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Rhino's Love Is The Song We Sing: San Francisco Nuggets 1965-19704-CD Box Set Celebrates The 40th Anniversary Of"The Summer Of Love"

May 18 2007
LOS ANGELES --

Forty years ago the world turned its ears toward San Francisco as a wave of talented bands gave birth to the American counterculture. On August 28, Rhino remembers that magical confluence of time and place with LOVE IS THE SONG WE SING: SAN FRANCISCO NUGGETS 1965-1970, a 4-CD box set of classics and rarities from the golden age of Golden State rock.

SAN FRANCISCO NUGGETS is the last word on one of popular music's defining regional scenes -- though as scenes go, the music it produced is remarkably diverse. The 77 tracks heard here share little beyond an artistic adventurousness long encouraged in the City by the Bay (which was a magnet for free thinkers from the days of the Beats).

Seismic Rumbles, as the first CD of SAN FRANCISCO NUGGETS is subtitled, maps the fault lines separating the pop sounds of the early 1960s from more adventurous rock inspired by the arrival of The Beatles and Bob Dylan. By mid-decade, most of the pieces were in place for what would soon be called "The San Francisco Sound," and Disc 1 features the pre-Grateful Dead group The Warlocks, the original line-up of the Jefferson Airplane, a pre-hit Grass Roots, influential existentialists The Charlatans, and Country Joe & The Fish posing that timeless question "And it's one, two, three, what are we fighting for?"

Disc 2, dubbed Suburbia, celebrates the folk-rock, garage, and psychotic reactions of such neighboring areas as Sacramento, San Jose, Berkeley, and Sausalito. While rarely given the respect accorded to the Dead or the Airplane, groups like The Chocolate Watchband ("No Way Out"), Frumious Bandersnatch ("Hearts To Cry"), Butch Engle & The Styx ("Hey I'm Lost"), and Teddy & His Patches ("Suzy Creamcheese") could easily match their more vaunted SF brethren when it came to intensity, instrumental skill, musical ambition, and just plain weirdness. 

The summer of 1967 drew legions of flower children from all over the country to the intersection of Haight and Ashbury streets and -- following the epochal Monterey Pop Festival -- legions of record company A&R people. The resulting gold rush produced such nuggets as "Somebody To Love" (performed here by Grace Slick with her original group The Great! Society), "White Rabbit," Moby Grape's "Omaha," and Blue Cheer's thunderous take on "Summertime Blues." Musicians, too, flocked to the area, and the Summer Of Love disc shows such transplants as Janis Joplin (from Texas) and Steve Miller (who'd left Chicago for 'Frisco) entering the spotlight. 

"The Man Can't Bust Our Music" provides an apt description of the defiantly original recordings comprising SAN FRANCISCO NUGGETS' final disc. By the end of the decade, the extended instrumental jamming of Santana, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and the Grateful Dead that for many embodied the SF rock scene finally found a receptive home at radio when San Francisco became ground zero for freeform FM. As challenging as that music was to the constraints of commercial broadcasting, it nonetheless had an inviting spirit of fellowship that's perfectly captured by the closing track, The Youngbloods' "Get Together." 

Produced by noted writer and reissue producer Alec Palao, SAN FRANCISCO NUGGETS treats the glory years of the area's rock scene with the respect it deserves. Music from the city that gave birth to the psychedelic poster and lightshow merits an impressive visual treatment, and the hardcover coffee table book packaging here certainly qualifies. Sandwiched between a silver foil front and the four CDs in back, the 120 pages feature essays by noted Rolling Stone scribe Ben-Fong Torres and former Billboard writer Gene Sculatti (both of whom, like Palao, have deep roots in the Bay Area music scene), as well as detailed track info. The book is also filled with concert art and other memorabilia, plus images from some of rock's top photographers -- many of them previously unseen. 

For songs that sang so freely of love, the music on this box provided the soundtrack to one of America's most turbulent eras -- a time rife with intergenerational conflict amid an unpopular war. But this is neither history lesson nor nostalgia trip. From the famous to the obscure, these SAN FRANCISCO NUGGETS remain an open invitation to any listener with a taste for sonic experimentation and communal good vibes.

