Overview

Nicholas Tochka analyzes the role of rock music in the life of Charles Manson, the Family, and the August 1969 Tate-LaBianca killings, which also gives larger insight into Sixties counterculture. Failed singer-songwriter. Devious cult leader. A rock Pied Piper. The product of a sick society. Just another dime-a-dozen singing hippy mystic. Did the guitar-playing guru personify the violence that the rock counterculture inflicted on America? Or did his music diagnose the dehumanizing effects of that society’s broken institutions? For over five decades, commentators have debated the meaning of Charles Manson and the Tate-LaBianca killings. Rock music links their narratives: from the aciddrenched singalongs at the Spahn Movie Ranch, to a bizarre theology centered on Beatles songs, to his commune’s alleged links with Hollywood’s elite, to an album, LIE: The Love and Terror Cult (1970). In this first comprehensive examination of the Manson Family’s music, Nicholas Tochka writes with, against, and alongside the many authors—true-crime hacks, gonzo journalists, conspiracy theorists, and rock critics alike—who have told and retold the story of “the Manson murders.” Playing the truth games that these postwar Americans helped invent, The Musical Lives of Charles Manson presents a new take on the story of the commune—and on rock’s role in fracturing the possibility of writing trustworthy histories after the Sixties. “They are afraid of it, because it tells the truth,” Manson once claimed, describing his music. Just what truths did the Manson Family’s music-making tell?

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9781501384561

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Reviews

In taking on Manson lore, Nicholas Tochka joins a dune buggy army of novelists, filmmakers, true crime writers, scholars, hacks, and creepy fans. Into this mix he brings a brilliant account of Manson’s musical life, and an even more brilliant reflection on the confounding synchronicities of historical narrative. * Erik Davis, author of Blotter: the Untold Story of an Acid Medium (2024) * Tochka expertly sifts through over half a century of Mansonalia to give a definitive account of Manson’s mad game, sad game and the culture that played host to it. * Jacob Bloomfield, author of Drag: A British History (2023) * The Manson murders spelled the end of the sixties — but they also launched countless new stories, all spun in the hope of closing the gap between those unreal events and any 'truth' that could adequately explain them. In this daring book, Nicholas Tochka steps into a swirl of mystery and conspiracy, following that endless deferral of truth that transforms crime into myth. I believed every word of it. * Benjamin Piekut, Professor of Music, Cornell University, USA *

Author Information

Nicholas Tochka is an ethnomusicologist, investigative mythologist, and former Poling Prize nominee. He has previously written three books examining the politics of music-making in the postwar world.

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