PEARL HANDLE BAND
SHOP STREAM
Making their bones on the college circuit and sorting their way through their various influences, the Pearl Handle Band found themselves in demand, opening for Journey and Van Halen and appearing at rousing summer concerts. As the only band to book in for three appearances in a single year at Chicagofest, two on the rock stage and one on the country stage, the band was genre crossing long before the 80’s rock sound became the mainstay of modern country decades later.
THE BODYSNATCHERS
SHOP STREAM
The Bodysnatchers Enter Austin’s Punk Band: The Bodysnatchers, composed of a coterie of musicians from Abilene,Del Rio, and Idyllwild, who’d all migrated to Austin in the early 70’s. Singer Larry James, guitarist Tom McMahon,”tenor” bassist Kyle Brock, (also in Eric Johnson’s Electromagnets), second bassist Jimmy Pettit, and brothers Chris Bailey on guitar and Ian Bailey on drums. The Bodysnatchers was a band that was ultimately unsustainable due to its force and volume. Their live show experience left band and audiences alike, energized, yet completely drained. Only about seven shows were performed over a period of months. Although at the dawn of punk rock, their sound had an early metal ethic, and a wall of sound production. Too much was never enough, and true to their distorted indulgence of stupidity and carelessness – It’s live!
BAND X
SHOP STREAM
With its tongue in cheek title, The Best of Band X (there had been no previous Band X releases) snuck into the record racks in 1976, the first the world was to hear from musician/producer/writer/arranger (and later all-American hero) Craig Peyton. Fitting in somewhere between contemporaries like Weather Report, Headhunters and Stone Alliance, Craig Peyton definitely ploughed his own musical furrow even in an exceptionally fertile era. Originally a jazz drummer and vibraphonist, Craig was interested in utilizing the potential of some of the new synthesizers that were coming onto the market in that era, (beating even Stevie Wonder to the use of the Fairlight keyboard). Band X consisted of Alan Grzyb, Victor Preston and Joey Bellomo alongside their auteur, Craig Peyton. D
SKY DOG – JUST WANT TO MAKE YOU HAPPY
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SOUTHERN STEEL – GET ON THROUGH
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SOUTHERN STEEL “Get On Through” out of Miami, Florida in 1974 firmly resides in the upper realms of rare early ’70s southern rock LPs and the brilliant guitar interplay, vibrant vocals and finely crafted songs will seriously grab late ’60s westcoast rock ears as well.
TENNESSEE RIVER CROOKS
SHOP STREAM
The band name is taken from the cigar box roadie/manager Jerry Crouch used to stash cash in while working the door at countless gigs across Tennessee, Kentucky, Arkansas, Missouri, Illinois… like most regional working bands of the day these guys played crowd pleasing cover versions at live shows to pay the bills. However, they intended to do their own material from the very start.
MAD JACK – STRAIGHT UP
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MAD JACK was formed by rock and roll lifer Lou Kaplan in direct response to the show biz glam path hard rock had taken during the rise of early ’80s hair metal. He saw that firsthand in L.A. and hightailed it back to upstate New York, looking to put a band together that keeps it real, roots oriented and rocking out down and dirty along the lines of Lynyrd Skynyrd. ZZ Top, Allmans, Outlaws… Southern Rock out of the North but deep fried with the right moves to score gigs opening for his heroes and storming the Eastern Seaboard for the next 20 years. “Straight Up” is Mad Jack’s debut LP issued privately in 1984 and it smokes!
JOE PRICHARD
SHOP STREAM
Very little is known about Joe Prichard or his sidekicks, except that the band, which hailed from Missouri, drew its inspiration from influences far and wide, resulting in each of the 5 tracks being very different in character, ranging from the power chords and staccato guitar breaks of the Jimmy Page variety, to the throaty sax of 12-bar blues specialists Climax as well as the dual guitars of ZZ Top. There’s even a 9-minute jam a la Jethro Tull or Traffic with flute and sax giving a decidedly jazzy feel to proceedings. This is another extremely rare record put out by RidingEasy Records.
