The Butts Band

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

The Butts Band came about as a consequence of trying to find a replacement for Jim. The lads were in London in 1973 looking for a new lead singer for The Doors and had auditioned several Brit singers including Howard Werth (the singer with Audience), Kevin Coyne (from Siren) and Jess Roden (who was the leader of Bronco).
Howard Werth even rehearsing with the band for a week with a view to stepping into Jim's shoes (Audience and Siren were both signed to Elektra in the US as parts of distribution deals with thier own labels here Charisma and Dandelion Jac Holzman favoured Howard as he had at one stage forseen Audience taking over The Doors spot on Elektra but the band (Audience) had fallen apart and he now saw Howard and The Doors merging as the new Doors) but Ray shied off and went back to LA effectively finishing The Doors as a band forever but John and Robby hung about in London and began looking for a new project.
Linking up with Jess, Phil Chen and Roy Davies (of legendary Gonzalez fame who died in 1986 sadly) to form the Butts Band.
I remember reading an early interview where Robby explained the origin of the name 'butts band' equalled bunch of losers desperate for a gig....hence the tattered speaker on the front cover.......I thought that a cool concept...still do today.
Thier debut was anything but a 'bunch of losers desperate for a gig' as they produced one of the unsung albums of the early 70s. Jess had been a popular vocalist with Bronco (which also featured Robert Plant side-man Robby Blunt on guitar) and his vocal talents would have graced the Doors in 1973 and did a fine job for the half of the band that remained.
Backed up by the 'mysterious' Chen (nobody even knows where HE was born) and the funky Davies their debut was a delight with some excellent Krieger gems as well as the song of the album written by Roden 'Sweet Danger'!
Fun and funky (just check out Baja Bus) best described it as it was recorded in Jamaica and London and must have cost a fortune......I think I was the only one who bought a copy in 1974?
Damn shame as it was excellent.
The pressure of two members living in California and 3 in London told and the band split after a low key tour and the odd TV appearance...I saw them play live on the Old Grey Whistle Test BBCs best ever rock show.....

JOHN DENSMORE : DRUMS

ROBBY KRIEGER: LEAD GUITAR

JESS RODEN: RYTHM GUITAR, VOCALS

PHILLIP CHEN: BASS

ROY DAVIES: KEYBOARDS, ARP SYNTHESIZER


BUTTS BAND
I Won't Be Alone Anymore
Baja Bus
Sweet Danger
Pop-A-Top
Be With Me
New Ways
Love Your Brother
Kansas City


John and Robby tried again and Butts band 2 were formed...now this lot took the concept a bit too much to heart as the ealier description fit this lot to a TEE!
Michael Stull (depending on which rumour you believe of course) was supposedly courted as a replacement for Jim BEFORE Jim left for his final Paris trip.
Not a firm believer in this tale based solely on the fact he is total crap......(I bought the album on US import months before it came out here....gave it away in 1990)
Thankfully he was never recruited as he would have ruined Other Voices....he is so crap he would have ruined Full Circle and with Ray and Robbys squawks on that it would have been some feat!!!
But he WAS recruited for 'Hear and Now' the 2nd and (thankfully) final Butts Band effort.
Some truly awful Krieger songs performed by a truly awful set of musicians......(John and Robby aside of course)
Stull 'handled' the vocals but was so bad they felt that a womans touch was necessary so brought in keyboard player Alex Richman to destroy one song....
They even play 'Get Up Stand Up' on the album......
If ever a band should have been drowned at birth this BB2 should have before they ever reached a recording studio.



JOHN DENSMORE : DRUMS
ROBBY KRIEGER: LEAD GUITAR
MICHAEL STULL: GUITAR, PIANO, VOCALS
ALEX RICHMAN: KEYBOARDS, VOCALS
KARL :SLICK" RUCKER: BASS)
MIKE BERKOWITZ: PERCUSSION

HEAR & NOW
Get Up, Stand Up
Corner Of My Mind
Caught In The Middle
Everybody's Fool
Livin' And Dyin'
Don't Wake Up
If You Gotta Make A Fool Of Somebody
Feelin' So Bad
White House
Act Of Love
That's All Right
Lovin' You For All The Right Reasons



What began so well with the debut album finished in dissaray with this truly puke inducing load of old toss.......needless to say it sold less copies than the first and the band moved from LA to Oblivion before too much damage to the 2 ex Doors could be done.

