learning guitar. That takes time. Time spent away from war. Rap takes no time away from war and is as user-friendly with Grenada\Iraq as Hendrix\Doors was with Viet Nam. You never saw the Duke Ellington tour bus pull up to the Count Basie tour bus and open fire! - Tom Brennan
*an end to Communism -Col. Bleep
*an international dependence on aspirin? No wait. The demise of practically every other instrument in the recording industry? No. uh. I won't say it caused the Iraq War, because I don't see the electric guitar being that evil. though I do miss hearing saxophone in rock 'n' roll.- Brian Chidester
*the "War on Poverty". Many poverts were shocked by the output of the electric git-box -David P. Williams
*Elvis with laryngitis -Ralph
*the sexual revolution - Michael Levine
*Les Paul...and/or...noise pollution...an additional rack in pawn shops - Michael C. Ford
*the rise of ego mania - Freddy Ginns
*the Second War between blacks and whites in America - Don Leidinger
*a whole lot of rock'n'roll or what your grandparents might have called noise -Gabriel Van Jones
*armageddon...the forthcoming apocalypse...the forth coming fall of Britney Spears -Bob Rice
*the sexual rEvolution. from Django t Jimi....Sex-is-tentialism...navigating the empty relationships in one's life - Steve DeGroodt
*Woodstock Nation - Michael Simmons
*Hearing Loss, and American Idol (American Idol being the most in our face example of the self disappeared. Check out those people who believe they are wonderful singers. Almost Is everyone is into their retrieval, a singing star, Elvis, Hell's Angel, etc. -Nancy Parker
*ROCK AND ROLL WHICH BRINGS FUCKIN WHICH BRANGS BABIES, BABY! BOOM! -Hank Rosenfeld
*boys to grow their hair long -David Bolog
*the Peace Movement -Peter Young
*yo Mama - Art Connor
*skyrocketing hearing-aid profits from worn-out Babyboomers - Peter Coogan
*the civil rights movement - Bill Chappelle
*the 60's tribal psychedelic modern revolution - Peter Ludwig
*Peace everlasting - Rocco Lugala
*what is an electric guitar? - Mystic Pete
*calluses - Spike Marlin
*tsunami - Dennis Wilson
*Did the electric guitar end the Vietnam War? Maybe the electric guitar brought down the Soviet empire? How can you keep them reading Pravda when they've heard rock 'n roll? -Ted Humphrey
*The Chicago Democratic Convention - Kim Cooper
*the methamphetamine epidemic - Eli Elliott
*the rise of the electric guitar caused many heated Battles of the Bands and numerous machine gun-like flurries between unwilling victims, leaving behind groupies with blisters and businessmen deaf to the needs of wounded guitar players egos running Helter Skelter. We also have had to endure casualties with suicide guitarists consciously and sometimes unconsciously blowing up amps, leaving many heavily stoned audiences lying comatose in their wake. And let's not let numerous fashion wars in the 60s, 70s and 80s go unnoticed, either. What beginswith a G String ends up with a mighty "Pluck you!" We now know that with the aggressive stylings of metalhead stringmeisters that "War per se means more work for all hairstylists", to paraphrase a common saying. We musn't forget the rising sales in the hearing aid industry, which keeps the Silent Majority able to march to the beat of an indifferent drummer. Finally, the electric guitar mightily contributed to the cacophonous onslaught of Eric Burdon's group WAR, which turned out to be a nearly unendurable burden for those who had to sit through this late 60s sonic assault. Summing up, I think it is safe to say that the electric guitar shows once and for all the phallusy of war itself. The electric (eclectic?) guitar must be ranked as the biggest boner of the 20th century, naturally not counting the Republican Party. Am I missing anything? I hope this answers most of your electrical needs. -Paul Plimley
*caused many pregnancies and now the babies have grown up and will be starting th next round of wars -Thad Johnson
*an uprise in juvenile delinquency and possibly a middle school riot - Lily Marlene
*lots of hip skirmishes and finger picking scars, culture wars, audio dynomite - Jennie Williams
*the electric guitar caused me to fling myself into lifelong poverty pursuing a career as a songwriter... - John Trubee
*Vietnam would be the natural progression if you buy into that analogy, but I'd say none of that stuff had a direct connection. Wars are for the most part, created by greedy, insecure assholes that would rather kill than negotiate. Electric guitars "caused" a lot of things, but I'll hold off on that one for now...me gotta go now... - Eric Predoehl
*neutralize the Christian patriot missle -Chronos 2006 c.u.t.
