You might remember that I wrote a piece about the Welsh band, MAN, a few months ago when I was still a newbie to their music. Since then I have received some mind-blowing MAN albums, bursting with their eclectic blend of West Coast psychedelia, hard rock, blues, progressive rock, funk, Beatlesy harmonies, and top notch jamming. These albums have been beautifully remastered with excellent bonus material and packaging and new liner notes from one of the MAN legends himself, guitarist/singer/songwriter, Deke Leonard. The most recent reissues include the three albums, Back Into The Future, Slow Motion and Maximum Darkness.
I’ve got to say that these MAN reissues have been in very heavy rotation in my iTunes and iPod for the last couple months. I have gone from a complete ignorance of this band, not even having heard of them before 2008, to being converted to an unmitigated MAN fan by mid-2008. Why is MAN such a horribly overlooked band, you might ask? I’m really not sure, but my guesses are a) perhaps mismanagement (a la Moby Grape) and b) lack of radio hits. At least the Grateful Dead had “Truckin’” and “Casey Jones” But this isn’t necessarily mainstream music here either. This is music for music’s sake. Here’s my completely-biased account of the most recent set of MAN albums that have just been re-released on England’s Esoteric Recordings this summer.
Click on through for the juicy details…
As a supplement to our most recent Best Band You’ve Never Heard In Your Life featuring the band, MAN, here’s a Muxtape MAN mix to get you fully turned on to MAN’s sound. Dig it this weekend, for it will soon expire. And report back on your findings. Happy Weekend!!!
Original Best Band post on NewmRadio
Link from our friends at Hidden Track
Hey all, I just had another piece published over at Blog Critics blog and it looks good if I get some clicks over there…and some comments. So do me a favor and check out the piece over here (it’s the same as the piece posted below), and it’s about a really good band that I can’t believe I haven’t heard until 2008! It just goes to show, there’s always music out there perfectly suited to your tastes just waiting to be discovered, so go find it!
MAN: The Best Band You’ve Never Heard In Your Life on Blog Critics magazine
The Welsh band, MAN, is certainly one of the Best Bands You’ve Never Heard In Your Life. Much like their Welsh peer band, Budgie, MAN has managed to have a loyal cult following since the ‘70’s, but just never was able to break through to major radio hit success like their fellow Welsh band, Badfinger. But then again, if you’re familiar with the fate of Badfinger (suicides of 2 of their primary members), MAN is probably not envious. In fact, MAN was a band that seemed to embrace the underground spirit of their music.
Radio hits or not, they certainly can hold their heads high, as they’ve left behind some of the most interesting rock music of the 70’s… and that’s saying a lot! Although mostly remembered as a progressive rock band, MAN did progressive in a way that was completely original from most other progressive bands, blending together the best elements of psychedelia, blues, vocal harmony, and West-coast style jam-driven rock and roll. Very much in line with such opinion-polarizing counter-culture bands The Grateful Dead and even Phish, MAN were praised for their live shows, which were never the same twice. But MAN’s jamming was less loose and laid-back than the Dead and a bit more gritty, thereby actually sharing more an affinity with Phish, especially in their use of the occasional silly lyric…“I like to eat bananas, because they got no bones…I like marijuana, ‘cause it gets me stoned” (from their live show staple, ‘Bananas’).
So I’ve had one of my Best Band features published elsewhere on this here web which extends the whole world wide. The site is called Blog Critics and I’ll be regularly writing pieces for them, but for now I just have one lonely little unpopular piece about a band that the general public doesn’t know sitting over there wishing it would get some clicks. So do it (and me) a favor and click on over there and give ‘er a read and better still, leave some glowing comments!
