Canned Heat Biography

Los Angeles, United States (1965 – present)

Canned Heat is a blues-rock/boogie band that formed in Los Angeles in 1965. The group has been noted for its own interpretations of blues material as well as for efforts to promote the interest in this type of music and its original artists. It was launched by two blues enthusiasts, Alan Wilson and Bob Hite, who took the name from Tommy Johnson’s 1928 Canned Heat Blues, a song about an alcoholic who has desperately turned to drinking Sterno, generically called “canned heat”. After appearances at Monterey and Woodstock, at the end of the ’60s the band had acquired worldwide notoriety with a lineup consisting of Bob Hite, vocals, Alan Wilson guitar, harmonica and vocals, Henry Vestine or Harvey Mandel on lead guitar, Larry Taylor on bass, and Adolfo (‘Fito’) de la Parra on drums. Since the early ’70s numerous personnel changes have occurred and today, in the fifth decade of the band’s existence, Fito de la Parra is the only original member from the glorious epoch. He has authored a book about the band’s career[1]. Larry Taylor, whose presence in the band has not been steady, is the other surviving member from the earliest lineups. Harvey Mandel, Walter Trout and Junior Watson are among the guitarists who gained notoriety for playing in later editions of the band. British blues pioneer John Mayall has frequently found musicians for his band among former Canned Heat members.source:last.fm
 

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Velvet Underground Biography

Few rock groups can claim to have broken so much new territory, and maintain such consistent brilliance on record, as the Velvet Underground during their brief lifespan. It was the group's lot to be ahead of, or at least out of step with, their time. The mid-to-late '60s was an era of explosive growth and experimentation in rock, but the Velvets' innovations — which blended the energy of rock with the sonic adventurism of the avant-garde, and introduced a new degree of social realism and sexual kinkiness into rock lyrics — were too abrasive for the mainstream to handle. During their time, the group experienced little commercial success; though they were hugely appreciated by a cult audience and some critics, the larger public treated them with indifference or, occasionally, scorn.

The Velvets' music was too important to languish in obscurity, though; their cult only grew larger and larger in the years following their demise, and continues to mushroom today. By the 1980s, they were acknowledged not just as one of the most important rock bands of the '60s, but one of the best of all time, and one whose immense significance cannot be measured by their relatively modest sales.

Historians often hail the group for their incalculable influence upon the punk and new wave of subsequent years, and while the Velvets were undoubtedly a key touchstone of the movements, to focus upon these elements of their vision is to only get part of the story. The group were uncompromising in their music and lyrics, to be sure, sometimes espousing a bleakness and primitivism that would inspire alienated singers and songwriters of future generations. But their colorful and oft-grim soundscapes were firmly grounded in strong, well-constructed songs that could be as humanistic and compassionate as they were outrageous and confrontational. The member most responsible for these qualities was guitarist, singer, and songwriter Lou Reed, whose sing-speak vocals and gripping narratives have come to define street-savvy rock & roll.readmoreon:sing354.com

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Sonic Youth Biography

Time warp back to the '60s. Pop songs, ditties, the British Invasion, The Beach Boys, The Byrds, blah blah blah. With very few exceptions, pop-rock music was all about tunefulness - about making music that was pleasing to the ear. Of course there was an undercurrent of avant-garde and modern classical composers putting a dent in this wall of perfect harmony, but nothing that rocked the boat on a very large scale.

As the years dragged on, the ear-pleasing hits multiplied, and despite innovations from Hendrix, The Velvet Underground and their ilk, the discovery of noise and discordance took a long time to catch on. The '60s rolled into the '70s, and the '70s were almost rolling into the '80s before the punk movement finally exploded. And even punk wasn't that discordant - dust off your old Sex Pistols and Clash records and listen to how catchy their songs are underneath the snarl and the angst. It was only once the aftermath of punk started bleeding into 'post-punk' that bands seemed to realize that it made sense to integrate pure noise into the traditional harmonic scale. And this is thanks to Sonic Youth more than any other band.source:sing365.com

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