CAPTAIN BEEFHEART - Bat Chain Puller [USA weird psychedelic blues rock, 1976] 2012 Vaulternative VR2012-1

 

Bat Chain Puller is the 13th studio album (and first official posthumous album) by Captain Beefheart, released on February 22, 2012. It was recorded in 1976 by DiscReet Records, who had intended to release it with Virgin Records as Captain Beefheart's tenth studio album. It was co-produced by Beefheart and Kerry McNab.

The album was a subject of friction between DiscReet cofounders Herb Cohen and Frank Zappa. Cohen had used Zappa's royalty checks to fund the album's production, and this led Zappa to withhold the master tapes from Virgin. Beefheart recorded a new album for Warner Bros., Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller), with no involvement from Cohen or Zappa.

Following a lawsuit which was settled in 1982, the album remained unreleased until 2012, after Zappa's family had announced in 2011 that they would release the original Bat Chain Puller in its intended form.

Bat

CROW - The Best Of Crow [USA hard, blues, rock 1969-71] 2013 Sundazed Music SC 11231

 

A hard-charging blues-rock garage band out of Minneapolis led by the passionate singing of David Wagner, Crow had their big break when a track from the group's debut album for independent label Amaret Records, "Evil Woman (Don't Play Your Games with Me)," became a big national radio hit in 1969. But there were a couple of problems. First, the album's producers had added an uptown R&B horn chart to the song against the band's wishes, which meant that when it became a hit, Crow, who had no horn players, had a tough time promoting it on the playing circuit, becoming essentially two different bands, the live one and the studio one. More seriously, Amaret was too small a label to support a big national hit, and fans of the band often ended up with no place to purchase the album. It was ultimately too much for Crow to overcome, and the band struggled through two more albums before folding in 1971. Crow probably deserved a better fate, because it was a solid band, the studio version sounding like a funky version of Blood, Sweat & Tears while the touring version sounded like a harder-edged Doobie Brothers crossed, say, with the Trashmen. This set collects essential tracks from that Amaret run, and includes "Evil Woman," which started it all, an extended version of the follow-up single, "Cottage Cheese," the should-have-been-a-classic "(Don't Try to Lay No Boogie Woogie on the) King of Rock and Roll," and solid album tracks like "Watch That Cat" and "Keeps Me Running," as well as a previously unreleased demo version of the Beatles' "When I Get Home," which gives the song a wonderful and lightly funky shuffle rhythm. Crow should have been a big national act, and the proof of that is here, but the history of rock & roll is full of these kinds of stories, stories that have more could-haves and should-haves attached to them than history will allow.

Crow

VVAA - Local Customs - Lone Star Lowlands [USA garage, psychedelic, southern, british blues 1970-72] 2010 Numero Group 034

 

Long after the Bopper’s plane crashed and the Winter brothers (Johnny and Edgar) and Janis Joplin split, Texas’ Golden Triangle was home to a vibrant group of musicians, songwriters, and entrepreneurs just trying to make it in Houston, let alone the world. Holed up in a run-down strip mall, groups like Mourning Sun, Insight Out, Sage, Sassy, Mother Lion, Hope, Circus, and Boot Hill tracked out hundreds of demos, most of which were put on the shelf and left to bake in the southeast Texas heat. Until now.

The Numero Group has painstakingly audited every tape in the Lowland archives, selecting the best of the best (22 tracks on CD, 28 for the 2LP) for this peerless compilation. The songs themselves run the gamut: southern boogie rock, CSNY clone workups, British blues thunder, garage-psych hangovers, Morricone-tinged supper club instrumentals, yacht rock, and what can only be described as Bobby McFerrin fronting the Velvet Underground...each of them threaded to another in the way only a tightly-knit scene knits its output together. Forget bringing these treasures back to life—Lone Star Lowlands gives them the life they never had.

Lone Star Lowlands

THE STEVE MILLER BAND - King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents [USA rock 1973-76] 2002 King Biscuit Flower Hour Records 7930188001-2

 

By the early 70s Steve Miller was a beaten man. Still only in his mid-twenties, the precocious purveyor of acid-tinged blues rock had seen his stomping ground of the West Coast crumble at the hands of 'the man 'and had seen his band (which had featured a young Boz Skaggs) whittled away to nothing. His critically-lauded albums had made little money and Miller, himself injured in a car crash, was on the verge of quitting for good. Times were not good for the man once referred to by Miles Davis as a 'sorry-ass cat'. Yet a sabbatical spent licking his wounds and recapturing his muse was to prove his making. Within a year the 'Gangster of Love' was back with an album that was about to put him in the platinum league and sign his meal ticket forever. The album was The Joker and was rapidly followed by his masterpiece, Fly Like An Eagle. With a fresh band and a new fire in his playing, Steve was back. His return to favour is gloriously captured on this double live CD.

Taken from two shows separated by three years; this album is as good a testament to Miller's numerous strengths (and occasional weaknesses) as you could get. The first set, from 1973, has Steve retaining his stock in trade blues repertoire and blending it with the newer, fresher material. By the second set (from 1976) he's incorporated the stylish harp playing of the wonderfully monickered Norton Buffalo and has pushed further into the pop-rock that he was surely born to make.

Many people forget that his early work was coloured by a restless experimentation in the studio. Early successes such as Sailor were peppered with sound effects and state of the art electronics. Miller used this experience to good use in later years. The introduction to ''Fly Like An Eagle'', the floaty ''Wild Mountain Honey'' and the gorgeous re-versioning of ''Song for Our Ancestors'' bear witness to this.

