

Before he became Patti Smith’s lead guitarist, Lenny Kaye compiled the 2 album set, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era. Released in 1972, the two-LP set covered American garage rock and psychedelia from the years 1965 to 1968 and was a major influence on punk rock. Rhino Records reissued an expanded version of the set in 1998, with 118 tracks in total. I’m profiling and rating each of these 118 tracks, working backwards.
Track 72/118: Knock, Knock by The Humane Society
From: Simi Valley, California
Aphoristic Rating: 8/10
KNOCK, KNOCK – The Humane Society [2:54]
(Woody Minnick/Danny Wheetman)
Personnel/DANNY WHEETMAN: vocals, guitar * JIM PETTIT: lead guitar * WOODY MINNICK: guitar * RICHARD MAJEWSKI: bass * BILL SCHNETZLER: drums
Produced by DICK TORST & DICK PARKER for 2-D PRODUCTIONS
Recorded in Los Angeles, CA
Liberty single #55968 (4/67)
The Humane Society formed in Simi Valley, California, in 1965, originally called The Innocents. They were discovered by two producers, both named Dick, when playing a gig on a flatbed truck outside a record store.
Their first single was ‘Tiptoe Through The Tulips With Me’ – released in 1967 before it was popularised by Tiny Tim. It’s markedly different than its b-side – ‘Knock, Knock’. ‘Knock, Knock’ is simmering danger – an aggressive slice of garage rock. It starts off as an R&B tune in the vein of The Rolling Stones or Them, but it’s notable for the closing section where it speeds up and Wheetman’s vocals are unhinged.
The Humane Society’s second single, for a different label, was unsuccessful and the band folded. Vocalist Danny Wheetman continued in the music industry, with a career that diverted from ‘Knock, Knock’. He recorded an album in 1975 with the country-rock band Liberty, and also toured with John Denver for years. He’s recorded a dozen albums with the roots-rock/gospel outfit Marley’s Ghost.
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Nuggets: Love's Gone Bad by The Underdogs

Nuggets II: Get Yourself Home by The Fairies

Nuggets: Sit Down, I Think I Love You by The Mojo Men

Nuggets: Can’t Seem To Make You Mine by The Seeds

Nuggets: Wooly Bully by Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs

Nuggets: Outside Chance by The Turtles

Nuggets: Follow Me by Lyme & Cybelle

Nuggets: I’m Five Years Ahead of My Time by The Third Bardo

Nuggets: Jack of Diamonds by The Daily Flash

Nuggets: Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl by The Barbarians

Nuggets: Double Yellow Line by The Music Machine

Nuggets II: Come On by The Atlantics

Nuggets II: Here Come the Nice by The Small Faces

Nuggets: Are You Gonna Be There (At The Love In) by The Chocolate Watchband

Nuggets: Journey to Tyme by Kenny and the Kasuals

Nuggets II: I’m Your Witchdoctor by Chants R&B

Nuggets: I Want Candy by The Strangeloves

Nuggets: Why Pick On Me by The Standells

Nuggets: A Question of Temperature by The Balloon Farm

Nuggets: It’s Cold Outside by The Choir

Nuggets II: Flight from Ashiya by Kaleidoscope

Nuggets: So What! by The Lyrics

Nuggets II: Slaves Time by The Slaves

Nuggets: Dirty Water by The Standells

Nuggets: I Think I’m Down by the Harbinger Complex

Nuggets: Shape of Things to Come by Max Frost & The Troopers

Nuggets: Blackout of Gretely by GONN

Nuggets: Mr. Pharmacist by The Other Half

Nuggets II: I’m Just A Mops by The Mops

Nuggets: Talk Talk by The Music Machine

Nuggets: Steppin’ Out by Paul Revere & the Raiders

Nuggets II: My Life by Thor’s Hammer

Nuggets II: Bat Macumba by Os Mutantes

Nuggets II: Why Don’t You Smile Now by Downliners Sect

Nuggets: You Burn Me Up and Down by We The People

Nuggets: Knock, Knock by The Humane Society

Nuggets: One Track Mind by The Knickerbockers

Nuggets: An Invitation to Cry by The Magicians

Nuggets: Spazz by The Elastik Band

Nuggets: Fight Fire by The Golliwogs

Nuggets: Little Bit O’Soul by The Music Explosion

Nuggets: Just Like Me by Paul Revere & the Raiders

Nuggets: Don’t Look Back by The Remains

Nuggets: At the River’s Edge by New Colony Six

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Nuggets: You Ain’t Tuff by The Uniques

