Blue Cheer - Outsideinside (1968)

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Blue Cheer - Outsideinside (1968)

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Blue Cheer's debut album, Vincebus Eruptum, was widely and accurately described as "the loudest record ever made" when it first appeared in early 1968, and the band seemingly had the good sense to realize that for sheer brutal impact, there was little chance they could top it. So for their second LP, Outsideinside (which appeared a mere seven months later), rather than aim for something bigger and more decibel intensive, Blue Cheer decided to see how much polish they could add to their formula without blunting the skull-crushing force of their live attack. While Vincebus Eruptum was cut in simple and straightforward form with minimal overdubs, Outsideinside found Blue Cheer embracing the possibilities of the recording studio; Leigh Stephens overdubbed multiple guitar parts on several tunes, while the mix sends his leads flying around the room, though aggressive use of panning and the monstrous, fuzzy growl of his tone gets cleaned up on some tunes (check out the wah-wah solos on "Gypsy Ball"), though the results are still as gentle as a chainsaw. The engineering is friendlier to Paul Whaley's drumming; his traps don't sound as much like trash cans on these sessions, though the crude, phase shifting on "Just a Little Bit" remains gloriously amateurish. And if Dickie Peterson's bass sounds just about the same, he got to spend more time on his vocals here, and his blustery howl communicates better this time. The opening cut, "Feathers from Your Tree," also added a piano to the mix (which is somehow audible through the dozens of amps), while "Babylon" is almost funky in its lead-footed approximation of an R&B groove, and "The Hunter" is a broad but playful exercise in sexual swagger that, if nothing else, provided a lyrical conceit Kiss could use to more profitable effect nine years later. But if Outsideinside is cleaner, tighter, and more ambitious than Vincebus Eruptum, it's still clearly the work of the same band, and Blue Cheer sound every bit as thunderous on their sophomore effort. If anything, this LP captures the psychedelic side of their musical personality with greater clarity than the blunt approach of the debut; Outsideinside doesn't sound trippy so much as righteously buzzed, and the speedy roar of this the music is big enough that the legend that parts of this were so loud they had to be recorded outside seems not just plausible, but perfectly reasonable.

Album Review (allmusic.com)

San Francisco-based Blue Cheer was what, in the late '60s, they used to call a "power trio": Dickie Peterson (b. 1948, Grand Forks, ND) (bass, vocals), Paul Whaley (drums), and Leigh Stephens (guitar). They played what later was called heavy metal, and when they debuted in January 1968 with the album Vincebus Eruptum and a Top 40 cover of Eddie Cochran's hit "Summertime Blues," they sounded louder and more extreme than anything that had come before them. As it turned out, they were a precursor of much that would come after. Unfortunately, Blue Cheer itself didn't get much chance to profit from its prescience. Shortly after its breakthrough, the group was wracked by personnel changes. Leigh Stephens was replaced by Randy Holden after the release of the second album, Outsideinside (August 1968). Holden left during the recording of the third album, and Bruce Stephens (b. 1946) (vocals, guitar), and Ralph Burns Kellogg (keyboards) joined to finish New! Improved! Blue Cheer (March 1969). Then Whaley quit and was replaced by Norman Mayell (b. 1942, Chicago), leaving Peterson as the only original member. Bruce Stephens quit during the recording of the fourth album, Blue Cheer (December, 1969), and Gary L. Yoder joined to complete it. Peterson, Kellogg, Mayell, and Yoder then made The Original Human Being (September 1970), and Oh! Pleasant Hope (April, 1971) before Blue Cheer broke up. Dickie Peterson reorganized a new version of the group in 1979, and in 1985, Peterson, Whaley, and guitarist Tony Ranier released a new Blue Cheer album, The Beast Is Back…