As the Uncut monthly reports, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968, the 1972 compilation which helped define garage-rock and inspire New York’s punk revolution, is to be celebrated with the release of a 5-LP vinyl box-set for Record Store Day.
The new track listing both greatly expands the original release and revises Rhino’s 1998 CD box-set. “It’s going to be a beautiful thing,” Kaye told Uncut. “The original double-album is remastered from the original tapes. Two discs represent my vision of what Volume 2 would have been in 1973. Then there’s The Also Dug-Its – a fifth, mongrel disc of tracks left by the wayside that makes me smile. I’ve done new liner notes and biogs for the new discs. The original notes stay with what I knew in 1972.”
Kaye lists some of the highlights we can expect. “At the end of Nuggets’ original liner notes I said, ‘Please write to Elektra and let them know if you think the magic’s in the music, or the music’s in you…’ So disc 3 starts with ‘Do You Believe In Magic’ by The Lovin’ Spoonful. I finally got ‘96 Tears’ by ? And The Mysterians in after 50 years, and ‘The Spider And The Fly’ by The Monocles. You really have to hear this one! ‘The First Cut Is The Deepest’ by The Koobas is just about the only English record on Nuggets – a Cat Stevens song as if Vanilla Fudge did it. And when Nuggets came out, I got letters and 45s from a guy from Long Island called Joe Dokko, who thought his group The Mystic Tide would be perfect for it – and I’m using their cut ‘Frustration’.
“There will be some related concerts, where we’ll hopefully find some of the original Nuggets to reprise their greatest hits,” Kaye concludes. “It’s really a celebration.”
