Detroit was a latter-day incarnation of Mitch Ryder's Detroit Wheels; formed in 1970 after the singer returned to the Motor City following a stint in Memphis recording with Booker T. and the MGs, the new group reunited Ryder with his former Wheels drummer John Badanjek, and also featured guitarists Steve Hunter and Brett Tuggle, bassist W.R. Cooke and organist Harry Phillips. An energetic, R&B-influenced outfit firmly in the tradition of Ryder's past projects, Detroit issued their lone self-titled LP on Paramount in 1971, scoring a major radio hit with a gritty rendition of Lou Reed's "Rock and Roll" which so pleased its writer that he later recruited guitarist Hunter to join his own backing band. As throat problems began plaguing Ryder more and more, he was forced to quit singing in 1972, and his relocation to the Denver area a year later dashed any hopes of a second Detroit album; local singer Rusty Day then assumed control of the group, guiding the unit until its 1974 break-up.
"Lucien Zabuski was Magma's vocalist prior to their first album and with Zorgones before that. Even so, his own preference was for blues-rock, as indicated by his own two albums. You can easily mistake them for an Anglo-American artist. The albums feature some of the most respected musicians of French rock."
"Lucien Zabuski (nicknamed "ZABU") was the original vocalist with Magma prior to Klaus Blasquiz. Initially a straightforward rock and roller, after many years in R'n'R/psychedelic/progressive ensembles he cut a couple of albums that are highly collectible for their curiosity value alone. His first solo album 'My Coffin's Ready' exhibits his blues influences with some glorious vocals and fine musicianship for that genre. It was recorded for Laurent Thibault's Thélème label at the Château d'Hérouville in January 1972 with the help of his friends Teddy Lasry, Francis Moze, Jeff (Yochk'o) Seffer and Christian Vander on some tracks. The second album was recorded in 1975 with a different collection of friends for Sonopresse. 'Zabu & Co' was eventually released in 1976 and featured Richard Raux and Francis Moze, but it was an uninspiring R'n'R release. Zabu's next venture was a Reggae album with Lee Perry producing, but this Jamaican project was aborted. Then at the end of the seventies he released some reggae singles under the name IMMIGRATION ACT. The early eighties saw Zabu working as a backing singer on many sessions at Thibault's studio."
"Question Mark recorded this album in 1974 in Kenya, the land safari parks, of elephants & lions. 5 musicians, all English vocals, heavy fuzz guitar, 8 freakin tracks. If you think BLO and WITCH where great African albums, you will love this one. It beats most bands from Africa such as OFEGE, CHRISSY ZEBBY, RIKKI ILILONGA and MACK SIGIS PORTER, unless you are only into African rhythms and chanting. This album has mostly western style songs with great and heavy guitar sounds all over but with an strong African touch of course." (BUY IT!)
"The Ugly Ducklings were probably the best known Canadian garage rock group of the mid-'60s. Formed in famed Toronto's Yorkville area in 1965, the band flourished in the many coffeehouses around the Yorkville district as a Rolling Stones cover band before becoming the Ugly Ducklings and attracting the attention of the local Yorkville Records label. The band recorded a single, Nothin', that became a Canadian hit and opened for the {Rolling Stones} in 1966 when the band played Toronto's Maple Leaf Gardens. The band members were quickly becoming local heroes and in 1967 the album Somewhere Outside was released on the small independent Yorkville label. The album contained nine original compositions as well as two cover songs. The band drew heavily from the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, and the Pretty Things style with a raunchy R&B/rock sound. The album sold well in the Toronto area but due to lack of national distribution the band failed to break out across the rest of the country. It wasn't until many years later, after the band broke up, that the album became a collectors item and now original pressings of the Somewhere Outside on the Yorkville label fetch hundreds of dollars between collectors." (allmusic)
"Nineteen sixty-six was the year pop’s voice cracked, when its squeaky clean Beatles complexion broke out in the pimply scruff of garage rock all over North America. From the Chocolate Watchband out in San Jose and the 13th Floor Elevators in Texas to the Unrelated Segments in Detroit and the Remains in Boston, a plethora of scrawny kids fumbled with chords on their used Telecasters while aping Mick’s already affected snarls. Canada had its share of garage/psych bands whose discs now orbit the stratosphere in collectors’ values. And whereas Montreal’s the Haunted can lay claim to both the coolest single (the local smash ‘1-2-5’) and the priciest vinyl (four figures for their 1967 album), the Ugly Ducklings emerge as the better of the two, scoring hits on Toronto’s legendary CHUM-AM radio station with their debut platter, ‘Nothin’, eventually reaching number 18 in 1966, and ‘Gaslight’, peaking even higher the following year.
