STEVE HARRIS 1965-2011 A REMEMBRANCE OF HIS MUSIC, HIS LIFE, AND HIS INSPIRATION.

In loving memory of Steve Harris 1965-2011 who died of a brain tumor after suffering it for two years.
He was my major inspiration and his magic guitar playing was an inspiration to all who heard it.
He will be sadly missed and I am in as much grief as if I lost a family member.
   Shy will always be more than just another great band for me. When I discovered them back in December 2001 it was on a whim and it was also after never understanding their music in the past. Over the next year and a half I'd turn into a Shy obsessed new type of guitarist, new type of singer. My first Shy awakening experience was the song "When You Need Someone" demo version on the Regeneration CD where Tony Mills lays down a passionate vocal before Steve Harris soars into the skies with an even more passionate guitar solo that makes the song. This version is way better than what you hear on their one horrible record Misspent Youth and Steve would agree with me about that. The one time I was lucky enough to talk to the great man he said that to me.
   Steve Harris will never be equaled. It is safe to say and no hyperbole to say that with his untimely death last year we have lost the greatest guitar player in melodic hard rock along with Randy Rhodes and Michael Schenker- his two major influences along with the also amazing George Lynch. If George Lynch (in case you don't remember that name he was the masterful guitar wizard in Dokken back in the 80s before going into oblivion with his solo projects) or Schenker had died I would be shattered, but for me losing Steve Harris is even worse, even harder to deal with. Perhaps it is because not only was he a very gifted guitar player, but also his astonishingly advanced writing was always what held Shy together. Both George Lynch and Michael Schenker enjoyed and enjoy fame- Harris has to settle for a small cult following and relative anonymity.
  What you are about to read is the full history behind Shy and my history with this amazing band- a band that opened many doors for me and led the way for my huge interest in all Melodic Rock.
  Shy formed in the early half of 1981 in British Music City Par Excellance Birmingham under the name Trojan and originally were part of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal- something they'd stay on the fringes of as a melodic rock band. Trojan were a heavy metal band who were heavily influenced by Judas Priest and contained the nucleus of Shy in their ranks. In 1982 Shy was born. They were featured on Ebony Records- the notorious label run by permanently jailed Darryl Johnston- a man who ripped off every young band who were on their label and finally was charged with lawsuits by the most successful band on the label metal rockers Grim Reaper.
   Shy would too part acrimoniously with Johnston, but not before cutting an excellent debut album Once Bitten Twice.... This record showed that Shy and especially vocalist Tony Mills and guitarist Steve Harris were no ordinary teenaged inexperienced metal band. Shy were not and never were heavy metal once they went through the name change. On Once Bitten Twice... despite the poor production which all Ebony releases suffer from this is miles in the sky above anything else on the label with its powerful melodic hard rock attack full of great melodies and blistering guitar work. Steve Harris was never a flashy, show-offy, gimmick driven player and especially unlike many other guitar players of the time he favored melody over noise. His riffs can be described as punchy, tough, and still very melodic, very catchy whilst his solos soar and spit fire, but the melody is the main thing behind the man. For a bunch of Duran Duran (I have nothing against Duran Duran- in fact I love them) lookalikes this was an odd sound to be hearing- pomp rock taking the best of British NWOBHM excitement and merging it with the smoothness of AOR/Melodic rock. Highlights on this stellar album are the opening track "Deep Water" which sums up the Shy sound, "Think Of Me," "Take It All The Way," "Tonight," and "Chained By Desire." When I heard this album Shy had made the first of two new recordings which actually would surpass even their 80s brilliance although original drummer Alan Kelly (whom Tony Mills hated with a passion and in turn Alan Kelly hated Tony Mills with a passion) would be tearing his hair out over that comment.
  When Shy Came back they still wanted to chase success, but let's go back to their formative years back between 1982-1989.  When I Heard Once Bitten I had fallen in love for the first time and it had turned out to be as painful as the situation described in "Chained By Desire." Back home in New Jersey and with no way left to tell my should have been best friend or more how I felt for him it was probably that song that struck me the most. I was now deep into Shy for the second year and for two more whole years they'd be my #1 band- in my heart, soul, memory, and love of music forever.
   So you're probably asking why so much fuss after I've just described one poorly recorded debut album. Shy would sign to RCA in 1984 and the following year saw the release of their first of two legendary albums on that label Brave The Storm. Brave The Storm was the album that broke Shy into me. It was the album that would take the longest, but that once I got used to Mills screaming his tonsils out on it would impress me almost as much as the follow up masterpiece Excess All Areas. Shy were all very young in the 80s, but they could see and write and sing beyond their years into a sophisticated, polished, and seasoned pomp/progressive/hard rock/pop nexus that arguably no other British band had such a handle on at the time. By Brave The Storm changes had been made. Original bass player Mark Badrick had departed and in his place came ex Trouble (New Wave Of British Heavy Metal- not the awful American band) bass guitarist Roy Stephen Davis. Also, Tony Mills' earlier penchant for makeup wearing onstage flamboyance had been let go of after Mills accidentally wandered into a gay bar in full face paint!!!!
    With Tony and Steve sharing most of the writing, classically trained keyboards player Pat "Paddy" Mckenna chipping in, Roy playing a steady foundation laying bass, and some writing help from drummer Alan Kelly Shy looked set to make the big time. Brave The Storm came during a year that saw a lot of darker lyrical themed records released and this was no exception although far more listenable than the debut by fellow Brummies Phenomena (file under really good recipe really bad result) because Shy weren't bogged down in the doom gutter. Doom and AOR did not mix on Phenomena's record. It was an impossible cross and with Shy drawing from early Genesis and Judas Priest the keyboard heavy album had something Genesis never had- a really truly possessed frontman and explosive guitar work. No Neo Prog was this. Brave The Storm saw Shy make an album that was not hard rock and not progressive nor pop, but all 3. There was the choice single track "Hold On To Your Love" which should have been a hit, but beyond that classics like "My Apollo," "Caught In The Act," and "Reflections" which featured some achingly beautiful guitar from Steve Harris made Shy a really special band. The title track was to be Shy's one foray during their career into apocalyptic hard progressive rock, but it would also be the track on the album that brought my love to it and my love to them. Tony would later confirm that he wrote the song about Nuclear Holocaust, but I thought it was a about a different kind of war that killed all mankind- a kind of stand up and fight anthem for soldiers. Scary keyboards begin the track before Mills comes in with his dynamic Rob Halford meets David Bowie instantly recognizable vocals. Over the course of the song Shy go rocking into the stratosphere while the world is destroyed by The Last War. No one survives by the end and Tony Mills screams out in real anguish to end the track on a long drawn out wail that would have Rob Halford in a tizzy as to how he didn't think of it himself!
   Shy would leave Progressive Rock and Metal behind after Brave The Storm. Despite great reviews and great shows across the UK and Europe the album just didn't sell. RCA had not done their bit to promote it, but back in 1987 when Shy unleashed Excess All Areas it looked like they were finally about to make it to the top. When I as a shallow, timid, and fiercely Un Anglo (how things would change!!!) 11 year old went to England in 1987 Shy were on the cover of every publication. They were everywhere. Steve Harris was being written up as a rock God. This convinced me before learning better that indeed Excess had been a major breakthrough. Financially and in the fickle world of success VS low sales it was only a minor breakthrough, but it would be the greatest Pomp record England would have and a landmark for Shy.
   If you haven't heard Excess All Areas grab a copy, even if it's the not as good American press or do as I did and buy the European CD with their post LP bonus EP added and get it on vinyl as domestic (American). You won't believe this album didn't outsell everything Journey ever did. Journey would be a huge inspiration to Shy and certainly throughout their career Tony Mills would come off like a tougher Steve Perry much of the time, but Shy had something to make them British- a real dangerous vibe to cut through the airbrushed pomp brilliance of their melodies. The songs deal with lost love, fighting for everything you believe in, oppression, and finding the perfect romance. Steve Harris plays his guitar with so much passion and fervor yet with such an understated sympathy towards the songs that would set him apart from all other guitar players chasing stardom at the time. Shy had made the perfect album. Tony Mills is still a bit on the edge of histrionics, occasionally throwing himself right into them ("Telephone"), but boy does his voice sound good. Songs with the strongest melody and feeling in them like "Can't Fight The Nights," "Emergency" (hard to believe Michael Bolton wrote this!), "When The Love Is Over," "Talk To Me," "Young Heart" (a real anthem), and "Just Love Me" which is beautifully sung in a softer voice by T. Mills makes this Shy's most satisfying album. Neil Kernon was a very sympathetic producer to Shy's wants and needs. In the vast "How Could This Miss The Charts" category of AOR the best albums are this, Lionheart's one release Hot Tonight, Snowblind's one record, and Airrace's masterpiece Shaft Of Light, but this would open up a new awareness in me towards AOR and pomp. It could be its own kind of music. It didn't have to follow strict guidelines or rules. It could be truly emotional and Shy paved the way. Things do get much heavier in the outlaw anthem of "Under Fire" with screaming guitars from Harris and their one brush with stardom "Break Down The Walls," but as stated Metal had long been left behind by Shy. Shy had found their best instincts and dreams and Kernon had helped put them on vinyl. Listening to this album after hearing of Steve Harris's death today I had to take it off to fight back the tears. It was unbearable to hear all that we have lost and what a good heart the man had. Steve was the sensible one in the band. I knew that from our one conversation back in 2003. Tony may have been the voice, but Shy were Steve Harris's band. It would be safe to put Excess All Areas now that he has died up there with Ozzy's first two with Randy Rhodes. Now it would seem the only surviving guitar player from those days who really made a mark on me and who is still out there and active is Diamond Head's Brian Tattler and Tattler is a metal Steve Harris. Or I could state that Steve Harris is/was to melodic rock what Brian Tattler is/was back in the day to melodic metal. Both of them found something refreshing to base their music around- melody. Excess All Areas saw Shy headline for the first time and it all looked good. That was until sales weren't what was expected and RCA promptly dropped Shy from their roster.