*probably Journey or Styx - Insect Surfer Dave Arnson
*caused a bunch of zealots to make asses of themselves when a guy named Dylan plugged one in -Todd Von Hoffmann
*Star Wars - Lisa Marr
*the 3 minute attention span - Moira Smiley
*the assassination of John F. Kennedy - Jeff W. Richman
*an eternal itch - Bill Daniel
*a battle of the bands, a million garage bands? - Rick Landerman
*the Manson Murders - John Cannizzaro
*the Korean War. My reasoning is the electric guitar represents American society and the communists were anti American. - Doug Ing
*I give up. What's the answer? - Brian Farfall
*the pill - Mat Gleason
*temporary relief - Rahne Pistor
*caused the sexual revolution. It got people so hot, they couldn't contain themselves - Jenny Nissenson
*started THE WAR ON DRUGS - Ruby Crater
*Nothing; Charlie Christian; "The Generation Gap" - Martin Perlich
*the air guitar! It retrieves tribal dance while enhancing the rhythms of the AM (old environment inside the AP). It mimes acoustic echoes within the "Holiotropic Now Sphere" for the disappeared crowds. - Scott Norris
*Jimi Hendrix - Bryan Konefsky
*Revolution, baby. Rock 'n roll and the cultural & sexual revolution of the 1960's and it's still making waves. Could Chuck Berry have been big without it? Would Woodstock and Jimi Hendrix have been the milestone events without it? Most likely not. Has American culture or pop culture ever been the same since music became electrified? NOPE. But, if you want me to follow the associated violent analogy, the Cold War. Nothing is more subversive as blue jeans and Elvis Presley to a totalitarian regime. - Leo Ogata
*Elvis (gay black people) - Mary Jane Shoultz
*the end of the world. - Paul Krassner
*RockStaritis, or RockStarism - similar to the G.A.N. (Great American Novel) concept, something perfectly representing the spirit of life in the US. Mailer and Capote somewhat failed since they did not know that the newspaper is the GAN, something McLuhan knew and incorporated into his books. It means you wear dark glasses, play loud, live fast and die young. Some, like Frank Zappa, knew that notes were also involved. - Gerry Fialka
*The Fall of the American Empire - Lee Berry
*Jerry Garcia - Bob Sarles
*crotch itch - Paul Korntheuer
*the music revolution of the 50s and 60s. And that is deep structure of the cultural revolution ditto. The other main cause of this was TV. Result was shift from the professional musician (orchestral, even academy-trained) to the amateur, the kid in his basement or garage. Obsolescence of the big band and the big slick sound. This was warfare in a fundamental key. Remember Plato saying, "when the mode of music changes, the walls of the city shake." R&R is still shaking the walls of every culture on earth. R&R is inconceivable without electric guitars. Thunder? - Eric McLuhan
*the war on drugs - Melinda Lilycat
*Fender Benders - Mark Powers
*Woodstock - Art Jarvinen
*an epidemic of dilapidated eardrums! - Ella Kondrat
* Bob Dylan - Pebbles Zimmerman
*dumbing down the cultural & artistic standards through the loudness of adolescent frustrations - Fred Koerner
* tell me - Braxton Pope
*Mr. T..... of course -Jeff Springer
* Jimi Hendrix of course !- Renee Bergan
*The death of the orchestra - Simon Prentis
*fodder for lots of books, especially for Dylan and the only dumb thing Pete Seeger ever did. - Douglas Day
*a radical increase in per capita numbers of groupies per guitar player, something to do with HDO (high decibel output) and VRQ (vulva receptivity quotients) - Michael Messer
*The electric guitar caused a few Bob Dylan's fans to become neo-conservatives who caused a born-again Christian to become a neo-crusader who caused a retro-Islamist to become a neo-jihadist who caused the price of oil to increase which caused Exxon to reap just enough profits to allow their c.e.o. to retire with just enough money to buy a reasonable number of third-world countries. Second, the short answer: Loss of hearing. Third, an even shorter answer: Altamont. - Darryl Heniques
*Blink 182- the most horrible disaster in the history of America - Jeremy Lubin
* the end of the American Century. The electric guitar = our permissive Western Culture. The fundamentalist backlash (from both Islam and from our home-grown bible thumpers) against the excesses of Western culture is the source of many of the phenomena that define our current situation, e.g., the war on terror; theocracies here and abroad; the move to suppress funding for the arts; Intelligent Design, the drive to overturn Roe v. Wade, Promise Keepers, etc. Look around, its a "We need a whole lot more of Jesus and a lot less rock-n-roll" world. - John Blong
*The electrical guitar probably caused Post-Modernism - Dennis Carlile
*distortion - Erik Lundborg
*I guess I don't really agree with the other statements, but....the electric guitar caused contemporary transcendence, and Columbine. - Oren Goldenberg
*My answer to your burning question, "what did the electric guitar cause", well,
it caused many things. I may be wrong but I don't believe the human species could have held the "U.S. Air Guitar Championships" if only the acoustic version existed. Acoustic guitar just doesn't warrant it. It also caused major hearing impairment to guitar shop clerks and customers alike. You know, listening to people of all ages wanking off with the succulent guitar of their choice at top volume, playing things like "Iron Man" or "Smoke on the Water" complete with crappy teen-age leads. Yes, I was once one of them, too except, I played Loverboy's "Turn Me Loose" on bass. And lastly, it caused male musicians to stuff their tight rock n' roll trousers with various size enhancing, penile replicas. Once again, don't think folk or jazz musicians woulda done it. - J. Swank
*girls gone wild ! - Ann Randolph
*the war between rock and 1) big band music, 2) disco, 3) rap - Lance Strate
*The bass guitar. Gene Vincent. Teenage pregnancy. Calluses. The Moon.
