Released in 1972, the Rowan Brothers' eponymous debut arrived with a great deal of hype, including an ad featuring a quote from Jerry Garcia in which he stated that Chris and Lorin Rowan "could be like the Beatles. They're that good." Produced by Bill Wolf and David Grisman (credited as David Diadem), the first effort from the Stinson Beach, CA, duo never even came close to living up to such lofty praise. Though it can give a young artist a boost, this sort of hype can quite often be devastating, and probably hurt the pair in the long run.
The Rowan Brothers is a mix of country-rock, folk, and pop tunes with cosmic ("the universe is nothing but a fantasy/of life's illusions throughout eternity") and hippie ("we'll put on our costumes, bring the music along/come on friends we'll sing a happy song") underpinnings, which are often trite and very much artifacts of the time. Although they may lack lyrical muscle, Chris and Lorin are capable of pleasant, catchy tunes that can be light and spirited or lush and pretty. Ignored at the time and somewhat dated today, The Rowan Brothers is another forgotten relic from the late-'60s and early-'70s San Francisco music scene.
by Brett Hartenbach
Tracks
1. Hickory Day - 2:52
2. All Together - 3:04
3. The Best You Can - 2:52
4. One More Time - 3:27
5. Lay Me Down - 2:34
6. The Wizard - 3:06
7. Mamma Don't You Cry - 3:05
8. Gold - 3:35
9. Love Will Conquer - 3:27
10.Lady of Laughter - 3:36
11.Move on Down - 2:27
12.Singin' Song - 3:34
All songs written by Lorin Rowan, Chris Rowan
Lonnie Mack was born in Ohio and raised in nearby southern Indiana, he was raised on blues, country and roadhouse rock.
His singing incorporated all three styles. To him, they were all part of the same fabric of Southern music that carpeted the area around his home base in Cincinnati.
Mack didn’t get much of a chance to showcase his vocal talent, however, until he signed at the end of the 1960s with Elektra Records, a folk label that was trying to branch out into rock.
His Elektra albums didn’t make much of a dent when they were issued; Mack’s bluesy roots music was out to style. Today they sound like long-lost gems. At times, they invite comparison to the recordings of the late Eddie Hinton, the blue-eyed soul man from Tuscaloosa.
Mack’s 1969 release, “Glad I’m in the Band," showed him to be a formidable vocalist, especially on blues and r&b. Mack’s remake of Huey “Piano" Smith’s New Orleans rocker “Roberta" was a particularly fine welding of his skills as a player and a singer, and he turns in a very credible performance on Little Willie John’s 1959 blues ballad, “Let The Talk."
From his stash of early 1960s recordings, he resurrects “Why," a tough, slow blues, and “Memphis," which loses little of its bite in a more contemporary setting.
“Save Your Money" is a delectable slice of Muscle Shoals-style soul, while “Old House" shows Mack’s deep affinity for country.
by Ben Windham
Tracks
1. Why - 4:20
2. Save Your Money - 2:48
3. Old House - 3:08
4. Too Much Trouble - 2:05
5. In The Band - 1:44
6. Let Them Talk (Sonny Thompson) - 4:15
7. Memphis (Chuck Berry) - 2:28
8. Sweat And Tears (David Byrd) - 4:14
9. Roberta (Al Smith, John Vincent) - 2:20
10.Stay Away From My Baby (Ray Pennington) - 3:45
11.She Don't Come Here Anymore (Lonnie Mack, Wayne Bullock) - 4:24
All tracks by Lonnie Mack except where indicated
Wild Butter was started in 1970 by drummer/lead singer Rick Garen and keyboard player Jerry Buckner. Garen had previously been in the Collection and recorded a demo called "Little Man". Former Rogues member Jerry was impressed and got Eric Stevens, WIXY program director and manager of Damnation of Adam Blessing, interested as well. Stevens took it to New York and after a week or two Buckner got a call saying the band had a LP recording deal with United Artists - only there was no band, yet, although UA didn't know that. "Put a band together" was the request and Rick and Jerry talked to their Akron peers and found Jon Senne' (guitar) and Steve Price (bass) willing to get on board.
