Garage-rock is an amorphous label, embracing virtually anything from the mid-1960s that sounds intense and energetic and isn’t overly polished. The term has been used interchangeably with punk-rock and has been applied to surf music, psychedelia and more. That’s one reason why you’ll find extremely disparate material on the three-CD Steppin’ Out: The Roots of Garage Rock 1963-1965.
Another is that the 2026 anthology’s compilers included the word “roots” in its title and used that as a rationale for featuring examples of folk-rock, frat-rock and other subgenres that arguably contributed to garage-rock’s rise. The set makes room for numbers as different as the Trashmen’s frenetic novelty hit, “Surfin’ Bird,” and the Lovin’ Spoonful’s “You Didn’t Have to Be So Nice,” a sweet midtempo pop number.
The good news is that for the most part, the 94-track anthology is as likable as it is varied. It features many of the best and best-known acts associated with early garage-rock, such as the Seeds and the Sir Douglas Quintet. It even includes a few tracks that were recorded and/or released after the time frame referenced in the album’s title, such as the 13th Floor Elevators’ “You’re Gonna Miss Me.”
(A 2024 companion box, Pushin’ Too Hard; American Garage Punk 1964-1967, delivers more essentials from a bit later in the decade, such as Love’s “My Little Red Book” and the Squires’ “Going All the Way.” Both sets omit a few other classics of the genre—the Swingin’ Medallions’ “Double Shot (of My Baby’s Love)” and the Syndicate of Sound’s “Little Girl,” for example—but you can find most of those on Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era.)
Related: Our review of a live concert celebrating the Nuggets compilation
You’ll probably recognize some of the tunes on Steppin’ Out, especially if you lived through the era it covers. The anthology offers such popular tunes as “Hanky Panky,” by Tommy James and the Shondells, “I Get Around,” by the Beach Boys and “Hang on, Sloopy,” by the McCoys, all of which topped the charts. Also featured are such Top 10 hits as the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie,” the Rip Chords’ “Hey, Little Cobra,” the Chantays’ “Pipeline,” the Marketts’ “Out of Limits,” Jan and Dean’s “Dead Man’s Curve,” the Gentrys’ “Keep on Dancing,” the Standells’ “Dirty Water,” the Shadows of Knight’s “Gloria,” the Rivieras’ “California Sun” and Mitch Ryder’s “Jenny Take a Ride.”
But while some of the compendium’s tracks scored commercially, this set also includes lots of lesser-known performances. Among those from luminaries are such numbers as “Gone for Bad,” a self-penned folk-rocker from the soon-to-be-famous Johnny Winter, the Byrds’ “You Movin’,” from their Preflyte collection and “Man with Money,” from the Everly Brothers’ relatively obscure Beat & Soul album.
You’ll also find more than a few songs from acts you’ve likely never heard of, such as the Twelfth Night, the Tropics, the Denims, Conrad and the Hurricanes, and the Actioneers. A surprisingly large number of these no-hit bands produced one or more songs that are well worth hearing, and this box puts them all in one place.
Steppin’ Out: The Roots of Garage Rock 1963-1965 was released on January 23, 2026. It’s available in the U.S. here, in Canada here and in the U.K. here.
Burger wrote one of the first interview-based profiles of Bruce Springsteen to be published in a national magazine. He has interviewed many other music-world luminaries as well, including Steve Van Zandt, Roger McGuinn, John Sebastian, Wolfman Jack, Tom Waits, Foreigner’s Mick Jones, Billy Joel, Steve Forbert, Tommy James, the Righteous Brothers, Gordon Lightfoot, Deep Purple’s Tommy Bolin, and members of Steely Dan and the Marshall Tucker Band. He has also interviewed many other public figures, such as Suze Orman, Daymond John, James Carville, Donald Trump, Sir Richard Branson, F. Lee Bailey, and Cliff Robertson.
His books include Dylan on Dylan: Interviews and Encounters, Lennon on Lennon: Conversations with John Lennon, Leonard Cohen on Leonard Cohen: Interviews and Encounters, and Springsteen on Springsteen: Interviews, Speeches, and Encounters, all of which are published in the U.S. and Canada by Chicago Review Press. The books have been republished in numerous other countries.
Burger has been the editor of several periodicals, including Business Jet Traveler, from which he retired in 2024. During his 20 years at that
publication, it received more than 120 major editorial awards, including multiple wins for the world’s Best Consumer Travel Magazine in the annual Folio:Eddie competition.
Burger lives in Ridgewood, New Jersey. His wife, Madeleine Beresford, is a puppeteer and former preschool director and teacher. The couple have two grown children.
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