   RCA had never known how to promote their bands. This would go all the way back to the 1960s and nothing had changed by 1987. They had passed up the best thing they had by dropping Shy and Shy would rapidly go down the toilet after they just couldn't gain the success they so richly deserved. This would not be the fault of the band, but come new record company MCA after a brilliant one off EP on FM Revolver (which is included as the bonus tracks on Zoom Club's CD reissue of Excess All Areas) times were not the same and melodic rock was out. MCA had told Shy to make a heavy, commercial, and loud record in the style of the then huge Guns and Roses and the result in 1990/1989 was the sickening Misspent Youth. Shy would hate the album throughout their career. It would be their downfall, their destruction, the bullet-through-the-heart of their dreams. Don't blame the songs some of which were actually great in different demo form, blame one time dream producer Roy Thomas Baker for it. That's right. Roy Thomas Baker the man who brought Queen to the world's stage. He was no longer the huge massive genius he had been then and really after Queen his production jobs had gone steadily downhill. R.T.B would ignore Shy. They were flown out to L.A to record the record and hated it from the start. Tony Mills and Steve Harris were often quoted as saying they never should have made Misspent Youth and I'd agree.
   Shy had run their course for the 80s, but not before the worst breakup story ever would have to be told. Shy broke up because MCA were stupid enough to place them on a tour with the despicable Amerikan macho chest beating thug metal band Manowar and the dark metal cookie monster voice band Sabbatt. Manowar pulled the electricity on Shy and the band had to drive all the way back to Birmingham in their tour van. A horrid end to a brilliant story, but a temporary one.
   Shy had always had personal problems between Tony Mills and Alan Kelly and when talks of a reunion came up Mills would only agree to it if Alan Kelly was out of the group. Now Alan Kelly may call this not really Shy, but he's lying.  With the original three mainstays Davis, Harris, and Mills back + a much better drummer in Bob Richards Shy recorded two last masterpieces in 2002/2003 and 2005.
Unfinished Business was Steve Harris's title idea and it would top even Excess All Areas. How I can say that after what I've said about Excess is I admit hard to believe, but with no more pressure for hit singles Steve Harris now could play solos, fills. and riffs as much as he wanted to. Shy were still the most melodic of all hard rock/heavy pomp bands, but the new guitar attack soars with so much passion that it equals or surpasses the best work that Harris did back on Excess All Areas. Unfinished Business features an opening track that would make for a great add for The Parachute Regiment "Sky Diving-" a song that may be my favourite Shy track ever. Unfinished Business is full of the strong melodies, flying guitars, and soaring vocals that characterize the very best of Shy. Tony Mills is in fine form here too, better than on Sunset And Vine which also is great. "Breakaway," "Change Of Direction, "Maryanne," "Whole Lotta Feelings," "No Other Way" they served as a life force for me. They still may, but with the sadness that the magical guitarist behind these great songs, solos, and memories is dead.
   Sunset And Vine followed Unfinished Business in 2005 and is also an excellent album with many great songs and superb guitar from Steve Harris, but I would rate Unfinished Business even higher. Shy seemed like they were finally gonna be here to stay, but unfortunately they just failed to get off the ground once more. Having a strong cult following is enough for some bands. It never was enough for Shy. I have neglected to even mention their one album attempt without Tony Mills Welcome To The Madhouse up till now because it is putrid. Shy needed Tony Mills to spark them and Tony Mills became worthless enough to replace helium voiced Mariah Carey soundalike loser Tony Harnell in the worst band ever Norway's all whimper no bang TNT. Tony Mills was my good friend through emails before TNT, but I knew that he was somebody who would run out of control without the melodies and fire of Steve Harris when I heard his post Shy band Siam- a banal Queensryche wannabe and who would want to be one of the worst bands ever formed. No, for Tony Mills post Shy I've been very much more impressed with Serpentine who I really do need to track down for a blog entry. The question now is how long Mills can survive. In all honesty after he suffered a serious heart attack last year I thought he'd be the one to go and I really hope that Tony can recover his health and find his way back to Shy style music through Serpentine. No offence to you Tony, I wish you all the best in the world mate.
  How do I end the story of Steve Harris and Shy without it being all a gloom and depression ridden tragedy? How do I sum up my grief and my shock that the guiding light behind my musical dreams is no longer with us? Look back at the work he left behind him- it all survives still through the magic of being recorded and will live forever. He will always be the cleverest, most inventive, tastiest, and most melodically brilliant guitarist and writer of all melodic rock. I find it still very horrible to think that we've lost Steve. This all comes as so much of a shock to me, but the music lives on and it will live on forever and a day. I believe in Shy- they will continue to inspire my music, my love, my dreams, and my goals to find true love. I lost him back in 2003 as soon as I found him, but Steve Harris's message through all of Shy's music is a consistent one- Love Will Find Its Way To You In The End. Perhaps I will find him again, no, I Will find true love in my life and I have already found it to a good extent in my love of music. May you find Steve Harris and Shy. May you treasure them and love them forever. Rest in Peace and To Your Loving Memory Steve Harris. Much love to all Shy fans out there who will keep up the fight and keep your music alive. You were the greatest and you always will be. 

STILL LIFE, POWER OF ZEUS, AND RENIA- TWO UNDERGROUND HEAVY BANDS AND ONE TASTEFULLY PROGRESSIVE MELODIC ROCK

The whole world was changing in the early 1970s and some things would have to die for other new adventures to begin. Flower power was long a thing of the past and had faded into the memories of the lucky few who could remember the Summer Of Love and the classic sounds of that summer.
Disenchantment, foreboding, anarchy, and disorganization partially took the place of the more peaceful ideas about revolution and come 1970 England was in its second full year of war against the Catholic extremist IRA in Northern Ireland. A lot of young people were out of work and this led to lots becoming soldiers or more fortunately gifted ones forming bands to express their feelings of disillusion.
  The massive wave of heavy and not so heavy artistically forward moving groups in the United Kingdom, Europe, and America were largely labelled "progressive rock" and/or "hard rock-" heavy metal was just beginning to get some rare usage as a word for the most arch hard hitting of these bands. With the huge amount of music getting recorded came new labels in the UK and a different approach to signing bands for more staid ones. Pye had Dawn, Phillips had Vertigo and a million others, Decca had Deram, and EMI had Harvest Sovereign and Regal Zonophone. This is only a handful as there were about 300 bands and 300 albums coming out every week if you put just two of these countries together with most fading into obscurity as soon as they'd made their one album. A lot of great, brilliant, heartfelt and inventive music came out during the 1970-1973 era. Fantasy, The Parlour Band, Dog That Bit People, Northwind, Renia (who I'll dig into here), Still Life (more on them a bit later also), Quicksand, and Asgard/Stonehouse led the way. With all these exciting bands and records also came disappointments and disasters.
   Black Sabbath were a band who had miraculously made it just with their revolutionary first album almost seemingly overnight, but many horrible bands followed that would try to replicate progressive or hard rock with dark lyrical themes. Sabbath were monolithic, amazing, extraordinary and despite their quick rise the band had paid their dues for many years before that first album sent chills up the spine of anyone who heard it. Together with Ozzy and mates the most exciting bands to play progressive rock, the big 3 if you will, would be Yes, Uriah Heep, and early King Crimson with a mention too of Genesis (sometimes they were brilliant, but often sickening). The charts for the first time were also full of exciting music trying to grasp onto a more mature form of flowers and love pop. There was Vanity Fare, White Plains, The Marmalade (who would morph from psychedelic pop in the 60s to a band who could rock hard on their classic 3rd and 4th releases Songs and Our House Is Rocking), Sweet (The Gods of Glam Rock), Slade (The 2nd Gods Of Glam Rock), and all assortment of bands who either gave us pure pop bliss or great listenable harder more thoughtful rock.
   The war was taking lives every day. Everyone was scared shitless of what could and might happen if the bomb was dropped or the war escalated. Some unashamedly pompous, sick in the head, and talentless bands rose up to spew filth and fear into the English music scene with this being where the fine line I can discuss is drawn. It is one thing to write about death and destruction tastefully, in an if not subtle than at least intelligent manner, but Warm Dust, Deep Feeling, and the first 3 travesties by Beggars Opera are the most disgusting overblown nonsense ever produced making some British bands look as bad as American chart music of that time. These 3 bands would die their deserved deaths or in the case of Beggar's Opera go on to become a classy rock and roll band, but there was always that question of progressive VS gratuitous. It sometimes was borderline, but usually crystal clear.
   This is where Still Life step in. Signed by Black Sabbath and Uriah Heep label Vertigo the young quartet recorded the ultimate heavy melodic showcase for a prime mix of progressive/psychedelic rock and emotive R&B in one of the worst covers of 1971. Look at the front and it's some nice looking flowers, but fold it down to the next panel of the front gatefold you find a disgusting rotted out human skull. You would immediately suspect this to be one of the throwaway records released by the overstretched Vertigo label, but that's hardly the case. Vertigo had many fine bands and on closer look of the great inner gatefold shot of 4 stoned out looking lads Still Life look like they mean business. And they do. This is a very unusual album. Their sound is characterized by a heavy Hammond organ and pounding piano sound with only bass and drums, no guitar. The only tracks to use guitar both use acoustic at the beginning with flute of the opening monster "People In Black" and the first half of Side Two's 1st track "Love Song Number 6 (I'll Never Love You Girl)." Soaring, sometimes strangely phrased Asgard like vocal harmonies and Martin Cure's soulful strong vocals are a pleasant change from the myriad of bands who couldn't sing, but it is the highly thoughtful nature of the music that makes Still Life so incredible. As in my last blog entry sometimes I have the feeling of lying shell shocked in a trench or in this case running for my life down a street in Belfast or Londonderry, but there is something warm here, something even comforting at times. Still Life are a heavy, ominous band and almost a keyboard led hybrid of Uriah Heep and Black Sabbath, but with very strong soul influences. Vocalist Martin Cure whether wistfully singing of lost time and intellectual musings or shouting, roaring out like a lion has a voice that most singers would give their life for. At last there's a white singer who really does have soul, who really can deliver R&B phrasing with the magic of a young Steve Winwood or Gary Brooker. He's amazing. Organist Terry Howells is a fantastic keyboard player who uses bombastic crashing noises to his advantage, but one who also has a keen melodic sense. The rhythm section are also worthy of a mention- they can follow any change in mood, structure, or chord with no problem at all. The harmonies that begin "People In Black" are painfully out of tune, but thankfully Still Life get going and get way professional after that. "People In Black" is a mystifying song. It is definitely a put down, but very opaque. The song has apocalyptic lines and some violent imagery, but mainly a lot of anger at these protesting "People In Black." It runs for over 8 minutes and is an intense piece of music that has your attention fixed on it for the entire duration of the song. "Don't Go" which follows it and the closing track "Time" are both very melodic progressive rock songs with the former a ballad, the latter heavier with great vocals and a very warm atmosphere conjured up. Both are mournful and it seems that Still Life are a band mourning something beautiful that has passed by, maybe unnoticed by most people. It could be the 60s or it could be disillusion with England as it entered an illadvised pointless war, but more likely it's both. "October Witches" and "Dreams" are heavy epic tracks which concoct an aural stew of everything from Procol Harum to the early Nice to The Small Faces and David Bowie. Strong, powerful, and engaging music. "I'll Never Love You Girl" is another track to bring back 60s influences although it turns into a furious shouting vocal halfway through with Martin Cure sounding like Paul Rodgers gone mad. "Dreams" is the most complex track beginning with a freaky spoken section then a hard rocking 1st section and slow contemplative trippy ending. Much, much, much better than Egg or any other Canterbury pseudo artsy nonsense! Still Life may be the only successful prog/soul hybrid in existence along with Procol and some of Uriah Heep's more soulful musings and here everything is so high quality you can overlook that stupid front cover. A must-have for any discerning collector! NOTE: You can more easily afford, but not more easily find a Canadian Swirl pressing that sounds really good and duplicates the British press.