Wild Butter played a month or so before recording the LP at Cleveland Recording. "Little Man" was not done, but a whole LP was, including excellent songwriting contributions from everyone. Considering the short time the band had to work up the songs, the high level of writing, musicianship, and vocals are amazing, and the LP is certainly a lost treasure of 1970 contemporary unpretentious melodic rock. The recordings included some guitar parts from Mark Price (Steve's high school aged brother and future Tin Huey member), Jim Quinn and Bob Kalamasz (both from Damnation). The Senne' penned "Roxanna (Thank You for Getting Me High) was chosen as a 45 track backed with "Terribly Blind". The cover photos were taken in a Akron industrial area at Stevens' suggestion. A few shots were taken before some hardhats objected to the 'longhairs' and chased them out!
Wild Butter played the NE Ohio club scene including places like Admiral Bilbos in Westlake where they had to use a fan to cool down their primitive Heathkit PA amp. If the amp overheated, it was instant 15 minute break time. "Roxanna" got some local airplay on stations like WIXY and the band got an appearance on Upbeat, sharing the show with Blues Image who were riding the top of the charts with "Ride Captain Ride" at the time, summer of '70. During the Friday afternoon taping the band got the offical thumbs down stare from Cleveland's 1st lady of establishment telejournalism, Dorothy Fuldheim, as she walked past them in the WEWS TV station hallway!
Tracks
1. Roxanna (Thank You For Getting Me High) (Jon Senne) - 2:36
2. Terribly Blind (Jon Senne, Steve Price) - 3:28
3. From One Who Sang The Song (Jon Senne) - 2:36
4. Come Fly With Me (John Buckner) - 3:21
5. Oh Martha (Jon Senne, Steve Price) - 4:40
6. Never Comes The Day (Justin Hayward) - 4:39
7. And We Loved It (Jon Senne) - 3:32
8. I've Been Waiting For You (Neil Young) - 3:06
9. Tommy The Cat (R. Peters, Steve Price) - 1:51
10.New York Mining Disaster (1941) (Barry Gibb, Maurice Gibb, Robin Gibb) - 5:15 The Wild Butter
*Jerry Buckner - Keyboards, Autoharp, Vocals
*Rick Garen - Lead Vocals, Drums
*Steve Price - Bass, Vocals
*Jon Senne - Guitar, Vocals Guests Musicians
*Mark Price - Guitar
*Jim Quinn - Guitar
*Bob Kalamasz - Guitar
Born in Sayre, Pennsylvania on February 11, 1917. As a child, his father Antonio (Tony) played an Enrico Caruso disc for young Johnny and from that time on Johnny knew what he wanted to do with his life. As a result he became a child prodigy singing whenever possible in public or private in the Sayre, Athens and Towanda area of Pennsylvania, as well as Waverly, New York, and as far as Scranton, Pennsylvania and Elmira, New York. He turned professional as a child after winning a talent show/contest that was produced in Sayre at the Sayre Theatre by the great 'Blackstone the Magician' in c.1926.
Young Johnny sang for every club or organization in the area that needed or wanted talent to perform for their various causes,i.e. The Elks, Lions, The D.A.R. et,al. In 1932 after a fire almost destroyed the family home, young Johnny, with his father's blessing, decided to travel alone to NYC to become a band vocalist. His childhood idols and inspirations were Bing Crosby, Russ Columbo, Red McKenzie, as well as Caruso.
The album was released in a private edition of 300 copies and most of them were given away to family and friends. In the late 80s, one of those copies was unearthed by rare record dealer Paul Major, who was one of the first persons to appreciate the singularities of “Reachin’ Arcesia”. Since then, the album, which mixes over the top crooner vocals with late 60s acid-rock / pop arrangements is now considered a lounge-psych / real people masterpiece.