As we say here a 'game of two halves' sums up Butts Band best....first half clever and incisive followed by second half 'dog vomit'!

The albums are avialable on one CD and that is worth owning just for the Brit lads version.....

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Ballad of the Blue Thumb Gang



Blue Thumb's upscale-outlaw mentality was reflected in the label's far-ranging artist roster, which would eventually come to include R&B icons Ike and Tina Turner and the Pointer Sisters, FM rock staples Dave Mason and Dan Hicks and His Hot Licks, rock cult deities Marc Bolan of Tyrannosaurus (later T.) Rex and Arthur Lee of Love, Doors spinoff combo the Butts Band, zydeco king Clifton Chenier, blues guitar legends Albert King and Earl Hooker, British blues-rock patriarch John Mayall, flamboyant R&B auteur Sylvester, avant-folkie Tom Rapp, and eclectic jazz legends Gabor Szabo, Sun Ra, Larry Carlton and The Crusaders. To underline the the sense of humor inherent in Blue Thumb's approach, the company's catalogue also boasted albums by W.C. Fields, Lenny Bruce and the National Lampoon (the latter on the subsidiary label Banana).

Within its first year, Blue Thumb had become the kind of conspiracy that everybody wanted to join, finding innovative ways to reach out to the folks the rest of the industry ignored. The label started a newspaper, called "Thumbin' It," which was basically a collection of articles taken from everywhere—National Geographic, Sunshine & Health, Popular Mechanics, Billboard, whatever—interspersed with stories about new releases. They took ads in various publications, offering free "Thumbin' It" subscriptions to readers. Thousands responded, and pretty soon, people started sending them articles.

Not all of Blue Thumb's promotions were so dignified. In fact, most were more like the infamous Butts Band record-release party at Chasens, then the most upscale restaurant in Beverly Hills. At a key moment, and in front of a very mixed crowd including plenty of unsuspecting dinner patrons, Blue Thumb had three naked guys "streak" the place with "Butts Band" written prominently on their asses.

"The idea," Bob Krasnow explains, "was that the marketing was going to be compatible with the music, which was different. I mean, no one had ever heard this kind of music, so how could it possibly be marketed in traditional ways? At the time, record companies were trying to squash the music into the marketing mold rather than trying to broaden the marketing mold to fit the music, and that just didn't make sense to me."

From The History Of Blue Thumb Records.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"Before An American Prayer, we did two albums as the Doors, Full Circle and Other Voices, which were fairly well received albums. But the problem was after Jim had gone, the three of us couldn’t get along anymore. We did for a while but after a while, it got very strange. We all decided to go to England and maybe find a singer over there. So we all went over there, kind of moved over there. Then Dorothy, Ray’s wife, got pregnant and she had gone through some weird stuff. So Ray decided to go back home.
John and I were stuck over in London, so we formed this group called the Butts Band with Phil Chen, who at that time was the hot bass player in England, like the James Jamerson of England. We had a singer named Jess Roden and a keyboard player named Roy Davis. It was really a good band. We recorded half of the record in the U.K. and half in Jamaica which Phil help with because he is from there and he was able to visit his mother and father for the first time in ten years. Then we came back to Los Angeles and we couldn’t hold the band together because half of them lived in England and half of us lived here. They got homesick and stuff didn’t happen as soon as we had hoped. The record got shuffled around to two or three record companies so then we did another album as the Butts Band with a whole different line up. Karl "Slick" Rucker bass player, Mike Stull who is a great singer. He sounded like the Righteous Brothers and a Lady keyboard player named Alex Richman. We did an album called “Here and Now”."
Robby Krieger



"Krieger and Densmore continued to perform together after parting with Manzarek. They formed a new group called the Butts Band, a quintet rounded out by vocalist Jess Roden, bassist Phillip Chen, and keyboardist Roy Davies. Although Davies is clearly from the Manzarek school, the self-titled Butts Band album released in 1974 does not rely too heavily on the Doors legacy. The album goes down the same blues-rock road often traveled by the likes of Eric Clapton and Gregg Allman, and it is a quite good entry in that genre. Roden is an admirably unpretentious vocalist who smartly doesn't try to emulate Morrison. The band showed considerable pop prowess on "Sweet Danger" and "Be With Me", and the closing track, a live rendition of Leiber and Stoler's "Kansas City", proved that the Butts Band were no joke. Unfortunately, the band didn't last. Roden left to record solo albums for the remainder of the decade, and the group fell apart.

