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BLUE CHEER
way more Helter Skelter.

January 16, 1968 - 2023: 55 years of: Vincebus Eruptum.

Late 60s heavy underground counterculture just got heavier.

From the streets of San Francisco arises the most powerful drug ever released ...are you experienced ? This unit is the genesis of heavyrock and prototype heavymetal. The decibel-meter race is on: The UK had the power-trio of CREAM ...the US now has the power-trio of BLUE CHEER.

Eddie Cochran's rocknroll roots "Summertime Blues" gets a major facelift. Electrified to sky-high wattage, this revamped cut became the starting point to American heavymetal. The wall of sound keeps on giving, as B.B. King's "Rock Me Baby" explodes from the hi-fi. Loud guitars, loud bass and louder drums, this young gang sets the pace with and iron hand.

The psychedelic effect reeks on the pharmaceutical calling of "Doctor Please" ...acid-rock is now official and a prescribed daily-dose. Still ablaze under a purple haze, the screaming instruments spits out "Out Of Focus", boogie rhythms underneath overdriven electric guitars, a dangerous cocktail.

Primitive primal rock, a wonderful 32 minute feast of cataclysmic proportions. No one has yet, even BLUE CHEER themselves, been able to out-do the magnitude of Vincebus Eruptum. Before BLACK SABBATH, this is The Mother of hippierock, a label that would eventually re-bloom in the 90s, the grungy esthetics of: Stoner-Rock.

1967-68, the pinnacle of Heavy-Rock's First Wave and on the US-side the high-gain assault included: BLUE CHEER, IRON BUTTERFLY, VANILLA FUDGE ...all lead by the almighty Jimi Hendrix. The West-Coast trio would come back with the experimental Outsideinside LP during the Summer of 1968.

RIP Dickie Peterson (1946-2009)
RIP Paul Whaley (1947-2019)

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Vincebus Eruptum = full LP
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4vIlg4alz8&list=OLAK5uy_mcLWhskFTIYUhp5QTrfA1e1GrXSomERyc
Live at the Beat Club
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=as1NcX31szs
Live and interview on American Bandstand in 1968
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKT0Kz5VGhw