  A few quick spins here:
Power Of Zeus: America's answer to the Uriah Heep and Black Sabbath? Progressive rock or heavy psych? A bit of both and a lot more. Power Of Zeus are a rough and ready Detroit quartet whose music is far removed from the garage punk ineptitude of most of who had come before them with their sound decidedly very British/European. This is probably the best and most legitimate hard heavy prog/psych album from the States beating the heads in of every other keyboard/guitar heavy American group. The vocals are occasionally a bit too tough for their own good, but for the most part excellent. The harmonies and some whole songs flash back to the 60s Mod wave and the only problem is the really stupid lyrics to some of their songs ("You Can't see what's happened to me/Cos the rain beats down on your big beef daddy" or "You should see my woman/fine as can be my woman"). That said I would compare this album to Canada's Warpig and the heavy German and British monsters of the time (Power Of Zeus released The Gospel According To Zeus on Rare Earth in 1970)- menacing, freaky, thought-provoking hard brute force stuff with a lot of taste. There's even really melodic sections for variety- always a good thing. One of the best.
Renia- First Offenders: Renia were anything BUT underground on their 1973 record for Transatlantic instead in the vein of Fable, Dog That Bit People, or The Parlour Band a very melodic rock group with progressive leanings, melody, and muscle. Every song could be expounded upon for its perfect melding of melodic R&B/Free like rock and progressive inclinations in the superb keyboard/guitar/bass nexus that drives it along, but the fact that this whole record blends into one big perfect song is its magic. There is not one weak link here and the songs are amazing. Every track sticks to strong melodies over bombast and the vibe for the whole record is very cheerful. As said, not underground. Fable is one of the best examples of melodic British rock with ambitions, but Renia is every bit as good as that very similar record. If you were to have seen the two bands on the same bill you would have experienced the concert of your life probably, but both bands sank without trace after just one record. You can't lose with this one, but it's very hard to find it as Transatlantic only promoted their folk artists leaving rock bands like Renia or Stray for dead. Stray never made it because of the label they were on and the same could be said for Renia. The band's lead singer, Kenny Stewart, would go onto the ill-fated hard rock band Dirty Tricks, but be warned he was never this good again except for the very first album by his next venture. By the time Dirty Tricks released their second album Night Man they were a laughable parody of themselves and about the worst Free/Zeppelin wannabes in the world. Things would hit an all-time low on Hit And Run where Stewart screams his tonsils out and doesn't even try to sing. For some there is but one moment of sheer brilliance in their life and it seems for Stewart he had one and a half. That the talented vocalist didn't resurrect his earlier promise and Stevie Winwood like delivery for a second try is a real shame. Renia's First Offenders is a masterpiece of strong, solid, durable melodic British rock.
    England always seems to be the country to start a wave of excitement going and other countries pick up on it. This is true going back to the early Beat days of the Beatles and the Mods, but in the 1970s England seemed to be both a major power and a pale shadow of what the 60s had promised. There was both the best and the worst music with the same true of the life conditions people would face during those days. You either had it made or you went off to fight and got taken for one long horrible traumatic ride of trying to solve a problem you didn't create. Most bands would not make it very far either regardless of their talent, but that everyone who tried tried is what matters- England wasn't gonna fall into misery and die. It would keep itself alive until punk, but then rock would win in the end with all the great bands of The New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. Take this blog entry as the two sides- despair and happiness- they exist in the lives of everyone.

NOT SO ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT- THE POST WAR ROAR FEAUTURING APOCALYPSE AND SCORPIONS- LONESOME CROW

During high school I had two best friends from Germany, one from Hungary, and several very nice European girls from the Eastern Bloc were close allies.  They were the friends of mine who gave me courage and helped me to survive, but my story starts even before then.
When you are growing up in any well-informed family or in any country where the information is even in the ether you know that Germany has a very dark past of being ravaged along with the rest of Europe by two pointless, horrible World Wars which killed millions and left the country torn up enough for Hitler to rise and then torn up enough after Adolph for a new dawn to rise in the youth of that Nation. Kids who grew up post WW2 in England and Germany and also America, in fact most European/Anglo countries, would soon form a massive underground movement in the 1960s- the counterculture.
   There was still plenty of hostility towards this "counterculture" to spread a better, more forward, brighter path for the future whilst retaining the knowledge of the past even during my formative years in high school. I had become a target by my Sophomore year. I wanted to know and I wanted the facts with no lies thank you. I was open for the first time in my life and something had come into my life I found very haunting- Soldiers. I always thought soldiers were taboo, even bad during childhood, but things would change come hearing an album called Lonesome Crow- the first by a young German band called Scorpions. The march-like rhythms and waves of screaming pounding bashing war-like onslaught combined with dark reflective passages stirred up images of what the past had held for kids at my age then of 15 and a half or older. I started to subconsciously associate this dark and menacing album with images of World War 1 and World War 2. The lyrics were pained to put it mildly, yet this creeping menacing album had me floored by it. I could feel the boots marching of every soldier in every nation- now and today. It was like this album of aural apocalypse had brought the human side of war into my mind and heart with the world exploding all around me. Ages later I still can see the same images in my head that I saw when I heard the album the first time.
    Having German and European mates was a good thing for me. David (real first name Balaz) Toth, an intellectually gifted Hungarian, was a very open person who I felt comfortable talking to about things other kids didn't ever hear from me. During our period of best friendship there was also a German acid sampling eccentric named Lorenz "Lorenzo" Westewig and I considered him a really special person too. The 3 of us knew that the book by Erich Maria Remarque ALL QUIET ON THE WESTERN FRONT was on the horizon, but I never knew the impact it would have on me. When we were assigned the book we were warned that it was a really depressing and really "heavy" book and after watching both film versions many times since the subject is very frightening, unbelievably tragic, and very upsetting. During the time I read the book I immersed myself in the characters, especially Paul Baumer- the lead. A young, loving, intelligent boy thrust into the horrors of battle on the Western Front in World War 1. As I laughed at his laughter, suffered with his pain, and at the end cried for an hour over his death I felt that I was also in a war zone. It could have been a brief flight, but no not with me. I wanted to know more. I've learned over time the truth about musicians and the truth about soldiers. We share similarities yet you will always surprisingly find the musicians to be the more narrow-minded ones. A soldier is a young and eager man usually trying to escape from poverty to make something of himself, but if he succeeds and lives to tell of his experiences you won't catch him turning into an egotistical self-absorbed person. Musicians are young and eager people who in the case of especially European (and that includes England) youths are looking to learn from the history of their nation and at the time of Apocalypse's one off and the start of the Scorpions career another war, World War 2, was a subject that would burn like red blood through their songs.
   The Germans for the first time could point the finger at other countries- namely America for Vietnam. Most of these musicians would if they went on forge a career of anonymity or in the Scorpions case change their lyrical sentiments to more romantic ones. When a musician grows older he has a soul that is trying to erase his formative youthful years. When he grows old chances are he won't be rockin' or sockin' the truth about all those mysterious foreboding songs to you anymore.
   With  the horrible war in the Former Yugoslavia raging endlessly I was, we all were, very upset. Here was the country where World War 1 had started and as I looked around I saw no changes in culture or human nature at all there. Genocide and young lives being destroyed again. I wanted to go over there and fight the Serbs, but I wanted my weapon to be loudspeakers. I certainly was having way too much fun to want to go off and get shot.
   As I have aged my anti-war yet Pro Soldier beliefs are held more firmly now than ever. I know and have spoken to many British and some other soldiers and I find that history, their history, is one that lives on in a nation and in its music long after all other adolescent fantasies have died. Prepare to be shocked at some of what I reveal to you in this music, and strap yourself in coz this is a hard ride down a hard road.
    German hard psychedelic rock came roaring into existence in 1969 and stayed there for nearly over a decade. The bands all tended towards ominous names to match their ominous music and they all grew up in the shadow of World War 2. Bands like Armageddon, Apocalypse (whom I will discuss in full here), Scorpions, Nite Sun, Wind, and Gift (which is German for "Poison" actually) explored the themes of war, violence, and apocalyptic sentiments through their music to varying degrees of success. While Gift assaulted us with a barrage of noise over 2 full length albums in an attempt to make us believe that life was really damned miserable the God Like bands of the early German underground movement would have to be Apocalypse, Scorpions, and the first Electric Food LP. British bands were heavily leaning towards dark lyrics about war and disenchantment as the war in Northern Ireland would go from a bad start in 1969 to a 33 year nightmare for that country, but some of these bands were just looking for an excuse to write sensationalistic nonsense. In England there were thousands of young bands and most of them were brilliant thank you, but Germany was the country where classical music was a proud tradition so for lack of a better term "symphonies" came easier to the young German bands.
   Apocalypse were the same boys who made the pop psych classic Kannibal Komix (their spelling not mine- clever ain't it?) album and who after Apocalypse went on to Megaton with all 3 bands involving the ex US Army SGT Les Humphries who had turned to music as their Svengali. Les Humphries was a strange character about whom I don't know a whole lot, but with Enrico Lombardi who was a group member and later producer Gerd Muller in the line up they wrote and recorded the Apocalypse album- one that more than lives up to the threat it promises on the cover. The cover shows a sky turning all kinds of weird colours with at the bottom 7 multicoloured stars turning into barbed wire and holding a bleeding cut off human hand. The back cover shows a background collage and demonic beasts writhing in tortured shapes. If this sounds like you can't stomach it already and if looking at it makes you think it will be too "Heavy" for you the music outdoes the cover!
