Blue Cheer: Live & Unreleased '68-'74

BLUE CHEER: LIVE & UNRELEASED '68-'74 (1968-1974; 1996)

1) Summertime Blues; 2) Out Of Focus; 3) Doctor Please; 4) Fighting Star; 5) Adventures; 6) Make It To The Party; 7) New Orleans; 8) Ace In The Hole; 9) Punk.

Naysayers may say their nays in their gayly ways, but Blue Cheer are still sort of a «legend», and every «legend» presumably deserves a set of archive releases, and any set of archive releases is worth at least a brief mention and a sample, and I assume that Live & Unreleased '68-'74 is as good a sample as any to try and convince the audience that nobody really needs to hear, own, or seriously discuss Blue Cheer archive releases. But sure, they deserve all the archive releases they can get, if somebody is willing to invest.

This package, released quite a while ago, is bluecheerfully messy in that it combines two abso­lutely different things — three live performances of Vincebus Eruptum material by the original Blue Cheer, and then a set of six studio tracks that were recorded, but left in the can by a short-lived version of the band in 1974, which included Ruben de Fuentes on guitar and Terry Rae on drums. Apparently they just happened to find themselves in a studio one day without a record contract, and twenty-two years later, we were informed.

The live tracks (first two taken from the Steve Allen TV show, third one God knows from where) are played very close to the studio arrangements, although ʽDoctor Pleaseʼ is further extended by two more minutes of noise, chaos, and feedback: dynamic and spirited, but adding nothing to the studio experience, while the sound quality is totally abysmal. Best thing about the whole deal is Steve Allen announcing, "the Blue Cheer... run for your life!" at the end of the first track — a com­mentary that says it all, whether you want to take it seriously or sarcastically.

Surprisingly, sound quality does not get any better on the studio material from 1974, suggesting that the tapes had spent those twenty-two years in somebody's damp basement, or maybe Dickie was using them as wrap-ups for his personal stash. The material does, however, fill in an im­portant know­ledge gap: as you remember, Oh! Pleasant Hope ended the band's early career on an unusual «roots-rock» note, while The Beast Is... Back reinvented them more than a decade later as a heavy metal outfit — this particular pit stop shows that already by 1974 Peterson had completely cleared his head from all that «folksy» nonsense, returning to a heavy, pub-rock ori­ented sound that recalls Slade or early Rocka Rolla-era Judas Priest. From here, it would only be a matter of adding an extra layer of distortion and glossy pop metal production to get to the even­tual sound of The Beast.

However, the songs themselves are uniformly dull — uninventive blues-rock with just enough competence to make it listenable, but nothing to make it stand out from all the competition. The cover of ʽNew Orleansʼ does not work at all, because combining the song's original party cheer­fulness with an aggressive hard rock sound makes as much sense as trying to put salt in your chocolate — and it is still more memorable than all the other tunes put together, although, gran­ted, the impression may be exacerbated simply because of the dreadful bootleg-quality murk of the sonic flow. At any rate, it is hardly the fault of Ruben de Fuentes, who seems to honestly try to get the best out of his typically mid-1970s hard rock guitar. But whatever be the situation, Live & Unreleased is clearly recommendable only for the staunchest fan of the band; for everybody else, it is as good a thumbs down as any.

Blue Cheer: What Doesn't Kill You

BLUE CHEER: WHAT DOESN'T KILL YOU (2007)

1) Rollin' Dem Bones; 2) Piece O' The Pie; 3) Born Under A Bad Sign; 4) Gypsy Rider; 5) Young Lions In Paradise; 6) I Don't Know About You; 7) I'm Gonna Get You; 8) Maladjusted Child; 9) Just A Little Bit (Redux); 10) No Relief.

Seeing as how Dickie Peterson died in 2009, a mere two years after the release of Blue Cheer's last album, he maybe should have thought of a different title. On the other hand, it is not likely that the recording of What Doesn't Kill You could in any way be responsible for the Original Beast's demise — first, most of the sessions were held in 2005, way before Dickie developed prostate cancer, and second, it's not as if the songs were the result of any superhuman effort strong enough to cause cell deformation. Even if they do sound like they were rather painfully pooped out, pardon my French and all.

Although Peterson had retained an active network of German connections until the very end, this record was ultimately made in the States, with Duck MacDonald resuming his guitar duties and the German guy pulling out for good. The drumming was originally done by Joe Hasselvander, but then Paul Whaley returned from Germany as well to resume touring with the band, and they promptly replaced the original drum parts with Whaley's re-recorded ones, for the sake of authen­ticity (and maybe royalties as well, but I seriously doubt that the album could have sold more than a few hundred copies, or that Peterson or Whaley could have hoped otherwise).

The final result is certainly a huge improvement on Dining With The Sharks. Twelve years of relief from making new music were enough to make the band forget their one-time allegiance to the military riffage and mock-Wagnerian solos of German pop metal, not to mention the excesses of Eighties' hair metal, and advance to a sound that was closer in spirit to the original Blue Cheer — namely, that of the «sludge metal» and «stoner rock» categories. The typical Blue Cheer song is now a slow, draggy, grinding chain of distortion and fuzz, over which the lead guitar rises in waves of wah-wah terror and «woman tone» overdrive, but not loud enough to outscream the persistent roaring crunch of the rhythm.

It's a good sound, in theory and practice, capable of assigning good shape to good ideas. But since Blue Cheer have always been short on good ideas, the general result is easy to predict — just about everything on this hour-long CD sounds like one lengthy trip on a road of sludge, whether we be dealing with newly «written» compositions, more remakes of one's own oldies (ʽJust A Little Bitʼ), or a cover of Albert King's ʽBorn Under A Bad Signʼ that reduces the original's un­forgettable riff to the exact same sludgy monotonousness. On the positive side, it no longer mat­ters that the final behemoth, ʽNo Reliefʼ, with its running length of 9:30, is about twice as long as common sense should have dictated — the listener's ordeal is to endure fifty-five minutes of this stuff, who cares if some pieces of the pie are larger than others if they all taste the same?

Fans of Peterson's «the-beast-got-sensitive-soul» side might want to check out the only exception from the rule — ʽYoung Lions In Paradiseʼ is a «heavy ballad» with a strong nostalgic compo­nent, as Dickie reminisces about those who are no longer with us. It is so unusual in the context of this record and Peterson's career in general that it almost becomes touching — in fact, Dickie's vocal part is touching, and far more credible and just plain human than ʽPiece O' The Pieʼ, ʽMal­adjusted Childʼ, or any other macho / «bad boy» anthem on the album. Nothing out of the ordi­nary in terms of melody, but a fitting last goodbye to his old pals from someone who, even if he did not know that at the time, would soon be saying hello once again.

However, one song out of ten is hardly enough to make a big change in the weather, and the others do not seem to deserve even one-liner descriptions. The best I can say is that Blue Cheer never once attempted to sell out in an Aerosmith kind of way — not a single «power ballad» on any of their comeback albums, not a single attempt at wooing the MTV crowds. Detractors might say that Peterson and Co. were simply too stupid to even try that, but even if that is true, a prin­cipled fool still deserves more respect than an opportunistic wise guy. The record, naturally, gets its usual thumbs down, but it also brings down the curtain on an overall thumbs-up career, and may the Beast rest in peace — even if I am not at all sure that even Paradise could cure this par­ticular old lion's summertime blues.

Check "What Doesn't Kill You" (MP3) on Amazon
Check "What Doesn't Kill You" (MP3) on Amazon

Blue Cheer: Dining With The Sharks

BLUE CHEER: DINING WITH THE SHARKS (1991)

1) Big Noise; 2) Outrider; 3) Sweet Child Of The Reeperbahn; 4) Gunfight; 5) Audio Whore; 6) Cut The Costs; 7) Sex Soldier; 8) When Two Spirits Touch; 9) Pull The Trigger; 10) Foxy Lady.

A rather prophetic title for an album, since, to the best of my knowledge, this is exactly what this particular LP, along with this particular incarnation of the band, is busy doing at the moment. By the early 1990s, «Blue Cheer» had completed their relocation to Germany, where their new sound unexpectedly found just a tad more acclaim than elsewhere — a fact that Peterson acknowledged and honored by not only hiring a German guitarist (Dieter Saller) to play on the record, but also by writing songs with titles like ʽSweet Child Of The Reeperbahnʼ. Which might or might not also contain an intentional nod to Guns N' Roses, but in general, the Peterson/Saller sound rather continues the «Accept-ization» of Blue Cheer's legacy begun on the previous album, much to the delight of all those sons of rowdy Hamburg sailors whose fathers, thirty years back, used to get equally aroused to the merry sounds of The Silver Beetles.

That said, even the least inspired Accept albums are still preferable to this tremendously boring piece of sludgy-muck. The only thing that could be briefly admired is Peterson's consistency of character — other than the acoustic / steel guitar-driven folk-blues of ʽWhen Two Spirits Touchʼ (still sounds dirty) there is not a single nod here towards «sentimentality», «softness», «depth of feeling», and whatever other silly qualities could distract The Beast from grinding its axe, strut­ting its stuff, rolling its dough, and porking its chops. The problem, however, is that The Beast got old, stupefied, and unadaptable to modern world conditions.

Everything that could go wrong, goes wrong. With Peterson, who has never shown signs of melodic genius, being credited for most of the songwriting, the majority of the riffs are clichéd reruns of The Hard Rock Textbook, with echoes of Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, AC/DC, and those German bands all over the place — in fact, some of that stuff has to be heard to be believed. If you did not think, for instance, that it was humanly possible to rip off the Kinks and ZZ Top on the exact same song, take a peek at ʽPull The Triggerʼ, whose verse riff copies ʽI Got The Sixʼ and whose chorus riff copies ʽ(Wish I Could Fly Like) Supermanʼ (and all the while the bass gui­tar keeps on playing the old pattern from ʽSummertime Bluesʼ!). This is just the most obvious example (to me), but I'm fairly sure most of the songs could be analyzed the same way.

To this one should add the exact same leaden guitar tone on each track, and the complete inabi­lity of the new German player to raise any interest in his solos — he just seems like a well-meaning kid with lots of reverence for Wolf Hoffmann, but no particular talent of his own, and maybe that is why his leads are usually mixed in so deep in the production, which makes the experience of listening to the whole album comparable to the experience of crossing a mile-long cesspool with a light, but constant electrical charge running through it. The dubious «delight» of having it all capped off with a similar-sounding cover of Jimi's ʽFoxy Ladyʼ is comparable to scooping out a piece of Turkish Delight at the end of the crossing — bon appetit.

Finally, as if that wasn't enough, Peterson must have been struck down with laryngitis on that particular day — his vocals were never a huge gift of Fortune, but here he sounds like a lite ver­sion of Motörhead's Lemmy and AC/DC's throat-problem-era Brian Johnson rolled in one: hoarse, gurgling, and completely unadapted for the «macho» spirit of his own compositions. Then again, given titles like ʽAudio Whoreʼ and ʽSex Soldierʼ, I guess it all fits, on some particularly depra­ved level, into the typical Reeperbahn aesthetics. But still, even something like ʽWhat Do You Do For Money Honeyʼ seems chic and stylish compared to this miserable sludge.

If this were at least «comically» bad, I could have found it in me to say a few kind words — but since it is «boringly bad», which is really the worst kind of bad there is, the final verdict is an as­serted thumbs down all the way; you'd have to be one of Peterson's groupies-for-life to enjoy this, I think, or a Hamburg slum native or something. As it is, just do yourself a favor and get an Accept record instead.

Check "Dining With The Sharks" (CD) on Amazon

Blue Cheer: Highlights And Lowlives

BLUE CHEER: HIGHLIGHTS AND LOWLIVES (1990)

1) Urban Soldiers; 2) Hunter Of Love; 3) Girl From London; 4) Blue Steel Dues; 5) Big Trouble In Paradise; 6) Flight Of The Enola Gay; 7) Hoochie Coochie Man; 8) Down And Dirty; 9) Blues Cadillac.

In order to better prove that they are not «glam metal», and that they use their heaviness for dar­ker and deeper purposes than attenuating their sexiness, Blue Cheer hire Jack Endino to produce their next album — the same Jack Endino that had just produced Nirvana's Bleach and enginee­red LPs by Mudhoney and Soundgarden. Clearly, Dickie was still hip to whatever was happening musically (at least, as far as heavy stuff was concerned) on the West Coast, and it is only natural that his heart and soul would be drifting towards the emerging grunge scene rather than the hedo­nistic and glossy-commercial style of the hair metal crowds.

