May Blitz

I saw it quiet often in the expansive japonese mini Lp reedition and I always wondered what they sound like.Nice covers !

You've got me curious, with that mini-review Certif1ed.

Off to investigate

I'll stick up an mp3 when I get my MiniDisc player back...

Talking of MiniDiscs, KE9 - Catapilla?

Certif1ed wrote: I'll stick up an mp3 when I get my MiniDisc player back...

only found a 20 second soundclip on this website may Blitz. Sounded ok, but too short to judge.

Certif1ed wrote: I guess it sounds a bit like Cactus but closer to the Pink Fairies. Two of the band members were formerly in Bakerloo (another band whose albums are outrageously expensive and hard to come by on their native vinyl format!) - so the sound is naturally fairly close to Bakerloo. I might also compare them to Touch or Quatermass - or even their Vertigo stable mates Black Sabbath, due to the heavy riffs. The guitars are obviously Hendrix-influenced, but there's none of Hendrix's lyricism or virtuosity - although that's not to say there's no inventiveness. The riffs are complex, generally two-parters (ie a riff + an answering phrase in a repeated pattern).  The variety in sound of the tracks is stunning - dreamy atmospheric psychedelia that I can't really think of any comparisons to, right up to psychotic wildness - similar in spirit to the Crazy World of Arthur Brown, but possibly wilder! Somehow, it all feels very natural - even when they suddenly break the wildness down to eerie and empty space. Hard to believe it was recorded in 1970. /end mini review

Great, we should have more of these, I go often to a shop who sells Arcama reissues, mainly 70's but as I have never heard of  most of the groups I finally don't buy them . Has anyone heard of Hapshash& the coloured coat ?

Alucard wrote: [Great, we should have more of these, I go often to a shop who sells Arcama reissues, mainly 70's but as I have never heard of  most of the groups I finally don't buy them . Has anyone heard of Hapshash& the coloured coat ?

Yes - unfortunately I have the first album (something like) Human Host & The Heavy Metal Kids, (notable for possibly the first printed use of 'heavy metal'?), bought nearly 25 years after last hearing that album - I must have been pretty gone in the 60's  to have had good memories of the record, only to find how amateurish it sounded (in the worst sense) 25 years later. My guess this album was recorded to imitate John & Yoko's Give Peace A Chance? The only professional musician on board I believe was Tony McPhee (notable blues guitarist) but alas playing the bongos. I hear the follow up Western Flyer is a better bet.

Dick Heath wrote: BTW I'm completely bamboozled that you can compare the music/sound of May Blitz and Touch

Ah - I owe you a PM

I'm still a "noob" to this whole heavy blues/psych/garage scene, as I was very young at the time - and these are bands that tended to get known via word of mouth rather than airplay, as I understand.

Therefore to me, Touch are similar to May Blitz at their wildest - I've only heard "Down At Circle's Place", which opens the Wowie Zowie sampler I bought on your recommendation  

Here's the mp3 I promised earlier - I'm determined to drag more folks down with me into the pit of heavy blues/psych/prog/whatever you want to call it  It's a "raw" mp3 - I haven't filtered it or tried to doctor any of the static clicks out of it (always a peril with vinyl) - but you get to hear it as close to it's native format as you can get over the internet

http://s34.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=32T8TDCID672K2VWWV4G5LXTP K

Whaddy reckon - prog or not?

Certif1ed wrote: Dick Heath wrote: BTW I'm completely bamboozled that you can compare the music/sound of May Blitz and Touch Ah - I owe you a PM I'm still a "noob" to this whole heavy blues/psych/garage scene, as I was very young at the time - and these are bands that tended to get known via word of mouth rather than airplay, as I understand. Therefore to me, Touch are similar to May Blitz at their wildest - I've only heard "Down At Circle's Place", which opens the Wowie Zowie sampler I bought on your recommendation   Here's the mp3 I promised earlier - I'm determined to drag more folks down with me into the pit of heavy blues/psych/prog/whatever you want to call it  It's a "raw" mp3 - I haven't filtered it or tried to doctor any of the static clicks out of it (always a peril with vinyl) - but you get to hear it as close to it's native format as you can get over the internet http://s34.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=32T8TDCID672K2VWWV4G5LXTP K Whaddy reckon - prog or not?

 Drag on! 

Birth Control, Cream,Quartermass, Man,Groundhogs (One of my favourite tracks is "Black Diamond", has anyone seen it recently on CD?BTW Tony Mc Phee is the Groundhog gutarist)Atomic Rooster, Steamhammer

Alucard wrote: [ Drag on!  Birth Control, Cream,Quartermass, Man,Groundhogs (One of my favourite tracks is "Black Diamond", has anyone seen it recently on CD?BTW Tony Mc Phee is the Groundhog guitarist)Atomic Rooster, Steamhammer

Got to speak to Tony McPhee in the bar of Leicester's DeMontford Hall last summer (he was part of a blues package tour with Alvin Lee and Edgar Winter) - shocked to find after 35 years that he was shorter than me!!! Buy him a pint after a gig and he'll talk to anybody! And he signed my Gutbucket 2 album sleeve, the LP sampler which introduced me to the Groundhogs and a lot of interesting blues - not coming from Blue Horizon!

If we are going the rock blues way with this thread  - check out the previously mentioned Stray Dog (who surprised me by acknowledging ZZ Top in the 1973 liner notes to their first album), and the greatly neglected Duster Bennett. The late Duster Bennett was the third Brit signing to Blue Horizon records (after Peter Greens Fleetwood Mac and Chicken Shack), and wrote a number tunes for and with Peter Green. The excellent album of outtakes etc., Jumpin' At Shadows , (apparently discovered in tapes stored in the loft of the house owned by Duster's wife), issued by the British label Indigo in the mid 90's, is a must to blues rock fans. Includes a demo of Jumpin' At Shadows (superior to both Fleetwood Mac and Gary Moore's versions, IMHO), some live recordings of Bennett as a onemanband (showing great rapport with the audience), some superb blues harp on Gotta To Be With My Baby Tonight, and a couple of tracks backed by the former Krimson rhythm section of Wallace and Burrell, make this a greatly neglected gem. I regret never making the effort to go see Bennett live, and he tragically was killed while driving his car back south from a Manchester gig in 1976. A pity too that Blues Horizon/Sony have not reissued his albums on CD (there are a couple of atypical singles included on a double CD compilation of Blues Horizon's roster of signings - but then Focus are missing!).