    Dispute goes on about whether Apocalypse was recorded by their producer Giorgio Moroder in 1969 or 1971, but I would compromise there and take my guess as 1970. However you slice it, it was really early and predated the similarly tortured Lonesome Crow. "Life Is Your Profession" begins with a heavy bass drum or timpani being bashed while a choir from Hell in Gregorian madness chant in the background before blasting guitars and aggressive vocals which evoke England's Open Mind or followup band Megaton but way trippier come in. The chorus uses very classical choral harmonies in the background and this is a recurring theme throughout the album. Lyrically, it sets the tone of violence, menace, and destruction that is prevalent throughout the album. "Let It Die" follows and features guitarist Jurgen Drews (now an infamous trashy cabaret singer in Spanish Malorka [sic]) singing in a soft depressed voice in a sitar-led doom-ladened dirge. The weaving sitars, sparse instrumentation, and creepy menacing harmonies have me feeling like I am lying shell shocked in a trench in World War 1. It's hard to believe that such a horrible sensation could also bring a really vibrant love of live and love of the song and album in this very dark music. "Patricia" is the longest track on the album and here the Second World War comes right straight into your living room when you play it. For some of the most tortured, menacing, dark music this album has a staggering amount of power and life. There is enough imagination and drive here to make it THE BEST HEAVY PSYCH GERMAN RECORD AND A WORLD CLASS MONSTER. "Patricia" has quiet and plaintive, wailing sections in its epic structure and features some really monstrously heavy guitar parts. After the soft verses and screaming blasting choruses the song changes into an out of tune guitar and even more out of tune thickly accented vocal about "Too Many People That Cry." The vocal sounds like he's just been shot and then he says "Picture this just 20 years ago" and the war comes out of the disturbing past right into the song with the sounds of chanting, marching, freaky Ghost Like hordes of the damned attacking your mind before a scorching guitar solo hits you so hard you don't know what has just transpired.
     Classical influences from Bach to Wagner figure heavily throughout this album. Side Two is more short song oriented and for the first 3 tracks ("Milkman," "Try To Please Me," and "Pictures Of My Woman") the music is much more of a freaky Swinging London psychedelic hard rock sound that I would liken to both The Koobas and the previously mentioned Open Mind or Dutch classic the 2nd album by The Shoes (Let The Shoes Shine In- a new wonderful discovery). There's even a hint of the craziest songs on the July album here, but even more twisted. Dark, doom concerns continue and add to that sexual aggression, wry humour, and unpredictable song structures that seem to be there just to explode to create a psychedelic vision of complete loss of connection with the real world. Yet the world is real that is described in here, alright. They grew up looking at desolation everywhere and here it inspires musical brilliance. "Linda Jones" is about a very plain, self-pitying girl who commits suicide with a Gas stove and is an obvious nod to The Beatles. After all, who had to conquer Germany before they could conquer the world?? The, uh, er, that is BEATLES. The Fab Four had changed music forever and Apocalypse are undoubtedly sincere in their paying thanks to Lennon, McCartney, Harrison, and Starr here.
   Compared to what followed it the closing track "Blowing In Blow" is even more terrifying than "Let It Die" which is the second scariest track here. This could be any freaked out soldier in any pointless war. "I Think I'm Going Back To Things I Know So Well/Of Muddy Covered Leaves And Broken Bomb Shells" is the main lyric. Every demonic effect and trick including the kitchen sink and both WW1 and WW2 explodes in an ominous attack of screaming mania. This makes Amon Duul II or even the unrelated Amon Duul sound like nothing! The hard rock song semblances hold every track on this album that rocks together and the occasional pop hooks and strength of belief hold the freakiest parts of the album together. Ironically this album was the soundtrack to a film called Wunderland Der Liebe- Wonderland Of Love- Harldly!
    By the time of my second and final full onslaught in this mini-novel rock opera Lonesome Crow by Scorpions Germany held enough musical talent to carry that nation for the next decade easily, but there was always something special about Scorpions. Here the classical and choral influences sound like Apocalypse meets Uriah Heep while the main star is 15 year old guitar wizard Michael Schenker. For the first half of his career Michael may have well been the best guitarist in the world. He was already an innovator on this debut album for him. His molten classically inspired licks and riffs also have a bluesy Cream like undercurrent and the whole album is built around frightening images being brought to reality by Klaus Meine's wailing over the top vocals. Meine would never lose his touch. As time went on he would still show a real knack for melodic phrasing and all out venomous screaming when needed. The Scorpions can lay claim to a fact that no other German band can- they conquered the world of not just hard rock, but as time would go on the Pop Charts worldwide. As I have said before about musicians most begin with an entirely different mindset than what they end with. Nowhere is that more relevant than here. "SUN IS DRYING OUT MY BRAIN!!!! AND SMILING RECOLLECTIONS ARE MY PAIN!!!! I'M GOING MAD!!!!" screams Klaus in the opening track aptly titled "I'm Going Mad."
   Dark shadowy vocal chants, Klaus sounding uninhibited in his rage to the point of being possessed, and some more melodic moments form a tapestry of fear, decay, and teenaged angst never equaled since. Songs like "Leave Me," "Inheritance," "In Search Of The Peace Of Mind," and the over 13 minute title track do exactly what Apocalypse do whilst bringing it more up to date- this is post war flashing right back into the Hell of the War. Even in the quiet sections there is a lot of real pain that you can feel and when they explode into screams and violent guitar solos it takes you so far out of your own cozy world that you become one with those who suffer in every war and every form of oppression. I will never believe in war, but I do have my fascination with some pretty dark music that obviously came out of the huge hole left in a Nation's conscience by its systematic destruction of youth. The Scorpions were really young when they made this, as stated Michael Schenker was a 15 year old prodigy, but we've probably all had dreams that flirt between heroism and tortured darkness and that is where this is coming from. The terrorized subconscious is unveiled as if by musical exorcism. The demons of troubled young people's hopes and fears comes to life through the music. It's far from the commercial hard rock of "Rock You Like A Hurricane" and closer to the more streamlined heavy hard rock/melodic sound of In Trance- yet much, much more disturbed. On first listening to Lonesome Crow I was knocked cold by how heavy it was. It would take a few spins back in that distant winter of 1991, but through the years its remained a favourite- along with Apocalypse Germany's best.
   Also well worth checking out are some fantastic British underground dark themed bands of this era. The British would often be more soulful, more melodic, and more private than the all-out open-everything-up of the Germans, but they gave us the best inspirations for worldwide hard heavy progressive rock with Black Sabbath, Uriah Heep, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, and many others. One of the very best British albums is Still Life's only release on the very collectable Vertigo Swirl label where some pressings were released in Canada in a thick but exact same sleeve. Whilst the picture of flowers topping a rotted out human skull is tasteless the music is very soulful, very emotional progressive/psych rock that I will unveil for you in its brilliance the next go round.
   The whole world was acknowledging things, waking up, but throughout my entire life I've found that period of realization to be long dead and gone to most people. In high school I was physically and emotionally attacked for nothing more than speaking my mind and being myself. I stood for love and openly emotional sympathy towards those thought to be beneath me and that had me shot down. I kept on fighting, though, and the more it went on the more of a war zone the school life became. Kids turned to drug and alcohol abuse while I watched some of my best friends destroy their lives tragically. Watching All Quiet On The Western Front in especially the colour version with Richard Thomas as Paul Baumer I wish I could have saved his life as his destruction I've missed emotionally/figuratively by a hair many times. Life is frightening and not far from overpoweringly violent sometimes- hold on and face your fears- give love to anyone who needs it and remember that music is the ultimate in unleashing unchained aggression- not war where millions die needlessly. My closing words are Music and Peace to you.

PETER AND THE WOLVES AS WOLFE NOW THEY GET THE RESPECT THEY DESERVE RIGHT HERE

When I first discovered an obscure album by a group called Wolfe on the Rare Earth label it was all the way back in 1998 and it was a somewhat worn promo copy. I bought it not for the rather average looking cover of a bunch of nails all standing up and forming the name "WOLFE" in all caps, but because it said it was recorded in England and looked intriguing.
  Now some albums take a week, some take a month, some take more than a year or longer to really impress- this one took one play! DO NOT let the fact that some of the tracks are bubblegum and popular covers detract you- this album is really the 60s Mod pop psych group Peter And The Wolves on their one album release, an album that even in their native England was believed not to exist! When I played the record the beautiful harmonies and tough fuzz guitars blended together in a delicious way and boy do they work some magic up with "Funny Funny" by Sweet and "Dancing In The Moonlight" by King Harvest even!
   The inevitable happened. I was laughed at for it by all the idiotic American dealer snobs, and it would take till Sweet Floral Albion wrote the album up for it to even catch on at all. Paul Major also wrote a rave of it in one of his last lists and I read it and told Paul that I had discovered this record before anybody else had! The thing with Wolfe is the same as most Rare Earth releases. It was an excellent label that gave us some real gems, but apart from the extraordinary Power Of Zeus nothing on the label gets much attention. Power Of Zeus even are laughed at by some. It may be the stupid lyrics to some of their songs, but I think it is the same as with all Rare Earth releases- the Amerikan dealers don't like records with a strong Anglo or European bent and Rare Earth had a lot of that.
  Even looking at the cover of Wolfe it may not be the world's greatest cover, but it has that obscure charm about it and to get to the music this album is extraordinary. By Wolfe's belated release in 1972 things had changed a lot in England since the mid to late 1960s. Underground rock and progressive rock had come in- in fact they were the order of the day. Wolfe weren't specifically aiming at the still pop friendly charts, but taking pop psych to its next level in the early 70s. There are plenty of pop hooks that recall the heyday of The Hollies, Beatles, Honeybus, early Bee Gees (I'm thinking especially Horizontal) et all, but this album sounds more like what Honeybus were leaning towards, more mature. The Hollies were past their prime by 1972 with some excellent material, but also dabbling a bit too much in self indulgences and country rock. Wolfe sound like the Hollies if they had been able to consolidate their earlier brilliance in the early 1970s and turn it into something new, something more truly psychedelic.
