BLUE CHEER

OutsideInside

(Akarma) Used LP $15.00

Only eight months after Vincebus Eruptum, Outsideinside “contains Leigh Stephens’s paroxysms [and] proved to be some of the best the ’60s ever produced,” promises Pitchfork. “ ‘Feathers from Your Tree’ begins with a drowsy hush before escalating to a strikingly driving pop song, complete with tortured teenage vocals and backup singers…. ‘Sun Cycle’ is a slow rotating blues that reigns in fuzzed and tangled guitars. The version of Booker T.’s ‘The Hunter’ begins as a bluesy hobble until strains of piercing guitar raze through the dinginess. ‘Just a Little Bit’ and ‘Come and Get It’ slow down the tempo and create … tense interaction between players … absent on Vincebus. The result is vastly more atmospheric and fulfilling, if not quite as stunningly anarchic. The one exception is the cover of ‘Satisfaction,’ perhaps the most exemplary version ever recorded, focused less on the music than the energy. It’s as if Stephens is torturing the original…. If it doesn’t sound as influential as Vincebus’s cataclysmic insanity, it’s because it defines ‘classic’ rock. Everyone else was just shooting for this.” 1999 repress of 1968 album on orange vinyl

BLUE CHEER

Vincebus Eruptum

(Akarma) Used LP $15.00

“The juncture of the lethally lethargic, basement-murder morass of Sabbath and the vomit-spewing anxiety of early punk rock,” is how Pitchfork characterizes this 1968 debut album. “The band makes several attempts to get their instruments to sound like they’re playing together, but whenever singer/bassist Dickie Peterson and drummer Paul Whaley accidentally forget that they’re in the same band…, a mind-expanding psychedelic gundown” rushes in, courtesy of guitarist Leigh Stephens, “one of the progenitors of those gloriously nauseating spaz-outs we now know were to be the future of rock: undulations of deafening wreckage and turbulent reverb. The rhythm section is barely audible, and when it is, it can barely stay ahead of Stephens…. And while Blue Cheer, at this early stage, have yet to work out their kinks, their songs are already stunning: ‘Out of Focus’ croaks tales of ‘the magic madness.’ ‘Mystic dream’ [is] a prepubescent version of Zeppelin’s bombast, while ‘Second Time Around’ is a grimier and more explosive predecessor to Yes’s ‘Heart of the Sunrise’…. Eddie Cochran’s version of Summertime Blues’ actually sounded like summer [but Blue Cheer’s] sounds like whatever kind of season they have in a coal mine with skeleton scaffolds. The production is so lo-fi, it’s practically transcendent.” 1999 repress, black vinyl, embossed jacket