Living In The Past - Hold My Calls...
El Kabong | 08/28/2001
(4 out of 5 stars)
"I really enjoy 60's garage-rock both musically and as archeology, but I understand a lot of others don't or won't. Visitors to these pages may already be aware that archival collections of the hundreds and hundreds of one- and no-hit wonders emulating the groundbreaking new sound of the Beatles/Stones/Who/Kinks/etc already comprise a thriving music subgenre, with the premier comp of the lot being Rhino's four-disc revamp of Lenny Kaye's original NUGGETS. (To those who still don't get it about the 70s - 'Nuggets' was a 1972 release fondly looking back at an already-archaic, primitive sound from FOUR YEARS PREVIOUS. We're now at a point where pretty much everything released in the last 20 years is sonically interchangable...going on 21.) Essential fun as much of it is, quite a lot of the American stuff runs to a punky sameness and may wear out its welcome, which may be why I personally prefer the UK obscurities a wee bit better, as the songwriting and sound quality almost always exhibit more craft and polish. Take for example CIRCUS DAYS, a British pop-sike version of 'Nuggets'. The odds and sods compiled are less interested in the punky Stones-like aggression more associated with American garage-rock; the overwhelming influences here are post-Mahareshi Beatles, early Floyd, Procol, Moodies, all with a stately aura of utter Englishness that, after all, ruled the musical roost in those days. The six volumes are collected on four separate cds (don't ask me, I don't get it either) and each features 25-30 tracks of material that runs the gamut from ghastly-yet-fascinating to gloriously phantasmagorical. (If you're into this era, you grade with a very affectionate curve.) You might not care for any of it, but these are the undeniable seeds of transition to everything that followed as 'rock'n'roll' became, in the late 60s/early 70s, just plain 'rock' and all the critics abandoned ship. Other 60s comps of similar indirect interest to prog/psych/hard rock fans are AIP's ELECTRIC SUGARCUBE FLASHBACK and their ENGLISH FREAKBEAT series, the Pye collection FREAKBEAT FREAKOUT, Arf Arf's American series (HEAVY DOSE OF LYTE PSYCH, OVERDOSE OF HEAVY PSYCH, LETHAL DOSE OF HARD PSYCH, & 30 SECONDS BEFORE THE CALICO WALL ), Gear Fab's outstanding PSYCHEDELIC CROWN JEWELS, VOL 1, QDK Media's LOVE PEACE AND POETRY VOL 1 and, of course, NUGGETS, the one that instigated the whole mess in the first place. Habit-forming, if you're susceptible."
Track Listings (27) - Disc #1