The world never seemed like a stranger place the moment I found out that the sleaze rocker singing the words "sixteen and savaged" was none other than Michael Phillip Des Barres, a.k.a. T.V.'s "MacGyver." But truth is almost always stranger than fiction, and to be honest, it's not all that different than Lee Ving, frontman of the California Punk band FEAR, cast as the sleazy strip club owner in "Flashdance."
He is also known for replacing Robert Palmer in Power Station, fronting the band at 1985's Live Aid. He is also the ex-husband of "super-groupie" and novelist Pamella Des Barres.
I'm not gonna waste your time with this one, re-telling you all the histroy of the band that you already know, much less force you to read some bullshit remedial material spewed from my mouth. So I'm jusat gonna post the records and leave it at that.
From America's east coast, Banchee released their debut album on Atlantic records in 1969. The band, singer/guitarist Peter Alongi, drummer Victo Digillio, rhythm guitarist Jose Miquel DeJesus, and bassist Michael Marino, teamed up with producers Warren Schatz and Steven Schlakz (?!?!)
The album is very typical for the time, though was very much "more heavy than hippi."
High energy guitars, very tuneful structure, but none the less ultimately hard, guitar-driven rock. Th album even spawned a single: "" Just Don't Know" b/w "Train of Life."
Two years later they released "Thinkin'" and also saw them with a new label, Polydor. The group also expanded to a five piece wit the addition of singer/percussionist Fernando Roman (who just also happened to be DeJesus' cousin). With the band co-producing with Dave Paslmer and Ralph Moss, the sophmore band saw themselves aiming for an even tougher rock sound. Unlike the debut, which was largely democraticproject wit everyone contributing their writing duties, this time around Jose Miquel DeJesus was responsible for a majority of the material.
While it wasn't particularly original or ground breaking, this was one of those rare albums where ther simply wasn't a bad song in the list.
(with material from Bad Cat Records)
Stack Waddy were an English Blues-Rock band from Tiperley, Manchester most actively in the late '60's and early 70's, and again in 2007. After seeing the band play live at the Buxton Blues Festival in 1969, John Peel immediately signed them to his Danillion label. The original lineup of John Knail, Mick Stott, Stuart Banham, and Steve Revel (replaced by John Groom on the second album), released two albums and singles before breaking up for a while in 1973. Supposedly, rumor says that there is a hidden archive stored away with several albums more worth of material. (studio jam sessions, and rehersals).
On January 24, 1972 (transmitted on the 18th of February) the band also recorded a performance for the John Peel BBC Radio 1 show. The tracks were; "Hoochie Coochie Man", "Rock Me Baby", "You Really Got Me", and "Willi the Pimp." (which is entirely fitting given the bands uncanny "Beefheartesque" sound).
They have reconvined several times with their second lineup of Knail, Stott, Banham, & Groom, with the last gathering for the Dandilion Records Bigraphical DVD film shoot in 2007.
British blues rock band Medicine Head was initially a duo. Active throughout the 70's, their biggest single success was 1973's "One and One is One", a number three hit on the British singles chart. The group recorded six original albums, the first three of which were on John Peels Dandilion label.
For most of it's carreer, the groupthe group was a duo comprising John Fiddler (vocalist, pianist, guitarist, drummer), and Peter Hope-Evens (harmonica, Jew's harp, and mouthbow player). At various stages, the band utilized other musicians, Clive Edwards, Keith Relf, Tony Ashton, Roger Saunders, George Ford, John Davies, Rob Townsend, and Morgan Fisher.
Fiddler and Hope-Evens began performing together on an informal basis in 1968 playing blues/rock songs in clubs in and around Birmingham. They were seen at the Lafeyette Club by radio DJ John Peel, who in turn played a tape of their songs for John Lennon, Eric Clapton, and Pete Townsend and, at Lennon's insistance, signed them to his Dandilion Record label. The dou's first album New bottles, Old Medicine, was recorded in a single two-hour session. and they toured with Peel at many of his gig's, Peel paying them out of his own fee. Their second album, Heavy on the Drum was recorded with Keith Relf, formerly of the Yardbirds, as producer. The single "(And The) Pictures in the Sky" rose to no. 22 on the U.K. singles chart in 1971, and was the first hit of the Dandilion label.
