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“96 Tears” - ? and the Mysterians
(Words/music: Rudy Martinez, available on 96 Tears, Cameo 1966)

Some characters come to us completely formed and require little to no embellishment.  Rudy Martinez is one of those characters that seems too ridiculous to be true.  Twenty five years before Bono created his “Fly” character on the Atchung Baby tour, Martinez bopped around stages in similar wraparound sunglasses.  He’s made repeated references to being born on Mars and having lived with the dinosaurs in a past life.  He legally changed his name to “?” - not the phrase “question mark,” but the actual typographical mark.  He also wrote and performed one of the singularly most infectious songs of the garage rock era.

For a man with as many interesting biographical points (being diplomatic about it), “96 Tears” is a fairly mundane song about heartbreak.  There’s a brief moment where he declares that he’ll “be on top [and] you’ll be way down there,” but he only threatens to turn his heartbreak around on his former sweetheart.  Honestly though, he could sing about anything – even drawing on his memories with the pterodactyls – and it would take a back seat to that organ riff.  It’s a terrific melody (even Smash Mouth couldn’t ruin it when they stole it in the late ’90s) on its own but benefits from the Farfisa organ sound.  The organ player alternates between a quick series of staccato stabs and longer notes that seem to float along ?’s vocals.  If he’s right about being a Martian (and I can’t prove that he isn’t, I guess), I hope his spacecraft sounds like that organ.  Don’t get me wrong – I love the theramin as much as the next blogger, but I’d prefer my UFOs to sound ebullient and bubbly as The Mysterians sound.

More on ? and the Mysterians: Allmusic | Amazon MP3 | Emusic | Last.fm