rtist: VA Title: Where The Action Is! Los Angeles Nuggets: 1965-1968 Year Of Release: 2009 Label: Rhino Genre: Garage Rock, Psychedelic Rock, Classic Rock, Folk Rock, Pop Rock Quality: FLAC (tracks+scans) Total Time: 04:25:47 Tracklist: CD 1 (On The Strip): 01. The Standells - Riot On Sunset Strip 02. The Byrds - You Movin' 03. Love - You I'll Be Following 04. The Leaves - Dr. Stone 05. Buffalo Springfield - Go And Say Goodbye 06. Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band - Zig Zag Wanderer 07. Iron Butterfly - Gentle As It May Seem 08. Lowell George & The Factory - Candy Cane Madness 09. The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band - If You Want This Love 10. The Bobby Fuller Four - Baby My Heart 11. The Palace Guard - All Night Long 12. Sonny & Cher - It's Gonna Rain 13. The Guilloteens - For My Own 14. The Rising Sons - Take A Giant Step 15. The Association - One Too Many Mornings 16. The Knack - Time Waits For No One 17. The Doors - Take It As It Comes 18. Kaleidoscope - Pulsating Dream 19. The Seeds - Tripmaker 20. The People In Me - The Music Machine 21. The Sons Of Adam - Saturday's Son 22. The Peanut Butter Conspiracy - Eventually 23. Penny Arkade - Swim 24. The Joint Effort - The Third Eye 25. Spirit - Girl In Your Eye CD 2 (Beyond The City): 01. Thee Midniters - Jump, Jive & Harmonize 02. The Light - Back Up 03. The Bush - To Die Alone 04. The Premiers - Get On This Plane 05. The Odyssey - Little Girl, Little Boy 06. The Electric Prunes - Hideaway 07. The Merry-Go-Round - Listen, Listen! 08. The Spats - She Done Moved 09. The Turtles - Grim Reaper Of Love 10. Ken & The 4th Dimension - See If I Care 11. The Chymes - He's Not There Anymore 12. Opus 1 - Back Seat '38 Dodge 13. The Humane Society - Eternal Prison 14. The Others - Revenge 15. Things To Come - Come Alive 16. The Velvet Illusions - Acid Head 17. Limey & The Yanks - Guaranteed Love 18. The Romancers (aka The Smoke Rings) - Love's The Thing 19. Kim Fowley - Underground Lady 20. The Deepest Blue - Pretty Little Thing 21. The Whatt Four - You're Wishin' I Was Someone Else 22. The W.C. Fields Memorial Electric String Band - Hippy Elevator Operator 23. The Mustangs - That's For Sure 24. Fapardokly (Merrell & The Exiles) - Tomorrow's Girl 25. The Hysterics - Everything's There 26. The Yellow Payges - Our Time Is Running Out CD 3 (The Studio Scene): 01. Keith Allison - Action, Action, Action 02. Dino, Desi & Billy - The Rebel Kind 03. The Knickerbockers - High On Love 04. Jan & Dean - Fan Tan 05. P.F. Sloan - Halloween Mary 06. The Mamas & The Papas - Somebody Groovy 07. Thorinshield - Daydreaming 08. The Full Treatment - Just Can't Wait 09. The Yellow Balloon - Yellow Balloon 10. London Phogg - The Times To Come 11. The Lamp Of Childhood - No More Running Around 12. The Garden Club - Little Girls Lost-And-Found 13. The Moon - Mothers And Fathers 14. October Country - My Girlfriend Is A Witch 15. Roger Nichols Trio - Montage Mirror 16. Pasternak Progress - Flower Eyes 17. The Common Cold - Come Down 18. Gary Lewis & The Playboys - Jill 19. The Monkees - Daily Nightly 20. Modern Folk Quartet - Night Time Girl 21. The Oracle - Don't Say No 22. Hearts And Flowers - Tin Angel (Will You Ever Come Down) 23. Lee Hazlewood - Rainbow Woman 24. Pleasure featuring Billy Elder - Poor Old Organ Grinder 25. The Ballroom - Baby, Please Don't Go CD 4 (New Directions): 01. Stephen Stills & Richie Furay - Sit Down I Think I Love You 02. Jackie DeShannon with The Byrds - Splendor In The Grass 03. Peter Fonda - November Night 04. Danny Hutton - Roses And Rainbows 05. The Dillards - Lemon Chimes 06. The Rose Garden - Here's Today 07. Nino Tempo & April Stevens - I Love How You Love Me 08. Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart - Words (Demo) 09. The Motorcycle Abeline (Warren Zevon & Bones Howe) - (You Used To) Ride So High 10. Gene Clark - Los Angeles 11. Tim Buckley - Once Upon A Time 12. The Everpresent Fullness - Darlin' You Can Count On Me 13. The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band - I'll Search The Sky 14. Van Dyke Parks - Come To The Sunshine 15. The Beach Boys - Heroes And Villains (Alternate Take) 16. Jesse Lee Kincaid - She Bang Hymns Out Of Tune 17. Nilsson - Sister Marie 18. Randy Newman - Last Night I Had A Dream (Single Version) 19. Noel Harrison - Life Is A Dream 20. Rick Nelson - Marshmallow Skies 21. Del Shannon - I Think I Love You 22. The Byrds - Change Is Now 23. Sagittarius - The Truth Is Not Real (Single Version) 24. Love - You Set The Scene 25. Barry McGuire - Inner-Mannipulations Where the Action Is! Los Angeles Nuggets 1965-1968, Rhino's 2009 sequel to their 2007 Nuggets box Love Is the Song We Sing, shifts the spotlight down the Californian coast, moving from the epicenter of the hippie universe in San Francisco to hipsville central in Los Angeles, the land where fringe-wearing folk-rockers strolled down the Sunset Strip alongside studio cats on the make. Both groups of hipsters are equally well-represented on Where the Action Is!, along with the teens raising a ruckus out in the suburbs and the stars who stretched out, all based on the sounds they heard coming from the Strip, the section of Sunset that serves as the fulcrum for this entire set. The compilers focus on a brief time, the four-year stretch from 1965 to 1968, where Los Angeles was overrun with dance clubs and nightspots, all giving bands as wonderful and distinct as the Byrds, Love, the Doors, the Seeds, Buffalo Springfield, and the Leaves places to explore, opening up avenues that others followed, either in music or spirit. Some of this filtered through the prism of the studio, where there were plenty of musicians infatuated with the sounds of Brian Wilson, who pops up toward the end on an alternate take of "Heroes and Villains," but there's also no denying the impact of hustlers and hucksters like Kim Fowley, or how Hollywood could package and polish all of this up in the form of the Monkees. All of this is here in bright, flashing neon on Where the Action Is!, which helps make it one of the liveliest of the Nuggets boxes, but also the one that seems to stray furthest from the series' mission to excavate unheard garage rock and psychedelia; after all, the Beach Boys, the Byrds, and the Doors are hardly unknown quantities or one-hit wonders. Yet, in its own way, Where the Action Is! is as crucial as any of the boxes that followed the first Nuggets set, for it documents a brief, shining moment in time where everything and anything seemed possible. It's not archeology, it's pop culture anthropology that does an excellent job of charting the rise of the L.A. underground, illustrating its first surfacing in the mainstream, connecting the dots in a fashion that may surprise even some dedicated pop and rock fans, those that might not realize how the Turtles, Bobby Fuller Four, the Standells, the Association, the Electric Prunes, Nilsson, Captain Beefheart. and Iron Butterfly were all connected, however loosely, or how Rick Nelson and Del Shannon got weird as the decade started to draw to a close. These connections, along with discovering dozens of gems from lesser-known artists, are the reason why Where the Action Is! winds up being a blast, as well as a revelation just like any other Nuggets set