Beside the FM staple “All Right Now” I don’t know if I could identify a song by Free, the precursor to Bad Company, featuring RTH Foyer of Fame presenter Paul Rodgers, Simon Kirke, Paul Kossoff, and some bassist (Andy Fraser) a lot of British bassists I dig grew up digging themselves. If I only heard another Free song being played I’d probably think it was a half-decent Bad Company song. Actually, if any of these Free clips were shown to me untitled I could be convinced that this was Bad Co Beside Simon Kirke’s bangs, did anyone in either band have a distinctive Look that might set them apart from any actor in Almost Famous?
I’m not one of those guys who hates Bad Company. In the dog days of late-70s FM RAWK Bad Co could be counted on for some decent guitar riffs, a lot of macho posturing, a minimum of frills, and unintentionally funny lyrics. They were the epitome of Rock at its most mediocre.
Even back then, however, any critical insult dumped on Bad Co was often followed by props for their precursor band, Free. As I said, the only song I’d ever heard then and the only song I am aware of as being a song by Free to this day is “All Right Now.” I never trusted that Free would be much better than the best of Bad Company. Really, after 30 years of skepticism, am I really going to learn anything from a Free record that I haven’t already figured out from a Bad Company record? Will that bass player, Andy Fraser, the one who XTC’s Colin Moulding, for instance, has raved about in interviews, help turn me onto a Free record like no Bad Company record has ever turned me on?
Is there some other precursor band that you’ve been skeptical of over the years before really ever hearing?
I look forward to your responses.
James Gang.
As in “man the Eagles sure do blow, Joe Walsh is cool though…you know I love the James Gang.”
Can’t tell ya how many rock dudes have said this to me.
Also: Humble Pie.
How can it be that everybody on earth has Frampton Comes Alive and yet there is allegedly this “better” band called Humble Pie that Frampton was part of, yet I’ve never met anyone who’s ever heard them?
Kilroy, you understand exactly what I’m getting at! James Gang is a great example. I bought one of their albums thinking I’d get more of those “Funk 49″/”Walk Away” killers. Everything else I’ve hear by them is really boring.
I own the first Humble Pie album and actually like it a good deal. More on that later – gotta get my boy to school!
30 Days In the Hole is to Humble Pie as Alright Now is to Free.
I still need to buy a second Humble Pie album! I know I’ve heard “30 Days in the Hole” before and I know it’s supposed to be representative of the band they became, but I can’t recall how it goes. The first album, Shawnkilroy, is a weird mix of pastoral rock, almost in the vein of Traffic (the Frampton influence, I believe), and dry, boogie workouts (probably the Marriott influence and leading to, I suspect, the music they would go on to do most often after Frampton left the band).
Every critic who ever disliked Emerson, Lake & Palmer swears that the Nice were art-rock innovators — because, um, Keith Emerson stabbed his Hammond with daggers or something.
Never heard ’em.
Oh… my… Gosh. Mod, you have GOT to add this video to your post about rock progenitors. This may be the most unintentionally hilarious, Spinal Tap-like moment ever captured on film:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xggFzkyd288
“Nice” video, HVB – added!!! That is another great band that gets cited this way. ’60s-psych heads who aren’t comfortable liking even a little bit of Yes similarly cite Steve Howe’s psych band, Tomorrow, or something like that. They do have that great “My White Bicycle” (I think that’s the name) song, but I haven’t heard much more of them.
Thinking of Frampton again, he not only has back-story rep from Humble Pie but also an earlier band called The Herd. Have any of you heard that stuff? It’s HORRIBLE. Don’t believe the hype! If you can’t give Frampton the slightest bit of props for the first Humble Pie album and Frampton Comes Alive, don’t go looking for redemption in The Herd.
Similar to The Herd is the band Jeff Lynne was in prior to joining The Move. Man, The Idle Race. I bought their album, all excited to bring it home and spin it. It sounds like the canned, generic “groovy” music that would come out of a transistor radio or record player on a show like The Brady Bunch. Remember the stuff Greg and Marsha would listen to? That’s The Herd and The Idle Race.
I was just going to mention the Idle Race, I really like them. Wonder which of the two records the Mod bought; the first one “Birthday Party” is the more acclaimed (though I like them both). The song “I Love My Toys” is pretty prime pseudo-Kinks.
I own Birthday Party, db. Maybe it’s just the production, but any time I’ve tried to spin it it makes ELO records sound “organic” and improvised. I like my share of processed pop, but that album goes too far for me to be able to get into. Now I feel obliged to pull that bad boy out of my collection and spin it again.
