Canonical Hour

Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that first became popular in the United States and Canada from around 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s garage rock was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name. However, in the early 1970s, some rock critics began to label it as punk rock and later the name was changed to rock or ’60s Punk to avoid confusion with the music of late 1970s punk rock bands such as the well-known Sex Pistols and The Clash.

The garage rock the style had been evolving from regional scenes as far back as 1958. Mainstream examples of the genre in its formative stages are bands like “Dirty Robber” by The Wailers, and “Rumble” by Link Wray, Green Onions by Booker T and the MGs, but there are also a number of other bands that that had a significant impact in shaping the genre and by 1963 singles released by garage band were creeping into the national charts in greater numbers, including the Kingsmen, Paul Revere and the Raiders, the Trashmen and the Rivieras. Other influential garage bands such as the Sonics never made it into the Billboard 100 though.

In the early period of rock there was a cross-pollination between garage rock and frat rock. Frat rock, which is another major influence and precursor to punk rock, was also a vaguely defined genre of rock and roll, which was characterized by raw, enteric and usually party-themed anthems. Frat rock is today mainly viewed as a sub-genre of rock.

The “British Invasion” of 1964-1966 is another key influence on garage rock as garage rock bands were to a large extent influenced by the British “beat groups” with a harder, blues-based attack, such as for example The Kinks, The Who, The Animals and The Yardbirds among others. However, another major influence on garage rock, which should not be left unmentioned, is the folk-rock of the Byrds and Bob Dylan.

Looking back it is commonly agreed that garage rock peeked both commercially and artistically in 1966. What happened was that the genre entered a slow, but irreversible, decline with fewer and fewer records being released, and by 1970 the genre was, from a general interest standpoint, by any practical means dead.