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Post by oh oooh on Mar 22, 2019 14:08:29 GMT
Really one hell of a band.
They used blues instrumentation and took some of that intensity and repetition, but during their peak years at least (Thank Christ For The Bomb and Split) - completely avoided the kinds of cliché you'd associate with that genre.
A couple to haul you in...
Isn't that really something? Dig the way the second (bottleneck?) guitar comes in at 1:35, ringing like a bell. Beautiful.
This one's as close as they came to a 'hit' (in the sense that it's one of their most famous songs, the one you're most likely to hear on the radio). Again, it's powerful stuff but retains an eccentricity that lifts it above other contemporaneous hard rock with all its screeching and fretwanking. I've heard Peter Hook and Mark E rave about it, so maybe the toughness had some resonance in late 70s Manchester.
The Groundhogs were really skilful musicians but they used their virtues to serve the song, working together to create some of the best music of the time. I hear that same dedication, beauty and simplicity in the Minutemen (another pretty serious trio!) as much as in anyone else.
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loveless
god
Bringing ballet to the masses. Sticking to the funk.
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Post by loveless on Mar 22, 2019 14:58:41 GMT
This shit is really good!
I'd ignored them forever, based on some fear that they'd have some overly mossy sub-Bloodwyn Pig "Prog Corner" damage, but...man, this is really brutal in the best possible way.
Thanks for the turn on.
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Post by fearlessfreap on Mar 22, 2019 15:05:30 GMT
I’ve stayed with them while almost completely going off blues rock. McPhee is the most violent sounding guitarist I can think of. The downtown New York art wank bands if the 80’s tried something similar, but they had neither the talent, nor the balls to get anything near the Groundhogs.
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Post by DarknessFish on Mar 22, 2019 15:07:43 GMT
Not really my kind of thing. I'm only aware of them because Tony McPhee and Carl Stokes were part of the previous line-up of Current 93, for their I Am the Last of the Field That Fell album, and when I saw 'em at Halifax cathedral.
You'd hate this though:
(They play The Groundhogs' "Sad Go Round" at 1 hour 40 mins.
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Post by oh oooh on Mar 22, 2019 16:54:37 GMT
Not really my kind of thing. I'm only aware of them because Tony McPhee and Carl Stokes were part of the previous line-up of Current 93. That really surprises me! I didn't think he was very well these days (he suffered a stroke a few years ago). When did you see him play?
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Post by Half Machine Lipschitz on Mar 22, 2019 17:24:38 GMT
I'm with loveless in that I'd paid them no mind - even though a friend tried briefly to turn me on to them over 15 years ago - so yeah, it's nice to hear something 'new' in this context. 'Cherry Red' is a killer tune, and that chorus is just awesome (I read the lyrics while listening and it sent a little shiver of excitement up my spine). That first drum fill after the opening four bars ends with a cowbell hit and it's the only time in the song he hits the damn thing. I love stuff like that! (Bill Ward does the same thing in 'The Wizard').
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2019 17:59:46 GMT
They always remind me of a better, British Stooges.
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toomanyhatz
god
I've met him/her. He/she's great!!
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Post by toomanyhatz on Mar 22, 2019 18:39:10 GMT
They always remind me of a better, British Stooges. Maybe, but they're kind of opposites - the Stooges are a weird rock band with blues influences that aren't immediately obvious, whereas the Groundhogs are a blues-based rock band that are odder than they first appear (or is that sound?) In any case they're not better. McPhee's guitar tone reminds me of what John Cippolina once said about Link Wray - "he taught me that you can swear without using words."
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 22, 2019 20:09:24 GMT
They always remind me of a better, British Stooges. Maybe, but they're kind of opposites - the Stooges are a weird rock band with blues influences that aren't immediately obvious, whereas the Groundhogs are a blues-based rock band that are odder than they first appear (or is that sound?) In any case they're not better. McPhee's guitar tone reminds me of what John Cippolina once said about Link Wray - "he taught me that you can swear without using words." Too bad Matt Wilson doesn't play any instruments. You could tour as the Didactic Duo.
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Post by oh oooh on Mar 22, 2019 20:13:51 GMT
😀
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Post by DarknessFish on Mar 22, 2019 22:11:09 GMT
When did you see him play? The clue is in the youtube clip. 10th May, 2014 is the precise answer I would never have remembered.
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Post by Charlie O. on Mar 23, 2019 2:19:22 GMT
McPhee first invaded my consciousness via the second Hapshash &The Coloured Coat album - which managed to somehow be both more conventinally song-oriented AND freakier than the first. I'm guessing McPhee either really needed the session fees, or owed somebody a favor. (The keyboardist/MD on the album was Mike Batt! - and I only recently learned that the lead singer had been in The Silkie!)
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Post by phenomenalcat on Mar 23, 2019 15:00:21 GMT
They always remind me of a better, British Stooges. As I listen, I keep thinking this is where Fleetwood Mac could have gone had Peter Green stayed well.
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Post by oh oooh on Oct 4, 2021 11:53:19 GMT
this is AWESOME
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Oct 4, 2021 12:00:44 GMT
Not arf. Good lad. Full of music too.
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