I find myself deleting replies because it turns out my wife is right, I am very opinionated. I can't help but think though, that The Beatles rise to fame was much like that of most pop artists before and since. The closest things to "Beatle Mania" in recent history have been New Kids On The Block, The Backstreet Boys, and NSYNC. Today our biggest stars are Carrie Underwood and that horrible tripe called GaGa. I'm not saying The Beatles are on the same level of mediocrity, but there is a pattern here. True, there has not been a Beatle Mania since, well, Beatle Mania, but maybe people just realized how silly they were being.

To write the Beatles's success off as depending on corporate marketing is to not have been there.  Today one cannot imagine the effect their music had on the minds, souls and loins of a teenager back when they first appeared on the airwaves.

I was such a teenager.  Already a working musician. Not into TV at all. Not into hype.  But let me tell you the effect that hearing She Loves You had on me...

I was with my girlfriend in her bedroom. Her parents were out. We were doing the stuff that curious teenagers do at such times.

This girl was a gorgeous blue-eyed Swedish blond.  My attention was not easily distracted.

Suddenly this sound came on the radio. I simply sat up, frozen in time and space, completely and totally mesmerized. I had never heard such a thing. Never been effected like that by any music. Electrified. I at that time had no idea of who the group was.

Today there is no way to simulate that effect. That of something totally fresh and new. Something that entered one's very soul and spirit.

Others may have been effected by other music like that. Perhaps some reacted that way when they first heard Elvis. That I cannot say.  But never to my knowledge has it happened since. And if you grew up with Beatle influenced RnR as the soundtrack of your life you truly cannot even imagine what it was like to hear that music for the first time.

-Don

PS - Lynn - if perchance you are reading this - I really do apologize! :D~

I was brought up on the Stones, so I'd go for them.

I like the Beatles, don't get me wrong, and the Lemmy quote is true. The Beatles in Hamburg!

However I do think the Beatles get a lot more credit for things than they deserve. After all, they had a corporation behind them, so yeah, of course they were going to be big.

The Stones may have been middle class(ish, only really Jagger and Watts), but c'mon, the Beatles were hardly born in a briar patch, were they?

The real question is Elvis or Buddy? And I'm a confirm Buddy-ite.

No he wasn't as harsh as that but I'm not putting them down either. I love the attitude in songs like Salt of the Earth and their decadence. And their best music is tough as nails. It's not like they were loaded. I don't think a life of ease and comfort makes for great musicians but the unease and discomfort can come from within as well as without, regardless of background.

Mike Humsgreen said:

Did he ever say it as harsh as that? I know he did kinda say what you said in that film but that sounds a bit of an unfair thing to say about a fellow musician. It's often interesting to hear about a band's background but I often wonder if it really makes any difference to the quality or style of music.

I'm definitely more on the Stones side.

Dana V. Hatch said:

the Stones pampered upper middle class prats.

My wife, also a sixties musician (see http://www.60sgaragebands.com/ivkingsaqueen.html ) always viewed herself as a Stones person while I was more into the Beatles.  Then several things occurred. One was my increasing love for the blues roots of rock -- something that the Stones helped white Americans to know. The other was the release of the film Across the Universe which for perhaps the first time helped my dear one hear the Beatles music on its own terms, free of the Beatle schtick.

In any case we are now both Stones and Beatles people.  And lots of other types of music people too!

(Anyone for Bach?) ;-)

-don

RJFait said:

It's funny that you ask this. I've always said, there are 2 kinds of people, Beatles and Stones, and they don't mix well. I am definitely Stones, my wife is Beatles. If only I'd asked 11 years ago...

Did he ever say it as harsh as that? I know he did kinda say what you said in that film but that sounds a bit of an unfair thing to say about a fellow musician. It's often interesting to hear about a band's background but I often wonder if it really makes any difference to the quality or style of music.

I'm definitely more on the Stones side.

Dana V. Hatch said:

the Stones pampered upper middle class prats.

The Who!

It's funny that you ask this. I've always said, there are 2 kinds of people, Beatles and Stones, and they don't mix well. I am definitely Stones, my wife is Beatles. If only I'd asked 11 years ago...

This thread reminds me of two earlier -- OK, much earlier ones -- when, first, the lovers of the simple (Call it "classical") sounds and melodies rejected the overly ornate, show-offy, sounds of their predecessors only to have their own music quickly rejected by a younger generation as being soulless and overly concerned with form.

I am of course discussing Haydn and his clan's rejection of the baroque and then the romantics rejection of Haydn and those that followed him.

