I was thinking about this, and it seems like garage punk is the coolest genre. However, this makes me question the boundaries of coolness.
If you played in a garage punk band, the only people who would care or probably notice your coolness would be record geeks and hipsters. Nobody outside of the punk/indie underground would really care. High school kids would just think you were in some lame retro bar band. Serious musicians outside of the indie/punk world wouldn't be interested, they'd just think you were playing simple garage rock the way it's been played since the 1960s. Hipsters and record geeks are such a niche audience that you could become famous to a small, niche audience, but you'd never become a rockstar. If you're really successful you might be on the festival circuit, but otherwise your entire musical career would be playing little bars on the weekends, when you're not working your real job.
But I guess that's what coolness is. Not giving a fuck, and completely, confidently embracing one's style.
And hey, who knows, maybe one of these bands who will beat the odds. Garage Punk did have a moment in the limelight around 2002, with bands like The White Stripes and The Hives. King Gizzard, who's sort of related, is one of the biggest rock artists right now. Ty Segall and Jay Reatard were both huge names in the last decade (the latter posthumously, granted). And some garage artists went onto do very interesting things, like how Spacemen 3 led to Spiritualized.
Still, I think genuineness is a lot more compelling than coolness. Coolness has charisma, but in the end of the day, nobody cares about it much.
What is the point of garage punk as a genre? I always thought that musically speaking punk rock was just an edgier garage rock
Juan Hernandez
>What is the point of garage punk as a genre? Being punk but good ala Stooges
Landon Wilson
I recommend listening to it. You're sort of right about what punk was, at least initially. You could even sort of think of 60s garage rock as the 60s punk. However, there are aesthetic distinctions between the two, which garage punk brings out. It's lo-fi, fuzzy, and simple, like garage rock, but it's also fast and aggressive, like punk. Some bands also have strong psychedelic elements, which a lot of 60s garage rock did, but very few punk bands did (with a few exceptions, like The Soft Boys). Because of that psychedelic element, it crosses over a bit with things like space rock and neo-psychedelia, and it also crosses over with some retro-minded subgenres like punk blues and psychobilly. The other thing is, not all 60s garage rock was punky, but some was, and it seems like that's more specifically what a lot of these bands look to - bands like The Sonics, The Monks, and The Stooges.
I feel like a lot of the "coolest" bands are both punk blues and garage punk, though my favorite punk blues band is either The Gories (who are both) or The Gun Club (who aren't garage).
Austin Wilson
>I feel like a lot of the "coolest" bands are both punk blues and garage punk Gories Oblivians Laughing Hyenas Blues Explosion Pussy Galore White Stripes Immortal Lee County Killers
Am I missing something? Would love to find out some more good stuff on that same genre but sometimes I feel like I've exhausted it
Evan Sanders
black lips - let it bloom is a fantastic garage punk record youtu.be/unPjbiueXeM
Not reading all that OP simply replying to the thread title. Yes, it is, if you're under 18. Please come back when you are of age
Luke Richardson
>calling garage punk an underage genre >a genre that literally mainly appeals to people in their 30s and 40s I'm gonna assume you're like 18-21 and this is the Dunning-Kruger Effect.
Landon Lewis
garage punk is gay, they took the mids part of punk and garage rock and put them together. No wonder they only play at bars... their music is just boring.
There's a pretty good punk, hardcore, powerviolence scene in my area, the only people that go to the garage punk shows are faggoty hipsters that are too pretentious to admit they enjoy Neutral Milk Hotel.
Nothing beats old school boomer garage rock kid, just like raw catchy pure rock music no bullshit nothing.
Mason Rodriguez
"A weird band at their weirdest. On Slates, The Fall reached the pinnacle of the rambling, babbling rockabilly style that would ultimately be pillaged to lesser effect by bands like Pussy Galore, Royal Trux, Pavement and Girls Against Boys."
