Bloodrock, Bloodrock (1970)

The crucial relationship involved in Bloodrock‘s self-titled 1970 debut is that between the band and Terry Knight, who at the same time he helmed these tracks was the producer and manager for Grand Funk Railroad. That band’s self-titled had been issued in Jan. 1970 and wound up going Gold, and so when Knight approached Capitol Records with Bloodrock‘s Bloodrock, which came out that March, he had some clout behind him. The Fort Worth five-piece would make more of a splash with their second outing, later 1970’s Bloodrock 2 — which Knight also produced — but by then the first of a slew of lineup changes for the band had taken place, putting Rick Cobb on drums so Jim Rutledge could concentrate on lead vocals, and while that was a plenty worthy endeavor for Rutledge, I’ve always dug the vibe of the first album, the way “Fatback” rocks and swings around its backward guitar and early Rainbow-style vocals, the keyboard work throughout from Steve Hill, Eddie Grundy‘s bass and Lee Pickens‘ and Nick Taylor‘s bluesy riffing on “Wicked Truth” and the strange, key-driven turn that song takes, the multiple singers on “Double Cross” and how deep side B seems to roll with “Fantastic Piece of Architecture” and “Melvin Laid an Egg” at the end.

I think if you look at it and even go beyond the bands who are directly trying to mimic a ’70s sound in terms of their production or presentation, there are a lot of parallels between the boom of the early ’70s and now. Heavy rock and roll is certainly a less commercially viable property than it was at that point, but it seems like as rock was turning away from the psychdelia of the mid and late ’60s and toward something rawer in sound — what would gradually become metal, heavy rock and punk — there was a seemingly endless string of acts adopting the mode of expression, and substitute words like “private press” for “limited edition” and the situation isn’t really much different today. You could listen to brand new records every day for a year and still not hear everything that’s come out. It’ll thin out over time, but I think if the continued proliferation of ’70s rock shows anything, it’s that stuff like Bloodrock‘s Bloodrock never really goes away. Shit, look at Texas today. The state is huge and I still don’t think you can go five feet and not walk into a heavy band of one stripe or another. I like the thought of, 40 years from now, someone finding that stuff and being able to explore a world they didn’t really know about, or if they did, had only touched the surface. An awful lot of stuff has been dug up over the last decade or so, including Bloodrock, which was put out last year on vinyl by Kotay, but however much seems to come out, there always seems to be more underneath.

Not a hardship at all, especially when stuff like this record winds up experienced by and influencing another generation of heavy rock and rollers, even if it’s just influencing them to hunt down an original copy. A call to action. Ha. I hope you enjoy.

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I’m traveling next week, going out to San Francisco for a conference for work. I know I’ll be able to do some record shopping while I’m out there — Amoeba Music and Aquarius Records, I’m comin’ for you — but not sure how much else. In any case, I’ll be in town from Monday night to Thursday night. If you’re around, hit me up and we’ll figure something out. I’d be happy to talk rock and roll over some iced tea or a nice caesar salad, all responsible-like.

I absolutely mean that, by the way.

A lovely bit of genius on my part: Traveling next week, I’ve lined up a premiere for every day Monday through Friday. Look out for new audio from Agusa, Yellowtooth, Wildlights and Pastor and a new video from Atavismo, because god damn it, if I sleep, I lose.

Don’t think I’ve mentioned it yet, but I also joined Instagram last week and have been posting stuff there, if you’re into that kind of thing: https://instagram.com/hptaskmaster/

Still kind of figuring that one out.

Work is going well, if you’re wondering. It’s been an adventure to say the least, but I feel like I’m at the point where I’m starting to get settled in and but for the hour-plus it takes me to get to or from the office, I have no real complaints. The people here are nice and seem willing to kind of let me do my thing so long as the work is done, which as far as I’m concerned is the best-case scenario. I’m pretty lucky, all in all. Just got business cards today. They have my name as “J. J.,” but other than that, are fine. Somehow Massachusetts doesn’t really know what to make out of “JJ Koczan.” I should’ve told them to put H.P. Taskmaster on there. Ha.

Have a great and safe weekend. I’m heading down to Connecticut for the next couple of days, which is always a good time, and may or may not put together a new podcast while I’m down there. We’ll see how it all shakes out. In any case, thanks for reading, and please check out the forum and the radio stream, which has been absolutely killing it today.

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