Come On And Take A Rush- Blue Cheer's Outsideinside

"Lost in a maze of liquid smoke, I thought my brains were gonna choke"

Just seven months earlier, Blue Cheer had turned the music world upside down with the fuzzed out heaviness of their acid splashed debut, Vincebus Eruptum. Keep in mind that this was January of 1968, and the hardest things anyone had heard before this were the Jimi Hendrix Experience, who Blue Cheer owed much of their sound to, and Cream. This was still a year before the debuts of Led Zeppelin, the MC5, and the Stooges, and two years before that of Black Sabbath. No one had ever heard a band play blues based rock and roll with such ferocity, which partially explains why the mainstream was reluctant to embrace the LP. Scoring a minor hit with their cover of "Summertime Blues," Blue Cheer were able to release their more refined and much stronger second LP, Outsideinside.

Beginning with ominous arpeggiated chords, the albums opener, "Feathers From Your Tree," quickly segues into a soulful blues influenced verse, before we get treated to that classic Blue Cheer sound of pounding drums and fuzz drenched power chords. Despite being released only seven months after Vincebus Eruptum, Outsideinside's production is far superior. The drums are louder, the bass is more prominent and distorted, and the guitars constantly shift from right speaker to left, emulating the Leslie rotating speaker effect Jimi Hendrix had made famous a year earlier. Guitar overdubs and pianos also pop up frequently, both of which were either nonexistent or scarce on Vincebus. Tempo and volume both drop for the next track, "Sun Cycle,", which again shows the mark Jimi Hendrix made on Blue Cheer. Wah wah guitars abound, and Dickie Peterson's spacey vocals remind us once again that Blue Cheer was indeed named after a type of acid. "Reflecting time in the blowing night and pulled the shade to a clear green game and from the visions riding heavy sea." Yeah, whatever you say, Dickie. Moving right along, Peter Whaley begins pounding out the beat to "Just A Little Bit," as the rest of the band slams in a few bars later laying down a raging power-blues number, completely killing any arguments as to whether or not Blue Cheer invented what would later be known to the world as heavy metal. From here we get a quick tease of a clean wah-wah guitar, before lurching into a groove sounding like something from Paranoid-era Black Sabbath. With loosely veiled drug references, Peterson howls while the band pounds away sounding like the Who on downers and playing through torn speakers. As "Gypsy Ball" strikes its last chords, the Cheer double-times its way into "Come And Get It," arguable the record's strongest track. Hearing "Come And Get It," its very clear how much of an influence the MC5 would take from Blue Cheer after opening for them that year. With its fast thundering drums, soulful vocals and bluesy guitar leads, this song would fit perfectly anywhere on the Five's debut Kick Out The Jams, which would be recorded and released early in the next year. Wasting no time, Blue Cheer tear the Rolling Stones a new asshole with their explosive cover of "Satisfaction." No disrespect to the Stones, but this version completely destroys the original. Just like with "Summertime Blues" and "Parchment Farm" before it, "Satisfaction" is given the total Blue Cheer treatment, filtering it through waves of LSD and overdriven amps. Unfortunately after this the record takes a downturn with a lackluster and unenergetic run through of "The Hunter." Its not terrible, but compared with the rest of the album it sounds weak and uninspired, and is followed by the short instrumental "Magnolia Caboose Babyfinger," which is definitely better, but still not a return to the flames raised earlier on the LP. Luckily for the last track of the record, the band returns to form on the bluesy "Babylon," reminding us that "The blues ain't nothin', but a good man feelin' bad and I just ain't the kind that goes around feelin sad," before doubletiming back to the song's verses, making me wonder why this song wasn't all over popular radio at the time. While not the hardest hitting song on the record, its certainly the catchiest and most accessible.

Unfortunately after this record, Blue Cheer would be plagued with line up changes resulting in inconsistent recording, and the band slipped further into obscurity until breaking up in 1972. But even with the bands unfortunate end, the damage had been done, and after the primal blasts of Vincebus Eruptum and Outsideinside, the world of rock and roll would never be the same, as their influence would surface in bands for the next thirty years in the sounds of the MC5, the Stooges, Black Sabbath, the Melvins, Nirvana, Sleep, Mudhoney, Fu Manchu, and countless others. Despite being largely ignored by the mainstream, Blue Cheer's first two LPs became the soundtracks to the lives of long haired fuck ups and stoners the world over, and the repercussions can still be heard on contemporary heavy metal and psychedelic rock records. Turn on, tune in, trip out.