Pass: tdats
Firstly a couple of news updates; Blogspot removed its own 'subscribe by email' service some time ago so I have just added a substitute, a popular free email subscription service provided by "Follow.IT". You'll now see the subscription box in the right-hand panel of this blog, where you can get notifications of my new volumes and posts by email. You'll also see I've added a chatbox, where you can live-chat with myself or other followers within the blog, if that's useful to you.
Welcome to volume 145! We have 6 tracks from 5 new names to the blog, plus the well-deserved return of a band that first appeared on TDATS many years ago in the first Scottish volume. Joining them are a variety of aural cosmonauts from the UK, Germany and USA. This is a continuation of the idea I had for v122 (link) where I would include long jams and the type of 10+ minute extended head-trips that require a little more time and investment to appreciate than the usual 2 - 4 minute rockers I usually elect to include, so this is another one for those late-night, dark room, headphone sessions...
The cover art used for this volume is borrowed from a new comic that has just started a first-run fundraiser (link 1, link 2).
NB. as with #122, this volume is guaranteed free of seven minute drum solos :D
TRACKS01. Bodkin - Aunty Mary's Trashcan (1972)from album Bodkin02. Terry Manning - Savoy Truffle (1970)from album Home Sweet Home03. Zarathustra - Past Time (1972)from album Zarathustra04. Bachdenkel - The Settlement Song (1973)from album Lemmings05. Sweet Pain - Joy (1970)from album Sweet Pain06. ID - Where Are We Going (Part 2) (1977)from album Where Are We Going
The Lineup
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| Bodkin - original 1972 cover |
We start with a gargantuan cut from this Scottish group, Bodkin has appeared on the blog once before, way back in vol 25 (link). They are on the heaviest end of prog, sometimes reaching Sabbath or Night Sun (link) levels of blusey doom, and their sole album is excellent throughout.
The album remained in bootleg limbo for many years, with multiple unofficial releases with various made-up cover arts. As far as I can tell the original record was released in very small numbers on a private label with a very simple cover as shown on the left. The archival label Seelie Court has just released it on vinyl in 2021, maybe this is the most legitimate re-pressing so far?
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| Bodkin band |
The Seelie Court vinyl edition is out now, mastered from the original studio tapes, using the original cover converted to gatefold with lyrics, and with the band's involvement. The Akarma edition is an illegal bootleg, copied from vinyl or the old bootleg CD, and uses totally wrong and inappropriate artwork without the band's consent." (link)
The band is Bill Anderson (bass). Dick Sneddon (drums), Mick Riddel (guitar), Doug Rome (Hammond C3) and Zeik Hume (vocals).
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| Terry Manning - Home Sweet Home LP |
Here's one of the few heavy covers to appear on the blog, one of the other notable ones being Pugh's Place's storming 'Ride My Car' on the Dutch vol 35 (link).
But as with Pugh's Place, it would be a disservice to call this a mere cover, it uses the original as a starting point, then becomes its own huge and brilliant 10 minute trip covering blues, psych, country and even a hint of electronica, impossible to fully describe, you'll just have to hear it!
Terry Manning, from Texas, was in a number of El Paso bands including The Outlaws before moving to Memphis and becoming an engineer / producer for Stax Records and Ardent Studios, eventually working with names like Joe Cocker, Led Zeppelin, ZZ Top, Molly Hatchet and Shania Twain to name a very few.
He made this solo record 'Home Sweet Home' in 1970, which is a countrified psych delight. Terry has a website with a biography (link).
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| Zarathustra LP cover |
Here's a hard rock groove-monster from a German band that released one self-titled LP in 1972. Like a lot of German heavy bands at the time, they seem to have been fans of the Deep Purple / Uriah Heep school of power-rock with heavy Hammond and wailing group vocals. The album is solid, standard fare among a host of similar German bands at the time, but if this style is your bag you'll dig it, and this track deserves TDATS' full attention.
According to releases on Discogs, the member of Zarathustra that appears to have been most successful in music after the band' short existence was singer Ernst Herzner, who went on to Novalis, a reasonably successful band that made many albums up into the 1980s. Ernst even made a few solo singles in the mid '80s.