Isn’t Kossoff’s early death one reason Free is lionized?
I actually saw Humble Pie play back in the day, and “dry boogie workouts” was exactly what they delivered.
I was certainly skeptical about the 101’ers, and I never imagined we’d get to hear anything by them, but I’m glad those tracks resurfaced.
Free is a funny example to use here. Quite literally, their album Fire and Water is the second best album that Bad Company ever made. Listen to it and you’ll know exactly what I mean.
How about The Amboy Dukes? Maybe someone here likes them better than Nugent?
Also: Green River and Mother Love Bone.
Also, seeing the conversation above, how about the band The Birthday Party? Any mad props for them around here?
Mr. Mod, I have the Tomorrow album on CD & I thought it was a pleasant surprise. There’s a great cover of “Strawberry Fields Forever” & there’s some twee stuff as well as subsequent singles from splinter groups.
Good ones, Mwall. I tried an Amboy Dukes album once. Beside “Journey to the Center of Your Mind,” or whatever that’s called, it was terrible.
BigSteve, I think you’re right about Kossoff’s death. Has anyone been curious enough about that guy’s legacy to move forward a little bit and check out his post-Free band, Back Street Crawler? Their album was a staple of the unwanted, $1 used bins across America. I never got around to checking it out.
The 101ers sure were worth it for me!!!
As much respect as I have for The Move and digging a handful of songs quite a bit and preferring their Do Ya… I just can’t get into them as much as ELO.
I’m surely forfeiting any cool points I might have earned (with my Free Peein’ Bob Dylan post) but The Move just doesn’t Move me and I’m an ELO kiddie thru and thru.
I just acquired ELO’s first album and it sort of says it all for me. I imagine Jeff and Roy plotting their “orchestral” rock band only to discover that Lynne perceived it as a polished pop band with orchestral overtones while Roy perceived it as some sort of experimental symphony with rock overtones.
Roy, of course, gets all the critical finger-snaps but man his songs just blow on that album and I find myself holding my breath until the next Lynne tune.
Sneakers. Blech.
The premise of this post sounds like the faith people have in unregulated markets, as if commercial fame corresponds directly to quality and if a band’s earlier output was really good it would have been a hit. It seems to me that it is just as often the case that a band polishes away what makes them unique and then finds success latching on to some current commercial trend.
I love the second Humble Pie record, TOWN & COUNTRY. It is a real stand-out from their other stuff, acoustic and not so boogie-based. I’ve tried to warm up to their other records but I’ve never quite been able.
Free’s self-titled record from 1969 is a favorite, the one where you can look up the silhouette’s crotch on the cover. The song “I’ll Be Creepin'” is some real “Cock Rock” I can get behind. I definitely enjoy the first few Free albums more than Bad Company, no contest.
Surprised The Mod didn’t dig Idle Race’s debut, even The Beatles were fans. It is heavily influenced by SGT. PEPPER/MAGICAL MISERY TOUR era Beatles so it is definitely of a very specific flavor but the songs are pretty fun. I know a “Winner Rock” aficionado like The Mod has little time for a runner up who comes in second or third place though…
I’ll also give mad props to The Birthday Party, Nick Cave’s finest moment.
I also enjoy The International Submarine Band more than the Burritos.
Whoops – I always forget that Town & Country is the second Humble Pie album. THAT’S the one I own. It’s good to hear you, too, dig that one, db, yet haven’t warmed up to their other albums. I’ll proceed with caution.
The premise of this thread, by the way, was not intended as you read it, db. What I meant was, there are these big artists that we grew up with and never connected with but have been hearing that what we really need to hear is their earlier band. All the while, we’d think, “I just don’t see how an earlier version of this big band is going to be any better than the moderate appreciation I have for these guys in their commercial prime.” That’s how I see Free, James Gang, and Humble Pie (relative to Frampton – although I’m sure dudes who didn’t dig Humble Pie in their prime were directed to check out Small Faces regarding Marriott’s best work) fitting into the discussion. Were there no bands you didn’t care for in their commerical prime with earlier, more critically acclaimed careers that you were skeptical of checking out?
If I get time this weekend I’ll burn some of that Birthday Party album (by Jeff Lynne’s old band, not Nick Cave’s old band), and we can discuss it as community. I wish I could get our friend Jay to log on and join in. He’s also shocked that I don’t like that album. Then, with both of you here, I can move into my lecture on why The Millenium album I own is great while the Saggitarius album by the same group of musicians mostly blows.
