Charles Manson: Summer of Hate – The Musical: First Look
LIFE mirrors The Produers:
Charles Manson: Summer of Hate – The Musical just opened at Hamburg, Germany’s Thalia Theater.
The Los Angeles Times calls it “musical trip between L.A. and the Death Valley”.
The songs are in English and spoken dialogue in German.
The blurb is in balls:
Charles Manson – the name is synonymous with an American nightmare. While Woodstock was celebrating the ‘summer of love’ in 1969, Manson became a gravedigger, condemning his followers to brutal ritualistic murders in the Hollywood Hills.
Lesser known than the demonic seducer is the failed musician Charles Manson. After spending half his life in prison, Manson emerged onto San Francisco’s Haight-Ashbury scene in 1967, before travelling to Los Angeles, the economic and cultural epi-centre of pop culture towards the end of the Sixties. Manson’s ‘Family’, a commune of young, predominantly female outcasts from prosperous America, saw many stars come in and out – greats of the music scene including Dennis Wilson of the Beach Boys, Neil Young and producer Terry Melcher all sponsored the charismatic singer songwriter. The sexual availability of his female followers and drugs served not only as currency for access to Hollywood royalty, but were also Manson’s most important instrument of power within the ‘Family’. While his music career failed, as ‘band leader’ he experienced similar adoration to a pop star. When he relocated the core ‘Family’ to a disused Western movie ranch in Death Valley, Manson and his followers prepared themselves for ‘Helter Skelter’, the final race war that Manson believed was foretold in detail in The Beatles’ ‘White Album’.
Sings along if you can stand it:
For hundreds of years, men thought they were making decisions.
Decisions made men.
The less you are, the further you get away from them……
Would you like two pairs of shoes?
Why would I want two pairs of shoes?
What if those wear out?
Do you want me to carry this other pair of shoes around, waiting for my other pair of shoes to wear out?……
It’s all right there behind your head
That’s what I said
Behind your head…
And it; all done in the best possible taste!
Posted: 2nd, October 2014 | In: Music Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
