Showing posts with label Quicksilver Messenger Service. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Quicksilver Messenger Service. Show all posts

Sunday, December 27, 2020

Quicksilver Messenger Service - Q.M.S. (1968)

Quicksilver Messenger Service were one of the best West Coast psychedelic bands of the late 60s', and released two classic albums in 1968/69 with their eponymous debut and the classic 'Happy Trails'. When they released 'Quicksilver Messenger Service' in May 1968 they'd already been around for a couple of years playing local clubs, and even laying down some tracks in the studio, but they'd held off committing to a record deal until late 1967, when they eventually signed with Capitol. By this time they actually had enough material in the can to release their first album straight away, although it would have been mostly made up of covers rather than the self-penned songs that they eventually issued. However, it would still have been an impressive record, as they put their own stamp on every song they recorded (and don't forget that The Grateful Dead's first album had a lot of covers on it, so it's not unprecedented for a debut). If they had decided to start their recorded career a little earlier then this is what their first album could have sounded like. I admit that it's nowhere near as good as their real first record, but it's nice to hear it anyway.



Track listing

01 Babe, I'm Gonna Leave You
02 Codine
03 I Hear You Knockin' (It's Too Late)
04 Your Time Will Come
05 Back Door Man
06 Walkin' Blues
07 Bears
08 Stand By Me
09 Smokestack Lightning

The first two songs were recorded for the soundtrack to the 1967 film 'Revolution', tracks 7 and 8 were a stand-alone single released in 1968, and the rest are out-takes from the first album sessions.


Quicksilver Messenger Service - Live (1967)

As I said in the last post, by the time that Quicksilver Messenger Service released their debut album in May 1968, they'd already been gigging around the circuit for nearly two years, and a lot of those concerts had been professionally or semi-professionally recorded, resulting in there being quite a lot of good quality live material from the band fairly freely available. I could propose this album as a very similar one to the previous post, and say that the band could easily have released a live album as their debut in 1967, but I don't think that would have been very likely, so this collection of live recordings of songs which never appeared on their studio albums is more of a companion piece to 'Q.M.S. 1968', which included studio takes of songs which never appeared on the official albums. Quicksilver Messenger Service were always at their best in the live environment, and even though a lot of these recordings are covers, the band put their unique twist on them, and you can't help but be impressed at just how good they were as a live unit (and also at the quality of these recordings from 1966 and 1967).



Track listing

01 If You Live (Your Time Will Come)
02 Hair Like Sunshine (Long Distance Call)
03 Got My Mojo Workin'
04 All Night Worker
05 Don't Tell Me You're Sorry (I Can't Believe It)
06 You Don't Love Me
07 A Strange, Funny World (Look Around)
08 Susie Q
09 Duncan And Brady
10 Hoochie Coochie Man