This is just RidingEasy Records doing the universe a solid. Does anyone say ‘do a solid’ anymore? I don’t know. Whatever the Gen-Z equivalent of doing a solid is, then. That’s what’s happening here. Randy Holden‘s 1970 solo album, Population II (discussed here), has long been relegated to being one of those collectors pieces. A record that, if you know, you know. The guitarist, known for his work on Blue Cheer‘s New! Improved! Blue Cheer!, is playing this weekend with no less than Earthless‘ Mario Rubalcaba in Los Angeles, and if that’s not enough badassery for you, consider Holden‘s description of the remaster below.

I know there are a ton of albums from that original heavy era that get saddled with the “lost classic” thing, and many of them earn it to various degrees. Population II is legitimately an offering of continued relevance that listeners across multiple generations — even you kids on the TikToks — should know.

I turn it over to the PR wire for the particulars:

RidingEasy Records to reissue extremely rare 1970 doom album Randy Holden – Population II

Randy Holden (ex-Blue Cheer) playing live December 21st at Whiskey A-Go-Go in L.A. with Mario Rubalcaba (Earthless, RFTC) on drums

RidingEasy Records proudly announce the official reissue on physical and digital formats of the extremely rare 1970 proto-metal album Randy Holden – Population II. Considered one of the first doom metal albums ever, the ex-Blue Cheer guitarist’s solo debut has long been sought out by collectors. The remastered full length will be available on all streaming platforms for the first time, with a master more true to the original mix on LP, CD and streaming.

This weekend, Saturday December 21st, Holden will perform a rare live show at the Whiskey A-Go-Go in L.A. supported by drummer Mario Rubalcaba (Earthless, RFTC, OFF!) It will be a career-spanning set featuring songs from the Fender IV, the Sons of Adam, the Other Half, Blue Cheer, and his solo work, including Population II. Tickets and info HERE.

“Godzilla just walked into the room. People just stood there with their eyes and mouths wide open.”

To hear Randy Holden describe the audience’s reaction in 1969 to his solo debut performing with a teeth-rattling phalanx of 16 (sixteen!) 200 watt Sunn amps is about as close as many of us will get to truly experience the moment heavy metal music morphed into existence. However, at last we have unearthed the proper fossil record.

Population II, the now legendary, extremely rare album by guitarist/vocalist Holden and drummer/keyboardist Chris Lockheed is considered to be one of the earliest examples of doom metal. Though its original release was a very limited in number and distribution, like all great records, its impact over time has continued to grow.

In 1969, Holden, fresh off his tenure with proto-metal pioneers Blue Cheer (appearing on one side of the New! Improved! Blue Cheer album and touring for the better part of a year in the group), aimed for more control over his band. Thus, Randy Holden – Population II was born, the duo naming itself after the astronomical term for a particular star cluster with heavy metals present.

“I wanted to do something that hadn’t been done before,” Holden explains. “I was interested in discordant sounds that could be melodic but gigantically huge. I rented an Opera house for rehearsal, set up with 16 Sunn amps. That’s what I was going for, way over the top.”

And over the top it is. The 6-song album delves into leaden sludge, lumbering doom and epic soaring riffs that sound free from all constraints of the era. It’s incredibly heavy, but infused with a melodic, albeit mechanistic, sensibility.

“At the time, I was hearing these crazy melodies everywhere I went,” Holden says. “I thought I was going crazy.” For example, one day he slowly rooted out a powerful sound that had been nagging him and discovered it coming from a ceiling fan. “Machinery all around us doesn’t turn in a perfect rhythm. That’s what I was tuning into, I heard the music and the discordant sounds coming from the machinery. It was perfect for rendering the machine we built.”

Troubles with the album’s release bankrupted Holden, who subsequently left music for over two decades. It was bootlegged several times over the years, but until now hasn’t seen a proper remaster and has yet to be available on digital platforms. “The original mastering just destroyed the dynamics of it,” Holden says. “They flattened it out. Now we got a really nice remaster that should be the closest thing to the original recording.”

