Est. 2009 - aftersabbath.blogspot.com Hard Rock,
Proto-metal, Proto-Doom, Stoner Rock & Heavy Prog/Psych obscurities of the '60s and '70s.
Email: aftersabbath@live.co.uk
A few things to say for the new year. Firstly, it's not long since I posted Volume 112, a themed selection of UK rock in an American country rock style, so if you haven't seen it, here it is. For those interested, I was kindly invited to do a telephone interview about TDATS with DJ Lucille for her Italian radio show 'Lucyfer', at 'Controradio' on 4th January. This streamed world-wide at http://www.controradio.it/. It will be repeated there on Sunday 8th January at 11pm CET, and for locals on 93.6 FM in Florence, 98.9 FM in Pisa, Lucca and Livorno (Tuscany West Coast). (more info)
On to today's post.....this is a quickly-made, fun downloadable comp of many of the best, most interesting, and most-worthy-of-further-investigation finds for the blog in 2014. There's quite a few picks from Volume 112, for which I found a ton of new bands. There's the great discovery of East-West Pipeline which was on biker movies, and the single made by Cobra called Super Woman, which was released under the band name 'Island'. There's a couple from the Indonesian Vol106 which turned out great and one of Mik Kay's great choices from Vol110, Bulbous Creation. I've added individual Youtube clips below for some quick listens. Below them I have included the band write-ups previously done for the blog.
Thanks for reading in 2014 and as usual, there's lots more in store for 2015. Happy new year, Rich.
TRACKS:
01. Guitar Orchestra - Last Chicken In The Shop (1971) on Vol112
from album 'Guitar Orchestra'
02. Heads Hands & Feet - Hot Property (1971) on Vol112 from album 'Tracks'
03. East-West Pipeline - Unlocked (1972) on Vol109 from Bury Me An Angel OST
04. Ellis - Your Game (1972) on Vol112 from album 'Riding On The Crest Of A Slump'
05. Holy Mackerel - The Boy And The Mekon (1972) on Vol112 from album 'Holy Mackerel'
06. Island / Cobra - Super Woman (1971) on Vol111 single
07. 60,000,000 Buffalo - Royalty Rag & Cocaine Shuffle (1972) on Vol97 from album 'nevada jukebox'
08. Benny Soebardja and Lizard - Circle of Love (1977) on Vol106 from album "Gimme a Piece of Gut Rock" [The Lizard Years]
09. Fort Mudge Memorial Dump - Crystal Forms (1969) on Vol97 from album 'Fort Mudge Memorial Dump'
10. Jellybread - Green Eyed Gypsy Queen (1972) on Vol112 from album 'Back To Begin Again'
11. Joe Soap - Get Out From Under (1973) on Vol103 from album 'keep it clean'
12. Ray Fenwick - Stateside (1970) on Vol103 from album "Keep America Beautiful, Get a Haircut"
13. Shark Move - Evil War (1972) on Vol106 from album "Ghede Chokra's"
14. Bulbous Creation - Let's Go to the Sea (1970) on Vol110 from album 'You Won't Remember Dying'
15. Martha Velèz - Feel So Bad (1969) on Vol97 from album 'fiends & angels'
16. Lee Pickens Group - Thumbs Up (1973) on Vol103 from album "LPG"
For track 1 is a very special find indeed. Actually more than just special, it's some kind of one-time-only occurrence almost without precedent. I came across the album by the name of "Guitar Orchestra" while looking into the side-projects of Mick Grabham and Ray Fenwick. I tracked it down and have been knocked over by the quality of stella musicianship that it contains. The story is that guitarist Ray Fenwick (The Spencer Davis Group) and guitarist Mick Grabham (of Cochise, previously of Plastic Penny) met up one day through ex-Plastic Penny drummer Nigel Olsen, when he joined Spencer Davis Group.
