#221 GONN!

If you own the Nuggets box set or are a big fan of '60s garage rock, you may already know about this band from Keokuk, Iowa, and their contribution to the set, "Blackout of Gretely." If you don't know what Nuggets is, it's a collection of music recorded in the original "punk" era compiled by Lenny Kaye, guitarist for the Patti Smith Group. The first volumes were released in the early '70s and was released again in a box set form by Rhino Records in 1998. You can read more about it here.Gonn (who was included on the second release of Nuggets) formed and recorded a few songs and played a few gigs in the mid '60s, and they probably thought that was the end of their career as a band. Not an atypical garage-band story. Well, several years later--nearly 20 in fact--there was a resurgence of interest in mid '60s garage rock, and collectors snapped up almost any recording they could find of a lot of these mostly unknown acts from the '60s. "Blackout of Gretely" was considered a gem of the era and soon Craig Moore began getting people showing up at his house looking for copies of the record.I got the chance to catch up with Gonn at a reunion show that they played here in St. Louis.