Tracks
1. Pictures In My Window (J. Johnson, Perry) - 2:31
2. Soul Wings - 4:01
3. White Panther - 2:31
4. Leaf - 3:00
5. Voice Of Love - 2:34
6. Reaching (Furth, Perry, Arcessi) - 2:43
7. Summer Of Love (D. Totten, Perry) - 3:14
8. Mechanical Doll - 1:51
9. Butterfly Mind - 2:52
10.Desiree (J. Johnson, Lejon) - 3:02
11.Rainy Sunday - 3:24
All songs by John Arcessi and Lejon except where stated.
Tales of Justine only had one single, 1967's "Albert (A Pet Sunflower)"/"Monday Morning," both sides of which are included on this release. But with the addition of 13 tracks recorded between August 1967 and January 1969 that were unreleased at the time, there's enough for a full album with this LP, pressed in a limited edition of 1000 copies. Entirely written by David Daltrey (except one song he co-wrote with Paul Myerson), it's very much in the school of flowery British pop that, ahem, flowered in the period just post-Sgt. Pepper's
Even by the gaudy standards of the style, it's inclined toward storybookish lyrics and precious melodies, quite possibly taken to excess on "Obsolete Incident," which manages to fit in references to whitewashed coal, chocolate flowers, a clock that runs backwards, and sunburned toast just in the first 40 seconds. Orchestration gets loaded into the mix on the five tracks recorded in December 1968, perhaps looking forward to the kind of musicals on which producer Tim Rice and arranger Andrew Lloyd Webber would collaborate in the near future. If you're the kind of listener who just loves, say, the Hollies in their most psychedelic period around the time of Butterfly, you may well find this to your liking, though it's on the candy-coated side even in comparison with the Hollies' sweetest pop-psychedelia. A harder side surfaces on "Evil Woman," with its pungent psychedelic organ. basic mod rock, and freak-out instrumental break, but that's an atypical effort in the context of this collection.
Though Tales of Justine were yet more precious in their approach. Bandmember and singer/songwriter David Daltrey was featured in the early Rice-Webber musical Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and later formed the group Carillion, a support act in a tour during David Bowie's Ziggy Stardust phase. The group's single, and numerous unreleased tracks from 1967-1969, were compiled on the 1,000-copy limited-edition Tenth Planet LP Petals from a Sunflower in 1997.
by Richie Unterberger
Tracks
1. Albert (A Pet Sunflower) - 2:51
2. Monday Morning - 3:22
3. Sunday School - 3:24
4. Evil Woman (David Daltrey, Paul Myerson) - 3:33
5. Obsolete Incident - 2:39
6. Music To Watch Us By - 3:05
7. Sitting On A Blunestone - 2:40
8. So Happy - 3:10
9. Morpheus - 4:02
10.Aurora - 2:53
11.Something Special - 2:44
12.Pathway - 3:41
13.Saturn - 3:19
14.Jupiter - 2:16
15.So Much Love To Give You - 3:27
All songs written by David Daltrey except where indicated
You Well-Meaning Brought Me Here is generally considered Ralph McTell's finest album; it is also one of the best albums of the singer/songwriter movement of the early 1970s. Gus Dudgeon (Elton John) was enlisted as producer, and he brought in guitarist Caleb Quaye, as well as Roger Pope and, on mandolin, Davey Johnston. The sessions also featured soon-to-be-famous keyboardist Rick Wakeman and arranger/conductor (and future David Bowie producer) Tony Visconti, among others. Like Dudgeon's early Elton John records, You Well-Meaning Brought Me Here had a restrained production in which the added instrumentation and string arrangements were only used to support McTell's vocals and acoustic guitar.
The songs made for a loose concept album that began with creation ("Genesis I Verse 20"); continued with primitive man ("First and Last Man"); and, while taking in love ("In Some Way I Loved You"), drinking, and celebration ("Lay Your Money Down"), man's best friend ("Old Brown Dog"), and war ("Pick Up a Gun"), merged into the singer's own autobiography. The second half of the album revolves around character and story songs, but the whole album reflects McTell's broad experience, especially of some of the seamier sides of life. In that sense, the substitution on the American version of the album of his most famous song, "Streets of London," for "Chalkdust," which appeared on the British version, was an appropriate one, since it fit with the sympathetic depictions of other poor people on the record. McTell's calm singing and the discreet touches of Dudgeon's production gave these portraits even greater depth, making this a singularly impressive work.
