When we were last in Japan we played a gig with Wolf Wolf (Switzerland) who put me onto FatCat  Radio. They’re in Illinois somewhere. I’ve written to them myself, FatCat Radio, but they’ve not gotten back to me.

An Australian page is www.i94bar.com. I know the… editor? Whatever the title is for a web page magazine editor. I’ll e-mail you a direct postal address. My address is turbonun@gmail.com. If you want to give Australia a serious stab, I’ll compile a list of radio stations and programs for you to hit here.

Thanks for the kudos on our You Tube page. I’ll check out yours later today. As to the little quasi-documentary, I always tell bands to film everything. You can easily amass a film out of footage you take. Against Me’s “We’re Never Going Home”, Lucero’s “Dreaming of America and other, countless, films, too numerous to mention start out as an extra party just taking footage of you hanging out. Look at the one Bob Gruen made of the first trip the New York Dolls took the your west coast back in the early seventies. (I forget the title but I do have it at home.) It’s well worth it, cheap and damn easy.

Really digging your youtube channel.. Like that behind the scene recording aspect.  I would really like to play with your group.  Very rockn stuff indeed!

Our youtube channel has been created! http://www.youtube.com/user/greatdismalswamis

Yeah, feel free to share our track death mansions or whatever else I post.  I'll do the same for you.

Never, heard of fat cat radio.. checkin out pages ..now! Thanks!

Have you heard of FatCat radio? Also got you an address here in Aus.

Very sad news today.  Reg passed away.  The articles I've found haven't mentioned cancer, but you would have to assume.  RIP, Reg.  

Off Twitter-

Also, Strummin' Mental, carried by Crypt is really cool. I think I had v.3, and just about every track rocked.

Australian group the Hitmen did a great cover of King of the Surf w/ Johnny Kannis...

I'd say check out the "Surf Creature" comps, the "Diggin' Out" comp and the "Strictly Instrumental" comps. All really good stuff.

Thanks guys. That Twin Scrambler's track is ace. I did some rummaging about myself and found this one by Born Losers  http://youtu.be/qurQbOMukzY

I don't know about podcasts, but I can point you towards some records:

"Dickheads" compilation of garage surf bands covering Dick Dale songs

"Locked In To Surf" on UK label Alopecia has at least 4 volumes of great trashy instro surf

"Think Link" Vol 1 & 2 is all Link Wray covers from garage & surf bands

There's a lot of stuff on YouTube too, if you just need a quick fix.

Midwest (St. Louis and beyond): http://tircrecords.bandcamp.com/album/landlocked-loaded

I am from the Detroit area, so here is my recommendation for that slice of the world...

These are tough to find, but I am sure they are out there (at the very least, iTunes), but here is a link to the Ghettoblaster series of comps put out by the Motor City Brewery and recorded by Jim Diamond. Several great and now-legendary Detroit garage bands used to perform at the brewery and Diamond recorded the live performances (the brewery is located in the Cass corridor and is a favorite local hangout for garage rockers of that ilk).

There were some great takes captured live. Check it out:

http://www.allmusic.com/album/ghettoblaster-a-detroit-sampler-vol-1-mw0001362164

There were at least a couple volumes and they all rock.

This is for the record collectors, although CDs are good too. I need some new targets on my record collecting radar, and I'm currently diggin' region-specific garage compilations. Stuff like "Brazilian Nuggets", "Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit", "Signed DC", "Texas Garage Punkers" (there's actually several good ones from Texas)... comps within the lo-fi world that include bands from just one city or state or region or country. These sorts of albums are so anthropological, they're like mini-anthologies of individual scenes, it's my new collection-related addiction. But so many are so obscure that it's hard to even find titles to start hunting for. Anybody have some suggestions? Any genres represented on The Hideout are fair game.

Eloquently put as usual JB, RIP Reg, another legend lost. Got a funeral tomorrow for a mate who played bass in a Dr Feelgood covers band, there'll be a rockin' party upstairs this week.

RIP Reg. The Mothership awaits. Very very sad. You will be sorely missed. You were lately seen especially in Britain as a bit of a crank an a UFO freak, but we will always remeber you as 'Mr Wild Thing'. When you meet Mr Lennon, Harrison, and Mr Marriott, give them a huge 'dubba dubba...cha! from us all. Good Times my friend!

