All-star cast pays tribute to seminal 'Nuggets' compilation at the Chapel
SAN FRANCISCO -- The Chapel hosts a special all-star evening Tuesday, paying tribute the music collected on the groundbreaking Nuggets collection of garage rock classics hosted by compiler and Patti Smith guitarist Lenny Kaye.
Released on Elektra Records in 1972, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968 has long been hailed as one of the inspirations for the punk movement on both sides of the Atlantic alongside the groundbreaking work of the Velvet Underground and the Stooges. At the time working as a writer and a record store clerk at famed NYC's shop Village Oldies, Kaye got the ear of Elektra executive Jac Holzman and was able to put together the collection that drew on some of the raw American garage bands taking cues from British Invasion groups to score regional (and sometimes national) radio hits.
Initially proposed an eight-album series, Elektra Records decided to keep the collection to a double-LP release. While it did not sell well at the time it came out, the comp would help elevate some of the songs and acts featured -- particularly the Electric Prunes, the Standells, the Seeds, the 13th Floor Elevators and the Bay Area's own Count Five and the Chocolate Watchband -- as some of the pioneers of the fuzzed-out and ferocious sounds that laid the groundwork for the punk movement.
Kaye would go on to play a key role as the guitarist and co-songwriter in the Patti Smith Group through her initial run of albums for Arista Records starting with Horses in 1975 as well as stints with the Jim Carroll Band and leading his own group, the Lenny Kaye Connection. He also worked as a producer (helming Suzanne Vega's first two albums, including the Grammy nominated hit Solitude Standing) before eventually reuniting with Smith in 1995.
Despite those career highlights, the Nuggets compilation may have been the creation that had the greatest impact, spawning a cottage industry of similarly themed psychedelic garage-rock series -- most notably, Rhino Records' Nuggets collections and the Pebbles and Rubble collections -- as well serving as the foundational text for the '80s garage-rock revival. Rhino would eventually reissue the original Nuggets collection as a four CD-box set (it was also reissued as a vinyl box set for Record Store Day this year) as well two additional boxes focusing on international psych rock and the '80s revival.
Following in the wake of a similar onstage tribute held in Glendale Friday night with the Wild Honey Orchestra serving as the backing band, a group of musicians from San Francisco and beyond gathers at the Chapel Tuesday night for the Golden Jubilee 50th Anniversary Celebration of Nuggets. Drawing on players from an extensive stretch of SF history, the show includes such notables as '60s rock great Cyril Jordan of the Flamin' Groovies (as well as members of the band's current line-up), SF punk legends Penelope Houston (the Avengers) and Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys), Bay Area noise-pop figure Bob Reed (Overwhelming Colourfast, Oranger, the Titan Ups, Semprini), bassist Al Chan (Rubinoos), guitarist/singer Melanie Vammen (the Pandoras, the Leaving Trains, the Muffs), Plimsouls frontman and guitarist Peter Case, musician and soul/psych compilation producer Alec Palao (the Sneetches, Strangers in a Strange Land), bassist Bob Gonzalez (Syndicate of Sound), current MC5 singer Brad Brooks, Big Brother and the Holding Company vocalist Darby Gould, local lounge legend the Fabulous Bud E. Luv, Roger Clark (Little Roger and the Goosebumps), John and Dave Seabury (Psychotic Pineapple), drummer Roy Blumenfeld (the Blues Project), singer/guitarist Tim Foster (Th' Losin Streaks, the Trouble Makers), Russell Quan (the Mummies, the Phantom Surfers, the Dukes Of Hamburg, the Chuckleberrys, The Flakes), songwriter Kelley Stoltz, vocalist Lydia Walker (This Train Don't Stop, Lydia & the Projects, the Big Blu Soul Revue), singer Jason Morgan (Harold Ray and East Bay Dynamite, Bob Seger tribute act Total B.S.), and guitarist and singer for '60s tribute band the Back Pages John Tinloy. Garage rockers the Ogres open the show while Bay Area musicologists David Katznelson (the former Warner/Reprise executive who helped get the Flaming Lips, Mudhoney and the Boredoms signed and founded local psych imprint Birdman Records) and DJ Sid Presley (aka '60s rock/surf/exotica specialist David Greenfield, creator of the Rock & Roll Flea Market) play records before and between acts.
Golden Jubilee 50th Anniversary Celebration of Nuggets hosted by Lenny Kaye
Tuesday, May 23, 7 p.m. $25-$28
The Chapel
