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The Sonics, Have Love Will Travel

(Garage) Music Saved My Life

When all else failed in high school in the 80’s, there was always garage music.  It may have been 20 years down the road since the garage music of the 60’s but there were lots of opportunities to see contemporary garage bands play live shows and to listen to the music. My friends and I would collect LPs on the weekends and get together after school during the week to play them. We often ended up at one particular girlfriend’s place because her parents had the best receiver and speakers around. A few years later when we looked old enough to get into clubs without ID, we would put on our mod dresses, get dolled up and take the metro downtown on Friday and Saturday nights to dance until 3 AM at 60’s Nights at Café Campus and later at LE GARAGE. My parents brought me up listening to The Stones, The Beatles, The Animals, The Who, The Kinks, so I guess it makes sense that I appreciated that music. I remember many nights dancing in a smoke-filled, dry ice haze to Gimme Shelter and Over Under Sideways Down. My Mum recently told me that she remembers playing The Animals “We Gotta Get Out of This Place” on the record player, the morning that I was born. I find that really funny because she said it was her and my Dad’s anthem in the 60’s and it later became a song on repeat in our apartment, when my husband and I were planning to leave home.

It’s worth mentioning that garage rock has directly influenced garage punk, punk, surf music and rockabilly. If you haven’t really checked out garage and are interested, here are some suggestions:

British Invasion (early 60’s):

• The Kinks
• The Who
• The Animals
• The Yardbirds
• The Pretty Faces
• The Rolling Stones

American (60’s):

• The Stooges
• The Sonics
• The Wailers
• The Kingsmen
• The Fifth Estate
• Paul Revere and the Raiders

Revivalist Garage (post-60’s):

• The Ramones
• The Cramps
• Thee Headcoats
• Thee Mighty Caesars
• The Gories
• The Mummies

Contemporary:

The White Stripes, The Raconteurs, The Greenhornes, The Von Bondies, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, The Detroit Cobras, amongst many many others, have all been heavily influenced by garage.