I had another look into that Milwaukee Garage book on Amazon. It's not just one or two, but ten pages on which the author lays down his method. Interestingly he anticipates almost every single point of Joey's criticism.
The book is not about the whole band scene of Milwaukee in the 60s (the title is definitely misleading). It's not even about bands who put out records. It's a case study about how and why young people get together to play in a band.
The two main points of his theory are:
1. Young people playing in bands are not necessarily eager to make a hit record and become the second Beatles or Stones; on the contrary the joy of playing and getting together itself is a major motive.
Hence it is not important to talk about well-known bands or bands that put out any records. It's enough to pick out a certain number of random bands (which fall under the definition of "garage band") and see what they have in common.
2. This phenomenon, while being extremely widespread in the 1960s, is not confined to the 60s, but has started earlier on and has been vital up to the present. Hence the jumping back and forth in time.
If you're not interested in a view like that, or if you think the book is boring, that is one thing. But to take the subject up in this specific way is legitimate.
Playing music myself I totally agree with those two main points of the author's proposition. It's NOT about making hit records. "A nostalgic sentimentality of subjectivity" serving "as a basis for constructed individualism" is a very strange and pretentious way of putting it, but there is some truth in that.
Why does a band go into the studio and record "Thoughts Of A Madman"? And hundreds of other hardcore rock'n'roll tunes? To have a hit? To make it big? To become the next Beatles? Fuck, no! It's the punk spirit that some of you guys try to deny. It's the reason why this music has the spirit and the power that we love about it!