A Deep Dive Into Proto-Metal (w/ Martin Popoff)

[@manuelper]

You can tell this is one of Pete's favorite subjects. The enthusiasm is contagious.

[@wolf1977]

Yes - Forgotten Favorites should make a comeback!

[@endtyme]

I could not think of any other era in rock music history, where you could say something like, "it´s from 1970, but it sounds dated. It sounds like 1969". Imagine this sentence with the years 2019 and 2020 - ridiculous! But in this exiting time it´s absolutely true. I wish, I wasn´t born too late...

[@maccabeus627]

I LOVE these shows!!! Thank you Pete and Martin!

[@luisfernandoaguilaralonso4064]

That Toad album absolutely kicks ass. I stumbled upon them after checking out Orang Utan (which is also a quite obscure band from the era). Looking fwd to checking your other mentions :)))

[@wolf1977]

Orang-Utan's s/t 1971 album is excellent, also rocks pretty hard

[@rpc2uk]

Cherry Red Records has released three 3CD sets called "I'm A Freak Baby - A Journey Through The British Heavy Psych And Hard Rock Underground Scene 1968-1972" which include a lot of the British bands mentioned in this video. A great introduction to some really obscure bands and available fairly cheaply.

[@wolf1977]

I came across that set too but honestly already owned just about everything on it that I liked (I did get Sunday's "Fussing And Fighting", Slowload's "Rosie", Ancient Grease's "Mother Grease The Cat", Distant Jim's "Cosmarama" & a Stone The Crows tune)...A couple of other/similar collections I've come across recently & really liked: Deviation Street: High Times In Ladbroke Grove 1967-1975 Mixed Up Minds (at least 13 Parts): Obscure Rock & Pop From The British Isles 1969-1973

[@scottmyers9360]

Great compilation! There are a couple followup sets that I haven't heard. They also put out a folk compilation called Dust On The Nettles that is outstanding. Cherry is a great reissue label!

[@chriskroll4166]

I listen to it about a month ago and it is fabulous. I wrote all the bands names down and now I am starting to pull each band up individually and check out their entire work because I did not hear a bad song on it . 😁

[@TheBerndude]

Great episode. Is there a part 2?

[@johnmichaelwilliams6694]

Popoff and Pardo are at it again. This time, talking about music from my early to mid teen years that - except where mentioned on a prior SoT episode - never came to my attention before this episode. My older brother brought a lot of heavy new music into the house but he didn't have any of these either. Our record stores at the time had limited inventory space and it seemed like it usually was the 'larger' bands or more typical albums of the day on sale. And before we had record stores, the department stores never had any of this. Looking forward to hearing all the albums named and also hoping some fellow commenters will list some for consideration. Thanks, gents, for an episode that really spoke to my record buying inner-teen. There ya go!

[@jeffreyrobinson9120]

Great show, I can`t get enough of those obscure, early hard rock/proto metal bands. One of the first that always comes to mind is the first album from Ohio band Poobah - "Let Me In". Hard and heavy with lots of energy and a good dose of stoned early 70`s weirdness. Another great one is British band Wicked Lady. Very Sabbath influenced, much like Iron Claw.

[@soyoudonthaveananglehuh2965]

I am always reticent to call anything after Sabbath came out, Proto metal. Blue Cheer, Iron Butterfly, The Zoot, even Cactus, I would consider proto metal.

[@flammaferus2998]

@@soyoudonthaveananglehuh2965 The first Cream album in 1966 is proto-metal.

[@Trifixion22]

Absolutely adore these shows! Just as cool as finding new and current bands (something SoT has done better than any other source i know of) is finding old bands that flew under the radar.

[@jeffreywebb7932]

O Joy😂Another great discussion.I love 70s proto metal.This was a real treat guys.Yall guys just keep hitting it out of the park🙂🤘👍

[@TheRealDannAlexander]

Enjoyed this discussion immensely.

[@denniswalker8089]

Love these kinds of shows because I learn history and it gives me new (old) music to check out that I’d never heard of! Well done, guys and thanks!

[@endtyme]

I could not think of any other era in rock music history, where you could say something like, "it´s from 1970, but it sounds dated. It sounds like 1969". Imagine this sentence with the years 2019 and 2020 - ridiculous! But in this exiting time it´s absolutely true. I wish, I wasn´t born too late...

