It Came From Memphis Part 3




















Moloch, a pioneering Memphis blues-rock band led by the exceptional guitar player Lee Baker, released its sole album at Ardent on National in 1970. They promoted the release of this album by playing a show with punk stalwarts Iggy Pop and Mc5 at the New York State Pavilion. However, their sound is purely 12 bar-blues with delta slide guitar, harmonica, frenzied guitar solos and tight drumming. Moloch was highly influenced by Blue Cheer, Hendrix, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, The Faces and countless other blues-influenced 60's rock groups . Unfortunately, the band's sound never caught on, and they didn't receive the acclaim that was due to them. Lee Baker went on to produce and play guitar on Alex Chilton's highly underrated album Like Flies on Sherbert and Big Star's swan song Big Star 3rd.

Moloch's only record is out of print, but it is available as an import here. That being said, this is the best place to witness the stunning guitar artistry of Lee Baker, outside of his contributions on the aforementioned Like Flies on Sherbert and Big Star 3rd. The album has an up-front and cleanly produced sound, but without all of the nasty compression usually added to contemporary music. Lee's guitar playing is phenomenal, the rhythm section is tight and funky and the organ playing is incendiary. Moloch achieves an eclectic mix of styles that serves as the bridge from delta blues to heavy metal. If you like what you hear, let me know, and I will post the rest of the album.

Moloch: Maverick Woman Blues, Gone Too Long(Featuring Johnny Woods),She Looks Like an Angel, I Can Think the Same As You and Goin' Down
From: Moloch [National 1970]

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hey Kevin, I'd like to get some of that Chico Magnetic Band stuff.....you left a comment under mine over at earfuzz. Couldn't find a way to email you.

PS...Your Blog looks great! Right up my alley..had some problems downloading though.
Kevin said…
Danny,

Thanks for checking out my blog and posting a comment! It's in the early stages, but I plan on offering a wide variety of things on it- Podcasts, Built-in streaming player, recurring theme days, etc.

What kinds of problems did you have with downloading? I've been trying to figure out the best service to use for hosting files, and none of them are great. I'm using sendspace, because Yousendit pretty much sucks.

As far as the Chico Magnetic Band, I can post some of his stuff on my blog, or if you have Soulseek you can download it from me when we're both online. Those are the options that I see, but if you have any other ideas, I am open to suggestion.

Hey, thanks again for the kind words, and tell all your friends who are into a wide variety of music to check out my site. Look forward to hearing from you again.

Cheers, Kevin
Anonymous said…
Hey no problem man..I look forward to your future posts. Umm....I don't use Soulseek so I guess I'll just wait 'til you post some Chico Magnetic Band stuff on the site, it's cool though, no hurry.

As far as downloading though, some songs just wouldn't. Now I don't know anything about the way this stuff works so this might be a dumb question but how come you can't just download directly from the site? All kinds of pop-up stuff starts happening on sendspace.

Anyways, I'll definitely be checking out the site. I'll try to tell some people about it as well

Talk to you later,

-danny
Anonymous said…
Kevin,
Thanks for putting this up.I saw them a bit before their record come out.One hot live band."Phillip's Blues" sung by the drummer was the highlight.
Anonymous said…
Kevin,

I've been looking all over for this - as a huge fan of the late Lee Baker, I was sad to see his ten=year anniversary go past unmarked last year. A reissue for Moloch would be nice, but till then how about a repost? Thanks, P (PS as a fan of It Came from Memphis you might find my now defunct blog, linked to here, interesting....)

Popular posts from this blog

All Hallows Eve 2007

General Comments

MF DOOM: Spell his name with ALL CAPS