Magnolia Caboose Babyfinger

I have elsewhere alluded to my out-of-step tastes in music--an indigestible smorgasbord of classic rock, classical orchestra, world music, and weird jazz that no one my age would claim with a straight face. That post also announced me as a sort of closeted connoisseur of metal. Let's just say I savor artful noise in many forms.

Lately my curiosity has been drawn to the nexus of classic rock and early metal in the '60s. In fact I take a perverse antiquarian pleasure in ferreting out the earliest examples of "heavy." The Beatles' "Helter Skelter" could fit in the chronology. The genre was definitely in place by the ominously tinted Deep Purple and Black Sabbath, though I shamefacedly admit I'm put off by Ozzy's distinctive vocal stylings. (His late TV antics are another matter.) However, I have more recently turned to exemplars like Iron Butterfly and my current obssession, Blue Cheer.

Those who made fleeting acquaintance with Blue Cheer as some acid-tinged oddity through their ragged cover of "Summertime Blues" (as I was) would be stunned, perhaps pleasantly so, or possibly enraged on first listening to their "OutsideInside" album. This band gives new shades of meaning to "so bad it's good."

Their liberties with the Stones' "Satisfaction" are enough to make Brian Jones rise from his grave and drag Keith Richards in with him. For that matter, I would not want to have been around Albert King if he ever caught wind of the Cheer's take on "The Hunter." (If you think his love gun is something, wait till he whips out his hate gun...)

As for their original material, the songs tend to flow straight from the crotch by way of a Marshall stack topped by a skull-head bong. Yes, they're that good. The album sounds as if Grand Funk Railroad--19, raw, and just hitting the Flint MI bar circuit--had become derailed by the idea of topping "Axis: Bold as Love," failing definitively and heroically and LOUDLY in the attempt.

Sure, "Just a Little Bit" and "Come and Get It" are big and lumbering enough. But where'd they get the idea to lead off with the piano and soft-focus psychedelia of "Feathers from Your Tree"? I guess it's no stranger than the fire-and-ice results of Mountain's West and Pappalardi. Just a lot less polished.

Apparently there's a lot of Spinal Tap-style history to the band, lots of lineup changes and reunion tours. Some form of Blue Cheer soldiers on, continuing to kick the ass of the likes of BTO and Kansas at county fairs across this great land.

And they're huge in Japan.