← Back to Genres

Garage Rock

From Queens to the Anarchy Tour

Johnny Thunders

Johnny Thunders was born John Anthony Genzale in Queens, New York, on July 15, 1952. In 1971 he became guitarist in the New York Dolls, who put out New York Dolls in 1973 and Too Much Too Soon in 1974 on Mercury. He and drummer Jerry Nolan quit in 1975. With Nolan and Richard Hell he started the Heartbreakers, who went on the 1977 Anarchy Tour with the Sex Pistols, the Clash and the Damned and made one studio album, L.A.M.F. His solo debut, recorded in London, came in 1978. Later he formed Gang War in Detroit with the MC5's Wayne Kramer. He died in New Orleans on April 23, 1991, aged 38, and the cause is still disputed.

Boston, guitar and drums

Mr. Airplane Man

Mr. Airplane Man is Margaret Garrett on vocals and guitar and Tara McManus on drums, childhood friends from the Boston area who started the band in the late 1990s with encouragement from Morphine's Mark Sandman. The Boston Phoenix voted them Best New Local Act in 1999. They took their name and their raw punk blues from Howlin' Wolf and made three albums for Sympathy for the Record Industry: Red Lite in 2001, Moanin' in 2002 and C'mon DJ in 2004. The last two were finished in Memphis with Greg Cartwright. After a hiatus they came back to the stage in 2014, the year Dirty Water Records put out The Lost Tapes, and released Jacaranda Blue in 2018.

Chatham, Kent, over 100 albums

Billy Childish

Billy Childish was born Steven John Hamper in Chatham, Kent, on 1 December 1959, and he still lives and works there. He left school at 16 with undiagnosed dyslexia, was turned down for an interview at the local art college and became an apprentice stonemason at Chatham Dockyard. Starting with the Pop Rivets in 1977, he went through Thee Milkshakes, Thee Mighty Caesars, Thee Headcoats, the Buff Medways and CTMF, and released more than 100 albums, from Talking 'Bout... Milkshakes in 1981 to Failure Not Success in 2023. He has published over 40 poetry collections as well. In 1999 he co-founded the Stuckism art movement with Charles Thomson, and Jack White once appeared on Top of the Pops with Childish's name on his arm.

Montreal to Berlin, psychedelic soul

King Khan

King Khan was born Arish Ahmad Khan in Montreal on January 24, 1977, and grew up in an Indo-Canadian family. In 1995 he joined the Spaceshits on bass, alongside singer Mark Sultan. Their shows were violent enough to get them blacklisted from many Montreal venues. In 1999 he started King Khan and the Shrines, a garage rock and psychedelic soul band whose albums include What Is?! in 2007 and Idle No More on Merge in 2013. With Sultan he also formed the duo the King Khan & BBQ Show, which made two albums for In the Red. He has lived in Berlin since 2005, and in 2009 he joined Sultan and the Black Lips in the gospel supergroup the Almighty Defenders.

Memphis, Greg Cartwright, 2001

Reigning Sound

Greg Cartwright, formerly of the Oblivians and the Compulsive Gamblers, started Reigning Sound in Memphis, Tennessee, in 2001. Break Up, Break Down came out that year on Sympathy for the Record Industry, then Time Bomb High School in 2002 and Too Much Guitar in 2004 on In the Red. That same year Cartwright moved his family to Asheville, North Carolina, and a new lineup came together around him. In 2007 the band backed Mary Weiss of the Shangri-Las on Dangerous Game, her first new album in over three decades. After Love & Curses and Shattered on Merge in 2014, Cartwright got the Memphis lineup back together in 2020, released A Little More Time with Reigning Sound in 2021 and ended the band in June 2022.

Dallas-born, 13th Floor Elevators

Roky Erickson

Roger Kynard Erickson was born in Dallas on 15 July 1947. In late 1965, aged 18, he co-founded the 13th Floor Elevators, who made The Psychedelic Sounds of the 13th Floor Elevators in 1966 and Easter Everywhere in 1967. After a breakdown in 1968 he was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. In 1969 he was arrested in Austin for a single joint, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity and was kept at Rusk State Hospital until 1972. He came back with the Aliens and The Evil One in 1981. R.E.M. and ZZ Top paid tribute on the 1990 album Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye, and in 2010 he made True Love Cast Out All Evil with Okkervil River. He died in Austin on 31 May 2019, aged 71.

Portland, Oregon, 1987

Dead Moon

Dead Moon formed in Portland, Oregon, in 1987, with Fred Cole on guitar, Toody Cole on bass, both of them singing, and Andrew Loomis on drums. The sound was stripped down, punk and country together, and the songs were dark and lovelorn. Fred engineered most of the records himself and mastered them on a mono recording lathe. Their own label, Tombstone Records, took its name from the Coles' music shop. In the Graveyard came out in 1988, and once they signed with Music Maniac most of their following came from Europe. After ten studio albums they played a last show in Groningen in November 2006, and the Coles kept going as Pierced Arrows. A reunion lasted from 2014 to 2017. Loomis died in 2016 and Fred Cole in 2017, both of cancer.

Detroit, two drummers, two basses

The Dirtbombs

The Dirtbombs started in Detroit as a side project for Mick Collins, formerly of the Gories, and were making records by 1995. What set them apart was the lineup: two drummers and two bass players around Collins's guitar. Plenty of Detroit musicians passed through over the years. Horndog Fest came out on In the Red in 1998. Ultraglide in Black, in 2001, was nearly all soul, R&B and Motown covers, with one original. Dangerous Magical Noise followed in 2003 and We Have You Surrounded in 2008. Party Store, in 2011, redid early Detroit techno and house as rock, and in September 2013 they at last released Ooey Gooey Chewy Ka-blooey!, the bubblegum record they had been promising for years.

The Collection