What is Sixties Garage?

[The Phantom]

... being born in 1947, I know what I'm talking about. I was there from the beginning here in Hamburg, Germany, "The REAL home" of The Beatles. Quote John Lennon: "We left Liverpool as BOYS and returned from Hamburg as MEN".

 

[HarvestmanMan]

Phantom brings up something I find interesting. Compared to other bands of the era, there seem to not be as many Beatles covers released as singles as one might expect. Is that saying something about the Beatles' influence as opposed to UK bands whose songs were covered more often?

 

[eleelandc]

I was thinking about that too, but then there is the "unreleased" covers (like Thursday's children basically turning into a Sgt Pepper cover band in the later days). Were people playing Ticket To Ride at the teen dances as much as You Really Got Me or Gloria?

 

[tom kirby]

Phantom, so your definition of the now called "Garage Music" of the '60s is, start to grow long hair, buy cheap equipment and rehearse in a GARAGE. Yeah, that defines that sound to a Tee.

 

[greenfuzz]

Well, as a longtime "Garage-Aficionado" and maker of a couple' comps, let me tell you MY definition of "Garage-Music/Rock: After the groundbreaking appearance of The Beatles at the "Ed Sullivan Show" on 9 February 1964, hundredthousands (mostly) male kids started to let their hair grow, wear Mop-Tops, bought cheap instruments AND cleaned out their parents GARAGES to make space for rehearsal room and started their own bands.

This is the root cause for garage rock--not a definition.

 

[Ned]

I was thinking about that too, but then there is the "unreleased" covers (like Thursday's children basically turning into a Sgt Pepper cover band in the later days). Were people playing Ticket To Ride at the teen dances as much as You Really Got Me or Gloria?

I hardly remember any groups doing Beatles covers when I was seeing bands 1965 - 1966. They were basically considered to be "unhip" , the tougher sounds of the "guys bands" like The Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, Kinks, Them, Animals & Spencer Davis Group got covered a lot more. One US group that people forget about that got a fair bit of cover action was the Young Rascals - lots of bands did Come On Up & Love is a Beautiful Thing live.

Ned

 

[Outside_Lookin_in]

Betty Kaye a promoter here in Sacramento (who Alec and I knew personally) is 100% responsible for the Kinks being banned from touring the U.S.

This deserves a write-up!

 

[stevo3199]

Music that makes you feel good!!!

 

[The Phantom]

Phantom brings up something I find interesting. Compared to other bands of the era, there seem to not be as many Beatles covers released as singles as one might expect. Is that saying something about the Beatles' influence as opposed to UK bands whose songs were covered more often?

Well, The Beatles of course have been "The BIG BANG" of Pop Music but the story is quite more complex. Rock n' Roll was rooted and "invented" in the USA and spread over the world. No doubt about it, agreed? The British added a touch of their brand of influences i.e. "Skiffle" and Pop and the so-called "Beat/Mersey Beat" was created and played by bands wearing "uniforms" on stage like the early Beatles, The Searchers, The Swinging Blue Jeans and and and ... Some others added a touch of Rhythm & BLues to that R'n'R, like The Pretty Things, The Animals, The Yardbirds, The Kinks and and and ... the Americans re-imported all that stuff and took it to the next level in their GARAGES in the years 1965/66 and all this went into the year 1967 - the "Big Bang" of Psychedelic & Hippie stuff from "The Summer of Love" in San Francisco AND all this was re-imported by the British again and turned into that very popular (at least nowadays) "Freak Beat".
I hope it's not too confusing but I tried my very best

 

[eargasm!]

I agree the Beatles were the 'Big Bang', but I would guess their deadly combination of chord progressions and harmonies would have been more difficult for teen bands to imitate than The Animals, Stones, and Zombies. I have a reasonably large collection and you really have to look to find Beatles covers in it.

 

[beccabear67]

The main 'let's try this too' boom the Beatles spawned directly was in U.K./Europe. So many groups started post Beatles getting a lot of notice. And the Beatles (Quarrymen) sprang from the earlier Lonnie Donegan/Skiffle boom like The Swinging Blue Jeans also of Liverpool. Nothing starts out of a vacuum. The Allman Joys covered the Beatles a lot. Johnny Ramone was inspired a lot by The Vagrants. I don't see anything wrong with people being inspired by others from whatever time frame, other people will either respond to it at the time or later or never.

I got a huge kick out of all the Kaisers albums and singles/eps awhile ago using old Selmer amps and stuff and mostly doing original songs in the style, but I would never expect that to have become a major thing on it's own anymore than The Rutles would have... kind of fannish music for fellow fans? A lot of stuff is done consciously for a small in-crowd in all sorts of genres. Elvis doing some outdated crooner thing for his Mom may have gotten a lot of this whole thing started and that wad for an audience and print run of one.

