Have You Heard the Good News About 'Nuggets'?
Several generations of rockers pay tribute to the album that inspired us all
I took a road trip to North Carolina for a show at the Cat’s Cradle that felt like a class reunion for people who were part of the underground music scene in the ‘80s. Here’s what happened.
All of this was inspired by a 1972 compilation album that inspired a couple of generations of underground rockers and basically invented the rules for the historical box set.
It’s a nugget if you dug it.
Lenny Kaye has been celebrating the 50th anniversary of Nuggets compilation LP with a series of concerts around the country featuring musicians who were influenced by the album performing the songs from the era.
Lenny was a rock writer and record store clerk in NYC when Elektra Records founder Jac Holzman had an idea for a compilation that would feature album tracks that could have been hits. He assigned the task to Lenny and the project morphed into a double album that mapped out an alternative history of the ‘60s, one that highlighted mostly sneering kids playing loud guitars who crafted short songs that hit home even if they players weren’t quite sure what they were doing.
Nuggets may not have sold a lot of LPs after its release in 1972, but it seems like everyone who bought a copy started a band, opened a record store, or got their own college radio show. Without Nuggets, there would have been no underground psychedelic revival in the late ‘70s and ‘80s, something that both inspired and hung over me as I did the research and track listing for the upcoming This Can’t Be Today: A Trip Through the U.S. Psychedelic Underground 1978-1988 CD box set. Look for that one in the fall of 2024 on Cherry Red Records.
Lenny basically invented that kind of historical compilation and Bomp’s Greg Shaw immediately followed with the equally influential Pebbles and Highs in the Mid Sixties series. At this point, I guess we’re allowed to admit that Greg was the person behind the BFD Records label that claimed to be from Kookaburra, Australia, but was really run out of the Bomp warehouse outside of LA. There are hundreds of ‘60s underground comps inspired by Nuggets and the punk rock Killed by Death bootlegs owe an equal debt to Lenny Kaye.
The 50th anniversary celebrations are taking place a year late because everyone decided to wait for the release of a commemorative box set that came out in April for Record Store Day. The vinyl-only set includes a reissue of the original double album, a two-LP set featuring the songs from a proposed but never-released Nuggets Volume 2, and a fifth LP of songs that Lenny considered for the original album.
There’s some duplication with the epic 5-CD Nuggets box set that Gary Stewart made for Rhino in 1998, so true explorers will want to have both box sets on hand. Lenny also announced from the stage this weekend that the original Nuggets LP will be reissued and the Nuggets Volume 2 set will be available outside of the box set for the first time in January 2024 on psychedelic swirl vinyl.
Lenny was both the inspiration for the show and the musical director for the event, but Rick Johnson was the impresario behind the evening. Rick, who’s not a concert promoter in real life, saw that Lenny was performing Nuggets shows around the country and decided the only way he was going to see one was to put on a concert himself.
Here’s a condensed list of the things he had to do to make the night happen:
Enlist Cats Cradle owner Frank Heath to host the event.
Convince Lenny Kaye that a North Carolina show would work.
Introduce Lenny to a host of local heroes who would help sell tickets to the show and introduce a few of those artists to the music of Nuggets.
Coordinate travel for a startling number of out-of-town musicians and make sure they had housing on the biggest college football weekend of the season in North Carolina.
That travel included getting everyone back-and-forth to rehearsals and helping them move to a better hotel on the day after the game.
Design and manufacture exclusive merch for the show.
The club’s big room was at capacity, but the manager in me kept trying to calculate what Rick had invested in the show and whether he could possibly break even on the night.
My math suggests that Rick put in a staggering amount of work to subsidize an event that has to be considered a gift to the musicians who played and the audience who came to see the performance. Anyone who was there needs to buy the man a meal, drink or rare LP the next time they see him.
He was incredibly generous to me and Todd Ploharski once we told him we’d like to come up for the show, treating us as members of the troupe and inviting us to rehearsals before the show. Rick’s a longtime customer of Todd’s Low YoYo Stuff in Athens, one of the great record stores still standing and at least as good as any other shop in the neighborhood. He also credits me with taking the time to give him some excellent career advice when he was starting out. I think he’s being extremely kind, but I also appreciate the reminder of how important it is to pay attention and give a little time when someone asks for advice.
I’ve been to thousands of shows and I’ve never seen a promoter enjoy themselves as much as Rick did that night.
Thanks to Rick for a great show. Bonus: Unlike the R.E.M. Chronic Town tribute shows last December in Athens and Atlanta, there wasn’t a covid outbreak after the show. It’s eight days later and I’m still feeling great.
Wiki break
I made lists of everyone who played, who performed the original versions of the songs performed and who the lead singer was for each one. I didn’t see a record of this online, so here it goes for future biographers of Lenny Kaye.
