The Crying of Lot 49
Sick Dick and the Volkswagens
Sick Dick and the Volkswagens (a word play on Long John and the Silver Beetles, an early name of The Beatles) was a NYC experimental band active 1978–83. Listen to one of their songs on Youtube, recorded 1979–1981, released 1991. Their guitarist Donald Miller also played with Jim Sauter and Don Dietrich who are listed below under Gravity’s Rainbow.
A band in Florida also carries this name.
The Paranoids
An album by The Paranoids. Or possibly a spoof?
There are a number of bands called The Paranoids, many of which possibly inspired by the band from Pynchon’s second novel. One of them is a new wave band that recorded three singles around 1979/1980. Another one is a Californian garage punk band formed in 2003. I also came across across the artwork of a 1986 record called 2 Fat 2 Frug – 2 Slim 2 Swim, purportedly by “a west coast underground band playing innovative guitar pop.” I’m not sure if the record actually exists, but the band members are called Miles, Dean, Serge, and Leonard and the track list includes songs titled “Miles’s Song,” “Serenade,” “Manson & Nixon” (that’s eleven years before Mason & Dixon), “Serge’s Song,” “Mistral,” and “Too Fat to Fry Too Slim to Swim.” The label is indicated as W.A.S.T.E. Records from San Narciso. The owner of the website writes that Miles “had a top ten hit in 1983 under the name of ‘Sick Dick and the Volkswagens’ with their song ‘I want to kiss your feet,’” a tune I was unable to verify.
Trystero Records
There was a record label called Trystero Records in the late 1960s and another one in the 1990s. However, neither seemed to have published much.
Tim Souster: “The Transistor Radio of St Narcissus” (c. 1982/83)
Tim Souster was a prolific British avant-garde composer and music producer with the BBC. In 1971, he became Karlheinz Stockhausen’s teaching assistant in Cologne. “The Transistor Radio of St Narcissus” is a 24-minute piece for flugelhorn, live electronics, and tape” to be performed by two musicians. Read more on timsouster.com.
Greenfield Leisure: “Too Fat to Frug” from Those Far Off Summers (1982)
“Too Fat to Frug” by the British new wave band Greenfield Leisure (active 1979–83) is an adaptation of “Miles’s Song.”
The Dangtrippers: “Maxwell’s Demon Box” from Days Between Stations (1987 or 1989)
The Iowa pop/rock band has a song about Maxwell’s demon on their only album, likely inspired by The Crying of Lot 49. Links: allmusic.com | discogs.com | mp3red.cc
The Jazz Butcher: “Looking for Lot 49” from Fishcoteque (1988)
British indie rock band, active 1982–2000 and 2012. The song also appeared on the 2003 album The Jazz Butcher’s Free Lunch. Links: allmusic.com | discogs.com | Youtube
LOSP: Welcome to Yoyodyne (1988)
Los Paranos, a French band founded in the late 1970s (and already a Pynchon reference), appears to have turned into LOSP sometime in the 1980s, a solo project by Christoph Petchanatz. He issued a cassette tape with a Yoyodyne reference. Link: discogs.com
Lot 49
Apparently, there was a late-1980s Ontario hardcore band called Lot 49 and a NYC indie band by the same name. The latter was founded in 1995 and one of the founding members later joined San Francisco Band Yoyodyne (likely not the one mentioned below).
Richard Einhorn: “Maxwell’s Demon #1–4” from Red Angels (1990/1994) ♥
I have not been able to substantiate if the American composer’s “Maxwell’s Demon” that was turned into ballet music was in fact inspired by Pynchon (see also below), but I like the music. Links: Youtube | MP3 (of #4) on richardeinhorn.com
Radiohead’s W.A.S.T.E. Headquarters.
Radiohead
The best known band with allusions to The Crying of Lot 49 is likely Radiohead. García Iborra and de Jódar Bonilla point out that Radiohead “make extensive use of Pynchon’s imagery in [sic!] their records” (40). According to a Rolling Stone article, Radiohead singer Thom Yorke read, or at the very least attempted to read, V. and Gravity’s Rainbow. Radiohead’s official website’s uniform resource locator is www.wasteheadquarters.com and another website of theirs is www.waste-central.com (both spelled W.A.S.T.E. on the website). The band’s guitarist Jonny Greenwood scored Paul Thomas Anderson’s movie adaption of Inherent Vice. Otto remarked in the comments section that Radiohead’s song “We Suck Young Blood” resonates with a song in V. (p. 300, “I want some young blood / Drink it, gargle it” etc.). Read more about the Pynchon/Radiohead connection at The Modern Word.
