{"id":1069,"date":"2017-09-12T18:29:35","date_gmt":"2017-09-12T18:29:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1069"},"modified":"2017-09-22T13:34:31","modified_gmt":"2017-09-22T13:34:31","slug":"ftv-vincebus-eruptum","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/?p=1069","title":{"rendered":"FTV: Vincebus Eruptum"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Don\u2019t go running for your old Latin textbook. \u00a0The quasi-Latin phrase <\/span>Vincebus Eruptum<\/span><\/i> is supposed to mean \u201cWe control chaos\u201d and if San Francisco psychedelic rockers Blue Cheer had any say in the matter, it was going to be the name of their first album. \u00a0Recorded live in the studio, the six song set kicked off with their version of <\/span>Summertime Blues<\/span><\/i> and the record company hitched their wagon to that song for the album\u2019s title because that is how a band was supposed to be \u00a0marketed. \u00a0Blue Cheer was a band that always did things their own way and they were not going to put out an album called <\/span>Summertime Blues<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0\u201cWe control chaos\u201d was not just what they wanted, it was the perfect summation of their sound. \u00a0During the fabled Summer of Love, Blue Cheer commanded attention but not much love from other bands. \u00a0Band leader Dickie Peterson (bass\/vocals) would not have wanted it any other way.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Unlike a lot of musicians who haunted the Haight\/Ashbury district in the late 1960s, Dickie Peterson had been there since his parents migrated to San Francisco in 1950 when Dickie was one year old. \u00a0When he tragically lost both of his parents in his early teens, he was shipped back to their native North Dakota to live with an adoptive family and finish his schooling. \u00a0In an interview with <\/span>Classic Rock Magazine<\/span><\/i> in 2003, Dickie described his time in North Dakota as a little less than idyllic: \u00a0\u201cThat was purgatory after San Francisco. \u00a0I was bored to death. \u00a0Two weeks after I finished high school I was gone.\u201d \u00a0He ended up living with his brother Jerre in Sacramento and they formed as a blues-based duo. \u00a0By 1966, they were back in San Francisco playing in a band called Andrew Staples & The Oxford Circle. \u00a0When Dickie got fired (\u201cI mean, I\u2019d grown up on Little Richard. \u00a0Woodie Guthrie and those folkies meant nothing to me. I used to do a spot when the others took a break and the leader got angry with me and fired me.\u201d) some of the other guys in the band went with him including the prime components of Blue Cheer: \u00a0drummer Paul Whaley and guitarist Leigh Stephens.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Blue Cheer started their first gig as a six-piece band but ended the night as a trio. \u00a0Peterson, Whaley, and Stevens stopped playing during a song because they couldn\u2019t hear the harmonica and keyboard players at all. \u00a0They could hear Dickie\u2019s brother on rhythm guitar but when they let the other two guys go, Jerre said, \u201cIf they go, I go.\u201d \u00a0The thunderous classic lineup was in place and they proceeded to alienate just about everybody with their bombastic live show. \u00a0Dickie said that at the time, he was about the only bass player around playing chords on bass similar to the style later adopted by Lemmy of Motorhead fame. \u00a0It was loud and distorted, but it certainly filled in any empty spaces in the trio\u2019s songs. \u00a0Other bands hated them, but they carved out a career catering to the likes of the Hell\u2019s Angels. \u00a0Peterson recalled, \u201cBikers never ripped us off. \u00a0Bikers always did what they said they would do. \u00a0If they said they would pay you this much, that is what you got. \u00a0The ones that abused us were the ones wearing suits and ties. \u00a0They were the real criminals.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Through their association with the Angels, they gained their first manager, a former Angel named Allen \u201cGut\u201d Terk. \u00a0\u00a0Gut was also friends with Owsley Stanley, Ken Kesey and the Merry Pranksters. \u00a0The Pranksters famous Magic Bus was parked at the Blue Cheer band house and because the Pranksters\u2019 house band was The Grateful Dead, BC also became well acquainted with them. \u00a0Knowing the Dead wasn\u2019t the same as loving the Dead according to Peterson: \u00a0\u201cWe never had any kind of relationship with them. \u00a0In fact, we quickly grew up to hate them. \u00a0If you were doing a show with them and they went on first, you didn\u2019t get to play. \u00a0If it was a three-hour show, they\u2019d go on first and play for three hours.\u201d \u00a0Peterson says it wasn\u2019t about the money: \u00a0\u201cIf you didn\u2019t get to play, nobody got to know you.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0This doesn\u2019t mean Blue Cheer didn\u2019t get a chance to play on some historic bills, however. \u00a0Fillmore owner and promoter Bill Graham liked them and booked them regularly around the Bay area. \u00a0Blue Cheer can be found on many of the iconic concert posters of the day billed with bands like Buffalo Springfield, Jeff Beck (with Rod Stewart on vocals), Pink Floyd, Electric Flag, Soft Machine, Big Brother and the Holding company (with Janis Joplin), and Jimi Hendrix. \u00a0The last two are significant to the band\u2019s lore because Joplin and Cheer drummer Paul Whaley were an item for a while and hearing Hendrix convinced them that they needed to be the frist Bay area band to import Marshall equipment from England. \u00a0While they were entranced by Hendrix\u2019s guitar playing and Stewart\u2019s singing, they were less impressed with Pink Floyd: \u00a0\u201cWe were interested because people told us: \u00a0\u2018These guys use feedback and they\u2019re really interested in psychedelic music.