To find out what American garage rock looks like (and to know what it’s like to be in an independent band) right now, VBS toted a bunch of cameras around the USA and found a scene that was vibrant, loud, eloquent, effed-up, and nearly impossible to define. The musicians, artists, writers, deejays and label owners that we talked to could only be united by a single common thread—their commitment to music that they enjoyed, on their terms, at whatever cost necessary (or, in some cases, unnecessary). We met nice, smart, funny people who love rock and roll, don’t traffic in B.S., and had the wherewithal to pick up a guitar (or complementary instrument) at some point in their young lives, put their face to a microphone, and manage to not think too hard about what was going to come out. Join us for Part One of New Garage Explosion!! With a nod to the genre’s founding fathers (bands like The Lollipop Shoppe and MC5), we travel first to Memphis to mind-meld with Magic Kids and to go head-to-head with Jay Reatard in the last interview he filmed before his death in January of this year. Next we hit Detroit, where watch The Dirtbombs wreck a bowling alley and talked to Dave Buick about the power of the hand-printed record.