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

Yes, it's Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs. I have most of it on "Lock Up Your Mothers" which was a box set of three or four albums worth of material. Most of it, entirely great and about a step or a year on from the "black" Grand Funk live album.

Thanks for the link about that 70s metal book, I will check that out.
Some aspiring label needs to get together and make a nuggets style compilation of this kind of stuff, I know I would be interested.

GIMME

The "Medusa" album is good. So is "You're the Music, We're the Bandt." The first album was much mellower than the next two, not real predictive of the sound most fans came to like. Both of thw two records mentioned veer between loud crunching, very funky heavy rock and soulful torch music. There are a couple live CDs of the trio
that predictably dump the torch music for the Marshall stack.

After Hughes went on to Deep Purple the band kept putting out records, adding a second guitarist. "Hot Wire" was one of the better ones; it was full-on heavy funk and hard rock. Not much like it at the time on the hustings except maybe for Pat Travers. Extreme kind of took the idea, softened it up, paid more attention to wardrobe, got a sissier-sounding singer and made it more palatable to girls a decade or so later.

The album after it, "Trapeze," was not quite as good. Less funk for the sake of nondescript thud-rock. The album does feature a very good cover -- jaunty, actually -- of "Sunny Side of the Street," alone worth a bargain price if you can find a copy.

They became huge in San Antonio, like Budgie, and might have lived there for a time. Reissues were everywhere about five years ago, including a live one recorded in Texas called "Dead Armadillos."
This band, while still hard rock, was radically removed from the original which was produced by a member of the Moody Blues and subsequently taken out on tour with them in America.

Bottom line, best albums: "You're the Music," "Medusa" and "Hot Wire."

HOW could you forget Mel Galley's stint in Whitesnake from this pedigree??

But yeah, George pretty much covers it like a blanket, as is his wont. I'll just say that I LOVE that self-titled album from '75. It's great! I got it totally by accident too; some dude included it as a throw-in when I was buying a copy of the first album from him. I had never heard the group before and was curious about the Moody Blues connection; I ended up liking the later hard stuff a helluva lot more.

(it's funny, same thing happened to me when I bought Fly to the Rainbow; dude throws-in a copy of Lovedrive, and I ended up liking THAT better too!)

On another Deep Purple connection, how good is the second Captain Beyond record? I really like the first one, but I have heard the second one is pretty lame.

Another question, I recently aquired Atomic Rooster's "Death Walks Behind You" and think it is really good. Are any of their other albums as good? At least going by the Allmusic reviews, it seems the lineup and band sound changed album to album.

The 2nd Captain Beyond record is still pretty good! Not as good as the first, but ok. It's the 3rd one that really sucks and must be avoided at all costs. I think it was like a different band by that point.

I'm curious about Bolin, too. Always meant to check out his stuff. I bet George knows.

Joe Walsh era James Gang records are all pretty good. "Rides Again" is the best one. "Thirds" is much more mellow than the first two.

I had the Zephyr records, ditched them. Not hard rock -- chopsy musicians, good singer, though.

Bolin was on Deep Purple's "Come Taste the Band" and so is Glenn Hughes, I thin'. "Come Taste the Band" was better than Blackmore's last album with "Burn"-era Deep Purple. "Gettin' Tighter" is the prime cut, a slashing funky rocker halfway between hard rock and metal. I drag it out every so often.

"Teaser" was the first Bolin solo album and the one to have, if you have to scratch the itch. It's the most cohesive, has the best songs and is the most electric. There are half a dozen good numbers on it
but it doesn't compare with any of the band's he was in.

The second one was a mess, the only number memorable [scratching head] was "Don't Let Your Mind Post Toastee" which was autobiographical, maybe accidentally.

He's on "Miami" by the James Gang, too. The albums past Walsh were really up and down, mostly down, although to be fair not everything the Gang did with Walsh was gold, either. James Gang album(s) with
Dom Troiano -- avoid. James Gang album(s) with Tommy Bolin, "Bang" and "Miami," probably. Given the two, flip a coin or buy both as vinyl for 99 cents and burn the cuts you like to one CD.

Last good James Gang album, this time without a name guitarist, "Reborn" with Picasso painting on cover. Very tight, short rock and roll songs. Crunching cover of "Heartbreak Hotel," "Red Satin Lover," a woman-hating rave about fucking a slut.

I like it more than a lot of people because I saw them touring to support it, opening for Alice Cooper's "Welcome to My Nightmare." Truth be told, live James Gang was better than the Alice Cooper show
which was strictly for very young children or people with the minds of very young children. I seem to recall about two minutes of it being good, when Dick Wagner and Steve Hunter had a guitar duel in
the space the bridges "Devil's Food" and whatever came after it.

I think Bolin's on the first two Moxy albums, here and there, sometimes uncredited. Moxy were better than Bolin solo albums and superior to Walsh-less James Gang. At one point the band recruited pre-Loverboy Mike Reno. That was their last record, a very poor one,
the band aiming for a sound that Loverboy would later own.

http://www.rhinohandmade.com/covers243/7871.jpg
http://www.rhinohandmade.com/covers243/7872.jpg

Courtesy of the good folks at Rhino Handmade:

http://www.rhinohandmade.com/browse/ProductLink.lasso?Number=7871
http://www.rhinohandmade.com/browse/ProductLink.lasso?Number=7872

I can't tell you how excited I am to hear that live disc. God I love Rhino Handmade. Although that damn Television live disc is out of print now, and I never got around to getting it. Thing is going for upwards of $40 on eBay. Oh well. Somehow I think I'll be able to take my time with these, though.

Scott, you know how you cannot possibly fathom how I can like the Postal Service? That's how I feel about you on threads like this. Still
got love for you, obv.

-- Matos W.K. (michaelangelomato...), May 18th, 2004.

hahahaha!!!

I found Spooky Tooth compilation. I liked the music but the guy with the real high falsetto singing voice didn't do much for me. I need to give that one another couple of spins.

A Deep Purple collection I have never seen get props but is excellent is this 2 cd set I picked up called "In Concert", which has two BBC shows both with DP Mk.II, one for John Peel and another concert right after Machine Head came out. The John Peel Show is blinding, as it is literally weeks after Gillian and Glover joined the band, so they stretch everything out with Blackmore and Lord going all over the place.

I still need to get some Groundhogs.

I am always amazed when I think about the fact that those Savage Resurrection guys were teenagers. Just like I'm always amazed that the Clear Blue Sky and T2 dudes were teenagers. And weren't the Gurvitz brothers teens when they did Gun? what happened to the teens? there haven't been any good teen bands since the glory days of hardcore. there just aren't as many wunderkinds around.

other recent things I picked up were the 2nd Hapshash and the Coloured Coat album (not bad at all!) and the Ashkan record (ehhh... it's ok.)

"the frost -vs- frijid pink. who was chillier?"

Yes, and lest we forget Shiver ...

I've gotten into Rory Gallagher in the past year or so and have been impressed by his records. There is a Deep Purple tie-in, as Roger Glover produced Gallagher's Calling Card lp.

http://makemyday.free.fr/70/70poster8.jpg

also: ORANG-UTAN! and STONEWALL! and CHICO (MAGNETIC BAND)! and a little greek instrumental love for BLUE PHANTOM!

Today I was listening to Lucifer's Friend. What year was that record? 71? maybe it is too prog to be considered "thud-rock" though?

lucifer's friend s/t is 1970, i think.