Dirty Water

Description
The Standells’ key albums for the Tower label (Dirty Water, Why Pick On Me, and Try It) perfectly bottled a rebellious wave of sound sweeping across Mid-1960’s teen clubs, radio playlists and record racks. Starting with the genre-defining, proto-punk smash “Dirty Water”, through a series of equally memorable underdog anthems (“Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White,” “Why Pick on Me”) and obscenities (the banned “Try It”), the Standells left an indelible mark on their era. Those three Tower albums are a veritable feast of three chord, fuzz-drenched, Vox Organ-driven “squares”-repellant.

The Standells’ Dirty Water album, their first for Tower Records, was primarily recorded away from their Hollywood home base. Producer Ed Cobb picked a Seattle studio and engineer Kearney Barton (the Sonics), unwittingly unleashing the savage Pacific Northwest Sound on the rest of the country. As Standells founding member Larry Tamblyn tells it, “It really was the Standells raw.” The results include crushing classics like “Little Sally Tease,” “Medication,” and “Why Did You Hurt Me.”

Tracklist
1. Medication
2. Little Sally Tease
3. There's A Storm Coming
4. 19th Nervous Breakdown
5. Dirty Water
6. Poor Man's Prison (Bonus Track)
7. It's All In Your Mind (Bonus Track)
8. Pride & Devotion
9. Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
10. Hey Joe, Where You Gonna Go?
11. Why Did You Hurt Me
12. Rari
13. Batman (Bonus Track)
14. Take A Ride (Bonus Track)

CD
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N9FE226/?tag=imwan-20

Vinyl
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01MQTUD0D/?tag=imwan-20

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Why Pick On Me

Description
The Standells’ key albums for the Tower label (Dirty Water, Why Pick On Me, and Try It) perfectly bottled a rebellious wave of sound sweeping across Mid-1960’s teen clubs, radio playlists and record racks. Starting with the genre-defining, proto-punk smash “Dirty Water”, through a series of equally memorable underdog anthems (“Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White,” “Why Pick on Me”) and obscenities (the banned “Try It”), the Standells left an indelible mark on their era. Those three Tower albums are a veritable feast of three chord, fuzz-drenched, Vox Organ-driven “squares”-repellant.

For their second Tower album, Why Pick On Me, the Standells received a significant sonic boost with the move to American Recording Company. Legendary engineer Richie Podolor cut the best sounding records of the era; from the Standells, Chocolate Watchband, and Electric Prunes to Steppenwolf and Three Dog Night. The drum tracks on this album are simply not to be believed, the bass drum sound possibly registering on the Richter scale. Here the Standells build on their strengths with tough originals from producer Ed Cobb, equally-hard driving outside material (“Black Hearted Woman,” “Mainline”), and notably, the emergence of Larry Tamblyn as a songwriter (his “Mr. Nobody” arguably the album’s highlight).

Tracklist
1. Why Pick On Me
2. Paint It Black
3. Mi Hai Fatto Innamorare
4. I Hate To Leave You (Bonus Track)
5. Black Hearted Woman
6. Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White
7. The Boy Who Is Lost (Bonus Track)
8. The Girl And The Moon
9. Looking At Tomorrow (Bonus Track)
10. Mr. Nobody
11. My Little Red Book
12. Mainline
13. Have You Ever Spent The Night In Jail
14. Don't Say Nothing At All (instrumental) (Bonus Track)

CD
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N9FEA98/?tag=imwan-20

Vinyl
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N5D70KD/?tag=imwan-20

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Try It

Description
The Standells’ key albums for the Tower label (Dirty Water, Why Pick On Me, and Try It) perfectly bottled a rebellious wave of sound sweeping across Mid-1960’s teen clubs, radio playlists and record racks. Starting with the genre-defining, proto-punk smash “Dirty Water”, through a series of equally memorable underdog anthems (“Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White,” “Why Pick on Me”) and obscenities (the banned “Try It”), the Standells left an indelible mark on their era. Those three Tower albums are a veritable feast of three chord, fuzz-drenched, Vox Organ-driven “squares”-repellant.

Built around the banned title track, Try It is a tale of two (LP) sides; one a cohesive step into super-charged ’67 Standells Soul, the other a bet-hedging exercise that compiles possibly the strongest material of the band’s career. Latter includes the classic Standells style, either at its most pulverizing (“Barracuda,” “Riot on Sunset Strip”) or now one foot into psychedelia (“All Fall Down,” “Did You Ever Have That Feeling”). It provides the perfect bookend to the Standells’ legendary Tower Records era albums.

Tracklist
1. Can't Help But Love You
2. Ninety-Nine And A Half
3. Trip To Paradise
4. St. James Infirmary
5. Try It
6. Animal Girl (Bonus Track)
7. Soul Drippin' (Bonus Track)
8. Barracuda
9. Did You Ever Have That Feeling
10. All Fall Down
11. Poor Shell Of A Man
12. Riot On Sunset Strip
13. Get Away From Here (Bonus Track)
14. Try It (alternate vocal) (Bonus Track)

CD
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N1Q4U4G/?tag=imwan-20

Vinyl
https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01N4BQTH5/?tag=imwan-20

i have all of these.......................on sundazed .....(i think)????????????????

Bump: Added the cover images to the first post.


Expanded remasters of all three albums were released by Sundazed over twenty years ago. They're long out of print. We don't have details on these new editions yet -- they could turn out to be reissues of the '90s pressings, or new/different configurations.

The original Sundazed were all mono remasters.

Maybe these will be new stereo versions or both..

While I am a sometime fan of mono, it would be nice to have stereo versions as well, especially if they provide more detail.

Sometimes just spreading the tracks around in a mono to stereo conversion the sound sort of 'falls apart'.

At least from the notes on the earlier Sundazed cds it appears that they should have the original multi-tracks to use if stereo versions are what they are doing.

Hopefully more info is coming soon...

Weren't there 'local' versions of Dirty Water released while the single charted that referenced local markets?

Anybody remember that? I seem to remember at least one, but couldn't tell you which city it referenced...

Old age is a bitch....

i do not recall different, or local, versions of 'dirty water' but considering my memory of late that does n;t at all mean they didn't exist

and considering that they are OOP i am surprised they aren't selling for a lot more than they are on the secondary market. (lower $20 range as far as i can tell)

Bump to add the descriptions and tracklists to the first post. The CDs are represses of Sundazed's 1994 expanded mono remasters with the same bonus tracks as before; the vinyl versions are new to Sundazed's catalogue.