;-)

-don

The Fabulous Wailers, The Leaves, The 13th Floor Elevators and The Seeds would have been some heavy shit with or without the Beatles. Would the Beatles have been nearly as heavy without them? I find that very doubtful. The Beatles were a pop band covering American R&B when these bands were creating a genre. Just my 2 cents. Take it for what it's worth.

matthew rosedon said:

Don't mean to upset anyone but I do wonder about the mental state of anyone who claims not to like the Beatles.  Apart from everything else they contributed to making the world a better place, without them I doubt very much whether this site would exist.  THEY CHANGED EVERYTHING.

I don't hate the Beatles, I just think the bulk of their work was gutless pop. At some point in the middle they started getting better drugs or something and put out a few good records. Then, they went right back to gutless pop.

I'm Rob in Phoenix, Arizona, US. I started off hardcore and (cough, cough) metal, and worked my way backwards to the 60's punk roots. I've been called a punk rock snob. If a deep rooted dislike of Epitaph Records and FAT Records makes me a snob, then I guess I am. I've been playing guitar and bass for about 30 years and my left hand relaxes in the barre chord shape because I never learned much more. It turns out I'm not the virtuoso I thought I was supposed to be. I've started an internet radio station http://radiofreak-out.com that I play mostly pre '84 punk music on. I thought about playing mostly 60's Garage and Psych but that niche is being pretty well covered. There aren't many 'punk' stations that WON'T play Rancid or Pennywise though. So that's the niche I'm after.

Good idea starting this thread Bazza. I'm just learning my way around this site trying to figure out the best way to introduce myself and say "hi."

I've been playing guitar since the early sixties. Was part of 'the scene' back then but sort of dropped out for a time.  My story, if anyone is interested, was put together by Mike Dugo about a year ago (found here http://www.60sgaragebands.com/abstracts.html and here http://www.60sgaragebands.com/tiltonsmarket.html )  In any case I never stopped playing and writing; I just changed my focus and did it for myself, my family and a few friends.

Recent events with my `60s band The Abstracts (including the recent release of an album -- see here http://store03.prostores.com/servlet/uglythings/the-157/ABSTRACTS--... ) has reawakened me I guess -- made me aware that I am hardly alone in my musical tastes! And it is that, probably more than anything, that brought me here!

I'm looking forward to getting to "know" you folks here.  Thanks for listening. :)

Thanks Trashman. But I bet you won't be wearing tight white pants and knee high boots when you shout it! ;-)~

^Post of the year Don.  Thanks for sharing.  and of course I ran to youtube right away to listen to Always Always.  Better yet, I see it down the right hand column of this page right now.  A sneering punk - "Hey Lets Go Now" will be my battle cry for sometime now.  thanks again.

I'm not familiar with Garage Masters, but I do know (or think I know) that sometimes reissue recordings can be done in good faith and not with the desire to  just rip off the creative artists.

Just over a year ago I created and posted a video of my own mid-sixties group The Abstracts just for the hell of it.  On several forums people responded with such comments as "That should be on Nuggets of Pebbles."  I, having been out of the music scene for many years, had no idea what they were talking about so I Googled both words and leaned about the garage band scene and about the work of such people as Greg Shaw. Then, when digging deeper, I had the total surprise (shock really!) of finding that my band's long thought forgotten single's b side -- the song "Always Always" -- WAS included on a Pebbles cd. (Essential Pebbles Volume II)

I did not get paranoid about it. Instead I contacted Bomp Records, introduced myself, and inquired how that had come to be.

Instead of the generic letter from some admin assist I expected to recieve I got a very personal email from Suzie Shaw herself telling me how much she and Greg loved the song and explaining that Greg always did whatever he could to find and credit the artists.  I took her words 100% with good faith.  In fact no one knew who The Abstracts were. And on the record -- released by a long defunct and little known label -- even the name of the composer -- Andy Bonime -- had been  misspelled. 

Could I have been angry? Felt cheated?  I suppose so. But in fact Greg's including the song on the Essential Pebbles cd proved to be a wonderful thing -- far more wonderful then the few dollars in royalties we lost but his using the track without being able to pay those royalties. So instead of being huffy I took the opportunity to thank all the people that had heard the song and decided to share it on their YouTube Channels and the like. My doing so was as innocent as Greg and Suzie was -- it was based on a love for the music.  And those "thank you"s led to an on line discussion with a stranger about whether I had actually seen the record. When I responded "yes, it is hanging framed on my wall. I was the band's lead guitarist" a door was opened to right-hearted people to give The Abstracts the credit that  they were do. And that, just one year later, led to the release of our album "Hey, Let's Go Now!" -- this time with full credit and fair reimbursement.

In truth musicians have been ripped off by unscrupulous record makers for years and years. Some even felt that way (unfairly IMO) about people like the Chess brothers.  But I see -- indeed make an effort to see -- other possibilities, other motives. And in many cases I think that includes love of the music - the desire to see it "out there," being enjoyed an appreciated.

