I got "Sound of the Apocalypse" several years ago. I guess almost a decade now. Good album. They seemed poised to be one of prog's leading torch bearers for the millennium....heard next to nothing about their follow-ups.
I got "Sound of the Apocalypse" several years ago. I guess almost a decade now. Good album. They seemed poised to be one of prog's leading torch bearers for the millennium....heard next to nothing about their follow-ups.
I don't know what the full story is but essentially "Black Bonzo" became "Gin Lady". They released a couple of albums (one this year) and are more retro-rock/pop than retro-prog. They did release one more album, "Guillotine Drama", as Black Bonzo before Gin Lady though. If you like their other two albums "Guillotine Drama" is well worth checking out (as is the Gin Lady material for that matter).
There is much worse stuff than this, but I liked the proggy Black Bonzo better
Yeah just took new Gin Lady off my ipod after one week. WEAK!
Gin Lady doesn't hold a candle to Black Bonzo.
Those first two Bonzos are great.
If they were released in 1973 , they would have blew Uriah Heep right out of the water.
no tunes, no dynamics, no nosebone
To be fair, the first BB album, Lady of the Light, is basically Uriah Heep spruced up with generous doses of King Crimson, The Beatles, and Queen. So they had an edge over the original Heepsters.
Wake up to find out that you are the eyes of the world.
Music makes strange bedfellows. Black Bonzo and Moon Safari are from the same small town in northern Sweden (Skelleftea) and have known each other & jammed together for many years. Wonder what they sounded like as a composite band.
I will always remember the adversity that BB faced the first (and only iirc) time they came to the states. The day before Rosfest, they had ALL of their analog equipment and some instruments stolen from their truck at another gig. When they played Rosfest, they still put on a killer show with some borrowed equipment plus what they had left. There was a collection taken for them to help with their losses and almost $1000 was raised & given to them.
Had a very nice time with a few of BB at one of the Rosfest after-parties.
"My choice early in life was either to be a piano player in a whorehouse or a politician, and to tell the truth, there's hardly any difference"
President Harry S. Truman
That is spot on. I absolutely love the first two BB albums, and their Rosfest show will always be one of my favorites I've witnessed there in 9 years. Sad that they've morphed into Gin Lady, but I'm grateful I got to experience them live. Their drummer was monstrous...truly Bonzo...much more so than on the recordings.
[QUOTE=Rickenbacker;177848] They seemed poised to be one of prog's leading torch bearers for the millennium...[QUOTE]
I don't think so.
But they were more than solid at what they did accomplish within the specific realm of heavy proto-prog. Their first two albums were good.
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
"Improvisation is not an excuse for musical laziness" - Fred Frith
"[...] things that we never dreamed of doing in Crimson or in any band that I've been in," - Tony Levin speaking of SGM
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