STICK HEAT

Listen to STICK HEAT by Toe Fat.

What's there to say about Toe Fat? That they have about the dumbest name ever thought of? I think that's probably a good shout. You have to give this tune thirty seconds to clear the dumb ukelele bit, then you get into pretty decent Sabbath-y, Deep Purple-y riffing. The vocals are proto-hair metal. All in all, it's an interesting track, veeeery much of its time (1970).

THE BIRTH

Listen to THE BIRTH by The Edgar Broughton Band.

Last year I did a couple of weeks of songs I called "Dumb Rock." I didn't make much fuss about them, but since then I've decided I love those songs. I'm kinda proud I dug some of them up! The Birth is one of the songs (also see Yo No Se from the other day) that I thought about posting at the time but passed on. It's rockin stompin, and almost as dumb, if not dumber, than anything I've posted here.

NO NEED

Listen to NO NEED by Toad.

Today we close out our dumb little series with some Swiss rocking. This is No Need, from Toad's second album, "Tomorrow Blue." It's rrrrifftastic. I can't play guitar, but I imagine that this one would be a lot of fun to play, if your fingers could move fast enough.

Once again, there's a lot of over-the-top soloing--you must imagine that the lead guitarist, Vic Vergeat, is actually an insane muppet. If you keep that image in mind, I'm sure you'll love this one as much as I do.

See you again soon!

Photo: Justice for 3,000 (9).

THE NILE SONG

Listen to THE NILE SONG by Pink Floyd.

This is probably the heaviest song that Pink Floyd ever recorded, at least until "The Wall." But there's an important point to make here. The Nile Song is dumb, but it's a good kind of dumb: stoopid lyrics, raw and committed performance... its only object is make you sneer like an idiot.

Compare that with the bad kind of dumb like on, say, Young Lust from "The Wall." That song is produced to within an inch of its life, the performances are totally contrived"hard rock," and the lyrics are supposed to make you think. In other words, really, really dumb.

Luckily, we're not classic rock radio, so we're giving you the real stuff. This is The Nile Song, from 1969, and very good.

Photo: Justice for 3,000 (8).

SOLDIER

Listen to SOLDIER by Groundhogs.

My favorite song of the moment, no question. Heavy, heavy, heavy. It's got a sense of humor (shade: black), a typical English bit of anti-war (anti-Vietnam) sentiment, English because it is set more in The Great War and sardonically calls for that legendary English stiff upper lip on the battlefield.

The Groundhogs were a pretty big deal in the U.K. for a while at the beginning of the Seventies. They were "originally formed circa 1964 (and first known as The Dollar Bills before becoming John Lee's Groundhogs, to reflect their admiration for John Lee Hooker), the group was led by singer/songwriter/lead guitarist Tony (T.S.) McPhee."

The entire album this is taken from, "Thank Christ For The Bomb," by the Groundhogs is a classic by any measure, but especially when you're talking about heavy rock. John Peel like the group, and Soldier in particular:

The album made The Groundhogs a fashionable chart act, helped, interestingly enough by a certain disc jockey: "It did very well. I've got to say that John Peel broke that album because he had that Sunday afternoon radio show, and he did the same for us as he did for 'Sabre Dance', he played that to death and he broke it, and he picked on 'Soldier' as a particular track and he really broke that album".

Scott Seward, a critic we mentioned last week, rates the Groundhogs as the essential Thud Rock band: "Groundhogs are a religion and Tony McPhee is the pope. Every solo and riff is the end of the world as you know it." Amen.

Photo: Justice for 3,000 (7).

BREADFAN

Listen to BREADFAN by Breadfan.

Originally my plan was to play a different track, from Budgie's second album, "Squawk." Because, everybody already knows one Budgie song, and that's Breadfan, because it was covered by Metallica in 1988. Then I thought about it for a second... most people have never heard the Metallica cover (unless you have Guitar Hero!), and even fewer have heard the original, so why not just post that?

Like yesterday's track, this song is too prog to be Thud Rock, but it's still pretty dumb, precisely because of its mindless energy, nonsense lyrics, Geddy vocals, silly intricacy, and indelible Welshness. Don't get me wrong, though, it's an immense tune, if you're into that sort of thing.

Photo: Justice for 3,000 (6).

SATORI PART II

Listen to SATORI PART II by Flower Travellin' Band.

You would think our first trip to Japan would be led by Amy (she's been working on a little J-Pop series for awhile now), but no it's me.

