 
Lydia Pense & Cold Blood Boz Scaggs Acid Mothers Temple & The Cosmic Inferno Alright kiddies, gather around and let me talk to you about the past. See, at one point in this area, two bands from the East Bay were kinda ignoring the psychedelic freak-out jams that were in fashion and decided to play a more funk and soul type…thing. The better known of these two bands, Tower Of Power, are still well known and pop up now and again. The other, Cold Blood, shot into popularity by 1970 but dissipated six years later. By all accounts, their live show was unbelievable. Now, mind you, I wasn’t around but I have seen footage via a showing of the long out of print film, Fillmore: The Last Days that documents the closing of the legendary venue. A few minutes into Cold Blood’s long, drawn-out performance I was ready to hit my head against the folding chair in front of me but there was a giant biker type chap sitting there so I just bit my tongue and dealt with it. Actually, I knew that 1970’s horn driven soul was no friend of mine, so the need to inflict immense damage to my frontal lobe was no surprise. But forget about me, there is an audience for this stuff and the arrival of Transfusion, the new CD by a revamped Cold Blood should come as good news to the faithful. The only original member remaining is lead singer Lydia Pense who still can belt out the soul ballads and funk rockers with a voice that has remained strong despite taking time off in the 1980’s to raise a family. The rest of the band is made up of veterans and slick players making this one slick release. (I’m 95% certain that the drummer, Donny Baldwin, was behind the kit during Jefferson Starships’s waning days. Not the hit making stuff from the early 70’s but the pop metal drivel (“Find Your Way Back”) and sugar radio friendly crap (“We Built This City”) that…ah ferget it, I’m talking to myself here.) There is nothing wrong with Transfusion, in fact it’s pretty easy on the ears. Too easy, actually. But then, that’s my problem with this type of music to begin with: you hear one of these tunes, you’ve heard ‘em all. There’s an opening verse, a chorus, some more lyrics (always dealing with relationships) and then a horn solo or maybe a sleek jazzy guitar solo and then it’s back to the song, which ends soon thereafter. Luckily for fans the new Cold Blood is much like the old Cool Blood. So, if you know some poor, hapless Baby Boomer in dire needs of some white Funk (or if you are some poor, hapless Baby Boomer in dire need of white funk) then direct them to this CD. The rest of us should just smile and be thankful that they’re happy and dancing and no longer boring us with their stories about “being there when it really mattered.” Oddly, a second name found in the credits of that Fillmore movie is releasing a CD as well. Originally from Texas, Boz Scaggs wandered the globe playing whenever, wherever and ended up landing a job as guitarist for the Steve Miller Band by the late 1960s and was active long enough to become a fixture on the local scene before moving on by the mid 70s, We’re now fifteen LP’s into his solo career and he’s one of those performers that has always been there in the background. Fade Into Light was originally released in 1999 and this is the first time it’s been available in the US. Why, I have no idea…the press release tells me nothing. All I know is that this is the kind of music for the dentist office. The type of music that yuppie radio stations play; radio who like to advertise themselves as “Less talk, more light rock.” Maybe we had too much Muzak in the late 90’s so Scagg’s management felt it would be better to hold off on this one until the market wasn’t so saturated. Apparently, that time is now. If only there was a Deep Purple cover on this one. There is nothing wrong with Fade Into Light in fact it’s pretty easy on the ears. Too easy, actually. But then, that’s my problem with this type of music to begin with: you hear one of these tunes, you’ve heard ‘em all. There’s an opening verse, a chorus, some more lyrics (mostly dealing with relationships) and then a horn solo or maybe a sleek jazzy guitar solo and then it’s back to the song which ends soon thereafter. You should know that when you buy this one it comes with an enhanced stereo version as well. Plus footage shot at the Great American Music Hall. Elevator music has never sounded (or looked) this good. The bottom line is that Cold Blood stuck to what they did best (which wasn’t very good to begin with) and Boz Scaggs slowly ventured into some of the blandest music known to man. Apparently, there is no harboring of feelings for the “old days” here, it’s just music, and if yer a Yuppie (or a dentist) then you may like this. Yeah, the old days. Baby Boomers should be thankful that Acid Mothers Temple weren’t around during those old days. I can only image the carnage had they witnessed one of these shows. The Fillmore West ceiling would’ve been a mess of blown hippie minds, daddy-o. While it’s a bit difficult to make heads or tails of their history or timeline, I can tell you that AMT is a Japanese collective that’s been freaking freely for almost ten years. This band’s music and outlook is so intense that they changed the musical direction of fellow countrymen, The Boredoms, away from their usual intense, Dada-esque noise attack to an intense, spiritual wave of sound. IOA CHANT is comprised of --holy crap!-- one track at fifty-one minutes and twenty-five seconds. After a swelling two-minute intro, AMT takes off on a sonic wave that, if it weren’t for the time constraints of the compact disc format, would still be going on to this day. The drone of classical Indian music, electronica, rock and, according to their label: “throat singing from the Occitan region of France” all folded together in one giant sound sculpture. And it’s catchy, too! At first you just want to write this off as mindless jamming but what is going on in this one track is so mysterious and interesting that you are afraid to miss anything. Maybe it’s the undercurrent melody (coming from any of the multitude of instruments) that keeps you hooked. Maybe it’s the buried chanting vocals that does it. I don’t know and I don’t think it really matters. This is best for red eye flights or all night writing jags to meet deadlines. To think this was being recorded at the same time and on the same planet as Bettye LaVette’s latest is stunning. The usual comparisons to like-minded groups as Gong, Tangerine Dream, Faust, Ruins or Can will come up but AMT is much bigger. AMT spokesperson, Makoto Kawabata, actually communicates with the cosmos through this music, so that alone puts them in their own league. Sun Ra would approve. - Andrew Lau
|
