The garage door locks have been picked and a whole new hot generation of psych, punk, garage insane-iacs has broken in.
The Wyld Sound: There is, when it comes down to it, no such thing as garage band music.
The raw ‘n’ raunchy sound of ’66 was really only an attack of fuzzed-out dementia in search of a name.
But there is such a thing as a garage band.
Probably has been as long as there’s been garages.
And they’re back to haunt ya on this swingin’ compilation of 19 rockin’ new bands recapturing the primitive spirit of classic ’60s punk.
Ever since rock ‘n’ roll crept out of the southern swamp and oozed toward suburbia like a green slime, bands have needed a place to play, a place to get loco and get good.
And a place to get away from creepy, square parents with fingers in their ears shrieking “TURN DOWN THAT NOISE, YOU BUMS!!”
Garages, basements, attics and soulful Fred and Wilma-type caves that passed for teen hangouts were the only places to go. And so they went, sprouting wildman hair, paisley, Beatle boots and beads.
Rickenbacker and Vox guitars
They plugged in their Rickenbacker and Vox guitars, their Farfisas, fuzzboxes and their minds, and they made psycho noises that drove the neighbours to the nearest padded cell. Then they invaded – battles of the bands, VFW hall dances, freak-outs, and happenings a-go-go.
And eventually, recording studios (or a semblance thereof), where some of the most frenetic, cryptic, brutal grunge ever heard by human and non-human ears alike was slapped down onto now-classic slabs of vinyl.
Voices green and purple everywhere soon responded to the sound: BOSS!
But it wasn’t a unified scene and so it withered and died.
What was essentially a regional explosion that had evolved organically in every burg and village gave way to the forces of the straight world, to commercialized and co-opted pseudodelia.
And the resultant comatose state drove the loons back into their deep, dank, dark holes in the ground for good. The garage door was locked and the basement door boarded up. And so it stayed – until now!
It’s taken the sad and snoring somnambulism of corporate ’80s slush-rock to stir the dormant garage scene back into action.
But this time a cohesive effort is being made to keep the leeches away; not everyone is content to let the poison of dullsville rock seep into our lifeblood and lead us into lethargic limbo.
The Wyld sound
The WYLD sound is here to stay and it’s gonna blow yer MYND!
The garage door locks have been picked and a whole new hot generation of psych, punk, garage insane-iacs has broken in.
And they’ve begun kicking out the most ruthlessly deliberate trash and reckless rave-ups since the ancestors of the First Golden Era vanished into the void.
Now, as then, the music emanating from the garage bands is diverse, because the Laws of Garagedom are confined to attitude, not style. Being cool is a way of life, not a way of doing business.
And this time there’s an all-out battle raging against the plague of drippy, funless geek music assaulting our senses. The rebels are back!
The terminal uncoolness of Establishment fake-rock is being mowed down by the forces of the day-glo army. We’re all free to freak again!
These new garage bands have listened to the ’60s masters and have absorbed them into their ’80s blood till it’s boiled. They revere not only the Sonics, Seeds and Shadows of Knight but true obscuros like the Swamp Rats, Stereo Shoestring and Driving Stupid.
They’ve sprung up like magic mushrooms, these neo-neanderthals, to rise above and slay the suppliers of sap. And nothing can change the shape of things to come.
“Strictly speaking, there have been garage bands as long as there have been garages and rock music.
But in today’s rock parlance, the term refers specifically to the American suburban bands that sprang up in the mid-60’s in the wake of the British invasion.
Assorted pop trash
Another word that was originally used to refer to these bands was ”punk,” and by the late 60’s such bands were also being called ”psychedelic,” but the phenomenon remained the same – bands that were loud and obnoxiously bratty, banging out rhythm-and-blues and assorted pop trash in a style much influenced by the early Rolling Stones.
With the coming of the late 60’s, ”rock poetry,” and the self-conscious art-rock inspired by the Beatles’ ”Sgt. Pepper” album, garage-rock went underground.
The term ”garage band” took on derogatory connotations.
It was what you called a semi- amateur band that ineptly played renditions of better bands’ hits. But of course garage bands endured.
Iggy and the Stooges, the late 60’s band that was an important forerunner of punk rock as we now know it, was a classic garage band.
With the coming of the new punk sensibility to New York and London in the late 70’s.
Garage-type bands like the Ramones and the Heartbreakers suddenly found themselves on the cutting edge of a new wave subculture.
Garage sale sampler
In today’s rock, the garage is a state of mind.
Some of the bands heard on the ROIR ”Garage Sale” sampler are suburban bands.
But others are inner-city bands for whom the garage designation is a matter of influences and style.
New York City’s Vipers, for example, write and play contemporary pop-rock songs.
But they’re with stylistic roots in the mid-60’s on their own first album, ”Outta the Nest” (PVC/Jem).
They also share with the Mosquitos (and many other contemporary bands) an abiding interest in pioneering 60’s psychedelic bands.
Groups like the 13th Floor Elevators and The Seeds.
The ROIR cassette indicates that the present garage-band scene is really a spectrum of styles.
Above all, garage-rock is a do-it-yourself aesthetic.
So you want to be a rock-and-roll star?
If you can make enough noise to drive your family to distraction.
Then rattle your neighbours’ windows, you’re on the way. “
By Robert Palmer (Published: March 20, 1985, NY Times)
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