Crappy Turntable, Awesome Records

Hairy Chapter: Can't Get Through (1971)

"A righteous royal shit-stirrer which should be in the collection of every 21st Century Head."

That's how Julian Cope -- erstwhile leader of post-punk neo-psych evangelists, The Teardrop Explodes, eccentric music historian, and self-described Modern Antiquarian and Arch-Drude -- described Hairy Chapter's 1971 sophomore album, Can't Get Through.

And while I won't give it as much of an effusive, ringing endorsement myself, there's no denying that this mysterious quartet from Bonn, Germany, delivered one of the wildest, rawest, uh ... "chapters" of its era -- and that's saying something.

Formed in 1969 by Harry Titlbach (guitar), Harry Unte (vocals, acoustic guitar), Rudolf Oldenburg (bass), and Rudi Haubold (drums), the group made its debut as Chaparall Electric Sound Inc. and an album entitled Electric Sound for Dancing that same year.

But they switched names to Hairy Chapter in 1970 (two Harrys makes a Hairy?), welcomed new drummer Werner Faus, and recorded a new collection of aggressive garage-and-psych rock in thrall to Jimi Hendrix called Eyes on the budget OPP Worldwide label.

This showed enough promise to land Hairy Chapter a contract with Bacillus Records -- an imprint of Bellaphon launched to compete with other major-owned "underground" labels like Harvest and Vertigo -- before capturing this, their defining studio effort.

Recorded between November 1970 and January of '71 at legendary Dierks Studios with producer/engineer Dieter Dierks (later to work with Nektar, Ash Ra Tempel, Tangerine Dream, and Scorpions, among others), Can't Get Through was a bona fide freak-out.

Nihilistic opener "There's a Kind of Nothing" unleashes Unte's unhinged vocals and unsung guitar shredder Titlbach's waves of scorching fuzz distortion and screaming feedback, before settling down for a chill Oldenburg bass solo and soothing, introspective strums.

The ensuing, ten-minute-long titular jam packs in even more six-string virtuosity that can't be concealed by Titlbach's savage fretwork and searing blues, while jousting with a wailing harmonica and the rhythm section's driving, quasi-Motorik chug-chug-chug.

Then comes the album's piece de resistance, the intriguingly named "It Must Be an Officer's Daughter," which matches its absurdist title with an irresistible, sinister melody and supporting riffs, as well as Unte, seemingly stoned out of his mind, issuing erotic ramblings like:

"Give me your body, give me your mind; I wanna hold your luscious breast in my hand; I wanna stay with you a-lyin' in bed; I ... I ... I wanna feel your 27 fingers exploring my body!"

Did I mention recreational drugs may have been involved?

Then they come down with "As We Crossed Over" -- an acoustic murder ballad worthy of Townes Van Zandt, complete with Mariachi horns -- and, finally, the renewed metallic intensity of the self-explanatory (not!) "You've Got to Follow this Masquerade."

My man, Cope, also helpfully connects Hairy Chapter's complex web of influences to bands as diverse as prime shock rock era Alice Cooper, UK cult blues-rockers the Groundhogs, and Kraut-rock riff titans Amon Duul II, and I see his points on all fronts.

In conclusion: Can't Get Through is where acid-psych improvisation, proto-metal catharsis, and Kraut-rock experimentalism overlap, but with so much going on, there was simply no way Hairy Chapter were going to find a large enough audience to sustain their career.

Not even close, and when faced with such dim prospects and limited support from Bacillus, the band members decided to go their separate ways shortly after the album hit shelves (thus amplifying its eventual collectability), and were hardly ever heard from again.

More Obscure Early ‘70s Heavy Rock: A.K.A.’s Do What You Like, Alamo’s Alamo, Ancient Grease’s Women and Children First, Asterix’s Asterix, Atlee’s Flying a Head, Bang’s Mother/Bow to the King, Birtha’s Birtha, Blackwater Park’s Dirt Box, Bloodrock’s Bloodrock 2, Blues Creation’s Demon & Eleven Children, Bolder Damn’s Mourning, Boomerang’s Boomerang, Buffalo’s Volcanic Rock, Bull Angus’ Bull Angus, Cactus’ Cactus, Captain Beyond’s Captain Beyond, Charlee’s Charlee, Copperhead’s Copperhead, Cradle’s The History, Crushed Butler’s Uncrushed, Curly Curve’s Curly Curve, Dies Irae's First, Fanny Adams’ Fanny Adams, Flied Egg’s Dr. Siegel’s Fried Egg Shooting Machine, Flower Travellin’ Band’s Satori, A Foot in Coldwater’s A Foot in Coldwater, Fuse’s Fuse, Gift’s Gift, Hard Stuff’s Bulletproof, Haystacks Balboa's Haystacks Balboa, Head Over Heels’ Head Over Heels, Heavy Cruiser’s Heavy Cruiser…

Iron Maiden: "Wasted Years" / "Reach Out" (1986)

Almost 40 years ago, in late August of 1986, Iron Maiden released "Wasted Years": the first single off their sixth studio album, Somewhere in Time, and also the first composed solely by guitarist Adrian Smith.

Previously, Smith and singer Bruce Dickinson had co-written Piece of Mind's "Flight of Icarus" and Powerslave's "2 Minutes to Midnight," but having contributed a solid number of tunes since joining Maiden in '82, Dickinson credits were nowhere to be found on this LP.

As fans would later learn, a combination musical differences (Bruce brought a few "acoustic-based" songs that bassist Steve Harris rejected out of hand) and sheer burn-out from the grueling World Slavery Tour were to blame, and this opened the door for Smith's greater presence.

Of the three cuts he submitted for Somewhere in Time (the other two being "Sea of Madness" and "Stranger in a Strange Land"), plus Harris' four-and-half contributions (he penned "Deja-Vu" with guitarist Dave Murray), "Wasted Years" was the obvious single candidate.

Ironically and also conveniently, so as not to worry conservative Maiden fans, in an album famous (or infamous, depending on who you ask) for adopting guitar synthesizers, "Wasted Years" is the only song that did NOT feature that controversial innovation.