Thanks for the advice on the Sneakers, sammy. It’s been on my Amazon wishlist forever. Is it really that bad?
I did finally take the leap on that compilation of old stuff by The Nerves, and I thought that was pretty cool, though it’s no threat to The Plimsouls’ or Peter Case’s subsequent work.
What’s the word on the Moving Sidewalks, hvb?
A few points:
Sneakers: meh. Yes, even blech.
Free/Fire and Water: Good!
First ELO album: Sammy hits the nail on the head.
I wonder how many blue-eyed soul fans from the 80s hated Paul Weller’s first band?
Moving Sidewalks: all I have is a single, and it’s pretty “meh,” though there are probably garage rock nerds who think it’s amazing.
I’m reminded of Steve Coogan’s washed-up talk show host Alan Partridge (“Here’s Alan Partridge” is definitely a TV highpoint for me) when he was trying to impress a young motel worker about his hipness.
Partirdge: Yeah, I was young once too, I smoked pot and attended a Wings concert…
Young Guy: Who are Wings?
Partridge: Just the band The Beatles COULD have been….
Don’t bring that show up at a party I’m attending, I’ll find it hard not act like a Monty Python fan doing shtick.
I guess I’m not “feeling” the premise in some way (not that it isn’t an excuse to hash out these matters) because today on-line you can stream just about anything you’re curious about. No one with a computer has to plunk down bucks to investigate Idle Race anymore, they can at least hear a taste here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5mJb-L-zWI
(What could the Mod’s beef with this band be anyway? He’s such a tuff grader…)
Working in record stores, having access to radio station libraries and having geeky collector friends have always made it easy to check out stuff without buying it.
But damn, I’m still getting over the ability to check everything out over the internet. As someone who has been a somewhat compulsive research I’ve had to be aware of taking time to shut off the computer and go talk to real people from time-to-time.
Anyway, I’m more of the opinion the most lame musical acts made decent recordings at some point in their careers, even if it was at the hands of some seasoned producer who molded them when they were green kids who knew no better.
BigSteve. RE: Sneakers. There are 2 maybe 3 songs at the top that are strong and then a heavy nose dive into blech.
S’il Vois Plait, Some Kinda Fool, Story of the Girl (sounds like a Mavericks leftover) which are tracks 2,3 & 4 and then look out below.
I think Mitch Easter is the anti-Midas.
Can you buy those tracks separately?
If not, send a note to thebackoffice[at]rocktownhall[dot]com and he may be able to hook you up.
Here’s a more recent example: the band Elliott Smith was in prior to going solo. I may have forgotten the name – Heatmiser??? I’ve heard good things about them. I’ve been curious to hear what his music might have sounded like with a little fire behind it. But I have trouble believing I’d like it much better than the little bit I like Smith’s developed solo sound.
Here’s one guarateed to intrigue the Mod — Morrissey’s punk band the Nosebleeds (with Billy Duffy later of the Cult). Unfortunately I don’t think any recordings survive.
Ha! Who knows, BigSteve, when I went back and revisited The Smiths and Morrissey a few years ago, I realized that I liked enough of his solo stuff – and definitely more than I liked anything by The Smiths. Maybe Johnny Marr’s really the problem.
Speaking of Marr, I saw Modest Mouse play on Letterman last night. The lead guy still needs counseling and needs to lose that Jerry Garcia guitar he plays, but the song they played was pretty good. It had a harmony-guitar hook that was right up my alley. Is Marr still with them? There was a thin, dark-haired guy on guitar who stepped up to the mic to sing harmonies, but I never reallly know what that guy looks like.
I have a Rising Sons CD featuring a young Ry Cooder and Taj Mahal. Meh…
OK, What about this one? Jim Messina, of the (in my book, anyway) decidedly lame soft rock duo Loggins & Messina, was a member (bass) of the underrated (again, in my book) country rock group, Poco, & before that was a member of late period Buffalo Springfield (on the last album; w/ the band for 2 yrs or so). Also, his 1st recorded work was as the eighteen year old leader (on guitar) of Jim Messina & The Jesters, a really cool surf rock band. As far as I’m concerned, the further back you go with ol’ Jimbo, the cooler it gets.
The Rising Sons is a great example. Ry Cooder is in my triumvirate, but I couldn’t really get too excited once I heard those recordings.
