From The Desk Of Shoes’ Jeff Murphy: Life Is Full Of Choices

Power-pop progenitors? O.G. DIYers? The last college-rock survivors? No label adequately captures the four-decade journey of Zion, Ill.’s Shoes, who have released their first new studio material in 17 years. Perhaps the most astonishing thing about Shoes is that this ethic and attitude prevails despite a collection of music-biz bumps and bruises that could rival Charlie Brown in terms of sheer career futility. In some ways, they’re the Forrest Gumps of rock. Shoes essentially presaged punk’s DIY movement by recording its first, early-’70s albums in the living room before garnering enough critical acclaim to merit a major-label contract. Shoes will be guest editing magnentmagazine.com all week. Read our new feature on the band.

Jeff Murphy: Life is full of choices; paper or plastic, Beatles or Stones, Cubs or Sox, Ginger or Mary Ann, Curly or Shemp? This latter question was a hotly debated issue with my friends and me when we were growing up. The brothers Howard, a.k.a., Moe, Curly and Shemp (Harry Moses, Jerome and Samuel Horwitz), along with their friend Larry Fine (Louis Feinberg), provided hours of after-school, electronic babysitting for an entire generation of grade-schoolers in the Chicagoland area in the 1960s. Despite my mother’s memory lapse, I distinctly remember being scolded about my answer to a kindergarten entrance questionnaire. When asked for my favorite TV show, I proudly blurted, “The Three Stoogers,” to the disapproving look of my soon-to-be teacher. (Yeah, I know I got the name wrong, but at that age, it was Stoogers, not Stooges! What was a stooge, anyway?) My mom intervened and suggested that Captain Kangaroo was a much more appropriate answer, and I begrudgingly relented.

The 3 p.m. showing of The Andy Clyde Theater provided kids within viewing distance of WGN-TV daily Stooges episodes that became a viewing ritual, to race home for and watch. Little did I realize that these were not modern-day comics, but reruns of movie theater “shorts” from the ’30s, ‘40s and ‘50s. Although the vast majority of the episodes consisted of the three core members—Curly, Moe and Larry—occasionally Curly was replaced by a different, uglier partner: Shemp. It wasn’t until years later that I came to find out that Shemp was the older brother of Moe and Curly. As a kid, these Curly-less episodes seemed inferior and a bit darker. Curly was kid-friendly and childlike in his mannerisms and voicing. Shemp was more … cerebral. Really! His style was more confrontational, and he was certainly uglier than Curly. In fact, during his movie career, Shemp was touted as “the Ugliest Man in Show Biz.” So, it’s hardly surprising that, with the prepubescent crowd, the “Curly or Shemp” smack down was a no-brainer in Curly’s favor.

But slowly, over the years, the comical genius, mannerisms and homely demeanor of Shemp grew on us. His greasy bangs and wrinkled face contorted in ways that became funny in a different way than Curly’s high-pitched “soytnee” and “nyuk, nyuk, nyuk,” and we started to get it! Now, I take equal pleasure in the slapstick and pratfalls of the brothers Horwitz. No matter who the third Stooge is. There’s no clear winner! How strange and coincidental that I should end up in a band consisting of three primary members, including my own brother! Odd, too, that my coif would initially resemble Shemp’s and progress to the look of Moe’s in its inevitable way to the later stages of Larry and, eventually, Curly. I’m given no choice in this matter of natural genetic progression.

However, when given the choice, there are some days that I’m in the mood for a Beatles song, and other days I’m more for a Stones tune. Some days I want pizza, and some days it’s burgers. Some days Curly, and some days Shemp. But it’s always Mary Ann. Yup, always!

Video after the jump.