But its lyrics were another story; breaking with Maiden's penchant for literary, historical, or fantasy-focused narratives, to explore more personal themes of alienation, physical, and mental exhaustion after spending nearly a year on the road.

And yet, the song's initially troubled lyrics had resolved into a hopeful, positive message by the time they arrived at the song's chorus, reflecting Smith's own realization that:

"So understand ... Don't waste your time always searching for those wasted years; Face up, make your stand; And realize you're living in the golden years."

For the single's B-side, Maiden recorded a relatively straight hard rocker called "Reach Out," composed by Samson and Bad Company guitarist Dave Colwell, and first cut by his side project with Smith (who also sings), drummer Nicko McBrain, and members of the British group FM.

Fans lucky enough to score a 12-inch version of the single were also presented with an atypically loose, merciless, but affectionate piss-take of the band's long-serving, tight-fisted manager Rod Smallwood, entitled "The Sheriff of Huddersfield."

As for the original single's cover art, boasting an unusually discreet depiction of band mascot, Eddie, according to artist Derek Riggs, this was because the band didn't want to reveal the mascot in his new cyborg guise until Somewhere in Time arrived in stores a few weeks later.

But eagle-eyed fans may spy Dr. Who's Tardis drifting in space and references to prior Maiden LPs like The Number of the Beast (a burning lake of fire), Powerslave (pyramids), and Live After Death (a moonlit graveyard) in this time machine's control panel.

So you see, as with this song's thoughtful, multi-layered message, no attention to detail was ever wasted on a piece of Iron Maiden product, no matter its format.

Iggy Pop: The Idiot (1977)

50 years ago, Iggy Pop and David Bowie were putting their lives and careers back on track through an intense creative collaboration that yielded, among other things, Iggy's first solo album, The Idiot.

Not surprisingly, the album was as much about art as it was about survival.

After The Stooges' messy break-up, Iggy had been cast adrift in L.A., riding an eternal bender of drug-fueled self-destruction that ultimately landed him in the city's psychiatric institute, where he was visited and from which he was eventually rescued by Bowie.

No stranger to the rock star death-trip himself, David convinced Iggy to escape the toxic pressure cooker of Tinsel Town and abscond to Europe -- the Château d'Hérouville outside Paris, to be exact -- where tracking began for what would become The Idiot, named after Dostoevsky's novel of the same name.

Working with co-producer Tony Visconti, Bowie treated the studio like a laboratory and Iggy like his guinea pig; employing radical compositional and improvisational techniques to help his friend reinvent himself and break away from The Stooges' limiting templates.

In Iggy's own words, the results were "a cross between James Brown and Kraftwerk," merging funk-driven rhythms with cold, industrial synthesizers that influenced scores of future trailblazers, ranging from Joy Division, to Bauhaus, to Nine Inch Nails.

"Sister Midnight" establishes the unsettling mood with Oedipal imagery atop Carlos Alomar's icy grooves, "Nightclubbing" follows with a stiff, limping drum machine pattern (later sampled for NIN's 1994 hit "Closer"), and "Funtime" fuses Pop's past punk rock energy with a Motorik rhythm while his lyrics drip with sarcasm.

Speaking of The Stooges, Iggy eulogizes the Asheton brothers on the hypnotic "Dum Dum Boys," mourns former lovers and addictions (though it's hard to tell which is which) over the repetitive synth of "Baby," and channels the assembly lines of Detroit's auto factories for the eight-minute industrial dirge of "Mass Production."

But for those of us who discovered The Idiot after surviving the '80s, the album's inevitable litmus test was Iggy's original recording of "China Girl," which sounds so raw, asymmetrical, and unpolished compared to Bowie's smooth, funky re-recording for '83's Let's Dance.

The only track left to mention is the unusually welcoming, almost romantic "Tiny Girls," which floats on a beautiful, melancholy saxophone line played by Bowie himself, and spotlights Iggy's rich, emotive baritone, miles removed from his feral Stooges howl.

With basic recording complete, the entourage relocated to Munich's Musicland Studios for overdubs and Berlin's Hansa Studio 1 for final mixing; Once there, Bowie and Pop decided to settle in the old German capital for the immediate future to complete their self-imposed "rehabilitation."

For Bowie, the city would of course serve as both base and muse for the celebrated Berlin Trilogy -- Low, Heroes, and Lodger -- which drew much of its innovative, ambient electronics and overall aesthetic from David's rather calculating experiments with Iggy in '76.

In fact, although sessions for Low followed The Idiot's in September and October, Bowie made sure that his album arrived in stores first (January), therefore preceding Iggy's solo debut (March), so it wasn't as obvious who had influenced whom.

And not for the first time ... remember Ziggy Stardust?

In his later years, Bowie would grow more comfortable admitting that he was less of an artist than a "synthesist" (and one of rock's all time greatest, at that) who borrowed, reworked, and repurposed myriad artistic forms into amazing amalgams all his own, and The Idiot is a perfect example.

Grand Magus: Grand Magus (2001)

My friends at the Music Cartel -- one of the great, dearly-departed doom and stoner rock labels of the early 21st Century -- sent me a review copy of Grand Magus' self-titled debut shortly after it was released, originally through England's Rise Above.

At the time, band leader Janne 'JB' Christoffersson was better, if still barely known, as the lead singer of Michael Amott's own emerging stoner metal outfit, Spiritual Beggars, with whom he would record a couple of records over the next few years.

But none of us knew that JB could also shred on a guitar, let alone lead his own power trio completed by bassist Mats 'Fox' Skinner and drummer Fredrik 'Trisse' Liefvendahl to arguably greater heights, and certainly a longer existence than his other employers.

Not yet, though ...

Recorded at Stockholm's Das Boot studio with Dismember drummer Fred Estby producing, this debut was just good enough to find a home in my record collection, just run-of-the-mill enough to almost miss the cut, after a brief stint in probationary limbo.

Little has changed as I revisit these ten tracks a quarter of a century later, except for some retroactively acquired clarity that enhances the latent promise of Side A efforts like "Gauntlet," "Legion," "Coat of Arms," and the especially powerful "Never Learned."

