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 Like all base pleasures – sex, pizza, monster movies, glue
– garage rock is always pretty enjoyable, even when it’s kinda lousy. Want
proof? Check out Party Party Party, a new compilation of ‘60s frat stompers and bird dance beats from
Arf! Arf! There’s a lot of solid
senders spread across the CD’s 34 tracks – dig the Devils’ boozy-woozy
cha-cha through “Devil Dance” (later an A-Bones staple), or the 4 Score’s stinkfinger soul on “Mini-Skirt,” or a thumptastic version of “Shortnin’
Bread” by Johnny and the Uncalled Four. And there are a handful of just
plain average tunes here – they’re not gonna send you to the moon and back
on a fuzztone rocket, but you know, they’re not unlistenable, either – the
Gallows’ “Come to the Party” has anemic vocals and guitar, but the beat is
real urgent, and that’s usually enough to get asses on the dance floor.
And I’m not sure who thought adding Martin Denny bird calls to the
Sunsets’ “Theme 1” was a good idea, but the song – an uncredited cover of
“(Everybody Needs) Someone To Love” retooled for spastic white kids hopped
up on stolen beer – cooks with gas.
And you know, there are also more than a couple of what can only be
called stoopid numbers on Party Party Party, which you might think is
appropriate, given that the comp is all about songs you’d play at a beer
blast. But, baby, when I say stoopid, I mean, like STOOPID – what else
would you call the Four Rogues’ “The Ralphie,” a fake Beatles tune that
has the Rogues ranting in horrible Liverpool accents about space boots; or
Jimmy White with The Relations’ “Diamond-Coated Banana Bush,” which sounds
like the band is playing as they fall from the nearest high bridge, and
decided that their final words should be delivered in a Donald Duck voice
(seriously); “Hey Jo” by the Warlocks (not the L.A. psych scientists or
any of the eight thousand other bands with that same handle), who take a
direct approach to the song’s killed-my-baby storyline by firing off a gun
during the chorus and having some gal scream; or “Scream Mother Scream” by
Sur Royal Da Count & The Parliaments, the Mount Rushmore of Retardation on
the disc – a bunch of surly creeps shrieking four notes behind the beat
about how much they hate their abusive mom – but you know what? It still
rocks, although in a very Stooges-outtake kind of way. But again, the
sex-pizza theory is proven – though no one’s ever gonna accuse Sur Royal
or Jimmy White or the Chessmen (“Baby Weemus”) or the Velveteens (“Ching
Bam Bah”) of being good or even passable musicians, their songs are still
enjoyable because they deliver what we want from garage rock – raw,
go-for-broke playing, simple lyrics about sex (having it, wanting it, trying
to get it), and a four-on-the-floor beat that you can’t resist dancing or
fucking to. The fact that they can’t sing or play their instruments is
just a technicality. It’s all about the feeling, brothers and sisters, and
Party Party Party is lousy with it, in every sense of the word.
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-Paul Gaita |