by William Ruhlmann
Tracks
1. Genesis 1:20 - 4:28
2. First And Last Man - 3:35
3. In Some Way I Loved You - 2:54
4. Lay Your Money Down - 2:48
5. Old Brown Dog - 4:25
6. Pick Up A Gun - 4:19
7. You, Well Meaning Brought Me Here - 3:15
8. Chalk Dust - 3:15
9. The Ballad Of Dancing Doreen - 3:08
10. Claudia - 3:46
11. The Ferryman - 7:04
Music and Lyrics by Ralph McTell
This unique and fascinating album has belatedly garnered a considerable following in recent years as a result of the new interest in what is nowadays referred to as Acid Folk. In reality it’s finely-structured acoustic folk-rock, but with strong elements of psychedelic studio treatment and twentieth-century avant-garde classical and choral music. Until now it’s only rated a couple of oblique references in these pages; now it’s time to give it the full exposure it deserves.
The album was the product of a chance conversation between Los Angeles periodontist Linda Perhacs and one of her patients, film score composer Leonard Roseman. Perhacs had written the songs as a hobby sideline, composing with just modally-tuned acoustic guitar and her own beautifully clear voice. Stimulated by Perhacs’s own graphic visualisation of her composition “Parallelograms” as “visual music sculpture” encompassing light, form and colour as well as sound, Roseman offered to develop her songs into an album, arranging and enhancing them in George Martin fashion and utilising the services of his studio’s state-of-the-art technology plus session musicians including guitarist Steve Cohn and percussionists Milt Holland and Shelley Manne. The stunning results found a release on Kapp records, but there the interest stalled; the label pressed the songs out of sequence with dull AM-friendly equalisation on poor quality vinyl, and then proffered no publicity for it, and the brashly commercial Los Angeles AM radio stations refused to play it. When what would become her first and only album in almost four decades tanked, Perhacs went back to the day job.
Over thirty years later she was alerted to the fact that the new generation of Acid Folk musicians such as Devendra Banhart were drawing inspiration from her long-lost work. Reissued by Wild Places in 1996 and by Sunbeam in 2008, the currently-available CD is correctly sequenced, beautifully remastered and comes with eight bonus demos, alternative versions and unreleased songs plus a superb booklet history by Perhacs herself. Perhaps best of all, its belated success has induced Perhacs to start creating music again and she’s issued two albums of new music in partnership with musician/producer Ben Watt of Everything But The Girl since 2007.
The quirky acoustic guitar tunings of Parallelograms may suggest early Joni Mitchell and the clear, crystalline vocals similar-period Joan Baez, but on this album Linda Perhacs utterly transcends both with her dazzling originality. The gently-rippling guitar arpeggios and cascading multi-tracked harmonies of the opening “Chimacum Rain” set out the collection’s predominant motifs, but the following “Paper Mountain Man” is surprisingly funky and blues-inflected with its jazzy percussion and distant, ethereal harmonica, and the wonderfully ironic critique of South Californian society marital celebrations, “Porcelain Baked-Over Cast-Iron Wedding”, rocks along similarly on oriental percussion and delightfully atonal 12-string.
Head and shoulders above the rest, the title track even eschews proper lyrics, the singer’s tongue playing mischievously with the syllables of the title and the names of other geometric forms in a sinuous flow of sound, broken by a Gyorgy Ligeti-like musique concrete interlude, all being the product of Roseman’s realisation of Perhacs’s original scroll-like pictorial depiction of the song. “Moons And Cattails” and “Morning Colours” are similarly, though slightly less, experimental, the former again utilising superbly melismatic vocals and the latter glorious electronically-processed flute obbligati. The rest is more conventional, but still well to the left of the field. As with the avant-garde music that largely inspired it, this is an album to be listened to, not merely heard.
