STOOGE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (7)
By:
October 20, 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 MONKEES | “YOUR AUNTIE GRIZELDA” | 1967
“Steppin’ Stone”? Sure, yeah, “Steppin’ Stone”, seething with snide hipster menace, makes a fair claim, for Monkees partisans, as their proto-punk monument, certified as such by Wikipedia, covered by no less than the Sex Pistols, blah blah blah. The problem for this approach is it’s too easy. “Steppin’ Stone”’s raveup adds to the protopunk toolkit nothing not already present in “Psychotic Reaction”, “You Really Got Me”, and a handful of the Yardbirds’ careening jams. Another problem, for Monkees partisans, is that the claim doesn’t belong to them, but to The Liverpool Five and then to Paul Revere and the Raiders, each of whom did the song first. More original, and more embarrassing — and therefore, more truly punk — is the fuzz-guitar-hatefest “Aunty Grizelda”, Peter Tork’s first vocal for the band, a performance the implications of which waited years to be excavated by vocalists like The Dead Kennedy’s Jello Biafra, Pere Ubu’s Dave Thomas, and The Cramps’ Lux Interior. The tossed-off schtick of “Aunty Grizelda” also directs our historical inquiry to what I believe may be the most generally overlooked punk antecedent — the novelty song, which is where disposability, atonality, Mad-magazine-level snotty social commentary, and bathroom humor all secrete themselves in the long journey between ’50’s rock and The Ramones, et al. What is “They’re Coming to Take Me Away (Ha Ha)” if not The Fall before The Fall? And doesn’t Johnny Rotten shape his singing as much from “The Monster Mash” as from Jonathan Richman?
The lyrics, too. Where “Steppin’ Stone” spares itself — the singer’s just another swinger hitting the road, no better than the narrators in various “babe, I’m movin’ on” songs by the Eagles or Jackson Browne — the loathing in “Aunty Grizelda” is chewy at the center, entrenching the listener in a quagmire tableau that won’t easily be put in the rear-view mirror. “Grizelda”’s narrator squares the triangle, between the horrendous puritanical aunt; the faceless niece, who is both the song’s addressee and clearly putty (or should it be “fudge”?) in the older woman’s hands; and the singer himself, into whom Grizelda reaches far, far too deeply to be easily dismissed. While claiming that “no bird of praise ever lit on Aunty Grizelda”, the song admits “you can’t begrudge her style”. It’s apparent that the singer has ingested the repulsive, shaming fudge, hot out of the oven. Under cover of a warning to his invisible girlfriend, he’s obsessed.
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!