Randy Bachman

If you've never heard "Takin' Care of Business" by Randy Bachman's old band Bachman Turner Overdrive, you're either a recently released cloister nun or a communist. Bachman's brand of everyday, blue-collar rock is the back-bone of Classic Hits programming nation-wide and often goes unrecognized as low-brow, simple-minded stuff. But the truth is that Randy Bachman is one of the only real Garage Rockers there is today. All those revivalist poseurs with their leather jackets and hair gel have nothing on this guy. Examples: anybody who's ever been in a band has played a BTO song at some point; the Indie-core band Hardship Post did an un-ironic split 7" with him a couple of years ago; and legend has it that he once filled a stadium with local guitar players and they all jammed on "Takin' Care of Business" at once! So there ya go. Forget Andy Kaufman, this guy's the real performance art genius. His best solo stuff is in collaboration with Neil Young, another aging Garage god -- together they make sloppy, unapologetic crap-rock celebrating Mother Canada and pure noise.