MAMMOTH
SHOP STREAM
MAMMOTH is a grabber right out of the gate, every step they take is unleashed with deadly economical precision. They may flash on Lynyrd Skynyrd and other vintage southern rock traditions but the brilliant way the vocals are recorded and the to-the-point interlocking guitar moves will fire up anybody into any sort of hard rock.
BROTHERHOOD OF PEACE – CUTTIN’ LOOSE
SHOP STREAM
Brotherhood of Peace (aka B.O.P.) brought the world some of the best breezy Power Pop, Southern Rock and Heavy Boogie all packed into one brilliant album in 1976, the fittingly titled Cuttin’ Loose. The album is a free-flowing 9-song collection of genre blending would-be hits suited for both 70s AM Gold and FM Album Rock that never received its proper due, until now.
FRACTION – MOOD BLOOD
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There are very few albums in the psych/punk/hard rock/private presses strata that garner the sort of universal awe and accolades that Fraction’s almighty Moonblood LP does, and even fewer records in the world that could be dubbed ‘Christian Rock’ incur such fierce devotion. Indeed some records just meteorically lift themselves out any genre tag with brilliance and sheer defiance–and Moonblood is surely one of them.
RANDY & THE GOATS – ON THE LAM
SHOP STREAM
Randy & The Goats are still ‘On The Lam’ in 2023 as far as most collectors go, 42 years since this street savvy blast of ’70s New York rock and roll was unleashed. It’s way past time you caught up with them. Don’t expect them to hang with you for very long, escape is their modus operandi and their central theme. Wherever they are you can be sure they have one urgent eye on the exit sign. That restlessness is vividly real and supercharges the music. This is an under the radar dose of NYC action in peak form.
EDGE
SHOP STREAM
Whatta ride! Edge comes storming at you right out of the gate with no time to waste and a lotta places to go. It’s 1970 and this beast of an LP nails the moment psychedelic ’60s haze faded into early bad ass hard rock. Edge take it other places as well, brief progressive flashes, medieval folk pop, even… ambitious and concise on every track. No excess baggage, killer arrangements shot through with ripping guitar, moody organ and hooks to spare. The Edge LP always pulled premium collector $$ and your ears will tell you why!
MAXIMILLIAN
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Maximillian combined elements of beat poetry, a little bit of The Fugs, a hit of Funkadelic, a lick of Cream and a vibe of Hendrix worship with an ambition that seems to have jumbled these influences. The Maximillian album is a rare artifact of late-60s psychedelic rock whose appeal is not the skill of their musicianship, but the downright strangeness of it. While at times it sounds like the trio is playing entirely different songs at the same time, it’s said that producer Teddy Vann had a hand in the album’s sometimes confusing production.
MASTER DANSE – FEELIN DEAD
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Master Danse was formed in late 1973 in Detroit, Michigan when drummer Tom Riss and bassist Cary Fletcher, formerly of the Detroit band Licking Stick, went looking for a new guitarist/lead vocalist and jammed with John Giaier, who had most recently played in the band Crawdad. The three musicians hit it off immediately, and a new power hard rock trio was born. In 1973, Detroit was clearly “Rock City”, featuring such local icons as Bob Seger, Alice Cooper, Grand Funk Railroad, Ted Nugent, and Mitch Ryder, and the high energy punch of Master Danse reflected this proud heritage.
WHITE LIGHTNING – THUNDERBOLTS OF FUZZ
SHOP STREAM
Standout favorites of RidingEasy Records’ Brown Acid compilation series, White Lightning’s stellar discography of rare and under-appreciated heavy psych, proto-metal rock gets a vital revival for new generations to learn how swinging, swaggering and often blazingly fast rock’n’roll is done.White Lightning was formed in Minneapolis, MN in 1968 by guitarist Tom “Zippy” Caplan and bassist Woody Woodrich after leaving garage psych band The Litter (themselves popular standouts from the Nuggets and Pebbles series of garage rock rarities.) Originally a power trio, the band later expanded to a 5-piece in 1969 while shortening its name to Lightning.