By contrast, I hear just as many flaws -- or at least a general derivative predictability -- in Side B numbers like "Generator," "Wheel of Time," and "Black Hole," before the immensely heavy "Lodbrok" and "Mountain of Power" arrived to lift the overall batting average.

Mind you, regardless of Grand Magus' qualitative score, there was no ignoring Janne's vocal prowess (rich, soulful, and sometimes reminiscent of Soundgarden's Chris Cornell), let alone his wide-ranging six-string abilities, which would continue to flourish in years ahead.

And we didn't have to wait long, because 2003's aptly-named sophomore album, Monument, energized the group's doom and stoner foundations with a battle-ready suit of armor built of Viking themes and castle metal adventures.

If you have yet to fall under the Grand Magus' spell, might I suggest you start your ritual with that second long-player and perhaps its equally impressive follow-up, Wolf's Return, before circling back to this eponymous introduction, and everything should fall into place.

Melvins: Bullhead (1991)

Me and the Melvins got off on the wrong foot 30-plus years ago ...

By the time I first heard the band after escaping my Latin American exile, their early efforts' decapitating dichotomy of ultra-fast hardcore and terminally-sluggish sludge were in the past, and I viewed major label releases like Houdini and Stoner Witch through a post-grunge lens.

Laugh if you want, but, when experienced through that skewed, belated perspective, the Melvins seemed a little too ... you know, mainstream!

The same old, every-dude obsession with Kiss didn't help.

Had I backtracked sooner to sample '80s products like Gluey Porch Treatments and Ozma, things may have been different; I might have grasped the band's' catalyzing influence on the bands that followed and, today, I might own dozens of Melvins LPs instead of a mere handful.

As it stands, the 35-year-old Bullhead (released in January of '91) probably tops my personal list (and many of yours, as well), hitting that sweet spot between Black Sabbath and Black Flag -- post-punk fury and nonconformity mixed with pre-irony metallic doom worship.

Prior to Bullhead, most Melvins tracks came and went in two or three minutes, tops, and that's still the case here, at times; but those limitations were smashed to smithereens by the eight-minute drone riffs of "Boris," which inspired a certain Japanese trio into existence.

Further examples like "Ligature," "Your Blessened," and "Cow" proved this sonic pivot was neither a fluke nor ill-advised, by uncovering cavernous reverb, disorienting feedback, and monolithic malice in slower tempos, tuned-down riffs, and newly available spaces.

Concurrently, songs like the lurching "Anaconda," bass-driven "It's Shoved," and the manic, distorted "Zodiac" provided numerous cues for emerging grunge bands, as popular as longtime acolytes Nirvana and as obscure as Gruntruck.

Such underground cred couldn't be ignored much longer, so after packing the next year or two with a bunch of band (including the classic Lysol) and solo EPs (patterned after the Kiss solo albums, of course), the trio signed the inevitable major label deal with Atlantic.

And that brings us back to the unfortunate "misunderstanding" I described above, which reminds us that content and context always go hand in hand, even when (or perhaps especially when) game-changing, ear-bleeding music is involved.

New York Dolls: One Day it Will Please Us to Remember Even This (2006)

Speaking of the New York Dolls (see my recent Reddy Teddy post) ...

For years and years, the New York Dolls' altogether brief, historically essential but commercially disastrous, career through the early '70s looked like a cautionary tale explaining precisely what NOT to do when trying to make it as a rock 'n' roll band.

But, after nearly three decades of retirement, during which they buried more original band members (Johnny Thunders, Jerry Nolan, Arthur Kane) than were still breathing (David Johansen, Sylvain Sylvain), the Dolls miraculously reemerged in 2005.

In doing so, they deservedly laid claim to their proto-punk glam tiaras, with the support of untold multitudes of bands and fans they'd influenced over the years, including Smiths diva Morrissey, who booked them for the 2004 Meltdown Festival just prior to Arthur's passing.

Now, backed by guitarist Steve Conte, keyboardist Brian Koonin, bassist Sami Yaffa (ex-Hanoi Rocks), and drummer Brian Delaney, David and Sylvain inked a new deal with heavy metal powerhouse Roadrunner Records, of all labels, for their third official studio album.

And this, in turn, emerged 20 years ago (and 32 since their second), when I happened to be Roadrunner's head of digital marketing (I even interviewed Sylvain for our website), bearing the surprisingly long-winded, One Day it Will Please Us to Remember Even This.

A man with a plan, Johansen (who sadly passed on last year, preceded by Sylvain in '21) borrowed a line from Virgil's Aeneid (forsan et haec olim meminisse iuvabit) to reflected the wry wit, intellectual eloquence, "philosophical musings, and multisyllabic constructions" (as my friend Mark Deming put it in the All-Music Guide) he brought to this material.

It's reflected in deceptively clever first single "Dance Like a Monkey" ("evolution is so obsolete"), the climate-conscious "Dancing On the Lip of a Volcano" (featuring R.E.M.'s Michael Stipe), and the poignant, bittersweet nostalgia for people, places, and an entire world long gone emanating from "Maimed Happiness," "I Aint Got Nothin'," and my personal favorite, "Take a Good Look at My Good Looks."

And, musically-speaking, the above showed the New York Dolls of '06 were more of a tight, lean, battle-scarred classic rock band (see also "Runnin' Around," "Plenty of Music") than either a long-in-the-tooth glam ("Fishnets & Cigarettes") or pre-punk ("Punishing World," "Gotta Get Away from Tommy") proposition.

This too amplified the message conveyed by this critically-acclaimed comeback album's title, and you have to admire Johansen's foresight for selecting a phrase that both addressed their unlikely rebirth and could resonate with future generations that discover this legendary band.

Alas, not unlike their first incarnation, the Dolls' return reached a mere fraction of the audience it deserved to, but the reconstituted group still saw fit to deliver two more studio LPs -- '09's Cuz I Sex So and '11's Dancing Backward in High Heels, before resuming their retirement.