by Len Liechti
Tracks
1. Chimacum Rain - 3:33
2. Paper Mountain Man - 3:13
3. Dolphin - 2:56
4. Call Of The River - 3:51
5. Sandy Toes - 3:00
6. Parallelograms - 4:36
7. Hey, Who Really Cares? (Perhacs, Nelson) - 2:44
8. Moons And Cattails - 4:09
9. Morning Colors - 4:48
10.Porcelain Baked-Over Cast-Iron Wedding - 4:01
11.Delicious - 4:08
12.If You Were My Man (Demo) - 3:30
13.If You Were My Man (Alt. Take) - 2:59
14.Hey, Who Really Cares? (With Intro) - 3:01
15.Chimacum Rain (Demo) - 3:45
16.Spoken Intro To Leonard Rosenman - 2:19
17.Chimacum Rain (Demo With Sounds) - 4:13
18.BBC Interview - 5:52
19.I Would Rather Love - 3:06
All tracks composed and written by Linda Perhacs, except where noted.
In its original vinyl form, Dr. Z's Three Parts to My Soul rates among the most valuable British prog albums of all time. But it is a rarity among such rarities in that it is also as good as a high three-figure value leaves you hoping it would be. Dr. Z was discovered by Nirvana UK frontman Patrick Campbell-Lyons, who is also credited as executive producer on the album. But Three Parts could not be further from its mentor's taste for eclectic airiness. The dominant mood is of percussive keyboards, alternately majestic and militaristic, the sound, if you like, of a Keith Emerson harpsichord concerto if Carl Palmer matched him note for note on a kettle drum. The vocals, meanwhile, have that kind of bellowed edge of conviction which makes every lyric resonate like a profoundly meaningful motto.
The first half of the near-singalong "Spiritus Manes et Umbra" moves like a battalion of tanks, with the LP's title itself rendered as compulsive a chant as any "gabba gabba hey" could be. There are moments of less-than-scintillating activity: the four-minute drum solo which punctuates that same song flags long before the chorus careens back into view, while "Summer for the Rose" is a ponderous snarling in desperate need of melody. At its most inventive and textured, however, Three Parts is an excellent example of early-'70s prog at its deepest and darkest, as inventive as it is occasionally magpie-like. "Burn in Anger," the most commercial song in sight, is a dead-ringer for a classic rock hit which will forever float just beyond your ability to name it, while the closing "In a Token of Despair" is a tour de force of Floydian winds, Crimson-ish signatures, and electifyingly symphonic structure. The Si Wan reissue concludes with two bonus tracks drawn from a similarly rare Dr. Z single released a year or so before the LP. Produced by the Pretty Things' Dick Taylor, "Lady Ladybird" and "People in the Street" have little in common with the main attraction beyond a similar taste for crashing drums and keyboards; the world's first orchestral garage band.
by Dave Thompson
Dr. Z's first and only album is the most rare record released on the Vertigo-swirl label. It sold only about 70 copies (!!) when it was released, and the rest of the pressings were trashed.
Tracks
1. Evil Woman's Manly Child - 4:47
2. Spiritus, Manes Et Umbra - 11:52
3. Summer For The Rose - 4:36
4. Burn In Anger - 3:26
5. Too Well Satisfied - 5:52
6. In A Token Of Despair - 10:33
7. Lady Ladybird - 2:47
8. People In The Street - 3:09
All compositions by Keith Keyes
Dr Z
*Keith Keyes - Piano, Harpsichord, Organ, Vocals
*Bob Watkins - Drums, Percussion
*Rob Watson - Bass
Redbone's story is interesting from more then one point of view. The band itself of course, who had a great career, with ups and downs. The fact that the musicians were all native americans from different origins (Cherokee, Yaquis, Apaches and Shoshones...). Their political implication and the fact their were censored that shows a very interesting political and social background of the US nation. All this plus the fact that they produced a unique, powerfull and soulfull music !
Lolly and Pat Vegas were well-known musicians in the rock and jazz "milieu"in Los Angeles during the sixties. Candido Albelando Vasquez (Lolly Vegas) and Patrick Morales Vasquez (Pat Vegas) were born in Fresno, California. The brothers were of mixed Yaqui/Shoshone and mexican descent. Very early the singing/guitar playing brothers began their musical careers backing and touring with Jimmy Clanton of "Just A Dream" fame. In 1961 the brothers relocated to Los Angeles.