Unfortunately, it does not help. Endino probably agreed to work with those guys out of a basic sense of respect — after all, one can trace a fairly credible line from the original stoner rock of Vincebus Eruptum to the Seattle grunge bands — but there was nothing he could do about rec­tifying their sound or modernizing their attitudes. Duck MacDonald, a faithful supporter of Tony Rainier's legacy, keeps pushing on with «muscle riffs» and «lightning solos»; Peterson's primary points of lyrical and atmospheric interest remain in the territory of girls, hot rods, and glorifying wasted lifestyles; and altogether, there is no other point to this record than proving they can still push it all the way to eleven.

Now I couldn't even say that the riffs are «bad»: if you look at a song like ʽFlight Of The Enola Gayʼ outside of any sort of context, its pop metal lines are somewhat catchy. It is only when you realize that this sounds like an early rehearsal tape for Judas Priest that the desire to hear it one more time completely evaporates. I mean, if you are writing a heavy metal song about the bom­bing of Hiroshima, you want to make your listeners' hair stand on end, right? You want them to feel the terror, the heat, the megadeath in their very bones, right? So how are you going to achi­eve that effect by relying exclusively on decade-old heavy metal clichés? And no, «low-register guitar riff» does not automatically result in an allegory of a nuclear explosion, you have to work just a little bit more for that.

Conversely, much of the album does not stray too far away from old school 12-bar territory — ʽBlue Steel Duesʼ is nothing but your basic slow blues-rock jam, and the metallized cover of ʽHoochie Coochie Manʼ speaks for itself (granted, it is probably one of the heaviest versions of the song I have ever heard, and Peterson plays the protagonist with gusto, getting way more into character than on any other song here, but still, just how many different hoochie coochie men do you really need in one lifetime?). And what does stray away sometimes borders on the ridiculous: ʽGirl From Londonʼ is a sentimental-cum-metal attempt to conquer the heights of impressionistic romanticism à la ʽLittle Wingʼ — Peterson and MacDonald start off quiet and «deep», with nos­talgically gallant-psychedelic imagery conveyed by bad lyrics ("She wears a diamond beneath the moon / We bring her flowers in the afternoon"), then gradually unwind and crank it up to high heaven, but the guitar tones and melodic structure are so predictable it's not even funny.

Maybe the best thing that can, and should, be said about the album is that it avoids power ballads: ʽGirl From Londonʼ is the only ballad as such, and it reminds far more of the early successes of Hendrix and Led Zeppelin than the pompous anthems of the hairy heroes of the Eighties. At the very least, Peterson is true to his past and consistent in his approach to music-making. But this does not make Highlights And Lowlives any less unnecessary — it just makes it a little more palatable if you do have to listen to it, for reviewing purposes, for instance. Without even a single point of genuine interest, it's a thumbs down all the way: plenty of lowlives all right, but good luck trying to pick out the highlights.

Check "Highlights And Lowlives" (CD) on Amazon

Blue Cheer: Blitzkrieg Over Nüremberg

BLUE CHEER: BLITZKRIEG OVER NÜREMBERG (1989)

1) Babylon; 2) Girl Next Door; 3) Ride With Me; 4) Just A Little Bit; 5) Summertime Blues; 6) Out Of Focus; 7) Doctor Please; 8) The Hunter; 9) Red House.

Blue Cheer never released a live album in their heyday, largely because the heyday turned out to be so short — by 1969, it was all over, and live albums, even for hard-rocking bands, were not yet seen as an obligatory part of one's portfolio back in 1968. «Better late than never», thought Peterson, and, four years into Blue Cheer's «comeback» as an odd hybrid of nostalgic late Sixties pothead rock and contemporary glam metal, decided to set up some professional recording equip­ment for the band's live show at the Rührersaal in Nüremberg, Germany (October 10, 1988). Whether the choice of a German audience was accidental or intentional (a special affinity for the country that gave us Accept and the Scorpions?) is not clear, but there is an obvious connection between the players and the fans, who do not even seem offended when told by Dickie about the planned title for the upcoming album. Nothing like a nice little Blitzkrieg for the Germans... oh, never mind. It does have a nice ring to it, though.

Once again, however, this particular «Blue Cheer» is just Dickie and his revolving door: no Paul Whaley and not even a Tony Rainier in sight. Instead, guitar duties are handled by Duck Mac­Donald, known mostly for always willing to lend a helping hand to defective reunions of old heavy rock bands with color-based names (in addition to Blue Cheer, he would also tour with Black Sabbath and Blue Öyster Cult); the drummer, if anybody is interested, is Dave Salce, and he does a fairly decent job reproducing the percussive madness of Whaley, but his fills are less unpredictable and not so much all over the place.

The setlist continues the trend already set on The Beast: as the only original member to deter­mine what is properly Blue Cheer and what is not properly so, Dickie performs only songs from the first two BC albums and The Beast (but it is interesting that, out of the new material, he chooses Rainier's compositions rather than his own ʽNightmaresʼ). Which is understandable if you want to limit your live material to loud crunchy rockers, but even so, The Original Human Being is quite unjustly given the finger. There is also a tribute cover of Hendrix's ʽRed Houseʼ, done surprisingly close to the spirit of the original, even if MacDonald cannot restrain himself from throwing in some histrionic hair metal vibrato cliché every now and then.

The most memorable thing about the album, though, is arguably the small bits of stage banter delivered by Peterson — always sounding a little drunk, a little stoned, a little wasted, a little toothless, a little bit too old to rock'n'roll, but ultimately quite sympathetic: nice simple old guy with a bit of street wisdom tucked under his belt for good measure ("we're gonna do a song called ʽSummertime Bluesʼ... and believe me, there is no cure, I've been looking for twenty fucking years!"). He has a pretty hard time coping with vocal problems, particularly on fast numbers such as ʽGirl Next Doorʼ where he clearly lacks the necessary strength to muster the appropriate roar, but even if he did have laryngitis or something, on most of the classic numbers the gurgling in his throat only adds to the overall ragged punch of the material. And he certainly has no problems holding down all the basslines on which the tightness and general well-being of the songs depend from start to finish.

