THE STANDELLS
The Standells are a garage rock band from Los Angeles, California, US, formed in the 1960’s, who have been referred to as the “punk band of the 1960’s”, and said to have inspired such groups as the Sex Pistols and Ramones. They are best known for their 1966 hit “Dirty Water”, now the anthem of several Boston sports teams; the song is played following every Boston Red Sox and Boston Bruins win. (More from Wikipedia)
By 1971, the term “punk rock” had already been applied retrospectively by Greg Shaw as well as Greil Marcus to American bands such as Question Mark and the Mysterians, the Standells, the Seeds, the Shadows of Knight and the Kingsmen who managed to score some hit songs during the height of the British Invasion. In 1972, Lenny Kaye popularized the term in the first definitive compilation album that he helped assemble for this music, called Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968; his liner notes are almost as legendary as the double-album itself. (This music is now referred to as garage rock and psychedelic rock).
(April 2010)
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American teenagers (mostly white suburban kids) were also invigorated by the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and all the rest; and they responded by launching a counter-assault, when seemingly every kid in America wanted to be in a band. This era is now known as the garage rock era (that was the most available practice space for most of these would-be rock stars, hence the name); this time period also saw the beginnings of the psychedelic rock movement on both sides of the Atlantic. I didn’t know exactly what I was hearing at the time, but the music by bands like the Seeds, Blues Magoos, the Electric Prunes, Question Mark and the Mysterians, the Standells, Count Five, and Strawberry Alarm Clock (among many other bands) was grabbing me almost immediately. I don’t know that I even realized immediately how bizarre many of these American band names were, as compared to those of British Invasion bands like the Animals, Freddie and the Dreamers, and the Dave Clark Five.
Thankfully, in 1972 (though if I’m not mistaken, the album was actually not released in the US until 1976), Lenny Kaye – later the guitarist for the seminal Patti Smith Group – helped assemble hit songs by all of these diverse bands plus plenty more into what is now regarded as one of the greatest compilation albums of all times: Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968. It remains one of my favorite records, and I have spoken of it several times before in these posts.
(January 2013)
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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)
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Just about every year, I have added a new section to my posts; and for this coming year, I will put in a “Story of the Month” from one of my earlier posts about a better known rock band or artist. First up: the Standells, of “Dirty Water” fame.
(Year 4 Review)
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But I likely will keep putting out what I call the “Story of the Month” (I have my web pages broken down into short “Items” and longer “Stories” on whomever or whatever I am talking about) that I uncover as I load up the web site. These Stories are on well known (well, better known anyway) songs and albums and rock bands and other topics that are not of the Under Appreciated variety. I started those last year and meant to list the ones in my year-end post last time but forgot, so here is that list from the past two years:
December 2013 – The Standells
January 2014 – (skipped)
February 2014 – Hasil Adkins
March 2014 – Bobby Darin
April 2014 – Nuggets
May 2014 – The Nerves
June 2014 – The Outsiders (American band)
July 2014 – The Million Dollar Quartet
August 2014 – Scientific Proof of the Existence of God
October 2014 – Walter/Wendy Carlos
November 2014 – The Trashmen
December 2014 – John Birch Society Blues
January 2015 – John Mellencamp
February 2015 – Child Is Father to the Man
March 2015 – Dion DiMucci
July 2015 – “Lola”
August 2015 – Bob Dylan the Protest Singer
(Year 6 Review)