[@ezradarrow8964]

My favorites: May Blitz The Third Power IceCross Tucky Buzzard Dust Euphoria Phantoms Divine Comedy Message Zior Thunder And Rose's Jericho Freedom Orang Utan Culpeper s Orchard Virus Little Free Rock Jodo Eduardo Bort Epitaph Gift Lucifer's Friend Eloy Samuel Prody Sex Goddo Buffalo Christopher Blackwater Park Steel Mill Frigid Pink Dragonfly Too Much Bloodrock Tractor Janus Sam Gopal War Pig High Tide Fraction Solid Ground Totty Crabby Appleton Man Alamo A Foot In Cold Water Bang Frantic Los Variations Fanny Adams Junkin' Bone Stray Dog Euclid Earthquake Black Cat Bones Dr. Downtrip Oda The Adventures Of Robert Savage Cain Spontaneous Combustion God, I have over 3,000 vinyl albums, original pressings of, Psychedelic, Proto Metal, Kraut Rock...and so. There are so many bands that it never ends...it literally never ends, and nobody will have them all. I have so many though, so it's hard to think of different bands without getting out of bed to go look through them, lol. There needs to be a 5 episode series or more, 2 hours each, about every obscure band, from all genres (1966-1975) except Disco, Jazz ( even though I love jazz), country, folk...ECT. just proto metal, psych rock, krautrock, general rock...well...you see where I'm getting at.

[@nicholasscott7860]

This episode should be called music nerds and why we love them.

[@chazblitz]

MARTIN!! HELP!! My dog got sick on your Collectors Guide To 70's metal and also the 80's version as well. Both the CD'S survived but the books are toast. When, dear sir, will you re-release these books so I can get them back on my coffee table? I can't begin to tell you how important they are to me. Thanks for everything Martin and Pete!

[@grimtraveller7923]

A variation on "the dog ate my homework " ?

[@chazblitz]

@@grimtraveller7923 Indeed it is lol

[@justamops]

Very cool - I really enjoy shows covering old obscurities. All of the British bands you mentioned are featured on a series of three 3cd box sets from the Grapefruit label called I’m a Freak Baby, covering the “British Heavy Psych and Hard Rock Underground Scene 1968-1973”. They also feature Leaf Hound, Wicked Lady, and lots of others, including a 1970 band called “The Iron Maiden”, unrelated to but years before the famous one. Grapefruit has just announced a matching box on comparable American acts from the same period, called We’re an American Band, which will include Frijid Pink, Fuse, Sir Lord Baltimore, and The Damnation of Adam Blessing (whose second album I love). Check them out - and cheers to you both!

[@eternallife9786]

That's a great compilation!

[@samkeepintherockalive]

Great show!. Toad, Three Man Army, Hard Stuff/Bullet, Sir Lord Baltimore, Atomic Rooster, Iron Claw, Maypole, Poobah, Cactus, Hydra, Rockicks, Leaf Hound, Tucky Buzzard, Stranger, and Fuzzy Duck are all great killer bands. In 2013 Iron Claw released an lp called "A Different Game". Really good straight forward hard rock!!🎸🎸🔥🔥 .

[@wolf1977]

Poobah's "Enjoy What You Have" from '75 is a good tune...Hydra (1974-76) put out three great records, they were mentioned pretty prominently during the SoT Greatest Southern Rock bands/albums series...Fuzzy Duck & especially Tucky Buzzard are great bands with lotsa wonderful tracks...Rockicks has a very good album, their 1977 Inside but a little late for this 'proto-metal' topic

[@samkeepintherockalive]

@@wolf1977 I own like 5 albums by Poobah. Will have to check to see if "Enjoy What You Have" is there. I also own those 3 Hydra albums, and Rockicks, plus Tucky Buzzard, and Fuzzy Duck. Maypole & Magi from the early to mid 70's are real cool bands. More bluesy rock than proto metal.

[@martinfranco3716]

Those Hydra albums are sold in a set now. I just recently bought it on CD. Great stuff!

[@MrKingkz]

May blitz are a good band only 2 records but what records they are

[@samkeepintherockalive]

@@MrKingkz Will have to check them out!

[@DokkenSabbath]

Lot of great Proto-Metal out there. Some i really dig: Leaf Hound Sir Lord Baltimore Atomic Rooster Dust Bodkin Warpig The Flower Travellin' Band Legs Diamond Moxy Wicked Lady Alamo Toad Black Widow Blues Creation Bang Toad Captain Beyond Icecross (stupidly underrated!) Babe Ruth Dark Blue Cheer Jerusalem Nokemono Lucifer's Friend Bloodrock Attila Tucky Buzzard Ram Jam We know all the popular bands, but these bands were just as good.

[@wolf1977]

Yeah like most of these too - see my list for a few more (I limited it to only bands with an album/output in 1969)

[@Kyush4]

Blast!

[@ElizabethSmith-kd4du]

I was searching Pavlov’s Dog, a prog rock band from the 70’s and this came up. Pavlov’s Dog has the original singer, David Surkamp. They’re touring Germany right now.

[@Oakenshield69]

The opening chords on High Tide's Futilist's Lament are absolutely groundbreaking proto metal. RIP Tony Hill.

