Transatlantic Railroad
Band members Related acts
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line up 1 (1965-68) - Stephen Meyers -- lead guitar - Ron Vanbianchi -- drums, backing vocals
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- Blue Cheer (Ken Housman) - The Ducks (Kent Housman) - SFO (Kent Housman)
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Genre: rock Rating: 3 stars *** Title: Express To Oblivion Company: RD Records Catalog: RD8 Country/State: San Rafael, California Grade (cover/record): NM/NM Comments: sealed copy Available: 1 Catalog ID: 1312 Price: $75.00
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Giving credit where due, this was another enjoyable release by Swiss collector Raymond Dumont's RD label ...
Here's what Dumont's website has to say about the LP: "The second record in the series of unreleased obscure bands mentioned in Ralph Gleason's book The Jefferson Airplane and the San Francisco Sound after RD 7 (Haymarket Riot). This rural Westcoast/blues/psychedelic album from the early days (1967) includes 5 long tracks with furious guitar, organ jams and powerful vocals, reminding to many of the numerous milestones of legendary SF era. All recordings are arranged professional, which guarantees a perfect sound from the original master tapes. Contains an insert with a very detailed band story, thick cover and thick vinyl."
In the interests of passing along information, I'm going to simply crib the somewhat abbreviated biographical material off the album cover: "The band released a single on Phoenix Records (a division of Sire Records) in 1967. The A side was 'Irahs' (Kent's girlfriend's naae spelled backwards), written by Kent Houseman and the B side - 'Why me' (the band's song opposing the war in Vietnam) written by Kent Houseman and Rick Behran. There were three other songs recorded during these sessions. What you are hearing now in RD Records are the five songs originally recorded in a demo for Phoenix Records after the release of the single. As the band prepared to go in the studio to record more songs problems started to derail the "Railroad". Geoff [Mayer] the keyboard player used a RT3 [organ] which is larger than the B3 [Hammond] and after several attempts to get it through the studio door, it wouldn't budge. Although the studio offered Geoff other keyboards to use during the session, this time Geoff wouldn't budget and wouldn't use any other keyboard. The record deal never materialized."
Those brief descriptions should provide potential buyers with a pretty good feel as to what to expect here. Musically none of these tunes were particularly original, or commercial, but if you were into that instantly recognizable mid-'70s San Francisco sound, this was probably going to scratch your aural itch. That meant these five tracks included plenty of keyboard and guitar jamming (check out the twelve minute 'Elephant'), jazz blues-rock ('Old English 800'), a touch of Country Joe and the Fish, and even some Dead and Doors-influenced moves ('Tehama Street Song'). The band certainly had more than there share of talents with lead guitarist Stephen Meyers being particularly impressive (check out his work on the extended jam 'Elephant'). That said, they lacked anything to push them over the top and you can kind of see why Phoenix/Sire probably passed on signing them for an album. (In case anyone's interested, given the material was pulled from what were almost forty year old master tapes, the overall quality wasn't half bad.)
"Express
To Oblivion" track listing: 1.) Camp Towanga (Kent Housman - Jamie Kindt - Geoff Mayer - Stephen Meyers - Ron Vanbianchi) - 3:17 At
least to my ears 'Camp Towanga' sounded
more like a studio jam than a real song,
Showcasing Geoff Mayer's tasty B3 Hammond, the tune actually sounded like it
was stitching a number of song segments together. While the song
opened and closed with a nice rock segment, embedded in the rest of the
three minutes were a touch of Stephen
Meyers' jazzy lead guitar; a bit of Country Joe McDonald-styled good-timey
country-rock; and some lounge act ballad moves. Strange and not
particularly enjoyable. rating: ** stars Nice,
if not particularly original blues-rocker which gave lead guitarist Meyers a
change to showcase some of his skills. The lyrics were mildly
funny. Unfortunately, Housman sounded like he had the microphone
shoved down his throat. Might be of interested to Allman Brothers
fans. rating:
*** stars 'Tehama Street Song' started out as a nice, mid-tempo, slightly country-rock flavored tune marred by a slightly flat Housman lead vocal. In this case the song's first rate melody and the band's nice backing vocals more than made up for the lead vocal. About two and a half minutes in the song abruptly shifted gears into a guitar and Hammond powered jam that sounded a bit like early Santana. Quite enjoyable and one of the album highlights. rating: **** stars
(side
2) Imagine
Jim Morrison at his most pompous (with Ray Manzarek playing a Hammond B3
rather than Vox - and yes I know at various times he also played a B3), and
you'd get a feel for the extended jam 'Elephant'. Through the
first eight minutes there was lots of nice Meyers lead guitar, while Mayer
took the spotlight with some "circus" moves for the next
four minutes. Regardless, clocking in at over twelve minutes it grew
tiresome after awhile.
rating: *** stars Jazzy, keyboard powered blues-rock number that had way too much Housman scatting. rating: *** stars
As mentioned, for hardcore fans there was a non-LP single:
- 1968's 'Irahs' b/w 'Why Me' (Phoenix catalog number PH 2)
The 'A' side was a nice country-tinged ballad that sounded like it had been recorded over a long distance phone line. In spite of the marginal sound quality, it was a sweet tune with some nice multi-tracked lead vocals and Meyer's jangle rock lead guitar.
The CD release (RD catalog number RD CD 2) included three tracks not found on the LP - both sides of their debut 45: 'Irahs', 'Why Me', and the garage-rocker 'Good Times'. Shame the latter wasn't included on the album since it was one of the best things they recorded.
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