Garage Rock - History - Revivals

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 '70s. 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 '60s garage bands, including The Chesterfield Kings, The Fuzztones 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 Nouns (Los Angeles, CA), 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 '60s 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, Australia, 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.