So after watching Simon of the Desert last week, and being blown away by what is perhaps the most ridiculous (or sublime?) ending to any film ever made, I did my research and figured out the name of the band – The Sinners. Here, from the finale of Simon of the Desert, it’s Los Sinners and Rebelde Radioactivo!
Then I fell into a Youtube hole and started researching Latin garage rock bands. Why am I doing this? A better question might be, why am I not not doing this? Here’s Los Gatos Salvajes from Argentina performing their smash hit from 1965, La Respuesta.
Again, from Argentina, Los Bestias from 1967. Why so many great ’60s garage bands from Argentina? I dunno…
Los Buhos – aka “the Argentinian Beatles”. God this sucks…
From Mexico, it’s Los Beatniks doing the Tampico Twist from 1962. This is the best twist I’ve seen since La Dolce Vita.
I couldn’t resist a little French garage rock. That’s Latin too, isn’t it? Sort of? And hey, aren’t Los Sinners actually Quebecois? It’s all starting to make sense…so here’s Les Chaussettes Noires with C’est Bien Mieux Comme Ca.
That handsome young singer/poor-man’s Johnny Halliday wannabee is none other than Eddy Mitchel. When I lived in France in the late ’80s, Eddy hosted a late-night Friday movie show. That’s where I first saw Simon of the Desert. See? Like True Detective season 2, all the pieces are finally coming together. Sort of. Anyway, here’s Les Chaussettes Noires and their Elvis rip-off, Je T’aime Trop.
Biche oh ma Biche – the classic French “yeah yeah” song. The Beatles it ain’t. Don’t you love the deer walking around? How cheesy is that? Let’s see, one roll of black and white super-8 film, shoot outdoors in natural light, process it at FNAC, total cost of video approximately $18. (BTW, “biche” also means “dear” in French – those crazy French, they have their own word for almost everything). They still play this on the radio as far as I know. But I must give the French props for having a washed-up ’60s rocker host a Friday night at the movies TV show and screen films like Simon of the Desert.
I figured, how can I leave out American hits by Mexican-Americans? Sam the Sham – learn how to count in Spanish! Domingo “Sam” Samudio’s band sold 3 million copies of this monster smash hit. I love “Cleopatra” standing stock-still…
? and the Mysterians and 96 Tears – Zippy the Pinhead’s favorite band. The song title was originally supposed to be 69 Tears but they wouldn’t let that pass. “When the sun comes up, I’ll be on top. You’ll be down there, looking up.” Wonder what he was talking about?
Anyway, ?’s real name is Rudy Martinez, a self-proclaimed Martian who lived with dinosaurs in a past life. He never appears in public without sunglasses. He talks about traveling into the future and visiting other planets. I’m from Saturn myself but I think I’d get along famously with Mr. Martinez. Here he is doing the best moon walk since Cab Calloway.
And yes, you are correct if you guessed ? named his band after the classic Japanese trashy sci-fi epic, The Mysterians, perhaps the 2nd best movie made, after Simon of the Desert. “Love-hungry spacemen come to seize our women that their dying race may live!”
All right, since I’ve gone off-theme here, I may as well post this, the weirdest one of them all. And I guess it is connected – I already did the Argentinian Beatles. Ladies and gentlemen, for your listening pleasure, I present the Beatles at the Bollywood Bowl…
Thanks for playing! I hope I wasted a significant amount of your time today! God bless and drive safe!
Essays Music Video What Not
1 thought on “The Sinners & other great Latin garage rock bands”