Preface To Garage: What Is Garage Music?

Here are two musical descriptions of the word "garage":

(This is from Wikipedia: "Garage rock (also called '60s punk or garage punk) is a raw & energetic style of rock & roll that flourished in the mid-1960s, most notably in the United States & Canada, & has experienced various revivals since then. The style is characterized by basic chord structures played on electric guitars & other instruments, sometimes distorted through a fuzzbox, as well as often unsophisticated & occasionally aggressive lyrics & delivery. Its name derives from the perception that groups were often made up of young amateurs who rehearsed in the family garage, although many were professional."

The second (also defined in Wikipedia) is this: "Garage house (originally known as 'garage music'; also 'New York house') is a dance music style that was developed alongside house music. Garage, which had a more soulful R&B-derived sound, was developed in the Paradise Garage nightclub in New York City & Club Zanzibar in Newark, New Jersey, United States, during the early-to-mid 1980s. There was much overlap between it & early house music, making it difficult to tell the two apart. It predates the development of Chicago house, & according to All Music, is relatively closer to disco than other dance styles. As Chicago house gained international popularity, New York's garage music scene was distinguished from the 'house' umbrella. Garage led to other styles of music such as speed garage & UK garage."

Could this have led to any confusion?  Might record stores simply have a "garage" section where both genres (& their sub-genres) ended up?  I dunno, but I do have a story:

In the summer of 1997 (22 years ago!), I was working as the Programming Director at KVRX with a fellow named Chris, who did a house music show.  I don't recall its name.  I wasn't familiar with house, or any modern electronica, really, at the time, so he would talk to me about it & I would listen politely, not really having much interest then in the genre.  But he told me he was going to do a show about garage music.  That was something I knew something about, & wondered how he would manage to mix that into his general repetitive thumping with the occasional vocal.

He was nonplussed.  His idea of garage music was (as the second definition above notes) basically the same as house.  So he played me some garage music.  I laughed & told him that that wasn't garage music, & I played him "Pushin' Too Hard" by the Seeds & "Mr Pharmacist" by the Other Half.  No way was that garage music, he said.  I told him he predated his garage music by two decades & had to bring up a page on the web that traced the history of garage rock.

"Garage rock," he said, as if he'd won the argument.  "This is garage house."

"Don't just call it garage, then," I said.

It was a friendly disagreement.  He didn't like the kind of garage I liked.  I don't think I ever listened all the way through one of his shows.