Population II will be available on LP, CD and download on February 28th, 2020 via RidingEasy Records.

RANDY HOLDEN LIVE 2019:
12/21 Los Angeles, CA @ The Whiskey A-Go-Go

Artist: Randy Holden
Album: Population II
Label: RidingEasy Records
Release Date: February 28th, 2020

01. Guitar Song
02. Fruit & Iceburgs
03. Between Time
04. Fruit & Iceburgs (Conclusion)
05. Blue My Mind
06. Keeper of My Flame

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Randy Holden, Population II (original master) (1970)

Randy Holden, Population II (1969)

He was walking a tightrope made of liquid steel. Mind you, I’ve heard some colorful alternatives to the phrase “playing guitar” in my time, but that one might be the king of them, and it’s more or less the mission statement of “Guitar Song,” the opening track of Randy Holden‘s Population II. Population II was the moniker both of the band and the album, referring both to the fact that there were two people in the band — Holden and drummer Chris Lockheed — and to a class of star that includes some heavy metals in its composition. Not too much heavy metal, but a bit. The album, which at the time of its original 1969 Hobbit Records release had six tracks and ran just under 31 minutes, follows suit. It has flourishes of what would later become heavy metal, but is mostly geared toward weighted psychedelia, acid rock and post-hippie volume. And guitar. “Guitar Song” is a title that could apply equally to “Fruit and Iceburgers” or “Blue My Mind” or “Keeper of My Flame,” even of those tracks — aren’t about playing guitar, which the actual “Guitar Song” is.

Holden, who had done time in various West Coast acts prior, made an appearance the same year on side B of Blue Cheer‘s third album, New! Improved! Blue Cheer!, and toured with that band in replacement of founding guitarist Leigh Stephens, but would soon enough be gone, and it wasn’t until 1996 that he put out another solo album to follow-up Population II, the popularity of which endured as a cult classic of early metal and guitar rock. On a sonic level, it was legitimately a couple years ahead of its time — it would take most acts seeing the explosion of heavy in the wake of the Black Sabbaths and Led Zeppelins of the world to pick up on tonal weight as a lifestyle option; Holden could be considered an early adopter in pushing the envelope licked first by Jimi Hendrix, or The Yardbirds and Cream, if you want to stretch definitions. Still, Population II is remarkably clear-headed in its purposes and its jams, and if nothing else, Holden well earns his footnote among the six-string greats of the era.

In the last decade, he’d release an answer to 1996’s Guitar God in the form of Guitar God 2001, issued the year of its title, and 2008’s Raptor, and this year he has issued the self-recorded Psychedelic Blue, which is available at his website. Population II has seen a handful of reissues over the years as well, legitimate and bootleg, and its cult continues to grow with a new generation of heavy rock heads hell-bent for rare vinyl and classic groove.

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About to head out of the office and down to Connecticut for the next couple days, so I’ll keep it short. Tomorrow night I’m seeing Serial Hawk in Connecticut, so Monday I’ll have a review of that up. Look out next week I think for the video premiere from Kings Destroy that was originally supposed to be this week, as well as a new track from the Khemmis album coming soon from 20 Buck Spin, and hopefully a track and Q&A with The Exploding Eyes Orchestra, which is an offshoot of Jess and the Ancient Ones that will have a debut LP out soon on Svart. All cool stuff.

Reviews too of the Death Alley record and vinyl something or other. Records are starting to stack up.

To that end, I’ve also started plotting out the next Quarterly Review, which will happen at the end of this month. Don’t ask me how I’m going to manage that while also working full-time, I’m just going to fucking do it and that’s going to be that. Sleep be damned. Not Sleep, the band. Just sleep, the concept.

Hope you have a great and safe weekend. If you’re someplace that has good weather or, say, at the Freak Valley festival in Germany, I hope you enjoy it. Please check out the forum and radio stream. I was listening earlier. Some good shit on there.

