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TRY IT“Try It,” was about our fourth recording, it was right after we did “Riot On Sunset Strip” and Billboard Magazine had picked it to be our next big hit. We thought for sure it was going to climb the charts, but right about that time, this man from Texas, by the name of Gordon McClendon, who was the owner of radio station KLIS and a big company that programmed for a number of radio stations, decided to form this committee to judge record lyrics and for some reason he picked out song “Try It” for being obscene and encouraging young girls to have sex.Gordon was very conservative, and a born-again Christian, I believe, and he went on national campaign about our record “Try It,” saying, “This record is a classic example of what we call obscene, and we’re not going to play it on any of our stations and we advise other radio stations not to play it as well.”That stopped the record dead cold, it mean it was number one on a lot of markets and all the sudden they refused to play it anymore. In Los Angeles for instance, it was number one on KLRA, and KHJ refused to play it—so it stopped our song dead in it’s tracks. I mean, it was probably no more encouraging to a girl to have sex than “I Wanna Hold Your Hand,” ya know? The lyrics were, “By the way that you look I can tell that you want some action / Action is my middle name / Come over here pretty girl I’ll give you satisfaction / But two are needed for this game / I’ll give you sweet love you’ve never had before.”How tame is that?At this time, Art Linkletter had a TV show called House Party and he had a segment on it called “Let’s Talk,” where he’d have on different factions debating each other on issues and had the Standells on debating Gordon McClendon. We were really pissed, to say the least because we thought it was going to be a hit record, and so did everybody else and we were just beside ourselves. Anyway, Art Linkletter heard about him banning our record and decided to have us on the show debating McClendon and we were pretty well prepared and we went on the show. They had this debate at the Hullabaloo Club, which was a big teenage nightclub that was very popular back then and later became the Aquarius Theater, and we used to play there with the Buffalo Springfield and other groups.The place was chocked full of teenagers; so you couldn’t ask for a better audience for the Standells. Word got out to all those kids, I don’t know how, maybe through our manager about some of Gordon’s misdeeds and during the debate, somebody would shout out, “What about the baseball games, McClendon?”And his face would get all red because it was known that his radio station did “live” broadcasts of baseball games that the announcer’s didn’t even go to. So we massacred him in this debate, and literally made him look like the fool that he was, because it was so ludicrous. We brought up the fact that the Rolling Stones had “Let’s Spend The Night Together,” what does that mean, ya know? But I really got him when I said, “What about the song ‘Birds Do It, Bees Do It’? What does that mean?”Immediately everybody roared, and I said, “What are they referring to, ‘Birds do it, bees do it, let’s fall in love?’”He couldn’t answer that, of course, but they cut that out in the editing, but everyone who was in the audience knew we massacred him. I mean his face was red throughout most of it. He came marching in the building with what looked like Secret Service Agents surrounding him, all these guy dressed in suits with the ear pieces, an army of bodyguards.But it was all for naught, the record was destroyed—people just wouldn’t play it even though it was selling, and, I think, that was probably the beginning of the end for The Standells.Catch the Standells on tour this spring:4/27- Tremont Music Hall – Charlotte, NC
4/28 – Local 506 – Chapel, Hill, NC
4/29 – Black Cat – Washington, DC
4/30 – BB King's – Lucille’s - 2 shows – New York City, NY
5/2 - Open Arts Stage - Bordentown, NJ
5/3 - Brighton Bar - Long Branch, NJ
5/4 – Iron Horse Music Hall – North Hampton, MA
5/5 – Brighton Music Hall – Boston, MA
5/6 - Cafe Nine - New Haven CT
5/7 - The Brickhouse - Dover, NH
5/8 – Lovin Cup – Rochester, NY
5/10 – Beachland Tavern – Cleveland, OH
5/11 – The Magic Bag – Ferndale (Detroit), MI
5/13 – Mayne Stage – Chicago, IL
5/14 – Shank Hall – Milwaukee, WI
5/16 – Knickerbockers – Lincoln, NE
5/18 – Herman’s Hideaway – Denver, CO
5/21 – Cheyenne Saloon – North Las Vegas, NVBack in 1975, Legs McNeil co-founded Punk magazine, which is part of the reason you even know what that word means. He also wrote Please Kill Me, which basically makes him the Studs Terkel of punk rock. In addition to his work as a columnist for VICE, he continues to write for his personal blog, PleaseKillMe.com. You should also follow him on Twitter: @Legs__McNeil.Previously: Scott Asheton, Iggy Pop's Brother in Noise
