What is the difference between Garage & Psych?
Psych = drug addicts playing music for drug addicts (recorded in a studio)
Garage = drug addicts recorded while praticing in their garage
I disagree. You do not need drugs, a garage, or a studio to make either of these genres.
Garage came first. Appeared in the early 60s, and peaked at '66. Psych was a little bit later although the two overlapped at one point.
Garage rock, was from guys who were just playing simple rock'n roll. cue: 'louie louie'. The Fender guitar was beggining to make its way into homes, and a million local bands started up accross the US (and yes mostly practiced in their garage hence the name). Since these guys were younger, their sound was a bit more aggressive, this is when distortion (ie fuzz) started to come in. Some may have been into drugs, but most were good teenagers who made it home before curfew.
It was these guys and their peers who later made the move to psych/drug music. The hippie stoner sceen was peaking around '68-'69 and that is when the best psych music came out. However, it should also be known that not all psych bands were on drugs.
Garage as a genre is really the style that certain bands in the late 70s thru mid 80s who were trying to get back to simple blues-based Rock and Roll ala the Count Five, the Seeds,Shadows of Knight, the Yardbirds, the Stones,etc. These 60s bands could be said to be 'garage bands', I guess, but they were really just white R&B combos who favored fuzz and feedback. As a response to punk and new wave, a whole bunch of bands attempted to recreate the fun and excitement(and often lamentably, the fashions) of 60s rock and roll, combining it with the energy and aggression of 70s Punk. The best of these garage bands (Fleshtones, DMZ/Lyres, the Real Kids, the Hypstrz, The Crawdaddys, the Chesterfield Kings, The Funseekers,many more-at least one good one from every region of the US and also plenty abroad) took their worship of all things 60s and applied it with depth and skill and actually had something to offer that could sit on the shelf next to their heroes. But when it was(and is) bad, Garage is the lamest excuse for narrow-minded trend-following, empty(often ugly)style-over-substance-no-talent-hacks to hang their 'musical' hat on and ply it under a marketable gimmick. The fans of this genre are by turns the most loyal, true-blue, exciting and knowledgeable folks you can ever meet, or astonishingly socially awkward and limited in just about all aspects. It can be a very frustrating genre to be creative in, because the things that make it the most exciting are also what squeezes and limits you in it's pursuit.
This explanation is by no means definitive, but coming from my personal experience in these types of bands in the late 80s early 90s. I guess I don't believe there is such a thing as 'definitive' when discussing genre.
Well said (from someone who knows...)
