| Double LP version. Internationally labeled as "nuggets" (after the original compilation of the same name concocted by Jac Holzman and Lenny Kaye in 1972 for the Elektra label), the more common garage rock label has been used to place and describe one of the most fertile chapters of rock & roll history during its most creative years. An underground story which has luckily become known, with participants from all around the globe, which included anonymous musicians, independent record labels with impossible names, and ridiculously limited pressings, often not more than a few hundred copies. Much more important and influential than its level of exposure would suggest, this nuggets-type of music was insolent, proud and self-taught. The trigger of the phenomenon was, without a doubt, the concluding British Invasion to the U.S., which started in 1964: that collective youthful glare provoked by an unprecedented music event in which a number of English bands took up American music and regenerated it in their own personal way. All of them managed to open a big crack in the comfortable status of early '60s rock through which garage rock, in an incredible game of fascination and rage, started to pour freely. This new music, drawing from beat, rhythm & blues and the new psychedelic nuances that already flew over the rock scene, emerged gloriously as a coarse creature. Question Mark, The 13th Floor Elevators, The Remains, The Chocolate Watchband, Electric Prunes, The Seeds, The Standells, Kenny & The Casuals, The Sonics, Music Machine -- and hundreds more bands. |