Ray and Mick got on well straight away and soon formulated a plan, in the finest of '70s rock excess, to make a touring band and album dominated by many expert guitarists. Four lead guitarists were initially planned, but as it never amounted to a live entity, the multiple guitar layers and harmonies were over-dubbed by Ray and Mick. Mick claims that the idea was inspired by a 1962 LP called "Guitars'a Plenty", made by the George Barnes Guitar Choir (link). Also invited in were Dee Murray (Elton John Band) on bass and Tony Newman (May Blitz, Three Man Army) on drums. Vocals were mainly provided by John Gilbert of Cochise. Tim Renwick also guests on the album, he was mentioned at the beginning as a member of Quiver - on a small side note, Tim was a key supporting guitarist for Pink Floyd in all their shows since Momentary Lapse of Reason, up until Live 8, and a great job he did too. Dave Gilmour produced an early Quiver album, as one of his first production credits.
Mike Grabham - Ray Fenwick
The end result is a fascinating collection of mostly instrumental guitar-heavy blues, with lots of harmonised guitar parts and hints of country and progressive rock. The set opens with a nine minute rendition of Elgar's "Pomp and Circumstance March", while impressive it is the most self-indulgent piece. The rest of the LP is played with equal skill and the songs themselves are genuinely good, with the likes of "Ghost Town" being particularly affecting, aided by John Gilbert's impassioned performance. The same can be said for the song I have picked for this comp, "Last Chicken in the Shop", a perfect choice as it's one of the most country flavoured tracks, and one of the heaviest. This is not some guitarist's show-off collection, it sounds like a fully-formed band, like a hard rock Eagles album that never-was. Lost to the vaults after being made, it was not officially released until 1997 by AngelAir. This is without doubt one of the most impressive curios I have ever found. Looking into the talents that made it, the best of Ray Fenwick, John Gilbert or Mick Grabham's previous works don't have anything to quite compare, so there was clearly a great chemistry happening when they all got together for this. It's a shame will not see more of it!
Personally speaking, the story of Heads Hands & Feet is a bit of a sad tale of missed opportunity that I find to be poignant. Still, the band was made up of seasoned musicians who's careers would continue without the band. They evolved from a studio-only band's record put out under the name of "Poet And The One Man Band", which was overseen by Tony Colton. By this point Tony had become an industry name. He was a band-leader, writer, arranger and producer who had made many of his contacts while frequenting The Flamingo Club in Soho, especially the Flamingo Allnighter on Friday nights. There's an incredible interview with Tony you can read here that recounts the many personalities that he was acquainted with.
Head Hands & Feet was the logical conclusion for Poet And The One Man Band, a band that Tony had gotten together as support for some of his clients. For instance, they played behind Shirley Bassey on her 5 million-selling album "Something". Variously they were Albert Lee (gtr), Jerry Donahue (gtr), Pat Donaldson (bass), John Bell (clarinet), Speedy Aquaye (percussion), Barry Morgan (drums), Peter Gavin (drums), Raymond Barry Smith (gtr) and Tony (lead vocals). A number of piano/organ players were involved: William Davies, Roger Coulam, Nicky Hopkins and Mike O'Neill. Track 8 in this comp is from Poet's album which was made in 1969.
Most of those names, with the addition of Chas Hodges, were to make up Heads Hands & Feet. Chas, from Edmonton, north London, had been in many beat bands by this stage, including Cliff Bennett's Rebel Rousers, and Joe Meek's house band The Outlaws (with Ritchie Blackmore). He also took part in the Green Bullfrog Sessions (See Vols 13 & 59) with a whole bunch of names including Albert Lee and Rod Alexander of Jodo (See tdats interview with Rod here). HH&F were snapped up by record labels, with their ready-made credentials and mass appeal which was seen as ripe for the US, they were reputedly offered the biggest advance in the history of rock, half a million dollars from Capitol in the US. In the UK they were on Island records. HH&F never realised their full potential, even though they made three albums proper, and after a faltering start they imploded within 4 years of forming. For fascinating details into the times, read the interview I mentioned previously.