 

[Outside_Lookin_in]

Well, The Beatles of course have been "The BIG BANG" of Pop Music but the story is quite more complex. Rock n' Roll was rooted and "invented" in the USA and spread over the world. No doubt about it, agreed? The British added a touch of their brand of influences i.e. "Skiffle" and Pop and the so-called "Beat/Mersey Beat" was created and played by bands wearing "uniforms" on stage like the early Beatles, The Searchers, The Swinging Blue Jeans and and and ... Some others added a touch of Rhythm & BLues to that R'n'R, like The Pretty Things, The Animals, The Yardbirds, The Kinks and and and ... the Americans re-imported all that stuff and took it to the next level in their GARAGES in the years 1965/66 and all this went into the year 1967 - the "Big Bang" of Psychedelic & Hippie stuff from "The Summer of Love" in San Francisco AND all this was re-imported by the British again and turned into that very popular (at least nowadays) "Freak Beat".
I hope it's not too confusing but I tried my very best

Nice summary, but I have to insist that psychedelia had its roots in England back in 1965 with songs like Herman's Hermits - Mrs. Brown You've Got a Lovely Daughter (April '65), and the Kinks - See my friend (July '65).

 

[The Phantom]

NO f...... way, Psychedelic Rock was PURE San Francisco. Period.

 

[bosshoss]

There's no point trying to play down the Beatles influence, it's just silly. They were beyond saturation point on the radio and influenced practically every garage rock band. They all say as much in interviews, from The Byrds and Love to the toughest rockers. I must have read it a thousand times. I guess they didn't cover so many Beatles songs because there was no point. The Beatles versions were already massive hits and unbeatable. As Paul says, they were not easy to knock off either.

Typical quote, from the first magazine I opened up just now (Joe Kelly of The Vectors in Lost & Found #3)

"...I saw the Beatles the first time on the Ed Sullivan show and I thought 'that's what I'm gonna do'. I came out and got into an all Beatles band. That's what The Vectors were. All Beatles and a few Stones."

 

[The Phantom]

Hi Boss Hoss. That was EXACTLY the reaction of MILLIONS young people around the WORLD. Mine and the guys in my cliques' as well. I've read TONS of books about this phenomena (the best is probably "Ticket to Ride" by US-author LARRY Kane) and they ALL experienced the same and I will take the memories of The Fab Four into my personal Nirvana

 

[Heitkotter77]

That's what happened here in NYC.
I was in elementary school at the time. The school decided to create its own Beatlemania for a school assembly. My class teacher "volunteered" 4 of my classmates who played guitars and drums, had them wear suits and Beatles wigs and made them perform "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" in front of the entire school.
It made me glad I didn't play an instrument at the time.
And I should add that none of these guys were particularly cool as they grew up.

 

[bosshoss]

My father was commissioned to paint the Beatles in 1964 when they toured Australia. He was a commercial artist working for Lintas who did all the advertising for various brands of washing powders (also Brett Whiteley worked there with him). It was an advertisement/contest for a soap powder called "Surf". Unfortunately after it was used he gave the artwork away to a Beatle mad relative who later died and I have no idea what happened to it. All I have is an entry in an accounting book giving the date and amount paid by Lintas for the artwork. It was a really cool portrait of all 4 members, and was used in the newspapers here for some kind of contest.

Here's a pic of the Lintas team in 1959 with my father in the back row second from left. Brett is squatting in the front row, second from left

 

[Frantic]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brett_Whiteley

 

[Rick]

My father was commissioned to paint the Beatles in 1964 when they toured Australia. He was a commercial artist working for Lintas who did all the advertising for various brands of washing powders (also Brett Whiteley worked there with him). It was an advertisement/contest for a soap powder called "Surf". Unfortunately after it was used he gave the artwork away to a Beatle mad relative who later died and I have no idea what happened to it. All I have is an entry in an accounting book giving the date and amount paid by Lintas for the artwork. It was a really cool portrait of all 4 members, and was used in the newspapers here for some kind of contest.

Here's a pic of the Lintas team in 1959 with my father in the back row second from left. Brett is squatting in the front row, second from left

Mr. Hoss, the gentleman left center with full beard.. what is he wearing? a kilt? what is that?

 

[Rick]

That's what happened here in NYC.
I was in elementary school at the time. The school decided to create its own Beatlemania for a school assembly. My class teacher "volunteered" 4 of my classmates who played guitars and drums, had them wear suits and Beatles wigs and made them perform "I Wanna Hold Your Hand" in front of the entire school.
It made me glad I didn't play an instrument at the time.
And I should add that none of these guys were particularly cool as they grew up.

Mr. 77, Curious to know what school in NYC. I attended PS97 in the 50's when corporal punishment was still acceptable.