My journey into collecting and loving ’60s garage rock began more than thirty years ago, long before I fully understood what the term meant. By then I was already a devoted fan of sixties music in general (The Beatles, Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, The Velvet Underground) and as I branched out to bands like The Pretty Things and The Kinks, I realised their most thrilling records carried a rawness that had been polished out of pop by the 1980s. I’d seen “garage rock” used in the music press, I remember a weekly paper applying it to the Velvets when they reformed in 1993, but I took it almost literally: music with the grit and ground‑level authenticity of a band rehearsing in an actual garage. In truth, my early‑twenties self was still navigating music through the big rock historians, following my instincts but completely unaware of garage rock as a distinct sub‑genre. When I did stumble across it, like Jane Wiedlin covering ‘I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night’ on TV, I knew I liked it, but I had no idea what it was.

When the door to garage rock finally swung open for me, it happened through an act of generosity I still think about decades later. I spent most weekends in the ’90s trawling Record Fairs, and while some dealers later took pleasure in reminding me that my CD compilations were nothing compared to their impossible‑to‑find original 45s, this encounter has stayed with me. At a fair in Southend, a seller kept spinning a vintage‑sounding rocker I did not recognise. By the fourth or fifth play, its savage electric‑keyboard motif had lodged itself firmly in my head, so I wandered over and asked what it was. “‘Thirteen Women’ by the Renegades,” he said, delighted that someone else had noticed it and continuing “it used to be a Bill Haley b-side, but this is version is so much better, it’s that keyboard riff, isn’t it?” He did not have a copy to sell, but he remembered which fair I’d be at next, turning up with a homemade cassette filled with that track and two sides of similar mid‑to‑late‑sixties gems. I loved almost all of them. That tape changed my musical life, and the sad truth is I cannot remember his name and never saw him again to thank him.

So, I spent the next few weeks driving around with that cassette a fixture in my pick-up trucks tape deck (an open backed truck not ideal for buying vinyl collections in certain weather conditions, but I mostly made it work) and let the fuzzy sounds wash over me. The band names included people like Destiny’s Children, Michel & The French Canadians and the Rockin’ Ramrods, I had not heard of any of them, but the music itself began to burn into my DNA. Foolishly I believed that there would be easily acquirable compilation albums enabling me to source better sound quality on these tunes, little did I know that such collections were scarce underground artefacts themselves and many that were available had a question mark over their legality. These were not albums re-mastered from the original studio tapes, often an old vinyl 45 would be the best source available meaning that, in quite a few cases, I already had the best fidelity audio available on my cassette. Finally, the handwritten track list on the tape cover was misleading because my mysterious friendly compiler had called it ‘The Gathered Grunge,’ which did not help. Maybe it was another curator attempting to connect the original garage scene with the current US grunge movement? Or was it the record dealer himself attempting to hook the younger generation (as I was back then)?

Initially I failed to find what I was looking for. The closest I came was a collection on the See For Miles label called ‘The Great British Psychedelic Trip’ which at least was in the right ballpark but, as I would later find out, UK Psychedelia from the same era is a whole other wormhole, for all the compatible cross pollination between bands across the Atlantic. Eventually I did hit my target and gain an entry level understanding that I was pursuing ‘garage rock’ from its original golden age, when browsing a compilation at a fair called ‘Pebbles.’ On this volume a track by The Nervous Breakdowns called ‘I Dig Your Mind’ leapt out at me because finally, I had found evidence that one of the tracks on my cassette actually existed in the debris of musical back catalogues, my tape was not some inexplicable glitch in record collecting consisting of songs that no one else could find or prove existed. Here it was, a route in, a long running series of albums absolutely rammed with similar buried treasures fuelled by the same uninhibited, primitive energy. And because it was the music that was important to me far more than rarity value, I dived head long into the ‘Pebbles’ series and never looked back. From there I moved to ‘Nuggets’ and the ‘English Freakbeat’ series on a road that still has no end. And the greatest thing about this underground movement is that, for me, there is always a thrilling new discovery waiting around the corner. Three decades later and it inspires the crate digger in me still.

What is it about sixties garage rock that hits me so hard? There are countless reasons, but the first is its sheer sense of life. In an age of clinical, airbrushed audio, these records breathe; you can feel the human touch in every dusty groove, and that rawness gives them a potency modern perfection can’t match. Then there is the creativity born from limitation. Most garage bands had no budget, no studio tricks, no string sections on call; if a song needed yearning or atmosphere, they simply sang the oohs and aahs themselves, proving that nothing is more emotive than the human voice. And crucially, these groups worshipped The Beatles, The Kinks and Dylan; songwriting mattered. That’s why tracks like The Brogues’ ‘I Ain’t No Miracle Worker’ or The Squires’ ‘Going All the Way’ still sound like pop classics waiting for their moment in the sun. This scene is full of gold: brilliant, unvarnished music built on timeless foundations, burning bright long after the moment of creation. For this mix show I have included as many of the tracks from that original cassette as I have been able to find over the past thirty years. Regrettably, the cassette itself seemed to vanish from my life about thirteen years ago amidst the upheaval of divorce. The only good thing about this is that I still, very occasionally, experience the adrenaline rush of sheer delight when chancing upon a long-lost track that I recognise from that tape. Kind of makes me hope that I never find all of them.

Danny Neill

Tracks – Fruit Tree Records – Sixties Garage Vol. 2

The Collectors – Destiny’s Children

Give Me Your Love – Beau Allen

I Can’t Keep From Crying Sometimes – The Blues Project

Bad Way To Go – The Bruthers

Bright Lit Blue Skies – The Rockin’ Ramrods

Never Thought You’d Leave Me – The Pleasure Seekers

Thirteen Women – The Renegades

Always Blue – 4th Ammendment

I Dig Your Mind – The Nervous Breakdowns

I’ll Keep Searching – The Ides Of March

‘Cause I Believe – Michel & The French Canadians

I Ain’t No Miracle Worker – The Brogues

Hey Conductor – Sonny Flaherty

I’m Five Years Ahead Of My Time – The Third Bardot

Green Fuz – Green Fuz

I Live In The Springtime – The Lemon Drops

It’s A Cryin’ Shame – Gentlemen

Going Away Baby – The Grains Of Sand

Voices Green And Purple – Bees

Iye – Fenwyck

Ain’t No Friend Of Mine – The Sparkles

No Good Woman – Tree

I Can’t Beat Your Drum – Fever Tree

I’m Cryin’ – Odd Persons