Blue Cheer - Sandwich
Blue Cheer was an American rock band that initially performed and recorded in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was sporadically active until 2009. Based in San Francisco, Blue Cheer played in a psychedelic blues-rock style, and is also credited as being pioneers of heavy metal. Jim Morrison of The Doors called the group "The single most powerful band I've ever seen" Eric Clapton defined them as "probably the originators of heavy metal".
"Blue Cheer" was the name of a variety of LSD made by chemist and Grateful Dead patron Owsley Stanley and the band was probably named for that (although the name existed earlier, as the name of a laundry detergent for which the LSD variety itself was named.
Blue Cheer came together in 1967. The formation of the band was organised by Dickie Peterson. Dickie Peterson lived in San Francisco where the sixties music scene was starting to hit the high note. The band was managed by an ex-member of the Hells Angels named Gut. It was said that Blue Cheer decided to adopt a power trio configuration after seeing Jimi Hendrix perform at the Monterey Pop Festival. They sounded louder and more extreme than anything that had come before them. As it turned out, they were a precursor of much that would come after.
Their first hit was a cover version of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" from their debut album Vincebus Eruptum (1968). The single peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, their only such hit. They crossed a line which most musicians and fans hadn't even thought to draw yet. The album sounds monolithically loud and primal today, but it must have seemed like some sort of frontal assault upon first release. If you want to wake the neighbors, this is still the album to get, and it was Blue Cheer's simplest and most forceful musical statement.
If anything, their second LP (Outsideinside) captures the psychedelic side of their musical personality with greater clarity than the blunt approach of the debut. It doesn't sound trippy so much as righteously buzzed, and the speedy roar of this the music is big enough that the legend that parts of this were so loud they had to be recorded outside seems not just plausible, but perfectly reasonable.
The 3rd album of Blue Cheer was (New, Improved Blue Cheer). It was still strongly influenced by the blues, but the raw physical impact of the band had been significantly buffered, and Bruce Stephens' rootsy guitar work was in a completely different league from the old band's bone-crushing onslaught.
The 5th album is Original Human Being and is the most polished and professional album of Blue Cheer's career, and there's a lean but muscular proto-boogie groove that infuses most of the album's 11 songs, and the performances sound tight and well-focused throughout.
We have provided 3 full album links above. Our nugget tonight is Sandwich.
We link three other songs for a solid Blue Cheer Sample.
Just A Little Bit.
Gypsy Ball
Good Times Are So Hard To Find
This post was edited on 4/5 1:06 AM by Top Row Dawg
Sandwich
Blue Cheer was an American rock band that initially performed and recorded in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was sporadically active until 2009. Based in San Francisco, Blue Cheer played in a psychedelic blues-rock style, and is also credited as being pioneers of heavy metal. Jim Morrison of The Doors called the group "The single most powerful band I've ever seen" Eric Clapton defined them as "probably the originators of heavy metal".
"Blue Cheer" was the name of a variety of LSD made by chemist and Grateful Dead patron Owsley Stanley and the band was probably named for that (although the name existed earlier, as the name of a laundry detergent for which the LSD variety itself was named.
Blue Cheer came together in 1967. The formation of the band was organised by Dickie Peterson. Dickie Peterson lived in San Francisco where the sixties music scene was starting to hit the high note. The band was managed by an ex-member of the Hells Angels named Gut. It was said that Blue Cheer decided to adopt a power trio configuration after seeing Jimi Hendrix perform at the Monterey Pop Festival. They sounded louder and more extreme than anything that had come before them. As it turned out, they were a precursor of much that would come after.
Their first hit was a cover version of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" from their debut album Vincebus Eruptum (1968). The single peaked at No. 14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, their only such hit. They crossed a line which most musicians and fans hadn't even thought to draw yet. The album sounds monolithically loud and primal today, but it must have seemed like some sort of frontal assault upon first release. If you want to wake the neighbors, this is still the album to get, and it was Blue Cheer's simplest and most forceful musical statement.
If anything, their second LP (Outsideinside) captures the psychedelic side of their musical personality with greater clarity than the blunt approach of the debut. It doesn't sound trippy so much as righteously buzzed, and the speedy roar of this the music is big enough that the legend that parts of this were so loud they had to be recorded outside seems not just plausible, but perfectly reasonable.
The 3rd album of Blue Cheer was (New, Improved Blue Cheer). It was still strongly influenced by the blues, but the raw physical impact of the band had been significantly buffered, and Bruce Stephens' rootsy guitar work was in a completely different league from the old band's bone-crushing onslaught.
The 5th album is Original Human Being and is the most polished and professional album of Blue Cheer's career, and there's a lean but muscular proto-boogie groove that infuses most of the album's 11 songs, and the performances sound tight and well-focused throughout.
We have provided 3 full album links above. Our nugget tonight is Sandwich.
We link three other songs for a solid Blue Cheer Sample.
Just A Little Bit.
Gypsy Ball
Good Times Are So Hard To Find
This post was edited on 4/5 1:06 AM by Top Row Dawg
Sandwich
