In which Jesus loses his cool when he discovers the sacred temple of Jerusalem has been taken over by the moneychangers, goes all punk rock on things. But seriously, when this Original London Cast recording gets to humming (not to be confused with the okay-but-just-not-as-good movie soundtrack), it’s as cool as funky as rockin as any dozen satanic offerings. Of course, it helps having Deep Purple’s soon-to-be front man Ian Gillan playing the title role, leaving no sonic scenery un-chewed.
Performance, the movie, needs to be seen. It’s the one where Mick Jagger plays a sort of Satanic rock star who’s messing with the mind of gangster who’s on the lamb, mainly out of boredom, it seems. But that sells it way short. Look no further than the soundtrack and the inclusion of a song like Wake Up N*****s by the Last Poets. It has no particular reason to be in the movie. Other than to be that cool, that on the mark of what was really going down in 1970, with the pulse of revolution very much in the air.
Any way you look at it, the Guess Who (straight outa Winnipeg) were the closest thing Canada ever had to a Beatles. Hell, they even outsold them in 1970. But this is two long years later. They’ve lost Randy Bachman, ace guitarist, co-founder and key songwriter, but they’re still rockin’ profoundly up and down the north side, working that giddy sense of freedom that only a superlative live band can attain. And they’ve still got Burton Cummings just sober enough on Guns Guns Guns to lay down some of the finest vocals that this planet will ever hear. Godspeed mother nature, Godspeed.
“It’s like that classic Spinal Tap line when it comes to Grand Funk Railroad, there being such a fine line between clever and stupid. And certainly, based on some of their liner notes, there was more than a little stupid in Grand Funk. Yet they do most emphatically nail it with Inside Looking Out. The clever, that is. Actually, call it genius, and note the use of the present tense. Because that’s what genius does. It transcends time, surfs impermanence, negates stupidity. Particularly when it’s delivered as loud and proud as Mark Don + Mel deliver it here. Ass is kicked.” (Philip Random)
“The Strawbs original recording of Where is This Dream of Your Youth? is nice enough, a nifty little bit of folk pop, but it’s Rick Wakeman‘s sustained live freakout on the Hammond organ (found on 1970’s Just a Collection of Antiques + Curios) that hooked me, and keeps on hooking me, just keeps going, going, going through the decades – peaks and valleys and all manner of long haired freaky looking people grooving along in smoke filled rooms, smelling of incense and wacky tabacky. Because groovy still meant something in those days, with a new decade dawning, the revolution at hand. Or so it must have seemed.” (Philip Random)
“The original version of Crosby Stills Nash + Young‘s Carry On is entirely okay. It makes its point. The revolution may have peaked but, man, we’re still on the edge of something beautiful, man, so just carry on, man, to peace love and understanding, man. Live however, captured on 1971’s 4 Way Street, you actually believe it. Love is coming for us all. War shall be forever banned. Richard Nixon will not be re-elected in a year’s time by the single biggest landslide in history, America will not keep mucking around in Vietnam for four more bloody years. It’s the jamming, of course. Neil Young and Steve Stills facing off (with rhythm section Fuzzy Samuels and Johnny Barbata in strong support) riding the wave to heaven’s gate itself, leaving the original song far behind for at least ten minutes. Meanwhile in a hotel in Las Vegas, Hunter Thompson is glimpsing through ancient eyes what he’d come to call the high water mark. These things are not unconnected.” (Philip Random)
Randophonic 