Now there are no Dolls left alive to play in the dollhouse (note the amusing cartoon strip included in the inner album sleeve), but their children's children's children will make sure the music contained within never fully fades away.

Reddy Teddy: Reddy Teddy (1976)

If you think the music industry's A&R process is farcical today, in this age of TikTok, short-attention spans, and overnight viral sensations, let me remind you that back in the early '70s record labels seemed keen to sign any band whose singer had a really big mouth!

I'm talking about would-be-heirs to the era's archetypal frontman, The Rolling Stones' Mick Jagger, whose luscious, lascivious lips provided the visual benchmark for The New York Dolls' David Johansen, Aerosmith's Steven Tyler, and Reddy Teddy's John Morse.

Wait, who?

Yes, Reddy Teddy, which was formed in Boston, circa 1972, by Morse and high school friends Matthew MacKenzie (guitar), Ted von Rosenvinge (bass), and Joe Marino (drums), later replaced by Scott Baerenwald and Bug Witt, respectively.

Twice courted by Mercury Records (they rejected the label's first contract, accepted the second), the quartet got as far as recording an album that was never released -- with Mercury allegedly citing the vinyl shortage occasioned by the Oil Crisis as an excuse.

So Reddy Teddy had to wait another two years and settle for an independent release through Boston indie label, Spoonfed Records, by which time whatever momentum and musical direction they may have had was diluted into a mishmash of conflicting styles.

Presumably the result of all that time spent trying to appease trend-hopping A&R men, this included power pop ("Boys and Girls," "Magic Magic"), glam rock ("Ooh-Wow!," "Novelty Shoes"), hard rock ("Shark in the Dark," "Teddy Boy"), and even protean punk ("Moron Rock").

Of course, an underground rock fetishist like me can always find silver linings in well-played, if unoriginal, material with no commercial potential, hearing eclecticism where there's only confusion, but the public at large clearly remained unimpressed with (or, more likely, unaware of) these efforts.

A rare instance of looking forward instead of backward, "A Child of the Nuclear Age" finally packs enough punch to cut through the creative uncertainty with a focused power and twisted, dark sense of irony that feels like a blueprint for Cheap Trick's arrival the following year.

But except for a rave review in, of all publications, Playboy magazine (which called them "possibly the most exciting new American band, period") and short-lived support from former Stones manager, Andrew Loog Oldham, no one seemed to care for Reddy Teddy.

And so, having given it their best shot and watched their onetime peers both succeed (Aerosmith) and fail (the Dolls), Reddy Teddy broke up in 1977, freeing guitarist MacKenzie to collaborate with erstwhile Television guitarist Richard Lloyd on 'his 79 solo album, Alchemy.

As for the early '70s music industry's bizarre A&R fixation with prominent labial protrusions, what's that old saying about "loose lips sinking ships"?

Unleashed: Across the Open Sea (1993)

No one really knew how Stockholm's Unleashed would fit into the already congested 1990s Swedish death metal scene when they debuted with '91's Where No Life Dwells, and, chances are, neither did they!

But this had changed by the group's third long-player, '93's Across the Open Sea ...

While peers like Entombed and Dismember were embracing buzzsaw guitars and complex structures, and the Gothenburg School mixed melodies with progressive experiments, Unleashed found their groove -- literally -- in straightforward arrangements and driving, catchy, almighty riffs.

As for their lyrics, Unleashed largely rejected death metal's focus on demons, horror, and gore to join a smaller but growing, wide-ranging Viking metal contingent that included Sweden's own elder statesmen, Bathory, and rising Norwegian black metal legends Enslaved, among others.

Said themes invade marauding opener "To Asgaard We Fly" (**), the monstrously-riffed "In the Northern Lands," merciless "Execute Them All," and even the instrumental title track, which breaks up the album's metallic onslaught with eerie keyboards and mournful acoustic guitars.

But they don't pervade every song, making way for religious irony ("I Am God"), mental instability ("The One Insane"), apocalyptic visions ("Forever Goodbye (2045)"), and WWII ("The General") -- plus a surprising death metal cover of Judas Priest's "Breaking the Law."

Also, to be honest, Johnny Hedlund's lyrics were only half as interesting as his fearsome growl, Fredrik Lindgren and Tomas Olsson's crunchy power chords, and Anders Schultz's spare but meaty percussive foundation -- a welcome anomaly in a genre known for exceedingly busy drummers.

In other words, like most Unleashed LPs, Across the Open Sea was largely conceived to buck the most prevalent trends of the Swedish and even the Tampa, FL death metal scenes (centered on Sunlight and Morrisound studios, respectively), not only compositionally but especially from a production standpoint.

That's why it's so ironic that, today, Unleashed are frequently criticized for their simplicity instead of being hailed for resisting the prevalent sounds and clichés found in '90s death metal.

As Hedlund told reporters back in '93, "We specifically wrote the music to come across well during live performances [and] to set Unleashed apart from all the Swedish bands who have their records produced at the Sunlight studio."

The band would double down on their guiding principles for their next opus -- and one of my personal favorites -- '95's Victory; but not before taking their death-defying Viking metal on the road with Morgoth, Tiamat, and Samael in Europe (***) and Cannibal Corpse and Hypocrisy in North America.

* I spent years waiting for a vinyl reissue of Across the Open Sea boasting the original CD cover art, with its Viking longship (see above), but I finally settled for the acceptable composite image of this 2023 pressing instead.

** One of the rare instances where Unleashed incorporated their native Swedish tongue among their English lyrics.

*** Oh, what I would give to have witnessed this line-up!

Juicy Lucy: Get a Whiff a This (1971)

The blues has always embraced a certain amount of bawdy irreverence, dating all the way back to the hokum of the 1920s and '30s, but I think Juicy Lucy missed the point when they chose a crass, puerile title like Get a Whiff a This for their third of four LPs, 55 years ago.

They were hardly alone -- just one year earlier, fellow Brit-blues purveyors Killing Floor named their sophomore album Out of Uranus -- but such choices cheapened an otherwise respectable outfit whose greasy, slide guitar-heavy style briefly competed with better-known acts like Ten Years After and Savoy Brown.

