I'd love to hear a garage/trash version of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's Brain Salad Surgery tune that begins "Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends. ..." (Can't even remember the real title. I think it was part of some "suite" or something)

Yes, it's stinky old prog rock, but that tune was the closest Emerson, Lake & Palmer ever had to having fun. It deserves to be liberated with some banged up Farfisa or Vox organ replacing Keith Emerson's arsenal of keyboards. And the lyrics actually are funny: "40 virgins and a mule, keep it cool, keep it cool

Either that or "Hang on Sloopy."

girl's got a turtle by the driving stupid

I recently read "We Never Learn" by Eric Davidson of the New Bomb Turks. It's sort of a retrospective of the whole 90s punk/garage scene as told through a heavy filter of autobiography. I think he did a pretty damn good job covering over a decade of international music. It's nowhere near as exhaustive as books like "Please Kill Me" or "We've Got the Neutron Bomb", but it's a decent read if you can get over Davidson's um... 'flowery' prose style. Ha ha.

I also really recommend "Treat Me Like Dirt" which is the exhaustive (almost painfully so at times) expose of the first wave punk scene in Toronto, Canada and the surrounding area. It's fantastic, but damn it covers a LOT of stuff.

Check out I slept with Joey Ramone, It's written by his brother, I enjoyed it.

Patti Smith, "Just Kids". It's incredible, and it just won the National Book Award for non-fiction.

I try to read as many as I can, even if I'm not into the individual or the music.  I'm currently reading the Keith Richards rag and am enjoying it very much.  How 'bout choos guys?

I play all "vintage style guitars", and I don't care if some of them are cheapos, or what gear snobs think of them. I like both the look and sound of these instruments. The last instrument I bought was a Squier Bronco Bass, used for $80, and I love it. I hate any heavy metal, or modern style guitar regardless of the brand name. I especially loathe Paul Reed Smith guitars. I know they are well made, expensive guitars, but they just don't speak to me, and sound generic in my opinion.

I too, own a 90's Korean made Dano Longhorn Bass re-issue and love it, as well as a Jay Turser Violin Bass, which I think is superior to Hofner's Asian made Icon series.

I'm always looking for the cheapest (yet decent) alternative around. My main axe for garage rock is a telecaster by the brand Bach (http://www.bachmusik.com/en/) and I think it does the job just as good as a mexican fender. But then I've done some sweet mods to it: Seymour Duncan Little '59 in the bridge position, tonerider hot classic in the neck position (go buy toneriders, they sound REALLY good! I used to have a hot classic in the bridge as well but I got tired of the single coil hum, I'm more of a bucker guy), locking tuners and a Bigsby B50. Mahogany body and maple neck. Our lead guitarist (who usually plays an american tele) borrowed it for a rehearsal once and his guitar sound became way more distinctive with my guitar. It may not have the feel of a fender or gibby, but price wise - It's the deal!

About the peavey,you are so right man.I own a peavey T-60,'79 model.And its so awesome man.Ok maybe it doesn't sound so good when in distortion,but when you play on the clean channel,It takes you to another level.

I would never play a Hitler guitar--Kramer & Ibanez also a bit iffy...

I would never play a jackson or a dean

for me it's all about the looks. and the sound I can get out of it. brand doesn't matter. I had a 63 Gretsch until this afternoon and it looked awesome and, hey it's a GRETSCH, but I couldn't use it for garage-punk. so I use a 80s squire stratocaster right now. not perfect but it does the job for now.

I run into a lot of "label whores" who won't play say for example a Squire or Peavey because of the name. I own a Peavey hollow body and have played the Squire Classic Vibe Bass, (very nice instrument). I think people feel the have less of a guitar if it doesn't say Gibson or Fender. I play a Dano Longhorn Bass and it looks like a toy, but it plays and sound great so I'm sticking with it. What's your thoughts?

Ashbass Fuzzbrite is a great pedal.

I want to get one and found out that there are a few clones around. does anyone have experience with any of them? which ones do you recommend? from the 4 boxes I found sound-samples of(fuzzbox-world, northwind-trading, ashbass fuzzrite, fuzzcracker) it seems the UK version(northwind-trading) sounds the best?!?

This month's episode is called "Psychic Flotsam." Sit down. Relax. Look deep into my eyes. The Spirits are about to speak.

You're going to hear some mystical sounds of Carbon/Silicon, The Ding Dongs, The Tandoori Knights, The Gories,  The Rockin' Guys and so much more, all very cosmic -- in a trashy kinda way


Find it right here at the Hideout

the question is, and maybe there's some expert here who has the answer, what pick-ups are in the old Mosrites? there are(and were) tons of Mosrite looking guitars around but I wonder if they also sound like one?

There is a guy in a local surf band that plays one of these, kind've expensive, but way cheaper than a Mosrite:

If you don't want to spend a lot of money, check out the Peavey JF-1. Some people have a problem with Peavey but I found their products to be built very well. I picked up the guitar last year for about $200.00 and I haven't had one problem. They get great reviews and look really good.

In my old band thee templars (RIP), I used it a couple a times to record the actual rehearsals. Worked a treat in capturing the raw sound of the band. Needs a bit of trial and error to get the right balance which only involves moving it round the room. Beauty is that it can be converted to MP3 straight away, then you can take out the SD card, pop it in your PC and upload /edit as you want. Good little piece of kit

It's not bad! For a really over-driven,saturated sound I just hit record and use that, but you can really get a nice smooth recording with the built in also if you can find a quiet spot and turn the input level down. I've been messing with a preamp and different mics and it can do some cool stuff.

What're you using, if anything?

All the Back from the Grave stuff for me really as no psych filler just pure Garage Punk.

There's a #9?!

Dana V. Hatch said:

Garage Punk Unknowns #9 one side of wacky vocal tracks and one side of killer instros. The Nuggets box is a perfect jumping-off point for new converts. And as Tim Warren pointed out, BTFG #8 would be one of the best if it contained
the Chancellors' "On Tour" and nothing else but it has 27 more great songs.

The Cramps - Bad Music for Bad People
The Gories - 1st and 2nd album, combined
The Rip Offs- Got a Record
No Bunny - Love Visions
The No Talents (A great french band, It might be hard to find this cuz its out of print, but its so worth the search)
Loli and the Chones - P.S, We Hate You (out of print, but not that hard to find)


Our band is great too haha, (self promotion alert)

-The Ills

I agree The Clash is total energy integrity and sound completely diffrent form all the other Punk bands of the era.