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| Bachdenkel - Lemmings LP |
Recorded in 1970, released in '73 on an album called "Lemmings", a group from Birmingham, then re-located to France. I listened to them ages ago but just listened to this album again and it's got some fantastic tracks, this song for instance is an introspective, "quiet / loud" epic and could easily have been the centerpiece on a classic '90s alternative rock album from the likes of Jane's Addiction, Stone Roses, Tool or Smashing Pumpkins, seriously.
There's another song on this album called "Come All Ye Faceless" (link) which is equally cool and almost as long, and shares the same distinctively strident, marching riff style, in fact that is the one I almost included, hence the title of this volume. The band have an interesting history, being a non-conformist, art collective type, they played at venues with full psychedelic light shows (link) and relocated to France where they recorded a second album in 1977.
There's another song on this album called "Come All Ye Faceless" (link) which is equally cool and almost as long, and shares the same distinctively strident, marching riff style, in fact that is the one I almost included, hence the title of this volume. The band have an interesting history, being a non-conformist, art collective type, they played at venues with full psychedelic light shows (link) and relocated to France where they recorded a second album in 1977.
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| Sweet Pain |
This is another groove-monster with a dance-able beat throughout, and a nimble, almost flemenco feeling accompanying the lively pace at times. It's quite a distinctive track and the drummer (Marty Foltz) is excellent, holding the full 9 minutes of addictive jams together, along with the blistering psychedelic guitar leads coming in and out frequently.
California's Sweet Pain had a tough-guy cover photo on the LP that this track is taken from, but in truth the music only touches on hard rock occasionally and this record is mainly an attempt at chart-friendly pop rock. There was a second Sweet Pain album in 1973, but it seems the band lineup had changed so much by then they were basically a different band, and moved even further from hard rock.
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| ID - Where Are We Going LP |
And we end on this huge doomy space-rock jam. There were not a lot of extended jam-prog albums like this in the US in the '70s, I've covered a few on TDATS before like Cathedral on v44 (link) and most of them were on private labels, as this album was.
Out of this set, this is the most obscure band, with sketchy information on the net, some claiming them to be from Marland / Baltimore. Discogs lists the players as Kevin Orsie (bass, vox). Ralph Jenkins (Drums, vox). David Oickle (Guitar, lead vox, mellotron), Gary Oickle (lead guitar), Bob Halsal (mellotron) and James Albert (slide guitar), and many of those names also have engineer / production credits on this record too so it really was an all-hands-on-deck type affair. I think this song is going to go down great with all fans of endless guitar solo stoner Jams from the likes of Earthless, and the end has strong echoes of um, Echoes, by Pink Floyd, with the bassist playing a riff similar to Aerosmith's awesome "Round and Round", so all in all, a perfect mind-melter to end on!
[EDIT 2023: I have now conducted an interview with Kivin Orsie from ID! (read here)]
That's all for now folks, have a nice trip!
Out of this set, this is the most obscure band, with sketchy information on the net, some claiming them to be from Marland / Baltimore. Discogs lists the players as Kevin Orsie (bass, vox). Ralph Jenkins (Drums, vox). David Oickle (Guitar, lead vox, mellotron), Gary Oickle (lead guitar), Bob Halsal (mellotron) and James Albert (slide guitar), and many of those names also have engineer / production credits on this record too so it really was an all-hands-on-deck type affair. I think this song is going to go down great with all fans of endless guitar solo stoner Jams from the likes of Earthless, and the end has strong echoes of um, Echoes, by Pink Floyd, with the bassist playing a riff similar to Aerosmith's awesome "Round and Round", so all in all, a perfect mind-melter to end on!
[EDIT 2023: I have now conducted an interview with Kivin Orsie from ID! (read here)]
That's all for now folks, have a nice trip!
Rich
Related listening:
The Day After The Sabbath 122: Sonata in Z [long tracks #1]
The Day After The Sabbath 87: Do I Look High? [first Space Rock special, feat. Mara Bunta]
The Day After The Sabbath 69: No Troubled Sky [instrumentals]
Related listening:
The Day After The Sabbath 122: Sonata in Z [long tracks #1]
The Day After The Sabbath 87: Do I Look High? [first Space Rock special, feat. Mara Bunta]
The Day After The Sabbath 69: No Troubled Sky [instrumentals]
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again a monster set of songs!!! JOY!!
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