Shocking Blue - Love Buzz

"Love Buzz" is a song by Dutch rock band Shocking Blue. It was written by Robbie van Leeuwen and first released on the group's 1969 album At Home. The original song is notable for its psychedelic rock style and its extensive use of the sitar, played by Leeuwen. The intro sample on the original single comes from the LP Monster Shindig featuring Snooper and Blabber (Hanna-Barbera productions 1965).
American rock band Nirvana recorded a cover version of the song for it's 1988 debut single, released on Sub Pop in the USA. It was described by Sub Pop as being "heavy pop sludge." The version recorded by Sub Pop was chosen for the feature soundtrack on 1990 skateboarding video Board Crazy.  From: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Love_Buzz  

Lovebyrd - Shot from the Sun

I don’t know where Lovebyrd has been hiding, but their debut album, the self-titled Lovebyrd, is being released by Hairy Records on my birthday and it already sounds like they’ve been around for years. They have a simplistic, mellow, laidback feeling to their music; shoegaze tripping through wave after wave of reverberation and jangling shimmering percussion on the entirety of their 10 track debut album.  “Spinning Around”, which was previously available on Lovebyrd’s EP cassette tape from the beginning of this year (2015), opens up Lovebyrd like the glistening psychedelic gates of some kind of paisley paradise.  There’s a melodic, warm, enveloping melody that oozes out of your speakers and gunks up the needle, dripping from your pores and beading up on your skin like sweat before long.  The angelic voice of Steffi Krauth is what really makes these tunes, minimalist sounds, and slowly shifting arrangements that comprise Lovebyrd standout.  The dream-pop label drifts slowly up like smoke rising from a crumpled joint pursed in your lips, smoke exhaling from the undulating guitars that clamor and rattle in the distance of “We’re Shining Through”.
Although it was available on the cassette EP, I don’t know if they’re the same recordings – and either way it sounds just as at home on this angelic slab of wax as it did on the tape that preceded it.  The abrupt end of ”We’re Shining Through” leads the listener directly into the echoing chambers of the third track, “Floating Up”.  “Floating Up” is the first song on the LP not to be featured on the original EP tape, and you can tell straight away.  The writing and composition are just a little less muddy, more concentrated, and absolutely gripping from the moment that it starts.  The hollow cavernous walls of sound instantly recall the guitar work of The Byrds and Jefferson Airplane while also showing off Lovebyrd’s unabashed Tame Impala influences. There’s a very almost, dare I say it, Oasis vibe to “Floating Up” as well. It has that hazy Beatles-esque swagger that so very few people are able to conjure up without becoming either completely consumed or losing their sound in.  Slithering through the finale of the song it’s hard to imagine why I haven’t heard anyone mention The Raveonettes in the same sentence as Lovebyrd before.  The thundering fuzzy tentacles of sound that erupt from “Shot From The Sun” only help to reinforce this idea, the simplistic repetitive guitar line crunching and popping above the dreamy vocals and vibrating drum track. It’s interesting how well the combination of material originally written for the cassette EP and the stuff done specifically for this 12” work together.  From: https://www.psychedelicbabymag.com/2015/11/lovebyrd-lovebyrd-2015-review.html 

The John Renbourn Group - Live Ohio University 1981

In 1967 the British guitarist and songwriter John Renbourn together with his friend Bert Jansch founded the British folk rock band Pentangle. Like Jansch, Renbourn was considered an outstanding representative of the British 'Folk Baroque' and fingerpicking playing technique. Since 1968 Renbourn successfully recorded several albums with Pentangle for the well-known UK folk/folk rock label Transatlantic. After the release of the album Solomon's Seal in 1973, the band members went separate ways. From then on Bert Jansch and John Renbourn realized solo plans. Albums like The Lady And The Unicorn and The Hermit by John Renbourn are still considered milestones today of British folk rock. In 1977 John founded the John Renbourn Group, recorded two studio albums and a live album with them and was busy touring again around the world. A 1978 live recording by Radio Bremen from the Roemer in Bremen, Germany also bears witness to these live activities. Again, with John on stage - the former Pentangle singer Jaqui McShee, multi-instrumentalist Tony Roberts, the well-known Indian tabla player Keshav Sathe (among others, John Mayer, Julie Felix) and the American cellist Sandy Spencer (member of the French based Prog Folk rock band Mormos, later also with the well-known Trevor Watts String Ensemble) completed the line-up of the John Renbourn Group in Bremen that night. Jacqui McShee, who also wrote the liner notes for the booklet to the album, still remembers the Bremen concert: 'To my knowledge this is the only recording of Sandy with the group, she left soon afterwards to return to America.' And goes on: 'I have been chatting to Tony recently (we laughed a lot) and of course we both miss John and Kesh, but we have these wonderful recordings and the albums that we made and we have a sense of pride in the music we played together.'  From: https://www.forcedexposure.com/Artists/RENBOURN.GROUP.JOHN.html

