Joe Albanese<\/a> “<\/p>\n\n\n\nChris Lockheed of Kak helped ex-Blue Cheer guitarist Randy Holden on the above album, which is an extension of the proto-metal direction he explored on Side Two of the third Blue Cheer album, New! Improved!. Probably because Holden plays all the music himself, the album sounds rather one-dimensional and sparse. It certainly isn’t the best record that he’s played on, but it’s by far the rarest, and is still highly sought-after. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The stories which have circulated for years, about it being withdrawn from the market immediately after release, are probably accurate. It is still held in high regard by collectors of primitive heavy rock, and copies were changing hands for hundreds of dollars over twenty years ago. Holden had earlier played with The Fender IV, Sons Of Adam, The Other Half and Blue Cheer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
His early works have been compiled on the CD, Randy Holden Early Works ’64-’66: The Fender IV, Sons Of Adam (Captain Trip Records) 1997. It includes both of The Sons Of Adams’ 45s for Decca plus three previously unreleased cuts, Without Love, <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I Told You Once Before and You Make Me Feel Good. It also includes the two 45s for Imperial by The Fender IV plus two previously unreleased tracks, Highway Surfer and Little Ollie. One year after his departure from Blue Cheer, Randy Holden released this solo album accompanied only by ex-Kak drummer, Chris Lockheed on drums. And until the original master tapes surface and \u201cPopulation II\u201d gets reissued for real, one must be content with a recording level a little less coherent than \u201cMetallic K.O.\u201d But despite its total lack of fidelity, one thing it still has going strong in the mix is Holden\u2019s lead guitar blasting out relentlessly from the curtain of his Sunn amplifier cabinets, as pictured on the back cover. I count 16 in this photo, but there were probably more. I mean, Holden had to rent an opera house in order to just rehearse, as each speaker could handle 200 watts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However many were fit into the confines of Amigo Studios, the very same studio Blue Cheer had recorded \u201cNew! Improved!\u201d with Holden in tow (well, for half an album\u2019s worth, anyway*) is anybody\u2019s guess. But there were enough to make it\u2026 LOUD. Very LOUD. Louder than Blue Cheer, who were louder than god. But Population II were gods one louder: a Power Duo with their amplifiers set at eleven. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
What we hear is a little under a half an hour\u2019s worth of Holden\u2019s super-slowed and heavy guitar riffing\/wailing\/soaring. The pure sludge of it will cause cracks in your ceiling, all the windows of your room, the sky itself and possibly even your brain. It\u2019s almost as though Holden is trying to make his drummer sense his purpose is futile and bolt the studio door to leave him alone to continue his deafening work as it dwarfs everything in its path as guitar solo upon guitar solo reduce Lockheed\u2019s drumming to function more as punched pillows in the background. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And Holden\u2019s volcanic eruptions continue as slow as molasses and fiery as lava, spewing forth a barrage to drown out even the caterwauling-ness of his own vocals\u2026not to mention his rhythm and bass guitar tracks.It\u2019s a telling sign that the album\u2019s opener is entitled \u201cGuitar Song\u201d, for this is a man truly in love with his guitar. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
He loves it so much, it rivals his own vocal lyrics as more a voice-over (or rather, \u2018voice-under\u2019 as it\u2019s buried by a couple hundred decibels of guitar) that scream (although by comparison to the lead guitar, is a microscopic whisper in comparison): \u201cI pierce the air with pain — AND LOVE!!!\u201d as the guitar lines crawl and wriggle while roaring out at top volume simultaneously.\u201cFruit & Iceburgs\u201d (sic) is one of the three tracks Holden wrote and played on for Blue Cheer\u2019s \u201cNew! Improved!\u201d album*. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s far bettered here — far more unrestrained, and much darker and with a psychotic introductory solo that is all vibrato, sustaino and a thousand dead souls howling in the wind akin to the death lament sustain Iommi shakes out at the very end of \u201cChildren of The Grave\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
A brief track called \u201cBetween Time\u201d divides \u201cFruit & Iceburgs\u201d into two parts and sees the drums getting a bit more audible. It\u2019s also the only place where the tempo swings up by half a notch in tempo, with plenty of vocal punctuation from Holden who coaxing his guitar into a bitching bump and grind as though to give Daddy more sugar as he soars off on the (probably all too) tangible wings of volume. \u201cFruit & Iceburgs (Conclusion)\u201d fades back in and although it is really just the coda, it takes them little over a minute to end it with drum fills and shrieking sustain of infinity (Playing at a volume as high and long as Population II did must have altered their biochemistry to some degree, and the deliberate volume abuse must have caused their perception of time to slow).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second side offers more of Holden roaring out at top volume and minimum speed with guitar lines that seem more a barometer of his soul than mere riffs, flowing together like trains of thought constantly converging and splitting apart. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBlue My Mind\u201d has a feel like a far more damaged \u201cHad To Cry Today\u201d by Blind Faith played far heavier, doomier and slower. A wordless chorus almost tries to hurry up the pace of the main theme, but no way — this is Holden\u2019s experimental journey, and getting there is more important than the destination. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cKeeper of The Flame\u201d starts off with a tom-tom pattern from Lockheed that gets practically wiped out by Holden\u2019s sudden departure from Population II\u2019s speed limit: He\u2019s now really kicking up speed and letting loose, with slurred accenting up and down the neck. He then starts wah-wahing and soloing with expertly felt tone and sustain. One short break and feedback flourish sets the stage for the emergence of the ultimate \u201cPopulation II\u201d riff: one whose tail AND scrotum dragging-ness is of the s-l-o-w-e-s-t order. It\u2019s so slow it\u2019s on the verge of heading back in time. And it\u2019s so heavy it\u2019s off on a forced march to armageddon with attached lead weights.Year of Release: 1970Label: HobbitTrack List: 1. Guitar Song2. Fruit & Iceburgs3. Between Time4. Fruit & Iceburgs (Conclusion)5. Blue My Mind6. Keeper Of The Flame<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n
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Randy Holden – See Album Population II – https:\/\/randyholden.bandcamp.com\/album\/population-ii photo: Federico Bartolini . Randy Holden – Randy Holden Guitar God Special Thanks ” Joe Albanese “ Chris Lockheed of Kak helped ex-Blue Cheer guitarist Randy Holden on the above album, which is an extension of the proto-metal direction he explored on Side Two of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-680","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/randyholden.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/680","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/randyholden.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/randyholden.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randyholden.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/randyholden.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=680"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/randyholden.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/680\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":692,"href":"https:\/\/randyholden.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/680\/revisions\/692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/randyholden.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=680"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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