Half a century has passed since the slippery red worm Malcolm McLaren implanted a tapeworm named “punk rock” into the bulging body of rock music. McLaren was right in his desire to return rock and roll to juvenile delinquents, but he chose a path that was not just dubious, but disastrous, as the prospect showed. What was he wrongly accused of afterwards: The red-haired worm devalued the rock scene completely, which is why he jumped to hip-hop with such enthusiasm, casually killing the black music.
Nevertheless, before the “punk” that he “invented”, there was a really ferocious music that was born in garages in the late 1950s and represented the wildest kind of rock and roll, to which one wanted to knock down coconuts with opponents’ skulls, and vice versa. The phenomenon of garage rock was the lack of rehearsal facilities, good equipment, and stable managers. Moreover, most of the musicians were scums/schoolboys/teenagers who owned the instrument poorly, mildly speaking. But the boys had a remarkable enthusiasm, and the gods, as you know, do not burn pots and do not use “fenders”.
The most monstrous rock appeared where they did not expect – from the North-West of the USA. The first were The Wailers (not to be confused with Bob Marley’s band of the same name), but their rock was instrumental, similar to California surf rock, only in colder waters. Meanwhile, in the Parypa family, young Larry formed a gang with which he made noise in the family garage. My mother, who got the whole family hooked on rock and roll, helped with the bass guitar. Jerry’s little brother was blowing sax. Andy’s older brother matured to the bass guitar only in 1961. The rest of the accompanists left no trace on the vinyl, and the youthful perturbations are unlikely to interest the reader. It is worth noting only that singer Marilyn Lodge visited the group, who was replaced by Ray Michelsen, famous among local lumberjacks, who, however, also did not stay.
Larry Parypa, without hesitation, named the band The Sonics, because a few kilometers from his home, Boeing was testing its first supersonic fighters. The real turning point in the history of The Sonics occurred when the band The Searchers (not to be confused with the British The Searchers!) joining the crowd, three members came out at once: Gerry Roslie on keyboards, Rob Lind on saxophone, Bob Bennett on drums. The classic line-up of The Sonics has developed, as history will prove.
It took a while for Roslie to sing, but the result exceeded expectations: The Wailers released The Sonics’ debut single “The Witch” on their own Etiquette label. Not a single reputable radio station undertook to play a song called “The Witch”, the puritanical sentiments were still strong. But among puberty and slightly post-school age people, “The Witch” has had wild success, which is not surprising: the infernal riff, played simultaneously on guitar and electric organ, sounds fresh even today, when no one else knows how to play live in the studio. Not to mention the snide text.
The album “Here Are The Sonics”, released next, opens with the aforementioned song, but let’s go through the rest:
Do You Love Me is a great example of how Motown soul transforms into a classic garage that sounds much more powerful than the original.
Roll Over Beethoven is notable for its heavy groove. The fact that everyone performs Chuck cooler than Chuck had been mentioned several times.
Boss Hoss is a true uncompromising rock’n’roll in the spirit of Little Richard and at the same time absolutely authorial, Sonic. Hooligan, extremely aggressive, ruthless.
Dirty Robber is a song by senior colleagues from The Wailers, played a hundred times cooler. Twenty-three-year-old old geezers got fucked outright.
Have Love, Will Travel sounds several orders of magnitude and decibels more solid than Richard Berry’s original. The guitar riff that replaced the baritone vocals is especially good. Another classic for all time.
Psycho is a desperate cry of a broken heart, but why is it so desperately funny?!
Money is an imperishable Berry Gordy song, sung by Jerry Lee Lewis, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, the Stockmen, and God knows who else. In this case, a very powerful groove with a slight atonality seriously extorts money from the listener.
Walkin’ The Dog is a song by Rufus Thomas. The Sonics version overlaps with the original, but is inferior to the more assembled, mocking version of The Rolling Stones.
For some reason, Night Time Is The Right Time did not sound in the cozy tavern “Titty Twisters”, which appeared in the family sitcom “From Dusk till Dawn”.
Strychnine is perhaps the most innovative of the album’s songs. Her obvious irony was also ignored by radio stations. They still had a sense of humor then, but now they don’t. Meanwhile, the composition is a masterpiece.
Some folks like water
Some folks like wine
But i like the taste
Of straight strychnine (hey hey)You may think it’s funny
That I like this stuff
But once you’ve tried it
You can’t get enough (Woah!)Wine is red (hey)
Poison is blue
Strychnine is good
For what’s ailin you
Good Golly Miss Molly is a very obvious number in light of the previous screams. The Sonics may not have surpassed Little Richard in terms of sound (although, God knows, they tried), but they easily surpassed him in the infernality of the lyrics. They contrasted “taste of straight strychnine” with all kinds of “bama-lama-bama-loo” and “e-wap-bap-a-loo-bap”.
We’ll put an ellipsis here, because the conversation about garage rock is going to be long and thorough. Let’s roar at the distant moon, Selena’s Dawgs!