He's also often accused of simplistic song writing, but the simplicity itself was a mark of sophistication. It's true that he wasn't above re-tooling his own back catalogue in search of new material. It's a technique made all too obvious when, on the first set, an early version of ''Fly...'' is immediately followed by ''My Dark Hour'', from which he nicked the opening guitar figure! Even ''The Joker'' contains references to characters from his previous work - yet it's his unerring sense of great pop dynamics that make one forgive his self-plagiarisation.

However it's his obvious joy at being back and playing to an appreciative audience that really comes across in this excellent album. The voice is wonderfully lithe; the guitar is as bluesy and funky as ever; and when he speaks of 'the pompitous of love' well - you just have to listen...

Steve Miller

ALEXIS KORNER - Both Sides [UK blues rock 1970] 2006 Castle CMRCD1417

 

By 1970, there were certain things you could count on with an Alexis Korner album. Those included an almost manic stylistic diversity that ran from near-trad jazz and blues to near-blues-rock; a top-notch cast of supporting musicians, and seriously inconsistent quality, in large part because of Korner's hoarse lead vocals. Both Sides has all of these, and remains one of his more obscure efforts, in part because it was issued only in Germany and Holland. Certainly Korner enlisted some top talent, including Free's Andy Fraser on bass; Paul Rodgers (also of Free) on backing vocals; Lol Coxhill on tenor and soprano sax; John Marshall on drums, and Ray Warleigh on sax. Give Korner credit, too, for trying to move with the times, including some nods to soul and heavy rock music along with the blues and jazz that were at his musical core, and making substantial use of a horn section within a loosely blues-oriented format. 

Both

SPANN - Let The Hell Hang [Canada garage, blues psychedelic rock 1979] 1997 RD Records RD 3

A terrific third album by Montreal garage blues-rock band Spann, formed by guitarist Ray Gelbert, bass guitarist Henry Paul and drummer Ronald Crowne, later replaced by El Peterson after recording his debut album. The band recorded the first two records in 1979 in a small studio in Vancouver, Blues Light Records with a difference of several months. In July of the same year, they went to Memphis, where they recorded "Memphis Tapes" at the legendary studio of Sam Phillips Sun Records, which were included in the third and last album "Let the Hell Hang". 

Spann

THE ELECTRIC FLAG - Live From California 1967-1968 [USA rock, blues rock, soul] 2017 RockBeat Records ROC-3390

 

Two fantastic live shows from The Electric Flag at the peak of their career.

The first was performed at the famed Whisky A Go-Go, West Hollywood, CA in September 1967, just one week after their gig at Fillmore West opening for Cream

The second was recorded at the equally legendary Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, CA in May 1968 and features the original band lineup: Mike Bloomfield, Nick Gravenites, Buddy Miles, Barry Goldberg, Harvey Brooks, Herbie Rich, Doubleday and Peter Strazza.

The Electric Flag was one of the premiere rock bands of the 1960's. Organized by Mike Bloomfield, who had just left the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the band featured such notable talent as Buddy Miles, Elvin Bishop, Nick Gravenites and Barry Goldberg. The Flag was the first band to feature a full horn section in support of its searing blues and jazz based rock originals. 

The Electric Flag astounded both critics and the public, both of which proclaimed the band as the world's greatest. And they were, indeed! No one ever came close to their combination of brilliant musicianship and hard blues based commercial music. Sadly, egos prevailed and the group broke up after only two years of performing and recording. Their albums are still selling today and are regarded as essential albums for any rock library.

Flag

JEFF BECK GROUP - Twilight Of The Idols - Live 1967-1968 [UK rock, blues] 2019 Shockwaves SHOCK06CD

 

Classic Radio Broadcasts from San Francisco and London. Jeff Beck staggered out of The Yardbirds in early 1966 without a clear idea of where he was going next. Having walked out of the band after years of gruelling tour schedules with little in the way of either fame or fortune, he was initially launched as a solo artist by manager Simon Napier-Bell and producer Mickie Most. Although a chart hit, his debut single, Hi Ho Silver Lining, captured little of his instrumental talents or raw energy, and instead it was its B-Side, Beck s Bolero, which pointed to a possible future. Assisted by the cream of his contemporaries on the British music scene Jimmy Page, John Paul Jones, Nicky Hopkins and Keith Moon the track suggested Beck would still work better as part of an ensemble. In the early months of 67 he formed The Jeff Beck Group, and over the course of the year the band concentrated on building up their public profile, both domestically and internationally. In Britain, they were frequent guests on BBC radio, both on the long running Saturday Club and on John Peel s brand new show, Top Gear . Meanwhile, future Led Zeppelin manager Peter Grant had spotted the huge potential of the burgeoning live music scene across the Atlantic, and he convinced the band to undertake a US tour in the Spring of 1968. The tour proved to be a massive success, with gushing reviews following the Beck Group across the country from their opening show in New York to their closing night at the Fillmore West in San Francisco. By the time the curtain came down, Grant had secured them a new recording contract with Epic records, a few weeks later Jeff Beck s Group debut album, Truth, appeared. Twilight of the Idols showcases the key live performances from across this early chapter in The Jeff Beck Group s career. Presented here are the complete BBC sessions from 1967 and 68, including the initial appearances on The Saturday Club that featured the rotating cast of players, with Mickey Waller and Dave Ambrose on the first gig replaced by Ron Wood and Anysley Dubar by the time of the second. Following the collection of BBC broadcasts we bring you the legendary show at The Fillmore West on the 24th of July 1968 - last night of the Beck Group s first US tour and a seminal moment in Jeff Beck s career. 

Beck

NICK GRAVENITES AND JOHN CIPOLLINA - Live In Athens At The Rodon [USA west coast rock blues 1987-88] 1991 Music Box International CD 40421.2

Nick Gravenites also worked extensively with John Cipollina after producing the first Quicksilver Messenger Service album. He and Cipollina formed the Nick Gravenites - John Cipollina Band, which toured across Europe. This album is an example.

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