SXSW music: Blue Cheer stays true to heavy-metal roots- 3/17/08Blue Cheer stays true to its heavy-metal roots
11:58 PM CDT on Saturday, March 15, 2008
AUSTIN – Think of a Blue Cheer concert as a health checkup. If you've got loose fillings, tenderness in the lymph nodes, a touchy stomach, nasal congestion, dull tissue aches – most anything that the normal course of life could mask for a time – 40 minutes of this legendary trio's megawatt groove-blues will expose it. Heck, those at risk for pulmonary issues or osteoporosis may want to stay away, since Blue Cheer's oscillative power could theoretically trigger an anomaly or fracture. Forty years and two months after its debut, Vincibus Eruptum, predated the coming onslaught of heavy metal, the then-cog of San Francisco's psychedelic music machine can still provide sonic spinal taps that actually feel pleasurable. Under the Emo's Annex tent at the stroke of midnight on Saturday morning, several hundred patients, most of whom appeared to have a pre-existing appreciation for Blue Cheer's strain of aural virulence, succumbed to the exam. The thousands of others who ambled by couldn't avoid witnessing the blessed gratuity. Nor should they have. Appearances by historic musicians are part of the South by Southwest experience, but only this year's keynote figure, Lou Reed, means more to modern music than Blue Cheer (and frankly, even that statement is dubious). Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, both blaring blues-based provocateurs that are commonly considered heavy rock's inventors, appeared after this band. So did Alice Cooper. Only Jimi Hendrix, the Byrds and the Yardbirds could possibly claim comparable influence, and none of them were nearly as loud and invasive right out of the box. Two-thirds of the original trio are part of today's version. Drummer Paul Whaley appeared a little nicked at the end of a short drum solo but otherwise performed ably and tribally. Singer-bassist Dickie Peterson, who looked like actor William Devane's skinny brother with long blond hair and round tinted spectacles, still shrieks and squawks like no one in rock can. His voice has elements of Ronnie Van Zant and Alice Cooper, delivered with a deep-seeded gravelliness and spirit that only comes from deviant thought and hard-core experience. Though guitarist Duck McDonald didn't join the band until the late 1980s (well after its last U.S. release until 2007's prescient comeback, What Doesn't Kill You ... ), his playing defined the five-song gig as much as Mr. Peterson's vocals. Armed with a bushy, full-bodied distortion tone that penetrated innards like an ultrasound scan, his riffing and soloing pummeled but soothed with a knowingly heretic grace. His D-string slide during the central riff on "Doctor Please" sounded like a siren from an ambulance headed post-haste for Hell Memorial Hospital. Three of the five songs performed came from Vincibus, including the act's signature 1968 remake of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues." Like the subject of that song, there ain't no cure available from Blue Cheer for whatever type of blues ail you. But the visceral physical it gives to force the blues out is a mighty good one, even past retirement age. First to rock, last to stopAn interview with Dickie Peterson of Blue CheerBy: ZACK FREDERICK
Issue date: 2/21/08 Section:
Arts & Entertainment
Led Zeppelin, a band from the same era as Blue Cheer,
recently got back together - any thoughts on their reunion?
I love Led Zeppelin. But I don't feel right offering an opinion on the reunion because I haven't seen it. When I'm not out playing, I don't sit around and watch rock 'n' roll videos. There's a lot going on that I'm not hip to because I am involved in what I'm doing. We are lifetime rock and rollers, that's just the way it is with us. You guys are one of the older, heavier bands still playing - is it getting harder to go out on tour? Yeah. But touring has never been easy and we've continued to tour. We don't party as much as we used to, that's for certain. How do you think the music industry and touring, etc. have changed since when you guys first started playing in the '60s? A lot of it depends on the level of the agency and company you're with.… My advice to young bands is to move slowly, take it easy, and you will figure out the right way to do things. When we started playing in the sixties, I saw women arrested for not wearing a bra. Cable television didn't even exist. I think it was probably easier for bands in our era than the young bands have it today. Bands today have to prepackage themselves so that somebody will market it. When I was younger, and bustin' my chops to get my chops, I would go to concerts and you would see rock bands and jazz bands and jug bands and psychedelic band all in one night. … In the music world today, people are separating themselves socially by what music they listen to. I think it's cultural insanity. Zack Frederick
BLUE CHEER Live
New BLUE CHEER Album
Dickie Peterson, Duck MacDonald and Joe Hasselvander are in Virginia writing and recording a new album.
