The Blue Things
Listen -The Blue Things – Twist and Shout – MP3
Greetings all.
Welcome to the dawning of a new seven day cycle…
The tune I bring you today is a familiar one, delivered in a most unfamiliar style.
I’ve gone into my love for the Blue Things here in the past. They were one of the truly great regional bands of the garage era, and ought to have been much better known. They were stylistically innovative, solid songwriters, and sadly never really fought their way out of the Midwest (where they were very successful).
The tune I bring you today is the Blue Things wild – some might even say sacrilegious – take on the Isley Brothers chestnut ‘Twist and Shout’.
I don’t think I’d be telling tales out of school if I were to admit that I am good and sick of the Beatles cover of the song, which seems to elicit a Pavlovian response from the Joe Six-Packs (and Ferris Bueller fans) of the world, amongst whom it is considered a great work of rock’n’roll art. An Ur document of s certain period of time.
In my little corner of the universe, where by the way I hold the Beatles in the highest possible regard, I consider their version of ‘Twist and Shout’ to be dreadfully overplayed and somewhat painful to listen to, a veritable grab bag of early-Fabs tics and clichés.
That said, the Blue Things unbox the song and take it to some strange new places. So strange in fact that I suspect some people might not realize right away what song it is they are hearing.
Their version of ‘Twist and Shout’ bridges the garage punk and psych styles, with a rough edge to it’s lysergic flights of fancy.
It’s heavy, and groovy and ought to be passed on to as many people as possible as a fine example of what can be done with a little imagination.
I hope you dig it.
Peace
Larry
PS Head over to Funky16Corners for a new edition of the Funky16Corners Radio Podcast
No comments:
Post a Comment