Here's a quick recap of their story ...

Born out of the ashes of cult psych-garage rockers The Misunderstood, Juicy Lucy made an immediate impression with both the music and the cover art (featuring exotic dancer Zelda Plum, naked and covered in fruit) of their eponymous 1969 debut, which brushed the U.K. Top 40.

Their second, 1970's rather vulgar Lie Back and Enjoy It, didn't fare as well but introduced ex-Zoot Money vocalist Paul Williams in place of the departed Ray Owen, plus a young guitarist named Micky Moody, formerly of Tramline and later Whitesnake.

For their third LP, Get a Whiff a This, Juicy Lucy moved from Vertigo to Gerry Bron's newly established Bronze Records (home to Uriah Heep and much later Motörhead) in the U.K. (they remained with Atco in the U.S.), but they didn't seem too sure about where to move their sound.

Would it be towards the born-again R&B of erstwhile psych lords Spirit or the nascent southern rock of the Allman Brothers, whose "Mr. Skin" and "Midnight Rider" (*) were both faithfully covered here?

Would they transform pop fare into boogie like they did Bobby Darin's "Harvest", or go back to the country like so many contemporary groups in search of that elusive, pastoral roots-rock of The Band, as heard on "Mr. A. Jones" and "Sunday Morning"?

Or would they stick to their riff-driven blues fundamentals as evidenced on the excellent "Midnight Sun," while taking judicious detours into neighboring funk and R&B via the red-hot, horn-enhanced "Big Lil" and the soulful, cool-as-a-cucumber grooves of "Future Days"?

Well, the answer turned out to be "none of the above," because subsequent musician defections (namely founding members Glenn Ross Campbell and Chris Mercer) convinced the remaining players to go their separate ways (**) after 1972's aptly-named fourth LP, Pieces.

All these years later, Juicy Lucy are but a footnote in the British blues movement (tough day for England in the World Cup yesterday), and I'm pretty sure they didn't help their long-term historical with the lowbrow sense of humor on these otherwise intriguing albums.

* Another song named "Jessica" has no relation to the Allmans' future instrumental.

** Moody took his trademark mustache and superlative slide guitar skills to Snafu for three records before linking up with David Coverdale for the solo efforts that led into Whitesnake.

Massacra: Enjoy the Violence (1991)

France's Massacra substantiated the extreme metal credentials hinted at by 1990's Final Holocaust debut with their second LP, '91's Enjoy the Violence, which obviously took a swipe at electro-pop gods Depeche Mode to boot.

In fact, they grabbed that nasty sophomore slump fellow by the throat and beat him to a bloody pulp!

Although they hardly deviated from their ferocious sonic trademark -- thrashy death metal laden with apocalyptic themes -- and true originality would never be their forte, Massacra showed improvement in almost every quarter here, backed by cleaner production values.

Their musicianship also stood out in the telepathic interplay between guitarists Fred Duval and Jean-Marc Tristani, the tireless, steamrolling energy of drummer Chris Palengat, and the inhuman growls and steady bottom-end held down by vocalist/bassist Pascal Jürgensen.

Most important of all, standout offerings like the blistering title cut, the gloriously profane "Ultimate Antichrist," and the deliberate, foreboding "Near Death Experience" were far more complex and dynamic than their generally one-dimensional predecessors.

This enhanced diversity was also reflected on the clean-picked intro to "Revealing Cruelty," frantic tempo changes of "Atrocious Crimes," and surprisingly doom-paced "Full of Hatred," all of which suggested that, slowly but surely, broader creative horizons beckoned Massacra.

Whether they actually delivered on that promise with the following year's unfortunately named Signs of Decline LP is a matter of debate (I say "not quite"), but Massacra firmly established themselves among France's best death metal exports (along with the excellent Loudblast) here.

In fact, while it was nowhere near as accomplished as a Sepultura or Entombed record, Enjoy the Silence, was something of a French metal landmark, given that country's very patchy metallic track record, up to that time.

However, much like their once underperforming football team, French heavy metal has sure come a long way in the 21st Century!

Saxon: Rock 'n' Roll Gypsy EP (1986)

A boy sits alone in his darkened room, his radio is tuned to a midnight specialty show that plays heavy metal, when a rare, non-album track by one of his favorite bands splits the darkness ... decades will pass before he hears the song again.

Most people under 40 haven't experienced this kind of "musical trauma" (another common scenario was hearing a great song but not its title or performer's name) in the age of Shazam, streaming music, and countless new ways of enjoying and identifying music.

But in the pre-internet days, one could go for years or forever without solving these kinds of musical mysteries, and I'm pretty sure the song that inspired this blog -- Saxon's 1986 B-side, "Krakatoa" -- was one of the first songs on my Napster bucket list 14 years later.

40 years later, I can tell you the song is not even that special: just a pretty standard Saxon speed metal rager about the Indonesian volcanic island immortalized (and all but annihilated) in 1883 by a cataclysmic eruption whose explosion remains the loudest recorded sound in history.

How METAL is that?

More metal than Saxon's then recent full-length, 1985's Innocence is No Excuse, and this 12-inch single's A-side, "Rock 'n' Roll Gypsy," where the N.W.O.B.H.M. veterans explored a more polished, commercial sound akin to Def Leppard's successful formula in a desperate bid to crack America.

Personally, I loved that record regardless, but it's obvious why "Krakatoa" -- with its take-no-prisoners, double kick drum-powered intensity, reminiscent of 1983's Power and the Glory album -- didn't make the cut, and was instead set aside for a B-side.

And a decade-long "musical trauma" for yours truly, obviously.

So when I found a vintage copy of this once impossible-to-find 12-inch for a pittance a few years ago -- before the now costly vinyl revival -- I promptly added it to my comprehensive Saxon collection, now totaling 31 titles and counting.

Oh, and I almost forgot, but this collectible release also houses a live medley of Saxon fan favorites "Heavy Metal Thunder," "Stand Up and Be Counted," "Taking Your Chances," and "Warrior," likely recorded in 1984 or '85.

