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Post by bluecheerphobe on Jan 19, 2010 21:55:54 GMT -5
First, there is no way Tony Iommi even comes close to RH. I get bored with 3 fingered guitarists. Clapton, Page - that pinkie might as well of been a crab claw as much as they used it. Did you watch Beck - he's all fingers and so original. Second, where is Paul? Surely someone has checked in with him. All that talent and ?
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Post by FeedbackLourde on Jan 19, 2010 22:34:20 GMT -5
First, there is no way Tony Iommi even comes close to RH. Uh....No! |
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Post by rowenafair on Jan 20, 2010 12:58:44 GMT -5
BCP i have been asking similar - ie where is paul and where is duck? but it IS early days. why either of them would roll over and pack it in is beyond me. but it would be nice to hear if they're doing okay or have plans...
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Post by FeedbackLourde on Jan 20, 2010 14:16:17 GMT -5
Right you are, Rowena. Everyone just be patient.... |
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Post by festoonedpiglips on Jan 20, 2010 18:38:46 GMT -5
Yes, I sincerely hope Paul swings back into action soon.
He`s a phenominal drummer with a great feel and good technique.
He would be a great benefit in any hard Rock band.
Plus he`s one hell of a nice guy!
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Post by bluecheerphobe on Jan 24, 2010 21:26:10 GMT -5
Top Five Hard Rock Albums From The 60's
This is hard rock to the core with some rock and psychedelic in for good measure. Basically the best of everything that is heavier than the typical 60's music. Sadly, I wanted to do a Top 10 but this week but ended up with a Top 5 and an honorable mention due to space limitations. I guess we need to save something for the book.
Jimi Hendrix - Electric Ladyland
Where the Experience's first album was a super charged call to arms that signaled the revolution then proceeded to leave you gaping as you watched it unfold as a spectator, Electric Ladyland took the fireworks then ran it through the analog/direct current counter soundscape. Not the outright hit generating rocker of the debut, no less kissing the sky is this essential platter of histrionics that melts the speakers. The first album was the album you listened to at the bar as you got smashed. This one was the album you got smashed to at home then closed your eyes and drifted into rolling visions Hendrix proceeded to paint for you. A continuous flow of textures and rhythms like a stream that you rode to some distant sea.
Are you getting the idea this is a cerebral and trippy? That is the strength and weakness here, depending on the critic you ask. The Hendrix album that is equally praised and argued, less the jukebox to the revolution people wanted again and more a symphony of hard guitars and psychedelic pictures painted in colors never before seen. Hendrix basically working himself to the burnt edge of creativity in some otherworld version of a soundtrack to an image only he could see, and burning himself out (and used up by friends he was to generous with) in the process of trying to reach immortality as an artist.
But you still get the fisted pounders. "Crosstown Traffic" which stomps holes in the ground while delivering a cheeky lyric about women being like a traffic jam and "hard to get through". This songs on here are built around stand alone singles that range from ballads to jams to rockers, blues noodling singles to heavy hitters like the famous Dylan cover "All Along The Watchtower", but the whole seems to flow together into a unit that isn't a concept album but the tracks seem to fit the trip perfectly. The beautifully moody "1983: A Merman I Should Be" shows the twisted vision of Hendrix in a drifting journey beneath the waves away from war and man, until his guitar shows up to destroy the place (implied cynicism there?), likely a better statement on the parade of characters sprawled over two albums or four sides.
This would be your first hard rock prog album if you really had to try and identify it, but truly it defies classification due to a few pop and pumpers, so you end up outside a big old "It's Jimi" as if that could explain it. In a way, it really does. To bad he never got to finish the journey, Hendirx opening up his head on this one and showing you the good and bad, a glimpse soon to be lost forever.
Led Zeppelin - II
One of the good things about this whole project is that there is a number of popular, no iconic albums that I really should have covered in the last couple of years but haven't. I've avoided some for the reason it was just two easy as well as a drive to just introduce more people to other albums. This feature will solve a lot of that over the next year and it starts right with this album.
If the band's first album turned heads, this one kicked that head. As soon as "Whole Lotta Love" rumbles out of the speakers an entire industry was turned topside into Led Zeppelin's vision of rock by way of the American south, turned to 10.
