Outer Music Diary

Grateful Dead - Woodstock Music & Arts Fair, Max Yasgur’s Farm, Bethel, NY 8/16/69

Duuuude. The Woodstock shows from all the bands have almost developed legends of their own. The Grateful Dead, just like they did at Monterrey, felt like they underperformed at this show and they’re probably one of the few who wouldn’t blame it on the acid, after all some of their best gigs were apparently under that formative influence. Hendrix gets a ton of attention for his Star Spangled Banner, but the movie, of course, leaves out the evidence of a rather boring stint for his group. The Dead were left out almost entirely. As legends go, the evidence is somewhat contradictory, that is the show itself isn’t the trainwreck you’d expect but naturally it wasn’t exactly one of the band’s finest moments. Like many gigs from the era where the Dead had a high profile, it’s generally the Pigpen led songs that get the lion’s share of the stage time and here it’s an almost 36 minute Lovelight that dominates the proceeding. While they could occasionally really make that song go, it didn’t happen here, especially after a lame opening Saint Stephen, an inappropriate midset Dark Star and the High Time it comes sandwiched in. Who knows, maybe I’m being too forgiving here as I generally love 69 Dead?

Association P. C. - Rock Around the Cock

Gave this another spin in the hope that it makes the MPS reissue list sooner than later, as despite the tacky title and album cover, this is one of the central APC releases. Prior to getting Jeremey Steig involved, the band more or less stuck to a playoff between Toto Blanke on guitar and Joachim Kuhn on totally fuzzed out piano and it’s this experimentation with electric tones that makes it such a fun release, with ring modulators and fuzz pedals making everything go haywire. It’s a pretty jammy sort of release and does indeed rock at times, with fewer dynamic lulls than its successor. In fact, only Erna Morena surpasses this one in quality.

Krisiun - AssassiNation

Another spin of this relatively new album by the Brazilian death metal trio, it still baffles the mind how they get such a big sound. They’re a really difficult band to talk about in that they don’t particularly vary from the overall formula of the style, although it probably can be said that Krisiun don’t tend to work on the grindcore edge of the genre and in some ways still bear the same heart of many of the original bands. The problem with Krisiun to my ears is always the same, in 15 minute chunks I’m usually left breathless, but in 40 minute chunks I tend to find the whole approach very samey and lacking in the sort of dynamics that really makes the heavier bits just that more impacting. Perhaps this is part of the trio format in that they’re missing the potential for harmonic development by having another guitar player on board. And then just perhaps I haven’t absorbed them quite enough yet. To my ears it’s still the band’s second to fourth albums that really stand out.

Def Leppard - High ‘n Dry

This album takes me right back to being about 11 years old and hearing tracks like “Let It Go” and “Bringin’ on the Heartbreak” on rock radio, and except for the occasional radio appearance it’s been almost that long since I’ve heard this album. It’s particularly strange hearing this on the tail of their first album, which is so different in just about every way, at least here you can easily recognize the candy metal hooks and phrases that would make them multi-platinum superstars with Pyromania. And it’s those tendencies that are a little 80s and subsequently a bit embarassing in retrospective that make it difficult to get behind this even with its considerable nostalgic strength. This was definitely a different musical vision that the Metallicas and Venoms of the era.

Bedlam s/t

I’m finding that there are so many 10-level early 70s hard rock albums from the US and the UK that I find them almost all impossible to absorb in any sort of memorable way, so with a release like the rather respectable Bedlam, it took me a few listens to eke out that despite the obvious Black Sabbath and Led Zeppelin references that this had a bit of its own vigor and energy to it, maybe not enough to set it apart from the greater forces in hard rock, but certainly enough to gain my attention. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a Felix Pappalardi production (nor that he takes most of the keys) and despite the music being in a similar style, this isn’t terribly redolent of Cream or Mountain. The song titles are kinda stupid, “Sweet Sister Mary,” “Hot Lips,” “Set Me Free” and the like, but fortunately 1973 is early enough that this doesn’t verge towards camp as much as you might think.

George Benson/Brother Jack McDuff Quartet - The New Boss Guitar of George Benson

I can’t remember if this was Benson’s first album as a leader or not, but it’s fairly close, hailing from 1964. Unfortunately it doesn’t have a great deal to separate it from the hoards of mid 60s soul/blues jazz jam albums, that would come later for both Benson and cohort Jack McDuff. For the most part this sounds like an average Jimmy Smith session from a bit earlier, not having nearly the fire a trio like Green, Dixon and Patton would have. I dunno maybe it needs a few more plays to show me more, but I was significantly underwhelmed by this one.

