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Home arrow Columns arrow Pop & Circumstance arrow Pop & Circumstance: "Baldie Stomp / Baldie Beat" by The Deacons
Pop & Circumstance: "Baldie Stomp / Baldie Beat" by The Deacons Print E-mail
Written by Max Sparber   
Monday, November 19, 2007 at 02:57 PM

Musically, there's not too much to say about these two mid-'60s local party rock hits by St. Paul's The Deacons. They're both three-chord wonders, the first using the same chords as "Louie Louie" and "Wild Thing," a I-IV-V progression that served as the musical nucleus of '60s garage band music. The second song is essentially a remake of the first, but with a propulsive drum pattern in place of the blurting saxophone. Both songs are invitations to dance ("It's real neat to do the Baldie Beat / You move your arms and you grind your feet"), and the songs benefit from the sneering, laughing tone of The Deacons' singer, as well as assorted shouts from the band, which give the songs the feeling of having been recorded live at a particularly wild frat party.

Image
A vintage '60s Gant shirt
However, the songs become quite a bit more interesting if you know that they are celebrating a legendary -- and possibly semi-mythical -- youth gang from the Twin Cities (no direct relation to the antiracist skinhead group of the same name that originated in the Twin Cities in the '80s). Nobody seems to know anybody who was actually a member of the group, but you meet quite a few people who claim that their older brother was friends with someone in the gang. The Baldies sported shaved their heads, at least up until 1964, when they all switched to Beatles haircuts. The Baldies were middle class and mod, with their uniform of choice being Gant shirts with a loop at the back of the neck and high, tight trousers that they cinched with belts bearing oversized buckles. The belts could be removed quickly and wrapped around the hand to serve as improvised brass knuckles, but their real weapons of choice were their feet: The Baldies liked to kick and wore steel-toe wingtip shoes to make their kicks vicious.

The Baldies rumbled with a more working class gang, The Animals, a group of greasers in blue jeans and white t-shirts who carried around metal combs with long points, which they sharpened into makeshift shivs. The Animals reportedly also filed their teeth to sharp points, and it was a point of pride among The Baldies to kick them in the teeth in the hopes of leaving Animal toothprints (and perhaps even teeth!) embedded in their shoes. The local law didn't seem to take these rumors of youth gangs too seriously, tending to dismiss them as either exaggerated nonsense or as a problem for school supervisors; interestingly, a number of Baldies are supposed to have gone on to join the Twin Cities police forces.

The Deacons make no real reference to the youth gang they take their own name from in their songs, although one supposes they probably actually played the song at parties where Baldies were in attendance. It is, however, a little unnerving to hear The Deacons insist that their dance involves grinding the feet, since when actual Baldies ground their feet, teeth may have gone flying.

Download "Baldie Stomp" or stream below:


Download "Baldie Beat" or stream below:
Last Updated: Monday, November 19, 2007 at 03:18 PM
 
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