Broheems, You Do Need A Copy Of Black Diamond! A.K.A. The Groundhogs Thread

Even Jessica loves "Trashman"

Those early Groundhogs records are pretty cool, if a little undistinctive. They hadn't yet evolved into the hairy power trio heard on Split. Blues Obituary is a pretty good one though. I've never heard the live one.

We could also talk about Hapshash and the Coloured Coat! I still haven't heard their second record..

Some of Raging Slab's catalog can be attributed to T.S. McPhee and
Edgar Broughton worship.

Like Scott wrote, "Solid" is fairly diseased. McPhee had fallen off the stage during a gig or something and broken something that put him either in braces or a wheelchair, so he went nuts on primitive synthesizer on the album. I find it almost unlistenable but imposing.

Prior to Chuck's writing of "Stairway to Heaven" I tried to get him into "Hoggin' the Stage," which was a hard to find thing recorded by the Stones mobile at Leeds. I remember a phone conversation in which he called it "noise;" his opinion may now be different.

But "Hoggin' the Stage" is a punch-yer-face recording; what you're hearing is a stripped, very loud trio, with McPhee running a nasty fuzz tone into a bunch of half-stacks. It's been remastered as The Groundhogs "at Leeds" and I have a copy. It improves a small bit upon
"Hoggin'" sonically. The high points of it are "Split" and the mighty "Eccentric Man."

Sanctuary released an archival thing from the reformation of the Groundhogs as a blues-rock band, emphasis on blues, in the Eighties.
It's good and draws heavily from McPhee's very deep blues roots, harkening back to a vibe when he backed John Lee Hooker. It's thumping, reverent and rootsy but not nearly the brawling electronic fuzz scream of "Split" Groundhogs.

"Black Diamond" is also a must have. I saw a live recording of this band, from around '76 I think, in the store on Sunday. Almost got it but I'm pretty saturated with Groundhogs material and a Pat Travers
CD was calling more persuasively. I'm sure, PT knew of TS. I had it on viny years ago as part of some Groundhogs omnibus.

Non sequitur: I should market my Travers mix CD, "I was high on coke and out of my brain," from the "Sludge in the 70's" series. Next would be More's
"Warhead..." Then early Kansas' "We Were Pomp Rock Scumbags."

"Savage Return," if you can find it, is amazing. It was produced by pre-Mutt Mutt Lange. It's very fangs exposed, almost pure metal.

"Skin and Bone" was also a favorite of mine.

"Looking from the Outside" is a live recording from the "Looking In" era that's an imposing blooz thump squawl of lo-fi noise from the arenas.

And Akarma released a live CD of early-80's Savoy Brown last year that's a very good heavy boogie album.

Raging Slab's Groudhogs influence - YES!! Never really picked up on that but it's totally there now that I think of it. Wot a terrific band

Thanks for the positive words on At Leeds, George. I had a feeling that one would be worth picking up. Now I just need to go out and get it!

It's cool that a few archive-inclined labels are attending to this kind of stuff. I will definitely keep my eyes peeled for that Looking In-era live thing. Poking around a bit just now I turned up this, which looks interesting and might be the same material. I need to explore this Sanctuary label a bit more. They must have a few more cool little nuggets in their catalog I'm unaware of.

That's a plus for 70's hard rock. It's real woman-hate inspiring
stuff -- not lyrically, but sonically. I've never met a single girl who could stand even a couple minutes of The Groundhogs or dozens of other bands 70-76 digging similar holes. Our brains develop their wiring differently during the formative years -- that's my hunch. And for them it's abrasion while for me it's concussion, electronic poetry, physicality and virtuosity.

That said, T.S. was working against p.c. with "Misogyny." Fact is, the guitars were so loud and the message, if there was one, so mumbled, it hardly mattered.

Yeah, Hellbound Train live is a repackage of the material I mentioned and another similar collection from a year or two ago called "Jack the Toad." Definitely total ear blow-out lo-fi blooz shouting and guitar violence. You won't be able to play it around anyone who's not completely into the early live Savoy Brown/Groundhogs/TYA at Klooks Kleek/Mike Vernon thing. It's an exclusive rock noise club; at volume, way beyond extreme metal.

fuck yeah

That's a plus for 70's hard rock. It's real woman-hate inspiring
stuff -- not lyrically, but sonically.

this is fuckin nuts. This is pretty much ALL my wife ever wants to listen to! Zep, AC/DC, Black Sabbath, etc. I dunno how she feels about the Groundhogs but she's definitely listened to them.

the groundhogs KICK FUCKING ASS PEOPLE. LISTEN!!@#!@@#!@#

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/s18780.jpg

One of the best record sleeves ever. I wish there was a pic online of the full fold-out. And, of course ... bad ass band.