   Wolfe are a quintet with a very full sound and there are plenty of charming little references to the decade that had just passed like the freaky Moog led pop psych masterpiece "Bite It Deep" with an obvious nod to The Beatles ("If the Apple is sweet then bite it deep"). "Ballad Of The Unloved" which begins the album is much more sombre, much more resigned sounding. It's very psychedelic with a really weird underwater guitar sound whilst sticking to a melodic pop format. The lead voice of Robin Slater reminds me a bit of Russell Hitchcock in Air Supply, but a little less high pitched, maybe a bit of Robin Gibb in both of them (Russell especially) and drummer Mike Wade doubles on lead vocals with a voice that brings to mind Alan Clarke of the previously mentioned Hollies- what more could you ask for!
    Wolfe are a band with a tight, disciplined sound yet there's enough looseness still to keep it from being too contrived sounding or stiff. The writers of much of the original material on this album will be of no secret to any British psych collector: John Pantry and Nick Ryan. They both worked with the likes of The Factory and a lot of other big British psych bands in the 60s, but Wolfe was their band. All five of Wolfe (John Pantry, Nick Ryan, Robin Slater, John Richmond, Mike Wade) had been at this game since at least 1967 and this album has a very mature sound to it. "Bite It Deep" is a great song, but perhaps the highlight for original material is "A Tale Of Two Cities" which thankfully has nothing to do with the French Revolution. Instead it's a rather sullen track with great melodies and harmonies about New York and London. The first half which is New York would have The Hollies kicking themselves that they didn't write it or record it. It also reminds me of Tin Tin and a band who keep popping up here when I listen- Kaleidoscope. Yes, Kaleidoscope were heading towards this album the further on they went (Fairfield Parlour)and Peter Daltrey would be proud of Wolfe. London follows New York and is about a subject written about quite a few times in these blogs- the Decline And Fall of England. Altogether, not a happy song and by London some of it is really emotive- dynamic stuff! There's a few tracks on here leaning towards that rural pastoral rock sound that was so popular in the early 70s and Wolfe handle that brilliantly.
   There isn't a bad track on here. "Time Is Money" by Robin Slater is another fantastic original song with a kind of Hollies meets McCartney vibe, crisp production, and fine lyrics. Another album that I'm flashing on is the British expatriate California based Jamme from some years earlier on Dunhill- another massively underrated record. Wolfe may be the very best pop record of the year of 1972, though. Certainly it is THE MOST OVERLOOKED. There isn't a dud on this album. Not even the Bev Bevan like ultra baritone vocal in their cover of "Mama Lion" by Judd detracts. In fact, placed next to the original this one wins hands down. "Us," another original composition manages to sound 60s in a 70s context. A more grown up approach, but with the innocence of 60s solid British pop intact. "Dancing In The Moonlight" and "Funny Funny" are so psyched it's unbelievable- trippy vocals, fuzz, phasing, effects all turn these into songs that are more psychedelic than they are bubblegum. What could have been throwaway covers turn into brilliance. Wolfe knew exactly the sound and exactly the album they wanted to record- I'd say they more than accomplished making an album that would be perfect 1972 music with still plenty of 1967 in it- just a little more grown up as I have said.
   Now comes the annoying part for Wolfe and for me. They miraculously couldn't attract the attention of a British label and the album only came out in America on Rare Earth. This would seal the fate of both the album and the band as it was doomed not to sell one copy in the wasteland of early 70s America. As I have stated Rare Earth released some great records, but most of the bands that were not American had their albums released in England or nearly everywhere (see UFO, Toe Fat). Wolfe were clearly destined for exactly what they did not deserve- the bargain bin. This album is rare enough, quality enough to command a price tag of over $100 or at least $75, but it is still not really a discovered album. I'm giving Wolfe the praise they deserve. Peter And The Wolves had been around for a long time and they had grown as a band and as musicians when they made this album. I have not heard their previous output, but based on this record I'm sure it's very high quality British pop. Wolfe only getting a US release was a major blow in more ways than one. Had they been on Parlophone or another really collectable UK label years later in collecting circles this would command an exorbitant amount, but a one off release in the States means they'll probably never get past the narrow-minded and trite American dealers who don't like anything Anglo or lazy British dealers who only pay attention to an album released in England. That is really a shame. I'd say it's something I find unforgivable. Go out and find the record- and you'll have a lot of trouble running into a copy. In this lopsided situation, though, it shouldn't command more than $35 to $50 at most in price or maybe less, but try finding it. The fact of the matter is that even though this was released by a major label before getting a perfect sealed copy I'd only had two copies before that of this record. A more than educated guess would suggest that not very many copies came out of Wolfe.
   Wolfe don't have to end with a sad bunch of bemoanings by me about how they should have been super huge and super famous, because that isn't the most important thing. The most important thing is the quality of the music and Wolfe have that over a whole lot of other more praised, more expensive bands. While Deram or EMI didn't release it who really should give a damn about that. I like having a few secrets and a few things that other people don't know about yet and Wolfe stand as my firm favourite. In 1972 there was perhaps more great music than any other year in the 1970s all over England and Europe, even some American albums from that year are astonishingly good, and Wolfe have that kind of maturity that was so prevalent then. The Beatles had split in 1970, but their spirit and their brilliance remained. There still was some hope and there still were dreams from earlier times left. Wolfe carried on these 60s dreams and they made them into something like a snug and beautiful patchwork quilt- all handmade and all from the heart. That may sound a bit corny to some of you, but I find it an apt analogy. While I wouldn't dispute that Wolfe were probably a studio band by this point, they made the album that is an album of my dreams- an album of warmth, sincerity, and brilliant melodies yet with enough toughness to save it from being twee. Find it and remember that if it ever becomes a big record I got there ahead of the rest.

A FEW KIND WORDS ABOUT A FEW PRETTY COOL RECORDS- PARIS PILOT AND BEAT CLUB INTERNATIONAL

OK, So with these two I may make my taste questionable to some who already think my opinions are "different" or "weird," but I don't care about what other people may think of music, or think looks good on them in a fashion parade, or all sorts.
   Paris Pilot is one of the strangest records in my collection. I've actually had 3 copies over the years or 4 copies max and my new acquisition of one is the only clean one I've ever had and had to come from record dealer superstar Jerome Tomko. I'm afraid I know nothing about Paris Pilot and despite a really cool cover photo of the band in Victorian Era vaudeville show dress I can't even tell you who they were as the album doesn't credit any performers on it. A studio concoction? More than one band on this schizo LP? Who knows.... My guess is this was the work of a band not from the South where it was recorded, but probably from the East Coast area where they would have been a popular Club act. You get my first take on it then- a nightclub psych record with a wide variety of angles, but repeated listenings grow more enjoyable each time. Even the filler on this record is so bizarre that in some strange kind of magical way it all works.
   Things begin with something hard for anyone to tackle when it comes to the listener, but I love their long slowed down take on Sonny Bono's "The Beat Goes On" coz it's so damned strange. The song is full of heavy swirling fuzz guitars, plodding organ, amateurish drumming, and a garage level attempt at a "Soul Rock" vocal on top of the whole thing. The singer sounds like they waited a bit too long to nudge him from his nap or else that he's so stoned that he's just leaning half drunkenly into the monitor in a low rent imitation of Jim Morrison. That's only on the first listening. You think he's not got that good a voice and that this is really basement/garage stuff with some neat production tricks thrown in. Wrong. I made that error the first few plays. Playing this a few more times it almost starts sounding progressive in a weird way, half-sophisticated even, but with that nightclub psych band gone into a once-in-a-lifetime studio chance thing in the background.
    Things get much more interesting when the band go into songs like "Winter's Child" which is a beautiful ballad full of really attractive harmonies and an excellent right there perfect lead vocal. No amateurs are these guys when the material is more interesting and even that "The Beat Goes On" was kind of charming. "Winter's Child" again has the soul influences,  but this time more Gospel Mod if such a thing can exist! There's a bit of an Anglophile vibe which really carries over into the album's standout track "Shades Of Doubt." No one who loves psych especially British psych would hear this and not flip over how good it is. It sounds like The Apple! It even has a bit of July or Koobas about it! Wow! The sinister Jon Lord like organ and heavy fuzz drenched guitars form a big wall of sound which the melodic confident harmonies slice right through. Brilliant stuff and as you can see if you got past that first track's oddness then you're in for some fine material here.
  What could I say about "Temptation's Bout To Get Me?" Baffling. I don't know if anyone ever had a hit with this fake soul song, but there sure are a few covers out there and this one is the strangest yet. The harmonies don't make much sense. It sounds like they are recorded wrong or just like they are drunk. It isn't tight anymore the way it was on the previous two songs. Musically it has a nice sympathetically soulful groove to it and the crispness of the playing is what saves it. The lead voice will be impossible for some to get past and makes "The Beat Goes On" sound lively. He really sounds like he's struggling, comatose on this one and then lurches into a sort of mock soul shout at the end of every chorus. Weird, even kind of intriguing.
     By the time of "Long Way To Go" which closes Side One you think that something, some kind of polarization, is going on here. This song is again back to the brilliance of "Shades Of Doubt" and "Winter's Child" and has all the Paris Pilot trademarks: great harmonies, soft yet confident lead voice, expert playing, and some beautiful melodies. They must have been pissed about those two covers. It sounds like two completely different bands when they are doing original material written by producer Don Nix and when they do two interesting,  but not all-the-way-there covers.
  Side Two is only 4 songs clocking it at around 15 minutes! What the Hell!? Shorter than 25th Regiment's Ecology classic Side Two it might be. There is no filler here. Even a song written by Danny Hutton (of Three Dog Night fame and infamous heroin junkie I believe) called "Roses And Rainbows" is great. "Overton Park Flip" is a Hendrix tribute psych/R&B raveup complete with Jimi alike vocals and flamboyant guitar/organ passages. "Miss Rita Famous" could have been a hit, but it ain't AM radio fodder as it is too good to just be seen as another pop track. It has much in common with the high standard of the original material on Side One. The dreamy harmonies turn psychedelic at the end with shades of The Gods and Asgard even! The songs that close out the album "Roses And Rainbows" which is fine pop psych and the Gospel/soul lilting "Don't Let It" are fine examples of transitional 60s into 70s melodic Anglophile music. A very nice album and in fact a very special album. There's something special about Paris Pilot beyond just a great cover and some nice songs. It's a grower, and a good one at that. Don't pass this one by if you see it in clean condition- it costs a bit, but definitely a keeper for my collection. So it must be good, then.
