3CD - I'm A Freak 2 Baby - A Further Journey Through British Heavy Psych And Hard Rock 68-73

3 Cd

"I'm A Freak Baby", Grapefruit's 3 CD overview of the UK's late 60s/early 70s nascent hard rock/proto-metal scene,received rapturous acclaim from pundits and punters alike. Three years later, the woodwork squeaks and out come the freaks again. And, like all good follow-ups, "I'm A Freak 2 Baby" expands upon the original while simultaneously tightening the stylistic mesh.

In addition to further selections from some of the subterranean stars of the first volume (Iron Claw, the semi-housetrained Stack Waddy, the even more semi-housetrained Wicked Lady), we feature many of the genre's pioneers, with key tracks from The Jeff Beck Group, Edgar Broughton Band, Atomic Rooster and High Tide. The scope ranges from actual hit singles (Love Sculpture's manic, heavily influential "Sabre Dance" and the original brass-free demo version of The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown's gothic masterpiece "Fire") to a clutch of bands (Thor, Tonge, Tarsus and several others) that were active during our timeframe but didn't get beyond locally-recorded demos.

During our journey, we stumble across Sabbath acolytes, Zeppelin wannabes, musicians' cooperatives, future legends, Satanism, shamanism, sham-Satanism, industrial-strength levels of reassuringly non-PC attitude and more cowbell than any sane individual could reasonably tolerate. Boasting a lavish 40-page booklet full of rare photos and memorabilia from the era, many recordings making their first appearance on CD and several cuts gaining their first ever release in any format, "I'm A Freak 2 Baby" is another essential addition to Grapefruit's ever increasing catalogue of UK late 60s/early 70s genre anthologies.