I'll wrap this up with the song's descriptive historical lyrics, and with the hope that none of us will ever again have to endure the "musical traumas" of yesteryear.

"To the east of Java back in 1883; Stood a peaceful island basking in the sea; No one knew the danger lying deep beneath the Earth; That Mother Nature's victim would soothe the monster's birth.

Krakatoa!

The earth was rent asunder with a deadly roar; When the dust had settled Krakatoa was no more.

With a scream of fury the power was released; The biggest known explosion the world had ever seen; The shockwaves traveled 'round the Earth to smash the Richter Scale; The tidal wave that followed left death and desolation in it's trail.

Krakatoa!

The earth was rent asunder with a deadly roar; When the dust had settled Krakatoa was no more.

Blasting chunks of magma into the stratosphere; A thousand scarlet sunsets, the land a sea of fear; To the east of Java basking in the sea; The sign of Krakatoa is rising from the deep.

Krakatoa!

The earth was rent asunder with a deadly roar; When the dust had settled Krakatoa was no more.

Krakatoa!"

Maypole: Maypole (1971)

Dig this cover art ...VERY psychedelic!

Maypole hailed from Baltimore, MD, where they were formed in 1969 by Dennis Tobell (lead guitar), Steve Mace (rhythm guitar), John Nickel (bass), Paul Welsh (drums), and Kenny Ross (lead vocals), with all five members contributing harmony vocals.

Clearly swept up by the Summer of Love, the group matched its chimerical front cover with a rear sleeve essay tying the maypole's historical legacy of rebellion against puritan repression via classical Greek philosophers like Plato and The Beatles' musical revolution.

That's quite a reach, but did I mention it WAS the Summer of Love?

However, by the time this self-titled LP arrived in 1971, summer had decidedly turned to autumn, maybe even winter, and not even the added influences of Cream, The Doors, and Jimi Hendrix could modernize Maypole's sound to suit fast-changing times.

Moreover, said album (sometimes retitled 'The Real' for latter-day CD and vinyl reissues) was released through independent, under-funded Colossus Records, whose sole significant discovery during a brief existence was Dutch group The Shocking Blue.

Although, even a major label would have been challenged to promote an album that announced its presence with a pair nine-minute epics -- unless that group was named Yes, King Crimson, or ELP and produced sophisticated progressive rock instead of meandering acid rock.

In Maypole's case, the opening "Glance at the Past/Show Me the Way/Henry Stared" is less a unified suite than three songs strung together and set adrift in a sea of psychedelic currents, bound to slip the mind as soon as they slip over the horizon or beneath the waves.

And the second, "Changes Places/Under a Wave," is only marginally better (*), thanks to memorable moments like the first's distorted riffs and Tobell's agile fretwork and the second's saturnine melodies and a chorus based on The Sound of Music's "Climb Ev'ry Mountain"!

The remaining songs are of conventional size, but generally forgettable, except for the driving "Look at Me," the unusually tight "Dozy World," and a final, melancholy mini-epic called "Stand Alone"; still nothing here stands apart from so many bands of the day. (**)

And despite these flashes of lucidity, Maypole's first and final album largely feels like a rudderless, derelict vessel of castaways, lacking direction, discipline, and the necessary arranging skills to harness their undeniable talent, chops, and wide-ranging ideas into a cohesive work.

Adding insult to injury, Colossus collapsed shortly after the album's release, so a desperate Maypole briefly relocated to Holland in 1972 -- presumably to leverage some local buzz related to their former label's other successes -- but returned and broke up the same year.

In 2008, a second Maypole LP consisting of previously unreleased studio sessions recorded in Miami between '71 and '74 was released under the title Falling Angels, but based on the inconsistent contents of this debut, I have no plans to seek it out.

* At its best, it reminds me of Danish contemporaries Pan.

** Think a poor man's Spirit.

Wolfsbane: Down Fall the Good Guys (1991)

Rick Rubin's career-crippling production botch-job on Wolfsbane's debut album, 1989's Live Fast, Die Fast, clouded the fact that the Tamworth-based quartet named after a deadly toxic genus of flowering plants could have been the U.K.'s answer to Van Halen. 

Not Van Hagar, mind you, but the original Van Halen, which is why Iron Maiden's subsequent decision to hire Wolfsbane singer Blaze Bayley to replace Bruce Dickinson sounds as viable as asking David Lee Roth to sing "The Number of the Beast." 

But I digress ...

Fortunately, enlisting a young Brendan O'Brien to record 1990's All Hells Breaking Loose at Little Kathy Wilson's Place EP remedied most of the band's sonic issues and assured his return for the next year's Down Fall the Good Guys, with similarly stellar results.

Unfortunately, excellent production can't always guarantee excellent record sales, and this sophomore full-length's title proved all-too-prophetic of the public's tepid response and resulting loss of their Def American contract, which made Bayley ripe for the plucking.

What a shame, because guitar shredder Jase Edwards knew almost every lick in EVH's pyrotechnic bag of tricks (if not his inimitable "Brown Sound") and, when paired with Bayley's lupine howls, this turned songs like "Twice as Mean," "Cathode Ray Clinic," and "The Loveless" into fun-loving, over-the-top VH tributes.

Other standouts like "You Load Me Down," "Black Lagoon," and the near-perfect "Smashed and Blind" deliver a less derivative, yet equally explosive, metallic neutrality, and there's a sub-"Paradise City" anthemic quality to both "Broken Doll" and "After Midnight."

But "Temple of Rock" and "Dead at Last" are a couple of head-bangers too many, "Ezy" is a throwaway single, and "Moonlight" an ill-fitting acoustic love song, which, all together, helped stall Wolfsbane's UK-bred VH master plan before it could take proper shape.

I also find it tantalizing to wonder what those debut album barnstormers might sound like if O'Brien could be bothered (or affordable enough) to remix them along the same aesthetic lines as this LP and its preceding EP.

But we'll probably never know because there are no do-overs in life (well, few of them anyway), and I'll argue that Wolfsbane's career was dead and dusted even before their self-titled third LP arrived in '94, just prior to Bayley's defection to Iron Maiden.

