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| The Blue Cheers, yesterday! [wrong line-up, ya doofus - Ed.] |
"We were listening to a lot of Donovan," smiles Dickie [Petersen - Ed.] today, "and I guess that put our heads in a peaceful place. We were getting it together in the countryside, this ashram in a fucking field outside Newark or somewhere - no! Hunters Point! And reading the Desiderata around the fire. Getting a shitload of pussy, too, but in a more meaningful way. Sometimes we're like, stay overnight! You can fix breakfast! We've grown. Spiritually I mean, physically we're the same, maybe a little smaller, or maybe that's because we're further away. I remember Leigh [Stephens - Ed.] getting into watercolors, doing these beautiful pictures of flowers and gnomes and shit. Chicks dig sensitivity in a guy. They'd be like giving him a rim job and he was like hey! I haveta finish this fucking unicorn for fuck's sake! [laughs]. I was learning to play madrigals on this dulcimer I ripped off Joni [Mitchell - Ed.], and we had mantras out th' ass, man! Nobody meditated harder than us! So those three albums, kind of our tri-ology, were like us asking for forgiveness for the early stuff, where we were like, woh-ah! Too fuckin' loud, dude! So that kind of explains the gentler mood of those albums. We couldn't hear shit. Didn't know what we were playing. The Incredible String Band stayed with us, and I gave them a song I wrote they never credited us for. Creation, I think - no! Big Ted! They're like Mormons, I guess that explains it. So yeah."
Today's deliverable is a sumptuous BlisterPak™ of the self-titled album from 1969 [Blue Cheer - Ed.], The Original Human Being, and Oh! Pleasant Hope, all-time Cheer favorites on th' IoF©, and anyone who sez otherwise can go suck a newt.
Given the mostly miserable response to my recent request for a joke, today I want to hear your opinions about Rush. Not the glow-in-the-dark potato-gone-to-seed talkshow host, the band. Because I've only just discovered them and I'm a little uncomfortable with the good time they're giving me.
ReplyDeleteI get that. They're pedestrian and perfect dorks, but appealing in a confectionary kind of way. All those top-of-the-line guitar pedals and the guy twiddlng the knobs behind the glass sure did make for a pretty sound.
ReplyDeleteSorry .. not one of my favourites!! Saw 'em live at Wembley Stadium -- me & my mate left early !! .. for a bit of a drink and ???
ReplyDeletei find Geddy's voice off-putting. Great band. none in my collection.
ReplyDeleteIn about 1977 Rush were unknown to me until Alan ‘Fluff’ Freeman played a track on his Saturday Show from a new special priced 12” EP. The next week I bought the single and when I could afford it their previous live double album. For a few years I really liked the band until the album Moving Pictures in 1981 which I thought at the time was too commercial - I’ve recently changed my mind, it’s a great album.
ReplyDeleteRush are not a guilty pleasure, whenever I hear their music I really like it. Reminds me of a time when I was discovering new music all the time through the radio and the BBC TV Sight And Sound In Concert / Rock Goes To College programmes. More music than available money but at least I could borrow records from the library and home tape them, and in the process I KILLED MUSIC.
Gotta love Dickie Peterson!
ReplyDeleteAnon RF: Allz I know is Geddy Lee is my exact comtemporary, along with Ken Burns. Who cares?! Oh, and he sounds like Roger Chapman without the vibrato.
ReplyDeleteyour must be referencing a Roger Chapman other than the one from Family.
DeleteIt's a fair comparison. Chapman's famously idiosyncratic vocals can be a turnoff, too. I love Family, but if they'd had more "mainstream" vocals, they'd have been, well, more mainstream.
DeleteRush - if you put a gun to my head and said name 5 Rush songs - I'd be done after "Tom Sawyer". I was peripherally aware of the band in the mid-70's on, but for whatever reason I never listened to their music or bought their albums (although I had friends that did). So, I don't have any real basis for any opinions. I guess I thought "Tom Sawyer" was OK at the time, but it certainly didn't set me off on a path of exploration in that regard. I am intrigued that they are giving you a good time at this point in your life. Maybe I need to give them a bit more of my attention. I could use a good time, irrespective of the source.
ReplyDeleteRUSH AND BLUE CHEER.
ReplyDeletenot something to joke about.
what's the matter with you?
I have a piece on the Sarstedt brothers prepped, so do hang around for that.
DeleteHave you even heard Oh! Pleasant Hope?
DeleteRush were a fine band, early stuff is Led Zep-esque, the singer's voice is not to everyone's choice, but they're worth listening to frequently.
ReplyDeleteI'm going to do a Rush piece. Geddy Lee has agreed to be interviewed. I only know 2112, Moving Pictures, and A Farewell To Kings, from maybe a couple of weeks back, but basically ... ooh yes.
ReplyDeleteMy brother had a bunch of the older Rush albums. I take that music for granted. Rush from Canada, Queen from England, Golden Earring from The Netherlands. Different blends of good coffee.
ReplyDeleteWe used to laugh a bit about tight-pants-high-voiced bands. Long hairs and semi-falsetto were De Rigeur within mostly European Hard Rock.
If you think the singer is off-putting, Bon Scott-replacement in AC/DC, or Axl Rose, Mötley Crue, or Judas Priest. I think Rush had a more honest appeal to me.
Here is the link, the link is here, this here is the link:
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/96SqWBWA6K3
I read a perceptive comment somewhere about The Original Human Being and Oh! Pleasant hope being like followups to the KAK album (Gary Yoder, also with Paul Whaley in the terrific Oxford Circle).
