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Post by riffraff on Jan 28, 2015 18:56:28 GMT -5
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Post by bsirius on Jan 29, 2015 14:18:16 GMT -5
Hi riffraff,
thanks for reposting my interview. i am honored, especially considering this cool forum. eric is a really cool guy. an ace to communicate with. i first heard bc on the radio with summertime blues, when it first came out. i was 11 years old, i think. i was already in the school orchestra learning drums. when i was 12 i got my first set. outside inside came out. it is still my favorite album of all time. in 1985 i got the pleasure of opening a show for bc in san francisco. we did a picture perfect rendition of babylon in the band's honor.....remember those years were the zenith of hardcore punk in america and yes, i was in a punk band. one with huge reverence for bc. dickie was cracking up stage right watching us play their song. dickie was obviously an awesome dude and it was a pleasure to meet one of my lifelong musico heroes. so thank you again riffraff. i had no idea this forum existed. i do have some more of the interview i haven't published. good stuff too. it was shorter due to space constraints and the number of words i could use for a newspaper in LA. i'll speak with eric about it and maybe he'll actually bring me up to date with his recent projects and things and we can share the exclusive content here first.
respectfully yours,
ruben chandler
fivegunswest
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Post by riffraff on Jan 29, 2015 18:28:12 GMT -5
Welcome to the board, Ruben!
Your interview with "Uncle" Eric was pretty interesting and should generate some interest and comments from this board. The Blue Cheer BB was fallen off a bit in posts ever since Dickie passed on, but there is a lot of content to be found here.
You can also find a number of posts by Eric, here, too.
The board is maintained by Feedback Lord, so we are thankful to him that it continues to this day. He also would be a good interview as he was instrumental (along with others of course) in encouraging Dickie to start tours in the US with Duck and Paul.
Continuation of your interview would be great. Also your memories of Dickie and Blue Cheer are welcomed to be shared.
Thanks for writing and posting your interview!
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Post by FeedbackLourde on Jan 30, 2015 9:13:10 GMT -5
Welcome, Ruben! And thank you RiffRaff for posting this article. Yes, Eric is a great guy and one of the few left from that era with enough brain cells left to remember :-). Like you said, this place has been dead pretty much since Dickie passed on. I remember the first incarnation of this board when it was just a single thread. For the first time, all the 1%ers from around the world got to meet up, share information/tapes (which were quite rare then) and pull our collective cosmic powers together to bring back the heaviest band in their strongest form ever. I really miss the in-depth conversations we used to have here. Hell knows they don't exist anywhere else in cyberland! So...if any of you 1%ers are still out there, post something! Randy Holden just put out a new album New Year's Day that contains 2 BC covers (and a version of Summertime Blues). That oughta be conversation worthy....
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Post by otherhalf on Jan 31, 2015 14:44:19 GMT -5
Good post riffraff. I've been surfing around too over the last week or so (not looked for Blue Cheer for a while) and just found Ruben's interview today! So what's happened to make us all start looking around at the same time?
It's an interesting interview Ruben. I hope there is more to come. Eric has a lot of knowledge about Blue Cheer and about Leigh Stephens and Bruce Stephens early careers, perhaps more than anyone else now?
Here are a few other new (to me) things I found:
Gary Yoder interview:
kdrt.org/audio/davisville-122214-gary-lee-yoder-oxford-circle-kak-and-blue-cheer
Gary suggests at one point that he had the opportunity to join Blue Cheer early on, but declined to do so whilst Leigh and Whaley were in the band! A bit inconsistent
with the fact that he had Whaley play on his solo 45!
CD of 1989 concert:
www.amazon.com/Live-Anti-WAA-Festival-1989/dp/B00QHJ8WGW
There is also a DVD available.
Live at the Family Dog 1968: Stretched version of Dr. Please:
www.youtube.com/watch?v=PYAMIlseCx4
As you say FeedbackLourde, it's been very quiet here for a long time (not much to write about really) but over the past couple of years I have been enjoying Leigh Stephens last CD a lot. Fat City Dirge, A Rocket Down Falcon Street, Wild Blue Mavericks, Heceta Winter and End Of The World are all top tracks for me, and I enjoy his novel mixture of Duane Eddy/Ventures, psychedelia and country. His playing reminds me a little of Roy Buchanan, Amos Garrett, Peter Green and Jeff Beck, but such comparisons are unfair really as his own sound is totally distinctive. No-one else could have conceived and played that title track.
At times he seems to have turned into the Monet of the guitar instrumental...lots of shimmering atmosphere. It's a very long way from Blue Cheer but I find there is something about the choice of notes on tracks like Heceta Winter that reminds you that this is the guitarist that played on Sun Cycle. If someone had tried to tell me 48 years ago (when my head was first being turned by Vincebus Eruptum) that all these years down the line I'd be enjoying listening to Leigh glide his way through End Of The World I'd have been more than sceptical...but I do enjoy it ...so hats off to that rare band of artists who go exactly where they want to rather than thinking too much about audience expectations.
Good to hear that Randy is still recording...does anyone have the new cd yet? Good also that he's not been tempted to call it Blue Cheer...a mark of integrity.
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Post by otherhalf on Jan 31, 2015 15:06:55 GMT -5
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Post by riffraff on Feb 4, 2015 14:58:05 GMT -5
Thanks Otherhalf, that was good to hear from Gary Lee Yoder. He had alot of interesting stuff to say. Never new the single of "Fool" had him doing the vocals. Sounded pretty good.  The live Blue Cheer cd from 1989 looks worthy.  Glad to hear you are enjoying "A Rocket Down Falcon Street". I took a pass on that album as the soundbytes were limiting? The title track was worth a holler, but the others seemed a bit tame. I will have to revisit.  Why don't you post a review of Leigh's cd on Amazon. A little bit of promotion could go a long way. I do have a copy of Randy's new cd. He has been invigorated by his new band. My comments will be posted in a separate thread. |
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Post by FeedbackLourde on Feb 4, 2015 17:55:25 GMT -5
The new live BC album is awesome! Get while you can as it is limited to 2000 copies. OR...get the DVD version which is the same thing but with very professionally shot video footage. This is the first time that Duck played on stage with Whaley and both of them really rip it up. Paul is an absolute monster. BC was really tight and powerful this gig. And bringing Tony McPhee up for a jam doesn't hurt the performance either.
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Post by riffraff on Feb 6, 2015 16:16:12 GMT -5
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