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Blue Cheer, OutsideInside (1968)

What a glorious image it is to think of Blue Cheer taking the stage at some outdoor Summer of Love festival and knocking all the hippies on their ass. Of course, their 1967 debut, Vincebus Eruptum, enjoys permanent essential status as well, but the 1968 follow-up, OutsideInside, is more cohesive, and you can just hear that by the time the San Francisco three-piece got around to making it, they knew they were heavy. Put OutsideInside up against anything else 1968 had to offer and there’s very little, Hendrix included, that it doesn’t blow out of the water with its raw impact, channel-spanning solos, and the nascent groove that decades later became emblematic of what we now call stoner rock. If you haven’t heard it before and you doubt what I’m saying, listen twice before you tell me I’m full of shit.

Side B brings covers of The Rolling Stones and Albert King, both subjected to the weight and fuzz that Blue Cheer — the original lineup of bassist/vocalist Dickie Peterson, guitarist Leigh Stephens and drummer Paul Whaley intact for the last time — brought to bear all across the album, and though the whole thing is done in little over half an hour, its impact continues to resonate today in heavy rock and metal of various stripes. More than its influence, however, the movement the trio manages to enact while still keeping a feel emblematic of the psychedelic era, which then was really just beginning to take hold, makes it necessary listening. The trio pull off rhythmic shifts that would blind lesser bands even today and do it all sounding so zoned out thatPeterson’s vocals hardly register as words on “Feathers from Your Tree.” It’s a landmark record, but it also rules.

There were rumors kicking around at some point last year or two years ago of a trio of former Blue Cheer members getting together to play under the moniker, but I’ve yet to see anything materialize, and without Peterson — who passed away in 2009 — there’s no way it could be the same. I was fortunate enough to see Blue Cheer a couple times around the release of their final album, 2007’s What Doesn’t Kill You…, which included a redux of “Just a Little Bit” from OutsideInside, and they were still loud as hell, dug deep into heavy blues rock, Peterson playing through two 8×10 cabinets stacked sideways on top of each other. It was glorious, and while I knew what I was getting to some degree when I showed up, I was still knocked on my ass much the same way I expect the flower children were. Some power stands, undulled by time.

—

Crazy week. Madness. Had company here Sunday night into Monday, Wednesday night into yesterday, went to that Deville show last night, plus The Patient Mrs. and I are trying to buy a condo a couple towns over that’ll hopefully save us some money on our month-t0-month — what with being a single-income household for the time being — and as we’re in that you’re-just-basically-waiting-for-something-to-make-this-fall-apart stretch of time before closing, it’s been a bit frazzling. Oh yeah, I also did three interviews this week, with Peder Bergstand from Lowrider, Jon Davis from Conan, and this morning with Mike Dean from C.O.C., so yes, a little wild.

I’d like to get that Lowrider piece up next week. Peder had some cool stuff to say on making the video for Bob Balch of Fu Manchu‘s side-project, Sun and Sail Club, as well as getting Lowrider going again and their plans for putting together a new album. There’s a lot to go through to get a Q&A out of it, but I’m going to work hard to try to make that happen before next Friday. Also look for a review of the new Wo Fat record and a round of radio adds to make up for those I didn’t get the chance to do over the last couple days, and, in case I don’t already wind up with too much on my plate, a new podcast at some point. Too much good music floating around not to put one together sooner than later.

All that in mind, I’ll take my leave for the remainder of the evening ahead of waking up tomorrow morning and driving two hours into Connecticut (then back!) for family whathaveyou. I wish you a great and safe weekend and hope you’ll take the time to check out the forum and radio stream, as both kick ass mightily.

