Garage rock

Garage rock is a style of pop music, a raw genre of rock and roll that developed in the United States and Canada in the mid 1960s. At the time it had no specific name and was not recognized as a separate genre, but the 1972 compilation album Nuggets did much to help define and memorialise the style. The term derives from the perception that many groups were young amateurs who often rehearsed in a family garage. The style, though a precursor to psychedelic rock, is characterised by aggressive and unsophisticated lyrics and delivery, often using guitars distorted through a fuzzbox. Surf music and beat music characteristic of the "British Invasion" of 1964-66 motivated thousands of such bands in the USA and Canada during the era: hundreds produced regional hits and a handful had national chart hits. By 1968 such records largely disappeared from the national charts and the style declined as more sophisticated forms of rock music developed. In the early 1970s some critics began to refer to the style as punk rock, the first form of music to bear this description; and it is sometimes called garage punk, protopunk or 1960s punk to distinguish it from the punk rock of the mid and late 1970s.

The term garage rock comes from the perception that many such performers were young and amateurish, and often rehearsed in a family garage. Some bands were made up of middle-class teenagers from the suburbs, others were from rural or urban areas or were composed of professional musicians in their twenties. Performances were often amateurish, naïve or intentionally raw, with typical themes revolving around the traumas of high school life and songs about "lying girls" being particularly common. The lyrics and delivery were notably more aggressive than was common at the time, often with growled or shouted vocals that dissolved into incoherent screaming. Instrumentation was often characterised by the use of guitars distorted through a fuzzbox. Nevertheless, garage rock acts were diverse in both musical ability and in style, ranging from crude one-chord music (like the Seeds and the Keggs) to near-studio musician quality (including the Knickerbockers, the Remains, and the Fifth Estate). There were also regional variations with flourishing scenes, particularly in California, the base of Strawberry Alarm Clock, The Electric Prunes, The Music Machine, The Standells, and Texas, offering bands such as Sir Douglas Quintet, The 13th Floor Elevators, Sam the Sham (whose "Wooly Bully" reached #2 on the Billboard Hot 100 and was charted for almost four and a half months in 1965), and Fever Tree. The north-western states of Idaho, Washington and Oregon had perhaps the most defined regional sound with bands such as The Bootmen, The Sonics and Paul Revere & the Raiders.[6] Florida had a significant amount of near studio quality bands, such as The Impacs, The Tropics, The Tempests and The Outlaws.

Origins

Precursors can be picked out as early as 1958. Link Wray, with his innovative use of power chords and distortion, was an early influence. "Tall Cool One" (1959) by The Fabulous Wailers and "Louie Louie" by The Kingsmen (1963) are formative examples of the genre. By 1963 several such singles were creeping into the national charts, including Paul Revere and the Raiders (Boise), the Trashmen (Minneapolis) and the Rivieras (South Bend, Indiana). Other influential garage bands, such as the Sonics (Tacoma, Washington), never reached the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart. In this early period many bands were heavily influenced by surf rock and there was a cross-pollination between garage rock and energetic and upbeat party frat rock, though the latter is sometimes viewed as merely a subgenre of garage rock. The "British Invasion" of 1964-66 greatly influenced garage bands, providing them with a national audience and leading many (often surf or hot rod groups) to respond. The Invasion also inspired new, and often very raw, bands to form. Garage rock bands were generally influenced by those British "beat groups" with a harder, blues-based attack, such as The Kinks, The Who, The Animals, The Yardbirds, The Small Faces, The Pretty Things, Them,[19] and The Rolling Stones. A handful of British garage bands were formed, the most successful being the Troggs. Another influence was the folk-rock of the Byrds and Bob Dylan, especially on bands such as the Leaves.

