Post by Charlie O. on Jun 25, 2020 19:37:16 GMT
You're welcome to join me.
My Standells appreciation has had an unusual arc.
I've spoken before, here and on BCB, about my freakish early childhood memories, particularly regarding music - how even before I could walk I would crawl over to the family Motorola Hi-Fi [sic] whenever one of my older brothers would put something groovy on.
Well, "Dirty Water" was unleashed upon the world the month after I was - November 1965 - and my ten-years-older brother Jim had that 45. That doesn't mean he bought it on day of release, necessarily - might have gotten it many months later - but even so there's a very good chance that it was the first record I fell in love with. I can't be certain of that, 'cause he had a bunch of good ones and my freakish memory isn't so sharp that I actually remember which of them I heard first, but that was by some distance the earliest release he had so it could well have been that. It might as well have been that, let's say.
(Here's somebody playing what might as well be my brother's 45 on something probably more expensive than a vintage Motorola Hi-Fi:)
So I never stopped lovin' that "Dirty Water". But when I started hearing other Standells records in my pre-teens/early teens - the Dirty Water LP from the local library, the Try It LP from the $1.97 bins at Montgomery Ward's - I was pretty disappointed. There were a couple of songs that were alright, but overall they struck me as a being a bit... too Hollywood, maybe? (by that time I knew that drummer/singer Dick Dodd had been a Mouseketeer, so that may have colored my perceptions somewhat) - and not fully committed, somehow. Too many of the songs just didn't click with me, and their covers of other people's hits were just, well, why? It was the same when I heard Rhino's Best Of CD many years later, in the early '90s - a few good-to-great tunes, the rest: meh, or worse even. I'm pretty sure I said as much more than once on BCB over the years.
A note that seems tangential but which will be called back in a couple of paragraphs: In the mid-to-late '90s my record store pals and I had a running joke/motif involving that already-archaic format, the 3-inch CD single. Example: if I started talking about Petula Clark, Gus would say "ahhhh, just give me 'Downtown' on a three-inch" - you get the idea. The Standells were one of those bands for me. (A while later, I put together a 2CD-R Petula Clark comp for myself and a few friends, complete with booklet. I gave one to Gus with his own personalized front cover artwork: instead of This Is The Place, the title read Downtown On A Three-Inch. He laughed.)
Then three years ago a funny thing happened. Sundazed re-reissued Dirty Water, Why Pick On Me _ Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White, and Try It, all with bonus tracks, and for whatever reason I decided to give them another chance... and this time they clicked. I mean, all three albums are mixed bags, to be sure, but suddenly I was hearing a lot more good/great/interesting cuts than I had previously given them credit for. (A number of them were in the bonus tracks, which leads one to wonder why the original releases were as patchy as they were.)
They clicked to the extent that I sought out the earlier Sundazed reissues from 1994 (I'm not sure why I did, but I'm glad I did - they sound considerably better), as well as yet-earlier CDs on Ace/Big Beat.
So the day before yesterday, I finally did what I'd been meaning to do for three years and made my own comp and far from being a 3-inch CD single, it's a 75 minute monolith. (Mind you, the last 11+ minutes are taken up with an instrumental jam - sort of a bonus track. But still...) I called it Riot On Tower Records (1965-1968) - not one of my best titles, but I had an artwork concept that went well with it (which I'm unfortunately unable to execute at the moment, but maybe someday).
But enough of my yakkin'. Whaddaya say - let's boogie!
The one song I really liked on the Try It LP when I first tried it. Not a great piece of songwriting, but a great rave-up!
A Mann/Weil song they elected not to release at the time. The social commentary is arguably an uncomfortable fit, but the music and performance are great.
A fine punk stomper that manages to pack a few unexpected turns into its two and a half minutes.
Another Try It cut - I don't know how I didn't immediately fall in love with it. Main chord progression copped from a Graham Gouldman song that they recorded but decided not to release.
A moody one that I find strangely affecting. Believe it or not, there are drums in there - I guess somebody just forgot to mic 'em. Likely recorded on the set of Riot On Sunset Strip, although the abbreviated version in the movie has audible drums.
