“I never dreamed that I would still be celebrating Nuggets: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era a half century and more into the future,” says Lenny Kaye about the golden anniversary tribute of his iconic compilation album that will take place at Beachland Ballroom on March 27, 2026.
Given artistic license in 1972 by Jac Holzman, Elektra president, he curated an anthology to showcase those tracks that seemed overlooked, perhaps that obscure cut on an album gone unnoticed, a single fallen through the cracks, a one-hit wonder that needed re-contextualization; an oldies album, even if the time span was hardly past. While the original two-disc collection contained many styles of music spanning 1964 through 1969, its emphasis on what would be known as garage bands, newly empowered by the English Invasion as it was translated to America, brimming with attitude and self-declaration and barely controlled mania, provided inspiration and immediacy to a generation yearning to feel the power of electricity and psychic transformation. The album, along with its many offshoots, has since become a touchstone of rock and roll’s immediacy and reinvention, as well as keeping alive a slew of great songs that have become classics over the years.
“It is particularly fitting that Cleveland,” dubbed “the New Liverpool” by Rock Scene magazine, - home to a vibrant garage scene defined by the Choir, Cyrus Erie, the Outsiders, and just a short jog along the Buckeye Beat, the Ohio Express and the Music Explosion - will celebrate its hometown heroes, as well as beloved favorites from the Nuggets catalog. The core band will consist of Lenny Kaye, musical director Jim Mastro, along with Don Dixon on bass, and drummer Chris Butler. Over the past three years, Nuggets celebrations have taken place in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York City, and London, aboard ship (the Underground Garage cruise), North Carolina, Massachusetts, and on turntables everywhere.
The night promises to be a hallucinogenic homage to this classic and influential compilation, featuring special guests and Original Artyfacts of the First Psychedelic Era that have become classics over the past half century, wherever garage rockers turn on, tune in, and turn it up!
It’s a Nugget if you Dug It!!!
LENNY KAYE BIO
As musician, writer, and record producer, Lenny Kaye has been intimately involved with the creative impulse that marks the music. He is a founding member of Patti Smith and Her Band, dating from their first performance as a duo at St. Marks Church in New York’s East Village on February 10, 1971, and has worked with such artists as Suzanne Vega, Jim Carroll, Allen Ginsberg, Soul Asylum, and Jessi Colter. His books include You Call It Madness: The Sensuous Song of the Croon (2004); Waylon: An Autobiography (1994); and the newly released Lightning Striking: Ten Transformative Moments in Rock and Roll. His seminal anthology of garage rock, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts of the First Psychedelic Era, is regarded as defining a genre and recently celebrated its golden anniversary. Instagram@lenny_kaye
