It is no secret how much the government can waste people's money. Think of how much tax dollars went down the drain for Zippergate only to discover what everyone already knew in the first place. Case in point, what on Earth were the US' elected officials attempting to prove by spending people's IRS money decifering the lyrics to "Louie Louie"? Did the expect to find cryptic keys to a revolotion? Well in a sense that was probably true.
"Louie Louie" had been recorded before, but it was the version by the Kingsmen that immortialized it. True, it was revolutionary, but only in hindsight. No, it wasn't inspiring kids to rape and pillage, but "Louie Louie" was perhaps the first punk song ever recorded. This tune was asethetically a slap in the face to the recording industry. The indecipherable lyricist is buried among the overamplified instuments, the timing of the musicians is all of over the place... thus it is all wrong, yet correct. Nonethleless, this cut solidified The Kingsmen's reputation as garage band par excellence. In fact, it is interesting to note that although the band continued (from 1963 to 1966) with escalating production values, they still retained the raw immature power of a bunch of pals rocking out in the garage on a Saturday afternoon. Even when they did standards, they still continued to de-construct music to their own crude ideals. The over-amplified, fuzzy organ in "Money" has all the thudding rambunctious ambition of every over-achieving future wannabe musician who toils away until reality sets in. It's like the soundtrack to a lost Arch Hall movie, where the classically bad actor in a white dinner jacket and skinny tie is jamming next to a plump blonde doing The Frug. And then you could just picture a B-movie montage during "Death of an Angel" where the bug-eyed kid is in silhouette at the beach at dusk playing for his new girlfriend, as she lies on a towel, simply awestruck by his musical prowess.
The Kingsmen also seemed to exploit the use of stereophonic sound so that each channel was crammed with audio. Rather than divide up the sound and add more clarity to the instruments, instead, like in "The Climb", the voices are all crammed onto one ear as the plastic sax crowds out the other. In other words, the dynamics of stereo are intentionally subverted for the canned sound so crucial to "garage".
What a blast for a buck! Before Rhino tirelessly began re-releasing a lot of oldies acts for the days of the CD revolution, one could pick up cheap greatest hits cassettes at some discount retail store on some fly-by-night label which temporarily acquired the rights to the masters of yesterday's heroes. This Elite label (a subsidiary of Poly-Tel!) got access to the Wand catalogue just to put out a collection of a scant eight songs scarcely adding up to 16 and 1/2 minutes!
Having all of the enthusiasm of The Young Rascals (but not their polish), this precocious bunch re-invented all that was trendy from 1963 to 1966 (surf, R&B...) and reduced it all to their own messy sensibilities. With any new revolution in rock -be it punk or grunge- which offers an alternative to the top 40 blandness of the day before that movement itself is reduced to top 40 blandness, isn't it any wonder why we harken back to the early progenitors of the revolution- when there was greater risk for having a different voice, and to do things one's own way in their own ragged glory?
Tightwad rating: **** /5
Happy record hunting!
Love,
The Doctor
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