US Garage Punk – The History Of Punk
Dirty fuzzed up guitars twisting old blues licks. Songs about cars, girls and of course psychedelics set to some wacked out US garage punk sound. Three minutes of snappy pop punk to set those feet a tapping, those girls a jiving and those snakes writhing on the wallpaper. Distortion…………… hip but not hippy – US Garage Punk – Mean and nasty!
This is what we used to dance to in the mid-eighties in the club Alice In Wonderland in Gossips, Dean Street, London.
The Sonics
There was none dirtier or more majestic than The Sonics. This band had it all, fuzzed up guitars, great riffs, screaming vocals akin to Little Richard. This band rocked from 1964-67 giving us classics such as The Witch, Strychnine (later covered by The Cramps), Boss Hog, Psycho and Louie Louie.
“If our records sound distorted, its because they are…they were always overdriven. My Brother Larry … he was disconnecting the speakers and poking a hole in them with an icepick. That’s how we ended up sounding like a train crash.” Sonics bassist.
Essential super fuzz. A tough new sound blending rock ‘n’ roll, singers like James Brown and the Yardbirds and early Stones.
Count Five
Immortalised in Lester Bangs book ‘Psychotic Reactions’ they trod a path of never ending weirdness into the outer fringes of lunacy. Their debut album here sees them standing over a grave while the music contains the classic Psychotic Reaction (covered by The Cramps and Radiators from Space) using fuzz, flange and even harmonica to great effect while romping thru tracks such as Big Mouth. Recommended.
The Seeds
The Seeds. Long before Richard Hell… was the proto punk rocker Sky Sunlight Saxon (what a name to give to the dole!) and his merry men The Seeds. This album features their righteous two-chord toon Pushin’ Too Hard and (as covered by The Vacants) along with Can’t Seem To Make You Mine (covered by The Ramones) and No Escape as covered by Chelsea. All perfect piece’s of proto punkery and essential to hear.
Like our other pals here, Sky went a bit batty, lived in a caravan and collected 8 track cassettes because he thought that was the future…hmmmmm!
Check out the Raw & Alive album (well with audience dubbed on) for an electrifying set that predates the Velvet Underground (check out Up In Her Room) in attitude and sound and very Stranglers like too.
We think it’s gassy!
13th Floor Elevators
My personal favourites, for what it’s worth. They were without doubt, before the fate that befell their leader Roky Erikson, definitely orbiting another planet. The sleeve notes of their first album contain pure gibberish about the lyrics, but f**k me the music is excellent.
Tracks like ‘Fire Engine’ and ‘Monkey Island’ and of course the sublime ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’ all make up a great album. What can you add to fuzzed up guitars and psychedelic lyrics….. mmm the sound of a jug.. and they did! Well, they were good ole Texas boys!
By the next album Easter Everywhere they had moved onto the next solar system but cranked it up a notch. Now we have magic tracks like ‘Levitation’ (covered by Julian Cope) and without doubt, their epic masterpiece ‘Slip Inside This House’ (mercilessly slaughtered by Primal Scream). I haven’t the faintest idea what Roky is talking about but I know when a song is good and it is.
Roky was busted for one dope joint and to escape a sentence elected for shock therapy which left him absolutely f****d. It’s heartrending to read the interview with Nick Kent in his book ‘Tales from the Darkside’ where minutes elapse between questions and the answer is just ‘uhhh’. Roky now is scared to go on stage repeats the same song over and has been left a virtual pauper having been ripped off by record companies.
If there was any justice those arseholes who give out those lifetime achievement awards to muppets like Metallica would recognise Roky and the Elevators. All respect to ZZ Top who contributed to the covers tribute album (they all knew each other in Texas!) Just to show how whacked out they all were click here to visit the drummer’s website… he is still on another planet! However, he publishes chapter by chapter his story of the band and it’s bloody interesting.
And so in summary…..
Get a copy of Nuggets and stick to compilations where you can. You can’t go wrong if you want some righteous US garage punk! Big shout to Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith’s guitarist) who compiled the Nuggets album that has continued through the years to give so much pleasure and is as legendary as the music he put on there.
But beware, like punk there’s masses and masses of the stuff to get through of varying quality.
