Flower Travellin’ Band- Satori      I never delved deeply into the Japanese psych scene, and this album probably serves as good a gateway as any—it is amalgam of powerful vocals, deranged guitar licks and an unholy mix of metal and the occasional Eastern motif, blended with a blues riff or two, and a lot of aggression. Fronted by singer Akira Yamanka a/k/a “Joe,” who also had a career as a movie tough guy, it’s not easy to put a label on this creation.       It was apparently recorded quickly, and the version sold in North America is different, containing... Read More

  Still Life- s/t (Vertigo Swirl) The scarcity of this record and mystery surrounding the band seem to overshadow its merits, which are considerable. It is a “one and done,” not unusual for the period, when bands were constantly morphing through different members, band names and styles. The band consisted of Graham Amos and Martin Cure, who had played together in a group called The Sabres. Terry Howells, the keyboard player, was recruited. The band, called Rainbows, became Still Life. They seemed to have difficulty keeping drummers (a problem not confined to fictional bands); UK... Read More

  MOUNTAIN CLIMBING! Mountain, like a number of powerful hard rock acts in the immediate post-Woodstock era, has fallen between the cracks, if not into outright obscurity. Perhaps it’s a question of changing taste, but there are plenty of great hard rock albums from the era that can give you goose bumps. This is one of them. Mountain’s records are readily found in the used bins and finding a clean-playing copy can be a challenge. Why bother? The band benefitted enormously from the production, bass playing and vocal abilities of the late Felix Pappalardi, whose credentials at the... Read More

  JERRY LEE LEWIS- LIVE AT THE STAR CLUB, HAMBURG   When the last words are written about “rock & roll,” Jerry Lee Lewis’s name will be first among them. He was a “rock star” before the concept existed, and delivered electrifying live performances in an era before The Beatles, when television was in its commercial infancy and the social and cultural upheavals of the ‘60s were still in the distant future. Riding the same crest of popularity that brought Elvis, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Little Richard and Chuck Berry to fame, Lewis was among the first of a breed of... Read More

Mott- Mad Shadows   Somewhere between rock and glam, between obscurity and fame, Mott the Hoople delivered an album—Mad Shadows— that was a commercial and critical failure. But its loose arrangements, odd juxtaposition of styles and “unfocused” quality give it a dark aspect that makes it worthwhile to listen today.   The record was produced for Island by Guy Stevens, a broken genius whose work spans some of the great pink label recordings (Free’s Tons of Sobs, certain tracks by Winwood and Traffic) and culminated in albums like The Clash’s London Calling. Stevens was a... Read More

Bachdenkel- Lemmings, Staligrad  Anybody who was into this band back in the day was probably a pretty deep “head”—it’s one thing to find some long lost album that has been forgotten in the crush of time, but these guys seemed to be pretty obscure even when they were at their peak. Their first album—Lemmings—was released by Philips France. I have yet to see a copy in the flesh. Most of the old pressings in circulation are somewhat later issues by the Initial Recording Company. My copy of Lemmings is “numbered” but has no “bonus EP”- the reissue on Initial was sold... Read More

If you mixed Zep riffs with Uriah Heep vocal parts, played by Black Sabbath and added in some organ parts ala Deep Purple, you’d be describing the debut album of Lucifer’s Friend. No surprise about the vocals- John Lawton later went on to sing for Heep, but already had that full-throated wail on this record. The band is essentially a German heavy rock band that has been labeled, after the fact, as “proto-heavy metal.” That’s fair, in the same sense that early Sabbath and Deep Purple (and even the Iron Butterfly) anticipate some of the “heavy” rock that followed, before speed... Read More