Destroyer Destroyer - Littered with Arrows

Often hard to call death metal albums on a first listen, assuming you like it in the first place. The new Destroyer Destroyer hangs on the same sort of musical fringes as groups like Car Bomb, Gaza, Glass Casket et al, taking the brutality, complexity and dissonant melodic content of the genre and moving it away from little red horned men and upside down crosses into a more modern and forward looking direction. Here you’ll find the same sort of battering energy that fuels the genre but occasionally the music is deconstructed into sections without rhythms, guitar tones are bent and distorted into new sounds, and vocals shriek well beyond the point of sanity. It’s all intense and impressive although I’ll need more time to get to know its dark corridors.

Barry Miles - Scatbird

Utterly killer Mainstream jazz verging on fusion release by a guy whose piano prowess is something seemingly forgotten in time. In fact there’s so much piano playing here that you feel a certain restraint in terms of the music actually moving onto fusion per se, despite the fact the drums push this hard in that direction, riffing and barrelling like about everyone familiar with Billy Cobham at the time. While the album opens with Miles scatting on the title track and a little more across the album, which gets old in a hurry, when Miles and co get past this into the active tracks, the music takes off into almost McCoy Tyneresque regions. Songs like the long “Skeleton Dance” defy anyone to take their attention off the album as Miles plays like a virtuoso throughout. By the end of this song I was practically having a religious experience and it put all the quasi-funk scatting in a better, more positive perspective. It just boggles the mind how much great jazz is out there to be dug up still.

See You Next Tuesday - Parasite

EP length serving of grind/death assault, this will be among the most heaviest 18 minutes or so you’ve ever spent. Every punch, grind and drum battery feels like it’s going to take down your stereo, the entire band channeling every bit of energy and anger into it you can possibly imagine. It’s as if they took a microscopic look at the palm-muted metal guitar sound and altered it until it was as damaging as it could possibly be. Amazingly, they managed to balance some of this sheer grimness by the great song titles, such as “Good Christians Don’t Get Jiggy With It Till After Marriage,” “Before I Die, I’m Going to F*&k me a Fish,” and “Just Out of Curiosity, Are Your Parents Siblings?”, all of which make you wonder where the creavity in this department has disappeared to for most artists. Anyway the time duration seemed about right, I was black and blue when this one was done and, somehow, cleansed.

Litmus - You Are Here (2004 England). Blazing out of the gates with a monolithic guitar riff, twee-twee-twee Moog knob twiddles, and a neanderthal 4/4 rhythm, I was immediately reminded of those 90s aggressive festival rockers Omnia Opera, minus any of their Floydian cosmic buildups. Or, of course, I could’ve mentioned the real inspiration at work here - which would be primo early 70s era Hawkwind, if Lemmy ran the band that is. They put the “B” in subtle, and pulverize most of the songs right through the wall. The keyboardist is the same gentleman who runs the excellent Planet Mellotron site, and so no surprise the mellotron gets more than its share of studio time. Though good luck in hearing it over the racket. I like my space rock a bit more cosmic and trippy me-self, but OK, that’s not their bag. Interesting to note that even Mr. Planet Mellotron didn’t care too much for their second album “Planetfall”, and it would seem this dissatisfaction lead to his departure from the band just as they are now on the somewhat big time label Rise Above Records.

Leitkegel - s/t (1998 England). Certainly the noisiest and least focused of the 99-count release Drug Series albums. Neu! seems to be one of the primary influences, as would be the 1980s industrial scene. An interesting record, and quite good, but probably my least favorite of the series (a series that includes Quad, Mother Yod, Ohr Musik and others).

