There is good garage rock, you just have to dig for it

I love garage rock and am actually pretty glad that it's getting a resurgence in popularity. The downside, alas, is that most of the stuff that actually gets popular sucks. But there's one band that's worth checking out called The Downbeat 5. They are from Boston and the lead singer is an itty bitty woman with a big growly voice.

The lead singer and guitarist is named Jennifer D'Angora. I probably would have heard of them eventually, considering that the lead guitarist was also in The Queers. But luckily, I didn't have to wait because my boyfriend grabbed their disc randomly and we both fell in love with it. Gritty, cool garage rock without a whiff of self-consciousness. We particularly fell for D'Angora's voice--if only there had been more female singers with her badass vocal stylings in the 60's then garage rock probably would have never faded.

We got a good chance to see them perform at Beerland a couple of years ago, and may I say it was a fucking fantastic show. Both my boyfriend and myself were swooning over D'Angora. She seriously is only about 5'2" and the stage at Beerland sits low so it was almost impossible to even see her unless you were right at the front, which we were. Despite this, she owned the place. It was such a good show that nearly a year later I made friends with one of the bartenders there by bonding over what a good show it was.

So check them out. If you like garage rock, you'll love them. If you don't, you probably will after listening to their album.