Nuggets: (We Ain’t Got) Nothin’ Yet by the Blues Magoos

Nuggets: Mindrocker by Fenwyck

Nuggets: Put the Clock Back on the Wall by The E-Types

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Nuggets: My World Fell Down by Sagittarius

Nuggets II: Pictures of Matchstick Men by The Status Quo

Nuggets: Voices Green and Purple by The Bees

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Nuggets: Psycho by The Sonics

Nuggets: I’m Gonna Make You Mine by The Shadows of Knight

Nuggets II: Real Crazy Apartment by Winston’s Fumbs

Nuggets: The Little Black Egg by The Nightcrawlers

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Nuggets II: Bad Little Woman by The Wheels

Nuggets II: Sad by The (Australian) Playboys

Nuggets II: How Does It Feel to Feel by The Creation

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Nuggets: No Friend of Mine by The Sparkles

Nuggets: Psychotic Reaction by Count Five

Nuggets: Codine by The Charlatans

Nuggets: Lies by The Knickerbockers

Nuggets: Oh Yeah by The Shadows of Knight

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Nuggets II: But You’ll Never Do It, Babe by The Boots

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Nuggets: Complication by The Monks

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Nuggets: Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out) by The Hombres

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Nuggets: Too Many People by The Leaves

Nuggets II: Rosalyn by The Pretty Things

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Nuggets: Primitive by The Groupies

Nuggets: Going All the Way by The Squires

Nuggets: What Am I Going to Do? by The Dovers

Nuggets: Night Time by The Strangeloves

Nuggets: Liar, Liar by The Castaways

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“Knock, Knock” is an usual tune with those tempo changes. I agree the slow part sounds inspired by the Stones and Them. The fast part gets a tiny bit too chaotic for my taste.
You may be surprised I kind of like that Marley’s Ghost gospel tune. Their singing is pretty good!
I listened to a bit of the Marley’s Ghost track and liked it. I think they’re pretty into The Band.
I just listened to Tiptoe Through The Tulips With Me…. it sounded like a drunk sing-along at the end. Yea completely different than this. I like the freak out at the end…it put a bit of personality on it…I like chaos though.
I didn’t make it through all of Tiptoe Through the Tulips. Pretty big contrast – I’m glad people gave the b-side a chance.
This one is pretty alright I guess. In fact I really like it. Especially I like how it changes from slow to fast without warning into that really fast punk rock beat. And the sleazy sounding guitar thing is a really good one. And everything is nice and clear and loud and sounds good. Can you believe that I once had a job cleaning kennels at the Humane Society in my neighborhood?? It was just like a summer job and I didn’t get paid or anything but I just liked all the dogs and cats. Now they just call it the ASPCA, the Society for the Protection of Animals I think, but I forget what the first A and the C stand for. I think the A probably stands for American, but I don’t know what the hell the C stands for. I’ll have to look it up to refresh my memory a little bit.
It’s Prevention of Cruelty in NZ.
Oh yeah, prevention of cruelty. How could I forget. I wonder why this band named themselves The Humane Society? Maybe they were animal lovers. Or maybe they used to work there too. lol
I worked as a city planner in Simi Valley in the 80s, and lived there for three years. What a boring place. I imagine it was a nothing town in the 60s. There’s still no ‘there’ there…
Funny, I hadn’t heard of it before Nuggets.
Then you must have not read all those Charlie Manson books like I did, cuz If you did you would have heard of Simi Valley before cuz one of the Manson girls was called Simi Valley Sue or something like that. It might not have been Sue, but it was Simi Valley somebody.
I have not read a Manson book. I do know the song he wrote with Dennis Wilson.
Now that I think of it I believe her name was Simi Valley Patty and not Simi Valley Sue. And that was to distinguish her from a different Patty in the Family. That sounds more familiar to me than Sue. If I still had my Charlie Manson books I could look it up, but I sold them at a yard sale one time when I was really broke and needed money for rent. Lmao.
It’s a very suburban-style city of 125,000 with almost zero character, but in a lovely valley surrounded by hills. One of hundreds of characterless cities in the Los Angeles metroplex with over 100,000 population. It’s really quite astonishing, and we pass through many of them on our 120-mile drive from Palm Springs to downtown L.A.
Sounds like the place I live actually! Population 112,000, in a valley surrounded by hills (and harbour), a satellite city of the capital (which it relies on for personality).