C.J. Flanagan and Tony Colton
Most of the band continued productive careers in music, Chas became one half of the 'Rockneys' Chas 'n' Dave and Albert Lee's guitar virtuosity has gained him notoriety playing with big names like Joe Cocker (RIP), Emmylou Harris and Eric Clapton. Despite remaining productive in the industry, Tony admits he was hit extremely hard by the failure of HH&F. At the time he was also burdened with marital problems, he lost interest in making it big, sinking into periods of drug and alcohol addiction. His resurgence occured after US country artist Ricky Scaggs won awards with a 1984 cover of the old HH&F favourite, "Country Boy". Tony has since been re-building a successful career up to this day, in US country music. Reports that he has a side-line as a Dustin Hoffman look-alike remain unconfirmed however...
Bury Me An Angel (1972) promo shot
In my searches for good rock in biker movies, I came across East-West Pipeline on two soundtracks. They made some great songs and I was intrigued as to whether they were a real band or just something made up for the sake of the film scores, as is sometimes the case. The movies were Angels Die Hard (1971), and it's much lesser-known and lower budget spin-off, Bury Me An Angel (1972). In fact, East-West Pipeline are credited with the entire score of Bury Me An Angel (BMAA), whilst their name is on about half the songs in Angels Die Hard (ADH). The two best songs I have found from them are "You Could Be" in ADH, and the untitled intro song in BMAA, which I will call "Unlocked" for now, and it's the opening track in this comp. They are both grungy, heavy and just plain great tracks, with lots of attitude and character. The kind of thing that comes out of the blue and makes your ears twitch, and wonder what happened to the obvious talent that made them. Although there are not many complete 'songs' on the BMAA soundtrack, all the music in the movie is really good and hints at enough having been recorded to make a great album, which never apparently happened.
This got me looking for any possibility of contacting the band members, to find out more. By luck I found a minor entry in an old website about Colorado bands, Colorado Music Page. In there it says that their original name was Magic Myce: "The original members were me, Walt Rawlins, Bill Cone, Gordy Peterson and Ray Styes. We played at the Exodus, Family Dog, Tulagis, Kelker Junction and many other places around Colorado from 1967 until we left for California in '69. We had a local single that was played a lot on the radio, Angel Baby, which was a remake of the old '50s song. Once we got to California we played a lot around local clubs there and recorded some movie soundtracks, Angels Die Hard and Bury Me an Angel. Angels Die Hard had a soundtrack album released but they didn't do that for the other one. The name of the band was changed to the "East-West Pipeline" when we did those. Later we changed the name of the band again in California to "Bedlam" which lasted until we broke up out there in about 1974.Walt Rawlins---guitar, Bill Cone------guitar, Gordy Peterson--?, Ray Styes---?"
Bury Me An Angel VHS cover
I am not sure who the "me" referred to in the above is. It may be Walt Rawlins or Bill Cone. On further investigation I found this: "The Angels Die Hard soundtrack on UNI contains the only commercially released East-West Pipeline recordings. They also did the soundtrack for another biker flick (Bury Me An Angel) but no album was released. The band was originally from Denver, then moved to California in 1969. Changed their name from Magic Myce/Majic when they moved out west, later changing it again in the early '70s to Bedlam. Their guitarist Bill Cone was previously in The Moonrakers, who have been discussed here recently. Later on, he acted in the horror movie classic Phantasm."
My searches came to an end, with some evidence that Walt Rawlins unfortunately passed away in 2010. The final lead is that Walt and Ray were both once involved in a Colorado band called Willie & the Po' Boys, although I don't think that Ray still is. They have a facebook group here where I have not had luck in contacting Ray Styes as yet.
