Hey all!  I need some assistance. I have a reasonably good grasp of contemporary garage rock/punk, but my knowledge of original 60's garage is kinda spotty. What are the "must hear/must know" tunes or bands from that era? I'm a little familiar with The Sonics, ? and the Mysterians, The Seeds, Count Five, and a few of the hits (e.g., "Surfin' Bird"), but beyond that I don't know much.

     Also, is the Nuggets boxed set a good place for a beginner to start?

Thanks!

-Joe

I'm really lucky to have The Bell House in Brooklyn NYC less than a 10 minute drive from my house. I've pretty much taken to using the place as my local hang and an excuse to catch a show on nearly any night of the week. 

The recent 4 day Norton 25th Anniversary Shindig followed by a Shonen Knife show less than a week later is just a small sample of what's been offered in the couple of years since the place opened.

In the USA:  definitely The Empty Bottle - Chicago

In London: The Dirty Water (but I think it's closed now…).

In Spain: Sala Beat - Tomelloso (you won't believe it's there in the middle of nowhere, and you won't believe how many garage rockers will show up!)

In Italy: Spazio211 - Torino (our home!)

The Dante"s seems great...

East End in Portland Oregon anyone?

Interesting idea! 

we're taking out an ad in Record Collector magazine for our next release, just to see what effect it has on orders

they apparently have a 35,000 subscription list

so will hopefully get enough orders to cover the cost :D

Many thanks for all the suggestions. I'm surprised, though, that there aren't more sites geared at garage-psych fans that take advertising. With all respect to the mighty prrinted zine (and my career as a print journalist) I have to say that advertising in print (especially when there are months between issues) isn't nearly as effective anymore compared to online...

King Salami & the Cumberland 3 play some killer R&B in the UK!

The Big Enchilada podcast of course:

http://garagepunk.ning.com/profiles/blog/list?user=2a9brujqvz3lh

I love Nick Curran too.

Also Barrence Whitfield & The Savages. http://www.barrencewhitfield.com/Savages.htm

You might like some of the neo soul bands too like Black Joe Lewis & The Honeybears. I did a whole soul set in my last podcast. 

Here's a video I shot of Black Joe a couple of weeks ago

Been on Last for a while.

http://www.last.fm/user/ELpollacko

Never used it because of the lack of connectivity with my Zune stuff. Their network was rival and fairly decent but MS gave up on it, now on Spotify, not nearly as interesting but works. And now with the Spotify Apps being added, I will probably use Last a bit more.

If your on Spotify, add me: 123400347

Have the same issue with my band's similar artists havin' nothin' in common with my band, but I read somewhere on the last.fm FAQ that they "review" each artist's similar artist selections and make updates/changes as their algorithms see fit every 3-4 months...so there's a glimmer of hope there fer improvement I suppose... not sure what to tell ya about the lame tags being attached to yer band, welcome to the wild west internets...

Justin Scarred said:

Last.fm is currently the bane of my existence. The site is cool and the features are cool, but the similar artists for our band is all jacked and there's no way to fix it. Pretty frustrating, also frustrating to get them to delete the pictures when your lineup changes and stuff. 

I guess it's my fault for ignoring last.fm for the last four years. We used to be on a super extra-punk label and I guess a lot of bands who wanted to be on that label tagged their stuff as being similar to ours and it's not at all. Just as an example listen to this song and then click on any of the "similar artists" - apples to oranges.

 

Anyone else have their band's stuff up there? Have you ever had this problem? Right now we're trying to get our street team to "scrobble" so that this gets fixed, but they don't say how often they re-set the "similar artists" thingy

Ok so I just got tagged to be the "leader" of thee Garage Punk Group over on last.fm...dig that action there if ya dare:

http://www.last.fm/group/Thee+Garage+Punk+Group

& here's where I plug my own beat combo's presence over on last.fm, slim:

http://www.last.fm/music/The+Get+Wets

Here's my band page:

http://http://www.last.fm/music/Watching+the+Train+Wreck

And my label page, but I'm waay behind on it:

http://http://www.last.fm/label/Rainy%2520Road%2520Records?ac=rainy%20road%20re

Yesssssssssssss

http://www.lastfm.it/user/kaosleo

That's cool, thanks.

http://www.punk-christmas.com/So you thought you hated Christmas music...Click The The Link - Have a Drink - Hear For Yourself!  http://www.punk-christmas.com/

Just got some more junk set up over at my homebase.