Artillery - Fear of Tomorrow (1985 Denmark). It’s been at least two years since I sat down and listened to a good old fashioned headbanging thrash metal album. There was a time in the 1980s when not a day would go by without a fix of thrash. Surprisingly I never did get around to picking up the Artillery albums in their heyday. They had received glorious reviews in Kerrangg, and even more importantly for those of us who lived in the underground, Metal Forces! They were one of the few bands that could go the distance with Metallica in those days, critically speaking. The reason I didn’t buy them then was for the usual college budget reasons, and their albums were only available as UK imports (Neat Records if I remember right). Listening with 2008 ears, Artillery’s debut is certainly not anything that hasn’t been done hundreds of times before. But Artillery were one of the first, and for that they get credit. All these years and thousands of crazy albums later, and I still like a good, solid thrash metal album…

Groundhogs - Live at Leeds

I’m maybe vaguely sure that the music on this early ‘hogs live release was used as bonus tracks on the other reissues, or if not the bonus tracks certainly hold quite a bit in common with the music here. If you looked at a theoretical peak I’d say this is the band just after cresting the top, still great, performing stuff like “Cherry Red,” but also getting that bit of gruffness that would take them into their second stage with records like Hogwash and the like which reminds me more of Motorhead than Colosseum. Anyway it’s still pretty high energy and impressive, although the quality is not quite up to the studio albums of the time.

Hidria Spacefolk - Live 11 A.M.

I’m not really all that sure what you can say about a band like Hidria Spacefolk who really seem to have mastered their take on the whole Hawkwind-Gong-Ozric Tentacles thing. I definitely find the title amusing as I’m sure anyone whose attended NEARfest can attest, as just about anything this powerful that early can be overwhelming. Music like this doesn’t particularly challenge me like it used to given the similarities among bands who use riff structures to jam over and spiral electronics around, but it’s also a style I’ve always really liked, so I always get the comfort food vibe. It is nice, however, and unlike some of the bands in this style (including Ozric Tentacles at times) that Hidria appear to be as competent on stage as they are in the studio and rarely was a misstep taken on this impressive show. Anyway I can imagine you’d know if you’d like this just by the style on display.

Def Leppard - On Through the Night

I think of my early AOR period as the early 80s and when it comes to Def Leppard, High n Dry was my album of the time, even if it took Pyromania to break the band. Their debut On Through the Night is entirely different from both successive records, definitely a child of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, most of which were spawned by Judas Priest influentially. They may have even had a different vocalist at this point, or at least the crooning was developed later and they certainly didn’t have the radio friendly songwriting chops that made Pyromania an album made up entirely of hits. I was pretty surprised on this listen because I don’t think I’d ever heard this album and because of that I don’t think I’ve quite absorbed it either.

Stone Circus - s/t (1969 Canada). Following my post from Monday on Lacewing, here’s another Mainstream label gem, and possibly my favorite album I’ve heard on the label. These Montreal based musicians (save one), decided to journey south of the border to New York to find their scene. Known as The Funky Farm, Mainstream decided to change their name for the release of the album. In typical record business style, Mainstream didn’t even inform the band of the name change! Featuring an outrageous psychedelic cover of a very colorful and oversized clown engulfed in an earthquake with flames, it certainly would catch ones attention even for 1969, when such a sight was more common. I probably listened to the album 5 times in a row, as the music is the closest I’ve heard to that most magical of 60s psych bands - Strawberry Alarm Clock. Stone Circus possess the same songwriting qualities, and period instrumentation (fuzz guitar, old organs). It does miss that magic ingredient of naivete, that SAC was able to tap into so perfectly. Whether it’s the California sunshine that’s missing, or the late date of 1969, it’s clear there’s a little somethin’ missing. Still, Stone Circus’ one album is one of the better representatives of the era.

Ethel The Frog - s/t (1980 England). I remember hearing about Ethel The Frog as far back as 1981 or so. I was a dedicated collector of what had become known as the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, and started to see their name in the publications of the day. The NWOBHM scene was my first love, and scouring import stores was a new experience for me. I also had a tendency back then to presume that every album in the genre was an automatic buy, and that I would enjoy all of them. After buying albums by Samson, Tygers of Pan Tang, even Motorhead, it was clear to me I needed to do more research before plunking down for high priced imports (precious money that I barely had). Still, with a scene filled with serious band names like Iron Maiden, Saxon, Diamond Head and Angel Witch, seeing a group inspired by Monty Python was almost too much to pass up. All I can say now is: Thank goodness my local import store didn’t carry this! After 27 some years, I finally heard Ethel the Frog. It’s bar rock. Good time rock n roll. Let’s get drunk and crazy music. It’s barely even metal. They open with a cover of “Eleanor Rigby”. Ugh.

