Bloodrock Bloodrock 2
Many critics seemed to enjoy deriding Bloodrock back in the early 70's when they were recording and performing to rabid fans (myself included, though I never got to see them live). And I will admit that Bloodrock's music has aged just a little bit...it's not quite as wonderful as I remembered it being as a child of 13 or 14, when I considered them my favourite band. I'd never heard too much of Grand Funk Railroad, so all the comparisons the critics were making of Bloodrock to Grand Funk were lost on me. I just knew that I really liked Bloodrock's sound.
It is a rich, tight, funky sound, a harbinger of Lynyrd Skynyrd and southern rock, prominently featuring a Hammond B-3 organ and with a vocalist whose vocal cords sounded like they had been soaked in whiskey. Personally I prefer Bloodrock's sound to Grand Funk's, but what do I know? I'm sentimental about this album...
Because it was one of the first rock albums I ever owned. Buying record albums was a weekly ritual for me, a pay-off for having a good week.
It was the morbid AM radio hit "D.O.A." that first caught my attention. With it's eerie sirens blaring and it's morose, morbid lyrics about a young couple's final moments after a fatal accident, how could a young rock and roller such as I was resist? I became a fan and eventually bought all of their albums. Bloodrock 2 was the one I considered the best. Both of the opening two songs are powerful ("Lucky In The Morning", "Cheater"), but things get bogged down a little with "Sable And Pearl". Now I can remember enjoying this song when I was younger, but these days I can't say I'm too fond of it. The first side of the album winds down with "Fallin", a solid, percussuin driven rocker about falling into a well...or perhaps it's a metaphor for the illusion of life being much like falling down a well (I keep fallin' through that well/It's so deep I can't see trhe sky/Someone come along and shake me/For if I wake I will surely die...).
The song which is the b-side of the "D.O.A." single was a straight ahead fast boogie called "Children's Heritage" (I like music, it makes me feel so good/And all of my children are gonna like it like they should...). It originally opened side 2 of the album, paving the way for "Dier Not A Lover" and, of course, the 8+ minute epic, the long version of "D.O.A.". I never listen to this song, always skipping over it. I mean, thoughts of death creep up on me enough as it is without encouraging more of them by listening to it. It's way too much of a downer, having been involved in an automobile accident myself a few years ago which but for the grace of God my life was miraculously spared. Naw, I don't need or want to hear Bloodrock's singer praying, "God in heaven, teach me how to die". What kind of wacko does it make me for finding much enjoyment in this song as a child? What kind of hell must I have been living through to have been able to find entertainment value in such a macabre ditty? In the same manner, whatever possessed me to embrave Alice Cooper so devoutly just a few years later, with his necrophilia anthem "I Love The Dead" and his tales of dead babies and sick things?
Bloodrock, even though the name sounds like they should fall into that same gory theatrical camp with the Coop, have a sound that bears absolutely no resemblance to what the Billion Dollar Babies were creating. Bloodrock sounded more like something you might hear blaring from a jukebox in a biker bar sandwiched between Steppenwolf's "The Pusher" and a Hank Williams Jr. number.
Ending the album (assuming the listener hasn't slit his wrists after being overcome with depression at the close of "D.O.A." and will actually hear the last track) is a swaggering rocker called, for some unknown reason, "Fancy Space Oddyssey". Good song with a memorable, abrupt ending.
There you have it...8 more songs from Bloodrock, after the fine batch of nine that were on their first album. They might never get nominated for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, but I think they belong in the pantheon of classic rock bands.
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1 comment:
I have all the bloodrock albums on CD and listen to them once a week or so. You should have seen the reunion concert in Fort Worth Tx. All of the members, now in there 60s rocked the house down! Type (bloodrock steve hill) in your search browser and you will see that they made a concert DVD of that show. I will own that as well when it is released. Bloodrocker for life!
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