Actually God, putting to rest any rumors that He does not work in mysterious ways, took the unlikely form of a recently ex-Garage and soon to be guitar player with a very weird female beat poet, one Lenny Kaye. Lenny (and God) having a sense of humor, decided to put together a bunch of his favorite songs and simultaneously bust Jac Holzman's balls. Jac was the president of the very important Elektra Records and even though his place in Garage history was secure by signing the MC5 and The Stooges, Lenny was determined to make him infamous. And besides, every Lenny being a true artist and visionary (read - broke and powerless), needs a patron. Jac Holzman is the accidental Patron of Garage and we all owe him a debt of gratitude The record was called Nuggets by the way.

Lenny, now indisputably recognized as the unintentional yet inevitable Godfather of Garage, couldn't have known that his not-exactly-the-most-important-work-he-ever-did-in-his-life efforts would last this long, create a new sub-genre of Rock and Roll along the way, become actually important as time went on, and turn into an international movement influencing at least two generations including the one currently limited by Rap and Metal and Pop pablum.

And the Lord, regretting his decision to cancel Shindig and Hullabaloo, decided Real Rock and Roll couldn't be any more dead and created the Rhino. Just to mess with everybody a little bit He made the Rhino a really cool wacky looking animal and a really cool wacky looking compilation record company. It was on the latter of the two that a four CD box set of Nuggets was released in 1998.

This new box included and expanded on Lenny's original record and was surprisingly well done and lavishly packaged with all the care and love only a new batch of weirdo freaks would have taken the time to do. These degenerate iconoclasts include Gary Stewart, Michael Johnson, Patrick Milligan, Bill Inglot, Mike Stax, Alec Palao, Mike Markesich, John Hagelston, and a hundred others, raising the Rhino flag to new heights and doing a surprisingly impressive job.

Lenny, dumbfounded I'm sure at the thought of anybody but him caring about this, endorsed it and wrote new liner notes to go along with his old ones which were wisely included in the package.

The origins of Garage are a matter of opinion but for me the genre is summed up by one record. Louie Louie by the Kingsmen was one crazy record in 1962 and still is. From the unprecedented casual vocal (presaging Ray Davies' virtually identical vocal delivery by 2 years), to the unintelligible and helpfully-imagined controversial lyrics, to the insane drum fills during the guitar solo, to the overall sound of the record, this was Garage defined.

Gary U.S. Bonds may have literally recorded "Quarter to Three" in a garage but this was a band! And bands were a new concept. (For the definitive story of "Louie Louie" I refer you to Louie Louie - The Book by Dave Marsh published by Hyperion)

For any kind of clarity on this particularly subjective subject it is helpful to consider the British Invasion as the center of the universe and The Rolling Stones as the archetype Garage Band. Mick Jagger's attitude and the Stones' exquisite lack of "professional" sophistication would influence everybody in music that doesn't suck. The Kinks, The Yardbirds, The Animals, and The Who would soon follow and be very influential also. And the Beatles, who got very sophisticated very quickly once they hit, started the whole thing off as a bar band in Hamburg that miraculously managed to breach the walls of the mainstream music business and redefine it, and sound more Garage with every passing year.

The fifties Rockabilly gang, including what was probably the universe's first rock band, the Crickets, as well as the early sixties' surf instrumental guys, and others would have a role as early Garage or major Garage influences. But mostly it's the British Invasion that serves as the epicenter to which all Garage pointed to and continues from. Eventually leading to everybody rewriting Richard Berry's Louie Louie or Van Morrison and Them's "Gloria," which Van probably rewrote from the Stones' "Last Time" and, in the best classic Garage tradition, unashamedly copied Jagger's vocals on.

It is mostly sneers and snarls, guitars with fuzztones, harmonicas, maracas, tambourines, and Farfisa or Vox Continental and Jaguar organs. Timeless in both its attitude and relatability due to both its unrealistic expectations and its unintentional limitations. And, by the way, it's ideally communicated in three minutes or less which is why the Punks connected so readily.

It was the Rhino re-release of Nuggets (an equally impressive all European Nuggets is also out now) that seemed to spark or at least coalesce the 2nd Generation of the eternally underground Garage movement.

But we're getting ahead of ourselves.

In 1965 the new art form of Rock Music was born (see the From E Street to the Disciples of Soul Essay for further explanation) and when everybody realized it, after the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper album in '67, institutions began to be built around it to preserve it, give it longevity, explain it, and of course, make a shitload of money from it.

Serious art forms deserve serious discussion so Rolling Stone Magazine and Crawdaddy were created for that purpose. The division between Pop and Rock would be absolute, and a complete fragmentation of the music world would begin in the 70's, directly leading to the permanent chaos the Powers That Be are in denial about today.

But not so fast! said Creem Magazine. We already kind of miss 16 Magazine, the innocence of Pop, the purity of the 50's Rock and Roll pioneers, and ain't quite ready to buy into this Art Form stuff, and the portentious hyperbole and grown-up type sophistication that would accompany it.

So Lester Bangs, Dave Marsh, and the entire city of Detroit decided everything sucked except the MC5 and the Stooges, which Lester called Punk. The writers were seen as fringe-element contrarions-for-its-own-sake at the time but history would prove they were on to something.

Skip to 1977 and the Ramones and the Sex Pistols became the living embodiment of what Creem had in mind all along and now the whole world calls it Punk. Where did they come from? The MC5, the Stooges, and the Lenny Kaye 1972 Nuggets compilation, among other places.

Okay so now here comes our next contrarion who likes this Punk Stuff but recognizes that all this fragmentation is starting to leave a vacuum in the middle where 60's rock used to reside and is being replaced by not-so-friendly fragments like Disco, Diluted Philly Soul, and Corporate Rock.