But, God bless 'em, Krieger and Densmore were determined yet again to keep their broken band alive. They put together a whole new seven-member Butts Band, replacing the other three original members and adding congas and an additional percussionist. And the music underwent a similarly drastic rethink. The 1975 album Hear & Now! opens with a cover of Bob Marley's "Get Up, Stand Up", and it's not just an aberration; the remainder of the album alternates between reggae and smooth r&b. Vocalist Michael Stull does an obvious but entertaining imitation of Barry White, and female keyboardist Alex Richman lends a genuinely soulful vocal to "Everybody's Fool" and "Feelin' So Bad". Hear & Now! is a pleasant surprise; it's a shame that the Butts Band were destined to be gone tomorrow. Note: both albums were recently available together on the CD The Butts Band - The Complete Recordings (One Way Records OW 30993). That CD is also out of print, but is easier to find than the two original albums"
Rarebirds Review Pages.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

In My Life
by Mike Gruenberg

One of my favorite activities is discussing music with my daughter. I am always amazed and heartened by the fact that even though we are years apart, we have a common bond in our love of bands and their lineage. Whether it is a group from the 60's or 90's, the commonality involves where the group started, who were the founding members, what made them popular, what caused them to break up and why some members of the band failed where others succeeded.

There is no doubt in my mind that the Doors were probably one of the greatest groups ever. In my opinion, they are in the Top 10 of all bands. The searing lyrics, the sexuality of Jim Morrison, the exquisite piano work of Ray Manzarek, the distinctive guitar of Robbie Krieger and the rhythms pounded out by John Densmore are the hallmarks of rock history. The Doors gave us lyrics we had never heard before. Even their album covers were unique and different. They truly blazed new trails.

Once the band broke up and it Morrison died, it became clear that the Doors were no more and we all mourned the passing of an incredible group. The remaining three members put out an album that was a disappointment.. At this time, a small label called Blue Thumb was begun by a man named Bob Krasnow. He was a visionary and a counter culture person who had an incredible flair for marketing his acts. (A future "In My Life" will be devoted to Blue Thumb Records and it's effect on the music industry) The label roster included such diverse acts as Dave Mason, Leon Russell, Tyrannosaurus Rex, Capt. Beefheart, Albert Collins and a group called the Butts Band.

The first rule for the buyer of the obscure is to look at the label. Many record companies churn out far too many records and really have no desire to produce a quality product. On the other hand, a small label like Blue Thumb gives the buyer a pretty good possibility that although the group may be unknown, the product could be excellent. Imagine my surprise in rummaging through the record racks to find an old friend in Blue Thumb with a strange sounding name of a group that included Robbie Krieger and John Densmore from the then deceased Doors. Even the album cover was cool. It was a picture of a beat-up guitar amp that had seen many a bar gig and many a bar fight. Although I knew Krieger and Densmore, I was unfamiliar with the other members of the band. The producer was also known to me. He was Bruce Botnick who had worked extensively with the Doors. There were enough positives that swayed me to buy this album.