Ellis
We move on to Ellis, a band which produced two records, the debut being by far the best. The key members were namesake Steve Ellis (vocals - ex-Love Affair) and 'Zoot' Money, real name George Bruno Money (Keyboards, The Animals, Humble Pie). There's a definite Faces vibe about the LPs, not only in Steve's 'Rod Stewart' rasp, but in their good time bar-room sound. The self-depreciatingly titled debut LP "Riding On The Crest Of A Slump" was produced by Roger Daltrey, who Eliss was renting from and living next to at the time.
Ellis Riding On The Crest Of A Slump
I have used the track 'Your Game', with it's southern rock sound. The guitar embellishments provided by Andy Gee (real name Gröber) really push it to another level. Complementing the band along with Andy (ex-Peter Bardens), was Jimmy Leverton (bassist, ex-Fat Mattress - later replaced by Nick South) and drummer Dave Lutton. Ellis quit after the second album, which he admits was lacklustre, feeling they'd been ignored in favour of the Epic label's more established stars like Jeff Beck, Argent and Donovan. There's a good read here on Steve's website, where he talks about Ellis, using the previously-mentioned Eggs Over Easy as a backing band, his friendship with Keith Moon and almost losing his ability to walk in a dockyard accident. Steve and Zoot would soon pair up again on the first Widow Maker album in 1976.
Holy Mackerel LP
This took me a while to track down, and I have now managed to find it, to my great satisfaction. While looking up UK bands online that had been tagged 'country rock', I discovered a completely new one to me, called Holy Mackerel. I did a youtube search for it to see if I could get a quick listen, and low and behold, I soon find a song with "Holy Mackerel - Members of Samuel Prody and Orang-Utan" in the title. Now, alarm bells start ringing. As many of you may know, Orang-Utan was the one-shot London band who recorded a great session one day in 1971.
They got stitched-up by a dodgy producer, who released it as an album in the US without telling any of them, keeping all the profits to himself of course. He even made up the artwork, and the name Orang-Utan, for the sake of the cover. There is a little more on the subject in an interview with guitarist Mick Clarke at It's Psychedelic Baby magazine (link). The connection between Orang-Utan and Holy Mackerel is singer Terry Clark. Now, Terry Clark links another band to Holy Mackerel, Jason Crest. This was a singles-only late '60s psych band who made some average stuff in their time, up until a final acclaimed heavy single in 1969; A Place In The Sun / Black Mass (youtube). Vocalist Terry, Roger Siggery (drums) and Derek Smallcombe (guitar) were all members of Jason Crest, and they all moved on to form Holy Mackerel afterwards. The final associated act is Samuel Prody, an English band that included Derek Smallcombe, which recorded one album in Germany, that has some pretty good heavy stuff on it (youtube).
Holy Mackerel band
The story goes that this group added a second lead guitarist Chris Ware, a bass player Tony Wood, and then relocated to the Lancashire countryside to practice for an album of rural rock. The result was the self-titled Holy Mackerel album, which was released by CBS in 1972. It's great! There's no doubt that the guys had a definite idea about what they wanted with Holy Mackerel, it certainly is no re-hash of Orang-Utan, Jason Crest or Samuel Prody. It's a mainly up-beat set of country rockers, with a glam edge, and a couple of ballads. Although the country aspect is of the american flavour, it still maintains a very English feel also, making this quite a unique sounding record. Don't expect any Sabbath heaviness, or any other typical hard rock moves, it's got a fresh, melodic sound of it's own, with a glam energy and urgency that rocks all the way! Apparently Holy Mackerel recorded a second album which was shelved after the band was dropped by it's label. But they did release three singles after the first album. One of which, 'Gemini', was for the second album, which was posthumously released in 1993 (link).