\u2019 \u00a0And so they were. \u00a0But it was different from what we were hearing. \u00a0We listened to two songs and walked out.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Mercury Records wouldn\u2019t touch the band until station KPIX started spinning <\/span>Summertime Blues<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Out of Focus<\/span><\/i>. \u00a0When they became the two top requested songs in the Bay area, they were flown to Los Angeles to record their first album. \u00a0The producer heard they were best live so had them set up their Marshalls and Rogers Power drums in the studio to record them in their raw form. \u00a0They tried to warn him how powerful it would be but the producer thought he had it all figured out. \u00a0He just didn\u2019t expect them to literally smoked the recording board. \u00a0Three days later, with a new board in place and the levels brought into a recordable range, Blue Cheer laid down the six live tracks that would be included in <\/span>Vincebus Eruptum.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When I heard the <\/span>Summertime Blues<\/span><\/i> track on the radio, I ran out and bought the single and added it to the stack of 45s I was playing drums along with. \u00a0When my bandmates in The Twig Mike and Gene \u00a0spotted it looking through my stack of records for songs to learn, they both said, \u201cWe have got to play this.\u201d \u00a0Mind you, the label said \u2018Eddie Cochran\u2019 under the title but I had never heard his version. \u00a0When I eventually heard the track cut by The Who, I thought it kind of paled when compared to the Blue Cheer version. \u00a0How could a drummer not like the thundering tom tom rumble that carries the song forward with frequent cymbal smashes (not crashes in this case) punctuating the spaces between each verse? \u00a0Cheer also added a little rave up in the middle that had the guitar and bass ascending with eighth notes on top of more tom tom rumbling that built the tension level before breaking back into the last verse with another cymbal crash and a scream. \u00a0We may not have been playing through Marshall stacks, but it was one of the most powerful songs we played. \u00a0Blue Cheer was a trio and if they could make that much racket, so could we. \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0A second album with the classic lineup was recorded at The Record Plant in New York with engineer Eddie Kramer. \u00a0Kramer was also working in the next studio with Jimi Hendrix and he would bring over the tapes so Cheer could hear what Jimi was up to. \u00a0Leigh Stevens left the band not long after the second album (<\/span>Ouitsideinside<\/span><\/i>) was completed and they had embarked on a second tour that took them around the world and back. \u00a0The band lingered on until 1971 with a succession of guitar players but it was the last gig of the classic line up at the Newport Festival in 1969 that Peterson remembers from that era: \u00a0\u201cIt was just the pressure of being what we were. \u00a0The stage was really high and immediately below us was the press, including a bunch of writers from <\/span>Rolling Stone<\/span><\/i> who had really slammed us. \u00a0After four songs, we dropped our guitars and pushed all of our equipment off the front of the stage. \u00a0You should have seen those guys scatter. \u00a0We got some pretty bad reviews that day.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Peterson decided that his drinking was affecting his ability to play music. \u00a0\u00a0He did not want to die as a drunk but as a musician so he sobered up and moved to Germany. \u00a0He would put together occasional Blue Cheer shows with Paul Whaley, but not with Leigh Stevens who continued to make \u201cimpossible demands.\u201d \u00a0To say that he went through a lot of guitar players would be a gross \u00a0understatement and even Leigh Stevens showed up in the band line up from time to time. \u00a0At the time of the 2003 <\/span>CRM <\/span><\/i>interview, Peterson was planning another revival of the band. \u00a0Paul Whaley\u2019s health at that time was \u201cup and down\u201d, but Peterson was not about to let that keep him off the stage: \u00a0\u201cIf he can\u2019t get involved, then I will get another drummer. \u00a0\u00a0Paul would lose all respect for me if I did anything else. \u00a0We\u2019ve seen way too many people fall by the wayside.. \u00a0I have buried a lot of my friends. \u00a0I buried my brother in 2003. \u00a0We have to go on.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0As of 2007, they had released their final album together (<\/span>What Doesn\u2019t Kill You . . .<\/span><\/i>) with drummer Joe Hasselvander but Whaley recut the drums on half the tracks so he could say he took part in the album they would tour behind the next tour. \u00a0On October 12, 2009, Dickie Peterson died in Germany of prostate cancer. \u00a0Long time guitarist Andrew MacDonald posted the following message on the band\u2019s web site: \u00a0\u201cBlue Cheer is done. \u00a0Out of respect for Dickie, Blue Cheer (will) never become a viable touring band again.\u201d \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0What legacy did Blue Cheer leave behind? \u00a0In the 2005 documentary <\/span>A Headbanger\u2019s Journey, <\/span><\/i>bassist Geddy Lee of Rush called them one of the first heavy metal bands. \u00a0If you need proof, pretend it is 1968, put on Cheer\u2019s <\/span>Summertime Blues, <\/span><\/i>and crank the volume up to 11. \u00a0When your windows start rattling, you will feel what Blue Cheer\u2019s sonic assault was like. \u00a0Before the Cheer, there wasn\u2019t anyone else doing it quite the same, but they certainly paved the way for countless other bands to <\/span>Vincebus Eruptum.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n

Top Piece Video: \u00a0Blue Cheer on the Beat Club – rocking their version of Summertime Blues<\/em><\/p>\n