Blue Cheer - Vincebus Eruptum (1968)

Posted by Nostalgiaholic | on December 17, 2007

They have been called the originators of Heavy Metal, power-blues, psychedelic-heavy-rock… they’re Blue Cheer, and they twisted my fragile little adolescent mind.

Blue Cheer Album
Release Date : January 1968

Label : Polygram

Producer : Abe “Voco” Kesh

Band : Dickie Peterson (bass/vocals), Paul Whaley (drums), Leigh Stephens (geeetar)

Tracks :

“Summertime Blues” (Capehart/Cochran)
“Rock Me Baby” (Josea/King)
“Doctor Please” (Peterson)
“Out of Focus” (Peterson)
“Parchment Farm” (Allison)
“Second Time Around” (Peterson)

They have been called the originators of Heavy Metal, power-blues, psychedelic-heavy-rock, doom, doomy doomsters of doom and all that… they’re Blue Cheer, and they twisted my fragile little adolescent mind.

These three long-haired white boys began peddling their high-volume feedback-drenched noise from a garage in San Fransisco in the late 1960s, and released their first (and best) album Vincebus Eruptum in 1968. Instantly winning the band the new “loudest band on earth” award, the album showcased grunting vocals, Hendrix-outtake-style guitar fuzz, and sound quality direct from yo momma’s basement. Blue Cheer seemed to have much more in common with coma-white Detroit speed merchants The Stooges and the MC5, then they did with their fellow Haight-Ashbury bands’ laid back psych-blues (just the qualudes I suppose).

It was the album only stoners talked about, usually to their friends in basement apartments that smelled like spilled Big Gulps and incense… a kind of religious icon of the counterculture passed from one pair of shaking hands to another like a Bic lighter, while intoning the sacred words, “Hey man, have you heard these guys?”. The kids who showed up for class never knew what they were missing.

From the first bludgeoning of sludgey, vibrating guitar on Summertime Blues, you knew these boys were ahead of their time. Taking Eddie Cochran’s classic rockabilly song, covering it with concrete and dropping it to Atlantis made it more than a cover tune, it was an ironic rip on suburban American youth. Instead of Cochran’s dreamy surfer-boy ballad, The Cheer’s version portrayed the burnout youth of the 70s, forever bummed because their life is being eaten by menial labour to fund their habits. The song was leaden, yet electric, and ripped up to number 14 on the English Pop music billboards.

As the last of the nuclear haze fades, a swaying Hendrix-esque guitar wraps itself around the stone-cold blues beat of Rock Me Baby. Leigh Stephens was totally being Jimi, especially during the bridge of the song. The rhythm of Doctor Please and Out of Focus are up next, showcasing the one man warzone Paul Whaley on drums and Stephens electric guitar in “wall of sound” mode. The solos in Out of Focus are almost Vanilla Fudge-like in their trippiness, but still maintain that heavy resin-coated garage sound.

If your ears weren’t bleeding by this point… you were loving it.

The slithering, menace-filled opening of Parchment Farm sets the stage for Bukka White’s dark ballad of the brutal Mississippi “Parchman Farm” State Prison. Threats, beatings, starvation, and slave labour are some of the uplifting topics covered in this twisted Tom Waits-esque Louisiana dirge. Of course the Blue crew injects their own brand of noisiness, sending the whole thing over the top.

Finally, Second Time Around lets everyone involved have a minute or two in an effort to kill any last brain cells the listener may or may not have remaining. Drum solo, Bass solo, guitar solo… the holy trinity of live music. The lyrics are delivered in the same gruff atonal shout that is featured throughout the album. It’s easy to see how much stoner/doom metal bands like Nebula and Kyuss owe to the immortally tripping Blue Cheer.

Loud, raunchy, psychedelic, loud, angry, bluesy, loud, and hard to find… this album was a holy grail to me and basement-dwelling burnout geeks everywhere… Did I mention it was loud…? And Voted as one of The Wire’s 100 Records That Set The World On Fire (When No One Was Listening) ? It’s rock ‘an roll in it’s most raw and un-polished state, and essential listening for anyone who needs a wee dash of fuzz to whet their aural appetite.

Can you believe these guys are still rocking hard…? Check out their site, and this mind-numbingly Wikked article on their Entire Career, then lights some tea candles, roll up, and worship at the altar of guitar feedback.

Much love…

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