garage rock

The Hombres
Let It Out (Verve/Forecast FTS-3036)
1967

This is one of the great American garage albums that just don’t give a hoot.  A Memphis combo, the Hombres opted for the lighter side of garage-punk.  The Hombres’ album cover (which is their only album cover since no record label was brave enough to release another record by them) is an obvious reference to the Trashmen’s Surfin’ Bird LP, released in ’64, which shows the infamous surf band from Minneapolis clustered around a garbage truck.

Ironically, the Hombres had originally intended to be a surf band.  In 1967, they traveled through Houston posing as a pop version of a West Coast surf group and somehow got tangled up with Texas producer Huey Meaux.  In ’65, Meaux had already transformed a band of San Antonio punksters into an ersatz British Invasion act, the Sir Douglas Quintet (featuring a very young Doug Sahm).  And so, with the Hombres, Meaux saw an opportunity for reshaping the rebellion of a garage band into a comedic sensibility.

I’m not sure whatever happened to this guys, but they're probably out there somewhere on the Internet still trying to make a go of it like the rest of us.

Hackamore Brick released one amazing album, this one, and then were never really heard from again. Which is a shame because Hackamore Brick remains the precursor to all the NY punk that came later–The Ramones, The New York Dolls, Patti Smith, and so on.

In fact, Hackamore Brick remains the authentic link between ’60s garage-punk and the punk that would ignite Great Britain in the late ’70s.

I know, I know–this band is a little bit more mellow than all those guys. Nevertheless, their lackadaisical attitude to all things mainstream gives them an edge. The only American band that I can think of that ranks with them in pre-punk stature would be those ever-lovin' Flamin’ Groovies.