Description

5/17/24
21+, Positive I.D. Required. 7:00pm Doors / 8:00pm Show

THIS IS A GENERAL ADMISSION, STANDING ROOM ONLY SHOW! NO SEATING WILL BE AVAILABLE.

In 2023, sold out shows in Los Angeles, New York City, Hoboken NJ, N.Carolina, Philadelphia, and San Franscisco by ‘Lenny Kaye & Friends’ celebrated the 50th anniversary of Nuggets, the beloved and influential double-compilation album curated by Kaye, Patti Smith’s guitar-player. OK, it was originally released in 1972 - but who’s counting?! At the time he was a writer for Rolling Stone and a clerk at Village Oldies Records in Greenwich Village. For 2024, right after two more shows in London, Lenny is bringing the show to The Cut in Gloucester, with a group of his favorite N. E. region “Friends”.

Nuggets, subtitled “Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968” chronicled that short period between the Beatles’ debut on The Ed Sullivan Show and when, in the wake of Sgt. Pepper, rock and roll turned progressive. The compilation excavated that hidden history. It has been called the punk rock version of Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music. The early punk-rock bands saw the Nuggets bands as kindred spirits, many of those first bands that played CBGB (including Kaye with Patti Smith Group) covered songs from the album. “It’s all about great records…it’s all about great songs,” said Kaye.

Jon Savage, in his history of the UK punk rock scene, England's Dreaming, cites Nuggets as a major influence on punk bands - including it in his essential punk discography, alongside Iggy and the Stooges' Raw Power and The Velvet Underground's White Light/White Heat. 

In 1998 Rhino Records put the original disc in a box set with three other discs, an extra 91 songs that were not on the original double-LP, featuring such smash hits as Incense and Peppermints by Strawberry Alarm Clock, Louie, Louie by the Kingsmen, and Wooly Bully by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs. In 2003, the album was ranked number 196 on Rolling Stone's list of the '500 Greatest Albums Of All Time’.