The Duckies, surfing on the success of ‘Nothin’, even opened for the Rolling Stones at (Toronto’s hockey shrine) Maple Leaf Gardens in front of 15,000, no doubt providing them with fodder for a lifetime of middle-age boasts on their local pub nights.
In 1965, however, the Ugly Ducklings were little more than a teenage Stones cover band with the cheeky monicker the Strolling Bones (for what its worth, perhaps a more apt name for Mick and crew these days), but a year later they had changed their names and begun penning their own songs. They struck both chords and pose well, especially with rhythm-guitarist Glynn Bell’s blond mophead making him the spitting image of Brian Jones and no doubt upping his groupie cachet a few notches.
Released in early 1967 but containing the band’s three 1966 singles, Somewhere Outside skirts the cusp of ‘66 r’n’b and ‘67 psychedelia. The LP opens with ‘Nothin’ and its prototypical garage riff, allegedly recorded on a two-track machine for $300 and pushed into regular rotation just a few weeks later by local deejays. Other tracks, such as the revved-up ‘She Ain’t No Use to Me’ and the searing ‘Just in Case You Wonder’, their third single, capture on vinyl the hegemony of cool the Ducklings had over the Yorkville scene in Toronto at the time. Still other tracks like the Rascalesque, harmonica-tinged ‘Not for Long’, add a quieter balance while the closer ‘Windy City (Noise at the North End)’, an acid-blues rave-up, echoes Paul Butterfield’s excursions of the same year.
The Ugly Ducklings regrouped in 1980 on the wave of punk to release the humdrum Pain is Alright on Razor records. An eponymous long-player (with a brutally unimaginative cover) that same year compiled the essential tracks on Somewhere Outside along with miscellaneous tracks and their final singles ‘Gaslight’ and ‘Epilogue’. But it wasn’t until 1998 that Unidisc mercifully reissued this sweetly remastered CD with its original artwork, front and back, as a low-price disc – no bonus tracks, no added filler - thus making skeets out of all those previous bootleg versions. Ace!" (Michael Panontin) (BUY IT!)
Guitarist Rich Dangel had been a member of The Wailers, as well as the lesser known The Rooks and a late incarnation of The Time Machine.
Following The Time Machine's collapse in 1967 Dangel and bass player Joe Johnson decided to form their own band. Recruiting guitarist Joe Johansen and drummer Michael Marinelli the result was The Unknown Factor. Serving as a for-hire backing band, the quartet worked with local acts such as Patti Allen and Ron Holden.
In 1968 they added former Punch singer Pat Gossan to the lineup. They quickly scored a deal becoming the house band at Seattle's Eagle Auditorium and attracted considerable attention as one of the acts performing at the 1968 Sky River Rock Festival. The resulting publicity saw them sign a contract with the L.A. based Vault Records. The group subsequently debuted with a dandy 1968 single 'Brought Up Wrong' b/w 'Watch Your Step' (Vault catalog number V-947). While the single did little commercially, it attracted enough attention for Vault to finance a follow-on album. Released in 1969 the cleverly titled "Floating Bridge" teamed the band with producer Jackie Mills. Musically the set offered up a standard mix of originals and popular covers, but the results were killer throughout. With Dangel, Johnson and Gossan responsible for most of the original material, tracks like 'Brought Up Wrong', the earlier single 'Watch Your Step', and 'Three Minute & Ten Second Blues' sported a distinctively heavy, Hendrix-inspired sound. Propelled by Gossan's likeable voice and Dangel and Johansen's twin leads extended guitar rave-ups like 'Crackpot' and their Byrds/Stones instrumental medley should strike a chord with the two hard rock fans out there reading this. Elsewhere another 'Hey Jude' cover wouldn't have sounded like the year's most imaginative move, but these guys managed to pull it off. Envision the song redone as an instrumental with a heavy edge that would have sounded good on an early Allman Brothers album ... one of the most impressive Beatles covers I've ever heard. In fact the only real disappointment is the routine bluesy closer 'Gonna' Lay Down 'n Die'. Much better than the standard references would have you think (and surprisingly hard to find in decent shape). (via Badcat Records) (BUY IT!)
