Pebbles, Vol. 1

One of the first direct descendants of the legendary Nuggets compilation first appeared six years later in 1978 as a shadowy bootleg, aiming to ape its predecessor in terms of intriguing range, unearthed obscurities and informative liner notes, but notably bedeviled by various mastering problems that later CD editions just made even more weirdly complicated thanks to incorrect track listings. In any form, though, the debut volume of Pebbles is a stone cold classic of the obsessive 60s garage/psych collecting field, essentially pasting a new slew of American songs into the expanding canon. The opening “Action Woman” by the Litter alone is a noisy blast of Who/Yardbirds worship, if, like so many of the songs, more than a little lunkheaded lyrically – perhaps it was appropriate the original compilation’s release ended with the Wilde Knights’ trashy-but-catchy-as-hell “Beaver Patrol.” Like its inspiration, Pebbles is handy in showing that there wasn’t any one sound among these acts but a variety, from the Floyd Dakil Combo’s peppy “Dance Franny Dance” to the Split Ends’ reverb-swamped stomp on “Rich With Nothin.’” A truly wonderfully weird entry: the Shadows of Knight’s “Potato Chip,” originally released as a five-inch cardboard record promoting, well, exactly that.