[@aviationlba747]

Sea Shanties could be the heaviest album of the 60s, right up there with Vincebus Eruptum and others…

[@ChromeDestiny]

That album is wild, it makes me feel like I'm listening to The Doors, The Stooges, Black Sabbath and Zappa all at once.

[@johannesdecorte434]

It was the first real Heavy Metal album. I will die on that hill.

[@abhimenon801]

wonderful, proto metal is really awesome, waiting for the second part.

[@kcewing1]

Man, had no clue about any of this stuff. Surprisingly found most of it on Qobuz, my lossless streaming service. Love how Pete has all Martin's picks handy.

[@social191]

The Metal channel on Stingray music plays many of these proto-metal bands. Atomic Rooster, Horse, Hide Tide, Highway Robbery, and Icecross were awesome underrated bands to listen to. Bang, Cactus, and Warpig were not bad, either. It’s a shame that many of these only went so far.

[@wolf1977]

Check out Stoned Rose (late 60's/early 70's band that contained a member of the later Ultravox) - pretty heavy for their time. Only have a couple of tracks by them from psyche collections of that period, not sure if they ever recorded a proper album. I've read that there was going to be a record called From Dawn To Jane...Warhorse is another one but maybe not as 'obscure'

[@mgerometta]

Great show! Like to hear about obscure bands from the 60's and 70's.

[@acknowledgingourdiscontent]

Oh Birch engineered Toad, that's why it is so good... Makes sense!

[@jimmycampbell78]

I love the heaviness (for the time) on several of the songs on the first Budgie album in particular. Also produced by Sabbath’s early producer Rodger Bain. Bands were later discouraged from that sound and clearly the labels did not think it was a commercial direction. The self titled one and done Jerusalem album is excellent, I discovered that from Pete’s channel years ago. It obviously is a lot like Deep Purple and a bit of early Uriah Heep but there are really heavy doomy elements too on that Jerusalem album. Very cool.

[@mikek8553]

One of the best Friday episodes, notwithstanding the no weather report. As soon as I saw the title I knew I'd love it. I can never get enough of those late 60s early 70s heavy obscure bands. I am from Cleveland and have never heard of Granicus,so thanks Pete. The High Tide is great only thing, just like Sir Lord Baltimore the vocals are pretty weak. Granicus on the other hand are quite good I still cant believe a little more publicity surrounded them.

[@wolf1977]

Agreed on the weak vocals of High Tide & Sir Lord Baltimore but for me Granicus is in the same camp. Since you're from Cleveland they have a track called "Cleveland Ohio" & the remastered s/t album has an extended 8 minute version of it as a bonus track (good instrumentation but still below-par vocals). They also self-released an archival album in 2010 of 1973/74 material on an album called Thieves, Liars, And Traitors. That's got a 27 minute live "Jam" on it that's pretty intense

[@mikek8553]

@Wolf Yeah and my buddy works at city hall gonna hip him to the "get the fuck out of Cleveland" part of lyrics

[@seanbelcher4486]

Love shows about old rock bands. Great job guys

[@CosmicJive]

Great episode. Thanks

[@kzustang]

What a great video! For years I've been waiting for someone to talk about these bands. Really great great sutff. I find myself listening to these bands much more these days.

[@robertklimczak2207]

Martin and Pete. Thanks for turning me on to the band Hard Stuff. I've been an Atomic Rooster fan since day one and can't believe I never heard this band. Your review was perfect. Kind of like a heavier version of Rooster without Vincent Crane. Rock news traveled pretty slow back in the early 70's. Great job again.

[@Rextum]

I like to combination of Pete and Martin - sometimes I agree more with one, sometimes the other, but even when I disagree I understand where they are coming from. I feel they always give the bands and albums a fair chance, yet they are not afraid to criticise stuff they don’t like. It is said music reviewers are people who aren’t good enough to be musicians themselves. All too often reviewers come across as jealous or arrogant - even a bad musician is usually creating something NEW, whereas reviewing is by its very nature regurgitating and picking apart something someone else has created. However, in the case of Messieurs Pardo and Popoff, their love for music shines through first, and even when they dislike something, they are respectful and willing to re-evaluate and re-listen the songs. It is a difficult balance of honesty and politeness, but they manage to pull it off nicely. Respect 🇫🇮❤🇺🇸🇨🇦

[@ivostoyanov4850]

Love it , joy a lot , this guys is a real music fans!!!

[@mannyruiz1954]

Good episode. I love proto metal and prog. Listening to Hard Stuff. Yowza......🤘💪

[@MrKingkz]

As a man who is in love with proto metal am so looking forward to this

[@63mckenzie]

Toad's Pig's Walk is brilliant.