"Sloppy UK punk that slowly morphs into even sloppier Hendrix jizz that's laughably, brilliantly dumb. Crude, crude, crude, and did I mention it's kinda crude? Toilet recording style mid-range-only distorted guitar is explored as rock and psych by the one-n-only Steve Hall. Excellent litmus test for open ears. The monster "Get Stoned Ezy" showed up on a small-run lp bootleg several years back under the name High Speed and the Afflicted Man, and bonged heads have bonked themselves over it's falling-down-drunk charm ever since."
"The complete works of The Afflicted Man on one mindboggling double-disc set. Perhaps a bit "grey-area" in terms of production (and crudely mastered from original vinyl -- as if there was any other way), but who knows what bunker Steve lies in today? Play this for your friends and watch them walk off to the other side of the fence. Too freaked out for punks and too punked out for freaks, Steve Hall stalked the nascent British punk/DIY scene under the guise of Afflicted (later Afflicted Man) throughout the early '80s to the interest of almost no one. Hiding in plain sight, Hall unleashed a string of 7"s and LPs that evoked a singular and unique take on the punk sneer made fashionable by the Sex Pistols and their minion. Primitively blending elements of psychedelia and dub over his feral, chainsaw approach, Afflicted Man unleashed a miasma of tripped-out, fuzzy aggro thrashers that would eventually climax into a masterpiece of pedal stomping carnage -- the unimpeachable Get Stoned Ezy LP -- the likes of which are only now being fully digested. Easily one of the UK's strangest and ignored DIY punk bands. This collection includes the entire output; all three mega rare 7"s, plus the hard to find LPs The Afflicted Man's Musical Bag, I'm Off Me 'ead, and the aforementioned Get Stoned Ezy. Essential in every way." (BUY IT!)
A hard rock power trio composed of guitarist Jeff Beck (The Yardbirds, Jeff Beck Group), bassist Tim Bogert and drummer Carmine Appice, both of Vanilla Fudge and Cactus. The three attempted a collaboration project in 1970 but Beck suffered a head injury in a car accident that year which sidelined him for well over a year. Bogert and Appice, who previously were members of Vanilla Fudge, instead formed the group Cactus with guitarist Jim McCarty and singer Rusty Day. After several Cactus releases, the band split and Bogert and Appice were again searching for a new band. Beck, after recovering from the head injury, formed a new Jeff Beck Group and released two more LPs before disbanding in 1972.
With all three members out of work they decided to revive the old idea of a collaboration and started work on their eponymous debut album Beck, Bogert & Appice. The album had solid sales in 1973 and had a hit single "Superstition", which was a cover of Stevie Wonder's composition of the same name. Wonder had originally intended to record "Superstition" with Beck, but the latter's automobile accident shelved the plan. Later that year the band released a live album in Japan (now an extremely sought after rare album), Live in Japan. The group began work on a second studio album, but Beck suddenly left the band in early 1974, forcing a dissolution. (wikipedia)
I remember the first time I heard this band, when a friend sent me the song "Blood, guts and beer". I immediately fell in love with the song - you can tell the band's having fun, and this feeling is delivered through the speakers into the ears of the listener. This whole album is extremely fun, a blast to listen to, and just makes one feel good. Crack a beer, light a smoke, bang your head and sing along, and enjoy.
Often Tank are compared to Motörhead, though I don't quite agree. Bassist/vocalist Algy Ward does have a bit of a gruff voice but not nearly as whiskey-and-marlboro-devastated as that of Lemmy, and the general feel the music gives is also quite different. The riffs are often fairly simplistic and power-chord based, like the opening track "Shellshock" for instance, but there's also some very nice bluesy material but still aggressive that requires using more than two strings while playing, so to speak. The main riff of "Blood, guts and beer" is a good example of this - very catchy indeed, fun as hell to air guitar to (or play it on a real guitar, whichever you prefer). I've found it hard to describe exactly what I love about this band, but somehow they managed to become my absolute favorite band of the NWOBHM scene. But while the riffs in themselves aren't exactly groundbreaking, the general mood and the way everything is put together gives a very unique sound - you'd know right away when you're listening to a Tank song.
This album has a perfect mixture of subtle blues influences and complete balls-out rocking, and with a delivery that shows that their heart and soul is put into it. We have the fun songs such as "Blood, guts and beer" which is just about having a good goddamn time, with that blues-but-metal main riff, and then there are songs such as the speedy asskicker "Turn your head around" with it's more serious war-based lyrics and a great atmosphere created simply with catchy, interesting riffing and vocal lines that will stick in your head forever. The chorus, not unlike many other songs on the album, is just the songtitle repeated 4 times, but damn does it fucking WORK. They have the ability to write extremely catchy and memorable vocal lines which manage to extremely well capture the true feeling of each song, and are simultaneously extremely fun to sing along to.
