THE WIT AND WISDOM OF THE NITTY GRITTY DIRT BAND

Just what the hell is "good time music” supposed to mean? Is it John Sebastian lilting those fruity dry-hump ditties like “You Didn’t Have To Be So Nice” and “Daydream” while Zal Yanovsky frolics like some fraternity dork in the background? Is it Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee leading a mob of bleached out androids in a rousing refrain of “Take This Hammer”? Is it Jim Kweskin and an entire commune of New England hicks warbling “Beedle Um Bum”? Is it a bunch of yokels from, say, Calgary playing washboards and singing junk like “Down by the Riverside”?

First off, it’s one of those terribly dippy phrases that pops up every once in awhile. Sort of like Third Stream Jazz. Yeah, there was a dippy phrase. Acid Rock, that was another nice one. Folk Rock. Where do these phrases come from? Are obscure Bible colleges in Oklahoma given grants by ESP Records to come up with new dippy musicological phrases every seventh equinox? Does Nat Hentoff blurt them out in the throes of cum-cum? Does your own goddam stupid mother make them up? Who the hell knows, right?