Hope-Evans left the band for over a year and Fiddler, Relf (on bass), and drummer John Davies recorded the band's third album The Dark Side of the Moon . It was released in 1972, the year before the Pink Floyd album of the same name. According to Nicholas Schaffner, Pink Floyd briefly changed the name of their piece (which they were already performing live) to Eclipse, until the Medicine Head album turned out to be "a commercial dud." The track "Only to Do Wahat is True" appeared on the 1972 compilation There is Some Fun Going Forward.
Medicine Head signwed with Polydor records, and Hope-Evans returned for the album One And One is One produced by Tony Aston and recorded with various session musicians. The title track became the bands biggest hit, reaching # 3 in the U.K. in 1973, and they followed it up with "Rising Sun" (#11)
Despite constant touring (as a support act), Medicine Head failed to place an album on the U.K. Albums chart. For their final album, Two Man Band the band reverted to being a duo. Medicine Head finally folded in 1977.
From Neil Merryweather.com: "In a nutshell... Neil took the members from Mama Lion into a studio to demo some songs. They recorded half a dozen songs and a few days later, Mama Lion wound up in New York City to play Central Park with Billy Preston. The engineer in L.A. made an acetate of Neil's songs and sent it to Neil in care of Famous Music. The band went to a meet n greet at Famous Music and Neil played the acetate at the party. The head of A&R loved it and bought the music from Artie Ripp.
Neil called the project "Heavy Cruiser." When Mama Lion got back to L.A., Neil took the band back into the studio and they recorded a few more tracks to complete the "Heavy Cruiser" record. Artie Ripp stopped the band from putting their names on the record because he didn't want it to interfere with his main act Mama Lion.
The same thing happened when Neil did more of his songs with the band and produced a second Heavy Cruiser record called "Lucky Dog" - band members names were left off the cover.
This group from Amsterdam evolved from the band Penny Wise. When they started out in 1969, the lineup was Donald Van Os (guitar/backing vocals, ex-Penny Wise), Martin Van Os (drummer, ex-Penny Wise), Johan Slager (guitar, ex-Little Johnny & Flaming Stars), Peter Van Aston (vocals), Robert Verway (bass, Brainbox).
Lineup in 1970 - Donald Van Os, Martin Van Os, Egon Verhoeven (bass, ex-California License), Michael Van Dijik (ex-Ekseption, went to Brainbox and stayed there from '71 to '74).
In 1974 the lineup changed to: Donald Van Os, Martin Van Os, Michael Van Dijik, and Jocques Zwart (ex-Think Tank). In that year, Amsterdam fell apart. Peter Van Aston became a producer and composer, and released a few albums under the name Peter Bewly.
The band never released a full length album, but has 9 7" singles to it's credit. A self titled compilation was released after the band had broken up in 1975 on Pink Elephant.
From Canada, Ex-Mandala members Dominic Troiano, Roy Kenner, and Pennti "Whitey" Glan, left Mandala in 1969 and the next year moved to Arizona, where they recruited Prakash John and began playing the circuit with heavy blues based riffs and a bit less sophisticated output looking for something different.
They caught the attention of Reb Foster, an L.A. disc jocky while he was in Arizona and ran a management company through Cuordoroy Records, an affiliate of ABD/Dunhill Records. They signed with Dunhill in 1970 (Bush was the first band to sign with Cuordoroy) and soon found themselves opening for such acts as Three Dog Night and Steppenwolf. As they prepared for the release of their first album, the band found themselves in the middle of a law suit between Cuordoroy and Dunhill which did absolutely no good for the band, who ended up only releasing their eponymous debut. They hobbled along for another year, but called it quits, broke.
Troiano and Kenner weren't out of work for long, once The James Gang came calling (who was seeking replacement for Joe Walsh's position) and Troiano would later join the Guess Who, and release several solo albums, as well as form his Black Market project before becoming immersed in production and behind the scenes work. Kenner would often appear on Troiano's works, as with John, who, along with Glan, went on to record with Alice Cooper.
The band re-released the album in 1995, at the same time that another "Bush" came out of Britan with the same name. To avoid any legal trappings, the band released the album as "Bush X" for the Canadian release.
Two years later, Troiano and Gavin Rossdale, leader of the British band held a press conference in Toronto to announce they'd been given the Bush name on recordings.
