New book on '60s Garage Rock: 'Five Years Ahead Of My Time'

https://www.amazon.com/Five-Years-Ahead-My-Time/dp/178914065X/

Five Years Ahead of My Time: Garage Rock from the 1950s to the Present tells of an explosive musical phenomenon whose continuing influence on popular culture is dramatic and deep.

The tale begins in 1950s America, when classic rock ’n’ roll was reaching middle age and teenage musicians kept its primal rawness going with rough-hewn instrumentals. In the mid-1960s, the Beatles and the British Invasion conquered America, and soon every neighbourhood had its own garage band. Groups like the Sonics and 13th Floor Elevators burned brightly but briefly, only to be rediscovered by a new generation of connoisseurs in the 1970s. Numerous compilation albums followed, spearheaded by Lenny Kaye’s seminal Nuggets, which resulted in garage rock’s rebirth across the world during the 1980s and ’90s.

Be it the White Stripes or the Black Keys, bands have consistently found inspiration in the simplicity and energy of garage rock. It is a revitalizing force, looking back to the past to forge the future. And this, for the first time, is its story.​

 

Five Years Ahead of My Time Dave Jennings revews Garage history

Wow!” That is the instant reaction one feels when delving into this compelling history of the style of rock known as ‘Garage’. The further you become engrossed, the more you begin to comprehend the scale of the task that Seth Bovey has set himself and, crucially, the greater the number of unsung musical heroes who will emerge as the story of an essential part of rock music DNA is revealed.
Garage music has its roots at the end of the 1950’s and beginning of the 1960’s in America. Essentially the feral dangers of Rock ‘n’ Roll, a true revolution not understood today without full scrutiny, had been tamed by the music establishment. The US charts were full of schmaltzy ballads and new teen idols, offered up to replace the edgy sounds and menace of the sounds that had spread like wildfire through the late ‘50’s. However, across the continent, youngsters weren’t ready to wave goodbye to the phenomenon and still wanted to dance to “down and dirty” rock music. Enter the local heroes of Garage Music to dominate the live scene in their area and move the musical blood round provincial America.
These local bands, “living jukeboxes” as they were termed, provided the crucial element to the youth of America that was being denied by clean cut chart balladeers; quite simply it was the beat. The essential driver of all rock music, that enables the audience to engage and dance keeps the traditional twelve bar blues structure of African American Rhythm and Blues sound but with a simplified beat with accents on the second and fourth beats of each bar, driving audiences wild in the process.
This became “the beat heard around the world” as Bovey takes us on a staggering journey from Portland’s hugely influential The Kingsmen, whose recording of Louie Louie is one of the most important Garage records, and around America and the world. Bovey leaves no stone unturned and no garage unopened. So for every Electric Prunes and (sadly relevant this week) 13th Floor Elevators, we have joys like the Dutch band Outsiders and The Pleasure Seekers, Patti and Suzi Quattro’s all-girl group. All through, Bovey’s masterful overview highlights subtle changes in tone and rhythm of songs that have important influences. It’s a thorough and meticulous account but not to the exclusion of the non-musician.

The narrative reveals some great stories that any music fan will devour. Take Los Shakers, four young Uruguayans who inspired by watching A Hard Day’s Night, got themselves mop-tops, suits and invaded Argentina playing a selection of Beatles covers. They recorded Spanish versions of each new Beatles release and were rewarded by being chased everywhere by hordes of screaming girls. This led to Argentinian record companies signing up anything Uruguayan they could find in a Latin-American inversion of the British Invasion.
What is the essence of the Garage sound? Bovey sees it as essentially British R and B, but ramped up to the max, “played with such barely repressed fury and sung with such imperious swagger that they have a tense menacing tone”. Tracing this ethos through the revivalist movement of the ‘70’s with bands such as Oklahoma’s Debris or Detroit’s Up, seen by some as the real forefathers of Punk. Looking at the development of Punk in America, Bovey states that The Ramones and Devo could be called Garage as their members had no experience and met in their neighbourhoods to make some noise. Contrast this with a band like The Pretenders, whose members were seasoned musicians before joining, and you see the difference. By that definition, do we call The Clash a Garage Band or not? Answers on a postcard to John Robb at Louder Than War please!
Tracing the development right through to our era, Bovey recommends trying out Maggie’s Marshmallows from Prague who apparently look the part, not least as their drummer looks like a caveman. I really cannot recommend this book strongly enough; if you are interested at all in guitar music (and you are or why are you reading this), it is quite simply essential. It is an engrossing and exhaustive journey through the delicious underbelly of the evolving story of rock. It’s a must read for anyone who has seen a new or local band and wondered why they’re not bigger, or how they fit into the wider tapestry of rock music. It’s a painstakingly researched and stunningly delivered shout out to the underdogs of musical history and you really need a copy.