Too often, one member of a famous group completely overshadows the others. In the case of the Doors, we were mesmerized by Jim Morrison and really didn't get to know the others guys as well. Perhaps it was Morrison's persona or the way Elektra Records marketed the group, but Manzarek, Krieger and Densmore were background players to Morrison. What an enormous surprise awaited me when I played this album. Krieger and Densmore were joined by a lead singer named Jes Roden, bass player Phillip Chen and keyboardist Roy Davies. The Doors alumni were exquisitely intertwined with great vocals, harmonies and songs. All of a sudden, guitar and drums were right up front and powerful. Jess Roden is one of those guys that has a perfect rock'n'roll voice. I always felt that John Lennon had the most captivating rock'n'roll voice. Roden is a close second. After he left Butts Band, he released a number of albums that are gems. ( a must for all you obscure record collectors!) There are only eight cuts on the album filling a mere thirty five minutes of incredible rock'n'roll. The album was recorded in London and Jamaica which may explain the diverse quality of the songs. None of the songs sound the same and all are excellent. It's rock, jazz, reggae all perfectly played and produced. Every musician is highlighted and each one shines brilliantly. I would strongly recommend this album to you if you can find it.

One Way Records, a small label in Albany, NY has released a CD (OW 30993) with the complete recordings of the Butts Band. One Way has released both the first and second Butts Band albums. Sadly, the second album produced by the group was a major disappointment. They brought in Jerry Fuller to produce the band and lost most of the members from the first album except Krieger and Densmore and added a cast of forgettable players. The second Butts Band record was and is an awful album. You may ask how this could happen. How could such a great group turn into such a poor group. Well, Blue Thumb was bought by ABC Records. The producer was that was brought in was totally wrong for this project and the loss of Jess Roden was the final straw. I am reminded by what John Lennon said when the Beatles broke up. He said that he was glad the group disbanded because it would break his heart to see the Beatles hang on for a few more years and become a Vegas lounge act. In essence, that's what happened on the second Butts Band record. Commercialism won out over integrity. Sadly, this is not an isolated event as it keeps happening to some of our favorite artists. One Way has issued both albums on one CD. Listen to the first eight cuts. It will be worth it. I cannot say the same for the rest of the CD.
Jambands.com

[pep]

what I have heard of the Butts Band I like ;D only a few songs I downloaded on the internet have the albums been out on cd? we all know what Phil Chen is doing these days though ;D he seems not to be scared of flying ;D

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

pep said:

what I have heard of the Butts Band I like ;D only a few songs I downloaded on the internet have the albums been out on cd? we all know what Phil Chen is doing these days though ;D he seems not to be scared of flying ;D

The complete Butts Band is on CD but hard to find try Amazons 2nd hand service as they might be able to find you a copy.....Phil Chen has been playing session work for over 30 years ...still does as far as I know.

www.amazon.co.uk/exec/obidos/ASIN/B000002R6Q/qid%3D1104234916/026-2519281-1404439

[pep]

I was watching VH1 a while back and Fergal Sharkey (ex-Undertones) was on! and Phil Chen was in his band as bassist ;D I have seen Phil Chen a few times in the last year ;D at Wembley Arena - Birmingham N.E.C. Manchester Arena and twice in Paris he is at the moment playing with his Ex-Butts Band mate Robby Krieger in D21C (overseas only! ;D ) ;D

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

pep said:

I was watching VH1 a while back and Fergal Sharkey (ex-Undertones) was on! and Phil Chen was in his band as bassist ;D I have seen Phil Chen a few times in the last year ;D at Wembley Arena - Birmingham N.E.C. Manchester Arena and twice in Paris he is at the moment playing with his Ex-Butts Band mate Robby Krieger in D21C (overseas only! ;D ) ;D

Only because the two girls Angela and Barbera who usually play dork bass are terrified of flying...

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

"Formed in 1972, the Butts Band included two former members of the Doors, Robbie Krieger (b. 8 January 1946, Los Angeles, California, USA; guitar) and John Densmore (b. 1 December 1945, Los Angeles, California, USA; drums). After the 1973 dissolution of the Doors, the two musicians teamed up with vocalist Jess Roden, formerly of Bronco. Roy Davies (keyboards; also a member of funk/soul group Gonzalez) and Philip Chen (bass) completed the original line-up. One of the first white American groups to specialize in reggae music, the group signed to Blue Thumb Records. The first album was a self-titled affair that did not chart. For the second and final album, 1975's Hear And Now, Krieger and Densmore fired the rest of the band and formed a completely new line-up, featuring Michael Stull (guitar, keyboards), Alex Richman (keyboards, vocals), Karl Ruckner (bass) and Mike Berkowitz (drums). It, too, failed to chart and the group disbanded in 1975. Krieger and Densmore returned to their solo careers and the other members have returned to obscurity, with the exception of Roden, who recorded a number of solo albums for Island Records."
Lycos Music Page


