Garage Flower have become something of a whipping boy this summer for the self-appointed taste guardians and superior musos keen to demonstrate how clever they are because they once listened to Trout Mask Replica all the way through.
Working-class northerners shouldn’t make music, they seem to intone. And if they insist on doing so, it certainly shouldn’t sound like this.
Garage Flower probably don’t care.
For them, it’s been a summer of raucous gigs, growing crowds and a Top Three single. Much, presumably, to the chagrin of their detractors.
They certainly wear their influences tightly on their Fred Perry sleeves. Oasis and Madchester are present and correct, but what the naysayers fail to account for is that these are jumping-off points rather than a destination. Summer comes armed with an infectious swagger and huge chiming guitars that occasionally owe as much to Ride and the shoegaze generation as they do to the brothers Gallagher.
And then there’s the song itself.
Summer is about those heady days that seem to stretch forever when you’re young. Beer and barbecues. A kick-about in the park. Someone has brought a speaker. Nobody knows what time it is. Nobody particularly cares. Tomorrow is sufficiently distant to be somebody else’s problem.
Mostly, though, it’s about jumping around madly with your mates and celebrating the fairly extraordinary business of simply being alive.
It can be about anything you want, really.
Just make sure it’s loud.
There’s a pleasing historical echo here. The Stone Roses began life in a similar fashion, stumbling through covers, prog remnants and gothic guitar riffs over rolling drums before gradually discovering the band they were going to become. Crucially, they had the luxury of doing much of that away from the glare. They used The Garage Flowers as a nom de plume when producing. Things come full circle.
Nobody expected every formative move to be documented. Nobody filmed every gig from seventeen different angles and uploaded it before the band had packed away their amps. Half-formed songs weren’t instantly presented to a global jury for marks out of ten. Bands were allowed to be unfinished.
Garage Flower don’t have that luxury.
Instead, they’ve taken up the Roses baton and worked with the world they were handed. After several years toiling under another moniker, they reinvented themselves sometime around 2025 and proceeded to play the modern music machine at its own game.
There’s an object lesson here for every young band desperately trying to manufacture a breakthrough.
Bide your time. Hone your craft. Build.
Then kick the door in.
In a few years Garage Flower may look back at these records as naïve outpourings of youthful enthusiasm, snapshots of the band they were before they became something else.
Or perhaps they won’t care.
That might be the healthier option.
Rock ’n’ roll was never designed to satisfy people who believe music should be approached like a wine tasting. It was supposed to annoy people. Frighten a few. Make teenagers jump around and occasionally cause someone considerably older to complain that the previous generation did it better.
By that measure, Garage Flower are doing just fine.
Job done.
Garage Flower continue to play live across the UK in 2026 including supporting fellow bete noirs of self appointed musos, The Molotovs, on multiple dates of their current tour
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