LOVE IS THE SONG WE SING: SAN FRANCISCO NUGGETS 1965-1970
Track Listing

Disc 1: Seismic Rumbles

 1. Dino Valenti -- "Let's Get Together"
 2. Country Joe & The Fish -- "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die" (EP Version)
 3. We Five -- "You Were On My Mind"
 4. The Charlatans -- "Number One"
 5. The Warlocks -- "Can't Come Down"
 6. The Beau Brummels -- "Don't Talk To Strangers"
 7. The Vejtables -- "Anything"
 8. Jefferson Airplane -- "It's No Secret"
 9. The Mystery Trend -- "Johnny Was A Good Boy"
 10. The Great! Society -- "Free Advice"
 11. The Grass Roots -- "Mr Jones (A Ballad Of A Thin Man)"
 12. Blackburn & Snow -- "Stranger In A Strange Land"
 13. Quicksilver Messenger Service -- "Who Do You Love" (Demo Version)
 14. The Mojo Men -- "She's My Baby"
 15. The Wildflower -- "Coffee Cup"
 16. The Family Tree -- "Live Your Own Life"
 17. The Sons Of Champlin -- "Fat City"
 18. The Frantics -- "Human Monkey"
 19. The Tikis -- "Bye Bye Bye" (Warner Bros. Single Version)
 20. Country Joe & The Fish -- "Section 43"
 21. The Sopwith "Camel" -- "Hello Hello"

Disc 2: Suburbia

 1. Count Five -- "Psychotic Reaction"
 2. The Front Line -- "Got Love"
 3. The Mourning Reign -- "Satisfaction Guaranteed"
 4. The Oxford Circle -- "Foolish Woman"
 5. The Stained Glass -- "My Buddy Sin"
 6. The Otherside -- "Streetcar"
 7. Teddy & His Patches -- "Suzy Creamcheese"
 8. The Immediate Family -- "Rubiyat"
 9. Syndicate Of Sound -- "Rumors"
 10. The Harbinger Complex -- "Sometimes I Wonder"
 11. The New Breed -- "Want Ad Reader"
 12. The Generation -- "I'm A Good Woman"
 13. The Chocolate Watchband -- "No Way Out"
 14. Butch Engle & The Styx -- "Hey I'm Lost"
 15. People -- "I Love You"
 16. Public Nuisance -- "America"
 17. Country Weather -- "Fly To New York"
 18. The Savage Resurrection -- "Thing In 'E'"
 19. Frumious Bandersnatch -- "Hearts To Cry"

Disc 3: Summer Of Love

 1. The Charlatans -- "Alabama Bound"
 2. The Mystery Trend -- "Carl Street"
 3. The Great! Society -- "Somebody To Love" (LP Version)
 4. Country Joe & The Fish -- "Superbird"
 5. The Beau Brummels -- "Two Days 'Til Tomorrow"
 6. Moby Grape -- "Omaha"
 7. The Serpent Power -- "Up & Down"
 8. Grateful Dead -- "The Golden Road (To Unlimited Devotion)"
 9. Quicksilver Messenger Service -- "Codine"
 10. Big Brother & The Holding Company -- "Down On Me" (Live)
 11. Salvation -- "Think Twice"
 12. Jefferson Airplane -- "White Rabbit"
 13. Steve Miller Band -- "Roll With It"
 14. Notes From The Underground -- "Why Did You Put Me On"
 15. Sly & The Family Stone -- "Underdog"
 16. Blue Cheer -- "Summertime Blues"
 17. The Ace Of Cups -- "Glue"
 18. Santana -- "Soul Sacrifice"
 19. The Loading Zone -- "The Bells"

Disc 4: "The Man Can't Bust Our Music"

 1. Santana -- "Evil Ways"
 2. Fifty Foot Hose -- "Red The Sign Post"
 3. Kak -- "Lemonaide Kid"
 4. The Sons Of Champlin -- "1982-A"
 5. Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks -- "How Can I Miss You When You Won't Go Away"
 6. Mad River -- "Amphetamine Gazelle"
 7. The Steve Miller Band -- "Quicksilver Girl"
 8. Mother Earth -- "Revolution"
 9. Moby Grape -- "Murder In My Heart For The Judge"
 10. Quicksilver Messenger Service -- "Light Your Windows"
 11. Flamin' Groovies -- "I'm Drowning"
 12. Seatrain -- "Portrait Of The Artist As A Young Lady"
 13. It's A Beautiful Day -- "White Bird"
 14. Grateful Dead -- "Dark Star" (Single Version)
 15. Blue Cheer -- "Fool" (Single Version)
 16. Jefferson Airplane -- "Mexico"
 17. Janis Joplin -- "Mercedes Benz"
 18. The Youngbloods -- "Get Together"