"I can't get your love; I can't get a fraction. Uh-oh, little girl, psychotic reaction."
I've decided to initiate this massive series with what is arguably the closest approximation to a point of origin for The Paisley Underground. Originally released as a double album in 1972, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968 was the first substantial attempt to re-appraise the incredibly fertile American garage-rock movement of the mid to late sixties. This movement, much like The Paisley Underground, was quite diverse, including garage, psychedelic, country and chamber-pop bands (and everything in between), some of which virtually invented the category "one hit wonder." Overall, Nuggets builds a spectacular and exhaustive counter-narrative to the sixties rock mainstream. For every derivative gem, for example The Knickerbockers "Lies," which sounds a bit like a Beatles tribute band, there are songs such as "Dirty Water" by The Standells" and "Psychotic Reaction" by Count Five, both of which clearly anticipate the unique marriage of garage, country and psychedelia that would blossom (again) in the early eighties. The original 1972 double album comprises the first disc, but don't stop there because the remaining discs harbor many obscure gems ripe for rediscovery. One of the best (and strangest) is "The Little Black Egg" by The Nightcrawlers, an ingenious mash-up of Jangle-Pop, Southern Gothic, and psychedelia. Nuggets is an essential point of departure for anyone interested in psych and neo-psych music.
