Nuggets: Antipodean Interpolations of the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968

Well considering the influence of the Nuggets comp on this site its almost requisite that this get covered. In honor of the 40th anniversary of the original, genre defining compilation by Lenny Kaye, he and David Fricke have put together a new comp of Australian bands covering cuts from the original set plus a set of Australian 60's nuggets that rope the best of the country's garage bands from a bygone era (Down Under Nuggets: Original Australian Artyfacts 1965-67). Focusing on the former, the comp is hit or miss but when its on it contains some pretty great covers from members of the Aussie garage set. While some of the covers just layer the original take in some lo fidelity crust (see The Laurels suck the fun out of "You're Gonna Miss Me") or rushed punk theatrics (see The Gooch Palms' sloppy slaughter of "Just Like Romeo and Juliet") the bulk of the set pays a clean homage to the songs that came to define garage rock for a lot of young ears. While Pond may have the honor of being the 564th band to cover "Hey Joe" there are some really fun covers of classics like Step-Panther's sugar soul cover of The Castaways' "Liar Liar". True oddball nuggetm"Moulty" shows up in fine fuzz form from Davey Lane and RSTB faves The Murlocs and Bloods both turn up with some nice covers of The Count Five and The Premieres respectively. Scuzz poppers King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard also kick in a pretty raucous cover of The Nazz' classic "Open My Eyes" which you can check out below. Along with that new box of Aussie Nugs (which shines some well needed spotlight on The Easybeats) this is a great tribute to Kaye's original comp of teen sweat anthems and lovesick fuzz blasters. I'll never balk at a Nuggets centric project and this one has come together nicely.

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