RANDY HOLDEN – POPULATION II
SHOP STREAM
Population II, the now legendary, extremely rare album by guitarist/vocalist Holden and drummer/keyboardist Chris Lockheed is considered to be one of the earliest examples of doom metal. Though its original release was a very limited in number and distribution, like all great records, its impact over time has continued to grow.
RANDY HOLDEN – POPULATION III
SHOP STREAM
How do you follow up one of the most legendary, yet rarest albums said to signal the birth of doom metal?If you’re Randy Holden, you give everyone about 50 years to catch up, then casually drop a tastefully modernized reinterpretation of that sound. Population III picks up where Holden’s 1969 solo debut left off, updated with several decades worth of technological advances and personal hindsight.
ICE – THE ICE AGE
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During the late 1960’s five young men formed a rock & roll band called ICE located on the west side of Indianapolis Indiana. The group was among the first to perform an all original show throughout the Midwest at high schools, colleges & concert venues. The band was staged as an opening act in venues as large as 12000 people for national groups like Three Dog Night, SRC, Kenny Rogers & the First Edition, The Nitty Gritty Dirt Band & the Guess Who.
In 1970 the group recorded ten original songs at 8-Track Studios in Chicago Illinois. Shortly thereafter the group disbanded. The original 2 inch master analog recording tapes from 1970 were recently discovered, converted to a digital format & remixed preserving the sounds of the original vocals & instruments. The Ice band album entitled “The Ice Age” has never before been released & is all original virgin classic 1969-1970’s rock.
SPINY NORMEN
SHOP STREAM
Recorded at a community college and never released until now, Spiny Normen is a lost relic of a bygone era.
Incredible mid-70’s hard psychedelic rock infused with progressive vibes, Spiny Normen has it all – a mellotron, a Vox Jaguar, crunchy, heavy guitars, flutes and more.
This album has a dark and mysterious vibe to it…all while feeling like an acid trip gone wrong.
ACID KING – BUSSE WOODS
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It could be anywhere. Every small town encompasses that one long stretch of forest where kids run to get high, jam out, and just escape. This place counters the suburban boredom with a bag of weed and booming speakers. It drowns out existence for a few blissful hours before returning back to school, work, or life. For San Francisco-based stoner metal trio, Acid King vocalist, guitarist, frontwoman, and mastermind, Busse Woods offered such a retreat in her native Illinois as a teenager in the 70’s. This 3,700-acre section of the Cook County Forest Preserve system beckoned her during high school with its buffet of dope, frisbee challenges, and Black Sabbath blaring from numerous trunks well past sundown. Those days left such an imprint on Lori she titled Acid King’s second full-length released in 1999—but named her after her seventies hangout two decades later—Busse Woods. Celebrating its 20th year with a special reissue on Riding Easy Records and tour in 2019,
it represents the heart and soul of the band.
ACID KING –
SHOP STREAM
When Acid King pressed up their self-titled debut EP on a tape and started handing them out at shows with business cards, it wasn’t an aesthetic choice. It was 1993.
And while the world was still reeling in the aftermath of grunge breaking big on rock radio, this dirty-as-hell trio founded by guitarist/vocalist Lori S. were digging into even heavier vibes. Born out of Lori’s shiftless days of wasted youth hanging around Chicago-area public parks, Acid King laughingly adopted the name from the book ‘Say You Love Satan’ and its subject Ricky Kasso, a local drug dealer who killed a friend over angel dust, thereby becoming the stuff of Satanic Panic local news broadcasts all over the country.
SORCERY – STUNT ROCK SOUNDTRACK
SHOP STREAM
In the 1970s era of rock’s theatrical excesses, Sorcery delivered next level
performances in which a battle ensued on stage between illusionists portraying
Merlin versus Satan. While Alice Cooper and KISS brought costumes, gore and flashpots to the mainstream, these Los Angeles hard rockers integrated live magic, theatrical drama and fourth wall breaking performance for new heights in musical storytelling. While Sorcery consists of professional musicians — the core group being guitarist Richard (Smokey) Taylor, vocalist Greg Magie and bassist Richie King — two magicians also perform on stage when they play live. The band’s nearly immediate local popularity from their debut in 1975 also made them in demand for film and TV.Enter: Stunt Rock.