96 Tears

96 TEARS
 
 
“96 Tears”  is a song recorded by Question Mark & the Mysterians (also known as “? and the Mysterians”) in 1966.  In October of that year, it was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 in the U.S., and on the RPM 100 in Canada.  Billboard ranked the record as the No. 5 song for the year 1966.  It is ranked #213 on the Rolling Stone list of the 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.  Known for its signature organ licks and bare-bones lyrics, “96 Tears” is recognized as one of the first garage band hits, and has even been given credit for starting the punk rock movement.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
Only last year did I discover that the Premiers were a Chicano band; there was a show on PBS that explained how this band and so many other Latin bands had been chased off the charts by the British Invasion.  They are hardly the only ones;  Question Mark and the Mysterians are a dynamite Latino garage rock band with a big hit to their credit, “96 Tears”.  Their bandleader legally had his name changed to ? (though it was usually spelled out) decades before Prince did something similar – at least ?s was a pronounceable symbol.  Thee Midniters is yet a third one familiar to those in the know; generally bands who use "thee" are Latino bands. 
  
(January 2011)
 
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The Nuggets album collected the garage rock and psychedelic rock hits and would-be hits from the mid-1960’s from bands like the Electric Prunes, Blues Magoos, the Standells, the Seeds, etc. There are some omissions, but Nuggets is as good an overview of this scene as there is. “96 Tears” by ? and the Mysterians, is the missing song that always comes to mind for me (that song didn’t even make the Nuggets Box Set, though it was on the list for the Nuggets, Volume 2 album that was programmed but never released). Interestingly, Wikipedia notes: “One of the earliest written uses of the ‘punk’ term was by critic Dave Marsh who used it in 1970 to describe the group Question Mark and the Mysterians, who had scored a major hit with their song ‘96 Tears’ in 1966.” Here is what I have to say about this album: .
 
(December 2016)
 
Last edited: March 22, 2021