“Hard rock”
I graduated from high school in 1978. In the mid-70s my best friend Chris and I would cruise St. Paul, Minnesota in his sedan, and I believe we only listened to three things in the 8-track player:
- Led Zeppelin
- Foreigner or Foghat [I can’t even remember which]
- The MC5 (because Chris’s older brother was aware of them)
We may have listened to Kiss, a bit of Cream, a few other things . . .
This means that my ears are wired to British hard rock and its American derivitives. So when I hear old cuts by Free, the later Pretty Things, even Thin Lizzy, I have a salivatory response. This is also why I loved 80s Boston bands like the Neats, the Bags, and then in the 90s, the Upper Crust.
This month’s Mojo Magazine has a cover article on Led Zeppelin, but the free CD, “Heavy Nuggets,” that comes with the magazine is a compendium of the British hard rock that was left by the wayside. And what a collection it is! Wow.
Either Urge Overkill covered “Don’t Make My Baby Blue,” or they ripped it off on some album.
Track listing for “Mojo Presents . . . Heavy Nuggets”:
- Terry Reid - Tinker Taylor
- Pretty Things - Old Man Going
- The Open Mind - Magic Potion
- Mighty Baby - Egyptian Tomb
- Second Hand - Rhubarb!
- Leaf Hound - Freelance Fiend
- Atomic Rooster - Night Living
- The Move - Don’t Make My Baby Blue
- Slade - My Life Is Natural
- Possessed - Climb The Wooden Hills
- Procol Harum - Long Gone Geek
- Blossom Toes - Peace Loving Man
- Luv machine - Witches Wand
- Pete Brown & Piblokto! - Aeroplane Head Woman
- Warhorse - Solitude
God knows what an American version of this music would entail: I guess Sir Lord Baltimore.
I am not pictured below.
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Comments
This month’s edition was as good as always, but this free CD was worth the price alone just for the cut Rhubarb! by Second Hand.
How does a song/band this awesome completely fall off the radar?
Same goes for most of the Mojo CD, but especially this one #.
One of my main things as a kid in the 60/70s was searching for the lost nuggets and I’ve only heard the name Second Hand until recently and this CD comp. was my long long LONG overdue introduction to their sound. From ‘68/9 and they wipe the floor with the majority of their famous Hall of Fame contemporaries without so much as a whisper?
I’m just glad I lived long enuf to discover this lost diamond!
Buy this bands CD ‘Reality’, have a smoke, put the headphones on and crank it!
If I might add a comment to my own post:
Researching these bands . . . Seesh, what a lot of hard luck.
Of Vincent Crane, organist for “Atomic Rooster”:
“Crane fronted lineups of Atomic Rooster into the ’80s, before taking up with Dexys Midnight Runners in 1983. In 1989, he committed suicide.”
Oops.
Of Kieran O’Connor of Second Hand:
“O’Connor eventually died of alcoholism in the mid-1980s.”
And there are others.
Scary generation.