1966 was a pretty epic, downright revolutionary time in the history of music. Between The Beatles’ mind-bending studio wizardry on Revolver, Bob Dylan capturing that self-described “thin wild mercury sound” on Blonde on Blonde, and the seeds of psychedelic rock starting to sprout all around, it’s easy to forget about another genre taking root back then: garage-rock. One of the first bands to pioneer that sound, ever so subtly, was The Easybeats, whose debut single, “Friday on My Mind,” effectively became the first international hit to ever come out of Australia at the time.
Again, it’s subtle, but if you look beyond the corny Beatle haircuts and poppy exuberance that was characteristic of many bands of that era, you can detect a certain rawness that was effectively the sound of garage-rock being born. Also, it’s hard to believe the band’s George Young is the older brother of Malcolm and Angus Young of AC/DC. This lost footage of the band performing that aforementioned single on Tops of the Pops is a great example of that. Plus, with the upcoming Memorial Day weekend in our sights here in the States, seems like a fitting selection to boot:
