Rolling Late-60's/Early-70's Thud-Rock Thread

Freedom?

Hmmm, another LP I once passed up 'cause...hey, you never know with late-sixties/early-seventies rock, it isn't always that consistent! You see a fairly generic band name like Freedom on an all-purpose label like ABC, they could be either Argent or Bread, you know? There are no signifiers that say "THIS IS HEAVY." But I'll continue to keep an eye out for it, if they're turning up in a thread like this.

The reason it stands out in my mind is because, IIRC, they had a future Doobie Brother bassist in their lineup...an almost unrecognizable Tiran Porter, and his hair is conspicuously short, as if he just got home from Vietnam or something.

"but if you can find it, the hang up/fire single (by Five By Five) is what you want. some fine proto-thud psych."

Scott, I am very aware of 5x5...I don't have their album, but I've owned the single for years. "Fire" was a regional hit, which explains why it turns up so often in used bins. Great single, both sides of it. The only other songs I have by these guys are on a weak compilation on Charly called BORN ON THE BAYOU. It's an anthology of white garage-soul acts who recorded for Paula, like 5x5 and John Fred & the Playboy Band. Coulda been better, except that it's mostly covers of overdone soul standards, and many of them don't measure up to the originals. 5x5 are heard doing "Soul Man" and "You've Really Got A Hold On Me."

If you liked "Hang Up," you'll probably also like "Life (Don't Mean Nothin')***" by Michael & the Messengers on USA...freaky mid-sixties garage that is JUST hard-rock enough, by accident, for this thread. The A-side, "Romeo & Juliet" was featured on the NUGGETS album and box set. This band later altered their name to the Messengers and had an LP on Rare Earth.

_______________________________________________________________________
***the title could be "LIFS (Don't Mean Nothin')" - I figured a printer's error fucked up the title, but since the phrase doesn't really feature in the lyrics, who knows?

Hey, Stormy D, whassup!!

Is anybody here familiar with a new - or at least "recent" - band called Atomic Bitchwax? Evidently, their sole purpose is to play the kind of heavy metal-before-they-called-it-that music that we've been talking about...they're quite good at it too.

I had that Messengers album years ago, and I NEVER played it. The one on Rare Earth. everyone loves romeo & juliet. or if they don't, they are no friend of mine.

Freedom were cool. They even had an album on the Actuel freejazz label. Very hard-rocking, proto-metal, etc.

Atomic Bitchwax were cool. Or at least the stuff with Ed Mundell that I had was cool. I'm a fan of his. He's the guitarist in Monster Magnet. Heavy stoner jamz.

MY other fave band on Paula was The Uniques with Joe Stampley. Awesome southern garage pop with nice fuzz. I only have the 2nd album though. Never heard the earlier stuff. I might not like them as much as I like a band like The Gentrys, but, man, is that record ever solid. So cool. I don't know if it's ever been reissued.

The Uniques' second album...I'm assuming you mean HAPPENING NOW!

Even though they're usually considered a garage-rock band, the Uniques actually played a multitude of styles, like the southern party band they were. They also had their share of blue-eyed soul and teen-pop releases. I know there have been a few Uniques best-ofs floating around, but I don't know if any of their regular LP's (there were four in all) were ever reissued.

Freedom had at least three records on ABC/Dunhill. Freedom At Last is to be avoided. It's bad late Sixties 60's pop rock, poorly done, poorly sung, just poor. Freedom and Through the Years are the one's people usually go for. My take is the latter of the two is the best. It's turn up the volume early-70's Brit heavy white boy blooz and boogie by a trio. "Toe Grabber" is the high point of the latter. It galumphs along at a decent pace and the singer has an adequate-to-good blues shriek. Not going to replace your Mike Vernon-produced Savoy Brown records from the same time frame but it'll do in spots to break the monotony.

Freedom also had some connection with early pre-Trower Procol Harum, not to the former's benefit. The connection is heard on <i>At Last</i>, the LP to avoid.

