>>Garage bands of the Pacific Northwest and their edge, came from a far tougher environment.<<

This is a contrived statement. Anybody who could play had a garage band. My older brother played in one during that era, I played in a few when I was older and my younger bro did likewise. None of us were that tough. That's like saying all rappers come from the ghetto, have done time in prison and pack heat everywhere they go. That might have been the case for a few but not for the vast majority.

Not everybody in a garage band was a greaser with a leather jacket getting in chain fights with rival gangs.

Bubblegum music was "garage light" and whether you care to admit it or not, you had your favorite gumball tunes. You can deny it all you want but you had em and you played em because that's what the chickies wanted to hear. Just like a friend of mine who played in a rock band who did a pretty cool assortment of songs but one song they did was "Achy Breaky Heart." Why? Because everywhere they played, people wanted to hear it--especially the women, so they could dance to it. The band hated the song but they HAD to learn it because everybody wanted to hear it. If his band didn't learn it, people would hire other bands that did. No getting around it.

My older brother--whose band was PURE garage and the leader of which was a straight up JD greaser--hated gum for the most part and yet I remember him constantly playing the Monkee's "I Want To Be Free" so he could play it in an acoustic set.

So come off your high horses and admit it--you listened to gum too, you couldn't have avoided it--and you had your favorite gum songs.