(Being Louder Than God did have certain drawbacks)

Demo's tonight. This by way of a friend who religiously recorded KSAN and KMPX in San Francisco from his dorm room in Berkeley in 1968. During summer break he would come down to L.A. and share his discoveries, stacks of reel to reel tapes of all that was happening in the Bay Area.

One of those discoveries was a group of demo tapes recorded by Blue Cheer, who came out with their first album "Vincebus Eruptum" a few weeks earlier. Summertime Blues was the single getting the most airplay at the time, but this demo sounded a lot better - the album was a disappointment by comparison. The demo was raw and loud and it was everything I remembered, hearing the band live months earlier.

I read a review recently saying their reputation as being "louder than god" was all hype.

Um . . . not so. As someone who saw them no less than a dozen times over a two year period, I can probably attest to some of my hearing damage to being caused by them. They were loud and nothing compared to them for a time. Of course, P.A. systems were pretty crude back then with no stage monitors to speak of and feedback all over the place. There was no such thing as 11 in 1968.

But as time went on, live music performance sound got perfected and soon everyone could boast being the loudest - but Blue Cheer were the barre to which most other bands live performances were judged, as least in my ears.

And there is ample evidence to indicate Blue Cheer were actually the very first Heavy Metal band.

Another patch in the Psychedelic quilt.