The Obelisk Forum

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I’ve said a couple times now that I only like comps after the fact. When they’re first released and they need to be reviewed, they’re a pain in my ass, and they sit and sit and nag on me until I finally write them up. It’s not until a few years later, when the material is rare as hell and a few of the bands have collapsed, that I’m even remotely interested. You say Welcome to MeteorCity has a different version of a song from Lowrider? Sign me up.

For a while now I’ve been trying to chase down a copy of Bastards Will Pay: A Tribute to Trouble to absolutely no avail. Amazon, eBay, Gemm, physical stores, stoner and doom distros — nobody’s got this friggin’ thing. And yeah, I know I can just type it into Google and download it. I don’t wanna do that. I want to own it. I like my little plastic discs, thanks. You keep the cloud.

To quell my tributary jones and in the meantime hear a couple badass bands, I recently placed an order on the cheap for a copy of Blue Explosion: A Tribute to Blue Cheer on Black Widow Records out of Italy. Released in 1999 and featuring the likes of Drag Pack and Norrsken, among others who don’t exist anymore, it fits my law of comp appreciation perfectly. I don’t even know Garybaldi, but their version of “Fresh Fruit and Iceburgs” is killer and doomed and gives me something to look up tonight while I’m sitting on my ass, so that’s an immediate plus.

Perhaps best of all, though, is that Blue Explosion is bookended by Pentagram. And not just any Pentagram — it’s Joe Hasselvander on all the instruments and Bobby Liebling on vocals, and that’s it. They were working with Black Widow at that point (released Review Your Choices in ’99 and Sub-Basement in 2001 with the duo lineup), and so the disc opens with a nine-minute version of “Doctor Please” on which Hasselvander pretty much just jams with himself. It’s amazing, and his tones are unbelievably heavy. Internal Void follows with “Parchment Farm” and it’s like a one-two punch out of the Doom Capitol.

And Norrsken (the Swedish band from which both Witchcraft and Graveyard were born) are indeed a highlight — they present “Pilot” with expectedly killer vintage sounds — but Natas doing “Ride with Me” and Rise and Shine‘s take on “Sun Cycle” are also standouts, and “Peace of Mind” might be the most purely psychedelic I’ve ever heard Ufomammut sound. Whether it’s the boozy Euro-rock of Space Probe Taurus or the loose organ jamming of Standarte, I’m into it, and the fact that it’s all Blue Cheer material makes it even better.

So yeah, if it was coming across my desk for review now, I’d probably be all huffy-puffy about it and bitch about how compilation reviews are basically just plugs for the bands involved and there’s never any flow or basis for any overall analysis of the release, but in buying something like Blue Explosion: A Tribute to Blue Cheer, I don’t give a shit. It rocks and the rest is secondary to that. For something that was a consolation prize, I definitely feel like I won out.

Still gotta find that Trouble tribute, though.

If you’re reading this and you celebrate either the Jesus-in-Christmas or the secularized Xmas, then chances are congratulations are in order: You’ve made it through another one. The Patient Mrs. and I got back a little bit ago from the last of the familial hoedowns, and with that, an episode of Iron Chef America and our collected loot strewn about the place in Roman-style excess, the evening seems to have come to a conclusion. I hope you had a good one.

Since Friday was my office party and — class act that I am — I got loaded early, I never officially closed out the week, and I thought some Blue Cheer would be the way to go. In the car up to Connecticut and back yesterday and today it was Deep Purple, Sungrazer, Warning and Kyuss, but holiday Cheer is about as close as I get to holiday cheer, so I hope you enjoy it. I haven’t drooled over Outsideinside in a couple weeks anyway, so I’m due.

If you’re in the US and don’t have to work tomorrow, I hope your weekend continues to be excellent and that you get to relax a bit before having to cram five days’ worth of work into four the rest of this week. If Xmas isn’t in line with either your belief system, you’re celebrating Hanukkah, Lemmy‘s birthday, something else or nothing at all, I hope you had a good weekend whatever it may have entailed.

