Let's talk about proto-metal!

"if you like Blue Oyster Cult...kinda 60s garageband cum protometal"

Marco D said that about Hackamore Brick, which is totally wrong... but what bands would this describe, dudes?

Tweren't really anyone in the US like early BOC at the time of BOC. I remember seeing them sandwiched between Manfred Mann's Earth Band and Uriah Heep around '72 or '73, complete with their Wehrmacht helmets and leather from head-to-toe look. Boy, they were the hardest band on the bill easy and much more aggressive than the studio albums. A few years later they were co-headliners with ZZ Top when the latter was traveling with their put-the-buffalo-the-rattlesnake-and-the-cactus on the stage tour. Then they had their military grade laser battery and Buck Dharma was in his white disco suit; they were promoting Agents of Fortune.

There were a lot of early Seventies hard rock bands that never really put it all together or which had the support like BOC. The only other thing in the same vein was the first Dictators session, preceding Go Girl Crazy, released as Every Day is Saturday a couple years ago. 'Course, they were handled by Krugman & Pearlman, BOC's management and production people.

I always think of BOC and the Love it to Death through Billon Dollar Alice Cooper band as the same type of deal. Both completely awesome, and also extremely weird.

Dictators were the first thing that popped into my mind, actually! And yeah Alice fits there too.

Radio Birdman were obsessed with BOC right? But is there any shared musical DNA?

Yeah, but its tenuous. Deniz Tek was from Ann Arbor, was in a lot of late 70s and 80s projects with the MC5 crew, especially Wayne Kramer, who were bandmates with Sonic Smith, who was married to Patti Smith, who wrote and recorded some with BOC. That's the best I can do.

I thought there was more Doors in Radio Birdman than BOC. Chalk it up to the way Younger sounded on Radios Appear. But, y'know, it was enough that they named the album that way.

Plus, there were a couple Aussie bands that played a lot of cover material and whose tones and audiences didn't mix with the likes of Rose Tattoo.

The Hitmen come to mind, who were actually mostly Radio Birdmen at one time or another. The singer was Birdman's main roadie, road manager or master of ceremonies. And the Hitmen reissues from a couple years ago have live stuff of them doing BOC tunes. And they do a credible job, it being apparently what they loved. Curious choices in covers material -- they did Dictators songs, too, and they considered it ahead of the curve. So far ahead it left them up around the bend and away from an audience. But they did it well.

I feel like there must be a metal band playing now who sound like classic BOC, the law of averages and stylistic promiscuity of 21st century metal dictates it.

But they're probably doing it in the hinterland and they probably don't have much songwriting going for them. Look at the BOC writing credits and they had a lot of contributors, being somewhat fond of a couple sci-fi authors and other oddballs. Anyway, you could prob'ly find such a band on CDBaby but it would take some sifting and patience.

Yeah the lyrical steez is the part least likely to be encountered again. Contributions from a gnostic svengali, a gonzo critic, a sci-fi author and a punk poetess...

just stumbled across some pretty bad-ass Portugese early-metallers called Xarhanga. vocals are alost Halford high on the second sample from '73 on this blog, plus some Schenker/Lonesome Crow like guitar. the other single 'Acid Nightmare + Wish Me Luck' is also a cracker!
http://prognotfrog.blogspot.com/2010/07/xarhanga-discography-portugal-70s.html#comments

'almost Halford High', that shoulda read. sounds like a metal drop-out After-School Special.

Wow they're pretty fucking great. Also I'm glad to see ProgNotFrog's still around. Thx!

While yr at it, Chico's Magnetic Band (from France) is more than worth a listen. Picture if you can Hendrix gone garage-berserk.

I love Chico. I wanna turn the world on to his feet.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plSFyxNfCIw

Elonkorjuu, Charlies, Hurdy Gurdy, Ice cross (not sure what year this from, so possibly not proto).
Buffalo, Blackfeather, Kahvas Jute,
Steel MIll?(recently reissued by Rise Above)
Guru Guru should be iconic.