CALL ME AN ECCENTRIC MAN

First two Groundhogs LPs reished on vinyl courtesy of Sundazed...

http://www.sundazed.com/artists.php?artistID=367

Just finish listening to Who Will Save the World? The Mighty Groundhogs and I must say this one fucking great album. It still sounds fresh and to certain extent ahead of its time. I can see how Malkmus was influenced by them.

Listening to Hoggin' the Stage (the 10-track version, not the 15-track Hoggin' the Stage...Plus that came out a few years ago) right now. The roughness of the mix compared with the cleaned-up and kinda weak-sounding Live at Leeds '71 (recorded when they were opening for the Stones) that I had previously is really revelatory - the uglier these guys sound, the better, and this is some seriously amp-frying shit.

i discovered this band as a teen, when the dad of some kids i babysat regularly lent me Split, Who Will... and a couple of other albums, because i was deep into zeppelin and hendrix at the time (he also lent me living colour's time's up, which i'm heavily grateful for). i taped the albums, but lost the tapes shortly after, and rediscovering them over the last few albums has been a blast... split in particular is amazing.

which album was 'i love you miss ogyny' on, though? i remember thinking it was a clunker of a title even back when i was a kid...

Please vote for this band in the 1970-1979 WTF - The Hard 'n' Heavy 'n' Loud + Krautrock, Arty, Noisy, Weird, Funky, Punky Shit - Albums Poll! - VOTING THREAD! Closes Mar 8th 11.59 PM UK Time - All ILXORS/LURKERS WELCOME

tony mcphee needs you¬

hey scott did you ever hear any albums before thank christ?

ok, this thread is making me want to rush back to fopp to pick up some groundhog reissues for £3 ...

i'm guessing i should start with 'who will save the world ...' ?

hmm nice tip, thanks! "Split" is great.

SPLIT is my go-to tbh

This is weird:

http://www.forcedexposure.com/Catalog/liles-andrew-groundhogs-split-up-a-exhumation-by-andrew-liles-cd/DPROM.112CD.html

yeah, i don't need that.

I think I wanna hear it once
But not pay for it

Spotify loves to recommend me "Cherry Red"." Recently it recommended me a Leaf Hound track as well.

Spotify likes you, dude, you should ask it out

Lol

Listening to 'Hogwash' this afternoon I was pretty impressed by the productions and how it sounded. I knew that Martin Birch engineered some of the early Groundhogs records, so I went to see if he did this one. Birch of course engineered all the classic Iron Maiden, Deep Purple and other hard rock bands records.

I was surprised to find that Martin Rushent recorded 'Hogwash' in 1972, so it had to be a pretty early work by him considering Rushent is more known for doing so many of the UK punk/new wave bands like The Buzzcocks and Stranglers. Looking up Rushent's work, he did some different stuff early in his career including the Jesus Christ Superstar cast record, Gentle Giant and worked on T-Rex's Electric Warrior.

Seemed to be an interesting degree of separation to me.

Man, I just came across the second side of The Two Sides of Tony (T.S.) McPhee – it’s all ARP 2600, Rhythm Ace drum machine and spoken word. Wild.

The Groundhogs - BBC In Concert is definitely worth checking out. They are much more aggro live, there is some serious noisy wah on those recordings. Pieces of it sound like what the Minutemen might have sounded like as a heavy boogie band.

awww RIP Tony McPhee

what a dude

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KdJa0JZwzRw

Man, I just came across the second side of _The Two Sides of Tony (T.S.) McPhee_ – it’s all ARP 2600, Rhythm Ace drum machine and spoken word. Wild.

:(

Riffs go on forever. Boogie on.

seven inch edit of 'the hunt' here, wild indeed!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MJxnKc5gLlY

RIP Tony. I just picked up Hogwash and Who Will Save The World? The Mighty Groundhogs a few weeks ago, they're not quite up there with the mighty Split but that whole run of 70s records is fantastic

listening to Split...this band was fucking outrageous! what a strange beast they were in that zone of post blues heavy rock/prog/proto-metal/droopy moustaches/flare trousers

Truly a perfect genre name and description for said zone. (And as a point of comparison, I do recommend the three CD compilation sets Cherry Red has released called I'm a Freak, Baby....)