I actually just made myself a kind of single-disc Ultimate Nuggets last night out of most of the Nuggets discs and songs that should've been there but didn't make it.

The tracklist is:

1 Electric Prunes - I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)
2 Standells - Dirty Water
3 Knickerbockers - Lies
4 Seeds - Pushin' Too Hard
5 Remains - Don't Look Back
6 13th Floor Elevators - You're Gonna Miss Me
7 Count Five - Psychotic Reaction
8 Leaves - Hey Joe
9 Amboy Dukes - Journey To The Center Of The Mind
10 Music Machine - Talk Talk
11 Elastik Band - Spazz
12 Sam The Sham And The Pharoahs - Wooly Bully
13 ? And The Mysterians - 96 Tears
14 Kingsmen - Louie Louie
15 Strangeloves - I Want Candy
16 McCoys - Hang On Sloopy
17 Trashmen - Surfin' Bird
18 Troggs - Wild Thing
19 Os Mutantes - Bat Macumba
20 Monks - Complication
21 Sonics - The Witch
22 Del-Vetts - Last Time Around
23 Bees - Voices Green And Purple
24 Winston's Fumbs - Real Crazy Apartment
25 Gonn - Blackout of Gretely
26 Captain Beefheart - Diddy Wah Diddy
27 Nazz - Open My Eyes

So anyways, this is so Not Crap that it probably helped invent punk. Nothing in music has gotten close to the kind of demented lo-tech drunken teenage mojo that songs like "Psychotic Reaction" and "The Witch" have going on in every second of their time; there is a fair amount of schmaltz and syrupy-pop on the Nuggets discs too, but there are also some songs on there, e.g. "jungle juju cackles" as Lester Bangs said, like "Wooly Bully" that defy reasonable description.

SecondEdition wrote:Kingsmen - Louie Louie

this is possibly one of the best things ever recorded - the competent guitar & organ, the absolutely just flatout strange drumming, the drunken caterwaul vocals.... the mistaken vocal entrance a bar too early for the final verse is so great. people (let me get this off my chest): leave some mistakes in! they bring a helluva lotta humanity and greatness to the song. ok then.

hench wrote:

SecondEdition wrote:Kingsmen - Louie Louie

this is possibly one of the best things ever recorded - the competent guitar & organ, the absolutely just flatout strange drumming, the drunken caterwaul vocals.... the mistaken vocal entrance a bar too early for the final verse is so great. people (let me get this off my chest): leave some mistakes in! they bring a helluva lotta humanity and greatness to the song. ok then.

There is no "possibly" about it - the Kingsmen's version of "Louie Louie" is simply one of the Ten Commandments of Rock and Roll.

The only person I've ever met who didn't like it is my father, and he's practically a professional killjoy (though he does love CCR).

mattw wrote:Just in case anyone was wondering, the greatest garage rock song of all time belongs to Mpls/St. Paul's own the Castaways ("Liar Liar").

Bullshit. That song is one of the worst on Nuggets. The female vocalist sucks and the male vocalists sound like two of the biggest fucking dorks this side of "Porky's". But it is catchy, I'll give it that.

There's a great track called "She Done Moved" (?) on one of the Nuggets comps. Does anyone know the name of the group? They may have been a Texas band.

EDIT Found it. It's the Spats. I love that song. It has that garage-y intensity with a funky swingin' flow.

SecondEdition wrote:

mattw wrote:Just in case anyone was wondering, the greatest garage rock song of all time belongs to Mpls/St. Paul's own the Castaways ("Liar Liar").

Bullshit. That song is one of the worst on Nuggets. The female vocalist sucks and the male vocalists sound like two of the biggest fucking dorks this side of "Porky's". But it is catchy, I'll give it that.

That's one of the guys singing the high part. It took me awhile to realize that too! Hey, it's precisely why I like it.

mattw wrote:

SecondEdition wrote:

mattw wrote:Just in case anyone was wondering, the greatest garage rock song of all time belongs to Mpls/St. Paul's own the Castaways ("Liar Liar").

Bullshit. That song is one of the worst on Nuggets. The female vocalist sucks and the male vocalists sound like two of the biggest fucking dorks this side of "Porky's". But it is catchy, I'll give it that.

That's one of the guys singing the high part. It took me awhile to realize that too! Hey, it's precisely why I like it.

That's a guy?!!?

Um, wow...that really does change everything. Now that song is fuckin' hilarious!

That's awesome! Thanks, mattw!

SecondEdition wrote:

mattw wrote:Just in case anyone was wondering, the greatest garage rock song of all time belongs to Mpls/St. Paul's own the Castaways ("Liar Liar").

Bullshit. That song is one of the worst on Nuggets. The female vocalist sucks and the male vocalists sound like two of the biggest fucking dorks this side of "Porky's". But it is catchy, I'll give it that.

wrong for you! this song is awesome -- the wavery out-of-tune-ness of it & the constant tugofwar between major & minor - righteous!