SCHIZOFRENIA

TASTE OF BLUES were a Swedish band who released this one album back in 1969. Their original singer came up with the band's name since he was a big fan of Paul Butterfield, John Mayall and CREAM. He would leave though and his shoes were filled by a black American named Don Washington who fled to Sweden in the mid sixties and is claimed in the liner notes to be a convicted thief and a deserter from the Vietnam war. He also hated whites and physically went after two of his band mates. The liner notes say he was in his forties and was an alcoholic and drug addict. Apparently his soulful singing is what kept him in the band despite the unflattering comments.

The most talented member of the band was the keyboardist who would later play with LOTUS, he also adds violin to this recording. The guitarist was very talented as well and loved to improvize with those fuzzed out tones. The drummer really brings to mind the band CAN with his style. He's like a machine out there. And I should mention that it's because of the side long 17 minute title track that these guys are labelled Krautrock as the second side of this record is mainly made up of blues songs including a cover of John Mayall's "Another Kinda Love". The closing track "What Kind Of Love Is That" reminds me of THE DOORS.

Prior to recording this album the band had gained a good reputation as they played gigs constantly throughout Scandanavia, including opening for Frank Zappa and the Mothers as well as the Jefferson Airplane in the summer of 1969. Still record companies weren't interested, but an American living in Sweden had faith in them and paid for the recording of this album. Unfortunately the controversial cover art kept this not only from selling well but it also kept the media from reviewing it. They didn't want to touch it so the band would breakup not long after.

Without question the 17 minute title track is the highlight with the Teutonic Krautrock style with freaky electronics including sax and flute along with fuzzed out guitar. This is an instrumental and a fine piece of Krautrock as themes are repeated and certainly the band CAN comes to mind quite strongly although I doubt these guys would have heard of them this early on.

If your into CAN you need to hear the opening track while COLOSSEUM fans might dig the rest of this record. A solid 4 stars for this obscure Swedish recording. Well worth hunting down by Krautrock and blues fans alike.