Chocolate Soup for Diabetics, Vol. 1

One of the most notable compilation series that kicked off in the wake of Nuggets was the UK-based Chocolate Soup For Diabetics, with its first effort dropping in 1980. While it did bring a light to a wide number of undeservedly obscure acts from the heyday of guitar-heavy UK psychedelia in the late 1960s to a new audience, it still suffered on a few fronts thanks to its bootleg status combined with barely any liner notes. Phil Smee’s Rubble series a few years later did much better there, but Chocolate Soup’s debut was still a strong artifact that had its place, not least due to its properly groovy cover art which became a hallmark of later volumes. A standout was the light shone on Tintern Abbey, with two of their strongest songs, “Vacuum Cleaner” and “Beeside,” getting the nod. The relocated Americans the Misunderstood were properly included with their wild masterpiece “Children of the Sun” while the killer Zoot Money curio (in his Dantalian’s Chariot guise) “The Madman Running Through The Fields” follows right on its heels. Other strong cuts include the rampaging opener “The Train to Disaster” by the Voice and the Flies’s slow, heavy and exultant take on “I’m Not Your Stepping Stone.”