The brothers played with Canadian jazz pianist Oscar Peterson at the Monterey Jazz and Pop Festival before relocating to Los Angeles in 1963. Calling themselves the Avantis, the brothers attempted to cash in on the surf craze popularized by Jan and Dean and the Beach Boys, with such songs as "Gypsy Surfer" and "Wax 'em Down" on the Chancellor label, and "The Phantom Surfer" on the Regency label. The Avantis featured future Beach Boy drummer Mike Kowalski, and their recordings earned them an opening slot on a Beach Boys' tour.
The Vasquez brothers also recorded the singles "Let's Go" as the Routers, "Surf Stomp" and "Batman" as the Mar-kets, and "Hotrodders' Choice," "Dawn Patrol," "Double A Fueller," and "Satan's Chariot" as the Deuce Coupes. The 1963 Deuce Coupes' sessions featured impressive session help from Glen Campbell, David Gates, and Leon Russell.
They then meet manager/producer Bumps Blackwell who suggest they change their names to Pat & Lolly Vegas. In 1963, Pat & Volly Vegas recorded "Boom, Boom, Boom" and "Two Figures" for the Reprise label (Reprise 20199).
Bumps Blackwell helped the brothers become the house band at Los Angeles' The Haunted House. In 1966, produced by Leon Russell and Snuff Garrett they would record an album for Mercury entitled "Pat & Lolly Vegas At the Haunted House"
While fulfilling a residency at a Los Angeles nightclub named Gazzarri's, the Vegas brothers met guitarist Tony Bellamy. A Yaqui Indian who had performed with Dobie Gray, and a member of Peter and the Wolves (a San Francisco band that evolved into the psychedelic band Moby Grape), Bellamy had grown up in a family of dancers and musicians. He had learned to play flamenco guitar as part of his musical education as well, and he was recruited by the Vegas brothers to accompany them on session work with Odetta, John Lee Hooker, and the Everly Brothers.
According to Pat, it was Jimi Hendrix who talked the musicians into forming an all-Native American rock group. Vegas told Record Collector writer Jeremy Isaac, "Hendrix was a friend of ours.... and he was half Indian. Once he knew that we were Indian too he used to come and hang with us because of that. Jimi made me aware of my roots: He'd say 'Native American is beautiful, man, be proud of that.'"
Signed to CBS's Epic subsidiary in 1969, the band took its name from the Cajun epithet "Rehbon", meaning half-breed, and its self-titled debut album Redbone, released in 1970, was an extraordinary affair. Think of it: an unknown band producing its first record and releasing a double album. Redbone played primarily rock music with R&B, Cajun, Jazz, tribal, and Latin roots. This first album was released as a double album in North America. In Europe it was released both as a double (EPC 67242) and as a single album (BN 26280) on the Epic label.
Lolly was one of the first guitarists to make extensive use of the distinctive Leslie rotating speaker effect in his electric guitar amplification set-up. Vegas played improvised, jazz-influenced guitar. Drummer Peter DePoe (born 1943, Neah Bay, Washington) is credited with pioneering the "King Kong" style of drumming, which features sharply accented polyrhythms involving the bass and snare drums and is similar to funk styles of drumming. The band referred to DePoe's "King Kong Beat" in their lyrics to the song "Prehistoric Rhythm" on their debut album. Pat Vegas' style of bass playing is still coveted by bass players in the world, even taught in college courses of music. The level of creativity each member held on his own instrument added to the power of the band.
