10. Budgie Budgie 1971 (Kapp)
Hard Rock
A big time loser or a big time boozer!
Overview
Budgie were formed as far back as 1967 in Cardiff, Wales with Burke Shelley, Tony Bourge and Raymond Phillips and yet again we had another ‘power trio’ on our hands. So what made Budgie different from the other power-trios featured on here? Firstly, instead of just copying their influences which were mostly from Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, Budgie were able to take these influences and create their own distinctive sound, which was based around Burke Shelley’s thumping bass, Tony Bourge’s crushing guitar and Raymond Phillip’s plodding drums. Secondly, they either speeded up or slowed down the sound of their influences to create real diversity and they combined some real heaviness with it, in fact they were regarded as one of the heaviest bands of their day. Thirdly, they forged out a sound that was distinctly ‘Budgie’ and nobody else, when you heard the band you knew it was them. The uniqueness of the band wasn’t just in their music though, but also in the vocals of Burke Shelley, which were always going to be an acquired taste. His vocal style certainly didn’t fit the order of the day, which included the Robert Plant ‘bluesy wail’ the Ian Gillan ‘glass shattering shriek‘ the Ozzy Osbourne ‘banshee scream’ or the powerful composure of say Paul Rodgers. What we had instead, was a quite geeky high pitched sounding vocalist, who often got compared with a future Geddy Lee. Even more amazing, was that both vocalists were also bass players and looked very similar! Budgie were also highly inventive with their song titles and had some of the most interesting titles of their era, just check out some of their song titles. They would be a band similar to Stray in ability, probably less diverse than Stray but equally talented in their own way. Budgie had a huge amount of talent at their disposal, but the harnessing of that talent was always an issue, as their music didn’t have the wider appeal of their contemporaries and this relegated them in terms of popularity, even though they were big in the UK for a while in the 1970s. The band has often been lauded with the 'one of the first heavy metal bands’ title despite having a very hard rock sound. Budgie are an acquired taste, but make no mistake about it, they were one of the greatest musical products to come out of Wales.
Burke Shelley- Bass/Vocals
Tony Bourge- Guitar
Raymond Phillips- Drums
Production- Rodger Bain
Album
Guts- From the instant doomy pounding at the start of the song, you know that this band means business. The song itself sounds like a mixture of Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath, but with a Budgie feel.
Everything in My Heart- Brief acoustic interlude.
The Author- A 6 minute song that starts off at a slow pace, before upping the tempo and the band really start to flex out here.
Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman- Loud and bombastic and very much an early Budgie classic, this song is just fu
ckin A! The tempo of the song switches between the slow pounding stuff at the beginning and then littered throughout the song, with the speeded up middle and later sections, all seemingly just blending together with ease.
Rape of the Locks- Kicks off the flip side of the album and it’s a strong track with some great hooks and riffs throughout, but again the excellence of the track comes in its tempo changes, making it one of the strongest on the album.
All Night Patrol- A workmanlike track that only starts to come alive on its back-end and it’s worth the wait!
You and I- Nice sounding acoustic track to fill things out a bit and a filler.
Homicidal Suicidal- What can I say, this song seriously kicks butt, if you don’t like this, then I guess heavy music just ain’t your thing! I could listen to this song all day, everything I associate with heavy music can be found on this song, from crunching guitars, tempo changes and Burke Shelley never sounding better. An absolute classic and Soundgarden would go onto do a cover of this song (but they could never match the Budgie version)
Verdict
A good album but just how great is it? The album is often regarded as an essential early 1970s ‘heavy’ release and in some respects I won’t debate that, as all the elements that the listener would expect on a ‘heavy’ album are there in abundance, along with a great band execution throughout. So if we take a look at its positives, it’s obvious that the band had instantly grasped the mechanics of what heavy music should be all about, crushing guitars, pounding drums, a thumping bass and boy what a thumping bass it was! Also the band really knew how to mix up the tempo of their songs to an amazing level of diversity. At times the band were capable of switching from the slow pounding stuff to the speeded up material, literally in the blink of an eye! The song “Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman” is a prime example of this. Finally, the band knew how to play and never held back on their ability and just let things rip when needed. So with all these positives, what drops it down in relation to what was being put out by some of the best other bands of the time. Firstly, the album has a poorly planned vibe, in that it lacks a certain character, Rodger Bain did a sterling job producing the first two Sabbath albums and here he does a great job too, but you feel the band weren’t quite expressing themselves as Sabbath did. Also certain acoustic numbers don’t sit well on the album, such as “Everything in My Heart” and “You and I” I guess Budgie included these as it was the current trend at the time. Both Led Zeppelin and Humble Pie had done one and half albums worth of acoustic material, but those efforts had been focused and planned, Budgie’s efforts on here just felt like filler. So taking all this into consideration, the positives outweigh the negatives and the album introduces us to the distinctive Budgie sound and its three killer tracks have the most interesting names as well, so no prizes for guessing which three I'm on about! The album would also see the start of Budgie's highly imaginative album covers as well. This was a very strong debut by the band, but the classic Budgie albums would still be a few years off.