crazy horse

...marvelous first effort full of funky rocking with a nod to rootsy backwoods grooves...this surely has a hep stonesian vibe that was in the air at the turn of the seventies...what must also be mentioned is a totally groovy afterhours reefer and wine attitude is all pervasive, a vibe that many try for but because they're trying, they ultimately fail...this is the sound of cats jamming and coming up with something fresh...as with all chipper wax from that period it found its way to cutout bins and on to busto crusto hep pads where it stayed until retro/revisionism became the way of the trend foisters planet wide...

...back in 1968 most of these cats were known as the rockets and they had a different, under-appreciated sound from the usual los angeles hippy combos and when crazy horse got their groove on they certainly were an anomaly in the laurel canyon/topanga/hollywood triangle in that they could lay down some drugged grunge rocking without breaking a sweat, effortless grinding down the seventies earth shoe 'hippys' who couldn't quite get behind this weird bunch of studio savvy/reefer and beer heads with the uncontrolled amp busting noise they loved to lay on audiences...this second go round suffers from the loss of key members danny and jack and goes in a country rocking direction which ain't necessarily the bad vibes disaster that could have resulted from such reckless commerciality...it's not as limp and lifeless as a lot of hollywood cowboy efforts that got thrown out around that time, possibly more like nestling in the grin area, which ain't surprising given nils lofgrens tenure with both outfits...some patented neil young screech crops up a couple of times but it must be said it ain't as often as could feasibly be desired...one way of looking at this work is that it's in the spirit of crazy horse and all that name may imply, and could in all honesty need a few spins before a cat can settle in easy with the groove...