A neon approximation of the Standells
Listen/Download – The Standells – Why Did You Hurt Me
Greetings all.
The weekend is upon us, and the summer she is in the full swing.
I for one would rather be on the deck, inside the mosquito-proof confines of the screen tent watching droplets of condensation run down the side of a frosty bottle of beer, as fireflies dance in the air, reminding me just a tiny little bit of the olden days when all the lights floating before my eyes were drug induced.
I have been holding on to today’s selection for a while, waiting for just the right moment to let it drop, and this my friends is that moment.
If you come by here on a regular basis you most definitely are hep to the Standells, a band that if not the whole cornerstone of the raw 60s punk sound were certainly a substantial ingredient in the amalgam from which it was formed.
Their 1966 ‘Dirty Water’ album is just about unfuckwithable, containing several consensus garage punk classics, but the tune I bring you today is a bit lesser known, and odd as this may sound, my all-time favorite song by the band.
I first heard ‘Why Did You Hurt Me’ when I brought home a badly damaged Standells 45, flipped it over and had my wig good and truly flipped.
If there’s an instrument that is positively crucial as a signifier of the sound in question, it is the cheesy combo organ, a machine so forgiving that ignorant teenage troglodytes the world over made some goddamn good records while smashing it with their elbows.
‘Why Did You Hurt Me’, which is launched with a slighty out of tune sounding guitar quickly shifts gears with what may be the most perfectly formed organ line of all time.
There, awash in reverb is the very heart and soul of 1966. No matter that it seems wrapped in a martial beat, or the oddly out of place bridge with the cowbell, when the song stops and the organ starts up again my eyes roll back into my head and I flop on the floor like some kind of Sunset Strip Dr Jekyll, arising as a page-boyed, cuban heeled Mr Hyde.
Biff, bang, pow…the next thing you know, if I’m not back in 1966 (when I was but 4) I am somewhere in 1986, when me and those of my ilk were trying to rebuild 1966 on a Reagan-era frame.
Solid stuff my friends.
See you all on Monday.
Peace
Larry
PS Head over to Funky16Corners for some mellow electric piano soul jazz