Big Ears

Pete French was the lead singer with Leaf Hound. He is always worth hearing, especially with Atomic Rooster. Apparently, he reformed Leaf Hound in 2007 and their comeback album received good reviews. It included a cover of his best track with Atomic Rooster, Breakthrough.

Unknown Soldier

Don't worry, nobody can touch you when it comes to journals on here. I've still got some more stuff to add before I move onto 1972.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

Nearly all the bands featured on here so far, have either come under one or two of the above categories, but the one thing they had in common was their ‘heavy leanings’ qualifying them for this journal if their albums were good enough. Now here like in the “Hard, Heavy and a Classic” section are a selection of artists and albums, that come under primarily non-heavy labelling, but they still put out an album or two that was heavy in its feel. These bands are joined by a couple of eclectic choices that simply didn’t fit into a genre or two. This list could be endless with albums and is therefore open to interpretation. I’ve included some that I think need to be mentioned, whilst others have been brought to my attention on here, but all are worth a mention.

For example, Just looking at the components from the demise of Cream, both Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker went onto form their own projects, with Eric Clapton going onto the most acclaim. His work with Blind Faith and Derek & the Dominos are all examples of borderline stuff that could have been included but hasn’t. The same could be said for the Who, whose discography is full of epic rock tunes all highly influential on a lot of the bands that will be featured.

The amount of blues rock bands around at this time was simply staggering and for that reason I’ve only included in the thread those with the heaviest inclinations or those that would go onto embrace hard rock per se. So blues rock bands in the style of Canned Heat, Ten Years After, Jethro Tull and Fleetwood Mac are not going to qualify, while other bands such as Savoy Brown, The Killing Floor, Toe Fat, Blodwyn Pig and the future Foghat, Rory Gallagher and ZZ Top could for either an album or two, depending on your subjective opinion. At the heavier end Grand Funk Railroad, Humble Pie and Free all qualified with ease and of course Led Zeppelin represented the heaviest end of the whole blues rock spectrum.

Blues based artists with heavy leanings worth listening to, starts off with Wishbone Ash. Now Wishbone Ash as far as I’m concerned are one of the finest and most talented bands to have ever come out of the UK. Britain's answer to the Allmans but with a much heavier slant and they were one of the first British bands to master the art of the dual guitar attack, which of course would go onto become a pillar of metal and hard rock in the shape of Judas Priest, Thin Lizzy, Iron Maiden and far more recently with Machine Head. Wishbone Ash mixed their dual guitar attack in with harmonious leads, gentle vocal tendencies, first rate songcraft, experimentation, heavy jamming and unforgettable licks. They could go from heavy and energetic songs, to dreamy and distant sounding tracks in the blink of an eye. They would go on to find their true calling on the prog classic Argus, but their first album saw them at their heaviest, with their second Pilgrimage 1971 and its more more experimental feel, seeing them move into a more progressive rock direction. Their superb debut of which I’ve put two of its stunning cuts below, is a must listen to, along with one from Pilgrimage.

I'm wondering why your face no longer shines.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

I did have that in mind when I was thinking of a name

Yer he was briefly with Atomic Rooster and if memory serves me right also with Cactus (I'm too lazy to look it up)

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

Now when it comes to eclectic look no further than the Groundhogs, my knowledge of this band was somewhat limited, but thanks to a member on here my eyes have been opened to them and I’m impressed with everything about the band (how the hell did I never discover this band before!) Essentially they were a three-piece blues rock band highlighted by the blazing guitar of Tony McPhee, who was known in some quarters as a British Jimi Hendrix, the band put out some really diverse affairs that covered blues rock, hard rock, psychedelia, garage and acoustics. The three albums most appropriate to this time period are the impressive works of Thank Christ for the Bomb 1970, Live at Leeds 1971 and certainly on a par with the Who’s Live at Leeds and Split 1971. I’ve selected a few songs of this band and believe me the guitar of Tony Mcphee is amazing and the intensity of the later part of the track “Thank Christ for the Band” is simply legendary, bassist Peter Cruickshank and drummer Ken Pustelnik were perfect accompaniments with their often aimless, sloppy and heavy rhythm section which laid down the backbone of the band.

So I say thank christ for the bomb.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Big Ears

The Wishbone Ash debut album was one of the first I ever bought. Sounds, the music paper, used to have a colour poster in the centre pages and I put the image of Andy Powell, replete with flying V, on my wall. Those were the days! There's the Rub is a pretty good album too.

Unknown Soldier

They're a band that I can listen to all day and There's the Rub is a great album, but their best imo has to be Argus, such a masterpiece in every sense.

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Metal Wars

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Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Big Ears

Home were similar to Wishbone Ash, hence Laurie Wisefield joining the latter. Mick Cook joined the two-guitar version of The Groundhogs and Cliff Williams became a longterm member of AC/DC. I recommend the second album, Home, released in 1972.

Incredibly their best track Dreamer, from Home, is on YouTube:

Unknown Soldier

The Pink Fairies grew out of the unique 1960s psychedelic band the Deviants, who had released the classic underground sounding debut album Ptoof! in 1967 and over the space of a few years they had released another couple of albums all worth checking out. These albums were highlighted by their acidy jamming style. The project came to an end, when band leader Mike Farren quit the music business and the remaining band members formed an even more diverse and at times harder rocking outfit in the Pink Fairies. The Pink Fairies were essentially a psychedelic outfit with a free flowing style almost reminiscent of Wishbone Ash, they had the hippie spaced out feel of Hawkwind and touched on territory covered by Pink Floyd and weren’t afraid to dabble with American R&B either, but their base sound was probably rooted around a straight-up rock ‘n’ roll sound which became evident across their discography. The vocals on this their debut album were mostly covered by drummer Twink (ex-drummer of the Pretty Things) and he was joined by old Deviant members Paul Rudolph guitar, Duncan Sanderson bass and Russell Hunter on drums. The featured album Neverneverland is just so eclectic and should be of real interest to anybody wanting to check out a really unique band from this era, if fact I’d go as far to say, that they were one of the most interesting British bands of this time period. If you want proof of that just check out these videos of the band.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History

Unknown Soldier

Sure I know Home and there are certainly some similiarities between them and Wishbone Ash but I think they had more in common with the Eagles especially on their first album and also Neil Young influences. Like Trapeze most of the band members went on to join better known bands. Thanks for the reminder on this band, I'll be listening to their stuff over the weekend, haven't heard anything by them in years.

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Metal Wars

Power Metal

Pounding Decibels- A Hard and Heavy History