Hi,
Been catching up on some listening by getting a few more CD's to replace the LP's.
Mother Gong - Gilly Smyth is still one of my favorite ladies out there.
Byzantium - Had 2 albums and the first one is very pop'ish, but the songs are excellent. The second album as a long piece on it and it is very good as well.
Batdorf and Rodney - Bapu probably remembers these guys. Their first album was really good, but sadly it died after that.
Charlie - I thik this was another LA band that had a bunch of very nice albums,a nd I still love to hear the first album "Fantasy Girls". The drummer was named "Steve Gadd", and he has said that it is not the same Steve Gadd that got famous later with some outstanding work, specially with Rickie Lee Jones.
Rickie Lee Jones - All the way to "Magazine", so that is what the first 3 or 4 albums, including that live EP that had "Walk Away Renee", and a couple of other things. Fabulous designed music that really brought out her voice and feelings. After that she went for a blues and **** sound and she has not been half as good as she was. But I bet that early stuff was really hard to play on stage with different folks, thus making simpler and stupider music was better!
Edgar Broughton Band - Ignored for the most part, and they would never get a gig in the US with their nasty song about VietNam, but since the event was now over, they would have to update the song to Iraq, or Afghanistan, and I'm not sure it would go well, with some named cleric sending out edicts to kill them! But if you have never heard "Oora" it is a treat. And this is the drummer (Brothers in the band) that colored a lot of Michael Oldfield in the early days, and then Roy Harper for a long time as well. The early stuff is harsh, and difficult and sometimes sounds weird and out of tune, and I often think that this is more "punk" than punk ever was, almost 10 years later. In the end, this was very intelligent music, and it definitly was about the words, not the "song"!
Capability Brown - First album had a beautiful version of "Liar", before Three Dog Beagle did it. Very nice album. But the 2nd album of theirs "Voice" is primo and fantastic. And the cover is worth the purchase of the album alone! GEt the LP and put it on your wall! And then flip the inside, and the singers are all with their mouths open and the eyes closed. And I can tell you that the harmonies and the folk music in that album is second to none and magnificent.
Carmen - Won't say much, as Bapu and Craig love to trash it for fun. But no one in the CHB can do Spanish Guitar scales on an Electric Guitar, not to mention a Bass Player that Jethro Tull stole, that killed the band, along with the band's producer not wanting to do anything with them anymore. They got dumped, but you could say that the music was limited, although the 3rd album saw a distinct change from the 1st or the 2nd. On top[ of it, this band was from LA, not Europe!
Don't think that LA is not progressive or experimental!
Aphrodite's Child - Odd band with the late Demis Roussos and Vangelis, had a magnificent mix of greek music and electricity and rock music. They had a few songs that made it to a single, but the last album of theirs (666) created a furor but it didn't matter. The band was done! But it gave us, along with other bands, the man who pretty much helped bring progressive music to the public ... Mr. Gomelsky! And the next band was also his own personal touch!
Gentle Giant - Between "Acquiring the Taste" and "Three Friends", there is not much that can be said about this band. I love it when Ihear Gary state on a tv special that they never wrote the music and they just played what came to mind and helped each other. When I saw them, their encore was their 20 minute piece, and all 6 band members played all instruments, and they were doing the musical chairs routine. Funny as hell, specially when Gary looked at a drum stick, couldn't figure out what to do with it, threw it up in the air, and played drums with his hands and fingers! Musicianship and then some! Total guts! Impressive harmonies!