Rick assembled a mighty team of performers, and gave Lenny some excellent input on what songs to perform. Rick’s Facebook posts suggest that he suggested the Velvet Underground, Stooges and MC5 songs. Lenny readily agreed, even though Nuggets purists might argue that those three bands were too famous for the concept. They were some of the best songs of the night, so those people should let it go. Everyone in the room thought “Run Run Run,” “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” and “Kick Out the Jams” were amazing.
Musicians:
Lenny Kaye (Paint Smith Group)
Alejandro Escovedo (the Nuns, Rank & File, True Believers)
Kevn Kinney (the Prosecutors, drivin’ n’ cryin’)
Steve Wynn (the Suspects, the Dream Syndicate, Gutterball, the Baseball Project)
James Mastro (the Bongos, Ian Hunter)
Peter Buck (R.E.M., Hindu Love Gods, Tuatara, Filthy Friends, the Minus 5, the Baseball Project)
Jon Wurster (the Right Profile, Superchunk, Bob Mould, the Mountain Goats)
Tim Nielsen (the Nightporters, drivin’ n’ cryin’, Kathleen Turner Overdrive)
Hugo Burnham (Gang of Four)
Mitch Easter (Sneakers, Let’s Active)
Don Dixon (Arrogance)
Hope Nicholls (Fetchin’ Bones, Sugarsmack, Snagglepuss)
Corey Parks (Nashville Pussy)
Henri Cash (Starcrawler)
Greg Rice
Kelly Reidy
Jeffrey Dean Foster (the Right Profile)
Luigi Scorcia
Kelli Specter
Jeffro (Hank Sinatra)
Shawn Lynch
Lenny led a core combo of James Mastro on guitar, Jon Wurster on drums, Greg Rice on keyboards, and Tim Nielsen on bass (with considerable assistance from Hugo Burnham on drums for around half the songs).
Shows like this one are notoriously loose and underrehearsed, mostly because people are busy and no one’s had time to get together in advance of the show. This one was different.
This band studied the records and showed up knowing their parts. Greg mastered the sounds and feel on the incredibly basic keyboard parts feature on records mostly recorded by bands who had almost no studio experience.
The most valuable player of the night was Tim. He loves these songs as much as anyone onstage and he went back and studied the reocords and nailed his parts. There’s a certain naive enthusiasm about most of the Nuggets records that eludes a lot of accomplished musicians. Tim understands the attitude the fueled these records and never (not once) lost that thread over the course of the night.
I know everyone loves Kevn Kinney because he’s a genius and hilarious and generous to a fault. But there’s no drivn’ n’ cryin’ without Tim’s ambition and discipline. That band has been a true partnership (since 1985). The two of us had some disagreements back in the ancient times when I worked for the band, but I’m grateful that we’re all family now. Tim was awesome.
There are plenty of indie rock icons who played that night, but Rick also invited some musicians who were friends from North Carolina and his days in New York City and convinced Lenny that they’d be a good fit for the show. So, good ideas from Rick and an open mind from Lenny.
Song highlights for me:
Kelly Reidy was especially impressive on “What a Way to Die,” a song by the Pleasure Seekers, a Detroit band that featured a teenage Suzi Quatro on lead vocals. I didn’t know Kelly’s music before the show, but she was so good that I’m due to investigate her records now.
drivin’ n’ cryin’ used to play a “You’re Gonna Miss Me”/“Mary of the Fourth Form” medley back in the early days, and seeing them play a 13th Floor Elevators cover was the clincher that made me skip grad school to manage the band.
I loved Steve Wynn’s version of the Moving Sidewalks classic “99th Floor.” Billy Gibbons played in that Texas psych band and we’re trying to convince him to come for a session at Soapbox, so I filmed the performance to send to him. Steve also got a Soapbox demonstration and I’ve recruited him to come for a visit next year. Steve also got to sing “Psychotic Reaction” by Count Five and “Strychnine” by the Sonics, so he had a very good night.
Henri Cash was the youngest performer on the bill, probably by a couple of decades. He nailed the vocal on “Little Black Egg,” a song that requires both a snarl and a kind of naive yearning that’s the essence of the genre and a hard feat to pull off at the same time. Henri plays guitar in Starcrawler, a band once produced by my old friend Ryan Adams.
Don Dixon brought the right swagger to Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs’ “Wooly Bully” and the Kingsmen’s “Louie Louie,” even wearing a Sam the Sham turban for his performance. Both songs were massive hits, each reaching #2 on the Billboard charts in 1965 and 1963, respectively. “Louie Louie” may be a ha-ha one-hit wonder to mainstream artists, but the American garage underground took it as a low-fi roadmap.