Judy Roderick & Bill Ashford
A huge thanks to Record-Fiend blog for this article on 60,000,000 Buffalo: "Upon the demise of the '60s, it was not uncommon for the folkies of that decade to embrace the rural rock movement of the early '70s. That is, if they hadn't already picked up electric instruments and started rockin' after the release of Bob Dylan's Bringing It All Back Home in 1965. In the case of Judy Roderick, who had put out two highly regarded mostly acoustic albums for Columbia and Vanguard in the mid-1960s, Nevada Jukebox was the product of a 1971 recording session with her new group, 60,000,000 Buffalo. Her signature voice was still there, although years of woodshedding in her adopted home state of Colorado throughout the latter half of the 1960s clearly had an effect on her delivery, which showed the influence of Janis Joplin and other female vocalists of similar ilk. The album photography shows her looking somewhat like a less appealing Bonnie Bramlett along with a man who is probably either bassist Brent Williamson or guitarist Don DeBacker [Edit: It's actually Bill Ashford]. What a pity that the ravages of living through the 1960s deprived Roderick of her elfin beauty that was readily apparent on the cover of her Woman Blue LP.
Nevada Jukebox - LP front (1972)
The story behind the group's name is unclear. Perhaps it has something to do with the number of buffalo that lived on the North American continent prior to their near extinction brought about by the colonization of white people. I've read that some folks compare this group with another Colorado band, Zephyr (which featured a very young Tommy Bolin on lead guitar). But other than the superficial fact that the two outfits both featured female lead vocalists (Zephyr's was the caterwauling Candice Givens), I don't think they have much in common in regard to music. While Zephyr was very much a rock and blooze band, Roderick's folk background clearly had a strong influence on 60,000,000 Buffalo's more rootsy sound.
Nevada Jukebox - LP rear (1972)
Most of the album's songs were written by Roderick and her husband William Ashford. The opening cut, the brief "Royalty Rag" segues into the cowbell-laden and quintessentially early 1970s ode to blow, "Cocaine Shuffle." "Canyon Persuasion" is a pleasant laid back piece featuring Roderick's strummed acoustic guitar and DeBacker's Leslie speaker-amplified electric instrument. "Lovely Ladies" is more of an all-out rocker with some somewhat herky-jerky time signatures, while "Denver Dame" may very well be an autobiographical piece that deals with Roderick's life experiences in Colorado. The traditional "Maid of Constant Sorrow" is definitely Nevada Jukebox's highlight and, in fact, just might be the heaviest version of this particular song ever committed to wax. Folk rock was a dying breed by the time this album came out, but bands like this weren't going to let the genre go down without a fight. Seriously, this rendition of this venerable warhorse fuckin' rocks, especially with the outstanding guitar interplay between Roderick and DeBacker. "Shake It and Break It" is a decent cover of a song originally done by prewar Delta blues legend Charlie Patton and features the boys in the band - DeBacker and Williamson - handling the lead vocal duties. More early 1970s vibes and plenty of cowbell are to be found on the rock-meets-folk-meets-country-meets-funk piece "Callin' You Down." After a fine arrangement of the traditional "Country Girl Again," there is some really nice slide guitar work on "American Money Blues." The closer, "Do What I Tell Me To," is a tune in the same bag as "Cocaine Shuffle" and "Callin' You Down" - definitely a product of its time."
Benny Soebardja, born 1949 in Tasikmalaya, Jawa Barat, was an important guitarist who started out in The Peels in 1966. This was one of the first bands to get over-seas recognition. His resume also includes Shark Move, Giant Step, and briefly, Fantastique Group. Fantastique Goup was a pop group that made a few albums, and similarly to AKA, made some music in the "Qasidah Modern" style, this being a great one: Allahu Akbar. Benny made three highly sought-after solo records in the '70s, which were independently released. Strawberry Rain has re-issued them all; each album separately, and all together as "Benny Soebardja – The Lizard Years". The Lizard part of the name comes from Benny's backing band, an ensemble which contained members of both Giant Step and Harry Roesli’s Philosophy Gang. Benny had no label influence while recording these offerings, making them true private press recordings, and the spirit of his excellent work with Shark Move and Giant Step pervades it all.