"Episode 73: All Requests" Somebody made a comment about how "calling in requests" is out of date, which triggered this idea. We opened up the phone lines and it was a lot of fun.

"Episode 74: Richard Buffer and Stan Barkozchavitz" had a special California block of psychobilly and some Jewish guy called in after playing Krewmen's version of Hava Nagila.

Plus, there was a while were I couldn't upload shows and then my computer broke. So I recently excavated the files and now an 'exhumed' episode from the summer is up, too. Episode 56 featured guest DJ Nicole DeVille, formerly of the feamle psycho act The Hatchetwounds. More of these lost episodes will be put up in the future.

All of this stuff is at www.zorchradio.com

Shall look for the Mick Farren song JB, ta!

John Battles said:

Mark George ,  Mick Farren had a great Bela Lugosi song (Actually biographical.) several years before Bahaus did. It's just called "Bela Lugosi" , and , in my humble opinion is the far better song of the two. I may have mentioned The Washington Dead Cats , from France. They've been around forever. They had some good Horror songs , very silly , but I can't think of another band that fused Psychobilly and Psychedelia with Pere Ubu overtones. I bought a tape of theirs in 1986 ,  which came in a plastic bag with a sticker , a lyric book and a badass psychedelic shirt which I still have....It also contained a piece of butterscotch candy. The guy at the store told me "You know what  ? That candy might have acid in it !". He was probably wrong , but , I thought , WHY TAKE A CHANCE ? 

Mark George Harrison said:

Spook and the Ghouls who released an album called the Whitechapel mureders on Nervous in the late 80s, includes a version of bela Lugosis dead!

Alexander ,   Yeah , I got that when it came out....it still holds up. That was around the time I first got into both Screamin' Jay and The Fuzztones , who did a very sympathetic job backing him , tho' the record , and the performance (By people I talked to who were there.) were slagged at the time. "So in the heat of the meat and in the mass of the ass , the shade of the toothpick meets the hot boiling sun!".
There's video of the performance on You Tube , also.
Alexander said:

Fuzztones+Screamin´Jay Hawkins-LIVE!!Very nice-check it out and you´ll love it.

Mark George ,  Mick Farren had a great Bela Lugosi song (Actually biographical.) several years before Bahaus did. It's just called "Bela Lugosi" , and , in my humble opinion is the far better song of the two. I may have mentioned The Washington Dead Cats , from France. They've been around forever. They had some good Horror songs , very silly , but I can't think of another band that fused Psychobilly and Psychedelia with Pere Ubu overtones. I bought a tape of theirs in 1986 ,  which came in a plastic bag with a sticker , a lyric book and a badass psychedelic shirt which I still have....It also contained a piece of butterscotch candy. The guy at the store told me "You know what  ? That candy might have acid in it !". He was probably wrong , but , I thought , WHY TAKE A CHANCE ? 

Mark George Harrison said:

Spook and the Ghouls who released an album called the Whitechapel mureders on Nervous in the late 80s, includes a version of bela Lugosis dead!

True. But at least they hold value. I've probably lost hundreds fixing, selling, and just throwing out crappy gear. It's nice to finally have a sound I'm satisfied with!

I am a HUUUGE fan of Limited Pressing because they were built with vinyl/digital labels in mind. www.limitedpressing.com

Nick and Tom run the site. Tell them Jim from Red Hot Rebellion sent you and they will probably hook you up. 

I still love vinyl and even the poor little CD, but I think I may have released my last physical music product.

So -- I'll soon move all of my catalog to online digital download -- and I was wondering what other label owners here think is the best download site to use? I'm leaning toward Bandcamp, since I can provide full-res WAV files (and FLAC) to fans as well as low-res MP3s, along with cover art and liner notes, etc.

Any opinions from other labels/bands on the best way to have a digital download service?

Thanks, and fuzz it!

Let me add my own little "Yeah" for Erik, who has been a true indie music supporter for DECADES. The style posers will always come and go, but the true believers like Erik keep this music alive, against all odds.

Erik, the major economic issues you face are faced by us all -- no one is buying much product, but plenty sure are copying and "sharing it" (it's called stealing in the real world). This is putting so many indie labels and producers out of business, but won't stop anytime soon.

So I hope you will keep the faith and continue to put out great stuff! We have no other choice, lol. 

-- your friends in the Arizona desert. :)