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Garage Punk

Portland, Tombstone Records

Dead Moon

Fred Cole had been making records for twenty years before Dead Moon. As a teenager in Las Vegas he led the Lords, and in 1966 his next band, the Weeds, ran out of gas in Portland on the way to Canada. Toody worked at the club where they played, and the two married in 1967. The Weeds became the Lollipop Shoppe and made an LP for UNI in 1968. After a year homesteading in the Yukon, the Coles settled in Portland, opened a music shop and ran through a string of bands, the Rats among them, with Fred teaching Toody to play bass. Dead Moon came in 1987 with Andrew Loomis on drums. Their biggest cult following was in Europe, Germany above all, and in 2017 Portland proclaimed October 5 Dead Moon Night.

Bay Area, budget rock, 1988

The Mummies

The Mummies formed in the San Francisco Bay Area in late 1988, started by singer and organist Trent Ruane and bassist Maz Kattuah, with Larry Winther on guitar and Russell Quan on drums. They played their first show at the Chi Chi Club in February 1989, dressed in tattered homemade mummy rags. They recorded on whatever cheap, broken gear came to hand, a cassette four-track and a Farfisa organ included, and promoter Jorge Ojeda credited them with inventing budget rock. They refused to put anything out on CD and said so on their sleeves. An album made for Crypt in 1991 was scrapped. They split in January 1992, just before their only studio LP appeared, then reunited in 1993 for a European tour with Supercharger.

Akron to CBGB, 1976

The Cramps

Lux Interior grew up in Stow, Ohio, between Akron and Kent, and after meeting Poison Ivy in Sacramento in 1972 he brought her back to Akron. Like the Dead Boys, they found no audience in Ohio and moved to New York, where they joined the CBGB scene. The first full lineup came together in April 1976 with Bryan Gregory on second guitar and Pam Balam on drums. Miriam Linna, later a co-founder of Norton Records, took over the drums, and in September 1977 Nick Knox of Cleveland's Electric Eels replaced her. That October they cut tracks at Ardent in Memphis with Alex Chilton, and early singles came out on their own Vengeance label. Most of the rest stayed in the vault until Vengeance issued it as Gravest Gravy in 2026.

Tucson, 2001

Nobunny

Nobunny was the stage name of Justin Champlin, who started the act in Tucson, Arizona, in 2001 and performed in a ratty bunny mask, often paired with something worse, raw meat or a coat made of trash. The music was lo-fi garage punk crossed with bubblegum and power pop, and he named the Ramones and Hasil Adkins as influences alongside the Cramps. The home-recorded debut came out on Bubbledumb in 2008. Burger Records issued the next one first as 500 hand-numbered cassettes, and Goner put out LPs in 2010 and 2013. A show at Third Man in Nashville in May 2010 went to analog tape and became a live LP. In July 2020 Champlin admitted to taking advantage of teenage girls and ended the project.

Cincinnati to New York

The Chrome Cranks

The Chrome Cranks started in Cincinnati in 1988, where singer and guitarist Peter Aaron and guitarist William Weber had been working together since 1986. They rehearsed for nearly two years through a churn of lineups before playing live in 1990. Aaron moved to New York in 1992 and rebuilt the band there with Jerry Teel, who had played guitar in the Honeymoon Killers, on bass. The sound was punk-styled blues. The debut album came out in 1994, and Crypt released the second a year later. Worn out by touring, they stopped after a European run in 1998. Weber later joined GG Allin's Murder Junkies, and Aaron now edits Chronogram. They came back in 2009 and made a new album in 2012.

Chatham, Hangman Records

Thee Headcoats

Thee Headcoats formed in Chatham, Kent, in 1989, with Billy Childish on guitar and vocals, Bruce Brand on drums and, for most of the run, Johnny 'Tub' Johnson on bass. Allan Crockford played on the first LP. Records came out on Childish's own Hangman label and on Crypt, Get Hip, Sub Pop and Damaged Goods. They also served as the backing band for Thee Headcoatees, an all-female vocal group with Holly Golightly, and recorded Clash songs as Thee Stash. The last show was at the Dirty Water Club on 12 May 2000. In 2023 they came back, with new albums in 2023 and 2025.

Geelong, Victoria

Ausmuteants

Ausmuteants came out of Geelong, Victoria. Jake Robertson and Billy Gardner started the band after Robertson filled in on drums for Gardner's group the Living Eyes, and Marc Dean joined on bass, with Shaun Connor arriving later. The early models were the 1970s San Francisco weirdos Chrome and Tuxedomoon, and synthesizers took the sound well away from plain garage rock. A cassette came out on Anti Fade in 2012. The first LP, in 2013, was paid for by Geelong's mayor, Darryn Lyons. That record and its 2014 follow-up appeared on Aarght in Australia and Goner in the US, and the band played Gonerfest in 2014. They won Best Heavy Album at that year's Music Victoria Awards. Connor wrote all of their 2019 album himself.

Detroit, a singles band

The Dirtbombs

Mick Collins set up the Dirtbombs after the Gories as a singles band, meant to put out 7-inches in different styles, with early singles on Sympathy for the Record Industry from 1996. It took In the Red to talk them into making albums. Jim Diamond, a producer at Ghetto Recorders, played bass from 1997 to 2004. The longest-lasting lineup ran from 2004 to 2008, with Troy Gregory, once of Prong, on bass, Ko Melina on fuzz baritone guitar, and Pat Pantano and Ben Blackwell on the two drum kits. Blackwell's own Cass Records put out many of their later singles. In 2005 a two-disc set rounded up the scattered singles and rarities. They opened for Blondie in 2002, and in 2006 Spin ranked them tenth among live bands.

Memphis, Oblivians, Goner

Jack Oblivian

Jack Oblivian is Jack Yarber, born in 1967, who started out drumming in a high school band in Corinth, Mississippi, and moved to Memphis around 1987. There he formed the Compulsive Gamblers with Greg Cartwright. In 1993 the two of them and Eric Friedl started the Oblivians as a side project, and that trio made its records for Crypt until 1998. Friedl went on to found Goner Records. Yarber's solo records started in 1997, mostly on Sympathy for the Record Industry, and he has played with Tav Falco's Panther Burns. The Oblivians came back for a 2009 tour with the Gories and a new album on In the Red in 2015. He now fronts Jack O and the Tennessee Tearjerkers.

The Collection