http://www.mtviggy.com/articles/please-explain-garage-punk/

...from a mile-high bird's eye view, guess this writer does a decent job...discuss?

I think it's solid. Yeah it doesn't go back far. I mean it's mostly garage punk revival since the 2000s. But then again does anyone seriously think that something on an MTV channel is going to provide much more than stuff that is friendly to majors?

If they wrote it about the history it would scare and bore the kids. If it was anything too underground it would be too niche that it would turn off too many people.

It points anyone who doesn't know much about garage punk in the right direction, has a few cool vids that would haver certainly got me into the scene if I'd read it a couple of years ago.

Not a bad treatment of a complex topic, but you can tell the writer is young by her focus on the last 10 years; anything pre-2000 is just mentioned anecdotally. The Reatards, Oblivians and Mummies got worked in, but any hipster doofus could pull those names out of their ass. Lauding the White Stripes for ushering-in a new GP revival period is Wikipedia journalism. Their first album dropped in '99, after more than a decade of brick-laying by countless bands and now-legendary record labels. They might've been labeled a "blues punk" band if labels like Estrus, Sympathy, Scooch Pooch, Am Rep, Junk, Empty (the list goes on) hadn't already made "garage punk" a household name and assimilated less adventurous ears to the sound.

The Eric Friedl and King Khan interview segments were the best parts for me. These guys know their history and obviously have a deeper understanding of the garage punk world. Insights from the inside. 

It would have been nice to see a mention of the larger community of pre- & sub-genres that garage punk belongs to: garage soul, garage surf, power pop, beat, yada-yada. I suppose that's a bigger topic, though. Strange too, that no effort was given to the GP description in terms of equipment, approach to the studio/sound engineering, playing styles/techniques, song writing theories, etc. Surely these components have as much to do with the GP sound as mental attitude and stage costumes.

I don't want to trash the article too badly, because it is a better-than-average discussion of a near & dear subject. It's also nice to see some underground accolades from an MTV blog. But at it's root, this article seems to be aimed at the GP newbie: baiting the hook with the old "these guys are cooler than you" routine, and dropping some names to get people looking up YouTube tracks. A good introduction for the uninitiated, but a little trite for long-time fans.