The Nuggets box sets (the first two anyway) are a great place to start any real collection of "garage" music. Circa 1972 the world of music had a much shorter memory and a whole genre ("garage") was falling into oblivion. If it hadn't been for the release of the original Nuggets compilation, most of what we'd know about the 1960's would be the Beatles, the Stones, and a lot of schmaltz. In fact, the first compilation succeeded so well that to us some of the selections seem fairly standard for any 1960's compilation. Around 2000, Nuggets and its successor compilations were pulled into a box set. While the first box set, an expansion of the original compilation, focused on the USA, Nuggets II covers the rest of the world. Obviously, the U.K. dominates, but there is ample representation from the rest of Europe, Canada, and Australia/New Zealand, with a sprinkling of cuts from Latin America and Asia.
Disc Three offers a lot of diversity and a surprising number of truly unknown bands from the era. I've often found that Nuggets tends to choose tracks from the "before they were famous" set and that is the case with a number of the tracks here, though not nearly to the level of the first two discs. Also, less than half of the cuts are from outside the U.K., so this is definitely not "British Nuggets".
Here are some little sketches on the significance (if any) of the bands included on this disc:
Cuby & the Blizzards was a mainstay of the Dutch music scene until 2011, when Cuby succumbed to cancer.
A couple members of the Twilights would be key parts of the Australian music scene.
Pete Sears, keyboard player for The Fleur de Lys, would go on to be a founding member of Jefferson Starship.
The Matadors, being in Soviet-era Czechoslovakia, remained pretty much isolated from the greater rock and roll scene.
Q65 would enjoy a couple resurgences in the Netherlands during the 1970's.
Los Chijuas, Mexico's representation in the Nuggets collection, disbanded in 1972. As with many of the non-English speaking country-based groups, information is sketchy or nonexistent.
The Bluestars spent most of their short career battling numerous rejections from record labels, which inspired some of their best writing, featured here.
Steve Howe, guitarist of the Syndicats, would go on to more obscure bands like Tomorrow, Yes, and Asia.
The Sound Magics are a true one-hit wonder from the Netherlands.
You don't need me to explain the Guess Who.
The Open Mind managed to squeeze out a single album before moving on to jazz...and obscurity.
The Missing Links was a veritable flash in the pan, but would contribute to other prominent Australian groups in the years to come.
As far as I can tell, the Jury contributed one single to the musical heritage of Canada.
Marc Bolan is best known for his work in T-Rex. John's Children is his old band.
Sands was a one-single phenomenon. Even Brian Epstein couldn't save them. The duo that made up Sands would move on to the similarly ill-fated Sun Dragon, which is notable for featuring backing musicians earning seed money to finance their first album, "Shades of Deep Purple".
Graham Gouldman of the Mockingbirds ironically made far more of a name for himself writing songs turned into hits by other artists, most notably "For Your Love" by the Yardbirds.
The Idle Race was Jeff Lynne's old band, pre-Electric Light Orchestra.
The Elois was another one-hit wonder from Australia.
Information is sketchy on the Factory. They had two singles, both rooted in the latter-era psychedelic sound.
Episode Six contributed a singer and bassist to Deep Purple.
Status Quo continues to enjoy a long and respected career, though they are not well known across the pond outside their earliest work.
The Voice is another one of those one-hit wonders.
The Playboys (one of many bands using this name) didn't amount to much, but frontman "Normie" Rowe had a successful career in the Australian scene.
According to the YouTube comments section, The Slaves (another popular band name of the era) were from Austria. That's all I've got.
The Red Squares were an English band hiding in Denmark.
The leader of Scrugg was a native South African who would find success in later years as a record producer and served as a technical assistant for Def Leppard in the early 1980's.
The Downliners Sect was a short-lived group, but reunited in 1977 and became a long-lived group.
There's much more to the whole Nuggets thing than just this disc, but I can really only recommend the first two sets. There are three other box sets under the Nuggets banner. "Children of Nuggets" is groups "inspired" by the garage scene of the 1960's, so it's a different style of music altogether. There are also "local" collections for San Francisco and Los Angeles which are considerably better, but much more narrow in focus and sound. Overall, the Nuggets may be among the least obscure compilations (try "Pebbles", "Rubble", etc. for that), but they still make for good listening.
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