Bands we Love: Blue Cheer

Blue Cheer

Definitely a Granddaddy of heavy Metal. One of the loudest bands that came out of the 60s. They only had one major hit with their cover of Summertime Blues, but that itself is worth the price of their first album!

Scroll down past the album listings for a history of the band.

	"I can't even imagine what people thought about this in 1968. By this time folks thought that Hendrix, Cream and The Yardbirds were too much. Lets describe the music for a minute... Chaotic, aggressive, sludgy, heavy, noisy, and years ahead of it's time. The music is very blues based, but the grooves are aggressive and the guitars are transformed by fuzztone and overdrive into monster dinosaur riff makers. One can see that Blue Cheer is another major influence on the current doom/stoner metal scenes." --TheCrypt777
	"What makes this an essentual purchase you ask? Several things. BC was revolutionary for thier loudness. They cranked it up, caused near riots. Keep in mind this was the late 60s - peace and love man. They got the hippies doing crazy stuff. They also laid down the prototype for metal which was to come later. Listen to Magnolia Caboose Babyfinger, you'll see what I mean. Paul Whaley's liberal use of the double kick drum and tasteful fills was also new. Leigh Steven's guitar work at times seared across the meat of the music. They did all this heaviness and kept melodies in thier songs. In short, thier style, attitude and playing chops were completely at odds with most of thier contemporaries. " --Stephanie Sandlin
	UK twofer combines the San Francisco hard rock act's first two albums, 'Vincebus Eruptum' & 'Outsideinside' (both originally released in 1968), with the CD-ROM video for 'Summertime Blues'. Track Records. 2003.
	Exactly as the title implies, a true history of the band, through all their changes, their heavy and lighter periods of writing. If you don't "Need it all", then this album will let you taste Blue Cheers throughout it's 4 year history.

Some later Releases

Blue Cheer was a San Francisco-based heavy metal group of the late 1960s.

Original personnel were singer/bass guitarist Dickie Peterson, guitarist Leigh Stephens, and drummer and ex-Janis Joplin and Linda McCartney boyfriend Paul Whaley; this incarnation has been cited as a prototypical power trio. The band was named after a variety of LSD promoted by underground chemist and Grateful Dead backer Owsley Stanley; this variety of LSD took its name from a popular laundry detergent.

Blue Cheer, Vincebus Eruptum.
Their first hit was a cover version of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" from their debut album Vincebus Eruptum (1968). The single peaked at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, their only such hit, and the album peaked at #11 on the Billboard 200 chart.

The group's sound was hard to categorize, but was definitely blues-based, psychedelic, and very loud. The band has been subsequently acclaimed as an influence on garage rock, punk music, heavy metal, and grunge. Julian Cope has written, "In 1968, nothing but nothing in America and Britain sounded as brutal as Blue Cheer except for the Velvet Underground."

The group underwent several personnel changes after the 1968 release of Outsideinside, and then through yet more changes during and after 1969's New! Improved! Blue Cheer (different guitarists on side 1 and 2). After Leigh Stephens was replaced by Randy Holden, formerly of Los Angeles garage rock band The Other Half, in 1968, Blue Cheer's style changed to a more commercial hard rock sound à la Steppenwolf or Iron Butterfly. For the fourth album Blue Cheer, Holden, who had left during the third album, was subsequently replaced by Bruce Stephens. Stephens later quit and was replaced by Gary Lee Yoder, who helped complete the alubm.

The new line up of Peterson, Ralph Burn Kellogg, Norman Mayell, and Yoder in 1970 saw the release of The Original Human Being and then 1971's Oh! Pleasant Hope. When Oh! Pleasant Hope failed to dent the sales charts, Blue Cheer temporarily split up.

From 1988 to 1993, Blue Cheer toured mainly in Europe. During this time, they played with classic rock acts as well as then-up-and-coming bands: Mountain, Outlaws, Thunder, Groundhogs, Ten Years After, Yardbirds, Danzig, Mucky Pup, Biohazard and others.

On the Nibelung Records label they released several albums. 1989 saw the release of Blue Cheer's first official live album, Blitzkrieg over Nüremberg. This album was recorded on Blue Cheer's first European tour in decades. The drum chair was then taken by Dave Salce; bass by Dickie Peterson; guitar by Duck McDonald.

1990 saw the release of Highlights & Lowlives studio album, comprised of blues-based hard rock, sometimes reminiscent of Aerosmith and the Rolling Stones, and several ballads. The album was produced by notable grunge producer Jack Endino. The line-up was Peterson on bass and vocals, Paul Whaley on drums, and Duck McDonald on guitars.
Blue Cheer followed up "Highlights" with the much heavier Dining with the Sharks. McDonald was replaced by German ex-Monsters guitar player Dieter Saller. Peterson was on bass and vocals again, and Paul Whaley was again on drums. Also featured is a special guest appearance by Groundhogs guitarist Tony McPhee. The album was produced by Roland Hofmann.

In the early 1990s, Peterson and Whaley re-located to Germany. Whaley still lives there while Peterson has since moved back to California. Guitar work has been handled by Duck MacDonald since that time. Blue Cheer are still active as of 2006. Their last release was Live in Japan, 1999, and their last tour was a club tour of England in 2004. Peterson and MacDonald performed with drummer Prairie Prince at the Chet Helms tribute gig in San Francisco's Golden Gate Park in Summer 2005. They finished recording an album in Virginia in Winter 2005 and are planning to go on tour in Spring of 2006.

---Wikipedia

About Us | FAQ | Contact Us | Disclosure