Peak of popularity

Thousands of garage bands were extant in the USA and Canada during the era and hundreds produced regional hits. Usually thought to be the first to enjoy national success were The Beau Brummels with "Laugh, Laugh" and "Just a Little", which both reached the top 15 in 1965. Other examples include: "Fortune Teller" by Des Moines's The Image (1967), "The Witch" by Tacoma's The Sonics (1965), "Where You Gonna Go" by Detroit's Unrelated Segments (1967), "It's Cold Outside" by Cleveland's The Choir, "Girl I Got News for You" by Miami's Birdwatchers (1966), "Dirty Water" by Los Angeles-based The Standells (1966), "I Need Love" by Canton, Illinois', The Third Booth, and "1-2-5" by Montreal's The Haunted. The November 12, 1966 issue of Billboard cited that sales of the "96 Tears" single by Question Mark & the Mysterians, a band from Michigan, had attained sales of one million copies. Boston's Remains, though only able to make it onto Billboard's Bubbling Under charts, had enough of a following and reputation to open for the Beatles during their 1966 U.S. tour. Michigan's Shondells released a minor regional hit in 1964 before disbanding. When it was unearthed by a Pittsburgh Disc Jockey in 1965, the resulting success of "Hanky Panky" revived the moribund career of Tommy James, who formed a new group of Shondells. Tommy James And The Shondells followed up with twelve more top 40 singles. Tommy also had three top 40 singles as a soloist. The 1965 song "Demolición" by Peruvian act Los Saicos is considered a South American classic. Allmusic, writing about Los Saicos, noted "The guitars sound like nothing so much as fountains of sparks, the drums have a tribal post-surf throb, and the vocals are positively unhinged" and "These guys were a punk rock band, even if nobody outside Lima knew it at the time".

Decline

Despite scores of bands being signed to major or large regional labels, most were commercial failures. For instance, "Going All the Way" by The Squires was issued on a national label under (Atco) and is now regarded as a genre classic, but was not a hit anywhere. It is generally agreed that garage rock peaked both commercially and artistically around 1966. By 1968 the style largely disappeared from the national charts (the minor hit "Question of Temperature" by The Balloon Farm being a notable exception). It was also disappearing at the local level as amateur musicians faced college, work or the draft. New styles had either evolved out of garage rock or replaced it, such as psychedelic rock, progressive rock, heavy metal, country rock, and bubblegum. In Detroit, garage rock stayed alive well into the 1970s, with bands like the MC5, The Stooges, The Up and Death, who employed a much more aggressive style. These bands began to be labelled punk rock and are now often seen as protopunk or proto-hard rock.

Revivals

The revival of garage rock can be traced to the release of the two disk Nuggets compilation in 1972 by future Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye, which drew together both commercially successful and relatively obscure tracks from the mid-1960s and whose sleeve notes helped coin the phrase punk rock to describe the phenomenon. Iggy Pop and the Stooges, arguably the last garage band, carried garage rock into protopunk in the early 1970s. The mid-to-late 1970s saw the arrival of the quintessential garage punk bands, most notably The Ramones, who are usually considered the first punk band. In the 1980s, another garage rock revival saw a number of bands linked to the underground music scene earnestly trying to replicate the sound, style, and look of the 1960s garage bands, including The Chesterfield Kings, The Fuzztones, The Pandoras, and Lyres. This trend coincided with a similar surf rock revival, and both styles fed in into the alternative rock movement and future grunge explosion, which some say was partially inspired by garage rock from the Tacoma area like The Sonics and The Wailers, but was largely unknown by fans outside the immediate circles of the bands themselves. This movement also evolved into an even more primitive form of garage rock that became known as garage punk by the late 1980s, thanks to bands such as The Gories, Thee Mighty Caesars, The Mummies and Thee Headcoats. Bands playing garage punk differed from the garage rock revival bands in that they were less cartoonish caricatures of 1960s garage bands and their overall sound was even more loud and raw, often infusing elements of protopunk and 1970s punk rock (hence the "garage punk" term). The garage rock revival and garage punk coexisted throughout the 1990s and into the 2000s with many independent record labels releasing thousands of records by bands playing various styles of primitive rock and roll all around the world. Some of the more prolific of these independent record labels included Estrus, Get Hip, Bomp !, and Sympathy for the Record Industry. In the early 2000s, a garage rock or post-punk revival achieved the airplay and commercial success that had eluded garage rock bands of the past. This was led by four bands: The Strokes of New York City, The Hives of Fagersta, Sweden, The Vines of Sydney, and The White Stripes from Detroit, Michigan, christened by the media as the The bands, or "The saviours of rock 'n' roll". Other products of the Detroit rock scene included; The Von Bondies, Electric 6, The Dirtbombs and The Detroit Cobras Elsewhere, other acts such as Billy Childish and The Buff Medways from Chatham, England, The (International) Noise Conspiracy from Umeå, Sweden, The 5.6.7.8's from Tokyo, Japan, and Jay Reatard and the Oblivians from Memphis, USA enjoyed moderate underground success and appeal. A second wave of bands that managed to gain international recognition as a result of the movement included The Black Keys, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Killers, Interpol, and Kings of Leon from the US, The Libertines, Arctic Monkeys, Bloc Party, Editors, and Franz Ferdinand from the UK, Jet from Australia, and The Datsuns and The D4 from New Zealand. The mid-2000s saw several underground bands achieve some mainstream prominence. Bands such as Black Lips and Jay Reatard, who initially released their records on traditionally garage punk labels such as In The Red Records, began signing to larger, more well-known independent labels. Several bands followed them in signing to larger labels such as Rough Trade and Drag City.