The return of DICKIE PETERSON & BLUE CHEER
After years in Europe the following for Dickie Peterson has not drifted into the recesses of our minds and after his blistering performance with Leigh Stephens and Prairie Prince on the 29th, and a return to continental United States, we wait to see the second coming of Blue Cheer. He’s a link to the glory of the sixties, The Golden Age of "rock 'n' roll" and as he lives and breathes the ideology of the day, we do the same. There are but precious few of his ilk left and it is our responsibility to see that his name and impact on the genre and culture is not forgotten. As I promised Chet, I will do the same for Dickie; I think he deserves that much from all of us. As always, Cheers Don Aters - Haight Street Music News - 11/14/05
DICKIE PETERSON and LEIGH STEPHENS at CHET HELMS Tribal Stomp
Dickie Peterson, Leigh Stephens and Prairie Prince will play together at Chet Helms Tribal Stomp !
* Chet Helms may be gone, but enough hippie rockers are left to throw a Final Tribal Stomp * They're burying the last hippie tomorrow in Golden Gate Park. In their youth, the hippies were just happily wasted. Nowadays, some of them are thick-waisted - and maybe just a bit gray. But veterans of Woodstock and Monterey will gather in Golden Gate Park Sunday for a free concert in memory of Chet Helms, who died in June from a stroke at age 62. Inevitably described in his obituaries as the proprietor of the Avalon Ballroom during the glory days of the San Francisco rock scene, and the man who discovered Janis Joplin, Helms was so much more. That Helms died penniless attests to his enduring honesty. That he will be feted Sunday at Speedway Meadows by hundreds, if not thousands, of friends and people whose lives he touched is a testament to his character. Helms never was someone whose success could be measured in material terms. At the height of the exploding rock scene, Helms was the anti-Bill Graham. While Graham quickly and correctly ascertained that there were big bucks in the rock concert scene, Helms saw greater possibilities than money. He saw the music's power to bring people together. He understood the joy of dancing as a political statement. He was trying to change the world, not sell hamburgers. Raised by his Baptist minister grandfather in the Ozarks after his father died when he was 9, Helms never lost his youthful dreams of a missionary life. He brought that evangelical zeal to his life as a hippie. His ceaseless energy, his drive to be part of the action, made him one of the original engines of the scene, whether he was rushing out to borrow a strobe light for the scene's first acid-rock dance at Longshoreman's Hall or inviting his old pal from the University of Texas, Janis Joplin, out to San Francisco to join the band he was managing - and that had been named after him - Big Brother and the Holding Company. But what's more important about Chet was that he never lost his way. He lived by the code and his life stood for something. Plagued by major health problems for the past several years, he remained an ever-present fixture on the sidelines at any truly festive San Francisco rock scene event. He developed an interest in digital photography and took a lot of snapshots when he went out. He was a hugely cheerful man who always had some plan in motion, some scene he was following, some philosophical undercurrent in the firmament he was tracking. The Avalon operation may have foundered under unworkable hippie ideals, but Helms never gave up. He moved his operation to a former slot car raceway near Playland-at-the-Beach, but that proved short- lived. Many years later, he brought back a reunited Paul Butterfield Blues Band - a group that figured prominently in his original falling out with Bill Graham - for an immensely successful Tribal Stomp at UC Berkeley's Greek Theatre in 1978, but his ambitious plans for a second Tribal Stomp at the Monterey Country Fairgrounds - featuring a lineup as diverse as British punk by the Clash and Jamaican reggae by the Mighty Diamonds - failed miserably the following year and he was out of business again. His crowning achievement was the concert celebrating the 30th anniversary of the Summer of Love he staged in Golden Gate Park in 1997, which drew a huge crowd to see old-timers such as Jefferson Starship, Sons of Champlin and Country Joe McDonald at the Beach Chalet Meadow. It was a free concert - Chet begged, pleaded, wheedled and cajoled the budget out of God knows where - so he didn't make dime one out of this deal, either. When