Lenny Kaye
Related: punk rock - guitar - garage rock
Biography
Guitarist, composer and writer Lenny Kaye was a member of the Patti Smith Group and has been Smith's most frequent collaborator. He wrote the liner notes for Nuggets (1972), which included one of the first uses of the term "punk rock". He was also a close friend of expatriate Australian rock writer and journalist Lillian Roxon.
In the 1980s, he had his own band Lenny Kaye Connection. He produced the first two albums by Suzanne Vega.
He also co-authored Waylon Jennings' autobiography (Waylon: An Autobiography, ISBN 1570424357) --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lenny_Kaye [Mar 2006]
Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era
Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From the First Psychedelic Era is a compilation album of garage rock from the mid- to late 1960s, assembled by Jac Holzman, founder of Elektra Records. Assisting him was Lenny Kaye, who later became the guitarist for the Patti Smith Group. Together, the two men assembled a 2-LP set of American garage rock cuts. The album was originally released by Elektra Records in 1972, and reissued, with a new cover design, in 1976 by Sire Records. The liner notes, penned by Lenny Kaye, gave a brief biography of each band. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nuggets [Mar 2006]
CDs
- Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968 [4 CD, Amazon US]
That the most famous garage-rock record of all time, the Kingsmen's "Louie Louie," is buried on the last CD of this four-disc box is very much in keeping with the spirit of the (often) one-hit wonders that people Nuggets. Here, "Louie Louie" is just another great song. An elaboration on the 1972 double LP, which is included in its original sequence, this set piles on dozens more great moments of inspiration, guts, chutzpah, and sometimes sheer commercial calculation. How else to explain the advice "Look at yourself" from the likes of the Strawberry Alarm Clock, whose idea of mind expansion seems limited to putting together two very vaguely related nouns--"Incense and Peppermints"--so their swinging Farfisa-led track will have something, anything, for verbal content? There's loads of such wisdom on display here, prefab and otherwise, usually delivered as rabidly as possible. (Try the Remains' "Don't Look Back," Mouse and the Traps' "Maid of Sugar--Maid of Spice," or the Music Machine's "Talk Talk," which was actually a hit.) And remember: "The sky is falling / The ocean is calling / The world ... is spinning 'round ... and 'round." For sure. --Rickey Wrightyour Amazon recommendations
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