Spin, October 1998
VARIOUS ARTISTS
Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts From the British
Empire & Beyond
Uncut, 2001
Lenny Kaye's 1972 anthology Nuggets was a
rock archivist's masterstroke, a feat of canon rewriting that deposed the post-Sgt Pepper's aristocracy and
elevated the forgotten garage punks of the mid-Sixties, from The Seeds to
Chocolate Watchband. Rhino's 1998 four-CD update of Nuggets
dramatically expanded the original double LP.
Now this latest instalment
extends the Nuggets premise beyond the USA to
encompass the one-hit-wonders and never-wozzers of mid-Sixties Britain: that
all-too-brief golden age of amphetamine-cranked R&B and mod-on-LSD that's
roughly bookended by "My Generation" and Cream's Disraeli Gears. Just the names of
these long-lost groups--Dantalion's Chariot, Wimple Winch, Rupert's People, The
Idle Race--induces a contact high, before you even play the discs.
Back then, singles made their point and left. This short 'n' sweet succinctness
allows the compilers to cram 109--that's one hundred and nine--tracks
into four discs. Here's just a handful of gems.
Tintern Abbey's "Vacuum Cleaner", with the saintly-sounding David MacTavish singing a proto-Spacemen 3 love-as-drug/drug-as-God lyric ("fix me up with your sweet dose/now I'm feeling like a ghost"), splashy cymbals, and a billowing solo of controlled feedback.
Them's "I Can Only Give You Everything": Van in I'm-A-Man mode, awesomely surly and swaggering.
The Sorrows's "Take A Heart": a Brit-Diddley locked groove of tumbling tribal toms and spaced-out-for-intensified-effect guitar-riffs.
The Eyes's "When The Night Falls" takes that drastic use of silence and suspense even further: powerchords like Damocles Swords, caveman tub-thumping, tongues-of-flame harmonica, and an insolent you-done-me-wrong/go-my-own-way vocal.
Fire's "Father's Name Was Dad," a classic misunderstood teen
anthem: society gets the blame and the kid surveys Squaresville from a lofty
vantage, cries "I laugh at it all!"
One group stands out as a "why?-why?!?-were-they-never-MASSIVE?" mystery.
Not The Creation, and not The Action--both had terrific songs but were a little characterless.
No, I'm talking about John's Children's. Their two offerings here are astoundingly deranged, the monstrously engorged fuzzbass like staring into a furnace, the drums flailing and scything like Keith Moon at his most smashed-blocked.
"Desdemona" features the then shocking chorus "lift up your skirt and fly", daft lines about Toulouse-Lautrec painting "some chick in the rude" plus the stutter-bleat of a young Bolan on backing vox.
"A Midnight Summer's Scene" captures mod
sulphate-mania on the cusp of mutating into flower power acid-bliss: it's a
febrile fantasy of Dionysian mayhem in an after-dark park, maenad hippy-chicks
with faces "disfigured by love", strewing "petals and
flowers," prancing the rites of Pan.
John's Children's merger of cissy and psychotic highlights the major difference
between American garage punk and British "freakbeat" (as reissue
label Bam Caruso dubbed it for their illustrious Rubble
compilation series). The Limey stuff is way fey compared with the Yanks. You
can hear a proto-glam androgyny, a "soft boy" continuum that takes in
Barrett and Bolan, obviously, but also the queeny-dandy aristocrat persona of
Robert Plant.
At the same time, because these bands were schooled in R&B
and played live constantly, the music has a rhythmic urgency and aggressive
thrust that gradually faded over subsequent decades from the psychedelic
tradition (think of Spiritualized's drum-phobic ethereality). This, though, was
music for dancing as much as wigging out.
Nuggets II isn't solid gold.
There's a slight surfeit of boppy shindig-type rave-ups and sub-Yardbirds blues
that just ain't bastardized enough. Personally I crave more tunes with truly
over-the-top guitar effects, aberrant bass-heavy mixes, phased cymbals, drastic
stereo separation, and other psych-era cliches.
The "British Empire" part of the subtitle allows in Australia's The Easybeats (godstars for the duration of "Friday On My Mind") while the "Beyond" pulls in groovy Latin American acid-rockers Os Mutantes.
But to be honest, a lot of
the Commonwealth-and-beyond stuff just ain't that hot. And inevitably one could
compile another 2-CDs out of heinous omissions. Forget the quibbles, though,
this box is a treasure chest of vintage dementia.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Pointedly not reviewed: Nuggets 3, which was a selection of 80s-onwards garage revivalism.
