Book Description

If you were on the cusp, or right smack dab in the middle of adolescence during the 1960s, playing in a rock & roll group was the coolest fad around. TeenBeat Mayhem! is a historical account paying tribute to this unheralded musical class from that decade, one comprised of American teenagers who forged their own brand of homegrown rock & roll. The book relates how this nationwide craze exploded following the Beatles nationally televised debut on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964, how amateur and club-working groups were forced to update their sound to stay competitive, while young novices deftly practiced their craft to become energetic performing combos. You'll read accounts relating what it was like making a 45rpm record, and tales of summits and pitfalls which either fortified or broke a combo's collective spirit. It's a timeline account of the popular, regional and lesser-known groups who occupied different hierarchical levels, separated by age, life experience and musical ability, whirling around within a rapidly changing music scene.This entire era would have remained inconspicuous without the unbridled enthusiasm of a few record collectors and rock & roll fanatics. You'll learn how their pioneering efforts during the 1970s to champion awareness and appreciation for the multitudes of forgotten teenage groups flourished over time, ultimately leading to the categorization of a rock & roll sub-genre known worldwide as the sound of '60s garage. TeenBeat Mayhem! includes a meticulously detailed, 228 page 45rpm discography listing thousands of recording combos from A to Z, with monikers like the Rogues, Fugitives and Outcasts, to the more creative and unique: the Alarm Clocks, Zakary Thaks, and Dr. Spec's Optical Illusion; a song title index; reference sources; the Top 1000 "garage" songs depicted by color 45rpm record label scans, and other interesting features. Designed to mimic a high school yearbook of the period, TeenBeat Mayhem! is the first book of its kind geared toward record collectors, garage rock & roll fans, musicologists, neophytes and everyone curious to find out what really happened musically throughout America during the mid to late1960s.