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Garage Rock Music
Garage rock is a term that was bestowed upon the sounds resonating from neighborhood garages in a period from 1963-1967. It emerged as a cruder and more adolescent version of the British invasion and was mainly set in North America.
Garage bands were usually white, suburban teenagers playing their adventurous music on primitive equipment, giving them a raw and somewhat emotional sound. But, it would be inaccurate to conclude that all garage bands were of this demographic dynamic, on the contrary, some were comprised of both amateur and professional musicians. These were the bands that played the local high school dances and college frat parties and although there was great music being played, few really hit it big. Some garage rock groups had the infamous one-hit-wonder tag, but more often than not, their music was heard within a 50-100 mile radius of their origin and would have been considered very lucky to have gotten radio air play.
Literally thousands of garage bands existed in the US and Canada during the era and just as many scored regional hits. Several bands were able to produce national hits such as the controversial hit by the Kingsmen, “Louie Louie” (#2 1963), “Nobody But Me,” by the Human Beinz (#8 1967), Psychotic Reaction by the Count Five (#5 1966), “Pushin’ To Hard” by the Seeds (#36 1966), “96 Tears" by Question Mark and the Mysterians (#1 in 1966), “Talk Talk,” by the Music Machine (#15 1966), “Little Bit O’ Soul” by the Music Explosion (#2 1967), Standells with the raunchy hit Dirty Water (# 11 1966) “Little Girl” by the Syndicate Of Sound (#8 in 1966), and the garage rock anthem by the Shadows Of Knight “Gloria” (#10 in 1966), among many others.
Many factors led to slow the momentum of the garage rock sound around the end of 1967 including: the lack of success of the respective group, the military draft and the fact that the groups simply didn’t stay together for a long period of time. Add these elements to the fact that a lot of the garage bands were outgrowing the genre and moving toward more progressive and psychedelic sounds.
However, garage rock is firmly planted in rock and roll history and was certainly a precursor to punk rock that evolved in the seventies. The hooked-filled primitive guitar work and bleeding emotions of garage rock still influence music to this day.
Popular Garage Rock Artists
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