Garage rock là một loại nhạc rock nghiệp dư đặc biệt phổ biến ở Bắc Mỹ vào những năm giữa thập niên 1960. Cái tên garage rock xuất phát từ việc loại hình âm nhạc này thường được tập luyện trong nhà để xe (garage) của các gia đình vùng ngoại ô thành phố. Nội dung các bài hát garage rock thường xoay quanh những vết thương của cuộc sống học đường, với những bài hát về "những cô nàng giả dối" đặc biệt phổ biến.[63] Phần ca từ và cách diễn đạt có tính mạnh bạo hơn những gì phổ biến vào thời điểm đó, thường có những đoạn hát gầm gừ hoặc la hét hòa vào những tiếng thét rời rạc. Cũng có những khác biệt theo từng vùng trên đất nước mà đặc biệt phồn thịnh nhất là California và Texas.Tiểu bang Tây Bắc Thái Bình Dương của Washington và Oregon có lẽ là vùng có garage rock thể hiện rõ tính chất nhất.

Garage rock đã phát triển ở nhiều nơi vào đầu năm 1958. "Tall Cool One" (1959) của The Wailers và "Louie Louie" của The Kingsmen (1963) là những ví dụ điển hình cho thể loại này trong giai đoạn hình thành của nó. Năm 1963, nhiều ban nhạc garage đã có những đĩa đơn lọt được vào các bảng xếp hạng quốc gia với thứ hạng cao, trong đó phải kể đến ban nhạc Paul Revere and the Raiders (Boise, Idaho), The Trashmen (Minneapolis) và Rivieras (South Bend, Indiana). Nhiều ban nhạc garage có ảnh hưởng khác chẳng hạn như The Sonics (Tacoma, Washington), lại chưa bao giờ lọt được vào bảng xếp hạng Billboard Hot 100. Trong giai đoạn đầu rất nhiều ban nhạc chịu ảnh hưởng nặng nề bởi surf rock và có một sự tương đồng trong garage rock và frat rock, đôi khi nó chỉ đơn thuần được xem như là một tiểu thể loại của garage rock.

Cuộc xâm lăng âm nhạc British Invasion năm 1964–66 đã có ít nhiều ảnh hưởng đối với các ban nhạc garage, cung cấp cho họ một lượng khán giả quốc tế, đồng thời khuyến khích nhiều nhóm nhạc khác hình thành. Hàng ngàn ban nhạc garage ở Mỹ và Canada vẫn còn tồn tại trong kỉ nguyên này, và hàng trăm trong số đó vẫn sản xuất những hit địa phương, ví dụ như "The Witch" của The Sonics (1965), "Where You Gonna Go" của Unrelated Segments (1967), "Girl I Got News for You" của Birdwatchers (1966) và "1–2–5" của The Haunted. Dù cho có một số lượng lớn ban nhạc được ký hợp đồng với các hãng đĩa lớn trong khu vực, thì hầu hết trong số đó lại là những thất bại thương mại. Người ta đồng ý rằng garage rock đạt đến đỉnh cao cả về mặt thương mại lẫn nghệ thuật vào những năm 1966. Đến năm 1968 phong cách âm nhạc này gần như biến mất khỏi bảng xếp hạng quốc tế và các nhạc sĩ nghiệp dư phải đối mặt với các vấn đề về đại học, xin việc hoặc dự thảo. Nhiều phong cách âm nhạc mới nổi lên thay thế garage rock (bao gồm blues rock, progressive rock và rock đồng quê). Ở Detroit, garage rock vẫn còn tồn tại cho tới đầu thập niên 70, với những ban nhạc như MC5 và The Stooges, những người đã sử dụng phong cách hung bạo hơn nhiều. Những ban nhạc này bắt đầu được dán nhãn punk rock và đến nay vẫn thường được xem như proto-punk hay proto-hard rock.