Along with a shit-ton of laundry, tomorrow I’m going to try to make my way through reviewing the new BeenObscene album, and this week I’ll have Six Dumb Questions with guitarist/graphic artist Scott Stearns of the recently-reviewed Bibilic Blood and the semi-recently-reviewed Morbid Wizard, as well as, I think some new music from Dwellers, who were reviewed just a couple days ago. Very timely around here all of a sudden.

In any case, much fun to come this week, so please, stay tuned. In the meantime, see you on the forum and back here tomorrow for more good times.

It was two years ago today, Oct. 12, that Blue Cheer‘s Dickie Peterson succumbed to liver cancer. I’m not going to write anything grand about the man’s legacy — it speaks for itself — I just thought the occasion was worth marking.

Last night after work, The Patient Mrs. and I hit the road north and west and got up to Buffalo, New York, where we stayed the night. This afternoon, after an unsuccessful attempt to hit a record store there called Spiral Scratch — whose noon opening time was, to be fair, qualified with an “ish” on their website — we made our way into Canada to cut west to our final destination, Detroit, which is where I’m posting from now.

Hell of a ride. I don’t think Canada was any more or less boring than western Pennsylvania or Ohio might have been, but it’s another stamp on my passport, anyway. Every time someone asked where we were headed and we told them, the response was, “Why would you go to Detroit? Nobody goes there.”

Fair enough question, but I like a lot of shit people don’t like, and yeah we saw some bombed-out looking shit on the way here, but whatever. No more than Newark or Paterson back in Jersey. Anyway, it’s a road trip, and I’ll be here through the weekend, so I don’t know how many posts I’m going to get up, so if you’re wondering why there isn’t the usual obsessive amount of output today and tomorrow, that’s why.

I should have known though that the second I wasn’t in front of a computer the site would crash. Big thrill sending “my shit is broken” emails to the hosting company from my phone, believe you me. Really nails down that whole “getting away from it all” thing. At least it’s back up now, though it always seems as soon as I say that, it implodes again. Ugh.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the Blue Cheer video above, taped at the soundcheck of a show I later attended at the old Knitting Factory in Manhattan. That was a good night. In case I don’t get to post again before the weekend, thanks everyone for checking in this week, and next week I’ll have an interview with artist Sean “Skillit” McEleny and a Six Dumb Questions with the recently-reviewed Threefold Law, as well as reviews of The Re-Stoned and hopefully the Clutch show that I’m going to in Flint on Saturday. Good stuff to come, and in the meantime, if you haven’t checked out the forum, it’s like YOB-city in there. Lots of fun.

It’s kind of a bittersweet Frydee this week. On the one hand, The Obelisk has over 100,000 page views for the month of December so far. 106,818 by Yahoo‘s current count. And that’s amazing. Four times more than any previous month, in just 10 days. There are nearly 300 people registered for the forums, and well over 3,000 posts in the sundry message boards. To put it mildly, it has been an incredible week.

On the other hand, tonight my band Maegashira plays our last show, opening for Kings Destroy and The Brought Low at Cake Shop in Manhattan. Nearly six years in, it’s hard to think of that as being over, but there you go. We put out a killer album, a couple splits, and had some great times. I chose to end the week with Blue Cheer in tribute to listening to Outsideinside while sitting in the van and drinking beer the last year or so before rehearsal. I’ll miss that.

So yeah, bit of an emotional roller coaster. Whichever way the mood swings, thank you for checking out the forums if you’ve done that, and thanks for reading the blog proper if you’ve done that. Both are much appreciated on my end, I assure you. Next week we’ll continue the top 20 of 2010 countdown and get back on track with some On the Radar and Buried Treasure-type stuff. I’ll have a writeup of the Kings Destroy set and I’m trying to sort out an interview with Victor Griffin, so here’s hoping that can happen too.

In the meantime, enjoy “Sun Cycle,” remember the forums are up all weekend (we never close), and please, have fun and be safe. We’ll pick up right where we left off on Monday.