Almost as beloved as their legendarily loud and crude 1968 debut, Vincebus Eruptum—a testament to inept genius if there ever was one—San Francisco trio Blue Cheer’s 1968 follow-up Outsideinside got its title because, at least according to legend, several of its tracks were deemed too loud to be recorded in the confines of an actual recording studio. The record company was worried the band’s proclivity for living solely in the red would melt the equipment and incinerate everybody in the place.
Only trouble is—and this really gets my goat—I’ve been unable to figure out which songs were recorded outside, at places like Gate Five in lovely Sausalito, Muir Beach in Marin County, and Pier 57 in New York City. I would love to know—if the trio (Leigh Stephens, guitar; Dickie Peterson, lead vocals and bass; and Paul Whalely, drums) managed to record their barbarically high-volume debut in a studio, just how loud could this shit have been?
And were the outdoor tracks recorded before actual audiences, or were they kept at a safe distance to prevent mass hearing loss?
Expert types will tell you Outsideinside is Blue Cheer tamed, that they’d learned how to play their instruments (well, a little) and were more interested in actual song structure, but fortunately, the experts are wrong. The first couple of songs sound a mite more civilized than anything off Blue Cheer’s debut, but it’s obvious the threesome weren’t taking lessons or anything.
At its best—which is to say its brilliant worst—Outsideinside reveals Blue Cheer to be the same inspired incompetents who bequeathed us the testament to incompetence that is Vincebus Eruptum. Stephens’ guitar playing is still seat-of-the-pants, make-it-up-as-he-goes-along noise-mongering, Peterson still sounds like he swallowed a live chinchilla and is trying to regurgitate it, and Whalely still bashes away with no regard for petty things like rhythm, presumably in the belief that if he can just play loud enough, no one will notice he can’t play.
Groovy post-Summer of Love songs like openers “Feathers from Your Tree” and “Sun Cycle” have the band trying to play nice—lucky for us, they simply can’t help themselves. “Feathers from Your Tree” may begin as an attempt to reach the Peace and Love Set, with its “Morning Dew” vocals and psychedelic vibe, but when Stephens starts playing Tyrannosaurus Rex power chords, and things get all fuzzy, what you have is Vincebus Eruptum Junior, and the uncredited piano at the end doesn’t restore the decorum.
As for the quiet “Sun Cycle,” it’s saved by a Stephens guitar solo, so in the red and careening out of control, it’s inspiring. To say nothing of some drumming that can only be called perspirational, which isn’t even a word.
The band makes no pretense of pretending to be civilized human beings on demolition derby “Just a Little Bit,” which opens with some daringly confused drumming before Peterson comes in all rasp and wrath. Then he summons up a great scream, which is Stephen’s cue to play a guitar solo so chaotic it would give your typical effete guitar technician a full-body rash.
After that, it’s a rampaging Hun of noise, with Peterson shouting “Come on, come on” while Stephens plays plug-ugly power chords and goes “whoop-whoop-whoop” and Whaley hits everything in sight, sending shattered cymbals flying around the studio, or into the Pacific or Atlantic Oceans, should this have been one of the songs played in the Great Outdoors.
“Gypsy Ball” could have been a titanic fuzz fest (it starts as one) were it not for the unforgivable quiet parts. Peterson does his best to play nice on vocals, especially during said quiet parts, which Stephens keeps interrupting with Godzilla guitar riffs, I’m guessing, because the quiet parts bored him as much as they do me.
There’s what sounds like a gong in there, and you can smell the incense and peppermints, but what it really reminds me of is Uriah Heep. It sounds like they have Stephens in chains—they don’t even give him a guitar solo—and what’s a Blue Cheer song without Stephens taking crazy left- and right-hand turns in total disregard of posted traffic signs and generating enough static electricity via fuzz pedal to set small mammals aflame?
Which he does on the next track, the very punk and collapsing-building loud “Come and Get It,” which is less a song than a life support system for Stephens’ buzz and howl. Which is not exactly true, because Peterson puts in a stellar garage-rock performance, and Whalely almost sounds like he knows what he’s doing. This is what the MC5 would have sounded like if they’d spent more time practicing and less time pretending to be revolutionaries out to overthrow the entire American system of mal-governance.
I didn’t care for Blue Cheer’s take on “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” at first—it sounded too anorexic for its own good. But the insanely fast tempo has grown on me, as have Peterson’s from a whisper to a scream vocals. I’ll never love it—Stephens sounds like he’s manacled to a radiator in another room, and he doesn’t play a single series of notes that makes me think, “This guy is just making it up as he goes along, and somebody had better call the bomb squad!” until close to the end. After that, the tempo picks up even more, Whalely goes berserk on the cans, and I’ll be damned if Blue Cheer didn’t just invent the Ramones!
The trio’s cover of blues guitarist Albert King’s “The Hunter,” which was written by Booker T. and the MGs, must be a tax write-off or something. The band has no feel for the blues, and Peterson’s vocals sound perfunctory, “love gun” loaded or not. You get plodding and more plodding (even Stephens’ solo is plodding), but not a single sublime moment of incompetent genius, although there is this moment when Stephens sounds like he’s about to go off the rails but doesn’t.
How utterly depressing. When I want to hear the blues, I listen to people who play them wrong. Blue Cheer is trying to play them right.
The boogified instrumental “Magnolia Caboose Babyfinger” comes and goes like a Japanese bullet train—it shrieks and blurs by in one minute and thirty-odd seconds, then you’re looking at its ass. What bothers me about it is that it teeters dangerously on the cusp of competence—the trio plays its riff like they actually practiced playing it, for like two hours even! That said, I like its flash, and that riff is heavy as an anvil. But if I want to hear people actually play their instruments, I’ll listen to Steely Dan, thank you very much.
Closer “Babylon” opens in complete chaos, then Stephens commences to play this chunky riff while Peterson goes berserk on vocals, and it all sounds a mite too civilized until Stephens launches into this long guitar solo that is the aural equivalent of the Challenger Disaster. You simply can’t take your ears off it, and you don’t want to either, because when people call the Stooges’ Fun House chaotic, I say, “You call that chaos? THIS is chaos, twisted-in-knots ineptitude of the first order!” Then Peterson comes back, all bark and rasp, a cheese grater on acid, along with that chunky riff that is the song’s only shortcoming.
Lester Bangs called Vincebus Eruptum horrible noise and meant it as a compliment, while Chuck Eddy called it a “notorious harbinger of heavy metal, hard rock, punk rock, no wave, skronk, hardcore, speedmetal, deathmetal, and pigfuck.” They’re both right.
On Outsideinside, Blue Cheer aim for civility (at least by their Hun standards) and competence, and lucky for all of us, they (mostly) fail upwards. Something tells me their collective heart just wasn’t in it, and what you’re left with is enough brilliant blundering to send people who care about silly things like crack musicianship scrambling for higher ground.
There are moments on Outsideinside when I think Blue Cheer is the greatest band of all time. Unfortunately, there are also moments (think “Sun Cycle” and “The Hunter”) when they do the unthinkable and ho-hum me. Three cheers for Blue Cheer on this one, then subtract a quarter cheer.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
B+