I guess good guys really do finish last ...

Eddie Floyd: "Knock On Wood" / "Got to Make a Comeback" (1966)

Just about 60 long years ago, what started as a typical songwriting and recording session at Stax Records' famed Memphis headquarters turned into a pillar of the Soulsville U.S.A. catalog, and one of the defining, most enduring anthems of '60s soul music.

I'm talking about Eddie Floyd's Gold-certified "Knock On Wood," which went to No. 1 on the Soul Singles Chart, peaked at No. 28 on the Billboard Hot 100, and has since been covered by over 100 artists, from Amii Stuart (*), to Cher, to David Bowie, to Michael Bolton.

Not bad for an unproven singer with just a few singles under his belt and better known for co-writing hits for fellow artists like Wilson Pickett, Carla Thomas, and Otis Redding, until a series of happy accidents finally led to this timeless hit's release in the summer of 1966.

Let me back up a bit ...

As the story goes, "Knock On Wood" was born of an informal, late-night jam between Floyd and Booker T. & The M.G.'s guitarist Steve Cropper at Memphis' now historic Lorraine Motel (**), during which a severe thunderstorm rolled overhead.

Nature's fury combined with Floyd and Cropper's initial lyrics about bad luck in love and superstition ("I don't wanna lose your love / I better knock on wood") to inspire the famous opening lines: "It's like thunder, lightning / The way you love me is frightening ..."

Promptly cut on July 13, 1966 (***) by Floyd and the M.G.'s -- Cropper, Booker on keys, Donald 'Duck' Dunn on bass, and Al Jackson Jr. on drums -- the song's slow-burning groove coasts over sharp rhythm guitar stabs and horn charts crafted by Isaac Hayes with Wayne Jackson (trumpet) and Andrew Love (tenor sax) of The Mar-Keys.

For its part, Floyd's gritty, soulful delivery doesn't float over the rhythm section so much as punch right through it; but maybe the most memorable moment comes when Jackson mimics someone knocking on a door with his signature rim-shots during the chorus.

It's one of those simple, clever, spontaneous creative ideas that defined the uncomplicated genius of Stax's greatest productions.

And yet, label president Jim Stewart shelved the recording for months, feeling it was too similar to Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour" (****), until finally being persuaded to release it by Atlantic's Jerry Wexler and covert radio spins attained by Stax's national promotion director, Al Bell.

Luckily, once the discs were finally ordered from the pressing plant, there was a quality B-side called "Got to Make a Comeback" (conveniently recorded on the same day by the same crew) awaiting in the vaults.

A gorgeous, pleading, minimalist soul ballad about waging a political campaign back into a lover's heart, this showcases a smoother, more vulnerable side of Floyd -- his gospel roots -- and provides an ideal counterweight for the "stormy" A-side.

Floyd never enjoyed another hit of this magnitude, but he came close with 1967's "Raise Your Hand" (No. 16), '68's "I've Never Found a Girl (To Love Me Like You Do)" (No. 2) and "Bring it On Home to Me" (No. 4), and he remained with Stax until its bankruptcy in 1976.

More importantly, Eddie Floyd is still with us at age 89 (and, knock on wood, will still be for a long time); one of the precious few surviving Stax legends from that golden age at Soulsville U.S.A.

* Amii's 1978 disco version also went to No. 1 and became this eight-year-old boy's favorite song for a hot minute after he watched its special effects-enhanced music video, wide-eyed and slack-jawed, on a Sunday night variety TV show on Brazilian TV.

** Sadly immortalized as the site of Dr. Martin Luther King's murder, a couple of years later, the Lorraine Motel was a favorite stop and unofficial "creative clubhouse" for artists recording at Stax.

*** Sorry to burst your bubble, but this was a Wednesday, not a Friday the 13th -- I checked!

**** Largely because Floyd and Cropper had taken the "In the Midnight Hour" horn section, flipped it backwards, and incorporated it into their arrangement for "Knock On Wood."

The Move: Message from the Country (1971)

Message from the Country?

More like "Message from the Funny Farm"!

The Move's fourth and final full-length was released 55 years ago, confusingly after Roy Wood and Jeff Lynne had announced their plans to form a new, "experimental rock-with-strings" project, called the Electric Light Orchestra, whose debut would follow in December.

While this served as both a swan song and a proving ground for what was yet to come, it was hardly the roots-music exercise inspired by The Band that its title suggests, let alone a cohesive musical or conceptual 'message'; instead, it was an eclectic, fractious affair.

One year prior, Wood and drummer Bev Bevan had welcomed fellow Brummie Lynne (ex-The Idle Race) into The Move largely to fulfill contractual obligations with both their label and management (the fearsome Don Arden), to free them to pursue these novel ambitions.

But the end results sound simultaneously relaxed and chaotic, liberated and unhinged, as Jeff's Beatles-esque pop-rock songcraft ("The Minister," "The Words of Aaron") clashed with Roy's relentless, often tongue-in-cheek genre-hopping ("Ella James," "Until Your Mama's Gone").

One of my favorites, Wood's paranoid, unnerving "It Wasn't My Idea to Dance" -- with its doomy, grinding bass, gothic minor chords, and reedy oboe performed by the man himself -- is as close as this line-up came to the band that recorded 1970's Shazam and Looking On.

Another, Lynne's progressive, wistful title track does, in fact, deliver the pastoral idyll promised, but backs it with stacks of multi-tracked acoustic and electric guitars, while "No Time" boasts an eerie atmosphere and multi-tracked recorders performed by Wood.

But I don't particularly care for unintended novelty numbers like "Ben Crawley Steel Co." (a Country & Western satire featuring Bevan growling a Johnny Cash-like baritone), the vintage rock revival of "Don't Mess Me Up" (where Wood hams it up like The King), and Lynne's music-hall throwaway "My Marge."

As with all Move LPs, it's a lot to take in, and for all their shared love of classical music and classic rock & roll, it's hard to imagine a pair of strong, Type-A personalities like Wood and Lynne coexisting for very long, no matter what their group was called.