    There were so many scam records released in Germany just in the span of 1970-1972 that a whole book could be written about them sans the disgusting offensive term "Krautrock" (for whoever instigated this nonsensical wording how about "Yank Bonehead"). Yes, we had Corporal Gander's Fire Dog Brigade who were really Wind, Electric Food and a million offshoots who were really Lucifer's Friend, and about a million others. Funny thing is, all of these records are really good when you hear them! The first Electric Food is a classic and is really flipped out- way more so than substandard bands championed as classics like Can, Faust, Guru Guru, Mythos (who flat out suck), and Ash Ra Temple.
   I like the Germans when they rock and rock hard. Beat Club International I was only made aware of by Ashley Johnson who is now in poor health and needs our prayers. Ashley's prices are hugely astronomical, but Ashley bought back in the days when things were way more money for weird import records from the earlier era of the 70s. His description got me hooked and having played this album dozens of times- thanks Ashley!
      Electric Food considered, Wind considered, this may be the best German heavy exploito album ever made. The guitars rip and roar with a thundering attack while the organ bashes, grooves, swings, and rocks out with furious drums and bass. To boot it's all mixed together with killer pop hooks and violent lyrics. The lyrics are completely bizarre and in the case of two songs they take folk song titles and obliterate them. "Wayfaring Stranger" has the title mispronounced as "Pooor Pooor Pooor Way Farring Ztranger OH Yeah!" while "Matty Groves" deliberately trashes the classic folk murder ballad turning it into comedy. "Aunt Rhody" which opens the album is one of the heaviest German psych tracks ever. It really hammers you and the sinister multitracked high and low voices are pretty freaked out. Side One alone stands as a perfect example of what made Northern Europe so interesting for music during the post beat boom era right through the 70s. Nobody cared about anything except making music. Germany, Finland, Switzerland, Holland, Sweden, Denmark- they all just wanted to play good music and create something that wasn't artificial sounding. There's huge differences between countries with Germany and Holland taking the cake for heavy stuff while the Finnish seemed to like their heavy rock with a few more laid back touches (see superb Elonkorjuu). There isn't anything too quiet here and the whole tone of Beat Club International is not beat one bit- it's heavy German psych at its absolute best. Catchy melodies and fantastic different singers are to be found throughout. This is credited to "Das Louis Shampton Trio" and the whole concept of this as a trio is even more absurd than as a Beat Club! Songs have variations. There's one quiet dreamy Procol Harum like ballad "King In Heaven" while songs like "Drill Your Dog," "Railroad," and "Mr. Whyler" are more prominent here- heavy psych with bizarre vocals and lyrics. I know this stuff isn't for everybody, but I love it!
    We'll never know who was behind Beat Club International, but my guess is those friends of Lucifer had something to do with it. What makes this album so impressive is not just the excellent musicianship, great production job, and very strong vocals, but the huge amount of fun I have listening to it. This may be dark and grim stuff lyrically, but the whole thing is done to have a rock and roll fun filled time and you get that with this. I would rate this album higher than a band as great as Gift even. They took themselves and their music a little too seriously and had no variations. There's variation here even though most of it is wild frenetic heavy psych rock. I'd strongly recommend you find this ultra rarity before the big discovery is made which DOES MAKE IT A $600 RECORD! A great time will be had when you hear it. love till next time
Benji

SOUNDS OF UNREST IN THE 60S- BULLDOG BREED, RUST, AND THE KOOBAS THE THREE BEST PSYCH ALBUMS EVER!!!

Sorry for being away from my writings for so long!
The truth is that I've been buried in records to listen to and absorb for ages. Also, my job as a cat caretaker at the SAVE animal shelter (you should donate to them if you're local to the Princeton area- they are the one pet shelter who never put the animals down if they aren't adopted) and things have been kind of not so jolly.
I no longer can see England as the Paradise I dreamed it is and I guess these 3 rather ferociously "Decline And Fall Of The British Empire" records from back in the 1960s prove that. However, England is still special and I still hope to go there this summer and meet some of my true mates there.
  England has been through some rough times, but during the 60s the whole world was in an upheaval. A revolution was going on and music was part of that revolution. No rules were set as to what you could and couldn't do anymore and if there was a rule the mindset then was to break it. A complete opposite of when the music industry got greedy after that adventurous period between 1966-1970. I've said July is the best psych record ever. Well, I would stick by that and just change it to high rank in the top 5- it isn't like these 3 where a darker, more menacing sound that foreshadows the hard rock assault of the early 70s underground scene is prevalent for the entire album. I tend to prefer the harder, darker, more "underground" British psych of The Koobas and these other two- underground but very catchy. Even into the early 1970s or mid 1970s England's underground was producing some excellent music that I would say is some of the best in the world. The problem would be that England was also producing the worst shite ever recorded by the likes of Deep Feeling, Beggars Opera (although this Scottish band were to change after 3 horrible albums into a solid hard rocking guitar band after booting out horrid vocalist Martin Griffiths), Magna Carta, and Capability Brown (who I refer to as "Incapability Brown"). Had the rot set in there too like I've said it had in America? Am I just one of those music fans who complains all the time about things like sick gory lyric writing, bad vocals, horrible playing, and the like that I can pick out of any bad prog rock release? Well, no. I love progressive rock when done properly, but prog has to have muscle or else a real aching sense of beauty or it just won't work. I'm more of a Camel or Yes person than Gentle Giant or the band I'll take over them any day Genesis. Genesis actually could be seen as a continuation of the unrest in Bulldog Breed, Rust, and The Koobas in the 1970s and it would be funny to speculate that since the late Tony Stratton Smith managed Genesis after The Koobas the whole idea of "The Knife" was ripped off from "Barricades." The problem with Genesis was that they had all the perfect ingredients, but the cake wasn't always the same when they baked it. A little more spice would have helped, but give them credit- they were a good hard working band who went on to major success only after about 4 or 5 years of being a band who had not one hit to their name. The problem with post 1969 British music is that it went into a million different directions some of which was marvelous and some of it just horrible. I love the 1970s and I'll stretch it into the 1980s that some great music was still being made. Even in the 90s there was a sort of revival of British pop psych only harder edged with the likes of Blur, Radiohead, Portishead (these last two would have qualified as ULTRA UNDERGROUND in the 60s/70s) and The Stone Roses NOT Oasis (pretend Beatles- just teenybopper re-baked rubbish). Where the fun really is though is back in 1968/1969 when these three gems were conceived and/or released. In the case of The Koobas and Bulldog Breed 1969 was their year. Rust were an Anglo/Australian heavy psych/rock trio who were living in German and recorded their album there in it has been said 1968 or 1969. All three of these records rock and rock hard.
                                     The Koobas let's start with, shall we?
The Koobas formed in 1964 in Liverpool just in time to be a small part of the Merseybeat boom that was started by The Beatles. They even shared the same manager in Brian Epstein. Luck was incredibly bad for The Koobas for their entire career. As 1965 turned to 1966 then 1967 to 1968 excellent singles were recorded and miraculously none of them were huge hits. From the beginning of their career till the end the band was comprised of the late Stu Leathwood (Vocals, guitars, keyboards), Roy Morris (Lead guitar, vocals, sometimes lead vocals on their 1969 self titled masterpiece), Keith Ellis (Bass guitar, vocals), and Tony O'Reilly (Drums, percussion, backing vocals). Despite the huge amount of talent and adventurousness contained in the group it just wouldn't happen for them until they had a bit of a splash with a version of Cat Stevens "The First Cut Is The Deepest" which Rod Stewart would later rip the vocal from for his version. I love Rod Stewart when he was great, but listening to The Koobas record on the songs Stu Leathwood sings sometimes I think that Rod owned a copy of the record and played it a million times while calculating his next career move. Leathwood's next career move after The Koobas really shows the similarity. He would go on to just one more band- Harlan County who were a steal of Rod Stewart's early solo releases and a good steal at that.  It could be it's just an uncanny resemblance- high, throaty, soulful, melodic vocals, but not too high. The high pitched harmonies of The Koobas on their eponymous 1969 album and reissued brilliantly by the long since defunct Bam Curuso as Barricades recall Uriah Heep. This was before Uriah Heep would perfect the high operatic harmony singing that even now is their trademark, so it would be interesting to speculate perhaps MR. Ken Hensley or David Byron too had a copy of The Koobas. Indeed, Hensley's pre Uriah Heep projects The Gods and Head Machine bear a resemblance to The Koobas' sound.
      The high lead voice on some tracks on The Koobas is lead guitarist Roy Morris. The Koobas had something to say that had been bottled up for too long. Their lack of action on the singles front wasn't exactly going to lead to an album so with the show just about over before throwing the towel in just like The Zombies had done with Oddesey And Oracle they went into the studio and made their masterwork. They'd never followed conventions nay they'd defied them, so view the album as an act of defiance. A rock and roll band through and through with pop hooks thrown in they made an album of solid hard edged psychedelia that dabbled in prog rock, pop, and soulful moves whilst every song was drawn together by a funny little bit of playfulness. Of the 3 masterpieces of British psych here The Koobas are the least downtrodden sounding, but underneath the lively exterior there is a lot going on that suggests a kind of "Decline and Fall" concept. While it explodes in "Barricades" which could be called psychedelic metal the rest of the album takes old English music hall traditions in an effort to illustrate a kind of sequence of songs more about endings than beginnings. It could be pure speculation on my part, but I think the "Ending" concept is more than just about the end of the band. The troubles had started in Northern Ireland. There were riots everywhere around the world. Flower power was dying out fast. England's future as a world power looked questionable and the whole idea of an "Empire" was beginning to seem rather dated and bewildering. Ray Davis and The Kinks would release Arthur and that would be a theme Ray would come back to many times since that seminal record, but the 1969 album that takes the cake for Prototype hard rock psych/poppsych must be The Koobas. Currently the value of this jewel is over 1,000 US dollars and also over 1,000 pounds! Ouch! When an album doesn't sell and a cult ensues around it look for things like that to happen. It must really piss the band off they made nothing off it, but the adulation then again may make it all worthwhile.