I still haven't found an album that sounds like Fraction's Moonblood...that album really does something to me

the first track on that Road album is somewhat similar, looking for more of that heavy psych with intense vocals!

nothing is quite like the fraction album. dragonwyck are a band that i usually listen to when i'm in that kinda mood tho. might just be because i discovered both around the same time.

for some reason i think rev.hoodoo - and you too stormy - would like the one and only five by five album on paula. unless you already own copies.

i think i would like it, too, if i could find mp3s of the bloody thing. i haven't bothered pricing it yet, but originals of anything decent are usually too rich for my blood. i'm basing my need to hear it on their cover of "7 and 7 is," which is like as blue cheer thuddin' as i've ever heard a love cover get.

"The Uniques' second album...I'm assuming you mean HAPPENING NOW!"

actually, the one i have, is their last album. shows what I know. Man, someone has to reissue those other records.

i have this one:

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/372548.jpg

We were discussing these over in the Super K thread, and they merit bringing over here...both Crazy Elephant's self-titled LP on Bell as well as the self-titled Gentrys album on Sun run about 50% heavy rock, if you're willing to wade through the bubblegum numbers. The Gentrys' LP was late in their career and can usually be found cheap. (It was even reissued on CD, on the Collectables label, with bonus tracks!)

Where is the love for Crazy Elephant?

Thank you, Billy Pilgrim, for pointing me in the direction of Squawk!

"self-titled Gentrys album on Sun"

one of my fave records. so beautiful.

i don't have the crazy elephant album, sadly. just the dark part of my mind single which i love. (well, that's the b-side, but it's the side that rules)

Not to sound like a collector geek or anything, but I have the DJ copy of Crazy Elephant's "Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'" where the flipside is the same song with the pitch control slowed down and played backwards.

And the retitled it "Hips & Lips."

("Backwards B-Sides - S or D?")

I don't have any Gentry's LPs, just a bunch of singles.
Are the album cuts really that worthwhile?

dude, ian, you NEED this album:

http://www.strawberrywalrus.com/usalbums/album286.jpg

everyone does.

TM- my pleasure! (literally. i'm listening to it today myself)

"I don't have any Gentry's LPs, just a bunch of singles.
Are the album cuts really that worthwhile?"

The debut MGM album with "Keep On Dancing" is really good teenaged garage rock from '65. The followup, GENTRY TIME, is a hokey attempt to slicken up their sound. The third LP is the one shown above, and like the Uniques, by this point (1970) they were just an all-purpose bar band who made this record to show off the many styles they could do, which is why it sounds like they can't decide whether they want to play hard rock or bubblegum. There's also a note-for-note remake of Neil Young's "Cinnamon Girl" with one twist: the guitarist plays a REAL solo, rather than that one-note interlude heard on the original.

anyone know for sure whether the bang reissues are cds or cd-rs? i'm kind of wary of them because a guy who was selling them in his store said cd-rs.

They don't LOOK like cd-rs. But they do sound just a miniscule bit, I dunno, 'tinny' or something. If the source was vinyl rather than master tapes, at least they used pristine copies of the albums. So I don't think CD/CDr makes any real difference.

There's beena argument about this before but I've personally pulled identical tracks off CD-Rs and compared them to final copies on CDs and found no difference in wave forms and spectral analyses. That being the case, I'm skeptical anyone could hear a difference between the two unless the track was from sources which were distinctly different from the start.

On the other hand, CD-Rs can be cheap and deteriorate. The guy who's been peddling Starz reissues for the last seven years does it on CD-R. At one time when I was buying them he was using inferior media and they all developed read errors within two years. It's one of the few instances were I've found CD-Rs to be a problem. One other experience involved when I purchased a lot of fifty at a discount. They turned out to be readable only on the PC, PC's coming with superior drives than what you get in a commercial CD player.