[@scottmcgregor4829]

With these kind of lists I always put Ursa Major at the top. Dick Wagner's vocals and guitar playing is amazing.

[@seaoftranquilityprog]

Great one and done album!

[@wolf1977]

Related 60's band The Frost (with Wagner) is also worth checking out - 4 great records between 1969-70...He's also got a solo album called Full Meltdown from 2009 (the voice isn't quite as good as in the 70's) - he' got at least 3 or 4 more solo albums but that's the only one I have

[@matthewlunsford4351]

​​@@seaoftranquilityprog Since Ursa Major toured opening for Alice, I have a hope that someday concert bootlegs will show up to give us more Ursa Major.

[@patrickmohan2220]

Cheers lads, You've made my Friday evening.

[@dangaucher2245]

Stray from the UK the first couple albums they did were pretty Heavy and then they evolved into an excellent Hard Rock band for the Mid 70's

[@wolf1977]

Absolutely, I've got 13 of their albums. Great band. Their collections Time Machine: Anthology 1970-1977 is a good place to start for those new to the band. Their 1971 Suicide album contains some real rockers

[@DamnableReverend]

Great episode. These are the kinds of shows I like most. The ones that point out obscuritiesa nd great music I might not be aware of. That Granicus album is really cool. Definitely sounds differetn from a lot of other 'proto metal" stuff. Could have seen this band carry on and do great things and get noticed alongside bands like Rush. Too bad they didn't. Really love the Birth Control and Night Sun as well. Where can this list of heavy obscurities from Martin be found? I'm interested in some of the later-70s picks.

[@Protometal66]

It's in his book The Collectors guide to Heavy Metal- Vol 1 the 70s. He lists a ton of' em in it.

[@craigburgess7105]

High Tide / Birth Control / Toad / Hard Stuff / Night Sun etc - not many places you hear a discussion about these bands, if anywhere, fantastic. I bought a lot of this stuff way back in the 90's ( again thanks to my old pal Malcolm and his 2nd hand record shop - he put me on to so many different things I wouldn't have thought of otherwise ). It was so unfashionable back then - almost laughed at by many of my friends ( I would add in Megaton / Hannibal / Jerusalem / Aardvark / Quatermass / Weed etc etc ) was buying loads of prog ( and soul / jazz / reggae / euro chanteuse pop / doo wop - yes go figure!) at the same time too. I was buying contemporary stuff (all genres) as well and am glad I did. Keep it up chaps - love these discussions, learn so much more about these areas of music.

[@nwmetalworxmusic1148]

That IRON CLAW is great. Our engineer Tony Reed worked on that one for Rockadrome (he also worked on the Necromandus, Truth and Janey, Poobah, etc. restorations as well).

[@stevencuevas3563]

Yes! Total ripper

[@petertaylorson5783]

Love the two May Blitz albums from 70/71, along with Hard Stuff (particularly Bulletproof).

[@philly4762]

Loving this... I have all of these albums. The book Martin keeps referring to is THE best 70s music book out there

[@martinfranco3716]

Killer show guys! I know quite a few of these bands and have some CD's and you've also given me some bands to research. That Hard Stuff album is extremely good. Thank you! Three bands I also like are JPT Scare Band, Poobah and Truth and Janey.

[@frankcook3612]

My favorite SOT show and my absolute favorite topic.Thanks guys…awesome!

[@manowarlock]

Damn, I love this channel. This is one of my favorite eras of music and I love digging up the early heavy stuff 🤘 I talked about Birth Control in a school project I did on German metal a couple years ago 😂

[@MetalionSOS]

One album rarley mentioned in these sorts of discussions: Blackfeather's At The Mountains Of Madness (1971), the first Australian metal album (before Buffalo). And for the 'brother' album of Granicus: Pandora's Space Amazon (1974), they're very similar.

[@wolf1977]

Never got into Granicus - At The Mountains Of Madness was reissued around 1991 & remastered in 2002. Kinda heavy prog/psyche. "Mangos Theme" contains some interesting instrumentation & "The Rat" is their epic 14 minute Suite. Not crazy about the vocals though...They also have Live At Sunbury from '74 (it's on YT) but again with so-so vocals. They do cover "Still Alive And Well"

[@melwilson9531]

