the of mirror eye

* Blue Cheer: Summertime Blues (6.0 mb) | Doctor Please (13.5 mb)
From Vincebus Eruptum : Mercury : 314 514 685-2

In the genre of “loud, dumb, fuzzed out psychedelic blues”, Blue Cheer rule the roost. They were the original power trio that played balls out 100% of the time. Formed in 1968, the original line-up of singer/bassist Dickie Peterson, guitarist Leigh Stephens, and drummer Paul Whaley only lasted for two albums, Vincebus Eruptum, their debut and Outsideinside, their follow-up. A reformed Blue Cheer released a couple of albums after this but, except for one of them, there’s really not much point in seeking those releases out. This album, on the other hand, is pure psychedelic mayhem.

There’s only one reason anyone has ever been interested in Eruptuming: Leigh Stephens. In the summer of 1967, Stephens heard the accumulations of blues and rock inside his head, and formed Blue Cheer, situating himself between Cream’s rhythmic tightness and Hendrix’s flamboyant excess. Fortunately for us, Stephens was resolutely less experienced than either, and in the process of developing this incompetence, he inadvertently birthed punk, heavy metal, and the most primal version of the inexorable and inept guitar freak-out. Vincebus essentially acts as the juncture of the lethally lethargic, basement-murder morass of Sabbath and the vomit-spewing anxiety of early punk rock. There may be occasional blues passages, but trust me, there’s no overlap. When Stephens solos, there is nothing but wind-howling terror.

Blue Cheer’s signature song, “Summertime Blues”, is a prime example of this bludgeoning. 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, Stephens rushes into the mix with a mind-expanding psychedelic gundown. Eddie Cochran’s version actually sounded like summer; this 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. Whereas psychedelic used to be all about the Grateful Dead and Strawberry Alarm Clock (maybe “Tomorrow Never Knows” on a good day), Stephens was one of the progenitors of those gloriously nauseating spaz-outs we now know was to be the future of rock.

(from Alexander Lloyd Linhardt)

I’ve only just recently jumped on the Blue Cheer train, and can’t believe it’s taken me this long to find them out. This is especially mind boggling considering that most of the heavy psychedelic music that I listen to seems to be a direct descendent of Blue Cheer. Oh well, all I can do is make up for lost time and spend the rest of my days rockin’ out.

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