While watching Goon recently, I learned of Chilliwack’s Fly at Night. Can anybody suggest any similarly good songs I might not have heard before? I lean toward the prog-y and not the blues-y, btw. Thanks.
Something about that song really reminds me of Dave Mason’s “Mystic Traveler.”
I’ve been in thrall to the recently-named but old 70’s genre now known as “junkshop glam”. Perhaps some of that fits?
“Va Va Va Voom” by Brett Smiley
Ok, I’ll back off the Junkshop Glam a bit. Some more odds and sods:
“Shaking It Down” by the Bell Heirs (Also released on the solo album by the main guy in the Bell Heirs, Robert A. Johnson, who got some FM radio play with this song and others in the midwest in the mid-70’s.)
“Palace Of Love” by Doll By Doll Doll By Doll had to have been a publicist’s nightmare. Were they punks? Sort of. Were they metal? Yeah, definitely, except when they weren’t. Were they prog rock? They kinda were…again, except when they weren’t. Jackie Leven’s multi-octave scale-running voice may take some getting used to here, but this song is just aces. From 1979.
“The Days Grew Longer For Love” by Andwellas Dream An Irish band, this cut is from 1969, and a totally amazing blend of folk and psych in perfect doses.
“Bordeaux Rose” by Fairfield Parlour Fairfield Parlour were actually a band called Kaleidoscope, but for whatever reason the third Kaleidoscope album found them rebranded under the name Fairfield Parlour. This song should’ve charted for them…but didn’t.
“666: Apocalypse of St. John” by Aphrodite’s Child. Someone on another forum told me about it, as I’d never heard of it before. It is an amazingly good album. Was I just out of the loop on this one by the way? Or is it actually a less known work?
Here’s a Youtube clip of one of the main tracks, so you can get a taste of the album.
JPR: Go hunt down a ridiculous record by a band called Captain Beyond - the first, self-titled one from 1972. It’s a sort-of supergroup made up of dudes from Deep Purple and Iron Butterfly. It’s prog meets hard rock meets boogie - lots of awesome riffage and wonky song structures, but never forgets to rock.
Try the first track, Dancing Madly Backwards, on for size.
You were just out of the loop. FM radio played the ever-loving shit out of “Four Horsemen” throughout the seventies and especially in the eighties where it really seemed to catch. They were a Greek band, and their main songwriter was keyboardist Evangelos Papathanassiou…
…who was better known by his nickname, Vangelis.
Yep, the composer of the Chariots Of Fire score and Blade Runner score started off in a Greek prog rock band.
No way, the dude behind one half of Jon & Vangelis was in a prog band?
I wasn’t going to mention that egregious hatecrime against music, but yeah, since you brought it up, Vangelis has all kinds of prog rock “cred”…but he kind of sucks, Aphrodite’s Child kind of sucks (666 rivals Tales From Topographic Oceans and Brain Salad Surgery for being the best example of most pretentious, dull, and unintentionally hilarious excesses of musical overreach in the post-Beatles era). The world would be a much better place had someone put a pillow over the face of “Friends Of Mr. Cairo” in the crib before it was ever born.
Did you know Monster Magnet directly ripped off a riff from that album?
Also, dig this new release, which Advanced Demonology just hipped me to:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kWiBTnGoGM8&feature=player_embedded#!
I did not, but it does not surprise me.
Also, I secretly love “The Friends Of Mr. Cairo”. Sometimes things can be so wildly horrible that they cycle back around into awesome for me, and that’s a great example.
No links to provide, but check out Wishbone Ash, best known for the song Blowin’ Free, and their album entitled Argus. Good classic rock with a twist of prog.
The first Captain Beyond album is great. The second okay and the third forgettable.
Not an obscure band at all, but one of the lesser known songs. Jethro Tull’s We Used to Know:
Don’t know how far beyond basic 4-bar stomp you’re looking to go, but you might want to try some Gentle Giant.
Oh, you know what else — for pure classic rock, if you haven’t heard the album tracks on Little Feat’s first four albums, you’ve just gotta. The songs are great, and those fuckers could PLAY together! Too bad that Lowell George liked to snort coke and drink brandy so much.