STOOGE YOUR ENTHUSIASM (15)
By:
November 13, 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 UNDERDOGS | “SITTING IN THE RAIN” | 1967
It starts with a decidedly non-urgent two-beat feel, high single note guitar lines, distorted enough to sound almost flute-like, then an offhanded vocal, something about daydreaming under a tree, in the rain. There’s some off-mic shenanigans between band members towards the end of the song — the drummer apparently prodding bandmates with his drumstick. Although this is recorded late ’60s, the beginning of big-R Rock, there are no dramatic pyrotechnics here. It’s the New Zealand blues band, The Underdogs doing their throwaway cover of John Mayall’s ‘Sitting in the Rain’, 1967. It was intended as the B-side of a single on the Zodiac label, and the band thought this was just a practice run, but it ended up being the take, and that erstwhile b-side became a surprise hit in New Zealand that year.
Almost as soon as recorded music became a commodity, the ethos was all about flawless, blemish-free product. Pitch, timbre, vocalisation, balance, texture, even performer demeanour had to be in strict accord with certain standards of sonic etiquette. And a nanosecond later, recordings appeared that seemed utterly uninterested in, or maybe incapable of conforming to those standards. ‘Ethnic’ tunes for urban markets, archaic favourites for rural audiences, ‘race records’, and other less decorous musical products became lucrative sidelines for recording companies, sometimes finding unexpected favor with punters far removed from the original local market, the popularity of early US hillbilly records in Africa and India being an example.
Musicologist Charles Keil saw in all this a continual playing-out of the eternal arm-wrestle between Dionysian and Apollonian impulses. The wild and the house-trained, the raw and the cooked, and so on. But by the time of the Beatles and then the Monkees faux amateurishness and flip offhandedness had become an optional part of the package. And without anyone particularly planning it, that’s how the Underdogs’ ‘Sitting in the rain’ played when it hit the New Zealand top 10.
The band was invited onto the generally anodyne pop TV show, C’Mon, for which a lip-sync video clip was needed. The band delivered a suitably Hard Day’s Night-ish bit of outdoor hijinks — wandering around next to a highway. There was manifestly little attempt to actually sync lips.
Guitarist Lou Rawnsley told author Iain McIntyre that he’d originally intended to play an edgier, bluesier guitar solo for the recording, but was persuaded by the engineer to try out the homemade fuzz box his brother Tony had made. The gimmick worked. The almost recorder-like sound effect turned the song from a hard country blues into a pleasantly stoned afternoon ramble.
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!