Cosmic Dreams: When it comes to German progressive hard rock based on the Deep Purple formula, none were better than Birth Control! They were formed in 1968. The band name was a reaction against the Pope's declaration that contraceptives were sinful. They played mainly instrumental jazz rock cover versions of Brian Auger, Graham Bond, etc, in those early days. For some live engagements they were expanded with a guitarist, a vocalist and a trumpeter. Their first single "October" coupled with "Freedom" was released on Amadeo in 1969.
Line-up (B) recorded an album for Metronome, released in a round cover, imitating a box of contraceptive pills. This came in the first in a series of, what were for many people, thought-provoking covers. The music was still grounded in jazz-rock (particularly the material composed by Sobotta), but the new members brought with them rock influences (particularly evident on the material composed by Bruno Frenzel). The album also had a cover version of Doors' "Light My Fire". It was a work of average quality, lacking a bit in experience and musical craftsmanship. It also suffered from a thin production.
Their next album Operation was indeed a great improvement. The cover had a drawing of a baby eating ant monster, watched by an excited Pope. Inside the fold-out cover another drawing revealed the group members being part of a baby eating machine. An outrageous cover for sure! Musically, they had now found their own, heavy guitar and organ based sound, in many ways similar to British hands like Spooky Tooth and Deep Purple. The best cut was the opening track "Stop Little Lady". All tracks were this time composed by Frenzel. This must have been one of the best selling Ohr albums!
Ohr also released Believe In The Pill in 1972, a sampler featuring six tracks from their first two albums and three rarer tracks, previously only available on Ohr singles: "Hope" (1970 A-side OS 57.003), "What's Your Name" (1972 A-side OS 57.007) and "Believe In The Pill" (1972 B-side OS 57.007). The cover showed a foetus lying in a dustbin, again causing much controversy!
The steady sales resulted in a contract with the major company CBS. Hoodoo Man was released in January 1973 and contained 6 tracks that refined their sound even more. This was a brilliant album with very confident guitar and organ riffs and interplay. Noske's voice had improved (he was one of the best German male vocalists) and he also drummed better than ever. The key tracks this time were the classic 10 minute "Gamma Ray" (a live favourite), "Buy!" (7:10) and "Get Down To Your Fate" (7:56). The cover art wasn't as outrageous as the usual Birth Control standard: just a drawing of a very big, fat woman repressing a little wind-up man!
At this time the band had the ambition to break through internationally. They therefore felt a re-organisation of the band was necessary. Founder member Koschmidder left before a long German tour and was replaced by Peter Foller. The quintet of Noske, Frenzel, Steffens, Held and Foller recorded Rebirth (1974), failed to keep pace with the ambition. Steffens left again to form his own hard rock trio. The other four undertook another German tour that resulted in a double live album, comprising five tracks in all with much instrumental work. This was appealing for the convinced fans, but not for the masses. On the rover the group was pictured sitting in car armed with machine guns, shooting at a baby carriage. Plastic People (1975) was a concept album attempting to create a more varied sound beyond the standard heavy progressive formula. The guests Jochen von Grumbkow (cello), Christoph Noppeney (viola) and Friedemann Leinert (flute), all from Holderlin, appeared on the track "My Mind". Plastic People was their best album since Hoodoo Man. Regrettably the group were not able to develop this style in any proper way. Backdoor Possibilities (1976) was a partly failed attempt to include more jazz and classical elements into their hard rock. Birth Control were now recording for Brain, since CBS had lost faith in them.
In 1983 founder member Bruno Frenzel died after a long illness.
Style: heavy prog
Country: uk
Audio: lossless (flac, cue, log, scans)
Size: 274 mb
Tapestry of Delights:
A progressive rock outfit from Newcastle, who formed in 1970. Wilson-Slesser had previously played with the Les Humphries Singers and Ken Mountain was ex-Yellow. After their Little Girl flexi, Gibbons left to join Halfbreed and was replaced by Ian Murray (ex-Music, Goblin).
After their album, which was produced by Roger Chapman of Family, Barton and Fisher left, being replaced by Arthur Ramm (ex-Les Humphries Singers) and Barry Black (ex-John Miles Set). Then Ian Murray departed, to be replaced by Jimmy Wiley (ex-Icarus).
After the band split, Wilson-Slesser went on to Back Street Crawler, Wiley and Barton ended up in Captain Whizzo (1976) and Black rejoined John Miles.