Throw in a good setlist, decent sound quality, and MacDonald's general willingness to play Se­venties-style rather than Eighties-style on the extended instrumental sections of ʽRide With Meʼ and ʽDoctor Pleaseʼ, and Blitzkrieg turns out to be much more enjoyable as could be expected on the average from such a setup. Thumbs up; heavily recommended for Blue Cheer fans and hard rock lovers in general.  

Blue Cheer: The Beast Is... Back

BLUE CHEER: THE BEAST IS... BACK (1984)

1) Nightmares; 2) Summertime Blues; 3) Ride With Me; 4) Girl Next Door; 5) Babylon; 6) Heart Of The City; 7) Out Of Focus; 8) Parchment Farm.

A little research shows that it is not altogether correct to talk of a Blue Cheer breakup — more like several extended vacation periods. Various incarnations of the band did function in 1974, 1975, 1978-79, and 1983, with Dickie as the only permanent link; none of them, however, suc­ceeded in landing any record contracts, which is why, for many, this vinyl resurgence in 1984 appeared as a complete surprise — a feeling that the band further enhanced with the appropriate title. (Which, upon subsequent re-releases, was cheesily changed to The Megaforce Years, after the name of the label to which they were signed at the time).

In any case, the title alone clearly announces vengeance — no sissy-hussy roots-rock shite for the good old fans, this is going to be «The Beast» all the way through. The track list does not look too promising, though: half of the songs are re-recordings of old classics from Vincebus and Outsideinside, which is usually not an auspicious sign — what good is a comeback, after all, if you have not managed to write more than four new songs in thirteen years?

Expectations drop down even lower, though, once you hear the first notes of the record and see how the band tries to catch up with the times. In 1984, if you were a veteran of the bang-your-head-against-the-wall aesthetics and wanted to impress the kids, you had basically two routes to choose from — thrash metal and glam metal («New Wave metal» was more of a British thing), and guess which one those guys had taken. Nothing against Dickie Peterson, or the original drummer Paul Whaley, making a triumphant return in style; but the band's resi­dent guitarist, Tony Rainier, is a Van Halen-influenced B-grade hack, in command of a suitably nasty tone but thoroughly relying on cocky pop-metal clichés, well-tested and over-abused on Sunset Strip for several years already.

To be more precise and polite, we have all heard worse than that, but still, was it really worth coming back to let us hear a Def Leppard-style re-recording of ʽSummertime Bluesʼ? Maybe it seemed like fun at the time to try that old stuff with new production values and improved tech­nique, but thicker layers of distortion/fuzz and flashy high-pitched lead trills/arpeggios were so commonplace at the time that it is impossible to look back on that stuff without irony — where Vincebus Eruptum, with all its flaws and potential negative influence on the evolution of hard rock, was still an innovative, daring breakthrough, The Beast Is Back prompts just one inevitable question: But Who Gives A Damn This Time?

The new songs, however, are not at all bad. Once you get past the production clichés, three of them have solid pop-metal chorus hooks (particularly ʽHeart Of The Cityʼ, where Dickie manages to convey the «lethal insanity» atmosphere of being sucked into the whirlpool of city life), and one (ʽRide With Meʼ) does a good job at gradually building up tension until they botch it with the lack of an adequately climactic resolution. No masterpieces, but a decent bunch of snappy pop-metal anthems that makes one wonder whether they really needed to leave the rest of the album to useless re-recordings. In fact, calling this «glam metal» would be quite inaccurate — the songs are influenced by the commercial metal sound of the times, for sure, but they have none of that unhealthy Sunset Strip hedonism (other than ʽGirl Next Doorʼ, I guess, with beautiful lyrical lines such as "I'm gonna wait right here just to get the right meat / ...get what I need from the girl next door" — and the song is credited to Rainier, too).

Altogether — not a tragedy, but a relative disappointment, although, come to think of it, any pre­diction-yielding model would have probably guessed that, were these guys ever to reform, their first album would look something like that: re-recorded old chestnuts + glam metal production + a few nostalgic signs that hint at the band's arrival from a distant past, rather than being a young artistic cousin of Def Leppard. Giving it a thumbs up would be out of the question; putting it down would be too unjust, because I really have nothing against most of the songs, be they old or new ones. Proceed at your own risk.

Check "The Megaforce Years" (CD) on Amazon

Blue Cheer: Oh! Pleasant Hope

BLUE CHEER: OH! PLEASANT HOPE (1971)

1) Hiway Man; 2) Believer; 3) Money Troubles; 4) Traveling Man; 5) Oh! Pleasant Hope; 6) I'm The Light; 7) Eco­logical Blues; 8) Lester The Arrester; 9) Heart Full Of Soul.

Okay, come out and confess: who was it told Blue Cheer that they should drop whatever they were doing and start being The Band, of all people? Or, if not The Band, then at least The Doobie Brothers. All of a sudden, just as Original Human Being showed assured signs of the band set to return to their «caveman glory», they do a 180-degree twist and give us acoustic guitars, on-the-porch attitudes, lyrical tales of highway men, traveling men, money-troubled men, believers and arresters, and as if that weren't enough, Dickie Peterson only takes lead vocals on the last three tracks, leaving the rest to Gary Yoder. Granted, not a lot of people must have been paying any atten­tion to Blue Cheer in the era of ʽStairway To Heavenʼ, but for those that were, the band's conversion to a roots-rock-oriented strategy must have been quite a shock.

The saving grace of the album, however, is that it never tries to take itself too seriously. Much to Blue Cheer's honor, they do not even attempt to generate a «soulful» or «spiritual» atmosphere, as the instrumental abilities and arranging skills of the band would be inadequate. Instead, they make good use of their pop sensibility, loading many of the songs with modestly catchy, some­times even funny «roots-pop» choruses — like, probably the only point in listening to ʽHiway Manʼ is hearing Yoder bawl "MONEY, give me all you have!" as if he were rehearsing for a Monty Python sketch or something. It ain't much to go on haunting you in your dreams, but at least it saves the song from proverbial boredom, and that is more or less the way this entire album works — through decent pop hooks.

The title track, in particular, amounts to pure parody: its verses are set to the precise melody of ʽThe Weightʼ ("Billy Joe went lookin' round..." = "I pulled into Nazareth..."), but the uplifting / optimistic message of the chorus, unlike the obscure invocation to Fanny, is spelled out with the utmost precision: "Oh, pleasant hope / Where we're gonna get our dope? ... / Oh, pleasant hope / Grass will flow like wine" — except that even Steppenwolf sounded like they really meant it when conversing with the enemy (ʽDon't Step On The Grass, Samʼ), whereas ʽOh! Pleasant Hopeʼ is sung so nonchalantly that you don't even get to feel it for them.

