The Day After The Sabbath 59: Too Much Of Nuthin'

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TDATS 59 is another various artist collection. We begin with Chicago's Winterhawk, a band I found during my southern rock searches and they kick-start the comp in full-throttle metal fashion. This is one of their earliest tracks taken from the demo collection "There and Back Again".

Track List:

01. Winterhawk - Too Much of Nothin' (1978)
02. Rog & Pip - War Lord / From A Window (1971)
03. Octopus - Restless Night (1971)
04. Home - The Old Man Dying (1973)
05. Pugsley Munion - Take My Soul (1970)
06. Green Bullfrog - Bullfrog (1971)
07. Warlord - Face Of The Sun (1975)
08. Blonde On Blonde - Happy Families (1971)
09. Strider - Searching The Clouds (1974)
10. Law - Ain't Been Here In A Long Time (1972)
11. Joshua - Open Your Mind (1969)
12. Goodthunder - Sentries (1972)
13. Ultra - Battery (1977)

Next up we have two tracks from "Rog & Pip", a duo that evolved from Coventry, UK's 60s beat group The Sorrows. They only made this single but both sides show an aptitude for awesome hard rock so it's a shame there was no more [EDIT: In 2014 Rise Above Relics released a full album of Rog & Pip recordings]. There is very little information to be found on Octopus, they recorded one album of melodic but somehow heavy pop/psych in 1971, I find this track Restless Night has a very addictive quality and would be perfect cover material for the stoner doom scene's new darlings, Uncle Acid And The Deadbeats!

The UK's Home produced 3 albums of fairly light prog in the early 70's, the third of which includes this track 'The Old Man Dying' with a great juxtaposition between sweet emotive acoustics and heavy riffing. They were also a springboard for AC/DC's Cliff Williams and Wishbone Ash's Laurie Wisefield no less. Fitchburg, MA's "Pugsley Munion" created a single album in 1970 and they did a great job of mixing garage psych, blues and hard rock. "Take My Soul" has an addictive groove. I have used Green Bullfrog once before, way back in the midst of time, but I had to stick this one in, some how not really catching on to it a couple of years ago, the track here is a hell for leather jam that actually manages to make the most of the not inconsiderable talent that got together for one day only to record this jam session album, including Procol Harum's Matthew Fisher, Albert Lee, Ritchie Blackmore, Ian Paice and Jodo's Rod Alexander (just named "The Rev" on the record). EDIT in 2023: I interviewed Rod regarding Jodo after making this comp (link).

We head into NWOBHM territory with the UK's Warlord, they had a posthumous 2002 release of material that was reputedly recorded around 1975 and if so, it does show in places a kind of more modern metal sound. Newport, Wales' Blonde On Blonde are up next, I used the previously on the Welsh Vol56, among their proggy psych a few fine hard riffs emerged as in the quirky "Happy Families". London, UK's Strider made a couple of hard rock albums in the mid-70s and mastered a brash confident piano-laden sound, if not particularly original. "Searching The Clouds" is the heaviest cut from their 2nd album, 1974's 'Misunderstood'. Youngstown Ohio's Law evolved into a tight funk-rock unit through the 70s but their early material, which has been posthumously collected by guitarist Steve Acker in his "Law - First Session" collection, made available on his website, was pure driven hard rock, exemplified here by 1972's motoring "Ain't Been Here In A Long Time". Law links: 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , Wiki , Discogs

Sacramento's Joshua reputedly only pressed 50 copies of their subtly-heavy west coast style psych album and the track 'Open Your Mind' has a satisfyingly deep bass riff. Next up is LA's Goodthunder, I used them previously on vol55 and think the album is good enough to warrant one more track, this time the short and grooving 'Sentries' which again is based upon a rock solid bass groove. This installment ends with a track taken from the Rockadrome re-issue of Ultra, reputedly a Texan band headed by Homer's guitarist Galen Niles, who dealt in some blistering late 70s twin-guitar hard rock, definitely one for Thin Lizzy fans. More can be read about Ultra on their archived website (link) or at their Facebook (link).



Thanks for listening! Rich

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