The original bootleg 60s garage punk/psychedelic compilation. Very poor quality recordings & unofficial reproduction of copyrighted works. Nuggets came out on Elektra in 1972. A second volume was planned but as sales weren't that good at the time and the legal dept. had to do a lot of legwork tracking down every member of the bands to sign releases.... the idea was dropped.
A few years down the line collector, fanzine writer and all-round visionary Greg Shaw picked up the baton and ran with it, creating the Pebbles series.
The very first volume originally came out on Mastercharge Records in 1978 in a limited edition of 500, the following volumes were on BFD and then AiP Records. Some volumes of The Best of Pebbles appeared on Ubik.
Sound quality and legitimacy were two issues that didn't worry Greg Shaw too much. Without access to mastertapes Pebbles was compiled from original 45s or sometimes cassette tapes of ultra-rare tracks.
Vinyl pressings of Pebbles are thin and noisy. Tracks might be at the wrong speed, one time he even used a skipping record as the master.
As the series was unofficial a spurious address in Kookaburra, Australia was created in an attempt to either create mystery or to get around copyright laws.
Despite the flaws in the Pebbles albums Greg Shaw deserves credit for creating a whole new collector-centred genre (the 'comp') and for inspiring countless others to compile their own series and one-offs. Pebbles was certainly superseded by later collections like Back From the Grave - but it was the first and many in the scene are still very fond of the brand.
one thing ill say is ive come across some great 60s garage bands from norway i run a channel on you tube dedicated to 60s garage rarities if your interested check it out well over 4000 top rarities would be over 5000 if some great channels didnt get shut down but im working on getting them back on.my name on you tube is dj bigleg the list is called 60,s top garage punk psych rarities over 1.6 million views & most of the bands are unknowns im amazed at the response but its great finding new gems i find stuff every time i look & go through comps & search for the original release.i know i can get this list to 10.000 & still keep the quality up there.for me many of these bands were better than the major label signings.sadly many vinyl reissue labels have gone digital & i hate it.i sold every digital record i brought but me id rather hear a record with lifts from the original vinyl than a compressed mess.as a guitarist & music lover im analogue till i die & anything else on vinyl is unacceptable ive grown to hate the suits they kill music for greed sony emi & universal all dictate their inferior sonic,s as superior & have stripped music to its bare bones carrying out millions of criminal overdubs for our so called listening pleasure.but one day analogue will rise up again & as a dj i can tell you that thousands of people are still listening to the original 45s all over europe & the us in clubs.dj,s get work because they have the original records not cds or mp3,s.so my message to sony & co go back to analogue on vinyl & you could tap into a 30 million customer base with three vital words ORIGINAL SOUND RECORDING peace..
for me one of the greatest private labels out there the amount of reissues & the knowledge helped open up the door for me on music scenes i knew existed but could never find or afford lol,so respect for this label & highs in the mid sixties & ive spoke to many of the musicians they were happy to be on a pebbles comp it helped raise their profile worldwide peace & long live vinyl...
waxthegroove
June 28, 2020