Style: hard prog Country: italy Audio: mp3 (320k) Size: 128mb
ProgArchive: IL BACIO DELLA MEDUSA (Medusa’s Kiss) is a contemporary Italian group. The members Diego Petrini, Federico Caprai and Simone Cecchini founded it in 2002. The group consists of Simone Cecchini (vocals, acoustic guitar, saxophone), Simone Brozzetti (electric guitar), Federico Caprai (bass), Diego Petrini (drums, organ, piano), Eva Morelli (flute, piccolo) and Daniele Rinchi (violin). The music is very much in the seventies Italian tradition. Of the seventies Italian scene there is similarities to groups such as PREMIATA FORNERIA MARCONI but even more to the hard rocking groups like OSANNA and DE DE LIND. The self-tiled debut album was released in 2004. It is an own production but the Black Widow label started to distribute it later. The music in this debut album can be considered art-rock. The keyboards are used sparingly but the sound is still refined due to the successful use of flute, saxophone and accordion. There is a renaissance/baroque tinge in some of the songs and this creates some personality to the group’s overall sound. This is a good and promising debut album and showing that they have some originality as well. IL BACIO DELLA MEDUSA is an interesting new group that should appeal to fans of the more hard-edged Italian progressive.
Gibraltar: Very Genesis influenced Floridian band who put out a coveted album in the late seventies. This is album is extremely in the Genesis style (like Marillion) yet avoids the commerciality that this band eventually dived headfirst into.) Syn-Phonic also released two bootleg quality live albums from their heyday which show them in a rather muddy light.
Imagine an incredible dynamo of progressive energy in the mold of Nursery Cryme period Genesis, but with some slight punky undertones thrown in as well. Add to this the affected vocals of singer Doroccas, and you have a sound that, while not unlike a high energy version of early Marillion, pre-dated that band by five years. They only released one self-titled studio album around 1978, featuring four long cuts. Hopefully someday that fine album will be reissued on compact disc. A few years ago, two limited issue LPs of their live show were released, (Night Over Never and Better Conditions For The Dead) which included all of the songs from the original album, plus several other tracks not included on the studio LP. While the quality of the recording is no better than an average bootleg, the performance on both of these live albums is incredible.
Babylon, in some ways, is better than Nursery Cryme-era Genesis, although certainly not nearly as innovative, given that their album was recorded in '77. Detectable influences include peak-period Genesis, Gentle Giant, a bit of Zeppelin, even. The vocalist has a very high voice, Plant-like in tone, but phrased more like early Gabriel (if you can imagine that). There's some vague resemblance to Rush, but much more progressive and less metallic. I wish they'd been better recorded; the home-grown qualities of the studio album detract from its appeal, though it's certainly better than the "bootleg quality" ascribed to those live albums. If some really exceptional remastering (or remixing!) is done for the CD reissue, this could be a major winner!
Fuzz Acid & Flowers:
Formed in North Portland, Oregon during the summer of 1966. They won the KLSN Radio Portland Teen Fair Battle Of The Bands on 9th June 1968 and received a 1954 custom purple Cadillac Hearse as a prize! By now they were a top local attraction and the same year they signed to the American Record Company and recorded a demo which received a lot of local airplay. They went on to record an album for the B&V label in 1970 but split up before it was released. Consequently it received little airplay and flopped. The band all went on to college or further education. Today the album is exceedingly rare and even the limited edition reissue on Rockadelic, which has been restricted to just 350 copies, seems destined to become the same before long. Musically, it consists of keyboard-dominated progressive rock and pretty uninspired progressive rock at that on side one. The second side is much better, with some exhilarating keyboard playing on Self-Made God the highlight.
Style: beat Country: uk Audio: lossless (ape 763k) Size: 314mb
Tapestry of Delights: Badfinger, who were the most successful non-Beatles related band signed to the Apple label, began life as The Iveys in Swansea in the mid-sixties. The name change came in 1969 and around the same time the band were invited to contribute three tracks to the soundtrack of a movie based on a novel, 'The Magic Christian', written by Terry Southern. The three tracks, Come And Get It, Rock Of All Ages and Carry On Till Tomorrow, were all contained on their first album as well. The first of them was a highly commercial song, written by Paul McCartney and after its release, in December 1969, it rocketed up the Charts peaking at No 4 in the UK and No 7 in the US. Around the same time Ron Griffiths left the band and was replaced by Joey Molland who'd previously played with The Masterminds, The Merseys and Gary Walker and The Rain. It was Griffiths who had played on most of these tracks when they were originally recorded, but Joey Molland, who looked a little like Paul McCartney who helped promote them. The finest track on the album was Maybe Tomorrow, but several of Pete Ham's other whimsical tunes like Crimson Ship and Dear Angie, which was written by Ron Griffiths, were fine examples of sixties pop. However, in the progressive era of the early seventies the album sounded rather dated and didn't sell too well, only charting in the US, where it peaked at No 54.
