Posts Tagged ‘prog metal’
Buzzard – Exercises & Transmutations of the Applicable Techniques for the Chrome-Plated Mystical Squeegie of Destiny (1998)
OK, this Buzzard album is even more rare and obscure than Churp!!! I have heard many of these songs live at shows and 
at their practices and hearing the studio versions for the first time today is absolutely making my brain hurt. Patrick Walsh & Co. deliver another fine prog-metal-jazz-science fiction teenage crap album that really should get a proper release on CD and not just around the blogosphere.
The songs on here are all very short but transition into each other a lot like they did on Churp!!! It’s an album that certainly needs to be heard from beginning to end. I hear some things on hear that I didn’t really hear on the previous album…Goblin! You know Goblin, right? Italian prog rock band whose music was used for a ton of classic Italian horror flicks? Maybe it’s just me, but I can hear some of that in there.
If you’re into odd timed, whacked out, progressive jazz, fusion, metal etc, then this album may even appeal to you more than Churp!!! does.
- The return of the Son of the 35-8Solution
- Blind daughters of Polyphemus
- Harvestors of Cust
- Cranial fist stench
- The dreaded deep doodoo motif
- Pythagoras
- The 35-8 solution
- Peeyurmp
- The coronation of King eggplanthead
- Exile for the house of flounderface
- The sun of flounderface as the rightful heir
- Full brown exile
- The Lament of simon Magus
- Quantum flux bedris field
- Probe M 87
- Pungent crust metaphor
- Circus Plantia – I. Watched them fall from the sky
- Circus Plantia – II. Time is like water to him
- Circus Plantia – III. The Corinthian picks his teeth
- Circus Plantia – IV. Light still bends to him
- Sweet grey Chitterlings
- Blind daughter of Polyphemus
- Mr.Spocks ancient vulcan secrets
- I. ChicknFingrFuckr
- II. ChicknFingrFugato
- III. The stuccato Fugato Mulato
- The potato wedgie Mulato
- Mr Spocks Fragant Vulcan secret
Guitars – Patrick Walsh
Drums – Mark Henry
Bass – Kevin Anderson
Thanks to hofee (Germany) for getting these in my hands.
Buzzard – Churp!!! (1993)
Here’s another rarity for you fine readers out there. Buzzard’s debut album Churp!!! on Hellhound Records. 
I remember back in the early 90s going to see these guys at Kings Head Inn (RIP) on Hampton Blvd in Norfolk, VA. A buddy of mine said, “Dude you have to see this band. They are insane. Their drummer is phenomenal and he’s only got one leg!” So I went. I was completely floored by everything that this band was doing. They were tight. They were erratic. They were brilliant. They were ugly. Dudes that looked like street urchin gutter punks with beards and dreads. Never got close enough to see if they smelled badly. Didn’t matter. They were a machine. A force to be reckoned with. I went to see them whenever I knew that they had a show. With that original era of the band I think I saw them 4 or 5 times within a year or 2. Every time I was blown away. Never really tried to speak to the guys as they all pretty much looked like they didn’t wan to be spoken to.
Buzzard was on Hellhound Records which was primarily a doom metal label…but Buzzard was anything but a doom band. They mixed metal with jazz, punk, Miles Davis, Zappa, Yes, Mahavishnu Orchestra, Return to Forever…
Their live show was pretty mind-numbing. Odd times signatures, stops and starts, no real cues given to each other. They all knew what they had to do and when. At that time they consisted of Patrick Walsh (Guitars), AJ Long (Vocals), John Finney (Horns), Andy Brown (Bass) and Joey Rudacil (Drums). Just insane I tell you.
Several years later I am hanging out with some friends and see Patrick Walsh from Buzzard come in the bar I was in. I was there with his sister and didn’t realize that they were related. Buzzard was reformed at this point as a 3-piece with Kevin Anderson on bass and Mark Henry on Drums. Patrick and I quickly connected and started hanging out a lot. Ultimately he became one of my best friends. Brilliant guy. Phenomenal guitarist. Helluva a nice guy. We jammed together briefly with Joey Rudacil and Todd Owens. It only lasted about 3 or 4 practices but it was fun. I ended up in another band with Joey a few months later and had a blast but we could never secure a singer.
Anyway, I was working the door at the Taphouse in Norfolk and Buzzard was scheduled to play their first show in 7 years. I was fortunate enough to get to sit in on several of their practices and was blown away even more by how much their sound had progressed. It went from the Mahavishnu-esque psychojazz to a math metal thing like Watchtower on meth. people came from up and down the east coast for this show and the place was over capacity with a line of people out the door and wrapped around the building trying to get in. It was an incredible show. They have done some subsequent shows but I think the last one may have been in 2007. It’s time for more!
I keep praying that they put out a new record with the newer songs on it. They recorded a 2nd album several years ago that never really saw the light of day. You can listen to some of it on their website.