A combination of traditional licks and giant pounding, from the most metallic rip of the opener and "Living Loving Maid (She's Just A Women) a direct line and chief argument can be made for Led Zeppelin's status as a metal band. You also got the whimsical journeys like "Thank You" that showed the many shades the band could deliver, including Bonham by the way. People like to think of the man as a monster who would pulverized the kit (which he could do), but the reality is that he had a soft touch and a real flair that is captured in the folk and blues numbers that show his depth. It's all about timing, feel, and passion. Something that needs to be reminded in the forgotten man who was the most versatile player in John Paul Jones. In many ways he was the backbone of the band and a great musician in his own right which is highlighted on those rockers his instrument lifts to break beer bottles over heads, or by capturing the blues when the band does one of their (notated) blues tributes. Speaking of the blues, you got that here as a noted tribute in "Bring It On Home" that brings that smokey southern bar groove that can only be found on the lined faces of blues players below the Mason-Dixie line (or the streets of Chicago).
But don't forget one of the most famous instrumentals of all time despite being a drum solo in "Moby Dick". Rumors of Bonham being able to play this thing with his bare hands until they bled should be believed. Damn.
And yet, over time, this is the Zeppelin album I turn to the least. Maybe it's a case of overplaying and super saturation through the airwaves, resulting in knowing every nook and cranny of this thing. Maybe it's simply the rock has become too ham-fisted in a way that just doesn't hold up through many replays over the decades, or at least when compared to the tremendous catalog this band has to explore. but that is just a bit of honesty on my part for why the other album is above this. Truely, this is a classic and a great album so check it out.
Blue Cheer - Outsideinside
The band's debut album Vincebus Eruptum was a landmark album in hard rock and the formation of metal, and a fun jumbled pile of blues, rock, and psych that shook the plaster off the ceiling. Really, it was more of a blunt weapon than an album. The band going so far to even admit they were more interested in being the loudest band, not necessarily the best. In fact, one reason the band fell apart after this jewel of a sophomore effort is that the guitarist left sighting his fear of going deaf (he only appears on half of the third album). This album still shows off the volume by it's recording, which is where it gets its name. The studio couldn't hold the volume of the band. So they ended up renting a warehouse and recorded the thing inside that or out in the open air. Thus it was recorded outside and inside.
What make Outsideinside an interesting album is that it gives a little back on the brashness and blunt bombast of earache or die for some melody; not a lot mind you, just enough to make this album the musical step-brother to the previous outing, but still quite the heavy mother load.
For my money that makes this one significantly different and a whole lot more interesting. It's still a blistering pile of blown wattage but there is more blues and rocking melody to sear the joint, and with that a little more meat to hang onto through the ride. You can wrap your head around a groove to ride out the distorted sound. The album has more character over many spins for that fact. Not that Vincebus Eruptum is bad, it's a good album after all which is why I have covered it. The point being this one is just as good and for my money the better effort, compounded by being sadly overlooked.
Time to rectify that!
This time the token cover comes from "Satisfaction", which predicts the massive pile of plunder that would be Sabbath in several years. And speaking of predicting bands, "The Hunter" points straight to Zeppelin by blasting their roots all over your ears, serving up some blues/rock/noise that could have easily found its way onto Zeppelin I or II. If you want real damage, however, "Come And Get It" launches a bunker-buster of twisted chaos that needs to be listened to, preferably after several drinks, to be believed. This came on in 68? Damn. It stomps a mud-hole in the competition.
Radio friendly with a hit? No. But there is a sense of greater depth amongst the noise here, the band really reaching down and going for it beyond trying to get under the skin of the critics. Think Deep Purple getting wasted and really pissed off, then taking it all out on Hendrix, and you pretty much got it.
You'll have to hunt though, as this classic is something I only see periodically on eBay. But it's worth it for you classic hard rock aficionados and collectors. Make sure you get the reissue with the classic gatefold inspired by Salvador Dali. Truly a missing link in the early days of all that is heavy.
Jimi Hendrix - Are You Experienced
There is no understating the impact of this record on rock and roll. It would be like comparing physics before and after Einstein or the Twentieth Century before and after Hiroshima. It was an entire industry being taken to school then released on bad behavior. Rock, the blues, a little funk by way of psych, mostly just Hendrix recreating energy patters with every backhanded stroke of a guitar not built for what he put it through.
Here we have the man, already a seasoned pro of the circuit and many guest spots with great names, launching his debut in the three man power trio of the Jimi Hendrix Experience. Here is also the hits you are already familiar with, a roll call of classics that ripped easily off the man like jewels to good for kings and left for collective history to ponder. "Purple Haze", "Manic Depression", "Hey Joe", "Fire", and "Foxey Lady" jumping off the gatefold like immortal impressions into the psyche of music past and present. More rock driven, to the face, the first songs to ever really blasted forth that you can picture getting blasted to and posting yourself down front at the show to manically head bang with.
