Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964-1969. (Carousel Corner).

Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts from the British Empire and Beyond, 1964-1969 (Rhino)

When we reviewed the original Nuggets box set (No. 75), we suggested that Rhino's next target was the British invasion. We wouldn't dare suggest that Rhino was listening, but here it is ... the lesser lights of seminal Brit Pop and ... Australia, Mexico, Japan, Uruguay (Uruguay?!), the Netherlands, and many others. The original Nuggets collection focused on pyschedelia, the dawn of punk and its D.I.Y. sensibility, and Nuggets II, also a four-disc box set, trains its eye on post-Beatles pop wannabes also nurtured in the car parks of the Empire and beyond. Some succeeded, in greater and lesser measure, and some didn't.

Of course one scans the track listing on the back of the box for hits and fave raves. I found The Easybeats' "Friday On My Mind" and The Status Quo's "Pictures of Matchstick Men", but stateside treasures such as The Honeycombs' "Have I the Right?" and Freddie and the Dreamers' "I'm Telling You Now" are MIA. Then again, bereaving a handful of hits misses the point. (And if you really crave all the hits, Sire's History of British Rock is your spot o' tea.)

Nuggets II reveals in massive, almost numbing, quantities that the D.I.Y. sensibility wasn't confined to the garages of suburban America -- its ethos flourished everywhere. Japan's The Mops performs the inadvertently hilarious "I'm Just A Mops" with equal measures of fractured English and somber gravity. Uruguay's Los Shakers pitch in with "Break It All", Mexico's Los Chijuas' with "The Changing Colors of Life" -- so well rendered that one mistakes it for an L.A. folk-rock track -- and Czechoslovakia's The Matadors with "Get Down from the Tree". Depending on which movement they were trying to emulate, the groups sport The Beatles' matching jackets and skinny ties or The Stones' casual free dress, tho' the former dominates. Not to be outdone groups from Canada, the Netherlands, Germany, and Denmark take numerous bows.

And just as Nuggets cast a flinty peek at stars-in-waiting, the history lesson continues on Nuggets II. Davy Jones ("You've Got the Habit of Leaving") became David Bowie; Love Sculpture ("In the Land of the Few") begat Dave Edmunds; the Golden Earrings ("Daddy Buy Me a Girl") dropped the plural for "Radar Love"; and Australia's Ronnie Burns' ("Exit Stage Right") back up band is none other than the brothers Gibb. Electric Light Orchestra co-founders Jeff Lynne and Bev Bevan are featured in early bands, The Idle Race and The Move respectively. Steve Howe was in Tomorrow before Yes; Ron Wood The Birds before moving on to Small Faces and the Stones; and Andy Somers -- later Summers -- Dantalion's Chariot before The Police. Even session stalwarts like Nicky Hopkins, Jimmy Page, and John Paul Jones, duly credited on different cuts, moved on to eventual stardom. Only one original band, The Small Faces with Steve Marriott, Ronnie Lane, Kenney Jones, and Ian MacLagen, saw all of its members graduate to even greater renown.

The music is at once familiar and unfamiliar: familiar because the Mersey, Manchester, and Birmingham "sounds" are all well represented; unfamiliar because, unless you're a Hi Fidelity used vinyl geek, odds are pretty good that you haven't heard most of these before. Then you're in for a treat. Brit underground legends like The Pretty Things, The Poets, and The Downliners Sect deliver savage R&B rave-ups while One- and no-hit wonders like The Action, The Mickey Finn, and Kaleidoscope render delicate, tinkly psychedelic pastiches. And while the European and South American bands don't break novel musical ground, they bear witness to the global reach of garage rock, D.I.Y. at its peripatetic best. A 100-page booklet includes revealing essays by Greg Shaw and Alec Palao, while Mike Stax describes each of the 108 (!) tracks in intimate detail.

Even at a $60+ price tag, I recommend this set highly. I would commend it if only for the inclusion of one song, "The Bitter Thoughts of Little Jane" by Timon -- also Tymon -- Dogg. "Bitter Thoughts" seems to be a pleasant paisley-parkish ditty until you listen closely to the lyrics, which reveal dark, vicious, and vengeful musings, the stuff of delightfully squeamish Victorian morbidity. Falsetto Timon's career promptly went nowhere, and he turned to busking, performing for spare change, with mate John Mellor in London's Tube. Some time later Mellor became Clash frontman, Joe Strummer, and later still the Clash included Timon's "Shed My Skin", a remarkable track, which Timon sang on Sandanista! What goes 'round, comes 'round, eh?