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koganbot"great music!! ive been enjoying this since i ws 18. now im 57. Korea 김광배"
--from a YouTube comment thread for Rare Earth's "Get Ready"
I saw Rare Earth when I was 15;* my cousin Larry in NYC took me to see Steppenwolf at Carnegie Hall, and Rare Earth were the opening act. And I've barely given them a thought since. I mostly remember waiting for them to be over, so I could hear the "Born To Be Wild" guys.
But given that it was Korea that taught me the greatness of LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem," I'm wondering if it can do the same for Vanilla Fudge, Rare Earth, and Iron Butterfly.
All right. None of you are going to listen to all of these. I'd recommend, first, "Funky Broadway" and "Jingle Bells," and after that you can wallow in whatever you have time for.
Fact is, I didn't want to like Rare Earth. They represented long plods and interminable solos, the heavy clompfooted doltishness that was coming to outshout the Stones-style hard rock that I loved. And adding what seemed like BST-type jazz-rock dullness didn't help. I don't think I got that there were soul elements. I was tending to overlook soul anyway.
Of course, in retrospect heavy bands came on to produce some great stuff. I was only a month or so away from being won over by Zep's "Whole Lotta Love." So now, going back, I'm hoping to discover giant mountains of behemoth motion — squelching the valleys, flattening the forests, ripping into and rolling up the plains like a motel-room carpet. Listening today to Rare Earth's Get Ready album, I'm not really hearing that. They're still not getting the mountain to dance much. The most movement is their cover of Traffic's "Feelin' Alright." But deep in the middle of "Get Ready" they achieve a relentless kinda drum-n-gtr pile-driver of a slugfest. Anyway, there's more to explore and contemplate amidst the stomp (e.g., whether Rare Earth heaviness helped steer the Norman Whitfield/Barrett Strong experiments with the late '60s/early '70s version of the Temptations towards the stunning mammoth beat of "Papa Was A Rollin' Stone").
Rare Earth "Get Ready"
The Koreans had a defter touch and more of a dance, though therefore rarely made it to purple mountain massiveness. But some good excitement, and some smoking guitar lava [EDIT: Well, more guitar excitement on "Jingle Bells" than on this].
He 6 "Get Ready"
Here's Shin Joong Hyun. The stuff of his released on compilation in America has leaned towards the beautiful side of his repertoire — featuring psychedelic solos rather than his psychedelic metal solos — but YouTube isn't so circumspect:
"Funky Broadway," showing us how to really do the metal-soul thing (the singer is Park In Soo, if I'm reading the credits right).
And, of course:
Some of this reminds me of Pete Cosey with Miles, except this (1970) is several years earlier. Shin Joong Hyun & The Questions entire "In-A-Kadda-Da-Vida" live album is streamed here (though the rip is a bit shaky). Starts delicate, gets heavy. [EDIT: That link is now long dead, but here's the first half, not including the title track. Btw, I recall reading that the album was a bootleg, though I think it may have eventually gotten an official release.]
The Iron Butterfly version, if you've never heard it (was going to call it the "original," but the riff is an obvious rip from Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love"). I still need to listen to Iron Butterfly and Vanilla Fudge beyond the two big hits.
Vanilla Fudge's "You Keep Me Hanging On," an obvious progenitor of Rare Earth.
As a bonus, He 6's "I Don't Know" (not so heavy, but more soulful; one of my favorite tracks of theirs).
He 5 in 1969, before they added a sixth member. Their instrumental version of "Jingle Bells," which quickly goes off message:
*My first rock concert ever, if you don't count young bands at junior high school dances (though I don't see why I shouldn't count them).
--from a YouTube comment thread for Rare Earth's "Get Ready"
I saw Rare Earth when I was 15;* my cousin Larry in NYC took me to see Steppenwolf at Carnegie Hall, and Rare Earth were the opening act. And I've barely given them a thought since. I mostly remember waiting for them to be over, so I could hear the "Born To Be Wild" guys.
But given that it was Korea that taught me the greatness of LMFAO's "Party Rock Anthem," I'm wondering if it can do the same for Vanilla Fudge, Rare Earth, and Iron Butterfly.
All right. None of you are going to listen to all of these. I'd recommend, first, "Funky Broadway" and "Jingle Bells," and after that you can wallow in whatever you have time for.
Fact is, I didn't want to like Rare Earth. They represented long plods and interminable solos, the heavy clompfooted doltishness that was coming to outshout the Stones-style hard rock that I loved. And adding what seemed like BST-type jazz-rock dullness didn't help. I don't think I got that there were soul elements. I was tending to overlook soul anyway.
Of course, in retrospect heavy bands came on to produce some great stuff. I was only a month or so away from being won over by Zep's "Whole Lotta Love." So now, going back, I'm hoping to discover giant mountains of behemoth motion — squelching the valleys, flattening the forests, ripping into and rolling up the plains like a motel-room carpet. Listening today to Rare Earth's Get Ready album, I'm not really hearing that. They're still not getting the mountain to dance much. The most movement is their cover of Traffic's "Feelin' Alright." But deep in the middle of "Get Ready" they achieve a relentless kinda drum-n-gtr pile-driver of a slugfest. Anyway, there's more to explore and contemplate amidst the stomp (e.g., whether Rare Earth heaviness helped steer the Norman Whitfield/Barrett Strong experiments with the late '60s/early '70s version of the Temptations towards the stunning mammoth beat of "Papa Was A Rollin' Stone").
Rare Earth "Get Ready"
The Koreans had a defter touch and more of a dance, though therefore rarely made it to purple mountain massiveness. But some good excitement, and some smoking guitar lava [EDIT: Well, more guitar excitement on "Jingle Bells" than on this].
He 6 "Get Ready"
Here's Shin Joong Hyun. The stuff of his released on compilation in America has leaned towards the beautiful side of his repertoire — featuring psychedelic solos rather than his psychedelic metal solos — but YouTube isn't so circumspect:
"Funky Broadway," showing us how to really do the metal-soul thing (the singer is Park In Soo, if I'm reading the credits right).
And, of course:
Some of this reminds me of Pete Cosey with Miles, except this (1970) is several years earlier. Shin Joong Hyun & The Questions entire "In-A-Kadda-Da-Vida" live album is streamed here (though the rip is a bit shaky). Starts delicate, gets heavy. [EDIT: That link is now long dead, but here's the first half, not including the title track. Btw, I recall reading that the album was a bootleg, though I think it may have eventually gotten an official release.]
The Iron Butterfly version, if you've never heard it (was going to call it the "original," but the riff is an obvious rip from Cream's "Sunshine Of Your Love"). I still need to listen to Iron Butterfly and Vanilla Fudge beyond the two big hits.
Vanilla Fudge's "You Keep Me Hanging On," an obvious progenitor of Rare Earth.
As a bonus, He 6's "I Don't Know" (not so heavy, but more soulful; one of my favorite tracks of theirs).
He 5 in 1969, before they added a sixth member. Their instrumental version of "Jingle Bells," which quickly goes off message:
*My first rock concert ever, if you don't count young bands at junior high school dances (though I don't see why I shouldn't count them).
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Date: 2013-03-17 04:23 am (UTC)iazz organ. Bass probably could have done with being a little more plucky. After the organ solo rescues the song, its upbeat syncopation in the background is what plays foil to and thus justifies the bass staying steady and the guitar going with long notes. That built up good will comes perilously close to squandered during the sax solo, before thankfully the drums are allowed their turn. But I'm biased there, so I was actually paying more attention to the drum solo, which is always good for staving off spacing out. Still, I think it really was much better than the sax solo.