But if the title track simply pokes fun at marijuana deprivation, ʽI'm The Lightʼ is downright blasphemous — not only does it mix gospel organ with Indian sitar (did George Harrison ever have something like that?), it actually means what it says: the protagonist tells his girlfriend that "I'm the light, I'm the only one you'll see" and that "It's one hand for all mankind while the other holds the flame". For that matter, the sitar plays quite a seductive pop melody — transpose it to electric guitar or flute, speed up the tempo a little bit, and you got yourself a readymade Manfred Mann pop single. Not a masterpiece, of course, but second time in a row that Blue Cheer have used the sitar in a non-conventional manner and gotten away with it.

For nostalgia sufferers, there is a bit of a heavy rock vibe here: ʽBelieverʼ is driven by crunchy distorted guitar (despite being one of the poppiest songs on the album), and ʽHeart Full Of Soulʼ (a Peterson original, nothing to do with the famous Yardbirds hit) has a dark, scruffy bassline, chaotic leads, and growling / screaming vocals straight off Vincebus — a little peace offering for the veteran fans if they were obedient enough to sit all the way through to the end. But all of this is still quite tame even compared to Human Being, let alone Vincebus, and seems to be here mainly in order to establish some sort of shaky link to the past.

Still, all things considered, I like the record, and give it a thumbs up. The fact that it never char­ted is expectable and understandable, as is the fact that, totally frustrated over their loss of direc­tion and obscure future perspectives, Blue Cheer finally broke up after it had flopped. But once you get over the initial disappointment, and once you start realizing that they weren't really trying to establish themselves as a «serious» roots-rock act, but rather urged us all to take it with a grain of salt, Oh! Pleasant Hope comes across as an inoffensive, occasionally charming trifle, not en­tirely devoid of interest. And after a few listens, it might even come across as a concised, focused send-up of the whole genre — which, by early 1971, was certainly in need of a good send-up, like all genres that eventually start falling back on their own clichés.

Check "Oh!Pleasant Hope" (CD) on Amazon

Blue Cheer: The Original Human Being

BLUE CHEER: THE ORIGINAL HUMAN BEING (1970)

1) Good Times Are So Hard To Find; 2) Love Of A Woman; 3) Make Me Laugh; 4) Pilot; 5) Babaji (Twilight Raga); 6) Preacher; 7) Black Sun; 8) Tears In My Bed; 9) Man On The Run; 10) Sandwich; 11) Rest At Ease.

It seems reasonable to suggest that Gary Lee Yoder, officially replacing Bruce Stephens as Blue Cheer's resident guitar player, was a better proposition for this band altogether than his predeces­sor. Not only did he contribute Blue Cheer's funniest song, but somehow, his permanent pre­sence put the band back on track, so that their fifth album is an acceptable compromise between the chaotic wildness of old, the established hard rock standards of the day, and a little bit of chart-oriented pop sensibility in between (The Original Human Being even got the band back into the lower ranges of the album charts for a brief while).

There is nothing particularly great or awesome here, but the very attempt to stir up some creative juices is admirable. All of the members are involved in the songwriting process now, even the drummer, with Peterson and Yoder veering towards heavy blues, piano guy Burns Kellogg drif­ting towards roots-rock, and the drummer actually contributing the weirdest number of all — ʽBa­baji (Twilight Raga)ʼ, which is, so far, the only instrumental composition I know whose central point is a duet between sitar and Moog synthesizer: an unlikely combination in general, let alone on a Blue Cheer album! The most amazing thing about it is that it actually works, a pretty, cloudy piece of simplistic, but effective lite-psychedelia.

Genrist exercises are, in fact, the talk of the day. We have some shiny, uplifting, brass-loaded, and catchy jazz-pop (ʽLove Of A Womanʼ); a rough, partially out-of-tune, but sincere-sounding country waltz (ʽTears In My Bedʼ); a sleazy, snappy, and quite exciting white-funk jam that sug­gests somebody in the camp must have been wooed over by The James Gang (ʽSandwichʼ); and a sentimental, idealistic, bombastic, gospel-influenced coda (ʽRest At Easeʼ) that — dare I say it? — sounds suspiciously similar to Dylan's ʽKnockin' On Heaven's Doorʼ, which would only come three years later. Okay, coincidence. The important thing is: Blue Cheer, the local cavemen of San Francisco, are telling you to "rest at ease today" and "be redeemed today", because "all my love is on the way" and "my heart is open to you, slow down, we can make it". Actually, it seems that those lyrics are mostly improvised, consisting of «soul clichés» hastily scrapped together, but there is something haunting to that piano / organ / French horn mix. The beast done got soul, and it ain't always cringeworthy or laughable to look at.

On the other hand, The Original Human Being also succeeds in getting back some of the wild vibe — mainly on dark blues-rock numbers such as ʽGood Times Are Hard To Findʼ (indeed) and ʽPreacherʼ; more generic 12-bar stuff like ʽPilotʼ or ʽMan Of The Sunʼ also recovers some extra grit-and-gravel that was missing on the last two records, although these are probably the most expendable numbers of the lot. Everything is still quite polished when compared to the original chaos (short, jam-less, structured), but «nasty» guitar tones, «evil» vocalizing, distortion and fuzz are all present — the songs are fun to listen to, and warrant a thumbs up. Altogether, the album is more than the sum of its parts: diversity, and this curious struggle for survival in an increasing­ly competitive context, make it a small chapter worth reading in the musical history of 1970.

Blue Cheer: Blue Cheer

BLUE CHEER: BLUE CHEER (1969)

1) Fool; 2) You're Gonna Need Someone; 3) Hello L.A., Bye Bye Birmingham; 4) Saturday Freedom; 5) Ain't That The Way (Love's Supposed To Be); 6) Rock And Roll Queens; 7) Better When We Try; 8) Natural Man; 9) Lovin' You's Easy; 10) The Same Old Story.

