Oh Be Cruel!

“A fellow named Jody Rich, an ex-marine and taskmaster was originally the leader of the group. We recruited a young Hispanic fellow, stage name Benny King, on drums, plus Tony Valentino and myself. Our first gig was in Hawaii for three months. Jody, who was married at the time, was jealous of the younger band members scoring on all the babes. He became an absolute tyrant, setting a curfew, demanding spit-shined shoes, and freshly ironed clothes. Benny was the first to drop out. He went back home to his mother. Tony and I openly rebelled and Jody fired us…wait a minute…he didn’t have a band left. We re-formed and fired him.”
-Larry Tamblyn on the Standells’ early days

Click the box above to watch the Standells’ play “Dirty Water” and “There’s a Storm Comin’ ” on the Mike Douglas Show in 1966 - a rare performance of theirs without then-mandatory lip-synching. The Standells were a band of misfits from various backgrounds, but they managed to put together an early garage punk sound that would later be covered by hardcore legends Minor Threat (“Good Guys Don’t Wear White”). While “Dirty Water” brought the band a ton of success, members admit that they have always thought the song was a dud.

“The Seeds, formed in 1965, were a short-lived but cultishly memorable band that melded primitive rock rhythms with the free-love message of the flower power generation…helping to popularize psychedelic rock and for prefiguring the punk movement”
-New York Times obituary for Sky Saxon of the Seeds

Click above to watch the Seeds perform their 1965 hit “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine” and enjoy the brutal lip syncing. The Seeds were the quintessential proto punk garage band that combined Stones-esque grittiness with haunting vocals and a mild dose of psychedelia. Unfortunately, the group slowly migrated from garage rock and lost their uniqueness in the acid-fueled flower power movement. The Seeds’ lead singer Sky Saxon, the founding father of flower power, would later join the Ya Ho Wha cult following the mysterious Father Yod until the latter man accidentally killed himself after attempting to hand glide off a 1300-foot cliff with zero training. Sky stuck around a bit longer than Yod and would later collaborate with Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins and release a ton of really obscure solo trance music.

“The Kinks were … quintessentially English. I always think that Ray Davies should one day be poet laureate. He invented a new kind of poetry and a new kind of language for pop writing that influenced me from the very, very, very beginning.”
-Pete Townshend of The Who

“I started to get really frustrated [with the amp’s sound], and I said, ‘I know! I’ll fix you!’ I got a single-sided Gillette razorblade and cut the cone … so it was all shredded but still on there, still intact. I played and I thought it was amazing”
-Dave Davies on how he created The Kink’s signature sound

Click on the box above to listen to the Kink’s play their 1964 hit “You Really Got Me”. The Kinks were innovators and were without a doubt proto-punk pioneers who wrote songs that inspired the likes of the Beatles, the Clash, the Ramones, Oasis and Blur. Their three-chord style, working class lyrics and dirty guitar amps led a musical revolution within rock n’ roll that stripped away at boring conventions that had begun to limit innovation. Even their stage shows were out of control - one featured their drummer purposely slicing another member’s head with a hi-hat out of spite leading to 16 stitches. The result? A four year ban from America and infamy that turned the Kinks into legends.