Music to Eat (Hampton Grease Band): C/D

Just listened to this in the car today. What a strange, infuriating album. Two and a half absolute classic tracks: "Lawton," the second half of "Hendon," and the audacious, insane "Halifax." However, it also includes "Maria," which is possibly the worst song ever recorded (and I do not say that flippantly), and the remaining tracks don't quite coalesce.

It's reputedly the worst-selling double album in the history of Columbia Records. While I don't think it deserves that fate, I have to give this a reluctant Dud as a whole. Close call, though.

One could make the argument that, if it weren't an incomprehensible mess, it wouldn't be true to the band's spirit. Truth to the spirit does not itself a Classic make, though.

worst-selling double album in the history of Columbia Records

Anyways, Music To Eat. If Gregg Allman had died instead of Duane and the remaining Allman Brothers replaced him with Crocus Behemoth; or if Captain Beeheart allowed his many exceptional guitarists to improvise and play solos as a reward for mastering all the complicated bits; or if Frank Zappa joined the Grateful Dead as songwriter and second guitarist; or if any of those '90s jam bands were worth listening to at all; then, they might've came up with an album like this one. Strange and infuriating is right, especially the many inside jokes; but it's also quite captivating and often beautiful. I know of no other album like this one. I love it.

Useless fact: The six longest tracks (avg. time 14:11) all have a single-word title; the remaining track is 3:21 and has TWO titles.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rVDOZ9IIFIo

At the time the cd version was released people were talking about the press release hyperbole where it was claimed to be one of the most influential lps of all time. Without this there would have been no Pere Ubu or New Wave or something along those lines.
So I was surprised that hadn't been mentioned.

Has some interesting stuff on, definitely. Good interplay etc.
Not sure if any of the alumni's later stuff is worth checking out.

I think there may be live sets from the time of the lp circulating too.

RIP Col. Bruce Hampton

he collapsed onstage while playing his 70th birthday concert at the Fox

RIP

Just noticed I posted "Halifax" a few posts up and a few years back, always worth a spin.

what a way to go -- RIP

on one hand, yeah, what a way to go, but on the other hand you can see the full performance on youtube and it's painful to watch the band continue to jam for 5 minutes after he collapses before anyone rushes to help him

unreal the way it all went down

he was something else

here's a recording of bruce hampton where he doesn't die in the middle

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nqtlKuz4W74

same channel has a great grease band demo attributed to '68:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YjfMEj4G4AE

I won't be watching that---I can't help thinking about an interview where he and some other musos were talking about going to see Widespread Panic's Mikey Houser, who was dying---and he comforted them! Hampton was amazed; "God, if it was me, I'd be going bananas." He was a philosophical guy, which helped make him such a resourceful artist and entertainer, incl. the comedy, but part of that, the basis of it, seemed like, was being totally upfront about such feelings.
I think the only time I saw him perform live was at an engagement party---everybody but me and my crew looked like the cast of Friends, and it was in this faux-Spanish Mission inn---bass and drummer came out first, set up this shuddering heartbeat that went on all evening, and he came out and played thin, incisive, sustained guitar notes, avant-garage maybe: pared down and later for the bullshit. Long rolling vocal thunder.

Here's an excerpt from a profile-preview I wrote for Charlotte Creative Loafing (mentionof Coe is cause they were playing the same night, at different places):

...Col. Bruce Hampton, another dedicated road warrior and Southern rock veteran, who carved a maverick niche for himself at the dawn of the 70s with his Atlanta-based, Zappaesque Hampton Grease Band. Col. Bruce deals with connection and separation by successfully combining -- but never binding -- wild strands of jazz, blues, bluegrass, garage punk and psychedelia, in a way so many jambands fail at miserably. This fusion is greatly helped by the fact that Hampton's a living crossroads for improbably talented musicians. A particularly good example is the first, self-titled and very live set by his 90s group Aquarium Rescue Unit, featuring several once-and-future members of the Allman Brothers Band -- keyboardist Chuck Leavell, guitarist Jimmy Herring, bassist Oteil Burbridge -- plus other finds like drummer Jeff Sipe and percussionist Count Mbutu. ARU's psych-jazz-rock even featured a mandolin player, Matt Mundy, who ricocheted through the heavier sounds.
Hampton's current band, the Codetalkers, is built around the post-bluegrass cadence of another mandolinist, Bobby Lee Rodgers, who also penned most of the songs on the Codetalkers' debut, Deluxe Edition. Rodgers' rippling rhythms and slightly nasal vocal clarity could make him seem merely mellow, without Hampton's infectious, restless guitar, and the solid-but-swinging rhythm section of drummer Tyler Greenwell and bassist Swan. Together, they illuminate the funny, scary, matter-of-fact travelin' blues of "UFO," "Saturn," and a cover of bluesman Skip James' just-as-cosmic "I'm So Glad." Hampton wails on the James classic and his own cell tune "Isle Of Langerhan" (it's a real place, look it up!). Furthermore, the Colonel spews the ebullient nonsense of "Rice Clients" like confetti, reaffirming his status as notable Zappa and Beefheart acolyte.
Col. Bruce has also been known to announce, "Nowhere is now here." Fittingly, this Friday night, he and Coe -- these two inveterate rollin' stones who travel lighter than everything except the speed of sound -- exit the highway void to meet metaphysically (only) in Charlotte. Bring your wayward hearts and heads out for some of the best travellin' music around.

Oh yeah, and when Tedeschi-Trucks Band played Beale Street Caravan a couple weeks ago (show's posted there), Derek quoted the Col. re never playing the same set twice, "If it ain't broke, break it."

That is, I won't be watching him collapse---but thanks for the Grease Band clips!

yeah not gonna watch the video from last night -- "what a way to go" meant more passing away on the night of a huge celebration in your honor.

Amen!

RIP

RIP Col. Hampton. You were one of a kind and will be missed.

I saw Bruce and friends in a bar in Little 5 Points in Atlanta pre-ARU, mustve been mid-80s, and they were wonderful. A nice, druggy melange of The Mothers, The Magic Band, and The Firesign Theatre. I enjoyed it very much. He was certainly admired by the group of u-ground music weirdos I fell in with upon moving there, and it was easy to see/hear why. And outside of the impossibly weird (and still unknown to me) band I saw in Athens opening for All (of all bands), Hampton's band definitely the best show I saw in those few years.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OuVBEL4BemQ

Holy shit, this album is incredible. Well, except for "Maria", that is. Take that off and this is probably a perfect record. I expected it to fizzle out after "Halifax" (and "Maria" had me plenty worried), but it's so good.

Absolutely fantastic write-up about the band by Jesse Jarnow over at Aquarium Drunkard:

https://aquariumdrunkard.com/2020/12/08/lost-live-grease-recovering-the-hampton-grease-band/

I need to figure out where to track down some of those recordings he mentions.