Other tracks worth mentioning if you asked me, would be all of them. As far as I'm concerned, there is no filler here - sure, "Who needs love songs" is rather silly but it's fun as hell, with a main riff similar to that of "Blood, guts and beer" yet less bluesy and more harmless. It's probably the weakest song on the album, but very fun nonetheless. One of the highlights however would be the menacing headbanging-mania of a title track with that excellent "everyone-shut-up-for-this-guitar-lick" breakdown after the second chorus leading into the short but excellent solo. Also the ending track "(He fell in love with a) stormtrooper" is very, very nice. Fistpounding required for some catchy mid-tempo riffs and vocal lines, and a massive climax at the end with some insanely awesome soloing combined with repetition of the chorus (once again the song title repeated over and over again, and once again it works so fucking well). A classic way to end a song, and they pull it off incredibly well.
All in all, one of my absolute favorites of NWOBHM, and one of the most often played albums in my collection. A raw but well balanced sound, great musicianship (credit must also be given to the drummer whose name I unfortunately can't remember right now - he keeps a solid backbone to the music giving it great power, and also manages to enhance the feeling of each song in just the right way without complicating things too much) and overall powerful delivery. This is a truly fun album that'll bring a smile to your face. (review by Nightcrawler @ metal-archives.com)
"White Lace & Strange collects twenty “Heavy Psych And Power Fuzz” tracks by American bands. Some of the material is strongly reminiscent of Led Zeppelin and the influence of Hendrix is quite apparent on tracks like “Angeline” by Genesis, which lifts the riff from “Foxy Lady.” The Lemonade Charade’s “Hideaway Of Your Love” sounds like a hybrid of “Sunshine Of Your Love” and “Crosstown Traffic.” There’s even a song by Noel Redding’s post-Hendrix Experience group Road, and the band T.I.M.E. has ties to Steppenwolf. Albums by Fields and the Illinois Speed Press are pretty easy to come across in the States, but neither band is very well-known and their tracks are definitely good enough to merit inclusion on the CD. Blues rock is definitely the focus here, which makes me wish there was an even heavier, Sabbath-influenced, proto-metal installment in the series." (dustedmagazine.com)
"White Lace & Strange is comprised of rare U.S. stomp-rock from the '60s you've probably never heard before. By the end of the '60s, psychedelia was pretty much a spent force. Bands were looking for something simpler and more earthy. Crosby, Stills & Nash had gone all acoustic and harmonious, The Band had achieved a return to classic Americana, and James Taylor was showing the world you could be laid back and hip at the same time. However, not everyone wanted to ditch their fuzzboxes. Inspired by such outfits as Cream, Blue Cheer, Hendrix and the nascent Led Zeppelin, these American bands were moving out of psych into something less cosmic and far heavier. This mix of blooze rock and heavy riffing is loud and nasty but it pre-dates metal. It's pretty tripped-out, but it's not really psychedelia. It's the sound of guitar, bass and drums (and the occasional Hammond organ) just as it was meant to be -- cranked up and in your face. No frills, just power chords and stomping riffs. Stamp on that Big Muff and solo till your brain drops out. Compiled by Psychic Circle label head, Nick Saloman of The Bevis Frond." (BUY IT!!!!)
"Late '60s early '70s Christian rock/psych/garage comp..."
"Excellent overview of the Xian psych scene, with a focus on (finally) heavy rock instead of inept folk. Because the King of Kings is, after, not the Joan Baez of the ages, he's the ROCK of ages." (BUY IT, SINNER!)
Detroit was a latter-day incarnation of Mitch Ryder's Detroit Wheels; formed in 1970 after the singer returned to the Motor City following a stint in Memphis recording with Booker T. and the MGs, the new group reunited Ryder with his former Wheels drummer John Badanjek, and also featured guitarists Steve Hunter and Brett Tuggle, bassist W.R. Cooke and organist Harry Phillips. An energetic, R&B-influenced outfit firmly in the tradition of Ryder's past projects, Detroit issued their lone self-titled LP on Paramount in 1971, scoring a major radio hit with a gritty rendition of Lou Reed's "Rock and Roll" which so pleased its writer that he later recruited guitarist Hunter to join his own backing band. As throat problems began plaguing Ryder more and more, he was forced to quit singing in 1972, and his relocation to the Denver area a year later dashed any hopes of a second Detroit album; local singer Rusty Day then assumed control of the group, guiding the unit until its 1974 break-up.
