Garage Rock of the 1960s
exerpt from this article:
Garage Rock is the real rock, the rock without pretense (but often with aspirations). It goes beyond a musical genre to qualify as a cultural phenomenon, one that not only gave countless bands their one-shots on flimsy little labels in every corner of the U.S., but also one just as fervent in Canada, England, Scandinavia, Europe, Japan, and just about anywhere a few kids could get together with guitars and amps.
As musical genre, it refers primarily to what was essentially the “indie” music of the sixties; local combos recording on primitive equipment for small, local labels. Some of these bands wound up with a national hit; others had giant local hits, when radio airplay was still regional. Most never struck gold at all, seemingly bottomless vaults are crammed with just the stuff that never even got released.
In essence, it was rock’s great populist movement, fed largely from 60’s suburbia, where a lot of very typical and not-so-typical teens picked up guitars and started picking out hits of the day, especially those by The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, Bob Dylan, and the Yardbirds. In suburbia you have garages; where else would a kid go to make noise? From the early days of the British Invasion through the end of the psychedelic age, it was a rare block that didn’t have some band or another on it, however informally.
This glut of bands resulted in a glut of little labels, often run by local deejays or impresarios, who would buy recordings often made in the most rudimentary of studios, or pay for a little studio time themselves. Which resulted in a glut of 45’s, far too many for the market to absorb, with most destined for cut-out bins and meltdown.