With Paul Whaley out of the band, replaced by Norman Mayell, Peterson is now the sole original member — but nothing changes much, because Whaley's drumming on New! Improved! was already quite timid compared to Blue Cheer's original style, and this self-titled release largely con­tinues in the vein of Side A of Improved!: ten more pieces of well-mannered blues-rock, with catchy pop choruses and guitars playing conventional melodies. At this point in time, they essen­tially sound like Steppenwolf, or any other such bands: the sound is «rock», but with emphasis on «light fun» rather than oddball psychedelia or scary heaviness. No questions about «uniqueness» or «unpredictability» — everything is played quite safe, even homely.

The only things that save the record from total oblivion is a limited amount of creativity and a pinch of humor. I could pretend if I wanted to, but there is no way I could really avoid the catchy impact of a song like ʽNatural Manʼ — a minor pop-rock gem in its own rights, with the bumbly grumbly bass line, the «slyly smiling» riff, and the ideally constructed vocal melody. This is as far removed from the original Blue Cheer as possible: the song belongs in jokerland territory, and the meticulousness of its execution would have aggravated the original band to no end. "You can't buy the love of a natural man" is as good a vocal hook as any, and it's a good thing that the song really doesn't try too hard to uncover the band's understanding of what a «natural man» is actually supposed to mean, in their own world. It's just a funny song.

The first and last song are fun tunes as well, both contributed by local friend Gary Lee Yoder, who would eventually join the band on a full-time basis for a while — here, he just donates them ʽFoolʼ, a ʽJumpin' Jack Flashʼ-type song with a pub rather than arena flavor (play the two tunes back to back, and no better demonstration suffices to show why the Stones ruled the world while Blue Cheer, particularly in their «timid» incarnation, were a third-rate act); and the acoustic-ba­sed ʽSame Old Storyʼ, which is likewise a variation on the classic ʽRockin' Pneumonia And The Boogie Woogie Fluʼ, but with its own twist — a clownish enough ending for the album, but the band are now positioning themselves as clowns, and fortunately, they can be a bit funny.

Actually, they are better when they're adapting pinched ideas to funny matters than when they try to do it with a straight face on — the «artsy» pop song ʽBetter When We Tryʼ, unabashedly stealing part of its appeal from Blind Faith's freshly released ʽCan't Tell My Way Homeʼ, has too much hippie starry-eyedness about it and too little in the actual «beauty» department (and those baroque organ solos are fairly useless these days when you have all those Zombies records lying around, anyway). In another corner, ʽSaturday Freedomʼ tries to generate some fuzzy melodic psychedelia, with a lengthy «stoned» solo, but guitarist Bruce Stephens is neither a Randy Holden nor a Jerry Garcia, and the results are accordingly unimpressive.

Summarizing in a nutshell, Blue Cheer's major flaw is that the album has no personality — Vin­cebus Eruptum and even its trippier follow-up, flawed as they were, reflected a specifically «Blue Cheer» attitude towards life, but now that they actually release a record called Blue Cheer, it turns out that there's some cheer, and there's just a bit of blue, but they don't really mix. Peter­son just isn't that interesting a singer when he is not playing the pitecanthropus erectus, Stephen­son knows how to play the guitar but does not know how to put his own mark on it, and why listen to their cover of Delaney Bramlett and Mac Davis' ʽHello L. A., Bye-Bye Birminghamʼ when even Nancy Sinatra sings it with more intrigue?.. All that's really left is — become clowns and sing silly catchy songs about cheating women and natural men. God knows why, but that is one emploi that they are quite able to get away with on this record.

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Blue Cheer: New! Improved!

BLUE CHEER: NEW! IMPROVED! (1969)

1) When It All Gets Old; 2) West Coast Child Of Sunshine; 3) I Want My Baby Back; 4) Aces 'n' Eights; 5) As Long As I Live; 6) It Takes A Lot To Laugh, It Takes A Train To Cry; 7) Peace Of Mind; 8) Fruit & Iceburgs; 9) Honey Butter Lover.

I think the title said it all even way back in 1969, when the words «new» and «improved» actually could have quite a positive ring to them. Yes, even great bands with established formulae were capable of occasionally «renewing» and «improving» their image. But how do you improve on a band like Blue Cheer, on an album like Vincebus? You just don't, unless you totally and decisi­vely change your direction — and how could a band like Blue Cheer change its direction? One doesn't usually expect a Neanderthal to rapidly accelerate his evolution in the presence of a Cro­magnon. There are some laws of nature that are quite tough to beat, you know.

Actually, this record is not so much of an improvement as it is of a total mess. With the depar­ture of Leigh Stephens, the band was left without an essential ingredient, and had to reestablish its balance — first, by hiring little-known guitar player Randy Holden, a former member of The Other Half (an underappreciated, short-lived psycho-garage band from LA), then, after he found out that his style was largely incompatible with the band's image, by replacing him with Bruce Stephens (presumably, no relation to Leigh). Consequently, the band's third LP featured both of their guitarists — the earlier one on Side B, the later one on Side A — and essentially sounds like two completely different mini-records.

The Bruce Stephens stuff is generally tolerable, but a little boring. None of the songs come within ten miles of the band's trademark crunchy bombast — it is all a rather chaotic mix of blues-rock, psychedelia, «roots» stuff, and pub-bound braggadocio, generally derivative and hollow. Original ideas are, for the most part, silly, like the attempt to reinvent Dylan's ʽIt Takes A Lot To Laughʼ as a heavy, aggressive rocker, with Dickie screaming his head off on the final verse and the gui­tars threatening the listener in a glum Chicago-electric-blues sort of way. Nice try, but either they didn't get the song's essence or they failed in their quest to mutate it.

Even more laughable is their piano player's contribution, ʽWhen It All Gets Oldʼ, sort of a mix of Traffic with Satanic-era Rolling Stones — a sunny, friendly psychedelic anthem that invites you to «bring back a whole new change» (how do you actually bring back a change?) without offering any collateral, such as, for instance, a truly mindblowing sound effect or melodic synthesis. Blue Cheer as the late-coming prophets of The Great Revolution of Conscience? Yeah, right. Even the pigs wouldn't be flying until at least eight years later.

Instead of talking about the rest of the songs on Side A (we could, since some are better than others, but it is still hardly worth the space), let us therefore look at Side B, which reflects an en­tirely different ideology. There are only two lengthy songs on it, plus a short useless acoustic coda, but they make all the difference, amply featuring the talents of Randy Holden — the guy who has been called, by some critics, one of the greatest overlooked guitarists of the 1960s, and for a very good reason, I'd say.