Alejandro Escovedo got to sing the Seeds’ “Pushin’ Too Hard,” the Standells’ “Dirty Water” (other big hit of the night, #11 in 1965), and the Stooges’ “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” a 1969 record that’s every bit as influential on punk rock as “Louie Louie.”
The track is driven by a percussive, single-note piano part and relentless sleigh slay bells, both overdubs by producer John Cale. To me, they’re the two best overdubs in the history of rock. While Hugo played drums, Jon Wurster gave himself over to the slay bell mission and Greg Rice hammered that one note on keyboards. Lots of bands cover “I Wanna Be Your Dog,” but you almost never get to see the track performed in full.
Complete setlist
“I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” (the Electric Prunes)/Lenny Kaye
“Tobacco Road” (Blues Magoos)/Kevn Kinney
“Just a Little” (The Beau Brummels)/Kevn Kinney
“You’re Gonna Miss Me” (13th Floor Elevators)/Kevn Kinney
“Night-Time” (the Strangeloves)/ Jeffrey Dean Foster
“Crazy Like a Fox” (Link Cromwell a/k/a Lenny Kaye)/Lenny Kaye
“The Letter” (the Box Tops)/Lenny Kaye
“Run Run Run” (Velvet Underground)/Lenny Kaye
“Road Runner” (the Gants)/Jim Mastro
“Farmer John” (the Premiers)/Jim Mastro
“What a Way to Die” (the Pleasure Seekers)/Kelly Reidy
“Whatcha Gonna Do About It?” (the Evil)/Kelly Reidy
“Pushin’ Too Hard” (the Seeds)/Alejandro Escovedo
“Dirty Water” (the Standells)/Alejandro Escovedo
“I Wanna Be Your Dog” (the Stooges)/Alejandro Escovedo
“My Little Red Book” (Love)/Lenny Kaye
“7 and 7 Is” (Love)/Lenny Kaye
“99th Floor” (the Moving Sidewalks)/Steve Wynn
“Strychnine” (the Sonics)/Steve Wynn
“Psychotic Reaction” (Count Five)/Steve Wynn
“Hey Joe” (the Leaves)/Hope Nicholls
“Time Has Come Today” (the Chambers Brothers)/Corey Parks
“Action Woman” (the Litter)/Mitch Easter
“Hot Smoke and Sassafras” (the Bubble Puppy)/Mitch Easter
“Talk Talk” (the Music Machine)/Mitch Easter
“Little Black Egg” (the Nightcrawlers)/Henri Cash
“Wooly Bully” (Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs)/Don Dixon
“Louie Louie” (the Kingsmen)/Don Dixon
“Kick Out the Jams” (MC5)/Jeffro
Gloria” (the Shadows of Knight)/Lenny Kaye and Cast
If you don’t know this music as well as I do, I made a Nuggets Cat’s Cradle playlist that’s up on Apple Music, Qobuz, Tidal, and Spotify Not every song from the set is available for streaming and my playlist doesn’t match the set order.
Communicating With the Dead
On our road trip to North Carolina, we played the CD compilation Lenny Kaye Presents Lightning Strikes, which is a companion to Lenny Kaye’s music memoir Lightning Strikes: Ten Transformative Moments in Rock and Roll. Alec Palao put the collection together and Ace Records funded an elaborate package that included a 44-page booklet with a brief intro from Lenny and in-depth track notes from Alec.
I bring it up here because I was very much enjoying listening and knew pretty much all the songs until we got an excellent psych nugget that I did not know. I was floored to learn that it was “Cream Puff War” (Apple Music, Qobuz, Tidal, Spotify) from the first Grateful Dead LP.
This rocked my core belief system, as I learned about the Dead during their endless noodling era in the ‘80s. I haven’t yet worked up the nerve to go back and listen to the entire album, but I realize that it’s probably time to expand my mind a little bit.
But not that much. The next track was “Coo Coo” by Big Brother & the Holding Company. I’m never, ever changing my take on that band.
I told Lenny about this experience when we were talking backstage and he signed my CD. Lenny was around to see the Dead in their early days and I didn’t encounter them until two decades later. He’s never going to understand why they stood for everything we were against because he saw them before they actually became the thing that we were so against in the hardcore era. Also, he had zero patience for my attitude towards Big Brother.
Nuggets Forever
The show was so good that I wish it had been filmed by a professional crew. If the producers at Austin City Limits are paying attention, they should try to convince Lenny to bring the core band from the Cat’s Cradle to film an episode. I’d bet that Billy Gibbons could be convinced to show up to play “99th Floor.” I’ll make the trip to Texas if they do.
http://www.bar-none.com/health-and-happiness-show
Hey, you forgot about Health & Happiness Show in James Mastro's CV. Their show at the High Hat is on my top 10 list and Vinny DeNunzio gave me a copy of his solo CD that he recorded in his bedroom. I still play it regularly.