Collection of Valuable Nuggets in This Box

NUGGETS: ORIGINAL ARTYFACTS FROM THE FIRST PSYCHEDELIC ERA, 1965-1968
Various Artists
Rhino Entertainment ****

Retro is in, Daddy-O. Lately, humans have gone to great lengths to forget about modern life and dwell on the past -- particularly the recent past -- in film and music. Disco has resurfaced from its polyester depths, New Wave has peppered period pieces about life in the 1980s and punk has undergone a renaissance in the 1990s. Everything new is old.

Even the box set, for many years a novelty in the world of vinyl albums, has nuzzled its way into the mainstream. I remember, as a record-collecting junkie back in high school, how box sets were special, the crown jewels of any collection.

Today, as fans clamor for more and more exhaustive retrospectives from their favorite artists, box sets are a staple of the music business. Really, any artist worth the esoteric rider in his touring contract (and many who aren�t) has a box set, and any self-respecting music store reserves a decent chunk of space for a box set section.

Finding boxes worth your time and money, however, is another matter. Realizing that most fans will not shell out their hard-earned clams for simple reissues of an artist�s discography, record labels have begun assembling box sets with obscure studio and live tracks, demos and even interviews, plus detailed booklets and gifts (stickers, key chains, posters, etc.). Such features are what make box sets valuable and desirable.

Another trend in the box set biz is �theme boxes,� like the one in this month�s review. Surf music, punk, metal, jazz, scat, classical, blues, polka ... Name a genre, and you�ll find a box set for it. With what amounts to a glut of box sets -- more than a few of them of questionable quality -- on the market, smoking out the ones that are worth your time and money isn�t always so simple a task. I�m happy to report that �Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968� is worth every yen.

Leave it to Rhino, a champion of rescuing music from oblivion and putting it on high-quality, well-packaged CDs, to improve upon an original. In 1972, a two-LP set of hits by American garage bands, the first real punks according to many industry observers, was released to much fanfare. Called �Nuggets,� it was a collection of 27 tunes by bands with names like The Magic Mushrooms, The Electric Prunes, The Cryan Shames, Chocolate Watchband and Blues Magoos. The songs were infinitely more memorable than the bands that played them; the music was the kind of unrefined, trippy, peace-love-and-bellbottoms pop that dominated the charts in the mid- and late 1960s. Today it is the kind of music that defines retro.

This �Nuggets� is a four-CD set containing the original �72 album release plus 90 other classics from the same three-year period. (I�ll do the math for you: That�s a total of 117 songs.) Lenny Kaye, the man responsible for compiling the first �Nuggets� set, and Gary Stewart, from Rhino�s A&R department, worked in tandem to build this mammoth collection, taking pains to ensure that the product was of a caliber that will take listeners back to a time when Mike Myers probably couldn�t digest solid food.

For the music fanatic, the primary appeal of this box set is its historical value. Each song is like a snapshot, a slot on Billboard forever frozen in a digital tundra. Purists Kaye and Stewart did next to nothing to alter the sound of the songs, many of which were recorded in tin-can studios with dime-store equipment (and many times by �musicians� who didn�t know their amp from a hole in the ground). So, what you get are clean remasters that capture and accentuate the raw, freewheeling, often abrasive sound of the original. Listening to the songs, it is understandable why some of these bands were labeled �punks� long before The Ramones, The Sex Pistols and The Clash appeared on the scene.

And the songs are wonderful. Half the fun is reading the names of the bands and their tunes, both sensual illustrations of the youth culture of the late 1960s. Here are just a few entertaining entries: �Incense and Peppermints� by Strawberry Alarm Clock; �A Question of Temperature� by The Balloon Farm; �I Think I�m Down� by Harbinger Complex; and �Double Shot (Of My Baby�s Love)� by Swingin� Medallions. More familiar titles include �Wooly Bully� by Sam The Sham & The Pharaohs; �Journey to the Center of the Mind� by The Amboy Dukes; �Louie, Louie� by The Kingsmen; and �I Want Candy� by The Strangeloves.

As you listen to the songs, you can enjoy a 100-page full-color booklet that comes in the kaleidoscope box. This is one of the slickest, most informative inserts I have seen with any release, and Rhino is to be commended for taking the time and care to produce such a nice supplement. It includes extensive notes from Kaye, Stewart and other knowledgeable notables, as well as track-by-track production info, band bios and scores of photos. It is a superb reference and a joy to read.

So, if your interest in retro extends beyond your wardrobe, your lava lamp and your Mini Me doll, this set is for you. This is the real thing, hipsters, and it will help you understand how the music of yesterday continues to influence the music of today. More importantly, it�s just plain fun to listen to.

Campy and dated, yet cool and contemporary, this box set is something that should grace any music fan�s collection.