Garage punk

Garage punk is a subgenre of punk rock that is closely related to garage rock. However, as with many terms applied to popular culture, the precise meaning can be hard to define. Gara

Garage punk is a subgenre of punk rock that is closely related to garage rock. However, as with many terms applied to popular culture, the precise meaning can be hard to define. Garage punk is often used to refer to garage bands that are on small independent record labels or that aren't on labels at all (unsigned) and that happen to play some variety of primitive, trashy punk/rock'n'roll. In that sense, garage punk can be seen as both a descendent of 1960s garage as well as the punk and new wave movements of the late 1970s and early 1980s, as a counter-culture movement opposed to mainstream corporate rock.

In the late 1980s and into the 1990s, a new breed of revivalist punk began to fester in the indie rock underground that became known as “garage punk.” Garage punk is obviously closely related to garage rock revival, although most of these modern garage punk bands took their influences from some of the proto punk bands of the 1960s garage rock genre, such as The Sonics, The Monks, through the early 1970s (The Stooges, MC5, New York Dolls) as well as raw, simplistic "Killed By Death"-era punk rock, British pub rock, power pop and early, hard-edged new wave, rather than the British Invasion bands and their imitators. Most garage punk bands also drew heavy influences from 1950s and early '60s R&B and primitive rock'n'roll, which further helped to separate this genre from other, more common styles of punk music. Some of the first garage punk bands to appear on the scene included DMZ, The Dwarves, The Stomachmouths, Thee Mighty Caesars, Poison 13, Pussy Galore, The Gories, The Devil Dogs, Supercharger, The Mummies, The Makers, Teengenerate, The New Bomb Turks, and The Oblivians. Attitude and primitive, lo-fi, "budget rock" aesthetics were far more important to the development of garage punk than catchy melodies and fancy ’60s mod-style clothes, and that attitude was reflected in the sound of the music: primitive, dirty, raw, sleazy, sexy, menacing, noisy, and just flat-out ugly. The garage punk movement is not as interested in copying the sounds and looks of the ’60s so much as just trying to bash out some unpretentious, wild and wooly three-chord punk/rock’n’roll with a strong back beat. Some of these bands (like The Mummies, Phantom Surfers, Man or Astro-Man?, and The Bomboras) also dabbled in instrumental surf rock.