Do I need the Bang box set? I do, don't I? Shit.

I'd say yes. It's pretty awesome, except for the last disc which is some sort of Big Star-esque jive. The album "Bang" itself just crushes.

Just get the first album.

You mean the second, I assume.

Not unless there's been some never-released at the time predecessor to the self-titled one that I never knew about. I mean Bang, on Capitol, from 1971, with "Lions, Christians," etc. That's still the first one, right?

Admittedly haven't heard the second one in years, though; maybe I'd like it better now. Jasper/Oliver says they "decrease in loudness" with each album, and the debut was generally considered the best; Popoff seems to like them both about the same, but says the first one's much heavier, and the second leans more toward boogie and funky Southern rock, plus has a Guess Who cover. So maybe I should check it out again. Box set definitely seems like it'd be overkill, though.

Not unless there's been some never-released at the time predecessor to the self-titled one that I never knew about. I mean Bang, on Capitol, from 1971, with "Lions, Christians," etc. That's still the first one, right?

― xhuxk, Wednesday, October 12, 2011 11:00 AM (46 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

No, there's a never-released at the time predecessor that's in the box set called "Death of a Country". It's pretty good. The one with "Lions..." is the second one in the set, apparently.

I like the second/third one (with the Guess Who cover) but the third/fourth one blows.

The self titled one smokes though.

I actually have the s/t (shitty reissue on Lizard), love it. Will probably order the box, it's pretty cheap.

I'd been gearing up to do something like this for a few years, but then would come across a cache of new discoveries and need more months to absorb all of them. This guy beat me to it, and did an amazing job:

Aquarius Rotten: The Japanese Jimi Hendrix and More, Part 1
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/tools/full/172973/

Aquarius Rotten: Heavy Rock, Blues and Progressive Converge, Part 2
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/tools/full/173119/

Aquarius Rotten: Über-hard and Über-heavy Meets Psychedelic Pop, Part 3
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/tools/full/173184/

thanks for that

yeah, only checked part one so far, but lotsa great stuff....

has some older brother introducing you to iron maiden magic

So that series covers 45 albums, but then each entry recommends two other albums, totaling over 135. There's probably a couple dozen I haven't heard yet, and have been skittering around finding them like a squirrel grabbing nuts after first frost. Just randomly saw that Dark - Dark Around The Edges (1972) was reissued when I was at the record store and picked that up. Hayes recommended that on the Steel Mill entry, and I'd seen a recommendation for it probably on ILM. Thumbs up on first listen.

Coincidentally a friend had recommended Gun. I had Gunsight (1969) from when Decibel listed it in the Filthy 50 list in 2007, but didn't love it. However I found I like the first self-titled from 1968 much more, highly recommended!

so what's the verdict on FREE?

zeppelin / grand funk copyists or legit contenders?

i'm listening to fire and water today and "mr. big" sounds pretty great

I love Free, and wouldn't compare them to Zeppelin or Grand Funk. They were much more minimalist than either of those bands, and Paul Rodgers is a better singer than Robert Plant.

Free was definitely a band that could have gotten huge. Paul Kossoff was ruined by smack and they missed chances at playing some of the big US festivals and lost their momentum. Free were more earthy sounding than some of the other early hard rock bands. I'm sure Free all dug all of the UK rock and blues stuff, don't think they sound exactly like anyone but their sound fits in with alot of those blues boom/hard rock groups. They were really, really young when they started out.

Grand Funk was more American sounding. They got alot of R&B and Motown in their sound, presented in a stripped down trio format (later adding a keyboard player as they got huge).

well that's the thing - i had been led to believe free was all soggy bombast, but fire and water has nice stiff funky breaks all over it.

oh and "all right now", which is disco

Unperson's comment highlights something I too realized about them after buying a bunch of reissues recently - they really, really, really know how to use space. Kossoff is a great guitarist but he's very laid back and leaves a lot of room for the other players and Rodgers. If I had to compare them to anyone, and this is a bit of a stretch, it'd be early Rory Gallagher.