Chicago was a band that really threw their credibility in the crapper with those cheesy ballads. Peter Cetera obviously laying a lot to blame, many of their cheesy hits, if they were not necessarily written by him, they were sung by him. You can be thankful in the early ’70s Chicago had so much better […] Continue reading →

Former guitarist for Moby Grape, Skip Spence entered the Columbia recording studios in Nashville 1968 to record his first solo album entitled Oar. Spence had just been released from the prison psychiatric ward of Bellevue hospital where he was incarcerated for six months. Skip produced the album, sang, played the drums and bass and all […] Continue reading →

Ex Tim Rose & the Thorns Jake Holmes later known as the Feldmans had written entire albums for Frank Sinatra and The Four Seasons. Jake’s debut The Above Ground Sound Of Jake Holmes which featured Jake on acoustic guitar, ex Feldmens Teddy Irwin on electric guitar and ex Brain Police Rick Randle on bass carried […] Continue reading →

Squelching reverb and crescendo leadbreaks quantify the German Freakbeat band Electric Sandwich. The first phase of this hippy ensemble came together with ex Whetstones drummer ‘Wolf‘ Lupus Fabian joined up with ex Chaotic Trust bassist Klaus ‘Lowry’ Lormann and ex Slaves of Fire guitarist Jog ‘Edu’ Ohlert , fronted by ex Flashback singer Jochen ‘Archie’ […] Continue reading →

Saxophonist Dan Seals, younger brother of Jimmy Seals of Seals & Crofts and classical pianist John Colley started out as the Shimmeres with various recordings in Nashville until their stage act as Colley & Wayland. Backed by Hip Records they launched their 1968 debut Smell Of Incense along with the title track which made #56. […] Continue reading →

Memphis Tennessee not only reeled in country styled rock but also quivered under the savaging thunder of Alamo.The roots of Alamo go back to guitarist Larry Raspberry who played with the Gentrys in 1965 when they charted with “Keep On Dancing”. The strength of Alamo was largely due to the mountainous vox and grinding hammond […] Continue reading →

Machiavel might be Belgium’s best known and most successful progressive rock band, but they weren’t the first. Probably the earliest band from that country playing this kind of music is Mad Curry, who released a single called “Antwerp”, and then a self-entitled album, both in 1970 on the small Pirates label, meaning LP copies aren’t […] Continue reading →

If you’re American, the name José Cid might not mean much. If you’re from Portugal, you know him as one of the biggest names of Portuguese pop. But there was a short time in the 1970s where he was exploring progressive rock, relying heavily on the Mellotron and synthesizers, and that was from 1975 to […] Continue reading →

Brainticket sure kept you on your toes each time they released an album, since they kept changing their sound each time (the only time the kept the same sound, and lineup, for that matter, more than once was in the early ’80s with the heavily synth/percussion driven Adventure and Voyage in ’80 and ’82). 1973’s […] Continue reading →

People generally have their opinions about this Canadian band FM, and I have to admit a lot of their music is a bit on the commercially inclined side (1980’s City of Fear more so than their previous albums), although they did make a couple of great albums. In 1977, the group, which consisted of keyboardist/bassist/vocalist […] Continue reading →