Before he became Patti Smith’s lead guitarist, Lenny Kaye compiled the 2 album set, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era. Released in 1972, the two-LP set covered American garage rock and psychedelia from the years 1965 to 1968 and was a major influence on punk rock. Rhino Records reissued an expanded version of the set in 1998, with 118 tracks in total. I’m profiling and rating each of these 118 tracks, working backwards.
Track 80/118
From: Los Angeles, California
Aphoristic Rating: 7/10
SOMETIMES GOOD GUYS DON’T WEAR WHITE – The Standells [2:37]
(Ed Cobb)
Personnel/DICK DODD: vocals, drums * TONY VALENTINO: guitar * LARRY TAMBLYN: organ * GARY LANE: bass
Produced by ED COBB for GREENGRASS PRODUCTIONS
Recorded in Seattle, WA
Tower single #257 (6/66); Pop #43
The Standells are one of the better-known acts on Nuggets, with three songs on the set. They’re best-known for their #11 hit ‘Dirty Water’, a song often played by Boston sporting teams because of its Boston references. ‘Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White’ was taken from their second album, Why Pick On Me – Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White.
The Standells are led by Larry Tamblyn, whose brother Russ Tamblyn is a notable actor. Lead vocals were handled by drummer Dick Dodd. The group’s notable for several high profile musicians who were members before joining other bands – early drummer Gary Leeds would join The Walker Brothers, Dewey Martin briefly replaced Dodd in 1965 before joining Buffalo Springfield, and Little Feat’s Lowell George was briefly a member in the late 1960s.
Like lots of Nuggets acts, it’s easy to draw comparisons to early Kinks and Rolling Stones. ‘Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White’ is also reminiscent of The Small Faces, and Tamblyn’s Vox Continental organ is an important component of the sound. While Tamblyn is the leader, drummer Dick Dodd was the band’s lead vocalist. ‘Why Pick On Me’ was written by producer Ed Cobb, who wrote ‘Dirty Water’ as well as ‘Tainted Love’ (originally an obscure 1964 song before it was turned into a 1981 mega-hit by Soft Cell). There are three Standells songs on Nuggets – I think the latter two pale a little in comparison to ‘Dirty Water’.
The Standells are still a going concern, although Tamblyn is the only 1960s-era member still in the band. They released four records in the 1960s, as well as Bump in 2013.
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I never heard this before but it’s really cool. It stands up with Dirty Water…the guys voice was a little more distinctive than most of the garage band vocalists. When I heard him it was no doubt what band it was…
Off Topic… Is the comment section messed up for everyone? When you try to type in them it flips you into another page.
It’s doing it to me as well. I think it’s the Wordpress reader where the problem is? I don’t think commenting on other peoples sites is an issue?
What I’m doing is typing a comment in word and copying and pasting it in the comment section.
I mostly comment in reader…I can type in the side panel replying to comments BUT…. as I’m typing now…it’s liking the page I’m on and going back through the pages…but yes like you said…in Reader. I’m going to try to comment on peoples site instead of the reader.
I’ve noticed my comments are way down today.
Yup, this Nuggets post has barely any comments today – although it’s kind of a boring one since I already did a Standells post earlier.
I liked the song…loved his voice.
Graham…off topic but what are a couple of other bands like… Big Star, Velvet Underground, and The Replacements? I’m thinking about doing a cult band week… XTC would be another…what would be another one or two? If you don’t mind..
I thought about the largest cult band ever….The Dead but I wanted one in line with the others.
There are tons out there I think. They Might Be Giants. Jellyfish. and Guided By Voices are all ideas off the top of my head.
They Might Be Giants would be interesting….I was thinking also about The Jayhawks.
Great dirty garage rock. I used to play it in my short-lived garage band. Easy chords, fun to play.
The Standells (early lineup) made a memorable appearance on the American sitcom, “The Munsters.” A later guitarist, John Fleckenstein, was in an early lineup of Love.
It’s cool you played this song in a garage band! I didn’t realise the Love connection, but they’re pretty well connected to a bunch of other bands already.
(Sorry, he played bass.)
Listening to it again just right now, I like it even more than I did before. Now I think it’s probably a top-tier Nugget. The song and the tune are like way above average. And he’s got the kind of singing that you should have for this kind of stuff. And the drums sound the way I like them to sound, and they’re as loud as they should be, and the organ is as great as it should be. And it sticks in your head. If I rated it I would give it a 9/10. That’s higher than you did.
I listened to Bump last night and it’s excellent. I thought that since it’s from 2013 it wasn’t gonna be able to recapture the feel of the old ’60s recordings because it wouldn’t be made with the old ’60s recording technology, but it almost does. It’s kind of like in between the old and the new. Sometimes it sounds like contemporary punk, except a lot better. The remakes are the best ones, but the new originals are pretty good too.
I think recording technology is really good now – apart from contemporary pop and other music going for a particular aesthetic, it seems like you can make music that feels timeless.
That’s right. Today’s recording technology can do anything . You can make it sound like anything you want.
Missed this post. Yes, another catchy Sixties tune I never heard. “Dirty Water” gets played at Fenway Park every time the Red Sox win. Nobody even notices it anymore. When we saw Steely Dan a few years back they played it as an encore. The guys in the band had never even been here I think, except the songwriter. “Fun” fact – the song mentions the Boston strangler. My daughter lives in an apartment building where he killed someone.
I figured you’d be a Dirty Water fan. That’s right at the start of Nuggets so it’s a couple of years away at the rate I’m going…
I’ve been trying to figure out your second sentence. What’s at the start of Nuggets? Dirty Water? And what’s a couple years away?? Is there a joke in there?
He’s reviewing Nuggets backwards from the last track to the first, and it has a million gazillion tracks, so it will take him a couple years to get to Dirty Water
Ah-ha! Is that because he’s Down Under?🤣
Lol. ha ha. I guess so.
It’s so it will all eventually be in the correct order here:
https://albumreviews.blog/nuggets/
There’s going to be a lot of them. It’s like 125 tracks or something.