As for the Bang stuff, it was never particularly high-fi to begin with. The first album's charm -- and it's their best -- was in its primitive production. As Bang brought more to the table their records became worse. Mother/Bow to the King isn't as good as the premier and the third LP isn't worth repeat listens, having almost nothing to do with what the band started out as.

my issue is i basically just don't feel like paying $15+ for cd-rs. i'm cheap, that's all. and they feel impermanent, and yes, i know, cds will probably rot to dust at some point in the future.

i actually have the lizard reissue of the first bang album, which sounds pretty good. they're kind of a spotty label, though, their nitro function reissue sounds like it's buried under a mountain of wet pillows (i don't know if the originals actually sound better, but they'd almost have to) and the mount rushmore two-fer i got has digital swimminess.

this crushed butler CD is so frustrating! just when you get really rocking it's over...too bad i guess all the other tapes were lost.

yeah!

there are a couple of other collections of jessie hector stuff - one with pretty much everything he did from the early 60s through the mildly punky late 70s stuff (the gorillas), the other just collects hammersmith gorillas material. if you use slsk, i definitely recommend checking out the one that has the helter skelter (band name) 7".

Isn't there a Crushed Butler/Third World War connection?

I just got a Jesse Hector CD last week at Dusty Groove that now resides in my "to be played" pile - looking forward to hearing it. I also scored a Harvest Records CD sampler in the cheap bin - even though it appears to be mostly prog, Edgar Broughton is on it. I bought it (a) just to see what the fuss over Broughton is, and (b) even though prog isn't my thing per se, I could probably take it in small doses on a comp like this.

Isn't there a Crushed Butler/Third World War connection?

-- Myonga Vön Bontee, Monday, January 21, 2008 5:53 PM (12 minutes ago) Bookmark Link

third world war has a song called "hammersmith guerilla", so maybe that was a tribute to them or something?

I'll bet that IS what I'm thinking about! Thanks M@tt

(a) just to see what the fuss over Broughton is

oh, jesus, please just download/buy/steal/get a tape of "wasa wasa" asap.

The Broughton song on that sampler was "There's No Vibrations, But Wait!"

If that's as good as he gets, I'm gonna take a pass!

uh, it isn't. not by a long shot. wasa wasa is more like demonic, crazy acid blues shit. not recommended if you don't like beefheart-y growling vocals, twangy and grotty guitars, lurching rhythm section. otherwise highly recommended. (but don't start off with "american boy soldier," that's not typical of the rest of the album.)

"wasa wasa is more like demonic, crazy acid blues shit. not recommended if you don't like beefheart-y growling vocals, twangy and grotty guitars, lurching rhythm section."

That's what I was hoping for, but they decided to use that dorky "...No Vibrations" track for the compilation instead. Thanks for the tipoff.

Wasa Wasa seconded here. Maybe a bit of Arthur Brown as well as Beefheart, vocal-wise. And yeah, that opening doo-wop parody is the low point of the album.

The unwary or less committed can get burned by Edgar Broughton records. For example, I hate Sing Brother Sing which was something of a high point for them because hippie festivals in the UK went ape over it. Wasa Wasa is still on my shelves.

yah, wasa wasa is krazy. i love sing brother sing too. the album after. i dunno, i've liked pretty much everything i've heard from the 60's/early 70's broughton band, album-wise.

ha! x-post.

"The unwary or less committed can get burned by Edgar Broughton records. For example, I hate Sing Brother Sing which was something of a high point for them because hippie festivals in the UK went ape over it."

The first time I heard of Broughton, it was in this rock encyclopedia I had in junior high that featured a load of obscure UK acts that never made it here in the States. Broughton was one of them, and their entry had all these tales about them packing up the van and playing protest songs in parks, which just SCREAMS "hippie jam band" to me. It's only in the last decade that I've noticed Broughton's band being called "protopunk" and being compared to the MC 5 and Captain Beefheart.

Me, I heard GBOA's cover of "Call Me A Liar" before even hearing OF the Broughtons.

dropout apache:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=LxVC37rT5wU

love in the rain:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=jAfIab0sCbk

there used to be more broughton on youtube. must have got pulled.