Be it the driving churning rhythm of "Purple Haze", demanding you stop on cue and point skyward, the blues gone horribly wrong but so right in "Hey Joe", or the first great bass melody to predict generations snapping their necks in "Fire". And hell, I'm just covering the hits. The title track is a symphonic acid trip that takes you on axe journeys to some place the man can only see, all while sending you in reverse back to where you came from. Listen to the song, you'll get it then.
A certified classic that is easy to get into because the hits are well known, even if played to death. A 10 in composition and form, but an 11 on the history meter.
Cream - Disraeli Gears
Only Cream album to discuss due to those space constraints, all worth a good spin but this is the one that has always stuck to my ribs as a whole statement. Clapton and company now working full storm on the cusp of creative brilliance and starting to build the brick walls that hard abuse and egos would fortify, each trying to own the stage and a world unaware of the scenario to dazzled by the trifecta of history reflecting back. Pound for pound, Hendrix owned everyone as a musician, but as a band Cream was in sum total stronger and the performances proved the point while better technology captured the magic of each part. Brilliant leads and solos rained down over grooving bass lines heretofore unknown while the drums showed a percussion attack could supplement a rhythm section to stellar effect. Each unit greater than the whole yet somehow also being captured on vinyl restrained to the red line so the whole could still rise above each part. Outside of the mighty Zeppelin that was going to again rearrange peoples perceptions in a few short years, here is the essential hard band of the 60's. You might even tip the hat to Cream if you subscribe to the often argued view that Zeppelin didn't hit their stride until 1970's III.
"Strange Brew" is the song we all remember, somehow managing to sound like a radio friendly pop song despite the rock groove delicately supporting the fragile harmony. "Sunshine of Your Love" bent the bottom end back at the listener with a skin rolled bass line in the chorus to perfectly show off all three men. Keith Richards always says that the success in rock is to know when to let the spaces to the talking, or in other words don't fill up the silence for the sake of doing so (hopefully he doesn't listen to death or black metal). This song captures how Cream added incredible depth while still letting there be space to breath. Listen close and you'll get.
Special mention goes to "Tales of Brave Ulysses", an awesome song that if it didn't predict metal than I don't know what did. In fact, the reason I've heard it covered so easy (We'll get to Trouble's version in about 14 weeks) is a testament to how close the guys where, no matter what Clapton thinks. Combining a grand tale and a pummeling bottom end that jumps and rolls with deliberate purpose, not smashing but still driving, with guitar licks that are delicate but in command to the point you stand up and salute. Great song and certainly a roadmap to the future of hard rock and metal.
Led Zeppelin - I
And here we have it, the grand institution itself. A band that is held so highly, yet like all greats seen through the haze of time, they are also an enigma to many today. Loud, seemingly imperfect in how they would crash through rhythms, yet so precise in what they did.
And what exactly is it that they did? That's a difficult question, but one ironically tied to the bands first album. Led Zeppelin being the exact enigma that band can be. It's not the best album the band did, the most dated album at times in fact, but yet combines the essentials that made Led Zeppelin so… well Led Zeppelin. Are they hard rock? Are they metal? The blues? Folk? Psychedelic? Just the next stop in the rock and roll express?
The answer is "Yes".
In a world still winding down from the "Summer of Love" era and high off of Woodstock, come four English blokes to blow the perceptions out between the collective ears of the entire scene, and that is after Cream and Hendrix did it a two years earlier. Two veterans of the biz hook up with two new guys, all looking to strike it big. But what they did was exactly the opposite of a band necessary looking to strike it big. They took some of that psychedelic muse, added a whole lot of bottom end, and took you there on a long road marrying English folk to American blues. All those sounds collide here in an imperfect collage, a loud boisterous attack. If that wasn't enough, then it turns the volume up until the Marshalls fry.
It's a bit fuzzy and free-based, and unlike some of the more ethereal music this band has done this is raw around the edges and bites back, not that is a bad thing. There are some great songs but there are also some acid trip showers as well. But what this lacks in total tonnage it more than makes up for as a statement as well as swagger and electricity. Blues, rock, folk, all rolled into a package that would breathe life into a whole new movement of music. People think of Led Zeppelin as a metal band, but that they are not. In fact, you really can't quantify Zeppelin precisely because they are many things. A proper definition of Zeppelin is not what they were, but what they did. They we're not a metal or hard rock band simply because they were the ones to influence them like some musical missing link.
