Goon Is Up for Grabs

The recent death of Kingsmen singer Jack Ely points up how vital the amateur spirit is to delivering whatever there is of value in rock 'n' roll.  On his legendary rendtion of "Louie Louie, you can hear the gangling struggle of this young kid slurring his words through his braces into a microphone hung above his head, turning a something as catchy but innocuous ditty into something lewd, crude and weirdly irresistible. Ely's mannish boy poses, slack-jawed leers and strained phrasing are both clumsily affected and winningly sincere; when he comes in too early on the final verse over the drummer's staggering beat, you can't help but wince, smile and cheer him on. How his maladroit annunciations manages to imply dirty words and even dirtier thoughts is one of the great miracles of rock history -- the fact that the drummer seems to actually say "fuck!" when Ely blows his cue is of less importance than what lies within those mangled syllables and phlegm-drenched ejaculations. Contrast Ely and the Kingsmen's heartfelt sloppiness to the canned lust and freeze-dried libido of a band like Aerosmith. The sterile professionalism of these prematurely used-up troopers is symptomatic of what happened to the guttersnipe genius that launched a thousand tinny, trashed-out combos in a thousand combos by the mid-'60s. Steve Tyler Jaggercized lips and pumped-up strut can't mask the essential flaccidness of his band's music, leaving one longing for the zit-faced frat-house sincerity of "Louie Louie."