Poster Children
I quote band member Rick Valentin, quoted over at The Modern Word: “We’ve had a few Pynchon references in our history. The artwork on our first cassette Toreador Squat (1988) had a thank you to The Paranoids, a muted post horn, and the line “More W.A.S.T.E. Music from Trash Can” (the label was called Trash Can Records). Our second touring van (1990) boasted the vanity plate: LOT 49 (there’s no extra charge for vanity plates in Illinois if you have a number following letters!). Our song “Junior Citizen” (1996) contains the line: “Tune to station KCUF.” And in regards to your question, throughout our DVD, Zero Stars (2001), Howie is reading Gravity’s Rainbow.” Links: allmusic.com | discogs.com | Youtube
Vader: “Silent Empire” from De Profundis (1995)
Excerpt from the lyrics of the song by the prolific Polish death metal band: “We await the silent empire / The timeless domain of disinherited ones. / […] / The horn, there you can see / The message, this should come soon Trystero, the name we behold / […] You’d better never antagonize the horn.” The song also appears on the album XXV (2008). Links: allmusic.com | discogs.com | Youtube
Maas: “San Narciso” (1995)
Electronic dance musician Maas is named for The Crying of Lot 49’s protagonist, and the track on the debut EP is another reference to the novel. Links: The Modern Word | discogs.com | beatport.com
Barry Koron: Unsung Pynchon
According to The Modern Word, San Francisco musician Barry Koron recorded a good number of Pynchon’s songs, mainly from Gravity’s Rainbow and V. with the help of other musicians. Unfortunately, I have not been able to date the recording and it is nowhere to be found. What I did find out, however, is that he was the musical director of The Phantom of the Opera and rehearsal pianist for at least three other Andrew Lloyd Webber musicals, which I find funny given the “Andrew Lloyd Webber Chamber of —” sanction in Vineland.
Yo La Tengo: “The Crying of Lot G.” from And Then Nothing Turned Itself Inside Out (2000)
Experimental indie band from Hoboken, N.J., founded in 1984. Except for the line “Maybe I’m out of my mind / Maybe I’m blocking out the truth,” this tender song does not appear to have much to do with the novel. Links: discogs.com | allmusic.com | Youtube | last.fm
Claus-Steffen Mahnkopf ♥
The German experimental musician and composer released several Pynchon-related works: The Tristero System (2002/2007) for ensemble; Hommage à Thomas Pynchon (2003–05) for ensemble, solo cello, and live electronics; and Pynchon Cycle (2013) which contains the four compositions “The Tristero,” “The Courier’s Tragedy” (for cello, 2001/03), “W.A.S.T.E.” (for oboe and live electronics, 2001–02/2004), and “D.E.A.T.H” (for eight loudspeakers, 2001–02/2004). Another composition of his is “W.A.S.T.E. 2” (for 8-track tape, 2001–02/2003). The artist’s statement about the music can be read on the website of the sheet music publisher Sikorski (scroll down for English). See also: allmusic.com | Listen to it on Youtube (with score): “W.A.S.T.E.” | “The Courier’s Tragedy”
Oedipa Maas
There apperead to have been a Californian Band called Oedipa Maas and an artist that went by the same name but I was unable to find more information on them.
Johan Asherton: Trystero’s Empire (2000)
Four of the songs on the French musician’s album also appear on the 2001 EP Four Songs from Trystero’s Empire. Links: allmusic.com | discogs.com | deezer.com
Trystero
A band called Trystero releaed a limited-edition album entitled A Scrapyard of Fallen Empires (2007) and another one (or an artist) with the same name appears on the sampler Electro-Organic Vol. 1 (2001).
