Various Artists - The Rubble Collection Volumes 1-20 (UK Late 1960s)

Hot on the Stereo this week.

 

 

Back in my younger days, soon after my initial punk phase, I started exploring the earlier musics of the decade of my birth and soon after that I was somehow introduced to the growing proliferation of sixties garage and psychedelic compilations. The initial plunge into these murky waters was via the first two volumes of Pebbles and then the Back From The Grave comps. Not long after, these Rubble compilations appeared in our local stores and I managed to pick up several volumes on vinyl. They became staples of the scene with quite a few of my friends grooving to these obscure lost sounds while playing card games and partaking mind altering green substances etc...(The Card Game was called "Grass", you can guess what it was about").

 Unlike the other comps mentioned above, the Rubble sets were of British origin and had a more psychedelic tinge to the rare 45RPM pop singles included within. I no longer have the vinyl copies but did manage to download the entire 20 volumes of the net some time back. Am hoping to procure the CDs some time soon. 

The first six volumes and Volumes 11 & 12 were the ones I originally had and they are an  absolute stunning collection of totally awesome lo-fi psychedelic pop like only the 60s could produce. All this stuff just blows all the modern indie pop off the planet. It has been so good to blast these classics again, so many of which have been etched into my subconscious from the thrashing they got 30 years ago. This music hasn't lost any of it's potency through age and volume one introduced me to the totally mindblowing "I Must Be Mad", The Craig's all time classic which would be close to the top of my favourite 60's garage/psych list. It has been a real trip down memory lane revisiting so many fabulous tracks that still sound so familiar today, to many classics to mention. The rest of the volumes have managed to keep up the quality of the earlier ones and  have thrown up some more tracks that could compete with those already familiar classics. Plenty of great little 60s psych guitar solos throughout this large collection and plenty of catchy melodies dripping psychedelica. A highly recommended collection for the 60s psych affectionado.  Rating 5/5.