Garage Punk
Located in 4 routes
Garage Punk is rock at its most immediate: cheap amps, fuzz guitar, pounding two-chord riffs, snotty vocals, teenage frustration and recordings that sound like they were made before anyone learned the rules. It is usually less political than hardcore and less polished than pop-punk, but it carries punk's core attitude before punk had a name. The sound values nerve, repetition and personality over technique.
History
1960s regional garage bands such as The Sonics, The Seeds, The Standells and The 13th Floor Elevators became retroactive punk ancestors through compilations like Nuggets. Later scenes revived the vocabulary through The Cramps, The Gories, The Mummies, Teengenerate, The Oblivians, Thee Oh Sees and countless small-label groups. Garage punk keeps returning because it offers a simple answer to overproduced rock: plug in, distort, shout, move.
Defining artists
Essential listening
Sources
- Nuggets compilation histories
- AllMusic garage punk overview
- 1960s garage-rock retrospectives
- Estrus and Crypt Records histories