Heya, I posted Call Me A Liar today on mah blahg. Also, Scott, I tipped my cap to your work here. Love this thread.

holy shit, yesterday's children. seward, you've got them i'm sure. great stuff. great spooky tooth cover.

i don't have their album! not even the reissue. but i want one. i love the stuff i've heard from them. they've been comped pretty heavily.

not thud per se, but fans of the riff and the heavy and the extended solo will find cool stuff on the new hotheads mix i put up today. just in case you missed it:

sweet smoke for hotheads vol.3 - beards on fire with love

threw a frantic track on there at the end. but check out the third world track and the ross one and the rabbitt one and the savage grace one and the bull track. and the tiger track. and the gangsters of love one. and especially the peace & quiet track "looney tunes" which is a fierce and way over the top heavy rock instrumental that will make you pee your pants a little if you play it loud and you are drunk. the teegarden & van winkle track is hot too. off of the only album i own with a song credited to both bob seger and gary shider.

oops, that was me scott.

I'm not 100% sure if this is what thud rock is, but today am listening to Population II by Randy Holden (ex-Blue Cheer/Other Half), and it ROCKS.

hey, you know what? my intensity mix is still up online. i thought it was long gone. well, in case you missed it the first time, here's the track listing and link:

Tracks - Street Fighting Man (So rare you won't even find it on a WFMU playlist! Seriously, many great songs and albums only exist on the interweb as part of an old FMU playlist. I know, I've checked! Anyway, Tracks were a Boston-based band and they made one triple-album(!!!) boxed set(!!!) in the early 70's of seriously accomplished hard/prog/southern rock jamz and nobody has ever heard it. But now YOU have! A little.)

Tommy Boyce & Bobby Hart - It's All Happening On The Inside/Abracadabra/Jumping Jack Flash (The whole first side of Tommy & Bobby's greatest achievment is one long song/suite, so you get three interlocking parts. I've played this at least a hundred times over the years. They are my gods.)

Mandala - Come On Home (Mandala made one late-60's white soul album that yields exactly one song with a guitar solo so sharp and piercing that it will leave you bloody for weeks.)

Noah - Bury The Remains (death-pop piffle. a bit of a breather.)

Glass Harp - Changes (In The Heart Of My Own True Love) (More fireworks. Courtesy of Phil Keaggy,a guitar god if there ever was one. Three amazing albums of powerful prog/hard rock and then Phil was off to do the lord's work.)

Orion - While My Guitar Gently Weeps (*Token Novelty Number* But, you know, with lots of crazy guitars.)

Redwing - Soul Theft (rockage.)

The Gentrys - Stroll On (genius rockage. from a genius album.)

Song - Medicine Man (So hard to pick one song from this album. It's all good. This is the mammoth closer. It has to be the heaviest thing that Curt Boettcher ever had a hand on.)

Circus - Stop Wait & Listen (Local pop-rock band from Ohio makes an album of cool rocking stuff, puts it out on their own label, and then...well, nothing. This one coulda been big. Maybe.)

Terry Brooks & Strange - Mister Strange (This is what cult guitar heroes are made of. From 1980 and released on Terry's own Star People Records.)

Harvey Mandel - Bite The Electric Eel (Noodles! Lots and lots of noodles!)

The Max Demian Band - See Me Comin' Down (Cool Thin Lizzy rip from Herman Hesse obsessed hard rockers.)

Dirty Angels - You Got Me Runnin' (Another great album from an unjustly forgotten band. This thing just keeps on giving.)

A Foot In Cold Water - Yalla Yae (Canucks invent the new wave of british heavy metal years before the fact and don't even break a sweat.)

Valhalla - I'm Not Askin' (Again, hard to pick one song. One of my fave records of all time. Along with label-mates The Damnation Of Adam Blessing, Valhalla were made of greater stuff than most. Now on CD! I think.)

Underground Sunshine - Gimme Some Lovin' (Best known for their Beatles Birthday cover, this is simply 8 minutes of senseless mindless fuzz abuse.)

Thee Image - Show Your Love (Unbelievably over-the-top. A friggin' monument to over-the-top. A word to the wise: always buy a record if someone in the band is wearing a cape on the back cover.)

http://dutchtoenglish.com/Intensity%20In%209%20&%20A%20Half%20Cities.mp3

not all "thud", but, you know, rockage and such. still sounds good. i'm listening to it now. cheaper than a bevis frond comp.