     Song highlights are many. Here's a personal little run through. "Royston Rose" is an out and out rocker beginning the record with heavy dirty guitars, strong vocals, pounding rhythms, and a really kind of subtly sinister groove. It sounds like they are about to turn into Led Zeppelin on this one! Roy Morris has a funny voice- very high and with a slight lisp, playful and unpretentious. Very impressive song and a great way to start an album. "Where Are The Friends" is a more reflective number with sombre atmosphere and a fantastic lead vocal from Stu Leathwood in a song again powered by superb guitar riffs. Side One gets really heavy again with "Constantly Changing" which manages to combine the high Uriah Heep progressive leanings with the hard rock side of UH or Zeppelin of "Royston Rose." Like the title this song constantly changes- you don't know where it's going to end up! "Here's A Day" is the most lighthearted track on Side One- a very pleasant slice of pop psych reminiscent of The Idle Race- another great band who never made it despite 3 brilliant LP releases. This song is about a day that goes nowhere. "Fade Forever" closes the side and could be called Heavy psychedelic R&B! Leathwood's soul vocals are understated, unpretentious, and really shine on this track along with the hard hitting yet melodic guitars, bass, and drums. There's some nice mellotron passages too.
It's Side Two's opener that is the most violent track musically, lyrically, and vocally- the freaked out "Barricades." Heavy piano and guitar riffs at the same time drive along this track of bomb effects, screaming guitars, a recitation of Rupert Brooke's "Grantchester" and just about everything else they could think of. The lyrics are based on the riots, destruction, unrest, and violence erupting everywhere. As stated, I can hear some of the beginnings of "The Knife" by Genesis here as it is a very disquieting, riveting experience. Unfortunately, Side Two then goes into the one dud track here- an awful version of "Piece Of My Heart." This is so boring I don't think I even want to waste my pen on it. It sounds almost bad on purpose, but not even funny just stupid. The Marmalade did it a lot better. "Gold Leaf Tree" will wake you up if the previous track made you full of inertia. This is progressive rock before it really had ANY ground rules set. Keith Ellis excels both as the main writer here and for his brilliant driving bass parts. The strong vocals, soaring vibrant music, brilliant Mod drumming, and beautiful lyrics make this a real highlight. Amazing song! "Mr. Claire" is a Stu Leathwood track and very joyful, very nice. It's here that he sounds the most like Rod Stewart, incidentally. "Mr. Claire" has some swinging guitar and rhythm section work, great mellotron, and a beautiful vocal from Leathwood. The closing track "Circus" is the most celebratory offering here, but beneath all the laughs is another early progressive number that makes you never know what to expect next. I can hear The Beatles in this one where for the rest of the album I'm thinking more Small Faces gone heavier, but there's that Marriott/Lane brilliance in here too. There's lots of fun on this track with lines about lions, elephants, funny voice overs, just a blowout of joy. Then when the album ends you really wish there could be an answer for some of the heavier stuff on here lyrically. Is life a joke to laugh at and take lightly? I don't have the answer. Maybe The Koobas had it and didn't have enough time to make it more obvious to us. This album is fantastical. It's about the best British psych album ever along with the other two I'll discuss here, but I wanted to give the most detail to The Koobas. Find the reissue or CD of this if like me you simply can't afford an original or find one for a more reasonable offer- and to think that back in 1996 when I was a green 20 year old I was the one responsible at a record show for a funny English character/dealer getting 300 pounds for it then! Seems like nothing now! But this album seems like something that might be worth all the money it goes for...
                          And Now Onto Bulldog Breed!
     Bulldog Breed were a band who came out of The Flies, Please, and The Gun who were already more underground acts than many were during their time. Before Asgard guitarist/principal writer Rod Harrison already had a vision of the British Empire rotting and crumbling away into nothing. Together with drummer extraordinaire Louie Farrell from underground heavy psych masterpiece group Gun and ex Flies/Please members Robin Hunt (Lead vocals, flute, guitar, keyboards) and Bernie Jinks (Bass guitar, vocals) they made an album similar to The Koobas if they got really angry on a second release. There is so much venom here on this record that it's almost scary. The toytown poppsych numbers which hearken back to the whimsy of 1967 are a refreshment, a little bit of a cleanser for the violent heavy psychedelic onslaught of the rest of the album. Very much an underground band, Bulldog Breed have the Mod vibe still intact, but complete with overt Satanic themes dark doomy Sabbath style metal is lurking in the grooves. It's faster than Sabbath and Robin Hunt much less subtle in his delivery than wonderful Ozzy, but Ozzy, Iommi, Butler, and Ward would love this. So should you. The reason is easy to point out- despite how frightening in power this album Made In England is it's also a record full of mischievous playfulness and high energy. I can't give a run through of all 14 tracks, but if you want to know why Bulldog Breed is the most underrated British psych masterpiece I can tell you there is not even a mediocre track present on this record out of all 14! Fantastic musicianship, a multitude of different genres being covered tastefully, intelligent pissed off lyrics, and snarling vocals make for a real masterpiece. Sometimes the music is soft, happy, or reflective, but those moments are fleeting. "When The Sun Stands Still," "Sheba's Broomstick Ride," "I Flew," "Paper Man, "Reborn" and the other heavy tracks here are the perfect beginning for British underground rock. There's a lot of psychedelic rock with the brilliance of early hard rock takes on the fall of the Empire, the follies of people who try to think their humdrum lives mean something, and Satanist lyrics all creating a Devilish brew of Hammer Horror fun! Bulldog Breed used to be ignored. It wasn't mentioned in the same breath with other conceptual and semi conceptual records it actually blows out of the water or any of the highest of psych records, but when word got out the price shot up really high. What pisses me off is that nobody ever talks about how this is essentially Asgard before Asgard and T2 before T2 or even a mention of the Gun connection. Personally, Asgard and Gun are top favourites with me, but I'd rate this even higher than T2! Wow! There is such an English vibe here even as they sing about it all going to rot. There's a resilience. They aren't gonna go down without a dirty and mean fight. Bulldog Breed clearly are a Take-On-The-World group and that irreverence shows here in a big way. Every track will try something a little different, a little offbeat, and that makes for a lot of fun. If you don't know your English history you'll learn something about England here. It's great, all of it. It's a shame nobody gave this band the push they deserved because had they Bulldog Breed could have been even bigger than Black Sabbath. Bold words, but listen to the record and you'll know what I mean.
                Rust Arrived Today And Red Notes Of Decay Were Played Quite Loudly.
   Rust's one foray into vinyl Come With Me is the one of these 3 that's still the most underrated and I can't figure out why. Nothing they'd go on to do after this album would equal it both as later members of the excellent for their first album Freedom or as the great but a bit hard to take in large doses Creepy John Thomas. Vocalist/guitarist "Creepy" John Thomas came from Australia and met up with Walt Monaghan (Vocalist, bass) and drummer Brian Hillman in Germany presumably. They were living in Germany when they recorded Come With Me as Rust Underground in 1968-1969 on the budget HorZu label. This record is every bit as good as The Koobas and every bit as good as Bulldog Breed. It can be considered a cross between both, but with more of the anger and disillusionment of Bulldog Breed than the whimsical side of the The Koobas. Johnny Thomas comes from a blues rock background and his voice and guitar reflect that. He has a strong kind of Lou Reed/Mick Jagger thing when he sings and his rockin' guitar is an important factor in Rust's sound. Monaghan and Hillman are the more psychedelic influenced in the group and instead of a mess it all falls together brilliantly with not a weak track in the lot here. "You Thought You Had It Made" was probably called "Fuck You" and they had to change the title- it certainly is a nasty, angry note to begin a record on about a falling out with a particularly annoying ex girlfriend. Thomas sounds downright vulgar and in the process puts both the Pretty Things and The Rolling Stones to shame. Imagine a more psychedelic Stones or an across the pond Lou Reed prototype glam/heavy sleazy blooze rock and you'll get a good idea. The rest of the album is very different- just as heavy, but also much less blues oriented. The lyrics become political or else very personal. Revolution is suggested as the only way to make the world a better place. Songs like "Please Return," the title track "Rust," and "Doesn't Add Up To Me" are whole lyrics of unrest and uneasiness. The rest of the album follows that same kind of wasted and depressed yet very exciting path. I really would say that with the great very Germanic production which includes loads of effects, the excellent musicianship, and absolutely top notch songs this album should go for 1,000 pounds. It has the sounds of a monster and it is a monster, but try finding an original copy and it will be hard, but won't cost you Koobas type money. Rust are a band who can adapt their heavy approach to great hooks and melodies with no problem whilst they also are a band where you have to listen to all the lyrics to all the songs because they have a whole lot to say.
    Was England really this bad off? It seems it was, but people wouldn't know how much worse things would get till the 1970s when every day and every night soldiers were getting killed and people were getting bombed by the IRA. An inept government would not make things any better and by the time musicians tried to catch up with what Rust are saying in the Punk/Thatcher era the whole thing had lost any sense of fun that was there. It all was a cash in and you'd do better to look into the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal than any Sex Pistols crap. I never got "Punk Rock." My take on it is just the same as Ray Davis in the CD bonus track on Sleepwalker "Prince Of The Punks" or any number of Ray/Dave Davis punk era tracks taking the piss out of it as sensationalistic talentless garbage. Rust are more dangerous that any garage punk 60s bullshit or late 1970s early to mid 80s punk rubbish and it is probably just that dangerous, violent, spitting-in-the-face-of-society attitude which made them so short lived. They were too ahead of their time. There's some ugliness on this record, but it's a good kind of ugliness that I think I like more than the affectation of Ugly put on by The Stones. This record is one where you know there won't be a followup because everything there is is thrown into the album leading you to not even speculate about a second release. Rust's time with us on record didn't last long, but what we got out of it is very impressive and I'd rate this as one of the best records ever made for heavy psych or Anglo/Germanic rock in general.
    All three of these The Koobas, Bulldog Breed, and Rust are saying the same thing, but they also all say in the music that you have to keep your faith up and keep fighting for your beliefs and your own personal vision. I'd recommend all 3 as the 3 best heavy psych records of the 60s and if you give them a listen you'll see why. Keep on rocking and keep on believing in music and your passions. That's what these 3 say and I still think England even if it may be flawed is something pretty special.

BRITISH POP IS NO POPPY COCK + SOME HARD WORDS ON THE CHARTS 70-76

Thanks to Bulldog Breed's "Top O' The Pops Cock !?!?" for helping inspire the title.