So .. Issa gonna ax .. when is da freebie gonna appear?? .. and glad to hear you're making a good recovery!! My health is all that's keepin' me here in Surrey!! Should be able to escape ina coupla months!!
ReplyDeleteHoo hah!
DeleteThank you. You were talking about bad and/or dad jokes.
ReplyDeleteInspired by an advert I saw yesterday.
Man said Try this! Upgraded and new formula. Best Buy
I said nââh Good Bye
Rush's 'Presto' (1989) is one I liked a lot back then though it's been a long time. 'Power Windows' has terrific 80s bombast. Agree about 'Farewell...'. Managed to see them at Brum NEC 1992 with Primus(?!) supporting. My Rush-nut college chum reckons the latter 20 years were nothing to write home about. Now do the magnificent Judas Priest starting with 'Unleashed In The East'.
ReplyDeleteGlad you're still improving. Maybe someone here knows if 'Unhalfbricking' was the first pop/rock LP to dispense with identifying text, starting a trend of cryptic iconography for the oh-so-cognoscenti?
I think Unhalfbricking (July 69) is a very good call for the first "let's make this as obscure as possible" album cover trophy.. Can't offhand think of another. Pink Floyd had a long tradition of them, but only started in '70.
DeleteThere's a Grand Prize of a sumptuous Boiled Fish Dinner (+ 1 soft drink from the shelf) for any smartass who knows better!
As a smartass with desire for a Boiled Fish Dinner may I suggest Wow by Moby Grape (April 1968, US version) beats Unhalfbricking. However my UK version has a redesigned cover with track listing, band name and album title on front.
Deletehttps://www.discogs.com/release/5475780-Moby-Grape-Wow
or Traffic second album from Sept 1968.
Deletehttps://www.discogs.com/master/69053-Traffic-Traffic
Wow is a good call, but there had been many album sleeves with just a band picture before the Traffic album (Beatles, Them, Stones, Dylan ...)
Delete"Spirit of the radio" contains that wink to The Police that keeps them away from the "serious prog rockers" pose.
ReplyDeleteGreat band for air guitar performers.
Bat
I listen to them without getting bored, which is my first requirement, and they make me want to listen again, which is my second, so they're jake wit' me, the weirdos.
DeleteNothing to do with Rush (who they?) or Blue Cheer (loud).
ReplyDeleteBelow is the precious link to the coveted 2CD version of Crashing Dream, just purloined from another music site. Yep, our Isle is not quite the only one in the web thing.
https://workupload.com/file/UeJvcnXeTcE
Er ...
DeleteSorry, forgot to name the band. It's the new Rain Parade remastered Record Store Day double CD set with loads of extra tracks that I probably will play only once.
DeleteDo try to keep up, Ger!
Delete(Who's going to tell him?)
Hey Ger that Rain Parade was shared here a couple of pages back by Easily, but thanks anyway for thinking of us. Someone may have missed it last time.
DeleteGrimsdale, who's sleep was troubled as mine by not having it, almost certainly missed it last time and may miss it this. Thank you Ger for the loadup! I think you're right about listening once, but the band is one of my favourites.
DeleteAaah, right. Well grateful thanks to Easily and sorry it kinda flew by me. I am old, y'know.
DeleteIt's poor old Grimsdale I feel sorry for. By the time Nursie wakes him up for his enema both links will be dead.
DeleteRush, like Journey (who seemed to have the same cigarette smoking, loser fans when I was in high school), should only be enjoyed "ironically" (i.e. "in quotes"), and even then only rarely and in very small doses. They rank just behind Toto and just above REO Speedbuggy, which is not an enviable place to be seated in the Pantheon of Rock.
ReplyDeleteAlso, OutsideInside should be the all-time Cheer favorite on th' IoF©. Now please excuse me while I go suck a newt.
Y'see, Mr.Dave, it should be impossible for anyone to have "wrong" taste in music, yet here you are! Gawd knows I've tried lo these many times to get into Outside Inside. It remains a tune-free, angry-vibes downer mess produced by someone who was off scoring quaaludes when he should have been sliding the faders. It appeals to the first generation of monobrowed Blue Cheer fans, those who give the later albums one star reviews because they are professionally played and recorded.
DeleteAs to Rush, I have been put off them for decades by Geddy Lee's impression of a squawking turtle in a girl's wig, but there's enough happening in the music to keep me entertained.
Toto is a nono, but the first REO Speedwagon ain't bad.
https://falsememoryfoam.blogspot.com/2023/07/sundar-pichai-chooses-his-favorite-reo.html
Ditto Journey. First album is swell, maybe the second too, I forget.
DeleteHowdy Pardner,
ReplyDeleteThank you for the swell upload there. I'm not sure why later Blue Cheer gets shit on. Okay, if they bowed out after New! Improved! they still would have retired as the spiked pimple cream swabbing punks they were, but that's because everybody only listens to side two. If they bothered to listen to side one more closely you can hear where the band was going to head to. But I guess it's like doing something when your younger and then when your adult self has dinner with your folks they only remember that time you came home at 4am naked as all creation, covered from head to toe with mustard and say "I'm a hot dog and I'd like you to meet the my bun". Doesn't matter that the wife and I gave them a loving grandson, every anniversary my old man still rides me for wearing honey mustard like some sort of fancy boy and mother cleaning the carpet for days.
As ever,
Billy Gates of the Doubble X ranch.
Thanks as ever for your participation, Billy. Yep - if you play Original Human Being after the (splendid) KAK album, it makes perfect sense. Gary Yoder!
Delete