Various – Steppin’ Out: The Roots of Garage Rock 1963–1965
Rock ’n’ roll was still a toddler when the kids on ‘Steppin’ Out: The Roots of Garage Rock 1963–1965’ started treating it like a battlefield. That’s the image that kept coming back to me while listening to this sprawling, 94‑track set: one of those World War II strategy maps you see in old films, where generals push tiny wooden battalions across continents with long sticks. Except here, the battalions are teenage bands, and the “front lines” are basements, rec rooms, after‑hours radio stations, in assorted Bumsuk, Idaho-type locales and whatever local studio would let them in for twenty bucks and a promise to be quick.
You can practically see the arrows spreading across the map: Pacific Northwest fuzz advancing southward, Texas weirdness flanking from the right, California surf‑garage divisions sweeping inland, New York oddballs tunnelling in from the east. The ‘Dad’s Army’ intro with reverb. None of these kids knew they were part of a larger campaign, but together they were infiltrating new musical territory faster than the culture could redraw the borders.
That’s the real thrill of ‘Steppin’ Out’. It captures the moment when American youth culture began mutating in parallel, without permission, without coordination, and without any sense of what it might become. Hips that were deemed offensive essentially moments ago were now thrusting wildly in every direction. Rock ’n’ roll was barely a decade old, still figuring out its posture and its haircut, and yet here are bands already distorting it, corrupting it, and accidentally inventing entire subgenres in the process.
If Cherry Red’s earlier box ‘Pushin’ Too Hard’ documented the mid‑60s garage explosion, ‘Steppin’ Out’ is the prelude: the troop movements before the big offensive, the skirmishes that set the stage for the full‑scale invasion. It’s the sound of a country discovering that three chords and a cheap microphone could be a weapon, a release valve, or at least a decent way to get invited to more parties.
What’s immediately striking is how fast everything was evolving. The Sonics’ ‘The Witch,’ recorded in 1964, still sounds like a controlled demolition, a blast of proto‑punk fury that feels almost too modern for its own timeline. The Trashmen’s ‘Surfin’ Bird’ remains a delirious, unhinged masterpiece, a dadaist meltdown that somehow became a Top 5 hit. Could this ever be a hit in today’s climate? What even is a hit? The Beau Brummels’ ‘Don’t Talk to Strangers’ hints at the jangle‑pop sophistication that would soon define the West Coast folk‑rock boom, genres that had barely found their feet being bastardised. Even the more polished acts – The Byrds, The Everly Brothers, The Lovin’ Spoonful – sound like they’re testing the tensile strength of pop music, stretching it until it frays and popping pills in the gaps.
But the real story here isn’t just sonic innovation. It’s regionalism. The intensely local, almost parochial nature of early garage rock defied anything like a national movement and brought the terror to every street corner. There were no magazines documenting it, no touring circuits connecting the dots, no sense of a shared identity. Instead, garage rock was a thousand tiny uprisings happening in parallel, each shaped by geography, access, and accident.
Kids in Tacoma weren’t comparing notes with kids in Tampa. Bands in Texas weren’t aware that New York teenagers were hammering out their own brand of proto‑punk. Most of the groups on this set never toured beyond their city limits. Many released a single 45, maybe two, before dissolving back into school, work, or the draft. You get the impression that in later life, many of them had no recollection of this micro-period of their formative years. And yet those singles – often pressed in microscopic quantities and sold at local dances – have outlived them all. They sound fresher, stranger, and more alive than half the bands who had major‑label budgets. This is pure cultural history – if you’d only ever known about it without hearing it, you’d never have believed it.
‘Steppin’ Out’ maps this patchwork beautifully. The Pacific Northwest is represented by its usual suspects – The Sonics, The Wailers – whose raw, aggressive sound would later be recognised as a direct ancestor of punk and a direct lineage to the music of that region twenty-odd years later. California contributes surf‑garage hybrids like The Astronauts’ reverb‑drunk ‘Baja’, and The Surfaris’ storm‑chasing ‘Storm Surf’, while Indiana’s The Rivieras’ ses them sun‑burnt on their hols with ‘California Sun’. Texas, always a fertile breeding ground for musical oddballs, gives us The Chevelle V’s frantic ‘Come Back Bird,’ The Spades’ swaggering ‘We Sell Soul,’ and the early stirrings of psychedelic weirdness that would soon blossom into the 13th Floor Elevators. New York adds its own brand of attitude via The Groupies and The Primates, while Florida’s proto‑psych underbelly emerges through The Tropics and The Twelfth Night.
Each region had its own flavour, its own mythology, its own limitations…and those limitations often made the music better. When you only have one mic, one amp, and one take, you commit, and when you commit, you can hear the sweat on your lip and the bile coming back up your oesophagus. When you’re not trying to impress a label, you take risks. When you’re not thinking about longevity, you play like the moment is all that matters. That’s why these tracks still feel so immediate: they were made by kids who didn’t know they were making history.
The hits included here – and there are many – serve as cultural anchors. ‘Pipeline,’ ‘Louie Louie,’ ‘Surfin’ Bird,’ ‘California Sun,’ ‘I Get Around,’ ‘Hang On Sloopy,’ ‘Dirty Water,’ ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me.’ These songs are part of the American musical DNA, instantly recognisable even to listeners who couldn’t name the bands behind them. But what’s refreshing is how naturally they sit alongside the obscurities. There’s no sense of hierarchy. A national Top 5 hit and a privately pressed local single are treated with equal respect because in the world of garage rock, both matter.
Garage rock wasn’t a genre at the time; it was a reaction, a feeling, a need. Kids heard The Beatles or The Stones or The Kinks and thought, “We can do that.” And then they did it, not always, I might add, very well. They copied riffs imperfectly, misheard lyrics, pushed their amps too hard, and stumbled into new sounds by mistake. The result is music that feels unfiltered, unpretentious, and strangely modern. You can draw a straight line from many of these tracks to punk, indie rock, lo‑fi, and every kid who opts to give it a go themselves because The Man just ruins everything.
Take The Misunderstood, whose two tracks here (‘She Got Me’ and ‘Bury My Body’) sound like dispatches from a future where garage rock and psychedelia have already merged. The Animals with added animals. Or The Dovers, whose ‘I Could Be Happy’ is a fragile, yearning gem that anticipates the dreamier side of 60s pop. Or The Gas Co.’s ‘Blow Your Mind’, which does exactly what the title promises.
What’s most moving about ‘Steppin’ Out’ is the sense of possibility it captures. These bands weren’t thinking about careers or legacies. They weren’t strategising. They weren’t building brands. They were responding to a cultural spark, whether it was the British Invasion, surf culture, R&B, or the folk revival, and making something of their own. Something local. Something fleeting. Something that, against all odds, survived.
And that survival is part of the magic. Many of the musicians on this set never knew their songs would be rediscovered. Some probably assumed their 45s were lost forever. Yet here they are, sixty years later, sounding sharper and more alive than ever. Not because they were preserved in amber, but because chaos ages better than polish. Because enthusiasm outlasts expertise. Because sometimes the most enduring cultural movements begin with kids who don’t know the rules and therefore break them instinctively.
‘Steppin’ Out’ is a map of a country mid‑mutation, a portrait of American youth culture before the marketing departments arrived. A reminder that rock ’n’ roll’s most exciting moments often come from the edges, from the amateurs, from the kids who didn’t wait for permission. Everything in music is cyclical. At some point, this must surely happen again. Godspeed.
Daz Lawrence