Blue Cheer & Earthless - Live @ The Casbah, Feb 1, 2008 - Plus: A Righteous Indictment of the All Music Guide

I can recall a day, many years ago, when I woke to a ripe summer's morn, its dewy thighs parted wide in invitation and possibility. The sun shone into my bleary studio apartment like a police cruiser lighting up a crackhouse. I had a case of Mexican beer in the fridge and nowhere to go, so I popped a bottle, shoved a wedge of lime down its trap, and headed to the garden where I listened to AC/DC at cock-shaking volume. A half-joyful feeling of fuck-it-all; there was nothing to do but drink the glorious day away. There's a special kind of music for that feeling: Deadbeat Rock.

Would it surprise you to know that Blue Cheer have changed very little from their late 60s heyday? They still make the same pill-poppin' blooze-metal racket; Dickie Peterson still looks like a Keebler Elf from the wrong side of the tree and still sings like a coyote with his throat cut; they're still deliberately stoopid, still uncompromisingly unsubtle, still 'louder than God' and still amazing.

Though the Cheer have been playing with scores of different players off and on for almost forty years, their reputation rests on the original lineup of bassist/vocalist Dickie Peterson, drummer Paul Whaley and guitarist Leigh Stephens, all of whom played on the first two albums Vincebus Eruptum and Outside/Inside. Stephens has long since gone to pasture but he's been ably replaced by 'new guy' (over 20 years in the band) Duck Marshall, a much more fluid guitarist than Stephens ever was. In his honor, most of their songs now feature long solo guitar passages which Peterson and Whaley support with airtight thundering vamps.

It was pretty much everything you could want in a classic rock show. Peterson sported a pseudo Jim Morrison getup of sunglasses, tight leather pants, shirt opened to a bare chest festooned with what looked like Indian medallions; his hair was pretty much the same billowing plume from the old album covers, only now it was gray. This is a look that doesn't flatter most 60 year old men, but he pulled it off with panache. He indulged in lots of endearingly cheesy stage banter:

"You love Blue Cheer? Well, we're glad cuz we love you too!"

"This is the second time we've played The Casbah, so this song is kind of appropriate. Here's a little number called Second Time Around!"

"This next song's kind of ironic, cuz we never do anything Just A Little Bit!"

"You feel like getting high?"

"People always think this song is about drugs. Well, it is..."

The crowd, mostly hesher kids mixed with a few greybeards, adored them and were adored right back. The band seemed happy to be there and pleased to shake hands or exchange hugs with all comers, including the requisite over-enthusiastic woman who jumped on stage and embraced them all in turn. Of course, they mostly stuck to the oldies and even these were restricted to the first two albums. Parchment Farm and Doctor Please were huge psychedelic jams; Babylon grooved; Summertime Blues stomped. The brief Randy Holden era was ignored, along with everything that followed it. There were three new songs (at least one being about pot) which were surprisingly good and showed a more contemporary metal influence. There was even a drum solo. What more do you want from them?

The setlist, as I recall it: Babylon/Second Time Around/unidentified new song/Rollin' Dem Bones/Out of Focus/Just a Little Bit/Maladjusted Child/Parchment Farm/Summertime Blues/Doctor Please/Rock Me Baby

While I have you here, let me direct your attention to this astonishingly poor piece of writing by one Mr. Joe Viglione, purporting to review Vincebus Eruptum for the All Music Guide. Say what you will about Blue Cheer - you're welcome to love or hate them - but shouldn't your review at least make sense? For some reason this sentence, though far from the worst of the lot, particularly bugs me:

Definitely more risqué than Grand Funk Railroad's "T.N.U.C.," Abe "Voco" Kesh's production is almost nonexistent.

Now, first of all he's talking about Blue Cheer's version of Parchment Farm, which has nothing to do with Grand Funk Railroad. Secondly, the production of Abe "Voco" Kesh has nothing to do with the risque content of Blue Cheer's song. The subordinate clause does not support the, uh, ordinate cause, or whatever the fuck you call it; Mr. Viglione is cramming two very different, and useless, sentiments into one sentence. The rest of the review is nothing but scattershot references to Grand Funk, the Velvets and Mountain. He compares Blue Cheer's Doctor Please to a song Leslie West would record four years later called The Doctor:

Also interesting that "Doctor Please" on Vincebus Eruptum doesn't have the crunch West/Bruce and Laing would insert into their own "The Doctor" four years later on Why Dontcha.

Interesting? Really? What's the link between the two numbers? The fact that both titles share the word Doctor? I think what he's saying is that Blue Cheer influenced a lot of bands, but he's too busy showing off his encyclopedic knowledge of shit-rock to properly make the point. It's a miserable excuse for a review. Now, I may be just as inept as Mr. Viglione but at least I'm not getting paid to imitate the scratchings of a stoned sophomore stuck in detention. I am a stoned sophomore in detention and I do it for free. I also really like italics.

Please - I beg of you - read his review and tell me if I'm wrong. I want to learn.

But I digress...

San Diego's very own instrumental acid-rock trio Earthless, who have got to be one of the best live bands in the country, opened the show with a typically epic new song, their dirgiest, most riffed-out to date; crashing waves of Sabbathian brain-fry and some furious double-bass assault from drummer Mario Rubalcaba healed the wounds of all the lost souls in the room. That's all ye know and all ye need to know.