So few people were surprised when Lynne and Bevan stuck with ELO, going on to sell millions of albums after a slow start, while Wood resurfaced with Wizzard and immediately notched two U.K. No. 1s and five Top 5 hits before going ice-cold and sinking into obscurity.

But The Move's brief, turbulent, idiosyncratic career trajectory not only certified Roy's genius, but also his long-term cult status among serious music gourmands for whom Lynne's string-laden ELO and high-profile production work was far too mainstream.

p.s. -- Depending on which side of the Atlantic you bought this LP, it came with different cover artwork (Roy painted the European version; mine is the U.S. version), track sequencing, and even labels: Harvest in the U.K. and Capitol in the U.S.

Enuff Z'Nuff: Paraphernalia (1999)

Purple, violet, indigo, pink: my standard male-pattern color blindness makes a moot point out of memorizing the official colors that complete the rainbow (it's indigo, then violet), but that won't stop me from celebrating all my friends in the LGBTQIA+ community.

Pride Month 2026 wraps up tomorrow and some of you may well be saying "enough is enough" but not me, nor the Chicago power pop revivalists known as Enuff Z'Nuff, who released arguably their finest independent album in 1999's Paraphernalia.

Their eighth overall and fifth after parting ways with Atco, then Arista (shout out to Clive Davis, who died last week), the record came out in Japan in 1998, through local powerhouse Pony Canyon Records, but followed in '99 in the U.S. through Spitfire.

Its recording process was sadly symptomatic of the group's chaotic career over the second half of the '90s, which saw mainstays Donnie Vie (vocals, guitar) and Chip Z'Nuff (bass), plus drummer Ricky Parent, juggling guitarists until landing on Johnny Monaco in '97.

By their standards, hanging onto Monaco for two (eventually four) consecutive albums was quite a feat; but that didn't stop the band from enlisting three Illinois legends to lend their six-string talents, namely Cheap Trick's Rick Nielsen, Styx's James 'JY' Young, and the Smashing Pumpkins' Billy Corgan!

Too bad these friends in high places weren't going to be enough (or should I say "enuff)" to lift Enuff Z'Nuff out of the "Big in Japan" cult category, but it did inspire some of their most satisfying, diverse, and also focused collection in years.

Infectious highlights like "Ain't it Funny," "Save Me," and opener "Freak" (which was refreshingly NOT about grunge-favored stereotypes like nerds, geeks, or losers but actual circus freaks) recall the "glory days" (that weren't) of 'the'91's magnificent Strength.

Well, almost.

Meanwhile, bittersweet torch songs like "Believe in Love," "Loser of the World," and "Someday" elevate the melancholy quotient while sprinkling psychedelic flower petals amidst Chip and Donnie's signature Beatles-esque melodies.

Unfortunately, the somewhat tuneless "Top of the Hill" sounds like bad Stone Temple Pilots and the quality control declines during the album's second half ("Invisible," "All Alone," etc.), except for a spirited cover of Trick's "Everything Works if You Let It."

Still, for all intents and purposes, Paraphernalia was both a respectable return to form and, sadly, one of the last gasps of respectability for these lovable underdogs, before driving force Vie flew the coop five years later, leaving Chip to lead a farcical facsimile.

Fact is, Enuff Z'Nuff were doomed to be misunderstood, both during the late '80s' hair metal heyday and the '90s' grunge era, which I suppose is a bizarre accomplishment in its own way and a fair representation of "Freak's" poignant lyrics:

"All alone ... With nowhere to call home; There's nothing waiting anywhere for me;

My life's a waste; Denied a pretty face; And no one's lookin' deep enough to see.

Everything is beautiful; And shines in it's own way; The prettier the uglier they'll be; And a likely substitute for love ... Is always empathy.

You'll see ... the freak. I'm the freak. Yeah, nobody wants to know me; I'm the freak."

35007: Sea of Tranquility EP (2001)

I had to use one of those fancy cell phone photo filters (try saying that real fast) to highlight this 10-inch's "dark blue transparent marble" wax, and thus keep my rainbow vinyl streak alive in support of Pride Month 2026 and all my friends in the LGBTQIA+ community.

As I wrote in my All-Music Guide review, some 25 years ago: "They say necessity is the mother of invention, and that maxim certainly applies to Dutch experimental rockers 35007 and their 2001 EP, Sea of Tranquility."

For the uninitiated, the band's name, turned upside-down, spells "LOOSE."

After recording two, relatively "standard" stoner rock LPs, the group had been rudely "relieved" of their van and musical equipment during a tour of Italy, prompting vocalist Eeuwout Baart to give his notice in frustration ... and he only lost a few microphones!

So guitarist Bertus Fridael, keyboardist Mark Sponselee, bassist Michel Boekhoudt, and drummer Sander Evens decided to turn their loss into a gain and embarked on a new career phase as a fully instrumental proposition, enhanced with atmospheric electronics and a Krautrock sensibility.

Fittingly, they looked beyond Earth's atmosphere for inspiration for the space-themed Sea of Tranquility EP, paying tribute to German rocket scientist Wernher "Von Braun" with cryptic dialog counting down to ignition of the song's titanic hypno-riffs and swirling synth effects.

Next up, the suddenly very topical "Artificial Intelligence," sees Fridael and the rhythm section locking into a relentless, repetitive, almost robotic groove, over which diaphanous wisps of slide guitar zip across the horizon like clouds in the jet stream.

And on the EP-closing title track, we float weightlessly like astronauts atop soothing, low-gravity Mellotron, with only the haunting dialog of the Apollo 11 crew and cyclical heavy rock riff punctuations to puncture the song's eerie, lunar reverie.

It was this cut, more than any other, that really set the tone for 35007's imminent transformation into the trance-inducing ambient experience responsible for 2002's spectacular Liquid, which as you can imagine, swapped outer space for a suitably fluid H2O theme.

Looking back now, I believe this 10-inch and 12-inch combo comprise the sum total of 35007's essential output, but don't let that stop you from exploring their voice-enabled releases (I did once) if you feel the need to get even more loose.