Hello Pete and Martin. As a fan of early proto-metal and proto-prog, I learned a few things, which for me is the hallmark of a great episode. Which got me thinking about a potential topic for a future episode: "rock music documentaries that are worth watching". My question to you guys is: What are your all-time favorite rock music documentaries? By that I mean the docs that made you say "Wow, I didn't know that", or "now I have a totally different view of this artist/genre", or "other music fans really need to see this". There are hundreds of docs out there on KZbin and the other streaming platforms, but a few examples (in no particular order) include: Sex Pistols: ‘The Filth and the Fury’ (2000) Metallica: 'Some Kind of Monster’ (2004) Pink Floyd: 'Live at Pompeii’ (1972) Neil Young: ‘Rust Never Sleeps’ (1979) Grateful Dead: ‘Long Strange Trip’ (2017) The Band: ‘The Last Waltz’ (1978) Jimmy Page, Jack White, The Edge: ‘It Might Get Loud’ (2008) David Bowie: ‘Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars’ (1973) Nirvana/Kurt Cobain: ‘Montage of Heck’ (2015) Rolling Stones: ‘Gimme Shelter’ (1970) Rush: 'Beyond the Lighted Stage’ (2010) The Who: ‘The Kids Are Alright’ (1979) Led Zep: ‘The Song Remains the Same’ (1976) I am curious as to what docs you would recommend to the viewers. Anyway, good show. Keep up the good work.

[@wolf1977]

A few others: Woodstock, Monterey Pop, Get Back, Stop Making Sense/White City/Wings Rock Show (if we're including these that're mostly live concert footage-like Zep's & Floyd's), R'n'R Circus, Jimi Hendrix (1973), Beach Boys/Endless Harmony, Freddie Mercury Story: Who Wants to Live Forever, How the Beatles Changed the World, T Rex/Born To Boogie, Janis, Show Me the Picture: The Story of Jim Marshall, Message to Love: The Isle of Wight Festival, Marley, The Jam/About the Young Idea...I'm sure I'm forgetting a bunch...

[@wolf1977]

Yay - Forgotten Favorites (best SoT show ever)! So early (1969 or so) 'proto metal'. If you wanna get a chuckle look at the Wiki page under "Heavy metal music before 1970". Goes all the way back to 1955: Clapton, Stones, Bob Seger, The Kingsmen, CCR, Yes...Really a stretch (to me), I guess it's really down to how far you stretch that "formative events" idea...Toad is a good one but a bit later ('71), same with Blackwater Park, Hard Stuff, Birth Control (wonderful band) & Night Sun (heavy prog). Love Gun, not as uniformly heavy but great music. Sea Train too. Never got into Granicus. Kudos to Martin for the Birtha mention (best ever all female rock band)! Some other obscure 'heavies' - I'll stick to only bands with albums in '69 - nothing too 'raw' for me as I generally really like good vocals/harmonies & melody: Andromeda Apple Pie Motherhood Band Banchee Blond Blossom Toes Blue Cheer Blue Mink Boffalongo The Bubble Puppy Bulldog Breed Cartoone Child Cold Blood Elmer Gantry's Velvet Opera Floating Bridge The Frost Fuse (early Cheap Trick) Green Human Instinct Hunger Kak Keef Hartley Band Leviathan (UK) Mendelbaum (heavy blues/rock w/great guitars) Mint Tattoo Mount Rushmore Nucleus (Canada) Rhinoceros The Sacred Mushroom The Smoke US 69 Wilkinson Tri-Cycle

[@billdubilier]

Excellent show. I love the bullet album. DuCann was in Andromeda before Atomic Rooster. Andromeda was a great hard rock psychedelic band.

[@wolf1977]

Andromeda's s/t 1969 album is strong

[@aldebaran4154]

Another great show where having a pen handy helps. I was aware of a few of these but not all. Not Proto-Metal oriented but I finally found a brand new CD copy of the Thunderclap Newman album Hollywood Dream. It was re-released in Japan in 2021 and I purchased it for about $12.

[@wolf1977]

I have that one but honestly only cared for "Something In The Air" (the big hit of course) & "Accidents". On paper considering those involved (Pete Townshend/on bass, Kit Lambert, Jimmy McCulloch) this should've been a major band...

[@dangaucher2245]

Love Toad and the third album is pure Boogie with the one Proggy song sounding like Yes playing really fast

[@chaddunn9621]

Great episode. Talking about these bands that aren't mainstream. Some interesting ones to check out. But some of these are hard to find or cost a lot of money to buy.

[@MartinPopoff]

Well, 75% of them are on spotify and 100% of them are on KZbin. And I guess if you must buy in some form, maybe reserve that for the ones you love?

[@southernmanization]

A proto-metal band from Spain was Tapiman. Their first album is from 1970.

[@wolf1977]

I have that one, good album! Mine says 1971 though (digital files), I also see it listed on the web as being from 1972 on some sites...

[@captainbeyond7469]

Captain Beyond enough said. The birth of Prog Metal. Cheers

[@steveclark9211]

Pete...I apologize that my comment isn't part of the discussion but I wasn't sure if you were aware that the ads on your videos are appearing at various times during each of your videos. I remember a while back where you said that you turned that part off so that the ads would be in the beginning instead of during the videos. Anyway, I enjoy listening to you and Martin every Friday and I watch some of your other videos and enjoy them very much. Just trying to help.