"Before An American Prayer, we did two albums as the Doors, Full Circle and Other Voices, which were fairly well received albums. But the problem was after Jim had gone, the three of us couldn’t get along anymore. We did for a while but after a while, it got very strange. We all decided to go to England and maybe find a singer over there. So we all went over there, kind of moved over there. Then Dorothy, Ray’s wife, got pregnant and she had gone through some weird stuff. So Ray decided to go back home.

John and I were stuck over in London, so we formed this group called the Butts Band with Phil Chen, who at that time was the hot bass player in England, like the James Jamerson of England. We had a singer named Jess Roden and a keyboard player named Roy Davis. It was really a good band. We recorded half of the record in the U.K. and half in Jamaica which Phil help with because he is from there and he was able to visit his mother and father for the first time in ten years. Then we came back to Los Angeles and we couldn’t hold the band together because half of them lived in England and half of us lived here. They got homesick and stuff didn’t happen as soon as we had hoped. The record got shuffled around to two or three record companies so then we did another album as the Butts Band with a whole different line up. Karl "Slick" Rucker bass player, Mike Stull who is a great singer. He sounded like the Righteous Brothers and a Lady keyboard player named Alex Richman. We did an album called “Here and Now”."
Robby Krieger

"Rainer: Why wasn't there any live recording of the Doors after Jim's death, of The Butts Band or something?
Robby: Oh, you know, we did a live recording with the Butts Band in Boston, but I don't know whatever happened with it.
Rainer: Who's idea was the Butts Band?
Robby: Well, you know, we were in England looking for a singer for The Doors and John and I decided, well, what are we gonna do? Let's just stay there and see what we can get going, so we got this group together with Jess Roden, Phil Chen and Roy Davies and we called it The Butts Band, it was Jess Roden's name for the group he had before, which was also called the Butts Band, and we liked It. It was a good band."
Doors4ly 1999

[pep]

has the footage from Old Grey Whistle Test ever been released? there are a few compilation dvds out from that programme!!

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

pep said:

has the footage from Old Grey Whistle Test ever been released? there are a few compilation dvds out from that programme!!

Along with dozens of other sets from the OGWT including The Doors in 1972 The Butts Band is lost wiped or whatever those mad bastards at the BBC did with ALL that music history.......Its like chucking all the relics from Tutankhamuns tomb into a skip!
I can't recall exactly what they did nowadays I'm pretty sure they did 'Pop A Top' but the other number escapes me.....lotta years ago now.....and of course we had no video recorders then....
I had to stay up late on many occasions to watch OGWT as it was always being put back from its scheduled spot by BBC2....I never missed an episode until the 80s when it became worse than TOTP.....

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

The Butts Band: The Butts Band

The 1973 debut of Butts Band, produced by Doors engineer turned producer Bruce Botnick, is — along with Ray Manzarek's 1974 release, The Golden Scarab (also produced by Botnick) — the true fulfillment of what Other Voices and Full Circle initiated. A release of Golden Scarab and The Butts Band on one CD would be a good companion piece to the aforementioned post-Morrison Doors releases; it's most likely what would have evolved had the Doors' trio given us a third album in the early '70s. Make no mistake, this is very musical and great stuff, it just had no image, introduced us to new personalities, and was saddled with a terrible name (c'mon, the Butts Band? What was Jimmy Castor's line in "Troglodyte"? "Bertha Butt, one of the Butt sisters." It's just plain silly with the world watching the Doors' legacy). Before Robbie Krieger went on his jazz tangent, this folky blues group may have been a necessary diversion. There's none of the Doors' darkness or Ray Manzarek's manic intensity here. It's laid-back, well-played, perfectly recorded music on the Blue Thumb label. What is surprising is that Robbie Krieger was an integral part of the Doors' hit singles. He seems to have put that in the past on these compositions. "Baja Bus," with conga by Larry McDonald, might as well be the Allman Brothers. Side one was recorded in Kingston, Jamaica, with Botnick as engineer, while in London for side two at Olympic Studios they used Keith Harwood on the boards, though Bruce Botnick is the producer of the entire package. More of what you'd expect than the follow-up, Hear and Now, which changes all the musicians save the two Doors and completely reshuffles the sound. Gotta hand it to Krieger and Densmore; they can be as proud of this as Ten Wheel Drive's Zager and Schefrin can be of their post-Genya Ravan disc on EMI. That record wasn't Ten Wheel Drive with Genya Ravan, but it was competent and worth a listen, as is The Butts Band.
by Joe Viglione
All Music Guide.

