He’s Good Bad, But He’s Not Evil

When I say I'm in love, you best believe I'm in love, L-U-V!

Dearly beloved we have come together today to pay homage to an adored quartet from Queens, who rocked up on the scene dripping with attitude and shook things up, muchly.

No, not the Ramones, we’re talking Cambria Heights, not Forest Hills here buster, instead we are talking about the best, earthiest girl group of the 60’s. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the Shangri-Las and their 1965 debut long playing record, Leader Of The Pack! (Brrrrmmm, Brrrrmmm).

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You have to love a school band, especially one featuring two pairs of sisters and doubly especially one named after a local restaurant in Queens. Working their way up via teen hops* and talent shows the Shangri-Las signed a record deal in 1964 when they were all still minors** and were hired by producer George ‘Shadow’ Morton.

All manner of alchemy happened and Leader Of The Pack was released in February ’65 and was, true to the manner of the time, a collection of singles and a live side to capitalize on their breakthrough hits.

Let’s flip the disc and deal with the live side first, its pretty fast, raucous and unsubtle; just like I love it. Their ”Twist And Shout’ has real energy, I’m not peachy keen on their very in-your-face version of ‘Shout’, but then I’ve never liked that song much, but you can feel the energy radiating from it. Best of all on the second side is the closing ‘You Can’t Sit Down’, which is 2:19 of pure only slightly controlled energy, with a great organ break^.

The crown jewels on Leader Of The Pack are all on the opening side, three banging 60’s classics and three goodies.

You want to frontload an LP with all the sass and raunch you can muster? then kick down the doors with ‘Give Him A Great Big Kiss’, no wonder New York Dolls borrowed their ‘You say I’m in love …’ line. The call and response bits where they set out their Adonis’ attractions are priceless:

Well, what colour are his eyes?
I don't know, he's always wearing shades
Is he tall?
Well, I've got to look up
Yeah? well I hear he's bad
Hmm, he's good-bad, but he's not evil
Tell me more, tell me more

There’s real lust in these teenage grooves, Phil Spector’s groups always came over a bit prim in my view, continually wanging on about marriage. Taking a Shangri-La to the movies would be a much surer bet for a bit of rock ‘n roll in my view.

Is he a good dancer?
Whaddayamean, is he a good dancer?
Well, how does he dance?
Close ... very, very close!

‘Leader Of The Pack’ is every bit all the teenage pop opera you could ever want in under three minutes. I do confess to being particularly partial to a ‘death disc’ though^^. Yeah it’s been parodied a million times but as a fresh new tune in the hands of these twisted sisters its priceless. Surely I don’t need to tell you again how much I love songs with talkie bits in them?

The other classic on Leader Of The Pack is the genius-level ballad-with-added-seagull-FX ‘Remember (Walking In The Sand)’. I only knew the Aeroversion of it until I bought this LP, which is good but this is perfecto. Those ‘oh no’s just melt me and make go all squidgy-widgy. Fact.

Elsewhere we get the rocking ‘Bull Dog’ which has an irresistible R&B beat, the attractively messy-sounding ‘It’s Easier To Cry’ with its ‘Positively Fourth Street’ organ sound and the sole dud here, to my ears ‘What Is Love?’.

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So there you have Leader Of The Pack, such a gloriously teenaged LP. I don’t know if I have another album in the 1537 less-concerned with anything remotely adult than this one.

I love how unbridled and street the Shangri-Las were for their time, how brilliantly unpolished – no wonder the Dolls, the Damned and Ramones loved them so. I love Leader Of The Pack as a wonderful period piece that still sounded great on a very wet September day 59 years after it was released.

They told me he was bad, but I knew he was sad
That's why I fell for the leader of the pack

A teenage dream’s so hard to beat.

1246 Down.

PS: The Shangri-Las punk #1

PPS: The Shangri-Las punk #2

*bring back teen hops, I say.

**Mary Weiss only being 15 at the time.

^we like an organ break here at 1537.

^^’Dead Man’s Curve’ being my all-time fave. My mum loathes them, the weirdo!