On the other hand, those early Lowell George recordings and the T-Bone Burnett stuff that came out in the 90s (? I think) were pretty groovy.
Oops, I’v got the whole thing ass- backwards, haven’t I. Sorry, but that’s what chronic insomnia will do to a man.
Alrighty then, The Flip City demos on the Rykodisc Vers. of E.C.’s My Aim Is True album aren’t anywhere near what he did with The Attractions, just as the Tracks cut w/Clover all sound better played by The Attractions.
Also, Kilburn & The Highroads are pretty weak in comparison to Ian Dury’s later work w/The Blockheads.
You’re catching on now, Bobby, but your point about Messina was a good one. The thing is, we’re interested in hearing Flip City in the first place as Costello fans. Again, specifically what I’m looking for are those bands that you don’t necessarily care for that, supposedly, have a more pedigreed precursor band. Humble Pie would have been suggested, for instance, to a ’70s rock nerd too cool to get into Frampton Comes Alive. Same, perhaps, for James Gang and anyone turning his nose up at Joe Walsh in the Eagles. The question becomes, DO I REALLY WANT TO GO THERE?
Moving Sidewalks are pretty interesting if you’re a fan of 60s psych stuff, because they were one of the heavier and trippier of the bands in the genre, and their album, unlike a lot of others, is well-played and well-produced. I don’t expect ZZ Top fans to like it, necessarily, but as sub-Hendrix heavy psych goes, I think it’s one of the better obscurities. They also have some pre-LP singles that are closer to garage rock, and those aren’t bad either.
I’ve heard a lot of really bad pre-fame bands (I study this stuff.)
A few of the more interesting ones:
The Hassles: Billy Joel’s first band is, in my opinion, even more unlistenable than Attila, if you can imagine such a thing.
Milkwood: this pre-Cars folk-rcok band is wussy and boring but did have one really good song, which featured Greg Hawkes as horn-arranger.
The Fredric: This band made one of the very best psych obscurities in the late 60s, and were led by none other than David Geddes, who later became famous with “Run Joey Run.”
I also am fascinated by artists like Bob Seger, Jigsaw, REO Speedwagon, Journey, Styx, etc… who were around for a really long time before they became stars. They paid their dues and produced an interesting body of work along the way, even if you can tell just why they didn’t make it at the time. In some cases the pre-fame work was better: Jigsaw was a really interesting and very quirky pop band early on, for example. The best example of this, though is R.E.O. T.W.O., which I think is the best bar band album by anyone, ever, period. It wasn’t a hit and they stuck to the grind for many years after before they struck gold, but man, they sure earned it, and while pretty much every album they did afterwards was inconsistent or forgettable, that second one is a real work of art and passion.
By the way, I’m not much of a fan of him in either guise, but I think JAMES GANG RIDES AGAIN is better than any Joe Walsh solo album.
Here’s another good one: Firetown’s “In the Heart of the Heart Country,” from Butch Vig’s second band (he was around forever before striking gold with Garbage) is excellent 80s college-radio type jangle-pop.
Oats may know more about Heatmiser than I do, but I’ve liked what I’ve heard from their last album, Mic City Sons. “Plainclothes Man” is a good one off that. I’ve been meaning to listen to more of their stuff, as I only really know of them because Sam Coomes joined for the last album.
Mod, you do have a point about the terrible production of a fair chunk of Idle Race material. There are some songs that just sound outright muddy, and I bet that haunted Lynne and helped drive him to chase dragons like “quadraphonic sound” and the ultra-high production quality of post-Wood ELO. He was like a hobo who won the lottery and swore never to be poor again.
That said, buskirk is right, and there are some terrific Idle Race songs. “Days of Broken Arrows” is flat-out great, and I’ll second dan on “I Love My Toys”. There are a few others I could recommend, if interested. “Morning Sunshine” is an amazing song that probably suffers from lousy sound. They probably could have re-done that as a Move song.
maudlin, I get you on the Move/ELO thing, but the last two Move albums when Lynne shows up can definitely have all the seeds of ELO. You can tell on those that Lynne had some kind of plan in place take over the ship. On Looking On, he took his Idle Race sound and blew the songs out and weirded them up to match Wood. On Message From The Country, he figures the formula out and leaves Wood behind. “Message From The Country” and “Words of Aaron” are more ELO than most of the first two ELO albums. On the first ELO album, Lynne’s half pretty much runs circles around what Wood thought they were doing, though “Look At Me Now” and “Whisper In The Night” are pretty much what Boulders was going to be, for those of us who like that.
