The Juke Box at the Lucky Cue

The Juke Box at the Lucky Cue is the altar where we share these offerings. The Lucky Cue was punk for us! Recall The Cue: You walk in there and the juke box is playing. Two long rows of greenfelt tables, pinball machines up front, more tables and a mezzanine level in the back. And the juke box is playing 96 Tears, Sometimes Good Guys Dont Wear White, You Gonna Miss Me, and Pushing Too Hard, by Question Mark and the Mysterians, the Standells, the 13th Floor Elevators, and the Seeds, respectively. You eye the tables and the thin observing crowd.

[This is  shorter rework of an earlier piece.] What's punk? It became a style at some point. It grew out of the English Invasion Era and its antecedents- think Link Wray and Eddie Cochran- then, faded out during the Psychedelic Period, at the same time that it spawned some of what became heavy metal, and came back as a an andidote to long druggy jams, with a name in New York in the mid 70s, yes, thanks to some talents, but also thanks to a bunch of art school shites and some just plain shites. For me it was part of the context of growing up.. and not  growing up.

Garage would be as good a name. Maybe I am a bit more in favor of Garage music, than Punk music, when the truth be told. My friends Bill, Carol, Bobs  Henken, Stepien LaFrance, Dave and I invented Garage magazine together.  From first principles, in 1967. It's sonorous bounds were other than 3-chords, but collegially similar.

The garage manifest is still there. That was about “chamber thoughts” “because of darkness and you have to someplace and silent and Poe.” Separately, Garage band became a genre. But much of it happened in basements.

The Internet tells me Lenny Kaye's liner notes for Nuggets made early mention of the term 'punk music', and that garage music was already finding currency.* But now that all of that is out of the way,  let's talk about the time before.

Punk to me will always be the Lucky Cue, 1965. Of Main Street Racine. That pin ball and pool parlor palace of our factory town home. Where different samples of cloth conspired, including Black leather jackets, Beatle boots, and attitude of indifference. Simple message, if I don’t like the way you look at me, you I will beat you up. The Juke Box at the Lucky Cue made our shared history. The Lucky Cue was punk for us!

Recall The Cue: You walk in there and the juke box is playing. Two long rows of greenfelt tables, pinball machines up front, more tables and a mezzanine level in the back. Drop a quarter in the juke box. Listen to 96 Tears, Sometimes Good Guys Dont Wear White, You Gonna Miss Me, Little Latin Lupe Lu and Pushing Too Hard, by Question Mark and the Mysterians, the Standells, the 13th Floor Elevators, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels and the Seeds, respectively. Most of these artists appear on Nuggets. You eye the tables and the crowd.

Clearly the Seeds’ Pushing Too Hard and The Leaves’ Hey Joe have a punkishness to them, but are harbingers not of punk as much as the San Francisco sound. Were the Yardbirds on the Lucky Cue juke box? – Where is that Time Machine when you need it? Things go in different directions, but for moments they adhere. Punk was not the CYO dance- it was the Cue.

The sound of punk was guitars, but organs were still in competition in those days, and the sound was variations on blue – variations being failed replicas that created new instances. The Kinks have spoken to this: They’re pivotal punk presages were failed recreations of Big Bill Broonzy rips. And as per Link Wray, Dave Davies had slashed his speark for effect. All played out with awareness that James Dean had come to earth and then departed.
I think Satisfaction was a gigantic song in this regard and set the tone for this punk era to come. The buzzy fender came up through Link Wray, one of Muddy Waters guitar players, maybe Duane Eddy too. I think Satisfaction was a gigantic song in this regard and set the tone for this punk era to come. But the singer had the chant: Micky Jagger there talked to my teenage angst .. yours too … god I was so psyched to see him sing that song on TV, and ran out and tried to buy the same type of slacks her wore.

This all was seen in reflective light later on. Through the brainstorms of Lester Bangs, in the pages of Creem. For me Loaded was an epiphany –and it was an attempt really to bring it to a sum. In my first years in Boston, there was a particular flowering of punk. – Jack Vaughan (thank to Peter Bochner, Jim Haas, Jeff DeMark, Paul DeMark)

Lists

No.1

Rumble – by Link Wray

The Train kept a Rollin – by Johnny Burnette[?]

Little Girl – by Syndicate of Sound

You Really Got Me – by the Kinks

Anything – by Eddie Cochran

Louie, Louie – by Lance Davenport and the Voyagers

Wild Thing – by the Troggs

Surfer Bird – The Trashmen

Gloria – by the Shadows of Knight

I’m a Man – by the Yardbirds

Dirty Water – by the Standelles

Cant Explain – by the Who

Satisfaction – by the Ruttle Stones

Little Latin Lupe Lu - by Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels

I Heard Her Call My Name – by the Velvet Underground

96 Tears – by Question Mark and the Mysterians

No Fun – by the Stooges

I’m 18 – Alice Cooper

No.2

Gimmie Shelter – the rolling stones

Anything – by The Modern Lovers

Raw Power – by Iggy

I’m a Human Being – by The Dolls

Piss Factory – by Patti Smith

Talk to Lorreta – by the Nervous Eaters

Hit her wid an axe – by Willie Loco Alexander

I was a Catholic Boy - by Jim Carroll

Rockaway Beach – by the Ramones

Anarchy in the UK – by the sex pistols

Whats so funny about peace love and understanding – by Elvis Costello

You Cant Put Your Arms Around a Memory – Johnny Thunders

*[Did I tell you I believe I bought a second-hand version of Nuggets from Lenny (at the register, and Bleeker Records)? He certainly wrote for Creem, which carried the punk drum beat forward.