NUGGETS at 50

The Guardian speaks with Lenny Kaye and some of the musicians included on NUGGETS, as the 50th anniversary of its release arrives: [www.theguardian.com].

Thanks for posting this. Nuggets is the Great American Songbook!

It seems strange now that NUGGETS included music which was released only 4 or 5 years prior to the compilation, but which was greeted as a major revelation from the past in 1972. Time sure moved faster then.

That is curious from our vantage point, but it might be because the rock mainstream didn't really know much about this type of music. Keep in mind that the mid-'60s were dominated by English bands releasing albums, and these were singles by American groups. Most of the selections were regional. If they were a hit at all, many were on a local level. And "Nuggets" emphasized the hard-rockin garage aspects (I think the word "punk" is actually used in the liners) of music that came out during the time of folk-rock and increasingly "poetic" lyrics, epic arrangements, concept albums, etc. "Nuggets" presented another side to the mid-'60s story that had been under everyone's noses, but was overlooked.

For those of you with Qobuz, here is nice playlist of a lot of those tunes. Plan on jamming out on this over the weekend. Thanks for the reminder!!

Nuggets I and II

This anniversary came just in time, as I was scheduled to guest-host Jerry Bennett's program "From Here to Obscurity" last night. The third and fourth blocks came directly off the Nuggets compilation.

"Makin' Time" - The Creation
"A Question of Temperature" - Balloon Farm (by request)
"Can't Help Thinking About Me" - Davy Jones & the Lower Third
"Beginning at the End" - Chicago Loop
"The People in Me" - The Music Machine

"Fly My Paper Airplane" - The Mourning Daze
"The Life I Live" - Q-65
"Acid Head" - Velvet Illusions
"Your Body Not Your Soul" - Cuby & the Blizzards

"Let's Talk About Girls" - The Chocolate Watchband
"Respect" - The Vagrants
"My World Fell Down" - Sagittarius
"A Public Execution" - Mouse & the Traps
"It's A-Happening" - The Magic Mushrooms
"No Time Like the Right Time" - The Blues Project

"Baby Please Don't Go" - The Amboy Dukes
"An Invitation to Cry" - The Magicians
"Just Like Romeo and Juliet" - Michael & the Messengers
"Sugar and Spice" - The Cryan Shames

"Pictures of Matchstick Men" - Status Quo (by request)
"Wait for Tomorrow" - The Barracudas
"Baron Saturday" - The Pretty Things (by request)
"Force Myself" - Long Richard

"The Witch" - The Sonics
"Bad Times" - The D-Coys
"Crawdaddy Simone" - The Syndicats
"The Loved One" - The Loved Ones

"Sorry" - The Easybeats
"No Presents for Me" - Pandemonium
"I Don't Think I'll Call You Again" - The Bridge
"Bat Macumba" - Os Mutantes

"You Can Live It Up But You Can't Live It Down" - Rick's Continentals
"Riot on Sunset Strip" - The Standells
"I'm Your Witch Doctor" - The Chants R&B
"The Eagle Never Hunts the Fly" - The Music Machine
"Shadows & Reflections" - The Action

I got the first "Nuggets" CD in the mid 80s that Rhino put out but it's not strictly canonical.

It seemed based on the Kaye compilation with only six songs crossing over.

That 4xCD box should probably be in house! I can truly say that without "Nuggets," most of the bands I saw in the 90s would not have existed. Arty Post-Punk was DOA that decade, and Garage Rock became my lifeline. Not my favorite thing, but it'll do!

It was crazy that Kaye wanted to call it "Rockin' and Reelin' USA!" Ouch. He said that Jac Holzman was adamant it be called "Nuggets!" Good call, Jac. It's interesting that most of those Nuggets bands were trying to be low rent Jaggers in their small ponds and ended up defining something possibly more lasting than that!

Former TP subscriber [81, 82, 83, 84]

[postpunkmonk.com]
For further rumination on the Fresh New Sound of Yesterday®



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 10/06/2022 11:54AM by Post-Punk Monk.

Lenny Kaye also wanted to release these tracks as a series of albums, rather than the 2-LP set that Jac Holzman insisted on. Given that the 1972 Nuggets didn't exactly rush out of the record stores in shoppers' bags, that probably was a good choice.

Rhino picked up on the multiple-album series approach in the '80s, though. That's where I discovered most of the Nuggets canon. Those twelve vinyl albums were divided into sub-genres, along with a couple of regional collections. (Even among all twelve of those releases, though, they didn't pick up on all the songs on the original double-album.)