Adapted from previous posts, this is not part of my current book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1).
An infinite numbers of tracks can each be THE greatest record ever made, as long as they take turns. Today, this is THE GREATEST RECORD EVER MADE!
A poor boy born in a rubble makes his first last stand.
It's tempting to say that the counterculture was born in the 1960s. Members of the Beat Generation would beg to differ--beg to differ, man--pointing instead to the '50s as the true Ground Zero for an active and high profile alternative to the mainstream. And I'm sure there were fringe elements predating Beatniks, Jack Kerouac, Allan Ginsberg, and William S. Burroughs, operating somewhere out there on the periphery of popular consciousness.
Nonetheless: It was in the '60s that counterculture became an active and at times dominant part of the greater pop culture. That creates a paradox--how can something be part of something to which it claims to be a counter?--but you go into culture wars with the oxymoron you have, not the logical parameters you wish you had. The Rolling Stones. Bob Dylan. Youth revolution, across race and gender, resisting rules, protesting injustice, tuning in, turning on, dropping out of what had been mainstream before, redrawing the map of what could become mainstream thereafter.
Before the simplistic notion of My country, right or wrong would be challenged by chants of Hell no, we won't go!, there was already a push to embrace the antihero, to celebrate the bad boy. The Rolling Stones established that template, providing a scowling, earthier counterpart to the perceived cheer of the Beatles. It was a façade--I do think, if it came down to it, the Beatles coulda beat down on the Stones in a street fight, five against four odds be damned--but it was an effective affectation, and the Stones delivered the soundtrack to match it. That template was followed by garage bands everywhere. It was certainly followed by the Standells.
The Standells weren't quite a garage band. They were playing clubs in L.A. in the early to mid '60s, appearing in the film Get Yourself A College Girl, providing the theme song for the kids' matinee flick Zebra In The Kitchen, and even appearing on an episode of the wacky TV sitcom The Munsters. All of this occurred before most of the record-buying public had even heard of the Standells. As a mainstream rock combo, they did not establish a popular impression. When they applied dat ole Rolling Stones template, the mainstream came to the grungier, garagier Standells.
I became a fan of the Standells as part of my overall exploration and embrace of '60s rock 'n' roll when I was a teen in the '70s. I started with a used 45 of their only big hit, 1966's classic "Dirty Water," and a various-artists set called 15 Original Rock N' Roll Biggies Vol. 2, which included "Why Pick On Me" and "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White." My interest in the Standells expanded even further as I fell hard for the notion of '60s punk/garage Nuggets, Pebbles, and dazzlin' debris of all description. "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White" was my favorite.
I'm a poor boy born in a rubble/And some say my manners ain't the best. A chip on my shoulder and a song in my heart. When I played "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White" at home in the '70s, my mom thought drummer and lead singer Dick Dodd sounded like Sonny Bono. She wasn't wrong. Coincidentally, Bono did work with the Standells earlier in their career; Sonny's own "Laugh At Me" shares some cantankerous DNA with "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White." It's all part of that Stonesy bad boy template.
Good guys, bad buys, which is which? Sometimes the bad boy is a good guy that's misunderstood; sometimes the bad boy's just plain bad. Who can say who's the better man? Surly and put upon, an outsider staking his claim, with a shrug that's somehow defiant. A poor boy born in a rubble. We stand with the Standells.
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My new book The Greatest Record Ever Made! (Volume 1) is now available, and you can order an autographed copy here. You can still get my previous book Gabba Gabba Hey! A Conversation With The Ramones from publisher Rare Bird Books, OR an autographed copy here. If you like the books, please consider leaving a rating and/or review at the usual online resources.
This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio with Dana & Carl airs Sunday nights from 9 to Midnight Eastern, on the air in Syracuse at SPARK! WSPJ 103.3 and 93.7 FM, streaming at SPARK stream and on the Radio Garden app as WESTCOTT RADIO. Recent shows are archived at Westcott Radio. You can read about our history here.
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