Minnesoda - Let's Get It On

Minnesoda did an obscure but fairly interesting self-titled jazz-rock album for Capitol in 1972, produced by Bob Johnston (famous for his work with Bob Dylan, Johnny Cash, Leonard Cohen, Simon & Garfunkel, and numerous others). The record was in limited respects like the first recordings of Chicago and, more distantly, Blood, Sweat & Tears in its jazz-rock-with-vocals format. Minnesoda, however, had a substantially greater funk flavor, and a speedier, more aggressive edge to their material, though they didn't have the pop-friendly melodies of the more renowned bands. Half of Minnesoda's eight members were on horns, with tenor saxophonist Dave Gustafson playing flute as well, adding to the rock band-as-big-band feel.
A couple of the musicians in Minnesoda had performed with name acts prior to the album. Trombonist Don Lehnhoff had played with Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels. Much more unexpectedly, trumpeter Eddie Shaw had in the 1960s been the bassist for the Monks, the 1960s band of ex-GIs who recorded an album of ludicrously minimalist, furious pre-punk in Germany in the mid-1960s -- a record that was unknown by 1972, but which by the 1990s had an avid cult following.
Minnesoda were at first called Copperhead, but without the band's knowledge, they were renamed Minnesoda (in a nod to their Minnesota origins) for the Capitol album. (They were no relation to another band called Copperhead, including ex-Quicksilver Messenger Service guitarist John Cipollina, that also recorded in the early 1970s.)
Minnesoda's little-known self-titled LP is pretty hot white funk jazz-rock, sounding a little like Chicago or Blood, Sweat & Tears might have had those stars decided to go less commercial rather than more commercial after their first albums. Actually, Minnesoda are rawer and more frenetic than Chicago or BS&T were even at their earthiest, though their material lacks the pop hooks of even the boldest Chicago/BS&T outings. A quartet of brassmen on tenor sax, flute, trumpet, and trombone augment the usual rock lineup in this octet, fronted by John Elms' credibly high-octane, lusty upper-register blue-eyed soul vocals.
There's sometimes an almost big band-like dexterity to the horns, yet the more jagged, at times hyper, thrust of the guitars and drums give it a solid funk base. The melodies are often more ominous than they usually are in this kind of fare, frequently jetting off into unexpected, improvised-sounding horn interjections and key changes. Only the adventure film theme-like "Flexible Flyer," and the uncharacteristically reflective, jazzy ballad "Party" slow the tempo down much.
Johnston recorded a second album with the band that went a little further into jazz, and further away from any rough similarities with Chicago, although they were still present. But Johnston was unable to get the album released, and Minnesoda remained their only issued LP.  From: http://therockasteria.blogspot.com/2021/11/minnesoda-minnesoda-1972-us-stunning.html

Lucius - Wildewoman

What Haim is to early 90s pop/R&B nostalgia, Lucius is to mid-90s alternative pop and acoustic coffeehouse nostalgia. Don’t let the provocative cover fool you, because the two ladies who front this band (and the three men who back them up) don’t have to employ shock tactics to get your attention when they’ve got such irresistible rock grooves and delicious vocal melodies in their arsenal. This is an astounding debut from a band that sounds like they’ve got a long life ahead of them.
Just like a good title track should, Wildewoman sums up nearly everything that there is to love about the album named after it… and for that matter, the artist performing it. Its shimmying rhythm, bouncing bass line, steady acoustic strumming, and its little jolts of electric lightning would be entertaining enough if the track was purely instrumental, but throw in an incredibly well-written lyric brimming with details about how this unpredictable, untameable woman looks, thinks, and acts, and top it off with a triumphant chorus hook sung by both women in unison (one that’s bound to get crowds singing along in no time at their live shows), and this thing is just plain unstoppable.  It’s hard to resist quoting damn near every line from this one, but I think the second verse sums it up the best: “Her smile is sneaky like a fiery fox/It’s that look that tells you she’s up to no good at all/And she’ll say whatever’s on her mind/They’re unspeakable things, and she’ll speak them in vain/And you can’t help but wish you had bolder things to say.” Now that’s the kind of woman I’d like to sit down over a cup of coffee and have a long, perhaps sometimes awkward, but thoroughly insightful conversation with.  From: https://murlough23.wordpress.com/2014/11/13/lucius-wildewoman-we-all-scream-upon-realizing-thats-not-ice-cream/

Lovecraft - Brother I Wonder

Drummer Michael Tegza is the only original member from two years prior when the band was H.P. Lovecraft on Phillips Records. For this 1970 Reprise release, they are dubbed Lovecraft and have abandoned the psychedelic Jefferson Airplane sound for a progressive Crosby, Stills & Nash-meets-Uriah Heep flavor. In 1975, drummer Tegza re-formed the band again and separated the two words, their Love Craft album, We Love You Whoever You Are, took things into an almost Santana-goes-soul direction.
Valley Of The Moon is a surprisingly good album mixing leftover psychedelia with good harmonies. There are no throwaways here, just 11 fabulous songs, one better than the next. The arrangements are uniformly excellent, bolstered by superb playing from Tezga, guitarist Jim Donlinger, bassist Michael Been, and multi-instrumentalist Marty Grebb, formerly of the Buckinghams & Aorta, and soon after, the Fabulous Rhinestones. Every song was outstanding - tight musicianship, great vocals and just plain good songs.  From: http://therockasteria.blogspot.com/2020/10/lovecraft-valley-of-moon-1970-us.html

Her Majesty's Buzz - Wondering Why

The debut record from Her Majesty's Buzz, "One of Our Astronauts is Missing part one: the Cough Syrup Chronicles" is now available from the Label Music Group.
Recorded by Jake Robinson in Indianapolis and mixed by John Hampton in Memphis, the 10 song record showcases the songwriting of Greg Roberson and Don Main. The record was produced by Roberson and Main with Jake Robinson. Robinson said, "The collective insanity of each member makes this thing a whole. You get sucked into Greg and Don's energy, they are always on ready. I've never worked with guys with that kind of work ethic. They also hold the distinction of being the most insane people I've ever worked with. I saw things I will never share with anyone."  From: https://www.amazon.com/One-Our-Astronauts-Missing-Part-Cou/dp/B000CAGQYM