[@seaoftranquilityprog]

Ads will now play a few times during the longer videos.

[@martinfranco3716]

I use Opera browser and it blocks all the ads. I don't even see one.

[@chrisrankinsmusiccrush9493]

High Tide - Sea Shanties is always the one I look to and quote as the ultimate proto-metal album. Death Warmed Up so good

[@martinfranco3716]

I have this album and it is killer. 🤘

[@chrisrankinsmusiccrush9493]

@@martinfranco3716 I also have it, always on high rotation

[@paulmessis1094]

Enjoyed this chat

[@michaelmorehead4639]

Fantastic!!! Please continue with more of this stuff! Any thoughts on the band GURU GURU?

[@aviationlba747]

Night Sun - Mournin’. If you like MKII Deep Purple, you have to hear this!

[@stevencuevas3563]

MONSTER record. Every track is a killer!!

[@wolf1977]

Couldn't get into the vocals, DP had nothing to worry about in that department🤷‍♂With a better singer maybe. Plenty heavy though...

[@acknowledgingourdiscontent]

Hey, Toad, good stuff!!

[@sc687]

I love the show! All these bands I don’t think I’ve heard of.

[@brennanfry3768]

Was listening to Iron Claw-Winter and then Captain Beyond-Raging River of Fear when this popped up in my recommended. Love your channel been watching for about a year now.

[@timolson2047]

Stonehouse Creek, Armageddon (1975), Coven, Pentagram, Message and Necromandus. If Iron Claw can make it on the lists so can Pentagram!!

[@soyoudonthaveananglehuh2965]

Coven could be considered "acid rock" (and definitely contributed to the satanic themes), but (sound wise) did not have the doomy metal riffs.

[@justinmathewson3692]

Pete should rank the songs and albums of The Guess Who !

[@chrissteiner4941]

Great Show again! Will definitiv check out Hairy Chapter and High Tide, know and love the others. As for Proto Metal I highly recommend UK Band Stray. Their First 3 albums ,Stray ( 1970), Suicide (1971) and Saturday Morning Pictures (1971) are all Proto Metal Classics. Lots of prog and Folk influences but still really heavy for it's time!

[@wolf1977]

Not hugely into Hairy Chapter but I do have their early 70's Eyes & Can't Get Through, each with a couple of good tracks

[@eternallife9786]

may blitz and bloodrock is another good proto-metal band

[@AlexAlexon3897]

I bought the Gowan album Strange Animal for £1 in a sale in '84. He looked like me, but he was better-looking! Had to hear this record. It was a nice revelation. He had members of the Peter Gabriel / '80s King Crimson people playing, and the mix of styles was fantastic. He seemed flamboyant even on a studio record, so his later Styx onstage antics weren't so surprising. Great artist.

[@darksidegallery]

Just checked out TOAD..........awesome!

[@mattsimic9369]

An era of many great albums with limited distribution that are seeing great reissues. Love Three Man Army, Hard Stuff debut and Bulletproof (all John Cann…check out his work on Andromeda - just a really great guitar player), Wicked Lady, JPT Scare Band, Poobah, Iron Claw, Jerusalem, Truth and Janey. Buffalo album Volcanic Rock is like Soundgarden - amps were on 11, Captain Beyond debut. These band all had really tremendous hard jazz swing drumming (think Williams, Baker, Mitchell, Bonham, Ward) melodic bass and overdriven guitars. With none of that Hammond organ. Really an inspired time of musicians. Other bands, Left Field, Asterix, Lucifers Friend. Not major label promoted albums, but full of youthful energy nonetheless. Cheers to a great show gents!

[@tomfisher2103]

Great show, definitely would put Trapeze in there.

[@Adept179]

Sir Lord Baltimore Kingdom Come needs to be on this list. I know Martin is kind of down on this in his 70s book, but the album is OTT slammin'. The bass tone on Master Heartache is like 25 years ahead of its time.

[@samkeepintherockalive]

Yeah, I have that album. It rocks!! A classic!

[@Shadowbannddiscourse]

The funny thing is, I just did a list of my favorite metal albums and you guys listed a few of those like that just happened within the last few hours. One of them was sea shanties and I'm glad that you guys said that they were totally on the metal train even before sabbath another band that I would have added, was writing on the Wall with power of picts ( i thought that was the scottish band you wrre gonna talk about ) Both albums came out in 1969. As you know. Another thing that's a trip. I always say this if the band King Crimson made all of their songs like 21st century schizoid man. Instead of just one song like that on their first album, they would have had sabbath beat as far as being the first metal band because of the tritone the themes, and also the heaviness of that song..that granicus album is steller dude that song american is gut wrenching . With the way he scresms really makimg the subject matter of the song stand out even more. Many of those bands were expeirimsnting . I dont think they were follwing the lead of other bands . Sure they had their influences but i think they were just being heavy in their own way

[@kurtmorgan4299]

Hey Pete! teepublic has cool tees toad,captain beyond,leaf hound humble pie ect. Shirts run small get next size up check em out big fan of the show, keep it up!