ʽFruit & Icebergsʼ, in particular, is transformed by Holden into one of the finest examples of the era's heavy blues-rock style — not as experimental and groundbreaking as contemporary stuff by Jeff Beck or Led Zeppelin, but every bit as powerful and awe-inspiring. The descending bass riff sets a creepy, nightmarish mood that wouldn't be out of place on a classic Black Sabbath record (no wonder, considering that it incorporates the same «Devil's Chord» tritone as ʽBlack Sabbathʼ) and the lengthy solo that comes in at 2:23 and occupies the bulk of the song is, likewise, one of the most «evil» solos of the decade — where all of his garage predecessors were using their axes to express righteous anger and straightforward frustration, Holden clearly uses his to summon the forces of evil; had he come forward with the song a year earlier, it would have made a great soundtrack for Night Of The Living Dead. The only thing that feels altogether out of place on this fantastic mood piece are the lyrics — "It's so nice to feel the colors / All days when you are new / You close your eyes / And feel the foam of silence"? Unless it's spoken from Dracula's point of view, I just refuse to understand.

ʽPeace Of Mindʼ, which is the slightly longer piece, is not nearly as impressive: its main part is an arpeggiated, slowly moving dirge, waking up midway through and launching into yet another massive Holden solo, by which time, unfortunately, it can no longer qualify for masterpiece sta­tus. Still, the solo is equally nimble and melodic, with a perfect flow and sense of timing — enough to make one think of an analogy with Mick Taylor, another technically and emotionally gifted blues-based musician who happened to find himself in the utterly wrong band, ultimately, to the great benefit of all mankind. Although, come to think of it, ʽPeace Of Mindʼ and ʽFruit & Ice­bergsʼ are basically Randy Holden songs with Dickie Peterson guest-starring on them — this has very little to do with any kinds of «Blue Cheer», and this is why Holden spent so little time with the band. There were really only two choices — either «Blue Cheer» would have to become «The Randy Holden Experience», or Randy Holden would have to go on increasing his experience without any assistance from Blue Cheer.

As far as any final judgement is concerned, I would award an unquestionable thumbs up to Side B and a sceptical, if not altogether hateful, thumbs down to Side A — merely to reinforce the idea of «two different entities». But if a single answer is still required, I will repeat that ʽFruit & Icebergsʼ alone is worth the full price of the album: there is something about that solo there that I cannot remember about any style of 1960s guitar playing. It's like a perfect merger of the «thin», folk-and-country-derived electric styles of West Coast bands and the «thick», aggressive, show-no-mercy style of British hard rockers. And if you play it loudly in a church, it will most certainly attract lightning, I'm sure of it.

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Blue Cheer: Outsideinside

BLUE CHEER: OUTSIDEINSIDE (1968)

1) Feathers From Your Tree; 2) Sun Cycle; 3) Just A Little Bit; 4) Gypsy Ball; 5) Come And Get It; 6) Satisfaction; 7) The Hunter; 8) Magnolia Caboose; 9) Babylon; 10) Fortunes.

The idea of a band like Blue Cheer trying to add a little «intellect» on their sophomore record may sound fairly scary in theory, but the results are hardly catastrophic — most importantly, the album does show that they were something more than just a one-shot act, if not something much more than a one-shot act. Given the context of the times, their decision to push the controls some­what farther in the direction of psychedelia and even the newly-emerging «art rock» ideology was not surprising; what was surprising is that, in a certain way, they almost managed to get away with it. Under a slight risk of getting sued for slander, I'd suggest that, perhaps, this was due to their fortunate rejection of originality — most of the musical ideas on Outsideinside belong not to Blue Cheer, but to somebody else, although all of them were properly subjected to the patented Blue Cheer treatment (louder, fuzzier, clumsier).

First thing one hears is a piano. A piano? Not a mistake, no, the band has indeed enlisted the ser­vices of Ralph Burns Kellogg, a professional musician, to help them get accommodated in this brand new world that just keeps upping its requirements for bands that want to stay alive and well and ahead of the competition. Next come the overdubs — the vocals on ʽFeathers From Your Treeʼ come from all sides, echoing the verses and framing out the choruses like they belonged to a small band of angels. The only things that still remind us of the beast inside is the obligatory heavy fuzz of the guitar and the brawny screaming of the lead vocalist. The end result is indeed quite trippy, if not particularly good: as far as soaking basic, brutal, fuzzy hard rock in psy­che­delic effects is concerned, Hawkwind would later take this art to a whole new level.

Although, formally, there are only two covers on the album (an intentionally «Godawful-™» ren­dition of ʽSatisfactionʼ and an altogether less shocking and much more reverential ʽHunterʼ from the stockpile of Albert King), like I said, much, if not most of the other stuff is thoroughly deri­vative as well. For instance, ʽGypsy Ballʼ is what Jimi's ʽWind Cries Maryʼ might have sounded like if the guitar were three times as distorted, the drummer tossed aside all modesty, and the overall point were to crush, rather than seduce, the listener. ʽBabylonʼ is a slowed down and fun­kified take on ʽSweet Little Sixteenʼ, sometimes drifting off into generic 12-bar blues territory. ʽFortunesʼ is like a «heavy bubble-gum» amalgamation of ʽFortune Tellerʼ and some Nuggets single whose title escapes me at the moment. And so on and on and on.

Yet, at the same time, taken in context, Outsideinside comes across as an amazingly crude pio­neering effort. All those early 1970s bands trying to put a «heavy» spin on every musical style (and subtlety and «tastefulness» and meticulous planning be damned), be it psychedelia à la Hawkwind, pub-rock à la Slade, or bubblegum-rock à la Sweet — in embryonic form, it's all here on Blue Cheer's second album. It is embarrassing, yes, because it clearly aspires to some­thing «higher» than a simple urge to bang your head against the wall while trying to overcome your sex drive, and it is pretty hard to aim «higher» while still trying to bang your head against the same wall — especially if you are not endowed with the chops of a Jimmy Page or even the simple genius of a Tony Iommi.