The Librarians: “Too Fat To Frug” from The Pathetic Aesthetic (2002)
The lyrics don’t seem to be lifted from The Crying of Lot 49 but the Pynchon link is likely there as Damon Larson, one of the members of this Californian punk-pop combo, went on to form a garage punk band called The Paranoids in 2003. Links: allmusic.com | discogs.com | mp3va.com
Trystero System
A band named Trystero System appears on the 2003 electronic/jazz album Radio Daze by Mike Cooper.
Lot49 ♥
From 2004–2016, there was a British tech-funk label called Lot49.
A record issued by the now de-funked label Lot 49.
Chef Menteur: “W.A.S.T.E.” from We Await Silent Tristero’s Empire (2005) ♥
Experimental postrock/electronic/noise band from Louisiana, co-founded in 1998 by Alec Vance, formerly of Shinola (which, in the context, could be a reference to Gravity’s Rainbow Shit’n’Shinola episode). Links: Bandcamp | allmusic.com | discogs.com | mp3va.com
Anathallo/Javelins: “Entropy” (2005)
In 2005, the Michigan-based bands Anathallo and Javelins joined up for a split vinyl album on which each of them has a recording of “Entropy,” according to band members a reference not to the short story but to The Crying of Lot 49. Links: discogs.com | Wikipedia | Youtube
Tristero: “Song for Oedipa Maas” from A Miracle is Another World’s Intrusion into this One (2006)
The Texas-based band borrowed its name and the title of several songs and their EP from The Crying of Lot 49: “Song for Oedipa Maas 1 (W.A.S.T.E.),” “Song for Oedipa Maas 2,” and “Song for Oedipa Maas 4 (A Dry, Disconsolate Tune).” According to unsigned.com, “The six songs on the record are loosely based on Thomas Pynchon’s short novel The Crying of Lot 49.” The first song on the EP is named for Gertrude Stein’s Tender Buttons. Links: myspace.com | unsigned.com | sonichits.com
Toktok: Yoyodyne (2006)
The German electronic band project Toktok recorded an EP called Yoyodyne. Their EP Babylon sports a valved horn, not muted but strongly reminiscent of the musted post horn. Links: discogs.com | Myspace | Youtube
Yoyodyne
There was a band called Yoyodyne that recorded one album, Advice, in 2009 (on a label called Yoyodyne). One of the songs is entitled Bomb Song. Links: allmusic.com | Napster
Projekt A-KO: Yoyodyne (2009)
Yoyodyne appears to be the only album released by the Glaswagian indie rock band. One of the songs is entitled “Yoyodyne (Scintilla III).” Links: allmusic.com | discogs.com
Weatherbox: “Mind Things to W.A.S.T.E.” from The Cosmic Drama (2009).
According to allmusic.com, Weatherbox credited the likes of Karl Marx, Joseph Heller, Kurt Vonnegut, and many others as “quotation authors.” The cover art is inspired by the Delta Fiction series of Vonnegut’s books, replacing the V (for Vonnegut) with a W (for Weatherbox). Links: allmusic.com | discogs.com | Youtube
New Rome Quartet: “San Narciso” from New Rome Quartet (2010)
Although the artwork looks like 1960s, New Rome Quartet only recorded their album in 2010. A trippy instrumental San Narciso reference with some funky riffs. Links: allmusic.com | Myspace | Bandcamp
Eugene S. Robinson & Philippe Petit: The Crying of Lot 69 (2011)
This dark, part spoken-word “six-part tale of inhumanity and death” (Richard Fontenoy) is supposed to be the first in a trilogy. Links: Bandcamp | discogs.com | Vimeo
Thank you, John K., for pointing this one out!
