Psychedelic Sunday

Atomic Rooster - Night Living

I thought it was high time I started featuring early prog and metal in addition to psych rock. Those genres were born from the experimentation of psychedelia, so it seemed like a logical extension of my psychedelic theme, and it gives me the opportunity to shake things up from time to time.

With a name like Atomic Rooster, you might get the idea that this is a psychedelic rock band anyway, sort of like Strawberry Alarm Clock. Make no mistake, this Rooster was crowing to a different tune. Atomic Rooster, formed by Vincent Crane and Carl Palmer in 1969, was one of the premier English heavy metal/prog rock bands. Crane and Palmer had previously been members of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, who had a huge hit in 1968 with Fire. That's Crane on the badass Hammond organ part in that song. Palmer didn't stick with Rooster for long, since he went off to drumming fame with Keith Emerson and Greg Lake in their little prog outfit, and was replaced by Paul Hammond. Crane added John Du Cann on guitar, as well, to deepen the band's guitar sound.

I found this little gem of a song in a compilation in Mojo Magazine late last year, Heavy Nuggets, which has been lots of fun to explore. This Atomic Rooster cut was pulled from an anthology of lives, rares, and B-sides, Atomic Rooster: The First 10 Explosive Years.

If you're not a huge prog fan, worry not. This song leans more toward the heavy metal sound. In fact, it reminds me of Deep Purple or of one of the songs from the Heavy Metal soundtrack, which hubby and I played ad nauseum on the car cassette player back in the day. I love the heavy-handed organ in the song, which, when accompanied by the sinister vocals, give this song that dark metal bent.