I would totally watch a Glenn Miller Band halftime show

This is a perfect example of why I love Kathy Shaidle.

This is for all the people who complained about The Who playing the Super Bowl half time show. You are forgiven:

Garage Rock City: Paul Revere and the Raiders, "Hungry/There She Goes"

Suggested by Jeffrey Wells, who thinks "Hungry" is the Boomer Republicans' theme song. Mmmmmm, just listen to that Republican thuggery and fuckitude! Yeah! Sounds like.... victory. 2010. I'm no Boomer Republican (I'm a Rush Baby, yo), but I dig these guys. Are good little liberals not supposed to like Paul Revere and the Raiders, according to Jeff? I feel bad for people who see everything through partisan political lenses.

Garage Rock City: Woggle with me

There comes a time in every young punk's life where all he wants is some good basement music. The kind you put on in the middle of the afternoon, you've just woken up after being out all night drinking and riding around with friends till 3 a.m. and now it's time to play old Super Nintendo games and watch Tarantino movies on basic cable and eat sugar cereal for lunch at one o'clock. For these times, every young freak should choose the Woggles.

Has anyone ever studied the effect b-grade monster movies have had on Rock 'n Roll? I mean, this particular brand of low-budget schlock cinema practically invented the Cramps. Zombies, voodoo, radioactive mush monsters -- they're all the horrific grandfathers of garage punk, right?
Where would the American teenage summer vacation experience be without a cold basement on a sweltering afternoon, an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 on the tube, and chilled bottles of Faygo pop getting sucked down to the sounds of a band like the Woggles? If there ever were such a universe where this was not a stone cold reality, don't let me ever get warped into it through a black hole. I like my basements dank, the walls sweaty, the fluorescent lights on the fritz, and the rock loud and fuzzy.

Such is the sound of the Woggles on their album "Get Tough."

Garage Rock City: The Small Faces for breakfast

I really should be writing this late night, 1 a.m., drinking diet Pepsi from a coffee cup, but instead it's early morning -- 9 a.m. -- and I'm eating my toast with butter in bed, computer and internet open: my morning paper. Flashes of blue light and faint yellow streak out from the blinds and cut possibilities across my wall. I'm sure I'll end up doing nothing today. These are the kinds of mornings where I wish I smoked and this was all a French New Wave film.

The Small Faces are like early Milos Forman. Rough edges, the blues influence giving everything a faint whiff of disappointment, the reality of empty sexual escapades, dorks trying to act cool in the midst of crowded mod dance hops. Of course, the Small Faces have a little grittier, streets-of-London knife fight sound, the kind that rumbles with Teddy Boys on a rainy English night and the losers in a Forman film would probably wet themselves if they ever had a run-in like that. Is it just me or did Led Zeppelin (or more precisely, Robert Plant) totally rip off Steve Marriott? I mean, what else is the vocal on "You Need Loving" but a stripped-down version of Plant's "Whole Lotta Love" sonic wail? And lo and behold, it is!

I can't find anything better to listen to this morning than "What'cha Gonna Do About It." The first Small Faces album is a bouncing, fuzz-headed, coffee and cigs, organ jump-up rock masterpiece. Is it too much to say masterpiece? I'm feeling pepped-up this morning, so I'm gonna say, "No." I can't help feeling pepped, the organ sound right now is too groovy for me to be feeling anything less than positively head-bopping. The Small Faces are one of those British Invasion mod bands, like The Who or The Yardbirds, and like all good rock bands in the mid-60s they eventually went all hippie dippie in the late 60s, turning psychedelic slop man, but shit if they don't rock the streets with this their first full-length album, a self-titled dance party disc released in May of 1966.

This is early garage rock, so it's still got the sweetness of the mid-60s sticking to it all smiley innocence. It's rhythm and blues, but the teenager kind, energetic and a little awkward, the perfect music for dancing after school at the local basement club. The Small Faces are actually grungier than the Who, the guitar's more razor-tinged, feedback's just a little too far over the distorted side, the organ is sorta outta control in it's straight-up blues attitude, the singing is breathier, more desperate and throat-stretched. The drums aren't Keith Moon crazy-genius, but they come awfully close (Kenney Jones would eventually join the Who on drums after Keith Moon's death, so there you go).

These guys are underrated, as if you didn't know. I just found out about them two weeks ago and I still can't get enough. Laying in bed for two hours typing up this junk for you all, watching the sun turn to a strong, driving spring rain, getting kinda bummed 'cause my prediction of doing nothing today is coming true before your very eyes, I still don't care 'cause I've got the Small Faces to cover my mind.

Just dig that crazy organ sound! It's "Own Up Time," kiddies!

What'cha gonna do about it? Plug your head phones into your ears and sing "Sha La La La Lee"!