CULT RECORD: NUGGETS (1972)

There has been an incredible boom in reissues of old psych crap these last few years, but the truth is that this trend is three decades old. In 1972, Lenny Kaye put together a two-LP compilation for Elektra called Nuggets. It pulled together a variety of "lost classics" from the '60s by bands such as Texas's 13th Floor Elevators, California's Count Five, and other American combos who sprouted in the wake of the British Invasion. Where bands like the Stones were reacting to an impulse supplied by America's electric blues scene, bands like the Seeds were reacting to the Stones, and creating a disturbed, drugfueled, all-American version of electro-Anglo grub-blues readymades. This was the sound of the first punk revolution. And the fact that the tracks on Nuggets were grouped not by their hit status but by their aesthetic greatness was a total revelation inside the confines of oldies reissues. Within a few years, series dedicated to more obscure tracks began proliferating.

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