Churp!!! is one of the toughest releases of Hellhound’s to find nowadays. I fortunately have 2 copies that I cherish. The album is an incredible piece of music…of art…an experience. AJ’s vocals are simply incredible. If you download this, please listen to the album as a whole. Don’t skip any of the 16 tracks. You’d be doing yourself a great disservice.
Tracks:
| 1. | Cyclops | 02:28 | |
| 2. | Shadows Without Substance | 03:03 | |
| 3. | The Fellowship (varieties) | 04:45 | |
| 4. | The Given/Grinding Wheel (including, but not limited to the following) | 08:38 | |
| 5. | Ear To The Ground | 03:44 | |
| 6. | His Descent | 01:35 | |
| 7. | Carpetbaggers | 05:13 | |
| 8. | Fluorescent Orange Bag O’Goodness | 02:09 | |
| 9. | Thirteen o’clock (frumpy smokes a fattie) | 05:21 | |
| 10. | Escape From The Island Of Misfit Toys | 06:01 | |
| 11. | The Secret Doctrine According To Simon | 03:36 | |
| 12. | Grand Poo-Bah | 00:48 | |
| 13. | The Return Of Frumpy And The Scrubby Jazz Hippies | 01:55 | |
| 14. | Musica d’Apocryphonica (no. I adagio) | 00:48 | |
| 15. | Savage Paisley Vortex (part I) | 00:59 | |
| 16. | Savage Paisley Vortex (pert II) The Ritual Dance And Initiation Of Chicky Boy | 07:01 |
Check out the vids from back in the day…
Watchtower – Energetic Disassembly (1985)
I remember clearly the first time I saw this on cassette. It was at the Music Man at Military Circle Mall in Norfolk, VA. 
The cover was upside down as compared to how the majority of cassette j-cards were printed. It always struck me as odd but I always felt it was intentional, especially after listening to this album at least 100 times since I first heard it. It certainly turned my mind upside down several times.
My friends and I were pretty shocked by this one. Most of us were into thrash ala Overkill’s Feel the Fire, Anthrax, Testament etc…but this was something different. Something special even.
The album opens with a frenetic frantic pace with crazy guitar riffs, insane bass lines and hyperactive drumming. They don’t stop until the end of the album. Mix all of this with Jason McMaster’s incredible vocals that cut through all of this madness and you have a perfect technical thrash album…perhaps the first truly technical thrash album. Some may debate that one but for me, this is the first.
While I love every song on this album, my absolute favorites are Tyrants In Distress, Violent Change, Meltdown and Argonne Forest. The whole band really seems to just be together and well-rehearsed. Billy White (f. Don Dokken), Doug Keyser and Rick Colaluca just flat out lay it down on this album. Period.
I still don’t feel that this album gets enough respect although some of the major metal players loved them such as Chuck Schuldiner (RIP) and Dream Theater. Watchtower set the standard early for technical metal. Their popularity is Europe still seems to be pretty strong as I believe they’re playing one of the Euro-Metal fests in 2010. It seems that they are still pretty huge in Greece.
While Control and Resistance was a good follow-up and was partially written by Billy White, a lot changed in their sound. Ron Jarzombek (Spastic Ink) and Allan Tecchio (Hades, Non-Fiction) do a fine job, but the loss of Jason McMaster and Billy White took them down a slightly different progressive thrash metal path. Both albums are certainly worth owning, but I have always preferred the debut.
Watchtower is in the studio recording a new album with McMaster on vocals (!!!) and I can’t wait to hear the whole thing. Hopefully I’ll finally get to see them live.
Living here in Austin, TX now, it is great to see how much that band is loved and respected around here. It gives me a warm tingly feeling. It’s also pretty incredible for me to have McMaster in my Motorhead tribute band. He’s a talented musician all the way around and bring a lot of energy to the band on rhythm guitar and backing vocals. Certainly one of my musical idols.
If you don’t own Energetic Disassembly and you like thrash, prog-metal, RUSH on steroids, you need to own this one.
Just do it.
“Breakdown, warning – Nuclear nightmare, reality”
Vauxdvihl – To Dimension Logic (obscure prog)
I really can’t remember exactly when I first heard this but it was undoubtedly via Kelz and Denis Gulbey of Sentinel Steel Records around 96 or 97. Doesn’t matter. This is a great album all the way around and pretty obscure. Vauxdihl hail 
from Melbourne, Australia.
I highly recommend checking this out if you’re a fan of Fates Warning’s Perfect Symmetry. It reminds me a lot of that album although not quite as good. No, this album isn’t particularly groundbreaking but it’s a nice change from all the trad and the death metal that I have been spinning lately.
Since this is very out of print and relatively hard to find, I uploaded it for your listening pleasure. Download here.