He was truly one of the pioneers of prog in Indonesia with the level of talent and inventiveness that can only be compared to two or three other acts at the time, and stands up with the international greats of the seventies. The track I used here, "Circle of Love", demonstrates this with awesome soloing and twisting progressive passages. Over at Psychedelic Baby blog there's a great interview with Benny; here.
We'll go straight to Jellybread'scountry-funktastic "Green Eyed Gypsy Queen". I find the first three Jellybreadalbums to be unremarkable, pedestrian, straight-blues. They got a real shot in the arm for the fourth, "Back To Begin Again". Maybe the name says it all. They do sound like a different band, beginning again, and the addition of Rick Birkett on guitar (ex-Accent see Vol57) and Kenny Lamb (drums) must have been a contributing factor. On this one they play predominantly hard, funky, country-tinged tunes, with much more attitude in Paul Butler's vocals. Maybe spurred on by the harder hitting music?
Jellybread - Back To Begin Again
Here's what Allmusic (link) has to say about them: "Formed at England’s Sussex University by pianist Pete Wingfield, Jellybread was originally completed by Paul Butler (guitar/vocals), John Best (bass), and Chris Waters (drums). In 1969 the quartet secured a recording contract with the exemplary Blue Horizon Records label and although largely unadventurous, their albums offered a highly competent grasp of black music, including both blues and soul. They provided stellar accompaniment on Lightnin’ Slim's London Gumbo and B.B. King in London, but the unit dissolved in 1971 with the departure of Wingfield and Waters. Newcomers Rick Birkett (guitar, ex-Accent) and Kenny Lamb (drums) joined for Back to Begin Again, but Jellybread broke up when the set failed to make commercial headway. However, Wingfield enjoyed success as a solo artist, session pianist, and member of Olympic Runners." He's also played with Alan Parsons rhythm section, Dexy's Midnight Runners, Paul McCartney, The Hollies and Van Morrison.
Tennent & Morrison Joe Soap
On to some more conventional rocking with a Stonesy number from Joe Soap. This band was a project of singer/guitarists John Tennent and David Morrison, who had released an album the year before as the duo 'Tennent & Morrison', which included a lot of musicians from Stone the Crows. Along for the ride came guitarist Jimmy McCulloch (Thunderclap Newman, Stone The Crows, Wings), violinist Mik Kaminski (ELO), drummer Gerry Conway (Jethro Tull, Fairport Convention, The Pentangle) and Jeff Pearce on bass.
The folk influences from some of this impressive lineup come through, but mostly the album is upbeat, fun and immediately likable rock, and rock it does in many places. Mik Kaminski's violin is not mainly at the forefront, but grooves away in perfect unison with McCulloch's cocky riffs to make it impossible to sit still listening to tracks like "Come Out From Under", which integrates the violin in a similar way to East of Eden on tracks like "Northern Hemisphere" (See Vol74).
Shark Move
Moving on to Bandung's Shark Move, for some Deep Purple worship of a high order. The band was Benny Soebardja (vocals, lead guitar), Bhagu Ramchand (vocals), Sammy Zakaria (drums, vocals), Janto Diablo (vocals, bass, flute) and Soman Loebis (vocals, keyboards, piano, percussion). Good friends Benny and Soman (who first got together in garage band The Peels) started the band, which recorded the album Ghede Chokra's in 1972 with only 100 vinyls pressed. Later it would be pirated on cassette tape, the main format in idonesia in the later '70s, and re-issued in the 2000's after re-discovery around the globe. It was a truly unique sound for an Indonesian band. Standing out from the sweetly pleasant pop music of the times, it must have been a real blast for anyone first hearing it. Nobody else had recorded anything this advanced or progressively heavy in the country at that point. Tragedy struck soon after the albums' release and Soman was killed in a traffic accident. No doubt very upset, and unable to find a suitable replacement for his keyboard skills, Benny folded the band. Benny then started up Giant Step, which fortunately reprised Shark Move's legacy and became an equally important prog band.
