The Standells: Dirty Water (1966)

 |   |  1 min read

The Standells: Dirty Water (1966)

Before there was proto-punk there was raw and reductive r'n'b-based garageband rock and great bands like the Seeds, Count Five, early Them, the Downliners Sect, the Pretty Things and many more, some of whom enjoyed a long overdue acknowledgement when Lenny Kaye pulled together his first Nuggets collection, thereby setting of a revivalists search.

Among the more recent collections was the double CD Dirty Water compiled by Kris Needs which kicked off with terrific title track and worked its way through the Deviants, Pink Fairies, the Monks, Sun Ra, MC5, Death, the Stooges, Suicide, the New York Dolls and more.

The Standells formed in LA in '62 and originally released some fairly ordinary pop (their name sounds very early Sixties) but when they signed with Capitol the producer Ed Cobb steered them – or at least opened them up – to the possibilities of something more earthy . . . and not a million miles from Them's Gloria.

Although oddly enough the geographical references in Dirty Water are not LA but Boston where Cobb had lived. Hence “Boston you're my home” which apparently still plays well when the Red Sox enjoy a victory at home.

It is almost idiotically simple – Farfisa organ and fuzz box, singer Dick Dodd's tightly clenched vocals, the sexual innuendo – but that is the appeal, and the template of garageband rock.

If you can hear the words you aren't playing it loud enough! 

For more one-off or unusual songs with an interesting backstory see From the Vaults


Share It

Your Comments

post a comment

More from this section   From the Vaults articles index

Noel McKay: Sweater Girl (1963?)

Noel McKay: Sweater Girl (1963?)

Noel McKay had a drag act in New Zealand in the early Sixties (and lesserly so into the Seventies) but always walked both sides of the line. He released albums in covers with him in drag but... > Read more

The Newbeats: I Like Bread and Butter (1964)

The Newbeats: I Like Bread and Butter (1964)

This should come with a consumer warning: It's one of those songs you wake up with nagging away in the back of your brain, the song you can't shake and sticks with you all day. So you have been... > Read more

Elsewhere at Elsewhere

Dr John and the Lower 911: City That Care Forgot (Shock)

Dr John and the Lower 911: City That Care Forgot (Shock)

The good Doctor's voice can be an acquired taste and there is no doubt he lost many loyalists when he went schmaltzy and kinda boring in the late 80s/early 90s. It was almost as if he had run his... > Read more

MANCHESTER, IN THE MEANTIME (2019): Location location location

MANCHESTER, IN THE MEANTIME (2019): Location location location

There's an opinion – which has considerable validity – that the internet has killed the idea of a music “scene” being able to grow in the absence of the spotlight. For... > Read more