Tasty Nuggets (Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968)

Member Name: cswann

Product:	Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968
Date:	09/10/00 (72 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: More pop gems than you knew existed

Disadvantages: What?

Here's proof that the best music doesn't always make the charts.
"Nuggets" a 4 CD Boxed set, and it's one of only a handful of CDs that I've ever paid full price for - and it's worth every penny.
It's American psychedelic/garage pop from the 60s (lots of fuzzy guitars, lots of screaming, lots of testosterone...), and by and large they weren't hits.
But I'm a big fan of this kind of stuff, and trusted the compilers (Gary Stewart and Lenny Kaye) and Rhino so much, I knew it would be essential listening.

Let's see... which songs may be familiar? The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie", the Electric Prunes' "I had too much to dream (last night)"; the Castaways' "Liar Liar" (on the soundtracks of "Good Morning Vietnam" and "Lock Stock and two Smoking Barrels"); The Thirteenth Floor Elevators'"You're Gonna Miss Me" (first song in the movie "High Fidelity"); Sam the Sham and the Pharoahs' "Wooly Bully"; Sir Douglas Quintet's "She's about a mover"; Love's "7 and 7 is".
There's "I want Candy" by The Strangloves (later covered by Bow Wow Wow).
Okay, those are the (almost) famous tracks - if you like any of them, you'll LOVE this boxed set. But watch out, it could blow your mind - there's just so many gems? nuggets, in fact?. that you'll wonder how you managed before you'd heard them. Well, that's how I felt after listening to them, anyway.

It's the rawness, and enthusiasm that comes over, first and foremost. The bands made these recordings for the love of it, maybe to impress the girls too, and no doubt with dreams of money and success - but you can tell they loved playing the music.
There's a definite R & B influence to many of the songs, with fuzzy guitars galore evident in The Sonics, the Chocolate Watchband (amaz
ingly like the Rolling Stones) and the Standells, for example. "Oh Yeah" by The Shadows of Night is another song with a great blues riffs - but listening to this song you also realise that the same riff was used in David Bowie's "Jean Genie" too. There is undeniably the influence of drugs as well - most evident on songs like Kim Fowley's "The trip" and The Other Half's "Mr Pharmacist".
Then there's the more beat influenced pop - the Knickerbockers were very like the Beatles.
I have so many favourites that there is no point listing them. Well, maybe a few: The Brabarians' "Moulty" (song about overcoming adversity from a one-armed drummer); Fenwyck's "Mindrocker", sounding like 70s glamrock, ahead of its time? better stop, as I'll end up listing the whole set! There's only a couple of songs on here that I don't like (by the Amboy Dukes, who were just too experimental/ heavy metal for me), and out of 118 songs that's pretty unbelievable. Apart from this, the only other drawback I am aware of is that there are some not very PC lyrics - the to be expected (for the 60s) sexist things, and "Spazz" ("people gonna think you're spazz") is pretty bad too.
There's an excellent booklet, with detailed information on all the tracks. In some cases the tracks are so rare that there are gaps, though (the band members of The Brigands are "unknown"). The original Nuggets double album, released in 1972, was followed by at least a dozen follow up selections, and there are some not included in this CD set, presumably for lack of space. I think they should have included Bobby Fuller's "Let her dance" and Boyce & Hart's "I wonder what she's doing tonight", but that's just a tiny niggle.
It's wonderful that these songs have been so lovingly compiled and released for our enjoyment today.

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