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Three Chords, No Waiting; the 'New' Garage Rock: We're Not Buying It
By: JEFF MIERS - Buffalo News
October 22nd 2002 7:23am
So Entertainment Weekly runs a story a few weeks back beneath the
headline, "Will garage rock be music's next big thing?" The piece
went on to offer a thumbnail sketch of the "movement" and compared
it to the punk explosion that turned the late-'70s rock scene on its
ear.
In answer to EW's dubiously posed question, one prays for a
resounding, "Hell no!"
"Next big things" are the music industry equivalent of yet
another "reality-based" television show, meaning they aren't
necessary and more often than not they're a product of manufactured
hype and the hope for a quick cash-in.
The "new garage" movement gives me the creeps, I'll be the first
to admit.
After all, the original garage "explosion" was the result of a
generation's infatuation with American blues, Motown and rock 'n'
roll. Artists weren't attempting to create a "garagey" sound; they
were simply emulating and drawing inspiration from the music they
loved. In the case of the Rolling Stones, the Animals and the
Yardbirds, the sources were mainly Chicago blues, Chuck Berry,
Elvis, Buddy Holly and their ilk.
Garage rock resulted from a heavily skewed balance between
burning passion and still-developing musical ability. Records
sounded raw and primitive for two simple reasons: The bands sought
to capture the excitement of their raucous caterwauling quickly and
inexpensively; and the talent pool they were drawing from, at least
initially, was not a particularly deep one.
The result? Visceral-sounding records full of youthful, raw
energy and concise, vibrant song arrangements. White blues, baby.
They weren't trying to make these records sound junky. It just
happened naturally.
Today's garage rock wunderkinds - White Stripes, Strokes, et.
al., - are emulating, in an extremely self-conscious way, the
initial noisemakers. When the Stones released "12x5," there was no
such thing as garage rock. They were simply doing what they did as
best they could. There was no schtick involved, no target market, no
overarching "style" within which to attempt to fit.
There was no need for a rock revival; rock wasn't dead yet.
Fact is, it still isn't. Which is why I resent the tastemakers'
constant desire to get behind the latest "rock revival." As Bob
Dylan famously sneered back when rock was young, these cats "just
want to be on the side that's winning."
Which brings us, rather bumpily, to Cincinnati's the Greenhornes,
who just so happen to be playing Tuesday in Mohawk Place.
See, the Greenhornes are one of the few bands to fit under the
"new garage" umbrella who seem sincere, authentic, naked of irony.
They don't sound like the "new wave of garage rock"; rather, they
present themselves to the listener as a band with a rich sense of
history and a desire to interpret the music that moves them in a way
that is their own. Much like the Stones, the Animals and the
Yardbirds did some 40 years ago.
Seem like a subtle difference? It is. But I'll be damned if it
isn't the factor that separates the wheat from the chaff.
Tastemakers - modern-radio folks, record label stiffs, even a
number of important rock critics - seem to forget one thing,
presumably because they aren't making the music in question
themselves: Few musicians of worth are attempting to create a sound
that fits strictly into one idiom at any given time. The bands who
survive the inevitable "anti-rock backlash" are sure to follow the
"new garage explosion" (What will it be this time? Dance music
"composed" by preteen DJ's? Fabian-styled innocuous pop crooners?
Entirely automated, performerless techno?) and will be the ones who
view rock music's history as a palette from which to draw the colors
of inspiration, not a cheesey pseudo-revivalist's potential gold
mine.
Three- and four-chord rock is not some sort of pre-fab statement;
those three or four chords keep popping up because they're the ones
that work in rock 'n' roll. This isn't rocket science, folks.
The Greenhornes, one feels safe predicting, will be one of the
bands still making wonderfully simple rock music after all the
hoopla subsides.
The band's latest, "The Greenhornes," out now on Telstar Records,
is rife with the sort of material that fired seminal American garage
acts of the late '60s and early '70s, themselves reacting to the
British rockers who had initiated the stuff after thoroughly
digesting American electric blues. Songs like "Satisfy My Mind" and
"Hard Times" don't sound stilted, forced, contrived. They breathe
and leave the listener room to do the same.
The record sounds like it was recorded live, as the band played
together in the same room. That's because it was. Its simplicity
lends it authenticity, but what really makes it authentic is the
solidity of the songs and the craftsmanship behind them, as off the
cuff as it may be.
What we react to when we hear the band is exactly what's missing
in the music we hear on the radio today; hands playing guitars,
vocal chords imparting passion without the benefit of layers of
expensive vocal effects, simple chords framing simpler narratives, a
beat that makes no attempt to be clever; insidiously hinting,
rather, that we should boogie and toss our hair around. It's naive.
Childlike. Hopeful. Alive. We need that now. Not the "next big
thing," but the real thing.
One fears a future where fully digital recording units come with
a "garage rock" patch built in: "Wanna sound "garagey"? Just turn
this knob!"
There will be some, no doubt, who know better, some who realize
that the only way to capture the energy of garage rock is to head
for the proverbial garage. That place where the music makes the
rules and the suits can't gain admittance. That, more than likely, is where you'll find the Greenhornes.
e-mail: jmiers@buffnews.com
(C) 2002 Buffalo News. via ProQuest Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved
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