A '60s guitar hero who never seemed to be in the right place at the right time, Randy Holden has attracted a small but intense cult following for his work with various California groups in the '60s. After a couple of surf singles with the Fender IV that featured his inventive reverbed fretting, Holden joined the Sons of Adam, a Los Angeles band that cut three decent garage-psychedelic singles. Holden's characteristic Jeff Beck-like sustain can already be heard on these, the best known of which is "Feathered Fish," which was penned by Arthur Lee of Love (although Love never recorded it). When the Sons of Adam broke up, drummer Michael Stuart, in fact, joined Love, while Holden joined the underrated punky San Francisco psychedelic band the Other Half. His searing, suspended leads are the highlights of their sole album (they also recorded a few single-only songs).
Holden is actually best known for his short stint in San Francisco's Blue Cheer, which bridged psychedelia and heavy metal. Holden replaced Leigh Stephens, but left during the recording of the third Blue Cheer album, New! Improved! (he appears on side two only). Holden then recorded an extremely hard-to-find hard rock album as a solo artist, Population II, for the small Hobbit label in 1970 before drifting out of the music business. Most of his work, however, has been reissued sporadically by small labels in the '80s and '90s.
Holden's first solo album (he would not release any more music for about 25 years) was a strange bridge between psychedelia and heavy metal. At times these lurching, extended songs sound like sub-Jimi Hendrix noodling. But at the same time they sound genuinely more sinister and feverish than the by-the-numbers heavy metal soloing that would become so popular starting in the early 1970s. The slow, sometimes dirge-like tempos were a result of an adventurous two-man band situation in which Holden's only accompanist was Chris Lockheed, who played drums and keyboards simultaneously and couldn't be expected to effectively keep rapid rhythms. Holden is much more of a guitar player than a singer/songwriter, but these do have some smoking sustain passages, sometimes with a stratosphere-like wobbly bite, as on "Fruits and Icebergs." According to Holden the album was never officially released, but somehow the tapes or pressings must have reached collectors, as it's been bootlegged more than once.
listen here
Saturday, September 10, 2011
Randy Holden - Population II 1971
Popular Posts
-
A wild, freewheeling, and ultimately successful attempt to merge psychedelia with jazz-rock, Soft Machine 's debut ranges between loving...
-
Kathy McCord - Kathy McCord 1970 Kathy McCord released a lone self-titled LP in 1970, the first release from Creed Taylor ’s CTI Records, ...
-
Not too much info about this 1969 psychedelic blues boogie album from this Texas group originally released on the UNI label. Opening cut is...
-
When you think of the Doors , "guitar" isn't the first thing that usually comes to mind ( Jim Morrison 's manic persona an...
-
The Small Faces were the best English band never to hit it big in America. On this side of the Atlantic, all anybody remembers them for i...
-
Tiny Tim 's 15 minutes of fame were starting to run out when Tiny Tim's Second Album was released in November 1968, and it sold onl...
-
Manna/Mirage was the Muffins ' first album and remained their best work. It is a fantastic blend of Canterbury prog and Henry Cow -ish ...
-
Mungo Jerry is one of rock's great one-hit successes. Outside of England, they're known for exactly one song, but that song, ...
-
The debut album from the Atlanta-based funk aggregate spawned three singles and a host of soul numbers. The first single from the album was...
-
This obscure trio from Southern California released just one self-titled album in 1969, containing a heady mix of rock, blues, soul, and p...
0 comments:
Post a Comment