Bulbous Creation
I was sure that I had used Bulbous Creation on TDATS before, but looking back it seems I did not, so thanks Mik for the reminder about this brilliant album! Here is another find from the vaults of obscurity by Rockadelic. Nicely, the tapes were found at the same Cavern Sound studio in Missouri that Rockadelic found the Crank tapes, a favourite of mine. The whole album has a dark, almost gothic feel to it, but it is most certainly top, heavy fuzz-psych all the way. The track Mik has recommended here, 'Let's Go To The Sea', is a long and explorative piece with some truly trippy delay madness around the half-way mark, worthy of the best in prog and krautrock of the times.This band was not just another bunch of bonehead crunchers and it's a shame we will never get to see what they might have become if they hadn't disappeared...
Martha Veléz is an American singer and actress of Puerto Rican descent. Veléz is the former wife of trumpet player Keith Johnson. Her son is performance artist, writer-poet, and singer Taj Johnson. Taj appeared as series regular for two years on Parker Lewis Can't Lose. Her brother is the percussionist Gerardo Velez, who has worked with Spyro Gyra, Patti LaBelle, Jimi Hendrix and Van Morrison. Her first album 'Fiends & Angels' was a blues-psych-jazz-rock session where she was backed by the stellar line up of UK blues-jazz-rock musicians, inc. Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce, Brian Auger, Paul Kossoff, Chris Wood, Mitch Mitchell, Johnny Almond, Rick Hayward, Chris Mercer, the whole Chicken Shack and most of the Keef Hartley Band.
For the time & expenses of the eternal search..Thanks!
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Unzip problem? Make sure you enter the password, and for MAC users especially, I recommend using the free, opensource program 7Zip (there is a MAC version too), which is what I make the zips with. Feel free to contact me, or report dead/erroneous links, at: aftersabbath@live.co.uk If you have trouble with any volumes in particular email me and I'll sort out alternative methods.
Recommendations and advice is always appreciated, Cheers! Rich
This got me looking for any possibility of contacting the band members, to find out more. By luck I found a minor entry in an old website about Colorado bands, Colorado Music Page. In there it says that their original name was Magic Myce: "The original members were me, Walt Rawlins, Bill Cone, Gordy Peterson and Ray Styes. We played at the Exodus, Family Dog, Tulagis, Kelker Junction and many other places around Colorado from 1967 until we left for California in '69. We had a local single that was played a lot on the radio, Angel Baby, which was a remake of the old '50s song. Once we got to California we played a lot around local clubs there and recorded some movie soundtracks, Angels Die Hard and Bury Me an Angel. Angels Die Hard had a soundtrack album released but they didn't do that for the other one. The name of the band was changed to the "East-West Pipeline" when we did those. Later we changed the name of the band again in California to "Bedlam" which lasted until we broke up out there in about 1974.Walt Rawlins---guitar, Bill Cone------guitar, Gordy Peterson--?, Ray Styes---?"
Benny Soebardja, born 1949 in Tasikmalaya, Jawa Barat, was an important guitarist who started out in The Peels in 1966. This was one of the first bands to get over-seas recognition. His resume also includes Shark Move, Giant Step, and briefly, Fantastique Group. Fantastique Goup was a pop group that made a few albums, and similarly to AKA, made some music in the "Qasidah Modern" style, this being a great one: Allahu Akbar. Benny made three highly sought-after solo records in the '70s, which were independently released. Strawberry Rain has re-issued them all; each album separately, and all together as "Benny Soebardja – The Lizard Years". The Lizard part of the name comes from Benny's backing band, an ensemble which contained members of both Giant Step and Harry Roesli’s Philosophy Gang. Benny had no label influence while recording these offerings, making them true private press recordings, and the spirit of his excellent work with Shark Move and Giant Step pervades it all. 
this blog never ceases to amaze
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