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Rating: Until a few years ago, when visiting London, among the posters of the hundreds of rock blues concerts that English pubs still insist on offering despite the overwhelming avalanche of crap that is drowning our beloved music, one could still notice the name of the Groundhogs. I imagine Tony McPhee, with his appearance like an old dockworker heading out for the evening in tight jeans and white sneakers, plugging the jack into his red Gibson for about forty people sitting in front of yet another pint of dark beer.
This gentleman in the sixties was one of the leading figures of British blues and admired John Lee Hooker so much that he borrowed the name of the group from one of his songs (the groundhog is a type of wild pig but is also used to mock an untrustworthy person) and even supported the great bluesman on his UK tour. Amid various breakups and odd jobs, the Groundhogs reformed as a trio in 1969, just when the British blues phenomenon was about to give way to a harder, more modern rock blues, and in response, they produced an album, "Blues Obituary," with a cover featuring "Reverend" Tony blessing a coffin held up by the two buddies, with the body of the blues ready for the funeral!
But it is with the subsequent "Thank Christ for the Bomb" from 1970 that the Groundhogs reach the peak of their expressive creativity. A concept album as was customary at the time, but without the pretentiousness of many similar operations, in which war and its alienating consequences were condemned right from the cover that showed the three long-haired members dressed as unlikely, battered and limping soldiers. The producer is Martin Birch, who that same year had done great work with Deep Purple's "In Rock," and he, of course, gives the trio a harder approach than they were used to expressing until then.
Let's get things straight: it's a great album that deserves much more recognition from rock enthusiasts, and you are one, aren't you? McPhee's nasal voice and his masterful guitar playing provide a unique harmony and balance between the acoustic and electric parts.
Among all, the beautiful, long title track "Thank Christ for the Bomb" starts acoustically with Tony's voice lamenting the war as if he were Bob Dylan, until it grows into an electric maelstrom that would make today's skilled "noise-makers" envious. Tony is a guitar hero and proves it in the Hendrix-style solo that dominates everything until the final explosion of the... bomb!
Even westcoast echoes in the languid "Garden" with Pustelnik's nice work on the tom tom drums, the wonderful slide solos make the track slip among favorites in my journeys made without leaving home walls.
Pete Cruickshank's bass scales open "Status People" with Tony's guitar that seems to come straight from the best tracks of "Tommy" by the Who, with the difference that his riffs are much more robust than Townshend's....yet another superb track! Furthermore "Rich Man Poor Man" is an energetic ballad that owes much to Daltrey & Co., but the guitar arpeggio and Tony's nasal singing give it something much closer to Jethro Tull, with the usual double tonic injection: exceptional track number four! The puffing "Eccentric Man" revives the four-four time of the blues drowned in majestic riffs supported by the relentless rhythm, then the usual piercing Gibson solo sets the guitar on fire forcing an assistant in the studio to wave a piece of paper to cool it, and consequently: unmissable track number five.
Do I need to continue? No, discover the other treasures of the album for yourselves and if you happen to be in London and see the poster of a Groundhogs concert, slip into that pub without any hesitation and bring the number of spectators up to forty-one.
Holy crap, you owe it to them!
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
01 Strange Town (04:20)
This is a strange town, people here round don't have no fun.
I've been here two years, I've been lookin' round but I ain't found none.
It seems that all they care about is pointin' people out,
saying stupid things like, "get the lice out your hair".
BREAK
I don't believe these people, spend all their time walkin' round lookin' so glum.
They think that life is for workin' to secure their pension when retirement come.
Ah, but they don't realise, it's right before their eyes, life is for livin', right now before you die.
BREAK & SOLO
REPEAT VERSE 1
02 Darkness Is No Friend (03:48)
Shafts of sunlight stealing in my room through the window-pane,
Look like spotlight pointing out the gloom and despair that it contains,
But I would not shut out the sunlight for darkness is no friend.
Shafts of moonlight lighting up the floor, nearly all bare boards,
Few pieces of carpet and nothing more, all I can afford,
But I would not shut out the moonlight for darkness is no friend.
It's so easy to shut your eyes to block out the things that you despise,
Just as easy for the dark of night to blot out thedaylight things that aren't right,(2)
Shafts of sunlight stealing in my room through the window-pane,
Look like spotlight pointing out the gloom and despair that it contains,
But I would not shut out the sunlight for darkness is no friend.
03 Soldier (04:55)
Soldier, fix your bayonet before the enemy come,
'Cos you won't have time, when they start to climb the hill, y'know.
Soldier, when you see 8,000 climbin' up on you,
Don't see them as men, just see them as enemies of the king, y'know.
Soldier, Don't think of runnin', your death is just as sure.
If you don't face it now, you'll face it anyhow in front of the squad, y'know.
Soldier, stand firm in your trenches, don't let them break the line.
Because these dirty Hun are all bastard whore'sons not fit to live, don't you know.
04 Thank Christ for the Bomb (07:25)
In 1914 a war began, a million soldiers lent a hand,
Weren't many planes to give support, hand to hand was the way they fought.
Young men were called up for the cause, for king and country and the cross,
In their naivete they thought it was for glory, so they'd been taught.
In 1939 once again there came the sound of marching men,
Occupying European land, all the way to North French sands,
But, in the final year of that war, two big bangs settled the score,
Against Japan, who'd joined the fight, the rising sun didn't look so bright.
Since that day it's been stalemate, everyone's scared to obliterate,
So it seems for peace we can thank the bomb, so I say thank Christ for the bomb (3)
05 Ship on the Ocean (03:27)
I'm like a ship on the ocean that's rolling from side to side,
But I'm not drunk I'm just dissatisfied,
It's not my body but my mind I can't control,
I have everything I need but still.....I want more.
I've done everything that I've ever set out to do,
I become so well known that they've put me in who's who,
But I've reached the limit and I don't know what to do,
If I can't go no further I'll have to go back.....to being poor.
SOLO
06 Garden (05:24)
My garden is all overgrown and the weeds are creeping up on my home,
Grass has grown over two foot high and the trees are blocking out the sky.
French windows won't open any more from the moss that's grown outside the door,
Hundred birds are nesting in the trees, looks like a wild-life sanctuary.
BREAK
But I'm not going to cut a single blade of grass, my garden will look just like the distant past,
Before the days of agricultural land, before the time when pebbles turned to sand.
When I leave this house I'm going to stay, I'm forsaking my comforts to live another way,
Get my clothes from heaps, my food from bins, my water from ponds and have tramps for all my friends.
BREAK
SOLO
09 Eccentric Man (04:56)
My chest is a 36, my overcoat is for a 42.
My trousers end 6 inches from the ground, 3 inches from my shoe,
Tied up with a piece of string and held together with fish-bone glue.
Call me an eccentric man, I don't believe I am ( 2)
My bed is a park bench and my sheet and blankets are newspaper pages.
The people think I'm crazy, but I know I'm wiser than all the sages,
'cos I have money they think that I'm a fool for doing what I do, but I know it's right.
Call me an eccentric man, I don't believe I am (2)
SOLO IN E
If ever I want to I can have the comfort of my country home.
But until that time I'm quite content to have walls made of gravestones,
a carpet of moss, a ceiling of sky and a brown rat for a watch-dog.
Call me an eccentric man, I don't believe I am (2)
SOLO IN G
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