Deep Tracks: Boys Don’t Cry and You Gave Your Love To Me Softly From The Huntingtons and Retarded Split

It’s time for a new series of posts, and one that I have been kicking around for a while now. Today I open up the vaults for you humanoids out there that have given up on finding new and old music alike. We are going back to 2003! In 2003, The Huntingtons and Retarded put out a split record with 12 songs and about 30 minutes of punk rock glory.

If you don’t know either band, shame on you! If you do know these bands, then you’re probably Jeremy Allison from Santa Monica, California. But in case you’re not, I’m here to discuss in brief two tracks off of this otherwise forgotten record. If you’re serious about collecting records, however, you can find this CD on Amazon for $63 HERE. I wouldn’t pay that much, but that’s simply because I had the CD in my collection and sold it in 2009 to fund my trip home from Moscow, Idaho aka HELL.

Getting to the tracks at hand, you’ll denote the The Huntingtons put on quite the Ramones-esque punk rock element, but Retarded follows suit. The second band on this split has a dual vocal element, and it shines on their cover track, which is why you may want to pick up this record in the first place. If you’ve heard me talk about The Huntingtons before here, then you already know that I love them, and find their cover of “Boys Don’t Cry” quite good. Not quite as good as the B-side from The Get Up Kids, but really good none the less. They go with a guitar heavy sound here, and they do so very well, without putting in trumpets, or piano, or keyboard that I’ve heard with many Cure covers that others do.

Heading to the second cover track, you’re going to absolutely fall in love with Retarded’s version of “You Gave Your Love To Me Softly”. This is a track made famous by Weezer from the “Angus” soundtrack. I have been waxing poetic about that record for years, so it’s no doubt something that is fresh on the mind of readers, and anyone that has followed my blogging path for some time. Retarded’s no nonsense approach to the cover with female vocals, and keyboard heavy interlude is downright one of the best covers of a Weezer track. They should’ve used that for the Honda commercial, just saying.

So here’s the deal. You can pick up this record at the inflated price I mentioned above, or you could find it used in stores. The artwork is above, so go search it out. Or, you could get the DOWNLOAD here, and get the two tracks of outstanding glory. Released in 2003 in limited runs, The Huntingtons x Retarded split “The Soothing Sounds of…” is one of the prime examples of how great underground punk is, was, and will always be. So go search these out! Or don’t, what do I care? I just write this blog.

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