Well, sure.
My Standells appreciation has had an unusual arc.
I've spoken before, here and on BCB, about my freakish early childhood memories, particularly regarding music - how even before I could walk I would crawl over to the family Motorola Hi-Fi [sic] whenever one of my older brothers would put something groovy on.
Well, "Dirty Water" was unleashed upon the world the month after I was - November 1965 - and my ten-years-older brother Jim had that 45. That doesn't mean he bought it on day of release, necessarily - might have gotten it many months later - but even so there's a very good chance that it was the first record I fell in love with. I can't be certain of that, 'cause he had a bunch of good ones and my freakish memory isn't so sharp that I actually remember which of them I heard first, but that was by some distance the earliest release he had so it could well have been that. It might as well have been that, let's say.
(Here's somebody playing what might as well be my brother's 45 on something probably more expensive than a vintage Motorola Hi-Fi:)
So I never stopped lovin' that "Dirty Water". But when I started hearing other Standells records in my pre-teens/early teens - the Dirty Water LP from the local library, the Try It LP from the $1.97 bins at Montgomery Ward's - I was pretty disappointed. There were a couple of songs that were alright, but overall they struck me as a being a bit... too Hollywood, maybe? (by that time I knew that drummer/singer Dick Dodd had been a Mouseketeer, so that may have colored my perceptions somewhat) - and not fully committed, somehow. Too many of the songs just didn't click with me, and their covers of other people's hits were just, well, why? It was the same when I heard Rhino's Best Of CD many years later, in the early '90s - a few good-to-great tunes, the rest: meh, or worse even. I'm pretty sure I said as much more than once on BCB over the years.
A note that seems tangential but which will be called back in a couple of paragraphs: In the mid-to-late '90s my record store pals and I had a running joke/motif involving that already-archaic format, the 3-inch CD single. Example: if I started talking about Petula Clark, Gus would say "ahhhh, just give me 'Downtown' on a three-inch" - you get the idea. The Standells were one of those bands for me. (A while later, I put together a 2CD-R Petula Clark comp for myself and a few friends, complete with booklet. I gave one to Gus with his own personalized front cover artwork: instead of This Is The Place, the title read Downtown On A Three-Inch. He laughed.)
Then three years ago a funny thing happened. Sundazed re-reissued Dirty Water, Why Pick On Me _ Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White, and Try It, all with bonus tracks, and for whatever reason I decided to give them another chance... and this time they clicked. I mean, all three albums are mixed bags, to be sure, but suddenly I was hearing a lot more good/great/interesting cuts than I had previously given them credit for. (A number of them were in the bonus tracks, which leads one to wonder why the original releases were as patchy as they were.)
They clicked to the extent that I sought out the earlier Sundazed reissues from 1994 (I'm not sure why I did, but I'm glad I did - they sound considerably better), as well as yet-earlier CDs on Ace/Big Beat.
So the day before yesterday, I finally did what I'd been meaning to do for three years and made my own comp and far from being a 3-inch CD single, it's a 75 minute monolith. (Mind you, the last 11+ minutes are taken up with an instrumental jam - sort of a bonus track. But still...) I called it Riot On Tower Records (1965-1968) - not one of my best titles, but I had an artwork concept that went well with it (which I'm unfortunately unable to execute at the moment, but maybe someday).
But enough of my yakkin'. Whaddaya say - let's boogie!
The one song I really liked on the Try It LP when I first tried it. Not a great piece of songwriting, but a great rave-up!
A Mann/Weil song they elected not to release at the time. The social commentary is arguably an uncomfortable fit, but the music and performance are great.
A fine punk stomper that manages to pack a few unexpected turns into its two and a half minutes.
Another Try It cut - I don't know how I didn't immediately fall in love with it. Main chord progression copped from a Graham Gouldman song that they recorded but decided not to release.
A moody one that I find strangely affecting. Believe it or not, there are drums in there - I guess somebody just forgot to mic 'em. Likely recorded on the set of Riot On Sunset Strip, although the abbreviated version in the movie has audible drums.
Well, sure.
We've been here before.
