Oct 272011
The more I think about it, the more I’m sure that Rock Town Hall needs a few experts in these areas of music. Sometimes, when I see Townspeople in person, they say things like, “[Insert band name] is a band I could never talk about in the Hall!” No, man, you can! No one’s gonna stone you if you come clean and declare your love for War Horse or Birth Control. Folks will appreciate your insider knowledge and enthusiasm.
So, in conclusion, is there an obscure band from 1971 that’s better poised to make a splash in today’s indie rock world than Juicy Lucy?
I LOVE Juicy Lucy…never heard of them or this song ever. I dig the blond girl doing the drugged out ham-bone in the audience as well.
Even The Black Crowes at their most stoned and out there were never this down and dirty
Agreed, j2!
Oh my lord, the lead guitarist is Mick Moody, who would go onto Whitesnake. One of the band’s other guitarists (not sure if he’s in this clip) is someone named Neil Hubbard, who plays on Bryan Ferry’s Let’s Stick Together and some late-period Roxy Music albums. Wikipedia even has a link to him being interviewed in Hamish Stuart’s pub: http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x6aeev_neil-hubbard-an-interview_music
Now we’re cooking!
I am vaguely familiar with Lucifer’s Friend and “Ride in the Sky” is not a poor man’s “Highway Star”, because the former came out at least a year before the Deep Purple song. Who influenced who?
I’ve not heard of Epitaph or Warhorse, and have only heard the name Juicy Lucy. However, Birth Control and their demi-prog get into my area of interest and expertise. They were a German band with a long career who in their prime sounded more English than anything with elements of Deep Purple, Uriah Heep, Argent, and ELP-type organ prog. I have the album Hoodoo Man which has the featured cut, and here’s the somewhat grotesque and NSFW cover art.
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_8i6Cl2YNI6c/S-yP5mbRvNI/AAAAAAAADEA/kj1a9i3lFSM/s1600/Birth_Control_-_Hoodoo_Man.jpg
By the way, I think Birth Control are fairly decent at their best. Not my favorite demi-prog, but I find them listenable. They can work out a good groove and are capable of throwing in unexpected touches and musical curve balls into the mix.
What I do know is that Juicy Lucy is exceeding the allowable amount of suede fringe per band.
Especially for an English band. American bands were allowed a little more fringe.
can’t say i have more than passing knowledge of their music, but i’m pretty sure lucifer’s friend and epitaph were both german bands fronted by british singers. this track contains some interesting elements that sadly fell off as hard rock took over the mainstream.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sxfv0BaGBWU
Grotesque??? R. Crumb would be proud.
I’m not familiar with any of the bands but I find it interesting that 4 out of the 5 bands were playing Orange amps (War Horse opted for matching gear). Those things sound and look great but I always thought that they were not particularly popular. However, this scene (whatever this scene is) seems to have embraced them wholeheartedly.
I’m still hopeful that a veteran or two of this scene, as you aptly put it, will step forward and add the extra something the Hall has been missing.
Perhaps, but Crumb’s drawings could be grotesque too. That’s part of their appeal.
The first Lucifer’s Friend album is one of the heaviest things I have ever heard, incredibly intense, with a completely abrasive singer, a booming bottom, and no sense of good taste whatsoever. I’m not sure I’d call it “good,” but for a song or two it really hits the spot. the title track is my favorite–the most intense song on the album. After that album they decided to be a prog band and became way less interesting. I love the Rolling Stone Record Guide summation of their career: “real bad stuff.”
RE: Juicy Lucy, a band who most people remember for the sheer tastelessness of their album covers and album names, they included the exquistite guitar work of Glenn Campbell (the Misunderstood guy), one of the very most original guitarists in all of rock, but I thought their music was always a bit lacking, mostly because the band just didn’t have any interesting songwriters. The first album is still pretty great, almost entirely due to Campbell, but it could have been much more. Later albums are lesser variations, always with moments of clarity, but disappointing.
Mod, I haven’t listened to all these clips, but this post is really great. You’re onto a whole category/subcategory of rock here that I don’t think anyone has ever given a name–and if anyone can do it, Rock Town Hall can.
It’s a category of bands that includes things like this:
“They could have been Black Sabbath if only they’d been smarter.”
“They wanted to play the blues like Humble Pie, but didn’t have the chops.”
“They were like a less danceable Iron Butterfly.”
There has to be a name for music like this, and we should make it our mission to establish one.
“They could have made it big in art rock, except that they never managed to incorporate classical music into their work with the same level of sophistication and taste as Emerson, Lake, and Palmer.”
“Live, they were nearly as good as Deep Purple, although they never mastered that band’s understanding of the value of understatement and restraint.”
You’re cracking me up, but I agree: there is work to be done. There always is!
I couldn’t help but overhear, are you guys talking about Orange Amp Rock?
The British Isles were well-represented by fringe in the 80’s: Orange Juice, Aztec Camera and the Alarm liked to sport nice suede fringe jackets.