Track Listing
DISC 1: ON THE STRIP:
1. Riot on Sunset Strip - The Standells
2. You Movin' - The Byrds
3. You'll Be Following - Love
4. Dr. Stone - The Leaves
5. Go and Say Goodbye - Buffalo Springfield
6. Zig Zag Wanderer - Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band
7. Gentle as it May Seem - Iron Butterfly
8. Candy Cane Madness - Lowell George & The Factory
9. If You Want This Love - West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band
10. Baby My Heart - Bobby Fuller Four
11. All Night Long - The Palace Guard
12. It's Gonna Rain - Sonny & Cher
13. For My Own - Guilloteens
14. Take a Giant Step - The Rising Sons
15. One Too Many Mornings - The Association
16. Time Waits for No One - The Knack
17. Take it as it Comes - The Doors
18. Pulsating Dream - Kaleidoscope
19. Tripmaker - The Seeds
20. People in Me, The - The Music Machine
21. Saturday's Son - The Sons Of Adam
22. Eventually - The Peanut Butter Conspiracy
23. Swim - Penny Arkade
24. Third Eye, The - The Joint Effort
25. Girl in Your Eye - Spirit
DISC 2: BEYOND THE CITY:
1. Jump, Jive & Harmonize - Thee Midniters
2. Back Up - The Light
3. To Die Alone - The Bush
4. Get on This Plane - The Premiers
5. Little Girl, Little Boy - The Odyssey
6. Hideaway - The Electric Prunes
7. Listen, Listen! - The Merry-Go-Round
8. She Done Moved - The Spats
9. Grim Reaper of Love - The Turtles
10. See if I Care - Ken & The 4th Dimension
11. He's Not There Anymore - The Chymes
12. Back Seat '38 Dodge - Opus 1
13. Eternal Prison - The Humane Society
14. Revenge - The Others
15. Come Alive - Things To Come
16. Acid Head - Velvet Illusions
17. Guranteed Love - Limey & The Yanks
18. Love's the Thing - The Romancers
19. Underground Lady - Kim Fowley
20. Pretty Little Thing - Deepest Blue
21. You're Wishin' I Was Someone Else - The Whatt Four
22. Hippy Elevator Operator - W.C. Fields Memorial Electric String Band
23. That's for Sure - The Mustangs
24. Tomorrow's Girl - Fapardokly
25. Everything's There - The Hysterics
26. Our Time is Running Out - Yellow Payges
DISC 3: THE STUDIO SCENE:
1. Action, Action, Action - Keith Allison
2. Rebel Kind, The - Dino, Desi & Billy/Billy
3. High on Love - The Knickerbockers
4. Fan Tan - Jan & Dean
5. Halloween Mary - P.F. Sloan
6. Somebody Groovy - The Mamas & The Papas
7. Daydreaming - Thorinshield
8. Just Can't Wait - The Full Treatment
9. Yellow Balloon - The Yellow Balloon
10. Times to Come, The - London Phogg
11. No More Running Around - The Lamp Of Childhood
12. Little Girls Lost-And-Found - The Garden Club
13. Mothers and Fathers - The Moon
14. My Girlfriend is a Witch - October Country
15. Montage Mirror - Roger Nichols
16. Flower Eyes - The Pasternak Progress
17. Come Down - The Common Cold
18. Jill - Gary Lewis & The Playboys
19. Daily Nightly - The Monkees
20. Night Time Girl - The Modern Folk Quartet
21. Don't Say No - The Oracle
22. Tin Angel (Will You Ever Come Down) - Hearts & Flowers
23. Rainbow Woman - Lee Hazelwood/Lee Hazlewood
24. Poor Old Organ Grinder - Pleasure
25. Baby, Please Don't Go - The Ballroom
DISC 4: NEW DIRECTIONS:
1. Sit Down I Think I Love You - Richie Furay/Stephen Stills
2. Splendor in the Grass - Jackie DeShannon/The Byrds
3. November Night - Peter Fonda
4. Roses and Rainbows - Danny Hutton
5. Lemon Chimes - The Dillards
6. Here's Today - The Rose Garden
7. I Love How You Love Me - Nino Tempo/April Stevens
8. Words [Demo] - Tommy Boyce/Bobby Hart
9. (You Used to) Ride so High - The Motorcycle Abeline
10. Los Angeles - Gene Clark
11. Once Upon a Time - Tim Buckley
12. Darlin' You Can Count on Me - The Everpresent Fullness
13. I'll Search the Sky - Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
14. Come to the Sunshine - Van Dyke Parks
15. Heroes and Villains [Alternate Take] - The Beach Boys
16. She Sang Hymns Out of Tune - Jesse Lee Kincaid
17. Sister Marie - Nilsson
18. Last Night I Had a Dream [Single Version] - Randy Newman
19. Life is a Dream - Noel Harrison
20. Marshmellow Skies - Rick Nelson
21. I Think I Love You - Del Shannon
22. Change is Now - The Byrds
23. Truth is Not Real [Single Version], The - Sagittarius
24. You Set the Scene - Love
25. Inner-Manipulations - Barry McGuire
| Details | | Producer: | Alec Palao, Andrew Sandoval, Cheryl Pawelski | | Distributor: | WEA (Distributor) | | Recording Type: | Studio | | Recording Mode: | Stereo | | SPAR Code: | n/a |
Album Notes
Audio Remasterers: Dan Hersch; Andrew Sandoval.
Recording information: Sunset Sound Recorders, Los Angeles, CA; Original Sound Studios, Los Angeles, CA; Del-Fi Studios, Los Angelels, CA; Gary S. Paxton Sound Services, Los Angeles, CA; Vault Studios, Los Angeles, CA; HR Studios, Los Angeles, CA; Columbia Square, Los Angeles, CA; World Pacific Studios, Los Angeles, CA; T.T. & G, Los Angeles, CA; RCA Studio B, Los Angeles, CA; Jewel Theater, Los Angeles, CA; RCA Studios, Los Angeles, CA; Eldorado Studios, Hollywood, CA; Annex Studios, Los Angeles, CA; Audio Arts, Los Angeles, CA; Gold Star, Los Angeles, CA; Nashville West Los Angeles, CA; Capitol Studios, Los Angeles, CA; United Recorders, Studio B, Los Angeles, CA; Western Recorders Studio 1, Los Angeles, CA; Gold State Recorders, San Francisco, CA; American Recording, Studio City, CA; Sun West Recordings, Los Angeles, CA.
Photographer: Andrew Sandoval.
WHERE THE ACTION IS! LOS ANGELES NUGGETS: 1956-1968, Rhino's 2009 sequel to their 2007 Nuggets box LOVE IS THE SONG WE SING, shifts the spotlight down the California 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 it up in the form of the Monkees.
And all of it 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 but 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.
Editorial Reviews
[T]his thematically organized, exhaustively annotated four-CD box is a portable riot on the Sunset Strip.
Spin
5 stars out of 5 -- [This focuses] on LA's Sunset Strip as epicentre of an inestimably influential scene, presenting 101 tracks which range from fascinating to downright mindblowing...
Record Collector
4 stars out of 5 -- [The collection] makes a cast iron case for mid-'60s LA as a hotbed of creativity and weirdness.
Q
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