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.

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?

Right on! Urged my library to order it as well.

IDON MINE said:

Thanks for that, sounds interesting. I hope to order it soon. I'll let you know.

Thanks for that, sounds interesting. I hope to order it soon. I'll let you know.

I can believe it! Those guys really rock for a buncha middle-aged dorks like me ;D

aspire said:

Maybe not the best I've ever been too, but a few weeks ago I saw Off! in a small bar in Sydney and its the best gig I've been too in years, dudes tore shit out of the place!

first show: senzabenza, thee stp, rappresaglia, crummy stuff @corneliano d'alba - 2001 (eventually senzabenza didn't show up)

first punk show: " " " "

best show: gee, i don't know really, i have to think about it :D

The Trip! February 3rd show!

Listen here:  http://cjamlog1.cjam.ca/mp3dirnew/381-The_Trip-20130203-0030-t13598...

The setlist:

gert wilden -   rolf torring
electric six -   rock & roll evacuation
elmo williams -   been here and gone
the horrors -   count in fives
the bell peppers -   drapes n' squares
the come-on's -   sugar fortified

buddy holly -   tell me how
buddy holly   -   rave on
buddy holly  -   well all right
chris spedding -   hey miss betty
the hellbound hepcats -   that lady
the surfmen -   paradise cove

rodriguez -   sugar man
rodriguez -   this is not a song, it's an outburst: or  the establishnment blues
crystal stilts -   sycamore tree
the league of notions -   living on the sidewalk
the unquiet dead -   rescue me
blue phantom -   distillation
twenty miles -   junkyard

william shatner -   space cowboy
the liquor giants -   hippy hippy shake

hi, fabio here, i'm form italy

student, worker, lazy student, lazy worker, guitar player, lazy guitar player. 

i play in a one man band called butt galore. sometimes it's a real band, sometimes it's a one man band. :)

i like punk rock, raw rock'n'roll, but i'm into all kinds of music really (well almost). gotta nazi gurlfriend who won't let me attend many concerts, but hey i'm in love and don't mind staying at home while my favourite bands play at 30 km from my home (ok actually we fight a lot)

hope to find some friends around here!

    I think I have some expertise on this  particular topic and can shed some light on the situation having been in this band for 5 years when they were in their prime.... Yes, Rudi stole the entire image from The Music Machine. The Fuzztones started as a novelty side band to his "real" band, Tina Peel. Tina Peel wore matching outfits of stripes, polka dots & checkers and Rudi played a Carvin Les Paul copy.  The funny thing is that the novelty side band went over better than his main band, so he kept doing it.  He pieces his bands together by whoever is available, then dresses them up to fit his "image". He tells them what guitars to play, what clothes to wear & how to cut their hair. In some cases, he had dudes that were bald, so he made them wear wigs.  Some of his band mates knew nothing at all about garage music, and were basically hard rock dudes that he molded to fit the look.  I was from a Punk Rock background & had my most success to that point as a member of the Power Pop band, The Speedies. The most amazing thing about the line-up of the Fuzztones when I was in the band is that despite Rudi, the other 4 of us had amazing chemistry & we took the band to a different place. Try as he did to control us, I did not work. I am & always have been a non-conformist. We had the chops & the spirit to put on an amazing live show.  But the original songs Rudi wrote were nothing compared to the covers we did. You have to realize that in the 80's the internet did not exist. It was not that easy to find these rare songs by bands like The Sonics & 13th Floor Elevators. A lot of people did not realize we were doing covers back then.  This was their first exposure to this genre. So now you have young bands emulating what we did while we were emulating what came before. IMO The Ramones & Cramps are in a different league, They had their own voice & did something more original than we did. We tried, but it was an uphill battle the entire time. 

Is it possible to call them "a Music Machine wannabee"-band just for a single glove used by a young Rudi, while on the other hand, still today, you hve bunch of bands wearing bones-chains a la Fuzztones? Are they Fuzztones wannabee bands?? I´m confused...  
(but hell, it may be!.. ;)