After months of slacking, I finally forced myself to devote 6 minutes of my life to another 7″ record for YOU, my loyal readers. Are you happy now?

Last week I went to a garage rock show. All of the bands were pretty similar. There was a band that wanted to sound like the Buzzcocks, but sucked. There was a band that wanted to sound like The Jam, and was tight! There was another band that didn’t really want to sound like anybody, but still sounded like the others, and, yes, those six Puerto Rican dudes on stage were also garage-rockin’. Back in the day I’m pretty sure that they didn’t even call it “garage” rock, it was just rock & roll! Carol’s “Funky Monkey Baby” is pretty much your archetypal rock & roll jam, but something sets this song apart from the countless others who’ve made the same song.

It probably isn’t the cheesy-ass lyrics about being head over heels in love with a girl. It probably isn’t the goofy English catchphrases sprinkled about the lyrics (”Baby I’m blue…”). It definitely isn’t Yazawa Eikichi’s preposterous faux-American accent while singing in Japanese. It probably isn’t the wanky guitar solo at the beginning of the song (okay, maybe it is). I’m actually rather ashamed, but I don’t really know why I like this song, but it’s genius. Before dudes started driving around with ‘E. Yazawa’ decals on the backs of their hatchbacks, and before a horrible band named themselves after this song, Carol was actually a cool band.

B-side “Coffee Shop no Onna no Ko” fills the other old rock & roll archetype of the sentimental 6/8 slow jam. Arpeggiated guitars tinkle up and down, reverb abounds and all is well with the rock & roll gods. Carol is on the money with this one too.

Here’s a video of a live performance of “Funky Monkey Baby”. It’s pretty obvious that the crowd is getting rowdy in front, but the camera only does closeups of the dorkiest, Happy Days-looking people in the audience. Nice.