Musical Medications: Real Life Permanent Dreams

In the grand tradition of Nuggets..........

& Nuggets II..........

(You gotta love Rhino Records.)

we now have Real Life Permanent Dreams. While the Nuggets box sets are an extension of the original 2 LP set issued in the 70's & compiled by Lenny Kaye (Patti Smith Group's guitarist) Real Life Permanent Dreams is a continuation on that the theme. Collecting rare & hard to find singles & obscure LP tracks Castle has really put together one hell of a package. They did a beautiful job on The Kinks reissues & this set ranks right up w/ those as far as sound quality goes. The package is spectacularly adorned & the information on the groups abound. While some stalwarts of the scene do make an appearance in this set the tracks chosen are not the regular affair. You won't find the hits......... but what you will find is something that will make you look past the hits & rediscover the artist or group in question. (I.E. The Crazy World of Arthur Brown is present. They used Fire [Unreleased Alternate Version] & after listening to it I found myself dragging out every C.W.o.A.B. disc I could find & scaring the kids w/ "Fire Poem"...........)

Rhino Records set the bar real high w/ Nuggets but Castle & R.L.P.D. comes damn close to meeting the standard. Not bad for a label that started out merely compiling cheap best of packages. They use to employ a company called Shoot That Tiger to do all the artwork & it always looked cheesy.

Here is an example

but since being taken over by Sanctuary (in turn being taken over by Universal) it looks like they are going to be a force to reckon w/ in at least the re-issue department.