[@michaelvandiver2475]

Bass player for Hard Stuff John Gustafson I'm sure you know recorded and then toured with Roxy Music for 3-4 records up through Sirens. Stellar player! Highly skilled and versatile with a killer tone. Played with Ian Gillan's band I think?...

[@karenlaprez8358]

Great episode

[@Gregbaltzer]

The problem with a lot of proto-metal for me is that I often didn't care for the vocalists, such is the case with Leaf Hound and Sir Lord Baltimore, and that you would have this really great heavy song only to have it followed by a song that was really "hippyish". That's what turns me off to Rush, Dust, and Blue Cheer, I love their heavier songs, but hate their hippy stuff. Or they would only play heavy for their first album and then really tone down the heaviness on their follow up albums eg. Lucifer's Friend and Sir Lord Baltimore. I love Budgie though, and I love Lucifer's Friend, even though for years I would only listen to the first Lucifer's Friend album. I eventually fell in love with When the Groupies Killed the Blues and Banquet(which took a while). I have always liked what I heard from the first Toad album, but it's rather expensive. I owned Cactus, Leaf Hound, Sir Lord Baltimore, Blue Cheer, and Dust briefly, when I was first discovering all this stuff, then I started to learn that my taste more leaned toward the heavier prog stuff, and less towards the heavy blues stuff. I always liked the idea of liking the Blues more than I liked the Blues.

[@wolf1977]

Agreed about some of the sub-par vocals. As I said in my first post here seems like the heavier the music the worse the singing...Leaf Hound had a few good tracks ("With A Minute To Go", "Work Mt Body", "It's Gonna Get Better") - no coincidence that these are more mellow...Don't really like Sir Lord Baltimore & Lucifer's Friend (there was a US band called Lucifer who put out a good 1970 s/t album - not heavy though). Same with Dust but they've got more tracks that I like (10 in all)...

[@Gregbaltzer]

@@wolf1977 The guy from Leaf Hound was a good singer, but I'm not a fan of that whole raspy/bluesy style of vocals. I love John Lawton's vocals from Lucifer's Friend, however what I've heard of his stuff with Uriah Heep I'm not a fan of. From a Dry Camel is the song I love from Dust. My favorite thing about a lot of 70s stuff is the guitar tones, production, and drumming. I have the Pink Fairies albums, and while there is only a couple songs I really love "Do It" and "City Kids", I love the guys drumming in all the songs. Dude was a beast!

[@wolf1977]

@@Gregbaltzer From Pink Fairies I like "Never Never Land", "Street Urchin" & "I Wish I Were A Girl"

[@Donald.W.Rissler-ARTS]

Pete and Martin.... I'm watching the Kitt Festival live streaming all it's performances. Perhaps you could do a show on 'Older' Bands and Festivals that understand social media and have leveraged it to stay relevant. Conversaly bands that relly missed an opportunity to 'not' just fade into obscurity.

[@karstenklein2232]

Richard Routledge was the singer who sang on the Blackwater Park record. He was from GB. That is why he had no german accent.

[@Brother_MarkG]

Detroit ricks with Frost, SRC, Frigid Pink, Amboy Dukes, Stooges, MC5

[@thedarkwizardroom]

Real Great , I have albums and music from each of those bands Cajun,

[@wolf1977]

...and of course Alice Cooper, Bob Seger & GFR (but hardly 'obscure'). SRC, Cactus, Rare Earth...A power trio named Sky - Don't Hold Back & Sailor's Delight from the early 70's are good albums (not super heavy though)

[@johncoldwell8873]

Inspired to download the Iron Claw album. A great listen with 'Gonna be free' a real kick-ass track.

[@flyfishincrazy]

Is Part 2 available?

[@terryrusso3262]

Fanny Adams was an obscure heavy band from Australia, who had Doug Parkinson as a singer. They released a very good album in 1971.

[@wolf1977]

I have that one, very good album. Some of it's pretty heavy too. Also better-than-average vocals

[@bryanmcfadden4071]

Brown Acid Series from Riding Easy Records just released a 16th album covering this era 60's/70's

[@hansg.8557]

Never heard before of Blackwater Park. Now I've listened twice to Dirt Box Cool stuff Thanks again for another discovery.

