Uses of Rock in Movies--What not to Do, pt. 2

The Yardbirds are a fabled group because of their trio of lead guitar players--Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Jimmy Page. I stumbled across them in the Beck era; I wore out the grooves of their Having a Rave Up With the Yardbirds LP. My favorite song from that album was "Train Kept A-Rollin,'" which, fortunately, is one of the few Yardbirds live (not lip-synched) performances preserved from that era at a concert sponsored by a British publication. The song is always notable because of the way Beck on guitar and Keith Relf on harmonica imitate the eponymous train and trade licks with each other. But in this performance, Relf at one point looks like he's ready to blow that lonesome whistle, while Beck goes softer.



Fast forward to--well, the same year, 1966. Michaelangelo Antonioni is filming his indictment of Swinging London, Blow Up. He wants to get the Velvet Underground, but can't, so he gets the Yardbirds. By now their bassist, Paul Samwell-Smith, has left the group (to produce, among other people, Cat Stevens), so their rhythm guitarist, Chris Dreja, becomes the bassist, and the new guitar player is a rather callow but enormously talented Jimmy Page. For their scene, the group does "Train Kept A-Rollin,'" but probably for copyright purposes it is titled "Stroll On." This clip has become so famous that one version of it on YouTube claims it comes from the Yardbirds movie.



Another poster claims that this is an accurate portrayal of London in the Sixties. Bull. It's Antonioni riding his hobby-horse that modern Western society is vapid and vacuous. The audience stares listlessly at the group, two people dance as though they were stepping on ants, and one girl has regressed to an infantile state. The crowd only emerges from its narcolepsy when Beck destroys his guitar--then it's a bunch of savages. I liked this message better in L'Avventura.

To show that even film commentators can be full of the same material as posters, I listened to the commentary track for this scene on the DVD. The commentator said that the Yardbirds were a proto-punk group known for destroying their instruments. Sorry--that's the Who. I'm surprised he didn't talk about the neo-colonial implications of the club's name (Ricky Tick).

The most interesting fact to me is that I have always thought that the bystander who picks up the guitar neck and throws it down after Hemmings has discarded it was played by--Jeff Beck.