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Groundhogs - Split? |
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MaldonTerryWood 
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Joined: November 29 2019 Location: Maldon Status: Offline Points: 33 |
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 Topic: Groundhogs - Split?Posted: March 12 2020 at 15:15 |
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What do people think of the Groundhogs? - 'Split' in particular. Maybe I'm prejudiced but I think they are phenomenally underrated.
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dr wu23
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Joined: August 22 2010 Location: Indiana Status: Offline Points: 20671 |
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Posted: March 12 2020 at 19:31 |
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I have a couple on cd.....can't recall which ones. Solid Brit blues rock with a bit of a prog edge at times.
I'm a bit surprised they are on PA. But I also have this vinyl....  Edited by dr wu23 - March 12 2020 at 19:32 |
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One does nothing yet nothing is left undone.
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Nogbad_The_Bad
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Posted: March 12 2020 at 20:14 |
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Great band, Split is my personal favorite of theirs, saw them live in Newcastle in the 80's great gig.
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Ian
Host of the Post-Avant Jazzcore Happy Hour on Progrock.com https://podcasts.progrock.com/post-avant-jazzcore-happy-hour/ |
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chopper
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Honorary Collaborator Joined: July 13 2005 Location: Essex, UK Status: Offline Points: 20034 |
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Posted: March 13 2020 at 04:48 |
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I read the title and thought they'd split up, are they still going? I saw them once at a working mens club in South Wales, bit of a surprise as we just went for a beer and didn't know they were on.
I do like the Split album, Thank Christ For The Bomb is also good but I haven't heard any others.
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MaldonTerryWood
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Posted: March 13 2020 at 08:40 |
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Yes, I get the solid Brit blues rock comment but they were a bit more than that, I thought, they were in concept-album territory. 'Split' was about mental health. 'Who will save the world' was about the environment. At 15 I thought they were dead profound.
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moshkito
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Joined: January 04 2007 Location: Grok City Status: Offline Points: 18149 |
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Posted: March 13 2020 at 15:25 |
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Hi,
My personal favorite albums of theirs are CROSSCUT SAW and BLACK DIAMOND ... both are extremely well done and the music is fit to be played LOUD. NP: Live Right
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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dr wu23
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Joined: August 22 2010 Location: Indiana Status: Offline Points: 20671 |
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Posted: March 14 2020 at 07:58 |
As I said.... Solid Brit blues rock with a 'bit of a prog edge' at times. But there are a fair number of these bands like Wishbone Ash, Steamhammer, Gravy Train, Ten Years After...who all moved out a little bit from the blues rock mold to try something different. Back in the day....I started college in '69 , and into the early 70's , none of them were seen as progressive at all. But then as has been discussed here many times the genres are a bit loose. ;)
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One does nothing yet nothing is left undone.
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moshkito
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Posted: March 15 2020 at 06:34 |
Hi, At the time, and still today for me, I really didn't and still don't like to label the music, specially when it has a tendency to drive even more bands into obscurity ... because others sold better or got into the charts a bit more. For my tastes, the various long cuts by The Groundhogs, simply show what a great bunch of musicians and music they were able to attain, and after CROSSCUT SAW, which is a phenomenal album and has the best use of effects on a guitar, and simply shows the maturity and the level of Toni McPhee's style and abilities, something that most folks don't really do ... for many of them it's the same effect, the same notes but different lyrics. While their next album is very good and has at least a couple of exceptional pieces for my ears, I have the feeling that Toni's desire to get better appreciated and seen within a larger context of music than just blues, seems to finally have gone ... the long cuts were out ... except one, that was unusual, and reminded me of Layla, but I think that was more of ... I don't care than anything else ... have at it ... but it made things worse ... you come out of the album going ... after all this stuff ... I'm not sure this makes sense ... but things like "Live Right" is an absolutely magnificent song and it needs to get played more and more ... and instead it is ignored ... even when the words in the song are ever more important ... the irony is crazy and insane!
Edited by moshkito - March 15 2020 at 06:35 |
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Music is not just for listening ... it is for LIVING ... you got to feel it to know what's it about! Not being told!
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Cosmiclawnmower
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Posted: March 16 2020 at 14:02 |
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They started as a blues outfit, backing some of the original US bluesmen when they came to tour the UK in the late 1960's and Tony (TS) Mc Phee is a fantastic blues guitarist. But the early 70's Groundhogs were SO much more than 'another brit-blues' outfit; The subjects of the songs and the lyrics were very much inspired by the issues Mc Phee saw around him- His '2 sides of Tony TS Mc Phee' is a very 'out there' lp, particularly side 2 (the Hunt). The later lps saw them return to a more blues based sound and during the 1980's and 1990's they were playing pretty much all blues rock to Biker rallys. Then TS retired and now Ken Pustelnik, the original drummer, fronts a version of the band which covers those 3 to 4 classic early 70's lps. I bumped into Ken Pustelnik a few times in Bristol in the early 1980's playing with various free-jam/ free festival outfits and he reminded me that the Groundhogs were definitely one of the pillars of the underground music scene 1970-72/73, on the same management/agency (Clearwater enterpises) as Hawkwind, High tide etc.
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MaldonTerryWood wrote: