My box runneth over. It’s my Rhino box set called “Children of Nuggets” with 100 songs from the less-celebrated second psychedelic era: 1976 to 1996. This thing is cool. It seems like about 95 songs belong in the good/great category, with only a few skippables among the 4 discs. I could spend all day on this music, but for now I’ll just try to break it down into 5 major (and majorly arbitrary) categories:
1) British psychedelic rock. I like the way the party starts with this tune by The Dukes Of Stratosphear (actually XTC in disguise). Also in this category are the energetically named Biff, Bang, Pow!, The Soft Boys, That Petrol Emotion and the tough-guy noir of the Godfathers. Let’s not forget Teenage Fanclub, Primal Scream and the surprisingly sensitive Dentists.
2) Australian bands. I believe it was the novelist Richard Ford who said some of the best Americans are Canadians. I’d have to add some of the best American bands are Australian. Check out the Stems doing She’s Fine. The Lime Spiders take it back to the garage and I probably don’t have to tell you about the Hoodoo Gurus. The Church also drop some paisley on us.
3) Speaking of paisley, dig LA’s legendary Paisley Underground. It was made up of bands like the Salvation Army, the 3 O’Clock, the Long Ryders, the Dream Syndicate, the Rain Parade and before they added the “les” to the end of their name they were just the Bangs. Enjoy The Salvation Army here.
4) Peter Case. He was in the Nerves, as I wrote about previously. Then he was in the mighty Plimsouls. There are 2 great Plimsouls tracks included in the box, and an impossibly obscure Nerves track. Case is a category of one. Here’s a Plimsouls tune.
5) The rest. You want the psychedelic sounds of Milwaukee? Or Baltimore? You want the power pop of the Posies? Maybe some early Screaming Trees? How about some drugged-out New Jersey garage rock by the Swingin’ Neckbreakers? Hmm, let’s just end with the Chills, from the Dunedin scene in New Zealand. Too bad I only do Benadryl these days.
No comments:
Post a Comment