[@philipibaugh2925]

That's a great topic because I just commented about that on one of the Metallica review videos. Long songs are ok and great when they are good enough to keep you entertained. I could go deep on that but I'd be typing all day and not get anything accomplished beyond a rant on long VS short songs.

[@danielwolski873]

Gowan was very successful as a solo artist here in Canada and some parts of the world, had many hits. Dennis DeYoung only had one minor hit as a solo artist - Desert Moon.

[@TheRealDannAlexander]

Gowan had Fergus Marsh playing Chapman Stick on some of those classics he did. That instrument just adds so much punch when bass parts played on it.

[@colinrgage]

Great knowledge

[@reedl2353]

I found this much more entertaining than the last 2 or 3 more nebulous concept shows. There are definitely some bands here that I'll need to check out. That said... If words have meaning, then once heavy metal exists it is no longer possible to have 'proto-metal'. Most of these are more along the lines of evolutionary dead ends. When you get into the deep obscurities, I feel like it really separates the hard core fans from the musicologists.

[@paulhetrick1759]

No mention of Tarkus from Peru?

[@johnspaulding1681]

no Population II...Randy Holden's album after leaving Blue Cheer, never officially released because the label went bankrupt or scammed them...either way,1970 ...wall of Sunn amps,recorded in a theater with just Holden and drummer playing keyboards simultaneously...slow, doomy, and very heavy

[@seaoftranquilityprog]

Excellent album!

[@Protometal66]

Randy Holden had it released not too long ago. He made sure to autograph each one so that the buyer would know they received an official release

[@pablocruise9514]

Pete how asking Martin if you can have an episode where the discussion is, "If Banger made more episodes of "Metal Evolution" what could they be?" A couple ones I could think of are Southern rock, women and minorities in HR/HM, the UFO/Scorpions/MSG triangle among others.

[@publicanimal]

I thought I was a real aficionado, and I'd only heard of about half of these.

[@alexposilkin9683]

Wait a sec. I’m over 5 minutes into this and Pete and Martin haven’t talked about the weather yet! I hope they respond to this and let us know the temp in their areas. It’s going to be about 70 here in the lower Hudson valley. Great topic for the show too!

[@ilj1259]

They talked about the great white north bands instead... Maybe Martin is giving Pete a time limit and Pete decided to omit the weather forecast to save on time.

[@timolson2047]

Before Hard Stuff was Bullet, they were called Daemon. I had the cd Entrance to Hell on the Kissing Spell label.

[@wolf1977]

From Hard Stuff I have The Complete Purple Records Anthology: 1971-1973, as well as Bulletproof & Bolex Dementia. The vocals are a little rough for me at times but they were a pretty heavy band...Under Bullet I have that same Entrance to Hell album (1970-Wiki says that that record was originally "unofficially" released under the Daemon band name), a bit of mixed bag/they had a different lead singer then but pretty heavy (SoT actually reveiwed that album more than 10 years ago).I believe they were forced to change their name from Bullet to Hard Stuff due to pending legal action from a US band by the same name

[@andyshelton4889]

Louisiana’s Survivor is a good band , especially their songs “ So Blind” and “ Black Sea”.😀❤️🎼

[@dannyrabin]

Love Toad!

[@78r0ckarolla]

If Cactus would have had more support from their récord label ,they could have become bigger than Aerosmith and Kiss . A mammoth band that was criminally ignored by the mainstream.

[@wolf1977]

Mike Pinera's New Cactus Band too (his band after the Mitch Mitchell Ramatam group) & their 1973 album Son Of Cactus - good stuff. That was before forming the wonderful Thee Image

[@grimtraveller7923]

The one thing that immediately struck me once this had finished is that only one band and album could even partially be described as proto-metal and that was High Tide and their debut album, "Sea Shanties." They were also the only band to feature an album from the 1960s. I've long believed that heavy metal rock was an evolution rather an invention that began with Black Sabbath and Sea Shanties, at least to my ears, qualifies as early heavy metal. But then, my argument has long been that in its evolution, heavy rock came from a variety of sources and bands in the 60s and went in many different directions, of which Black Sabbath were one, High Tide were another, Led Zeppelin another, Grand Funk Railroad another, etc, etc. "Proto-" simply means "an early form of" and usually is pointed to before the codifying of something, especially a musical genre. It just seems funny that most of the choices were post Zeppelin and Sabbath's debuts.

[@jimzezza6915]

I love this period and have collected a lot of this stuff over the years. I know this is a Proto-Metal episode, but heavy is not necessarily always better. I found Hard Stuff's Bulletproof album pretty disappointing, especially knowing the pedigree that came before. I loved Andromeda, Quatermass, and Atomic Rooster's DWBY, yet found this album just very generic hard rock.