Faded Paper Figures: “San Narciso” from The Matter (2012)
The Los Angeles indie pop band, founded in 2007, refers to San Narciso, circuits, entropy, demons, among other themes and phrases of Pynchon’s. Links: allmusic.com | discogs.com | Youtube
Jaan Landheer: Tristero (2012)
Jaan Landheer is a California-based rock musician. Link: Bandcamp
Kyle Bruckmann’s Wrack: Wrack …Awaits Silent Tristero’s Empire (2014) ♥
The Californian oboist’s experimental album – “a musical phantasmagoria inspired by the novels of Thomas Pynchon” – contains the tracks “Overture,” “Part One [V.],” Part Two [The Crying of Lot 49],” and “Part Three [Gravity’s Rainbow].” Its cover sports a muted post horn. Links: Bandcamp | kylebruckmann.com | discogs.com | Youtube
Ziguri: “Yoyodyne,” from Kölsch-Schickert-Erdenreich (2014)
The song by Berlin trance/Kraut band Ziguri combines the lyrics of “Hymn” (65) and “Glee” (66), although not the the tunes of “Far Above Cayuga’s Waters” (i.e. Cornell’s alma mater) and “Aura Lee” as the novel indicates. Links: allmusic.com | discogs.com | Youtube
Strange Faces: “Serenade” from Stonerism (2015)
An adaptation of the Paranoids’ “Serenade” (27). Links: allmusic.com | discogs.com | Soundcloud
Detlef Weinrich a.k.a. Tolouse Low Trax: “Tristero’s Empire” (2016)
The German electronic musician also recorded “Vineland” (see below). Links: Beatport | Soundcloud | aiohow.org
Adam Hendey: “The Victoria Fountain / The Mark of the Tristero / The Rolling Waves” from Forward (2016)
Forward was Californian multi-instrumentalist Adam Hendey’s debut album. Link: cdbaby.com
Maxwell’s Demon
“Maxwell’s Demon” can be found on the internet as the name of a band, the name of different tunes (by artists such as Taran, Adultnapper, Jeff Toyne, John B., Antler, Six Finger Hand, Potsy, Forma, The Kendricks, Percy Jones, The E.Normus Trio, Dan Ashwood, Harald Svensson, DJs of Drum & Bass United, Ensemble Phoenix Basel, The Dangtrippers, Richard Einhorn, Tunnels, or Ingebrigt Håker Flaten) or the name of an album. I have not been able to ascertain which ones were inspired by the theoretical Maxwell’s Demon and which ones made a detour through The Crying of Lot 49. For an overview, see here.
Contents
1 Introduction
2 “Entropy” and V.
3 The Crying of Lot 49 (this page)
4 Gravity’s Rainbow
5 Vineland, Mason & Dixon, Against the Day, and miscellaneous homages
6 Bibliography and Biography
For myself, reading Pynchon is such a personal experience that I really prefer providing my own soundtrack. This is still a very interesting look at the quite wide influence that Mr. Pynchon ‘s work has had on musicians. I hadn’t realised how wide. My personal preference is Devo’s “Whip It”. It is direct and to the point without extraneous extrapolation. Just sayin’.
Your preference for providing your own soundtrack for reading Pynchon is probably a feeling shared by many of the musicians on this list, I would think, which is why they did create their own soundtrack. Some of the above tracks and albums would still fit nicely into my reading.
I enjoyed this very much and look forward to reading more. A lot of this was new to me and I will seek a lot of these recording out, particularly those which have tried to create songs from the books. One of my favourite things about reading Pynchon is when characters burst into song.
The debut album of the ambient music project, Shadowy Lines is devoted entirely to Gravity’s Rainbow. The album is called “Mindless Pleasures”. You can download it on Bandcamp as a Name-your-price deal. Here’s their webpage:
http://www.autohypnosis.net/shadowylines/albums.html
Here’s the Bandcamp link:
https://shadowylines.bandcamp.com/album/mindless-pleasures
Thank you, Mike, for these additions! Thanks also to John Krafft and Thomas for a good number of other suggestions! I added them all. Now I count about 95 entries, but still not a single one for Inherent Vice or Bleeding Edge. Anyone want to do a recording of Meatball Flag’s timeless surf classic “Soul Gidget”?
Singer/Songwriter David Arthur Brown is a self-expressed Thomas Pynchon fan and often alludes to his work via his band Brazzaville. Most notably the song “Soft Parade,” from Morrow Bay (2013).
“Summer days remind me of the Soft Parade. Seventeen in L.A. and my heart kept breaking. So long ago—road trips down to Mexico—with ‘On The Road’ and ‘Gravity’s Rainbow.'”
The Jazz Butcher – Lot 49 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f8EVyEaXu_I
Thanks! This one is already listed (with a different Youtube link) as “Looking for Lot 49.”
So “Life During Wartime” by Talking Heads isn’t a condensed view of GR?
What is GR if not life during wartime?
“I’ve changed my hair style so many times now I don’t know what I look like.” That’s not Tyrone Slothrop who changes his personality/name three or four times until his atoms just dissipate?