The Flower Travellin' Band are well known in certain circles for their heavy riffing and portentous, OTT vocals. Apparently they also recorded the first known Black Sabbath cover, which tells you a lot. Here's a little footage of the band at their last show: pretty cool.

Today's song is the second track (of five) of the group's best known album, "Satori," released in 1971. This music is a little too prog to be perfectly Dumb, but I've included it for its sheer ridiculous heaviness.

Photo: Justice for 3,000 (5).

SUPERNAUT

Listen to SUPERNAUT by Black Sabbath.

Of all the groups we could feature in this series, Black Sabbath needs the least introduction. Everybody knows them. Evil satanic music your mom wouldn't let you listen to.

But Sabbath are fun! There's a significant minority of music dorks who think Black Sabbath are way, way, way underrated. And they have a point. You don't necessarily think of Sabbath as one of the greatest bands of all time, but have you ever blasted the "Paranoid" album over a jukebox? Magic, man.

More to the point, most people know and have an opinion about Iron Man, War Pigs, and Paranoid, but even most music fans have never bothered to dig into the band's catalogue, especially their first four albums. Big mistake. There's loads of great tunes that haven't been played to death, and Supernaut is possibly foremost among them.

Supernaut is from the band's fourth album (Vol. 4, conveniently), and it is a killer. Tony Iommi comes up with one of his best riffs, Ozzy is Ozzy, and Bill Ward and Geezer Butler never swing as hard as they swing here. Genius dumb rock.

And oh yes, Happy Birthday Corbett!

Photo: Justice for 3,000 (4).

NIGHTMARE

Listen to NIGHTMARE by Elias Hulk.

This track is a real rare one. The only thing I know about it or the group is what I gather from the mighty ChrisGoesRock, who says that "we are talking about a very strange band, with only this album to date. Formed in Wales in 1969, Elias Hulk stormed local and London clubs during the next couple of years. Their music is blues based, melodic and hyper-dark and constitutes a genre of its own."

Even though most of you have never heard this track, I'm sure we can all agree that rock songs called Nightmare are likely to be pretty dumb. You won't be disappointed. This song is set...

In the ASYLUM OF THE SANE!!!!!!

Quality. Speaking of, there's a nice drum solo, some scary wailing over the top, the whole shebang. Three minutes of sheer terror LOL.

Photo: Justice for 3,000 (3).

STILL DON'T (NOT YET)

Listen to STILL DON'T (NOT YET) by La Revolucion De Emiliano Zapata.

La Revolución de Emiliano Zapata was a heavy rock group from Guadalajara. How dumb were they? Well, their biggest hit (locally and in Europe) was a turgid seven-and-a-half minute jam titled Nasty Sex. This was in 1970. (Their follow-up, and last hit, was called Sh*t City.)

Fortunately for you, we're featuring the b-side to their big hit, Still Don't (Not Yet). It's still big and dumb, but in a good way. Only three minutes long, it rides a fat bassline, it has a really tight breakdown leading into a satisfyingly skronky guitar solo. If it wasn't so stoned, it could be as funky as the Stones.

Oh, and Happy Birthday John!

Photo: Justice for 3,000 (2).

CALL ME A LIAR

Listen to CALL ME A LIAR by The Edgar Broughton Band.

Splat! THONK! thud! SKRONK!

One thing missing from this blog for quite a while, not just with Corbett's hot James Burton licks, is some real dirty, ugly, dumb ROCK. The kinda stuff teenage guys would listen to real loud at their buddy's house with some overpriced skank weed in 1971, 1986, 1992, 2008...

Like, if Deep Purple's "Machine Head" was just a little too sophisticated to be the greatest album of all time. In putting these tunes together, I've taken a lot of cues from writer Scott Seward, who has championed the sub-genre of Thud Rock: "late ’60s and early ’70s heavy stuff that time (mostly) forgot. Proto-metal albums that had one supreme goal: to blow your little mind."

I'm not going to stick to his criterion exclusively, so we're calling the music here "Dumb Rock." We hope you like it!

Our first selection is pretty dumb. The Edgar Broughton Band were a fairly popular band in turn-of-the-decade England, though critically reviled. Call Me A Liar is arguably the group's major achievement, an extremely... effective cross between T-Rex and Foghat. It really embodies where heavy rock music was going in the Seventies: ditching the "and roll" from rock, leaning heavily on its riffing (to be fair, it's a fantastic riff) to keep the song moving, stretching out the arrangement, adding some cod latin percussion, and sending it out to destroy.

Photo: Justice for 3,000 (1).