After an extended absence, the mighty Nuggets return! Anyone needing a rock and roll education (or maybe reprogramming to remove all traces of Bieber) would do well to start here. Well, in all fairness, start with what I call the Big Six of the British Invasion (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Yardbirds, The Kinks, The Animals, The Who) and spend quality time digesting their 1960's output, from Merseybeat classics to early rock operas like Tommy and Arthur. If you are finding the psych-era stuff by those bands appealing, this is your next logical step. A few of the bands here are just a shade below in profile (Small Faces, The Creation and The Pretty Things, the latter two both closely linked to the Kinks and all cozy to the Rolling Stones) and the rest are more "buried treasure" but nothing too obscure, at least not the bands featured here that hail from the UK, Australia, New Zealand, or Canada. Then you can decide from there if you want to go into progressive stuff (Yes, Pink Floyd) or hard rock (Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple) and work on your 1970's education. If you make it to the 1980's I'll have to turn you over to somebody else for guidance.
As is the case with the third disc, a number of the bands featured here have connections to better known artists, usually in the 1970's. Here's a quick rundown:
The Creation is largely a force unto itself, but Ron Wood would log a little time in the band before ultimately joining the Rolling Stones. An early member, John Dalton, would later join the Kinks.
Fire made a huge splash with the single included here. Paul McCartney apparently had some input on the final mix, while Tony Clarke, later producer for the Moody Blues, is credited as producer. However, Fire didn't do much of anything after this song.
The Move and The Idle Race would eventually coalesce to form the original Electric Light Orchestra in 1970.
The Smoke, The Eyes, and The Sorrows are all UK bands that somehow managed not to intermingle with their colleagues or form other big-name bands.
Tomorrow was a short-lived but stacked band that featured Twink (Pretty Things, Pink Fairies) and Steve Howe (Yes, Asia).
The Action served as the launching pad for Reg King's solo career, though the other King (Alan) would later form the band Ace.
The Easybeats, though very well-known themselves, would contribute two producers to the early albums of AC/DC.
The La De Das were from New Zealand, which had a more aggressive-sounding scene than the UK.
The Fleur de Lys was surrounded by high-profile figures of the era such as Jimmy Page, Chas Chandler, and Jimi Hendrix, but two of the actual band members, Gordon Haskell and Pete Sears, would later appear in King Crimson and Jefferson Starship, respectively.
The Motions, one of a handful of Dutch bands included here, would lose band members to Golden Earring and Shocking Blue.
The Mickey Finn was the band supporting one Mickey Finn, who later joined the glam movement (Heavy Metal Kids) and reverted to his given name, Mickey Waller.
Q65
The Pretty Things are somewhat well known to casual fans of the genre, though they got no respect for anything they were doing at the time. Guitarist Dick Taylor, an early bassist for the Rolling Stones, helped launch Hawkwind in 1969.
(The) Marmalade is still around, but with no original members. There are an extensive list of former members over the nearly 50-year lifespan of the band.
The Koobas lost a latter-day drummer to an early version of Yes.
The Mockingbirds' Graham Gouldman is better recognized for his songwriting, most notably for the Yardbirds.
The Haunted represent Canada here. Canada's garage scene was more American sounding than the other countries represented here.
Small Faces were extremely well connected to numerous other groups: The Faces, The Who, The Rolling Stones, Humble Pie, etc. etc. and so forth!
Los Bravos were from Spain (geographically isolated - so sad).
The Thoughts' Peter Beckett would re-locate to L.A. and play with Player and the Little River Band. Apparently having a single written by Ray Davies doesn't mean instant fame.
The Masters Apprentices were quite big in Australia, but not well known elsewhere. Oddly enough they too contributed to the history of the Little River Band.
We All Together was from Peru and I believe their song is the chronologically last song of the entire box set (I guess nobody told them the psychedelic era had ended three years earlier).
Kaleidoscope featured Daltrey....Peter Daltrey. Their first album was called Tangerine Dream, which has no relation to the band of the same name. What tricksters!
The Tages were from Sweden, another geographic outlier.
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