 

Ordered! This looks great. Do you know "Geezer"?

 

Psychobabble: Review: 'Five Years Ahead of My Time: Garage Rock from the 1950s to the Present'

While solo artists and swinging groups ruled fifties rock radio, bands took over in the sixties. All across America and elsewhere, quartets of pimply kids gathered in basements and garages to bash out two or three chords. This new home grown-rock movement was underway well before The Beatles arrived.

Seth Bovey traces the origin of the garage band phenomenon so crucial to the development of Rock & Roll in his new book Five Years Ahead of My Time: Garage Rock from the 1950s to the Present. His approach is original, eschewing usual suspects such as Chuck Berry and Elvis to argue that the grungy guitars of Link Wray and Duanne Eddy—and factors such as the exposure TV gave such artists, a new wave of cheap guitars imported from Japan, and the general DIY spirit of mid-century America—set the stage for garage bands.

Bovey then traces the genre’s evolution starting with The Fabulous Wailers before touching on everyone from The Kingsmen to Paul Revere and the Raiders to The Sonics to Dick Dale to The Knickerbockers to The Chocolate Watchband to The 13th Floor Elevators, while also looking beyond the usual American boys to discuss all-female groups such as The Pleasure Seekers and The What Four and international combos such as Los Bravos, Q65, and The Spiders.

As his book’s subtitle indicates, Bovey also strides beyond the garage band golden era of the sixties to see how the movement subsequently remained active with the rise of garage-focused ’zines such as Who Put the Bomp, the Nuggetsand Pebbles comps, punk, the much publicized garage revival of the early ’00s that gave us The White Stripes and Strokes, and most importantly, the fact that contemporary bands such as The Black Lips, Thee Oh Sees, and The Incredible Staggers are keeping the garage lights on—though with very little influence in America, where Rock & Roll is dead as Dillinger.

The only trouble with Bovey’s format is that garage rock is a cornerstone of six decades of Rock & Roll, but his book is only 170-pages long. So his storytelling is a bit too fleet footed, and the fact that he skims over several of the quintessential garage bands—particularly Question Mark and the Mysterians, The Seeds, and The Standells (who grace this book’s cover but aren’t even mentioned in its pages!) means that Five Years Ahead of My Time can’t really be called “definitive.” Yet because Bovey is more concerned with following the origins and evolution of garage rock than name-checking important bands, his book remains a satisfying pocket history of a crucial strain of Rock & Roll.

Mike Segretto (Psychobabble)​

 

Kind of questioning how deeply this book explores this topic considering the cover art and title alone. Nobody called any of this garage rock back then either that's for sure. Also always have a hard time lumping the international bands along with American groups from around then and then calling it all "garage." It never felt like the same thing at all to me.

 

The book is only 224 pages. There is way too much information to cover in a 70 yr period with such few pages. If anyone picks it up and wants to share their opinions here about the book that would be great. If you're really a student of garage rock history like me, I highly recommend Teenbeat Mayhem by Mike Markesich. Although it is mainly an incredible and detailed discography of EVERY American garage 45 known to exist from the 60's, Mike's essays on the genesis of garage punk, teenbeat and psych are among the best I've ever read in my 40+ yrs of collecting and researching 60's garage.

 

70 year period? I'd really just put it down to the years of 1963-1968 (but really lets face it 1965-1967 are the prime years) and then call it a day really. I never bought Mike's book and definitely won't now with the insane used prices but I used to read what he'd write online. As far as it containing every 45 that's just not true. I remember someone posted several compilations online of things that weren't catalogued in there; they weren't awesome or essential songs though. It's a damn good effort I'm sure. He was seriously knowledgable when I talked to him a few times.

 

Mike's book had dropped significantly in price. He has written a companion volume with lists other discoveries since the first edition. The amount of records that were recorded across the country in the wake of the Fabs arrival is mindblowing. Seems like every city or small town in the US had at least a couple of bands in the mid 60's. The book does attempt to limit itself to only teenbeat, garage punk and psych 45's with an emphasis on local groups (ie. most popular and major 60's bands like the Byrds, Grateful Dead, Airplane etc are not covered unless they made a local record first).
Technically it may not list every garage record (new discoveries are always being unearthed) but it is a staggering attempt to chronicle every US garage band that made a local/major label record or acetate.. I hate the book's rating system which tends to overrate snot nose punk and underrates pop, anglo and major label/big production efforts but there is nothing else out there that comes close of the near completeness, mammoth research and detail of Teenbeat Mayhem. It is the ultimate 60's garage (45) discography and fits nicely alongside biographies/discographies of the major players