I’ll go to bat for the James Gang, too. It’s not all great, but “Funk #49”, “Walk Away” and “The Bomber” alone are light years cooler than anything the Eagles ever did. It’s actually a testament to the terrifying power of the Eagles that they could take that Joe Walsh and completely drain all the rock out of him.
The Records were much much better than the Kursaal Flyers, a band whose relative obscurity is not rewarded with availability nor high-prices in the aftermarket.
the james gang aren’t really a precursor to the eagles. they only contributed one guy to the eagles, and he came along years after the eagles had established themselves. and my copies of “rides again” and the greatest hits album (with Midnight Man!!!) have gotten WAY more spins than any Eagles album ever has.
in these two cases, the myth of the precursor band holds up:
negative approach was WAY better than the laughing hyenas. WAY BETTER.
minor threat and rites of spring > fugazi
and uh…the minutemen were WAY better than firehose.
amboy dukes anyone?
Poking a hole in the middle of the cover of any James Gang album and playing that on your record player is a more satisfying musical experience than any Eagles album. But I wouldn’t call The James Gang a precursor to The Eagles. Maybe to Joe’s solo career I could see it, but I think the spottiness of The James Gang kind of let you know what you were gonna get with Joe’s solo career. Joe was an impressive boozer back in the day, and it’s not surprising that he made some bad decisions, though that Eagle thing is a fuckup of mammoth proportions. But Joe can lay down the dudely boogie with the best of them when he gets it right.
Mod are you really that unfamiliar with Free? I thought they were huge because my friend’s big sister had all their albums. We played Fire and Water and Tons of Sobs all the time. I think my favorite song is Wishing Well, which is really about Paul Kossoff and I think Paul Rodgers plays guitar on it (apparently he was pretty cool before he joined that Queen Tribute Band). Your old radio station must have sucked if they didn’t play The Hunter, Fire and Water, The Stealer, I’m a Mover and Wishing Well all the time. They were pretty big around these parts.
I have Backstreet Crawler’s Second St., which is their second album, and I think it was released after paul dided, but he’s on it. It’s pretty good, but it’s not great. I remember the first album and it was better. I liked it anyway.
I always thought the only Humble Pie album anyone ver bought was Smokin’. It’s pretty okay, with 30 Days in the Hole and Hot N Nasty leading the way. The rest of it is real spotty but not overly annoying.
2K, in my FM listening habits in Philadelphia started around 1977. All we got was “All Right Now” and then a ton of Bad Co. I’ll have to track down that second album that anyone who knows the band recommends.
Mod wrote:
No one seems to have answered this question, so I’ll fill you in, because I just read about this in Mojo. Marr is still supposedly a ‘member’ of Modest Mouse, but he’s become infatuated with a new band called The Cribs. He’s working with them on a new album and skipping the current Modest Mouse tour. Some guy named Jim Fairchild, who apparently was their Oliver on tour before Marr joined, is back with them for the current tour.
This thread has left me high & dry. I can easily think of a hundred “artistes” that started out out on the right track, in bands that are more obscure, only to strike it rich churning out pap. To start thinking hard about people whose most recognized work I didn’t like to begin with, try to come up with their earlier, supposedly “good” stuff, & analyze how that sucked as much or more than the later stuff, is just giving me a headache. Must be the bout of insomnia I’ve been dealing with this week, because, on paper (or PC screen), it’s a fun idea, but I’ve got nothing…
I’ve been listening to this for most of the afternoon and while I like it a lot overall, it’s definitely a mixed bag. In typical fashion, the studio tracks (not including the demos at the end) are way, way better than the live stuff and other odds and ends that they included. It’s worth buying alone just for the inclusion of that self-titled EP. It’s some of the best power-pop I’ve ever heard. Seriously. There’s also a great song by The Breakaways (the band formed by 2 of their members shortly after The Nerves broke up) right after that.
After that, it kinda goes downhill. Most of the rest of the collection is taken up by live stuff that’s nice, but that I can’t imagine myself listening to all that often because the quality is so-so at best. It’s sort of like the Negative Approach reissue (Total Recall) from the early ’90s, actually (I bring that up since saturn mentioned them earlier). In other words, the studio stuff rules and the live stuff is “eh”.
To be fair, though, I’ve never really listened to The Beat, The Plimsouls or Jack Lee’s solo stuff (oh the Nerves reissue also has one of his solo songs which is good in a slicked-up version of X sort of way), so I don’t know how it rates next to that stuff.