What does the term “garage rock” conjure up for you? Perhaps it’s the wave of young upstarts in the 1960s who comprise the genre’s original incarnation. The Wailers, The Pretty Things, and countless other groups of rebellious youngsters making primitive, minimally-produced noise in American suburbia. These bands became a-dime-a-dozen, and would sparkle and fade — or not sparkle at all — before dying out. If they were lucky, they racked up a small fanbase. And if their fans were lucky, the bands would leave one or two bootleg recordings before “creative differences” or sheer apathy led to their hasty demise.

Fast-forward 40 years: as the breakUps — Ted Townshend, Dan McNabb, Carrie Ferguson and Greg Shook — are attempting to recreate the ’60s garage rock mien: amateurish, low-tech, and shortlived. About six months ago, drummer Greg, who is into indie rock, and keyboardist Carrie, who is more of an alt-country type, joined forces with guitarist Dan and bassist Ted, whose shared love of gritty ’60s rock brought them together a few years back. The gang of four started rehearsing together and working on covers of the obscure songs beloved by Dan and Ted. Soon the breakUps landed a couple gigs at the Galaxy Hut in Arlington, and tried out some original material as well.

These guys are refreshingly unambitious: they have no plans to release a record or any other merchandise, under the assumption that nobody would buy it anyway. If this sounds defeatist, think of it as realism: the breakUps know that they will probably never be popular outside of their circle of friends, and they don’t want to pony up the cash to print 200 t-shirts that will likely end up growing mold in their basement closets.