Tracks
1. Crazy Cajun Cakewalk Band (Jim Ford, Lolly Vegas, Pat Vegas) - 3:08
2. Prehistoric Rhythm - 3:58
3. Niki Hokey (Jim Ford, Lolly Vegas, Pat Vegas) - 3:17
4. Promise I Won't Let It Show - 3:07
5. Minor Seven Heaven - 4:21
6. Night Come Down - 3:53
7. Tennessee Girl - 2:25
8. Rebecca - 3:05
9. Jambone (Lolly Vegas, Pat Vegas, Pete Depoe, Tony Bellamy) - 7:48
10.Little Girl - 3:57
11.Chance To See - 4:32
12.Red And Blue - 2:44
13.Suite Mode (Pat Vegas, Pete Depoe, Tony Bellamy) - 8:22
14.(I Can't) Handle It - 5:36
15.I'm A Man - 2:57
16.Danse Calinda - 2:45
17.Things Go Better (Lolly Vegas, Pat Vegas, Pete Depoe, Tony Bellamy) - 7:34
All songs by Lolly Vegas except where stated
Wake Up! was originally recorded and released in 1970 by a band that seemingly lacked the wherewithal to manage such a thing. A practised and experienced live outfit that had made a name for itself in and around Munich, the members of Out Of Focus hit the studio for the first time having procured label support from Eckart Rahn’s Kuckuck which had established itself the year before. However, the band was usually stoned and their live set featured prolonged jams that could see them playing for 3 hours. The discipline and rigour of the studio presented a challenge to the band who had to be made aware of the need for accuracy, tuning and brevity. “It took them a bit of adjustment,” remembers Rahn.
Nevertheless, there was a genuine desire to allow the band their artistic freedom and capture something of the socially conscious, psychedelic, and slightly surreal live experience that had made them a popular act in the first place. So they had two long weekends to track the album and, on listening to it, it has that cohesive, driven quality that often comes from the exquisite pressure of time.
Opening with See How A White Negro Flies, we get an immediate sense of the musical direction this album is going to take. A heavy, plodding, psychedelic groove supported by a spectacular ‘walking’ bass motif combines tightly with Klaus Spφri’s energetic and busy drumming while Remigius Drechsler pulls off a riff that would turn Ennio Morricone green. Drechsler’s guitar work is a highlight of the album and the band’s overall sound. He combines spastic thrashing rhythm work with electrifying, fuzzed and distorted lead work as well as dealing in clean picked box-riffs and gently strummed atmospherics. You get a real sense of this range in God Save The Queen Cried Jesus which cycles through vivid shades and phases led as much by Moran NeumÏŒller’s wonderfully dynamic flute work as his off-the-wall, impassioned and theatrical vocal delivery. NeumÏŒller’s declamatory squawking is something of an acquired taste however, often sounding too much like a hangover from ‘60s American protest music, although occasionally, he sounds passingly like Jim Morrison.
Hey John is an extended jam on a rising and descending chord pattern held dramatically and melodically in tow by NeumÏŒller’s flute. Again Spφri’s athletic drumming is powerfully supported at every turn with fluid and intuitive bass runs while Hennes Hering (organs, piano) and NeumÏŒller interject lengthy improvisational solos over the shifting weight and changing light of the band’s delicately calculated soft/loud dynamic. No Name has a similar feel in its brief, shouty moment and is perhaps remarkable in that it predates by some 7 or 8 years the raucous, New Wave aggro of early Ian Dury And The Blockheads.
Out Of Focus’ strength lies firmly in their instrumental endeavours. With the two closing tracks being longer than ten minutes each, there’s plenty of scope for the improvisatory excursions that have served them well throughout the album. There’s little development of the formula, just energetic, occasionally frenetic shaping of the dynamics. It’s raw and vivid, but I’m not getting much out of it by the end, just roach burn.
This is a fairly convincing debut that mashes several strands of the underground scene from the late ‘60s into a blend of Traffic, The Doors, early (Saucerful Of Secrets) Floyd with the hard rock of The Edgar Broughton Band and Atomic Rooster. Having said that, Out Of Focus are resolutely their own band with their own sound and their own take on the underground music scene of their day. It has an immediate appeal, made all the more attractive by Ben Wiseman’s excellent remaster.
by Jon Bradshaw
Tracks
1. See How A White Negro Flies - 5:49
2. God Save The Queen, Cried Jesus - 7:31
3. Hey John - 9:39
4. No Name - 3:07
5. World's End - 9:56
6. Dark, Darker - 11:40
All compositions by Out Of Focus