-Don

Well, I know for a fact that Tim Warren has dealt with this issue multiple times ever since he put out the first Back From the Grave comp, and yes, he has written royalty checks to the songwriters or artists if and when these issues present themselves (i.e., a band or musician contacts him). He's even said that he will first try to locate and contact the artists ahead of time to get their approval, but in most cases this is next to impossible, or the band members think he's crazy for even wanting to reissue that stuff that they think is worthless! (I think that was the case originally with "Green Fuz"). It'd actually be great to try and get Tim to weigh in on this topic. That said, I know what you mean regarding some other entity holding the mechanical rights to songs, but even then I still don't see the difference, nor does this excuse Garage Masters from just pulling any songs they want from any other comp or release and re-releasing them on their own digital comps. My question is and remains, does Garage Masters get approval from whomever owns these rights before they assemble their compilations?

trashman said:

^the only thing I try and gather out it is those old timers do not neccessarily own the rights to their songs but perhaps a label that Orchard deals with does.  Look at all the old performers that don't see a dime anymore.  But the label receives it.

I noticed that garage masters label have a handful of fuzztones songs included on their comps.  I don't see them getting away with that unless Orchard is somehow tied to Italy Gone Down label or whatever they are working with now or in the past.

Is this any different than all the other comps that exist- BFTG, GP Unknowns, etc, etc.  NO way these compilationers are tracking down lead artists from teen bands long disbanded to pay royalties for inclusion on a comp.  If so, that is a great article that should be written - what it takes to make a garage punk compilation.

So in the end, I don't think there is anything stopping us from dong what garage masters label did as long as we find the consortium like orchard; browse a list and start compiling.  Rumors of a BFTG volume 9 - I wonder how they will do it?

 

^the only thing I try and gather out it is those old timers do not neccessarily own the rights to their songs but perhaps a label that Orchard deals with does.  Look at all the old performers that don't see a dime anymore.  But the label receives it.

I noticed that garage masters label have a handful of fuzztones songs included on their comps.  I don't see them getting away with that unless Orchard is somehow tied to Italy Gone Down label or whatever they are working with now or in the past.

Is this any different than all the other comps that exist- BFTG, GP Unknowns, etc, etc.  NO way these compilationers are tracking down lead artists from teen bands long disbanded to pay royalties for inclusion on a comp.  If so, that is a great article that should be written - what it takes to make a garage punk compilation.

So in the end, I don't think there is anything stopping us from dong what garage masters label did as long as we find the consortium like orchard; browse a list and start compiling.  Rumors of a BFTG volume 9 - I wonder how they will do it?

I do not think one has to be too old to rock, but one can be.  Rock comes from within.
And by that I do not mean it as condescension. A person can still be a creative musician but no longer be a rock and roller.  Life has simply led them to other things. To me there is nothing wrong with that. Others, however, take their life experience and use it to make better RnR. Nothing wrong with that either! :)

What is to me sad, however, is someone who has grown past their rockin' years who feels the need to pretend that they've not.  And it is especially sad (to me) if they are forced to play the same old song(s) that they played in their younger days if/when they no longer feel them.

When my `60s group The Abstracts recently had an album released of material we had recorded back in the `60s we had some interest shown in out doing a European tour. But in the final analysis we realized that while all of the living members of the band still "rocked" we had individually moved on style-wise.  Me to naked acoustic rock and blues.  To redo our old songs once or twice would be a hoot. But to be forced to do it night after night would not.  No, I'd rather be in the audience then that!

As one member of the band put it. `Can you imagine playing one of out more popular songs for the twelve millionth time, for instance on a cruise ship for wishing-they-were-young retirees?'  Ach! 

But the odd thing is that this person still regularly plays with a band for the pure pleasure of it, doing much of the general `60s repertoire. And I dig back deeper -- often into the Chess catalog from the fifties.

I say: Be who you are, not who you were. And enjoy it! :D

-don

Yes, both pushing 70, and the last time I saw Charlie he was practically dying from the flu and still performed with more energy and rocked harder than just about any other punk singer I've seen of any age. Iggy Pop is 25 years older than I am and has twice the energy I had at my "peak".

Mike said:

Charlie Harper

Lemmy

Not as old as some of the other's mentioned, but I think they are both pushing 70.

Funhouse is even Punk meets Jazz....Anyway fuck all those terms,it's all r-n-r !;)

doornail said:

what about garage punk. love that term!!!  

Ghislaine said:

Funhouse isnt 'garage'.It's Punk.

I don't believe these three have been mentioned

NOBUNNY - Love Visions

Oblivians - Popular Favorites

The Missing Links - The Missing Links

And so on, too hard to pick just one. 

I've been searching all over for a comp I had but can't remember the name of. Does anyone remember a female fronted garage revival band called The Monarchs with a song called "Hit That Bitch"?

The Psychotic Turnbuckles on some long forgotten TV show. Check it out from about 1.14

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NTT7E_oY3Kc