But in between all the embarrassment, there is still plenty of sheer amusement going on. Every­thing is unpredictable — you never know when they are going to speed up, slow down, throw in a guitar or organ line that absolutely and utterly «does not fit», or just boogie along without a set purpose (ʽMagnolia Cabooseʼ, a brief, ferocious instrumental that might actually be the most passionate track on the entire album — even if, like everything else, it is highly derivative, this time from Jimi's ʽDriving Southʼ, I believe). And for every single piece that does not work, like ʽSatisfactionʼ (useless without the sneering attitude), there is a ʽHunterʼ that does work — few people could say "I've got you in the sight of my love gun" more convincingly than Peterson did that in 1968. It all adds up to a thumbs up, after all. Plus, Outsideinside would turn out to be the last album by the original lineup — Leigh Stephens would quit soon after the official release, and the band would never be the same again, so one more reason here for every fan of Vincebus to pay extra attention.

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Blue Cheer: Vincebus Eruptum

BLUE CHEER: VINCEBUS ERUPTUM (1968)

1) Summertime Blues; 2) Rock Me, Baby; 3) Doctor Please; 4) Out Of Focus; 5) Parchment Farm; 6) Second Time Around.

«The Jimi Hendrix Experience for Lunkheads», this is what this band really is, but if you ask me, this is still much better than the poseur professionalism of Grand Funk Railroad, whose enduring popula­rity should have been more justly enjoyed by Blue Cheer. Had they been a Detroit band, their bite might have been worse than their bark, as they would have to compete with the Stooges; as it happened, they were based in San Francisco, where they did enjoy the cult status of the hea­viest, wildest band for miles around, but depended a bit too much on the usual «blues pedigree» that was shared by everybody in the business, and, despite being at about the same level of formal musical competence as the Stooges (zero), did not catch neither the contemporary nor the «revi­sionist» critical eye with the same force.

But they really should have. For one thing, there is so much that is «wrong» with this band that this realization alone should already turn them into cultural heroes. Like, what is their very name supposed to mean — how on Earth does one produce a «blue cheer»? Or if you are really going to show off by giving your debut LP a Latin name, how about getting it right? The correct Latin translation of "to break out of chains" would be vinculis eruptum, whereas vincebus is not even a proper wordform in the language. Or if you are covering Mose Allison's ʽParchman Farmʼ, do you really need to show how much you care by retitling it ʽParchment Farmʼ? It's not like any in­mates in any American prison ever spent much time scraping calfskin.

However, defying the laws of grammar, orthography, and semantics is one thing for a musician, and defying the music is quite another. From a simple, straightforward point of view, what this album represents is an attempt by three well-meaning, but barely competent guys (Dickie Peter­son on bass and vocals, Leigh Stephens on guitar, Paul Whaley on drums) to provide a local Fri­sco substitute for Hendrix — mainly by acquiring the same kind of musical equipment, but defi­nitely not by learning the same kinds of chords or nurturing the same kind of imaginative vision. In other words, an embarrassing fraud.

From a somewhat more complex point of view, this is a «caveman punk» take on Hendrix that could deserve its own special acclaim. Not just on Hendrix, of course: Blue Cheer were fascina­ted by everything as long as it was loud, screechy, and heavy — their cover of ʽSummertime Bluesʼ must have been inspired by The Who's version (which was not yet commercially released at the time, yet The Who had had the song in their repertoire since the early days), and they were certainly no strangers to the Yardbirds and Cream, either. But where they could not match any of these guys in terms of instrumental prowess, they could match and overcome them in terms of sheer brute force, which is really what classic Blue Cheer is all about: PURE MUSCLE.

If the opening chords to ʽSummertime Bluesʼ do not sound quite as mind-blowing as Jimi's ʽFoxy Ladyʼ, from which they are borrowed, at least they are more distorted — and if the body of the song does not produce the impression of a thunderstorm (because the bass and drum parts are fairly wimpy when compared with the Entwistle/Moon rhythm section), it still comes closer to con­veying «dumb teenage frustration» than the exquisite interplay between The Who could ever bring it. Which is to say, really, that this particular version also deserves to exist and be listened to — even if most of whatever Leigh Stephens is playing here does not make any particular musi­cal sense, other than "hey look, I can make those strings go WHEEEEE! and now I can make them go BOOOOO! and now I can make y'all believe I'm playing this thing with my teeth!" Fun thing, that rock'n'roll stuff.

They do have a feel for it, and it can be infectious. The songs are not so much songs as simply vehicles for wild improvisation (Peterson is credited with writing three of them, but other than the mediocre riff on ʽOut Of Focusʼ, I have been unable to spot much «writing» going on) — ʽSe­cond Time Aroundʼ sounds like they just left the tape rolling for three extra minutes after the song was over, and then decided to leave that uncontrolled chaos on the record (in honor of ʽThird Stone From The Sunʼ or any such other Hendrix noisefest). Laughable, yes, but every once in a while it so happens that all you need to do at a certain moment is just «go to eleven», and the result will be... impressive?

Besides, it's not like they do not know how to play at all. Stephens' obsession with pedals, wob­bles, fuzz, and distortion does not prevent him from correctly resolving the melody where he sees it fit to be resolved, or from borrowing some tricks from the arsenal of free jazz artists as well: at times, it is hard to understand if he is just being drunk / sluggish / incompetent or if he is really trying to pull off an Ornette Coleman. Whatever be the case, his playing turns Vincebus Erup­tum into the craziest hard rock album of 1968 I have ever heard, bar none — an affair in which he is much aided by Peterson (whose sin... screaming is a little colorless, but loud and brawny enough to match the guitar) and Whaley, who gives his best Keith Moon / Mitch Mitchell impres­sion — it still ain't good enough, but not a lot of people in Frisco were even trying.

In a system of values that praises «wildness» and «kick-ass potential» in rock music over every­thing else, Vincebus Eruptum is one of the indisputable champions. In a subtler system that re­quires, at the very least, a unique or technically gifted playing style, and at most, an individual artistic vision, Blue Cheer will forever be stuck as one of the epitomes of bad taste. As for my­self, in situations like these I do tend to select the «subtlety be damned» approach — the album has always been a minor favorite of mine, and I still go for the thumbs up judgement. Want it or not, these guys pretty much invented «brontosaur rock», where size does matter, and I both respect it — a little bit — and enjoy it — especially when it helps flush out unwanted guests.

PS. Oh, and, if I am not mistaken, that riff they hit in the middle of ʽParchment Farmʼ pretty much predicts ʽIn-A-Gadda-Da-Vidaʼ; so there you have some of the band's immediate influence on their contempo­raries.

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