Their follow-up 45, the self-composed No Matter What, was much heavier and made the Top 10 on both sides of the Atlantic. The follow-up album, No Dice, again sold better in the States. It contained some good rockers like Better Days and Love Me Do (not The Beatles song) and a Ham/Evans ballad, Without You, that would later top the UK Charts when covered by Harry Nillson.
Their next album was scheduled to be produced by George Harrison but he became understandably preoccupied with the 'Concert for Bangladesh' and Badfinger appeared, as back-up musicians at Madison Square Garden. Apple also rejected many of the initial compositions for the album, which was eventually produced by Todd Rundgren and contained several slickly produced soft rock songs. Again Straight Up sold better abroad than here, peaking at No 31 in the US. One of the Harrison productions, Day After Day, was released as a single (he actually played on the guitar intro) and it made the Top Ten on both sides of the Atlantic. In the States to capitalise on this another track, Baby Blue, was taken from the album and made the US Top 20, but for some unknown reason no follow-up issue was put out here.
It would be fair to say that Apple didn't do the band too many favours over the years - Badfinger set out to produce the next album themselves but Apple rejected it and whilst it was put on hold (much of it was being remixed) the band's business manager negotiated them a new contract with Warner Brothers. They got to work on a new album, releasing Love Is Easy as a 45. It was more rock 'n' roll orientated. Probably a little out of pace with the current fad and released almost two years after their previous 45 when any momentum they'd previously enjoyed was lost, it missed out. Before the Warners album could be put out Apple released the Ass album. One of its tracks, Apple Of My Eye, was released as a 45 but flopped only making No. 102 in the US. The album was less immediate in its appeal than their previous efforts and it made little impact. It did, however, result in Warner Brothers delaying the release of their album, which in the end was simply entitled Badfinger. It included that earlier Love Is Easy 45 but no new 45 was released to help promote it and in fact the album was hastily put together and sounded like it.
Most people regard Wish You Were Here as their finest album, but by the time of its release any popular base of support they had was eroded. It contained some excellent Pete Ham compositions like Know One Knows, Dennis and Just A Chance, as well as strong numbers like Some Other Time and In The Meantime. Some of the arrangements were complex and Chris Thomas, who Warner had assigned to produce the album, had done a far better job than on the previous effort. Despite the release of no 45 to help promote it, it sold well in the US, climbing to No. 60 when Warner Brothers withdrew it from sale. An investigation was launched to establish why advance monies had gone missing, the band were cleared of any culpability, but the progress of the album, which was only released briefly here where it is their rarest album, was halted as a result and thoroughly frustrated Joey Molland left the group at the end of 1974. The remaining members recorded an album entitled Head First during the early months of 1975, but it was shelved in April of that year when Pete Ham committed suicide. Pete was really the band's major talent and after his death the band split up.
Joey Molland, who in the interim had had spells with Blue Goose and Natural Gas, reformed the band with a new line-up in 1978 and they re-recorded Come And Get It for the Hits Reunion (Era BU 5904) compilation. They used the funds from this to record demos for Elektra. This led to a recording contract and a further album and 45 in 1979. Incidentally, the new recording of Come And Get It was later included on The Legendary Sixties (Arcade ADEH 453) compilation. However, the band later fell apart after a problematic American tour in 1983 and in November of that year Tom Evans, who returned to England to find himself in severe financial difficulties, committed suicide too. The remaining members have occasionally embarked on Sixties revival tours but in reality Badfinger was now dead too - the band had never really fulfilled its early promise.
The recent CD reissue of Straight Up includes five tracks from the original version of the album which was rejected by Apple (Money, Flying, Suitcase, Name Of The Game and Perfection) along with an US 45 version of Baby Blue. These six tracks appear on a separate 12" single which accompanies the vinyl reissue.
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