Steppenwolf - s/t
This was an album I hadn’t heard in almost two decades, an album I used to play to death as a teenager. I’m not sure quite why, even then I considered Steppenwolf a pretty patchy group, no matter what album you dig out, it’s going to have a stinker or two on it. This, though, is the one that made their reputation, with the instant classic “Born to Be Wild” on it, a song many music fans probably could stand to not hear again given its incessant airplay. There are other gems here, one, “The Pusher” got friends and I in trouble playing it on the radio in high school for what our teacher would call “G. D.” You immediately notice with songs like this the Steppenwolf penchant for beating you over the head with their political messages, like on another one of the better tracks “Don’t Step on the Grass, Sam.” The diversity of the songs, from psychedelic pop to blues and hippie anthems mostly hurts the album, giving a range of material that averages out to about a 10, a grade they’d only approach more consistently on a later album, “Monster.” It’s still something of a must-hear, at least what you haven’t already heard on the radio a thousand times.
Quicksilver Messenger Service - s/t
This relisten faired so much better than the Steppenwolf did, in fact I couldn’t believe my grade was so low on this one, but I don’t remember really flipping over this when I was young. The debut of a band who had something of a chaotic history, it’s back when things were somewhat innocent, easily an analog to Airplane’s Takes Off or the first Grateful Dead album, although the Quicksilver is certainly the better debut of the three, no doubt they’d be the first to argue against such a conclusion. Everything sounds fabulous, the vocals and the distinctive guitars, and the songwriting was a lot better than I had remembered it. This one is going back in the rotation.
Miles Davis - Village East Theatre, NYC 1/13/73
My mind is starting to turn around on Miles Davis Anno 1973 and I’m starting to appreciate it as much as I do the earlier electric bands. I’ll have more to say on this in later posts, but this fair sounding show was one hinit, with the band exploding in fine form, and a different one to the On the Corner line ups from late the prior year. While this band would only get better, it’s interesting to hear them in something of a raw form, by mid-year they’d be killing some of this material.