Where the Action Is!... [Box set, Compilation]

Where The Action Is!, the fifth installment in the 4-disc box set Nuggets series by Rhino, is a good set of mid-to-late 60's garage, folk-rock, pop, and psychedelia. It follows the same musical territories as the previous sets but with its focus on Los Angeles and the surrounding suburbs. Los Angeles was a very fertile music scene during the time period in focus on this set: from the world-renowned folk-rock of the Byrds and Love, to the copious amounts of garage bands in the burbs, to the studio wizardry of producers, and the emergence of soon-to-be household names in the music industry. And while there is plenty for everybody on this set, depending on your personal preferences, you could very well be grinning ear-to-ear after one disc and seething after the next. The good news is that the set is broken down into four discs that follow a similar theme and style for each one, thus making it easy to decide which you might ignore or go through skipping a lot. Like the San Francisco set, this box has included household names (The Byrds, The Doors, Jackie DeShannon, Del Shannon, The Beach Boys, Buffalo Springfield...) but fortunately included songs that aren't the ones you here on oldies stations or FM classic rock.

Disc 1: Deals with the bands playing on the strip. One of my favourites since it contains the wonderful folk-rock of the Byrds, Love, and others while including some fantastic garage (The Seeds, The Music Machine, The Standells) and early psychedelic (pre-Sgt. Pepper's in most cases, like Peanut Butter Conspiracy and West Coast Pop Experimental Band). It's a wonderfully unique mix of styles that hold together as a cohesive unit quite well.

Disc 2: Focuses on the surrounding suburbs of LA, which means that it's comprised primarily of raw garage punk and the stuff that made the first Nuggets box so great. It's my personal favourite of the four discs (since I prefer the garage rock to all the other styles). The opening song, "Jump, Jive and Harmonize" by Thee Midniters, is probably one of the most raucous tracks from the decade (is it possible that they out-Sonic the Sonics?) and The Premiers "Get On This Plane" is another solid, fuzz-drenched rocker. The more psychedelic, but haunting, "Eternal Prison" by The Humane Society (the progenitors of the psychotic "Knock, Knock" on the first box set) is a must-have song.

Disc 3: This disc focuses on studio experimentation, producers, and various session players/arrangers/songwriters). The disc opens with the rocking Raiders-like "Action Action Action" by Keith Allison, and continues rather well, albeit sporadically, for the next couple songs with some pop and early songs by bigger names (Mamas and the Papas, Jan & Dean) and then progresses into the kind of music that turns me off and ultimately leaves me depressed: bad Sgt. Pepper's-type imitations, pop-psych, and outright boring pop music. If this style is to your taste, you might love disc 3, but for me, at least 3/4 of this disc is unlistenable.

Disc 4: Labelled as "New Directions", this disc seems to essentially sum up the music from discs 1 and 3 and starts to show some country-rock directions and singer/songwriter material. While, like disc 3, the majority of this disc doesn't do it for me, it does contain some genuinely great music like Gene Clark's "Los Angeles", The Byrds, and (to my surprise) Randy Newman's original recording of "Last Night I Had A Dream" that sounds absolutely nothing like his piano-based music; it's an outright rock song (tinges of garage, psych, and country abound).

The complaint about the packaging that I've read about elsewhere is legit, but not as drastic as some have made it out to be. The CD inserts at the back do leave scuff marks on the discs and the liner notes don't contain the lengthy and informative essays that the first Nuggets sets included, but the track information is on par and the printing quality and assortment of pics and memoribilia are as one would expect for the series.

Worth buying, but not essential...depending on your tastes of course!

This is the 5th box set in the Nugget series. To say I was a little disappointed in the book that houses the 4 cds is an understatement, It has to be a full one third the size of the box set 'Love is the Song We Sing'.

Sure the music is great but the fun of this series is reading the wealth of material that accompanies the box sets.

It just seems to me they scrimped on this one.