Dario Baldan Bembo - Migrazione (1977 Italy). While on the topic of lowlights…. Bembo’s debut is hailed as a prog rock classic by the 5 folks that have heard it. On the deck it goes… and…. the verdict is? Pop oriented keyboard rock. Sure, there are some proggy moves that actually sound like a cross between (get this) Metamorfosi and early Elton John! I just cracked myself up. Oh man… “Inferno meets Island Girl!”. He has a few other albums but I think I’ll stop here.

Saxon - Archive (videos)

I remember walking into Tower Records in the early 80s and coming away with the Crusader LP soon after its release. As a metal fan of the time I loved it, but only ended up exploring backwards and given some of the material on this multi-source collection of Saxon videos, I made the right choice, as the band would almost instantly start picking up LA and hairmetal influences, rendering them almost creatively obsolete at least through the rest of the decade. In fact I think the band ended up splitting into two and only rejoining after working out some issues later. It’s interesting that the latest material here comes from 1990 as the two pieces done, “Frozen Rainbow” and “Rock n Roll Gipsy,” are among the earliest, showing the band’s obvious Judas Priest influences, and with the former, maybe a little in the way of the epic as well. The band’s in fine form through both of these. There’s a “Nightmare” from the San Remo Music Festival recorded for RAI and obviously lip-synched (Biff Byford even forgets to bring the mike back to his mouth for the beginning of one phrase) as is “Ride Like the Wind” from five years late. In fact there’s a fill in drummer on this (latter) track who spends most of his time spinning his drumsticks Tommy Lee style, making me wonder if the band might have been joking around.

There are two concert fragments. The one from 1986 is definitely of the era and not the Saxon I knew so well, with quite a bit of posing and LA hairmetal nausea. I’ll have to admit that even though I might casually say I like a bit of everything, I’m never thinking of this period of metal when I say that. The band does “20,000 Feet” and one or two other oldies but for the most part this evokes the phase when many of these underground bands of the time (Metallica, Raven, etc) signed to major labels and proceeded to get worse in a hurry.

Pride of place goes to the 7/7/82 Beat Club performances, about 20 minutes of “Strong Arm of the Law” material - this is the band I remember loving. Looking like a group of young guys weaned on Judas Priest and Black Sabbath, there’s a concentration on making good heavy rock without purile teenager hooks and with a sense of space that allows them to create a song like “Dallas 1 PM” which chronicles the Kennedy murders, certainly not your normal metal fare.

The rest of the disc is filled with bits and bobs, interviews and the like which show a much calmer band in person than on stage. It’s kind of amazing Saxon never made the headways into the US like they did into Europe (compare them to Iron Maiden for example), because over there they were quite huge with big substantial crowds behind most of the performances here. If anything it makes me want to go back and revisit the early albums, all of which, at the time I was looking for them again, were not easy to find on CD, but it looks like things are better as far as availability now.

Cephalic Carnage - Xenosapien

I’m glad I listened to Exploting Dysfunction recently as this recent Carnage album seems like a return to that kind of form in many ways, especially after the relatively disappointing Anomalies album. It again displays their doomcore sort of sound, with the death metal and grind elements given a new vigor and intensity that remind me of earlier work. Some of the workouts early in the album just blister through riffage, elevating the heart rate and getting the head working, and the heavy doom riffs do a good job of varying the tempo and dynamics more, giving the whole work a nice range. A great return to form.

Decapitated - Nihility

Listening to this young, talented and sadly disbanded band reminds me of just how utterly skilled these guys were, rattling through syncopated blastbeats and intricate riffing in perfect precision at an extremely high level of confidence. This is music in that same stratosphere or maybe I should say infernal depth where bands like Morbid Angel, Suffocation and the like dwell, with an almost symphonic level of layering and sophistication to back up the battery. I’m really looking forward to getting more familiar with their canon as they do seem to have at least three very strong studio records to their legacy.

Pig Destroyer/Gnob (split CD)

A rather staid affair for the most part, with a series of two minute shorts by Pig Destroyer that don’t immediately differentiate themselves from the rest of the band’s work, coming and going in blastbeats and shouting. Gnob almost seems like the band’s southern cousins who seem to be in this whisky rock sort of mode and have all those low octave riffs that move Black Sabbath (and in one case Cream) riffs around with the mission to find maybe that last variation the last 30 of the band’s contemporaries missed out on. Another 90s band clipping and trimming a certain vision of the 70s to specs.