The band, Blodwyn Pig (blawd-win) is definitely one of the Best Bands You’ve Never Heard In Your Life. The band formed after original Jethro Tull guitarist, Mick Abrahams left Tull in 1968. It is said that Abrahams and Ian Anderson did not agree on the musical direction of the band, Abrahams preferring the hard blues-rock style and Anderson starting to write in a more progressive rock style. (Who won that feud, would you say?) Blodwyn Pig released two albums, one in 1969 and one in 1970, and this song is from the second album, titled Getting To This. It’s one of the Best Bands You’ve Never Heard In Your Life, Blodwyn Pig with “See My Way”…
And here’s a bonus for ya…
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uN68LSrPTC0&hl=en]
The band, Colosseum, is definitely one of the Best Bands You’ve Never Heard In Your Life. The band formed in England in 1968 by three ex-John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers players, rounded out by a guitarist which they soon recruited. Their second album, Valentyne Suite, was their first to be released on Vertigo Records, which was the label Black Sabbath was signed to. The band’s members went on to form some other best bands you’ve never heard in your life, including Greenslade, Tempest, and even Colosseum 2, which would feature well-known guitarist Gary Moore, and current Deep Purple keyboardist, Don Airey. So here is one of the Best Bands You’ve Never Heard In Your Life, Colosseum, with the song “Kettle” from their 1969 album, Valentyne Suite…
The band, Family, is certainly one of the Best Bands You’ve Never Heard In Your Life. They formed in England in 1967 and consisted of the late Ric Grech on bass, who would later join the supergroup Blind Faith. The other members of Family that defined their progressive-psychedelic sound were guitarist John “Charlie” Whitney and singer Roger Chapman, whose unique vocal style was described as “bleating vibrato” and “an electric goat”. With a few personnel changes through the years, Family went on recording great albums until 1973. The song I’ve got for you right now is from Family’s first album from 1968 titled Music In A Doll’s House, and was produced by Dave Mason of Traffic fame. It is also notable that the Beatles were recording what became their self-titled album, better know as the White Album, during 1968 and were originally intending to call the album A Doll’s House, but changed it after the release of Family’s Music In A Doll’s House was released in the summer of ’68. So here’s one of the Best Bands You’ve Never Heard In Your Life…Family, with “Hey Mr. Policeman”….
Mighty Baby is a definitely one of the Best Bands You’ve Never Heard In Your Life. Or have you?! Mighty Baby was a short-lived band from the late-60’s, their sound sometimes described as sort of the Grateful Dead or Buffalo Springfield of England. Of course, they were never as well-known as either of those bands. The band was known earlier as The Action when they were signed to George Martin’s Parlophone label, but changed to Mighty Baby in 1969. They released two albums, one in 1969 and the other in 1971 and in that time, many of the bands members became Muslims of the Sufi order (soo-fee). There is definitely a substantial difference in sound from the first album to the second album, and fans are probably split on which sound they like better. I think I lean towards the overall sound of the second album. Let me know if you want me to post something from the 1971 Jug of Love album so you can hear the difference. This song one is called “Egyptian Tomb” and it is from Mighty Baby’s self-titled album from 1969. Dig it…
A new year, a new special music segment designed to subvert your ears from the norm and introduce you to the Best Bands You’ve Never Heard In Your Life.
The Edgar Broughton Band is certainly one of the Best Bands You’ve Never Heard in Your Life. Or have you?! The Edgar Broughton Band hails from the quaint English town of Warwick on the Avon River, starting out as a blues band in 1968. They soon incorporated a psychedelic bent to their sound and signed with Harvest Records, home to such classic artists as Deep Purple, Pink Floyd, The Move, Focus, Soft Machine, and The Pretty Things.
As with the band, The Fugs and even the Mothers of Invention, The Edgar Broughton Band started becoming known for their radical anarchist and anti-establishment politics and therefore are sometimes know to be “punk before it was punk.”
Why have you never heard them? I don’t know. But since it’s my specialty to perk your little ears up to new things that rock, you’re going to hear them now! The song I’ve got for you is from their 1971 eponymous third album and most successful album…it’s the Edgar Broughton Band, with ‘Madhatter’…