The Butts Band: Hear & Now

John Densmore and Robbie Krieger put together a second version of Butts Band for Hear & Now, which is really bizarre because Roy Davies, Phillip Chen, and vocalist Jess Roden did an admirable job on the first disc's folky blues sound. With Mike Berkowitz brought in as a second drummer, Karl Rucker on bass, and Bobbi Hall on congas, the band is expanded and substantially changed. Add Michael Stull and Alex Richman, both on keyboards and vocals, with Stull on guitar as well, and you may think you have what the Doors were up to on Other Voices. Almost, but not quite. The jazz element is definitely there, but subdued, for this is a soul record, an honest to God soul record by two of the guys who backed up Jim Morrison. Krieger and Densmore sound like they are sponsoring Barry White doing the songs of Percy Sledge. "If You Gotta Make a Fool of Somebody" is pure rhythm & blues, as is "Livin' and Dyin'," but it is not Butts Band that producer Bruce Botnick worked with. Sure it is dynamite stuff, but as the first go round for Butts Band had no image, this must have confused the hell out of radio programmers, retail workers, critics, and fans of the Doors. Botnick has been replaced by Jerry Fuller and is truly is the anomaly when it comes to Doors spin-off projects. Heck, even Ray Manzarek's work with poet Michael McClure contains Jim Morrison American Prayer elements, but the quasi-Steely Dan sound of "Caught in the Middle" could be early Lou Rawls cutting his teeth backed by a pseudo-pop band. It's commendable that Blue Thumb allowed rock stars to stretch like this, but no one familiar with Densmore and Krieger could get a handle on where Hear & Now was going. What might have been a nice calling card would be to take the Doors' "Touch Me" and let this crew send it up the R&B charts. For two members of a totally established group to create a new entity then switch genres is totally original and quite obscure. Butts Band would have been better off trying to get Tower of Power to do this arrangement of Bob Marley and Peter Tosh's "Get up, Stand Up." Robbie Krieger writes a majority of the songs, and female vocalist Alex Richman has a bit of Kathi McDonald in her for her composition "Everybody's Fool," but it is territory not embraced by most Doors aficionados. Labelmates with the Four Tops, this was moved to the Blue Thumb/ABC imprint (the Four Tops were on sister label Dunhill for their "Keeper of the Castle" phase). Gotta have it for the collection, but Manzarek's The Golden Scarab will get more spins.

by Joe Viglione
All Music Guide.

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Densmore continued his collaboration with his bandmates after Morrison's untimely demise. In the early 1970s, he pursued a new passion--reggae--with Krieger in The Butts Band before the genre had had much impact in the U.S.
"We were in Jamaica, before reggae came here," Densmore says. "The rightful geniuses of reggae--Marley, Jimmy Cliff and a few others--were coming to the States just after us, and they made a big impact and they should have. But we were on it before Clapton did "I Shot the Sheriff" or the Police or any of that. I remember saying to Kenny Edwards, Linda Ronstadt's bass player, 'Hey man, reggae--reggae's comin'. ' He said, 'Reggie?'"

"I wasn't too sure about it at the time because i know I'm no Jim Morrison. Thats just not my cup of tea at all. And I'm really not the kind of guy who could hold a position of being an outrageous singer fronting a group. But I realized the band probably wouldn't carry on as The Doors anyway once other musicians were introduced...and thats the way it worked out...."
Jess Roden to NME June 22nd 1974.

