01	Summertime Blues						03:47
	02	Rock Me Baby						04:22
	03	Doctor Please						07:53
	04	Out of Focus						03:58
	05	Parchment Farm						05:49
	06	Second Time Around						06:17

Copyright 1968 PolyGram Records, Inc.

Blue Cheer was:

Leigh Stephens Guitar
Dick Peterson Bass & Vocals
Paul Whaley Drums

[
VINCEBUS ERUPTUM
(released by: BLUE CHEER)

Year Of Release: 1968
Overall rating = 10

Louder than Hendrix - that's about the only redeeming quality for this album, but what a fun quality for 1968!
Best song: SUMMERTIME BLUES

I nearly laughed my pants off when I first heard this album. Remember somewhere else on this site I used to ramble about 'profanation' and how every respectable genre of the late Sixties/early Seventies turned out to be profanated in the late Seventies/early Eighties by all these loads of talentless bands who copied the form but entirely missed the essence? Like how brainless punks were profanating the Who and stupid metalheads were profanating Led Zeppelin and overblown ambitious 'post-proggers' were profanating ELP and Genesis and suchlike.
Well, turns out that genre profanation existed as early as 1968 - when Blue Cheer burst on the San Francisco scene with their debut album. Because this is, in all honesty, a complete and unabashed profanation of Hendrix and his hard rock style of 1967-68. Everything about this record is kinda fake, starting from the very title itself. Vincebus Eruptum? This is supposed to be Latin, but to my humble knowledge, the form 'vincebus' cannot really exist in Latin - I can't even figure out if it's supposed to be a misguided verbal or nominal form. The closest thing I could imagine is that the correct title for the record would look something like 'vinculis erupti', which would make perfect sense - 'broken out from chains'. Because they do sound like they're unchained. Well... unstraightjacketed, that is.
The Hendrix influence is felt from the very start: even if the first song on here is their version of Eddie Cochran's 'Summertime Blues', they break into Hendrix's 'Foxy Lady' riff first, and only go on to Cochran from there. But it's not that guitarist Leigh Stephens is a suitable Hendrix disciple. The volume and the amount of distortion are indeed overwhelming; with their Marshall amps, it's obvious that the main aim is 'can we have that thing louder than everybody else's?' Meanwhile, Dick Petersen screams his head off (although I can't hear the basswork very well - maybe I'm not supposed to at all?), and drummer Paul Whaley thumps far louder than Mitch Mitchell; actually, he's got a proto-John Bonham kind of mastodontic sound, even if it's nowhere near as precise, and, frankly, I don't suppose Whaley had gotten his drugs/vodka fill to Bonzo's extent, which prevents him from going completely overboard. So, at any rate, the album is a great choice for putting on at around 3 A.M. with your speakers aimed at your neighbours' windows if you want to find the easiest way to get arrested for international terrorism.
Unfortunately, the guys kinda forgot everything else. For instance, they forgot that they really needed to learn how to play their instruments - Stephens' guitar playing techniques are primitive and can't be compensated by even the maximum level of distortion possible at the time. Not to mention singing: Peterson's screaming is okay in certain places, but it doesn't seem like he's actually capable of doing anything else. And, of course, they don't even try writing actual songs: half of the album are covers, and the other half is a mess of nearly atonal, chaotic jams that could only be called 'songs' because they are listed separately on the album cover and are (sometimes) structured according to the verse/chorus pattern.
So it's a profanation all right. What saves the record from utter disaster is that it's one of the earliest profanations in rock, and so, without maybe even knowing it, this record became an influence on the later metal scene, including Zeppelin and Deep Purple. Second, at least it's a consolation to know that Blue Cheer weren't just one of the innumerable bands to mindlessly rip off Hendrix; they had a specific identity, and they were quite an unusual outfit for the West Coast at the time. The uncompromising nature of the record - six heavy sludgefests without a break - must also be admired; not even Iron Butterfly, their main competition in the genre, were that obstinate. And third, what the hell, it's a fun record. It's a Sixties record, see; it's pretty interesting to hear a 'profanation record' out of the Sixties, whatever be. At any rate, I'd much better headbang to Vincebus Eruptum than to anything by Cinderella or Def Leppard.
Turning to the actual songs, I'd like to point out that their version of 'Summertime Blues', while nowhere near as scorching and impressive as the Who's live rendition of the song, is still pretty impressive and deserved to be a minor hit which it was. I don't know why they preferred to throw out the 'deep bass vocal line' out of every verse, though; my feeble guess is that it has something to do with Pedersen's lack of vocal ability. But Stephens' vibratos on here are unbeatable. The blues covers 'Rock Me Baby' (copped from Hendrix?) and 'Parchment Farm' (copped from John Mayall?) aren't particularly impressive, though, but at least they're familiar songs (to me), and that's all right with me. Out of the originals, 'Out Of Focus' is probably the best because it has something about it which, in a better life, would be called a 'riff', and 'Second Time Around' has a groovy amateurish chaotic section that's not too innovative (sounds like it was derived from Hendrix's 'EXP'), but it's also louder than Hendrix, and that's interesting.
A stupid and derivative album it is, for sure, but it just goes to show you why the Sixties were the best rock decade after all: even such a blatant profanation had its moments, if only because it was still requiring some originality and a certain freshness of sound - this sounds like a real band playing real rock'n'roll music, not like a robotic outfit playing technically perfect, but soulless and formulaic drivel. Of course, it doesn't have a lot to do with the members of Blue Cheer themselves; had they been all born fifteen years later, they would all be forming a generic Eighties' hair metal band for sure. Yet another proof of how the epoch and the environment actually have such a great influence on people.