What didn't the electric guitar cause? - Ron Kane
*the genration gap - Tim Jackson
*Battle of the Bands - Jamie Cohen
*The electric guitar caused casual dress to pervade society, looser attitudes about sex, less uptightness and formality in general. But now it just sells cars to Homer-Simpson type people.- Nick Porcaro
*Global Warming - Heather Woodbury
*T-Bone Walker - Ed Smith
*Hip hop - Michael Martin
*lots of frustrated shoe salesmen - David Thomson
*First came the Electric guitar then came the Marshall Amps! - Robert Taryan
*it caused gas and chaos amongst the 'older' generation - Eric Hasler
*whiteness - Sam Amidon
*the '60's !!!!! - Sam Bruskin
*Muddy Waters invented electricity.... - Steve Isoardi
*the population explosion - Bobo Lavorgna
*dancing and drug addiction - Addi Somekh
* It hasn't happened yet, but I'm still hopeful the electric guitar will cause the end of war.
''War, what is it good for? Absolutely nuthing!" - Edwin Starr - Paul Levinson
"I must begin by declaring my reservations over the concept of "cause and effect," which I find inadequate in accurately describing the workings of the universe. With that caveat in mind, I might say that the electric guitar "caused" the democratization of popular music, and hence the decline of the "high-brow" and its eventual disappearance as a factor in the mainstream culture (who needs to know how to play an instrument when all you need are three chords to get rich?); or the rise of the Religious Right (Hodge begets Podge); or even the epidemic of teenage male narcissism that lasts until dotage (see Mick Jagger, etc.). But if I could give only one answer, one that addresses its most significant and immediate impact, it would have to be that the electric guitar caused the electric guitar amp. Perhaps there's the question that really needs to be asked: what did the amp cause?" - Ed Hammond
*The introduction of the electric guitar in American pop music spawned an epidemic of crabs which thankfully has been brought under control. - John Schlieman
*The electric guitar caused Jimi Hendrix to set his on fire and then eat it. - Phineas Narco
*profits and prophets - Phillip Gioe
*The electric guitar caused the "Air Guitar" - Scott Norris
*The electric guitar caused the mass marketing of countercultural chaos, FM-pop radio, social fragmentation, gender gaps and generation gaps, electronically re-tribalized political theatre (love-ins & freakouts) by autonomous non-professionals—in short, The Cold War. - Randy Koppang
*If we stick with the set-up of innocuous communication devices causing major man-made catastrophes, then the electric guitar may be said to have caused the continuation of the false illusion of harmony among collectivists and other enemies of personal freedom, precisely because it is such a perfect instrument of individualistic expression and simultaneously a tool of collaboration and interaction. - Mike Wilson
*The electric guitar caused the decline of the Freemasons.- Robert Guffey
Important Conspiratorial Footnote: The cellphone caused The X-Files before it caused 9/11, and The X-Files prefigured 9/11 in the pilot episode of The Lone Gunmen spin-off in which robotically-controlled planes are programmed to fly into the World Trade Center. This episode aired a year before 9/11. According to Dean Haglund, one of the actors on the show, Chris Carter (the producer) regularly used story ideas from the CIA. And speaking of YouTube: get more info from email rguffey@hotmail.com
Please add your input = Gerry Fialka 310-306-7330 pfsuzy@aol.com