Like all great musical acts, the secret behind their success and who they were was beyond the music. It was the idea of Led Zeppelin that was propagated into such a juggernaut. Further, the secret of that sound is fully on display in this splattering debut – Led Zeppelin made the music they wanted to make, they wrote for themselves and challenged themselves to move forward, invent, create, and do simply because they wanted to. It wasn't always pretty, but always contained a quiet immortal beauty.
The music? You get "Communication Breakdown", arguably the world's first speed-riff. "Good Times, Bad Times" thump mightily with a deep blues-rock groove. Iommi and co. must have been listening to "How Many More Times". "Black Mountain Side" is Page at his country acoustic best – Old school, raw in a "playing on the front porch" sort of way. And who can forget the monolithic psychedelic dirge of "Dazed And Confused", a tribute to excess in all the right and wrong corners of the rock landscape, some of us still struggling to find our way out of it's dark labyrinths.
Ultimately, Led Zeppelin is a monolithic testament to a band going for it. Flawed and charmed for it, the imperfections making the band raw and real, a moment in time when music got dragged toward the modern era. It's not metal, but yet that kind of music is inexplicably tied to his album because it is real, with Hendrix and Cream grinning from behind pushing the band forward as the beginning.
Easily one of the best albums of this time due to song and construct, the raw passion on display in all
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Post by bluecheerphobe on Jan 25, 2010 11:27:20 GMT -5
This top 5 review was posted on Jan. 24,2010. The author mistakenly referenced Leigh Stephens as appearing on one half of New Improved. All ot the bands mentioned here are 3 piece bands except Zep (which instrumentaly was a 3 piece). This is just the kind of lofty praise that Paul Whaley deserves. The drumming on this album was the best I've ever heard! He set the bar - now if he would only play again.
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Post by frankenpint on Jan 25, 2010 11:57:46 GMT -5
Who said that Whaley won't play again? It seems like the general consensus here is that he & Duck won't. Yes, it is tragic that Dickie passed and sad that Blue Cheer is no more but that doesn't mean that the other musicians involved, upset as they may be, are going to retire their careers! GIve them some time to mourn and get their shit together. Did you expect them to have a new album & tour planned a month after!?
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Post by rowenafair on Jan 25, 2010 16:51:18 GMT -5
NO ONe said he wasn't going to play. this thread ASKS if he is going to. i don't see why not. he has played with other people and probably will again. don't suppose it hurts to let both of them know we care, and hope to see them again.
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Post by bluecheerphobe on Feb 26, 2010 11:42:56 GMT -5
At the river the last three weeks. I played Guitar God with Paul Whaley over and over. This is really a bad ass album - Randy really throws it down - just what I needed. But, as usual, nothing new on where the other members of BC are and what they are doing. If it was up to me, I'd pay millions to put Randy, Leigh, Duck and Paul in the studio for a guitar plundering nobody has seen since Clapton, Page and Beck briefly shared the same stage as the Yardbirds. The money is no problem - it would be the egos one would have to deal with.
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Post by rowenafair on Feb 26, 2010 20:42:08 GMT -5
yes. but who will play bass and who will sing?? hopefully randy will not sing and ...bass anyone?
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Post by ericalbronda on Feb 27, 2010 5:39:22 GMT -5
Bass by Paul Sam Samuel Smith from the Yardbirds.Although Ringo's Son did a B+ job with the remaining Who, Whaley would be better and close the age gap. Tounsand and Daltery would need to kidnap Whaley but would not need much money to get him to go along . If they want I will facilitate this move.
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Post by rowenafair on Mar 4, 2010 15:14:04 GMT -5
if they wouldn't need much money to persuade him why would they need to kidnap him?? no comprende senor!
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Post by ericalbronda on Mar 5, 2010 2:50:04 GMT -5
Rowenafair
That is how we influenced his decision to leave Oxford Circle and join Blue Cheer.
Paul does not move sometimes unless strong influences are at play.
Cheers,
E
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Post by bluecheerphobe on Apr 6, 2010 11:25:50 GMT -5
Well, I tried to buy Jeff Beck tickets in Houston - sold out. Clapton said he's impossible to imitate. With Jeff, he said, it's all in the hand. I saw him in 73 in San Antonio - incredible! Recently, he accidentally cut off the tip of his index finger, so he has relearned with 3 fingers. Inducted into the Music Hall of Fame last Sunday night for the second time. He's on a 5 month world tour. This at 66 years' old. Paging Paul, Randy, Duck and Leigh- what's a fan to do? 5 known guitar gods - Page, Beck , Clapton, Hendrix and Holden. One drummer god - Whaley.
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