After an introductory party held at The Roxy on Sunset Strip in March 1974 The Butts Band set off on a short tour of The States to promote the new album and a few dates in England where they headlined a handful of gigs in June 1974 including the famous Greyhound rock-pub in Croydon and opened for The Kinks at the London Palladium and Sparks in Hull.
Sadly the nearest the guys got to me was Scarborough.
Whilst there they also appeared on the prestige Old Grey Whistle Test on the BBC showcasing two songs in a live studio set.

"The debut of The Butts Band provides many pleasurable moments with its economical medium-tempo rock. Roy Davies jazzy electric piano coupled with Kriegers tenuously blended guitar recalls The Doors 'Riders on The Storm'. Jess Roden sings wildly in a style reminiscent of Burton Cummings and some will find his harshness repelling. Theres plenty of variety. They go from conga-addled soul rythms to floating synthisized rveries but the album coheres well. The band shows further promise in elevating mediocre songs into listenable cuts through creative arranging.
Harold Bronson
Rolling Stone, May 9th 1974

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

BUTTS BAND
Hear & Now! (ABC/Blue Thumb 1975)

Guitarist Bob Kreiger and drummer John Densmore were the leaders of the Butts Band. They could’ve picked a better name, but on this, their second album, they decided to get a new group of musicians to back them and changed their sound from Blues-Rock as heard on their first self-titled release to Soul on Hear & Now! instead. The group starts off with a decent cover of Bob Marley’s Get Up, Stand Up, but then Corner Of My Mind sounds sort of like Lou Rawls. There’s a nice and long drum break at the beginning of Caught In The Middle. When the bass comes in, it’s the perfect compliment. The rest of the song though isn’t half as good with a neo-Reggae rhythm. Luckily that intro part repeats itself in the middle. Don’t Wake Up also has some open drums before going into a slick Soul tune that reminds me of the Average White Band a little.
Reviewed by: Motown67
Soul Strut 2002

The Butts Band: Hear & Now! (Blue Thumb 1975)
Ok, in the pantheon of bad band names, this has to rank pretty high It'd make sense if someone actually IN the group was named Butts but, no, the leads are Robby Kreiger and John Densmore. No Butts there. Who knows why this '70s rock group decided to pay a tribute to the power of the ass (not that it doesn't deserve a tribute or anything) - all we know is that they did.

What I can't figure out - besides that whole silly name thing - is why more kids aren't really up on this. I mean, this LP has at least three solid breaks on it plus some fun, soulful rock that gets damn funky for a bunch of white folk (plus a token brother in the mix).
I mean, dig on "Don't Wake Up" which is solidly a funk cut with its chicken scratch guitars, grooving basslines and slick drums. Not to mention the 4-bar break that kicks off my favorite song on this album, the soulful "Caught In the Middle" which, honestly, has some really laughable songwriting :
"I think of myself as a grain of sand/here I sit/infinite/just a grain/I feel no pain."
but it has a ska-feel to it and I can imagine swaying to it on some beach as it plays.
And then there's a cover of "Get Up, Stand Up" which is pretty solid (though who knows if Bob would have approved), at least enough to fool drunk frat guys. Seriously though, I like this album. Think you might too.
by O. Wang
Soul Sides 2003

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

The Wackers
Bob Segarini (guitar, vocals)
Randy Bishop (bass, guitar, keyboards, vocals)
Spencer Earnshaw (drums)
Bill Trochim (bass)
Michael Stull (guitar, piano, vocals)

After two successive acts with self-destructive tendancies (Family Matters and Roxy), guitarist/vocalist Bob Segarini abandoned the glitter of California and returned to Montreal, Canada to form The Wackers with Roxy's Randy Bishop (bass, guitar, keyboards), Family Tree's Bill Trochim (bass, guitar, vocals), Michael Stull (guitar, keyboards) and Spencer Earnshaw (drums) for the albums 'Wackering Heights' (1971), 'Hot Wacks' (1972) and 'Shredder' (1973) at which time they lost Stull and began having drummer problems so they recruited Jerry Mercer of April Wine/Mashmakhan to finish the album.
A 1974 album, with just Bishop, Trochim and Segarini called 'Wack 'N' Roll', was never released and the group fell apart.
Segarini and Trochim next put together The Dudes with the founding members of April Wine (Ritchie and David Henman) and future April Wine guitarist Brian Greenway. They recorded one album called 'We're No Angels' spawning the single "I Just Wanna Dance" (Pacemaker Records would release a retrospective rarities collection in the '90's).
Segarini would then go on to a modicom of success as a solo artist.