Ladies and Gentlemen I give you the occasionally disputed, semi-controversial, he's not aloof he's the shy Beatle, Father of the Modern Garage Movement, Greg Shaw.

Real quick. He started Mojo Navigator Rock and Roll News a year before Rolling Stone. As West Coast edtior of Creem he might have used the word Punk before Lester Bangs. He managed the Flaming Groovies. He started Bomp Magazine and the internet Bomp list and Bomp records. He put out the Pebbles compilation series (23 volumes and counting!). And a lot of other crazy shit.

All that was fine but what really impressed me was him putting out Stiv Bators' solo records which proved he had impeccable taste and was, of course, hopelessly insane.

Anyway around '79 or so he decides to launch the Voxx label for 60's related, back to basics bands but couldn't find any. So he did a nationwide competition, like the band battles we all participated in back in the 60's, and attracted the core of what would be the 1st Generation of Garage-Rock. Yeah since Punk was now taken he called it Garage.

Greg's Battle of the Garages series would include the Fuzztones, the Vipers, the Lyres, the Cynics, the Chesterfield Kings, and virtually everybody else that would be banished forever to the underground by a culture consciously engaged in killing the Rock and Roll spirit.

For those of you keeping score at home a quick word about how this fits together generation-wise.

1st Generation of Rock and Roll	The Birth - Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, Elvis, etc. 1950's mostly.
2nd Generation	The Renaissance - British Invasion, Beatles, Stones, Dylan, etc. 1960's
3rd Generation	The Business - Aerosmith, Springsteen, etc. Mostly 70's but you could start this generation as early as '65 or '66.
4th Generation	The Rebellion - Ramones, Pistols, etc. into U2, R.E.M., etc. Late 70's, 80's.
5th Generation	The Aftermath - Guns 'n' Roses, Nirvana, Pearl Jam etc. Late 80's and 90's.
6th Generation	Hasn't happened yet as of this writing.

So the 1st Generation of Garage as an acknowledged genre (acknowledged by who? acknowledged by me) would coincide with the 4th Generation of Rock and Roll.

The 2nd Generation of Garage, which we're still in, due to a latency period in the early 90's, was largely perpetrated by our latest villain in this tale of Whoa.

Ex-Viper Jon Weiss (1st Generation Garage), picking up the flag from an understandably distracted Greg Shaw, started his Cavestomp! Festaculars in 1997, featuring, and sometimes reuniting, the Standells, the Blues Magoos, the Pretty Things, Richard & The Young Lions, Barry & The Remains, the Chocolate Watchband, and other 60's legends. Alongside the legends, he booked what remained of the 80's Garagers - Lyres, Fuzztones, Cynics, Hate Bombs, Woggles, etc. and in 2001, went from once a year to 16 sold out shows at the Village Underground and Warsaw in New York City. These shows included everybody already mentioned plus newer Garagers like the Greenhornes, the Moviees, and the Swingin' Neckbreakers.

With Cavestomp!, the Rhino reissue of Nuggets, and other related goings on like the Las Vegas Grind, all of a sudden it ain't over 'till it's over and the internet started lighting up like the Blues Magoos' old suits and the cries of a new generation of there's-got-to-more-choices-than-we-see-on-MTV began to be heard.

The exciting part of all this is that there are new groups popping up all over the place doing it. The musical form is easy, it's just a matter of young bands having the balls to go on stage a little more musically naked. No big distorted guitars, no tape loops, no synthesizers, and no big pianos or organs to hide behind.

The tough part will be in the two areas that have plagued rock for at least ten years (you could argue thirty years) and that means songwriting and live performance.

Songwriting is pretty much a lost art, but if new bands study the sixties (as every band in ANY genre should do) and compare their stuff to the 20 or 30 great Garage classics, something good is bound to happen.

Performance is a bigger problem. Keep in mind that, one hit wonders or not, every Garage band wanted to be stars. They weren't intentionally sloppy or out of tune. Okay the Stones were, but most weren't. The bands had a look, they had style, and they had a common concept or philosophy going on once they hit the stage. It might be cool and casual, it might be aggressive, it might be individual expression rather than band 'uniforms,' but there was always a unifying or complementary thing happening that spoke with one voice.

Modern performance has been influenced most by the Grunge type, post-punk bands that have a specific anti-star, regular-guy, embarrassed-to-be-successful sensibility.

This is not a good thing.

First, all art needs an element of mystery to be most effective. It needs to be something that cannot be completely explained or understood. And second, people need artists and performers to do the job they are paying them to do. To be in touch with some part of themselves that the average person can't easily access. That access allows the artist and performer to communicate, motivate, inspire, make some sense out of life, or at least help one make it through it. That gift is most effectively communicated by a look and attitude that an audience member may aspire to, or may be satisfied to live vicariously through, but for whatever reason cannot achieve on their own. If they could, what do they need you for?

Let's hope that studying the 60's inspires a new attitude, look, and performance commitment to match the new music. An attitude with a desperate need to communicate a save-your-soul catharsis. The way God intended.

To those who can barely afford to rock we salute you!

Lenny Kaye we salute you!

Jac Holzman we salute you!

Greg Shaw we salute you!

Rhino Records we salute you!

Jon Weiss we salute you!

Being a righteous artist and eternally optimistic (read - hopelessly deluded), I believe rock might be still breathing after all. This could be the start of something underground and even less commercial than the first time around!

But there's got to be a few social misfits with mothers yelling at them to "turn that damn noise down the neighbors are complaining" in some garage somewhere dying to get out. And if just one of them makes it, somebody's world will change.

Only giving everything,

Little Steven
© 2002, www.littlesteven.com