Pebbles, Vol. One (Various Artists) (1979):  The British Invasion of the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and many other English rock bands arrived in the U.S. in late 1963.  Besides being wildly popular in its own right, this music ignited a passion in people throughout the country to start a rock band, particularly white teenage boys; and many of them also recorded and sold 45’s in order to promote their band and take a shot at rock stardom.  I have been to dances and concerts myself in this time period where a stack of records by a local rock band was available for purchase.  This music is now known variously as garage rock, psychedelic rock, and original punk rock.  While some of these songs did become hits, the vast majority barely circulated in the local community and were forgotten for many years.  In 1972, Elektra Records collected most of the garage rock and psychedelic rock singles that made the charts, along with many other songs that should have, into a double album called Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965–1968.  When I came across the 1976 reissue on Sire Records, Nuggets instantly became a favorite album of mine, and I was already familiar with much of the music.  Nuggets is now recognized as being one of the greatest and most influential compilation albums of all time.  Rhino Records revived the series in the 1980’s with many single albums under the Nuggets name and a reissue of the original Nuggets double-album in 1998 as a four-CD box set, also called Nuggets; two more Nuggets box sets followed.  However, Nuggets concentrated on the better known and more professional bands and barely scratched the surface of the wealth of mostly unknown garage rock and psychedelic rock singles; and numerous other series soon followed whose names were often a takeoff on Nuggets:  Pebbles, Rubble, Boulders, Gravel, etc.  Besides Nuggets itself, the Pebbles series is the best known and was started clandestinely in 1978 by Greg Shaw of Bomp! Records (evidently along with other record collectors), with the bulk of the songs apparently taken from his personal record collection.  The original release of what was called Pebbles, Volume One: Artyfacts from the First Punk Era (a riff on the full name of the Nuggets album) was on Mastercharge Records.  Master Charge is what we now know as Master Card; the record label name suggests that the release of Pebbles, Vol. One – one of the first albums to come out under the auspices of Bomp! Records – was funded by credit card withdrawals.  Later pressings of Pebbles, Vol. One were on BFD Records, purportedly of Kookaburra, Australia; however, Kookaburra is the name of a bird of Australia, not a city.  Whereas most vinyl albums have 10 or 12 songs, the Pebbles albums and most other Bomp! Records compilation albums have 15 or 20 songs.  Close to 100 albums have been released using the Pebbles name or variants – like Best of Pebbles, Great Pebbles, and Planetary Pebbles – along with the companion Highs in the Mid-Sixties series that concentrates on songs released in different states or regions in America – and I bought nearly all of them, though many were lost in Hurricane Katrina.  The first cut on the Pebbles, Vol. One LP, “Action Woman” by the Litter includes a skip during the break – on the original record, according to the liner notes – scrambling the line “You say you love me, girl, but why are you so cold”, but otherwise not really affecting the enjoyment of this genuine classic.  Despite the fact that the Litter released three albums and is among the better-known bands on Pebbles, Vol. One, “Action Woman” was almost unavailable without this skip for many years.  For instance, the bonus track at the end of the Pebbles, Vol. One CD (1992) is a 1985 cover of “Action Woman” that omits the line.  (The artist is not given on the CD liner notes but is identified on the AIP Records website as Echo & the Bunnymen).  Other classics on Pebbles, Vol. One include “I’m in Pittsburgh (and it’s Raining)” by the Outcasts, “1-2-5” by a Canadian band called the Haunted, “Going All the Way” by the Squires, “The Trip” by Kim Fowley, “Potato Chip” by the Shadows of Knight, and a frantic cover of the Count Five song “Psychotic Reaction” by Positively 13 O’Clock.  The Shadows of Knight was featured on the original Nuggets album, as was Mouse and the Traps – Positively 13 O’Clock included several members of that band.  One final note:  “Crackin’ Up” by the Wig is listed on the cover and on the record label, but the song is not actually included on the album.