Whether the fans want to admit it or not. Whether THEY want to admit it or not. Paul Revere And The Raiders, the supposed guardians against the British Invasion would never have existed without the British Merseybeat/Beat boom and no good American pop in the 60s would have been at all possible without bands like The Zombies, The Who, The Beatles, The Move, The Kinks, and we had one band who shot it right back to the British and they answered with more great music for us- the brilliant group The Left Banke. British pop is the best. The Left Banke are the best and so are the other very British influenced bands who came out of the States in the 1960s at a time when love was in the air and anything seemed possible. Maybe everything WAS possible.
Pop has often been a dirty word to certain narrow minded people with their head up their arse, but you always know who the real music collectors and fans and friends are because they are the ones who are open to anything. Great British pop like The Magic Lanterns (The Shame Shame album on Atlantic is amazing), Dave Dee Dozy Beaky Mich And Tick's best material, The Move, The Koobas, Apple, The Idle Race, Grapefruit, (who it must be said along with The Move and Koobas were venturing far into psychedelia and then became a great hard rock/power pop band on a shamefully underrated 2nd album Deep Water),  The Creation, The Smoke (whose album I really wish I'd kept), Cartoone (From Glasgow Aye), The Casuals ("Jesamine" mmmm what a tasty piece of Baroque beauty and many other gems) has always been held in outright contempt by Americans who can't get over the fact that NOTHING WOULD HAVE HAPPENED WITHOUT GREAT BRITAIN. They say the music is fey, too "English" whatever that means, or some other stupid excuse or just that since pop can be played top volume in the car or radio it is too commercial. The most bollocks I've heard was from one unnamed record dealer or two who called it "Too clean" and "Too perfect." What, should music look like a pile of rubbish inside a barn with GARAGE PUNK spray painted in all caps on it? I know it sounds like I'm ranting here and taking a lot of liberties so let's end the rant. The point is that through their own influences and the influences brought over from the best American geniuses like Brian Wilson and Phil Spector (a maniac, but he created the Wall Of Sound and we should love his productions) the British perfected pop. They would be the bright spotlight in the charts in the early 70s when American bands who were pop really were all the insults people throw at that term when they stormed them. Of course, the 1960s set all of those bands up as they cut their teeth on the club circuit playing Mod pop/psych, but we can't forget them. At a time when all in the American charts was gloom and depression from the Yanks we had Vanity Fare, White Plains, The Fortunes (of "You've Got Your Troubles" 1965 beat era fame), The Marmalade (shed a few tears whilst hearing "Reflections Of My Life"), and The Sweet as the only really great talent that also translated into hit singles. And what of David Bowie? Don't forget him. Don't forget that glam rock gave us some great crossover hits and soon American bands were forming to come out in the middle of the 70s with a shot of excitement brought on by the UK bands. Some of the worst hacks were English, in fact the worst of them all was Rupert Holmes who took a talented group of guys from Wilkes Barre P.A called The Buoys and made them into a one-off hit about disgusting cannibalism in "Timothy," but these hacks were just copying the Americans. In the 1960s there was exciting music from everywhere and the competition was fierce, but the bands were young then and they could handle it. If you didn't make the charts, but you made an album that could be filed under "Pop" full of great melodies you still won the fight.
Let's skip ahead to 1970. British pop and British rock are very old-world. They are influenced by the rich history both musical and martial of their country and soon this kind of ultra super refined, tight, disciplined, and straight forward moving sound was causing Americans to hate all things UK Pop/rock while they swore by bands as dire as Bloodrock or The Stooges just because they sounded "American." I know that type. They are the same type who grew up to be Tea Party mutations and George W. Bush supporters. The wise Americans all either went underground or decided they'd be better off writing, producing, and recording their own perfect pop like Carole King, early Todd Rundgren, and Emitt Rhodes. The singer songwriter movement began. A lot of it was pretty foul, but you could always spot a winner in the crowd because they'd be the ones who brightened our country up with big hits. Daryl Hall and John Oates may get slammed by people who think they are too "clean" or too "soul,"  but they gave us over a decade's worth of excellent hits perfectly crafted, beautifully sung, sympathetically arranged. Songs like "She's Gone" will live forever, but "She's Gone" probably wouldn't have made it without Carole King. It is Ms. King who took a look around the world and took British smoothness and mixed it with a good dose of gospel and R&B that we have to thank for that one bright spot that ignited the charts in 1972 America- Tapestry. How, though, we would survive in a world where only a self-made solo artist who'd worked on Tin Pan Alley could be a bright spot is that we wouldn't survive. War was on- and it wasn't just in Vietnam or for England Northern Ireland. A war happened in the world of music- a war between "Pop" and "Underground." Badfinger came over from England/Wales with backing from The Beatles and hammered us. They were the first band to make the problem visible. While they followed by others I've mentioned already were the groups who made great chart singles and great pop albums America only had a few solo artists and a duo. Daryl and John slaved over their music before making it. They began terribly and knew they had to improve. With Abandoned Luncheonette they achieved the goal of a perfect album, but we couldn't possibly survive in the charts with only 5 albums I can think of as classics with hits (Todd Rundgren: Runt- The Ballad Of Todd Rundgren. Todd Rundgren: Something/Anything. Emitt Rhodes S/T on Dunhill. Carole King: Tapestry. Daryl Hall and John Oates: Abandoned Luncheonette) compared to the storming by the British. Soon discontentment became the name of the game come 1971. American bands started to model themselves after British bands and forsook chart success for progressivism and hard rock. England's mighty hold over commercial music would never die. Between 1970 and 1975 hardly any American bands who made great music were making chart success. Things had gotten as grim as they were before The British Invasion so it's not a surprise there was a 2nd British Invasion. Badfinger, the tragic heroes who lost the lives of both main songwriters to suicide, spearheaded it followed by Queen, Pilot, The Sweet, Mott The Hoople, and out pop acts Vanity Fare, White Plains, The Marmalade, 10cc. In this period of time 1970 to 1976 the wake up call wasn't felt until a certain band called Boston decided that they could combine the artistic talents of a progressive band like Yes or Argent with loud guitars and pop melodies of their own. Boston broke through. It was wonderful and still is. Then AOR radio and AOR/Pomp rock came to enter the charts and finally it seemed we had some great British influenced bands saving the musical future of this country. It would only lead to the obvious. We could deliver some great AOR/Pomp rock, but it was so influenced both by Hall/Oates and the British that soon they would be producing the better bands. I haven't even mentioned The Shocking Blue or Abba, but they figure into this too and with all caps on QUALITY MUSIC. What happened to the days of great hits from American bands in the 1960s? We got too damned patriotic. We also got too paranoid. Xenophobic rock critics ruined everything and as any intelligent person will know bigotry of any kind should not be tolerated. That's right- bigotry played a big role in what was going to send America down the tubes into oblivion. Namely the amount of black music and black influenced music that was good and in the charts led to an outbreak of openly racist bands and solo acts who were so white you could just smell the stale scent of used up chalk and spray paint I mentioned before. For instance one of the biggest hits of the mid 1970s was "Play That Funky Music White Boy" by Donny Iris/Wild Cherry and Hall and Oates were dubbed by idiots "Blue Eyed Soul." Like John Oates who said that's a racist term he is right. That's truth. Soul is a state of mind, and there is no reason why Hall/Oates or Toto couldn't just be dubbed Pop, Power Pop, or AOR with soulful influences. This kind of childish teasing and hating was going on in the 1970s and I hate it. I wasn't born yet or I was a babe for most of that time, but I love music and I hate any kind of prejudice. Narrow-mindedness is a disease. If you're so white you don't have a shadow and you're so American you are wearing a badge that says in code "I HATE ALL FOREIGNERS" then you are sick in the head and don't have a heart. This disease would lead to grunge. It would lead to hate rock. It spells out the unrest that was going on in the 1970s and back into the 1960s with race riots happening all the time. Soon it would be 2001. You couldn't be blamed if you left the country or burned the flag- and that is a tragedy. That is the tragedy of America, but this is a music blog so no more about that except on the musical side of the fence. American bands started to go back and listen to the music of the 1960s and British bands. Soon we'd have some more promising sounding bands around, but chart success would prove elusive like nothing had changed. Let's not forget that The Zombies back in the 1960s made their masterstroke Oddesey And Oracle as a last effort right before throwing the towel in. That is one of the best pop albums ever made- a pure, majestic, emotional, warm, moving record of beautiful perfect pop. Badfinger toughened pop up. They released Straight Up after the equally brilliant No Dice consolidating success in the charts yet ending in the horribly tragic deaths by hanging of Pete Ham (1975) and Tom Evans (in the early/mid 80s sometime). However, the music of Badfinger lives on and really the more I think about it their strong solid mix of pop and rock would lead to some good crossover successes here. People have a thing about soft and laid back music when it gets commercial. If it's Bread whose first album is a Must Have, The Raspberries, or some of the better hits by The Eagles they don't like/hate it and if it's Vanity Fare or The Magic Lanterns they Despise it. Pretty sad. Pretty miserable. I don't want this blog to come off as a complete slamming of America or Americans as I do not feel that way at all, but the bad people in the population are the ones who are spinning the wheels of commercial success and big business. While thousands of young, innocent, worthy soldiers die in a pointless war nobody writes a good protest song with hit appeal like Earth Opera did back in the 1960s or Mr. Brilliant Bob Dylan did- they just put up an American flag and a yellow ribbon on their car. Do they really care about those boys? NO. In England things are just as bad politically/socially, but musically in a disturbing way most bands seem to either aim only at the Americans or just to not exist. So they too are now like the whole rest of the Western World dependent on the great classic Pop of yesteryear. Pop shouldn't be a dirty word. Neither should Love. Pop is all about love and British pop is the richest in romance there is in the whole world. The themes of young people falling in love written about as far back as The Beatles or later on by the masterful half English (Graham Russell- writer/vocalist) half Aussie (Russell Hitchcock vocalist extraordinary) Air Supply will live forever. In the 1990s there were some great songs by British bands Ten from Mainland England and Dare from Wales and now the most romantic band around is a band of amazing abilities called Elbow- guess where they are from? England. In England love is coming out. In America kids are beginning to listen to what is now called Classic Rock when it is really the cream of pop/rock. I believe in music as a healing power. British Pop is the greatest source of healing there ever will be. You should take a good healthy dose of strong, solid, unrefined British pop at least twice every day. To end this entry- remember that you are not the only one out there and that love is the thing, giving is the thing to do. Turn somebody on to good vibes not apathy. No matter what they call it/us good music and good people may be outnumbered, but we put up a really solid fight nonetheless.