STOOGE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (1)
By:
October 2, 2023
One in a series of 25 enthusiastic posts, contributed by 25 HILOBROW friends and regulars, on the topic of proto-punk records from the Sixties (1964–1973, in our periodization schema). Series edited by Josh Glenn. Also check out our proto-punk playlist (a work in progress) at Spotify.
THE TRASHMEN | “SURFIN’ BIRD” | 1963
I do not know if “Surfin’ Bird” is a punk rock song. But I’m pretty sure this is a punk rock story.
The Trashmen deny it absolutely. “We weren’t anything close to a punk band. We wore suits on stage. We all dressed alike: white shirt, tie, tab shirts. When I look back on it, we were real straight. We’re just a garage band,” lead guitarist Tony Andreason says.
Just a garage band. Just the barbaric yawp of some same-suited garage prophets. Just the sheer joyful exuberance of everyone’s purest id. Just the look on Dick Clark’s face as he watches the singing drummer Steve Wahrer catch his breath; and tries to wrap his Bandstand mind around why anyone would call themselves the Trashmen.
“This is gonna be a funny thing if this goes on. Can you see now, ten years from now, ah what is it, ‘the Copacabana presents The Trashmen?’” The Trashmen were already a mutation Dick Clark could not grok in 1963. A rock’n’roll copying error. And when, 15 years later, Johnny Rotten exhorted us to “wear the garbage bag for god’s sake,” the garbage was ready to hand. Thanks to the Trashmen.
“Surfin’ Bird” is a mash-up of two doo-wop songs by the Rivingtons. (Indeed, The Trashmen eventually ceded all rights to the Rivingtons.) But where Carl White, the Rivingtons’ lead vocalist, starts with a fifth and moves sensibly to a fourth to get ya movin’, The Trashmen stay on the E7; and their drummer, Steve Wahrer, in a deranged raspy voice sings over it an unexpected G-sharp. Then the rhythm guitarist Dal Winslow and the bassist Bob Reed keep coming in early. It’s subtle, but the feeling is they’re too excited to hold off. They’re in a hurry. They can’t or won’t follow the rules. The Ramones cover follows this pattern. And the Cramps one. The mutation became fixed.
But all this is reductive, and beside the point. The point is that as a young woman, I had a complicated relationship with rage, but I was certainly no stranger to it. Punk qua punk held no special permission for me. I was weird as fuck and always had been, and I was madder, way madder, than I hope anyone ever knows. Reagan America was the least of my monsters.
No. What I didn’t know I needed until I heard it was permission — to be an exuberant goofball.
And that is why Steve Wahrer’s gargling yawp grabbed me instantly, and changed all my possibilities. And why, in proper punk-rock form, I took it as a flag for my disposition; and had Sue Jieven jailhouse-engrave its musical notation into my flesh. And why I bear it on my hip to this day — the musical notation to “Surfin’ Bird.” Permission to be ridiculous and enthused. My own secret name.
STOOGE YOUR ENTHUSIASM: INTRODUCTION by Josh Glenn | Mandy Keifetz on The Trashmen’s SURFIN’ BIRD | Nicholas Rombes on Yoko Ono’s MOVE ON FAST | David Cantwell on ? and the Mysterians’ 96 TEARS | James Parker on The Modern Lovers’ SHE CRACKED | Lynn Peril on The Pleasure Seekers’ WHAT A WAY TO DIE | Lucy Sante on The Count Five’s PSYCHOTIC REACTION | Jonathan Lethem on The Monkees’ YOUR AUNTIE GRIZELDA | Adam McGovern on ELP’s BRAIN SALAD SURGERY | Mimi Lipson on The Shaggs’ MY PAL FOOT FOOT | Eric Weisbard on Frances Faye’s FRANCES AND HER FRIENDS | Annie Zaleski on Suzi Quatro’s CAN THE CAN | Carl Wilson on The Ugly Ducklings’ NOTHIN’ | Josh Glenn on Gillian Hill’s TUT, TUT, TUT, TUT… | Mike Watt on The Stooges’ SHAKE APPEAL | Peter Doyle on The Underdogs’ SITTING IN THE RAIN | Stephanie Burt on Pauline Oliveros’s III | Marc Weidenbaum on Ornette Coleman’s WE NOW INTERRUPT FOR A COMMERCIAL | Anthony Miller on Eno’s NEEDLES IN THE CAMEL’S EYE | Gordon Dahlquist on The Sonics’ STRYCHNINE | David Smay on The New York Dolls’ HUMAN BEING | Michael Grasso on the 13th Floor Elevators’ YOU’RE GONNA MISS ME | Holly Interlandi on Death’s ROCK’N’ROLL VICTIM | Elina Shatkin on Bobby Fuller’s I FOUGHT THE LAW | Brian Berger on The Mothers of Invention’s WHO ARE THE BRAIN POLICE? | Peggy Nelson on The Kingsmen’s LOUIE LOUIE.
JACK KIRBY PANELS | CAPTAIN KIRK SCENES | OLD-SCHOOL HIP HOP | TYPEFACES | NEW WAVE | SQUADS | PUNK | NEO-NOIR MOVIES | COMICS | SCI-FI MOVIES | SIDEKICKS | CARTOONS | TV DEATHS | COUNTRY | PROTO-PUNK | METAL | & more enthusiasms!