Various Artists
Nuggets (Rhino)
by Marc Hirsh
Various Artists
Nuggets (Rhino)
by Marc Hirsh
originally published in Space City Rock, Fall 1999
The Beatles touched down on U.S. soil on February 7, 1964, and everything changed. Everybody knows about all of the innovators: the Byrds, the Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, the Mamas and the Papas, Otis Redding, Motown. But what about all of those who were content to follow in the footsteps of their new heroes, who didn't want to be the "next" anything but just the local version of the Beatles, Stones and Yardbirds? The answer to that question is on this marvelously expanded edition of Lenny Kaye's Nuggets collection, a snapshot of the most glorious dead end American rock 'n' roll ever backed itself into.
Countless rock histories point to the original Nuggets album, released in 1972 as a double LP and included here in its entirety as disc one, as both the first serious (i.e., not quick and cheap) oldies package and the first real critical acknowledgement of mid-'60s garage punk. It was one thing to enjoy the kicks of the Knickerbockers' "Lies" (still the best and most deadly accurate Beatles rip ever) and the Electric Prunes' shuddering "I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night" at the time; it was quite another to declare that they were worthy of preservation years after the fact. Time, of course, has been kind to the genre: countless contemporary bands aim for the sound and attitude of the bands here (without, interestingly, being able to expand on it in any substantial way) and it's easy to find full-lengthers by many of the participants (well, not impossible, anyway).
Still, even die-hard garagists most likely don't have everything here (who doesn't have a 45 of the Human Expression's "Optical Sound" in their stacks?), and certainly not on CD. And a neophyte with a lot of money to drop and a desire to cover as much ground as possible right from the start won't find a single better place to start (until Rhino issues disc one as a self-contained unit). Over the course of 4 discs are just about every single great garage record from the mid-'60s: "Dirty Water," "Psychotic Reaction," "7 and 7 Is," "Laugh Laugh," "Double Shot (Of My Baby's Love)," "She's About A Mover," "Little Bit O'Soul," "I Want Candy" and more. The beauty here is that the songs you know serve as anchors throughout, giving you someplace to rest after navigating uncharted territory. And you know more of these songs than you might realize, both in their original forms and in the countless covers that have popped up throughout the years (a quick mental scan notes versions of Nuggets tracks by the Bangles, the Undertones, Bow Wow Wow, the Divinyls, the Cars, Neil Young and Jimi Hendrix).
Don't be afraid of the unfamiliar, though. One of the beauties of a set like this is getting it for the songs you know and then digging deeper into unknown songs and bands. And there's certainly plenty of obscure but excellent cuts here by bands like the Remains, the Dovers, the Rare Breed, Clefs of Lavender Hill and the Brigands. Also check out familiar faces in not-so-familiar guises: Warren Zevon doing the hippie folk-rock thing in Lyme & Cybelle, future Mountain king Leslie West showing off his soul chops in the Vagrants' cover of "Respect," Captain Beefheart pounding through damn near the rumbliest blues you've ever heard ("Diddy Wah Diddy") and Creedence Clearwater Revival in toto, disguised as their earlier Golliwogs incarnation and blasting through "Fight Fire" like it was their last chance. And then there are the flat-out oddities: the Monks' lockstep "Complication," the Elastik Band's truly evocative "Spazz" (which mixes fuzztone guitar, carnival organ and Beefheartian drums like they were meant to be wedded), Kim Fowley's "The Trip" (which finds the future Runaways svengali free-associating from line to line in a more wigged-out version of what John Lennon would do several years later in "Dig It") and, possibly the most bizarre thing I've heard in years, the Barbarians' "Moulty," in which singer/drummer/unidexter Victor Moulton describes the accident that cost him his hand and looks for that special girl who'll fill the void in his soul, while a backing group which may or may not be the Band (the as-ever-for-Rhino extensive and wonderful liner notes are unclear on this issue) pounds away at what sounds like a demented version of "Hang On Sloopy." It is absolutely brilliant.
It's amazing how much mileage there was to get out of a fat bass, a fuzztone guitar, a dinky organ and a double-time raveup (with a bit of jangle thrown in, here and there). There is certainly more here than anyone could possibly love, and I'd be lying if I claimed that there weren't a few snoozers here and there. But the brilliance of this music is that it's like the famous Chicago weather: if you don't like it, stick around for 3 minutes and it'll change (besides, it's good not to get too overstimulated over the course of five hours). And sure, there are a few major milestones that are MIA: the two obvious ones that I can spot are the Monkees' "Stepping Stone" (hey, they may have been phonies, but they were dead-on phonies) and, inexplicably, "96 Tears" by ? and the Mysterians, which defined the genre as far as I'm concerned, even moreso than "Wooly Bully" or "Louie Louie," both included here. Still, when the alternatives are along the lines of Gonn's devastating "Blackout of Gretely" or the apocalyptic "Shape of Things to Come" by Max Frost & The Troopers (which was a puppet band for Brill Building hacks, for God's sake), well, even the star has to step back sometimes to let the supporting players have their moments.