City Hall sent him a bill for $50,000 worth of police overtime, he told them he didn't have any money, but they could have his jacket. Helms spent most of the last 20 years of his life operating a tiny Nob Hill art gallery called Atelier Dore, which he financed originally by the sale of one of the few authentic assets he was able to accumulate in his life, a huge painting by 19th century French illustrator Gustav Doré - hence the gallery name - which he sold at auction in the early '80s and celebrated in high-style that night backstage at a Grateful Dead concert in New York. When he died, he was years behind in his rent. The Paul Butterfield story is instructive. Impresario Graham never tired of telling it. Graham and Helms began throwing concerts at the Fillmore Auditorium in January 1966 as partners. After a couple of successful concerts, Helms told Graham the next band he wanted to present was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band. The next morning, while Helms slept late as per hippie custom, Graham got up early and called the New York booking agency that represented Butterfield and cut a deal. Graham loved telling this story. He thought it showed the rewards of diligence, how the early bird gets the worm and the world belongs to those with an alarm clock and some get-up-and-go, a little chutzpah. To Helms, it was always about the betrayal of a partner. He could be annoying, petulant about perceived slights and close-minded on certain subjects. He did love the spotlight and the approbation that came with it; he would have been pleased to see his obit so prominently placed in the New York Times. But he guarded the lamp of the '60s with steadfast devotion and as long as he lived, it would never be extinguished. "All-reety", Helms would say, an all-purpose affirmation he used to punctuate conversation. All-reety to you, too, Chester. That model is now permanently discontinued. Joel Selvin, Chronicle Senior Pop Music Critic Saturday, October 29, 2005
BLUE CHEER - LIVE BOOTLEG - LONDON HAMBURG (8/2005)
. . . CD Cover courtesy Eric Albronda When talks about "stoner rock" come up, one band that tends to get overlooked is Blue Cheer. While groups like Black Sabbath are always given props, the San Francisco band led by Dickie Peterson is usually left out in the cold, despite having scored one of the genre's earliest anthems, a turbo-charged rendition of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" (which was easily the heaviest song released in 1968). Since their late-'60s peak, the group has been off and on again, and by the early 21st century, they were rocking all over the world once more, as evidenced by 2005's Live Bootleg: London - Hamburg. While both Blue Cheer and Black Sabbath had blues roots, the former was more "garage-minded," while the latter was more "metal minded," and the point is proven once more by just about any selection here. Included are explosive (in an MC5 vein) renditions of such Blue Cheer classics as the aforementioned "Summertime Blues," "Out of Focus," and Mose Allison's "Parchment Farm," as well as a reading of the Doors' "Roadhouse Blues." While it doesn't top what it probably would have been like to experience Blue Cheer at the Fillmore West back in the late '60s, Live Bootleg: London - Hamburg shows that Peterson and company can still lay down a sizzling groove. Review courtesy Greg Prato, All Music Guide All I can say is that when this CD comes out on August 9, 2005 FREAKIN' GO OUT & BUY IT !!! It really rocks out. At first glance it may appear that it mostly consists of material that has already been put on previous live albums but don't be fooled ! The jams that these songs contain are completely different from what you've heard prior and the band really cooks on them. Everything has a fresh new twist to it. There is even a song included that has never been on any official BC album. I personally got blown away by Doctor Please, Parchment Farm, & Heart of the City but the performances on all nine tracks are just right-on ! AND . . . considering these tapes came from bootleg recordings made from the audience, whoever mixed this really did a phenomenal job ! I'd love to bring my tape collection to his studio . . . Review courtesy Ken (FeedbackLord)
BLUE CHEER at LACONIA BIKE FESTIVAL, June 15 & 16, 2005
The line-up is:
See also: Laconia Motorcycle Week & Broken Spoke Saloon, Laconia
MOTHER OCEAN
Back In The USA
Dickie is back in the USA (3/2005) to promote the band. He can be reached by: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