The Wackers: Shredder
THE WACKERS are like the guys you used to know, hang out with, get wrecked with and share neighborhood jokes with, who also incidentally happened to be in the best band in town.
Lots of bands from around the neighborhood were really good, but didn't make it because 1) they didn't have any original material, or 2) got interested in something else, like girls, heroin or law school, or 3) had a local fatso manager who rooked 'em, or, well, you know the story.
But the Wackers are really good, and they write their own songs, and somebody says this is their third album. Note also that they're only half-American, being muchly Canadian. Now, everyone knows there's a time-lag once you cross the border, that Canada's way behind in styles and stuff, which means you can still find songs like ‘Big Girls Don't Cry’ or ‘The Rapper’ on Montreal jukeboxes. There are some people in Canada who never heard of hyphen-rock, as in folk-rock or art-rock, or even punk-rock. That's where the Wackers come in, since they play rock 'n' roll with a sixties sensibility without dragging nostalgia into it: they just play.
What that means is that they play like a band, not like a wrecking crew, with actual songs (all but one in the three-minute range), with melodies that stick to you, good harmony, and rhythm guitar tracks that make you want to ‘whoop!’ between the spaces the first time you hear it. In other words, there's hook lines, the stuff of great singles – try the calypso-mint ‘Day and Night’ or ‘It's My Life’ for the obvious hits.
Naturally they're a derivative band, as are all bands, which means you can relate to their influences to get closer to the music. ‘Hey Lawdy Lawdy,’ which features the near-brilliant line "my love is like a saxophone," lets you bring in Dr. John, while ‘I'll Believe in You’ is soft as rubber soul. There's a great suicide song (‘Put Myself to Sleep’), a couple of simpy-nice ballads which are unfortunately programmed at the end of each side (that's no way to say goodbye) and the ‘Buck Duckdog Memorial Jam’ which includes in its medley a very natural evolution into ‘You Really Got Me’.
In cultural terms, the Wackers are the guys who were the most sought after band for church or temple dances, sweet sixteens, even Knights of Columbus hall promotions. They weren't leather greasers, like the Blue Oyster Cult, nor were they the smartest kids in their class, like the Raspberries, and their music can be said to be somewhere in between as far as density goes. Like somebody said, the Wackers are neat, and really good, and I like them a lot.

Wayne Robins, Creem, 1st March 1973

[pep]

I saw a vinyl copy of the 2nd Butts Band album in Beanos in Croydon on saturday I am sure you know that shop Alex? I was going to the pay the 6 quid they were asking but decided to go to the pub instead that was why I did not go to 'the Doors Alive' gig in the evening

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

pep said:

I saw a vinyl copy of the 2nd Butts Band album in Beanos in Croydon on saturday I am sure you know that shop Alex? I was going to the pay the 6 quid they were asking but decided to go to the pub instead that was why I did not go to 'the Doors Alive' gig in the evening

Yeah I know Beanos well Pep.....helluva place to find rare vinyl....Hell that might well have been MY copy as I gave it away when I lived in Croydon and I can't imagine TOO many people forked out for that crap... ;D

[pep]

yeah a great shop they had a lot of Doors stuff on vinyl including 'Other Voices' and 'Full Circle' which I got already.. www.beanos.co.uk

[TheWallsScreamedPoetry]

Another good one in Croydon was 101 Records in Drummond Street.
Scrawled on the wall just up from it was "Jim & Pam live" every time I walked down the street to the shop I always looked to see if it was still there. For the 3 years I lived in Croydon it was always on that wall...cool!
Also when I was there.... opposite East Croydon station on the railway bridge that took the main road over the tracks was painted in white paint 'The Doors' in 3ft letters.....
Cool place!

[pep]

I was back in Beanos a few days ago and managed to get both Butts Band albums on vinyl