Yeah, possibly. Thanks for this. Before I add it to the list, I wonder if we can get more info to corrobate this. After all, there’s also a line that is very un-slothroppy: “No time for dancing, or lovey dovey I ain’t got time for that now.”
I am on the recording of “Unsung Pynchon” by Barry Koron, who was my partner at the time we recorded it in New York in the 1980s. We made a CD, of which I have a copy, but I don’t know if there are any of them left. I thought I gave you this information a few years ago, since you seemed to know so little about it. It’s a wonderful recording.
Sorry about my late answer… If you still have the CD, I think it would be wonderful if you could upload the MP3s somewhere and share them with the universe! That way I could link to those tunes.
Barry passed away last year and I don’t know what the copyright situation is (if any) regarding these songs now. I will ask his daughter.
Full of references in the track titles here:
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sombunall-Beneva-Clark-Nova/dp/B002RZZ14G/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Beneva+%26+Clark+Nova&qid=1594675035&s=dmusic&search-type=ss&sr=1-2
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Sombunall-Beneva-Clark-Nova/dp/B002RZZ14G/ref=sr_1_2?dchild=1&keywords=Beneva+%26+Clark+Nova&qid=1594675035&s=dmusic&search-type=ss&sr=1-2
I wonder if these are actual references and not just resonances that we as readers of Pynchon are sensitized to. Is there any other piece of information to corroborate that these songs were inspired by Pynchon?
The song in page 300 of my edition of V is very similar in content to “We Suck Young Blood” by Radiohead, who are previously known to have made several Pynchon references.
The song “V” by Golden Smog from 1995’s Down by the Old Mainstream. It’s a great song!
Thanks, Anthony. That is a great song! I’m just not convinced that it’s a reference to Pynchon. Except for “V” there’s little to make that assumption, I think, and I found the following on the internet: “V is an ode to a friend of the band’s, a bartender from the Uptown Bar in Minneapolis.”
Here’s a Gravity’s Rainbow playlist I put together as I read the novel over the past several months
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/1IwJR1RYnxY2LARCnT1X6d?si=b52b7eedcc164aa1
Thank you, Eric. Would you like to explain what made you include songs? Inspiration, resonances, occasional reference perhaps?
All three of those. Some of the songs directly reference the novel, while some deal with similar themes. I also tried to imagine what Pynchon may’ve been listening to as he worked on the novel. But mostly the playlist was an exercise to help me make sense of the novel, even imagining what a film soundtrack would look like.
I think I may have written to you before about Barry Koron’s Unsung Pynchon. It was recorded in New York in 1987 and I am one of the performers on the recording. Barry was at that time my fiance and he wrote all the songs when we were living together, so I got to sing them all (but not on the recording).
Hi Carolyn, yes you did tell me a little over two years ago. It would be great if you could make the recording available! I will probably go through these pages soon and update some links, add a bit here or there.
Thanks for this – was prompted to come here when trying to locate some info about my own band, Greenfield Leisure, who are kindly included in your list (“too fat to frug, baby, that’s what you tell me all the time!”). If I recall correctly, we even tried contacting Mr Pynchon via his literary agent to get permission to “adapt” the lyrics, but something about the author living in a cave meant we didn’t get a definitive reply – so we thanked him anyway on the record sleeve. The late John Peel played “Too Fat To Frug” on his BBC Radio One evening show back in the day – there is an audio clip of Peel’s wry intro somehwere on the interweb. Greenfield Leisure still pop up from time to time on college radio, internet stations, eBay, Discogs and YouTube. Oh, and for die-hard fans, there’s a bunch of stuff on Bandcamp. Thanks for listening.
For the past twenty years i have been performing, live and on record, something I call Spirit Songs. They are all generated, William Burroughs/Bryon Gysin style, by cutting up Gravitys Rainbow and V. I improvise the backing to these pieces rendering each rendition completely different. No fixed harmony, tune or melody. There are many versions scattered across the music platforms. One of my favourites is this one – https://mikecooper.bandcamp.com/album/mike-cooper-spirit-songs-live
While many of these references are to single songs and less well known acts one should note that Mark Knophler’s entire album Sailing to Philadelphia was influenced by Mason/Dixon.