OFF: The Hard & The Heavy Volume One

[K Henderson]

I'll defer to Doug P. who will almost certainly give us the full deal...

but a few points for those not in the know...

>All the pre-major label MM is quite good.
>Their first s/t release is more garage/heavy psych. 6 smokin tracks.

I think this was an LP release only, and that at least some of these tracks
appeared on CD later (like Spine of God maybe), perhaps rerecorded?  Not
sure. Doug will tell us anyway.

>My fav is this and Spine of God, a release that shows them starting to become
>mainstream, but quite good. closer to the "stoner rock" thing.
>TAB seams to be a big fav of HW fans, there's a super long track, that's
>heavy and spacey...

This one came out on CD a couple times I believe, and usually (I think)
includes the two tracks from a 7" single (Murder b/w another song with a
one-word title that I can't remember at the moment).  And these are not
credited on the CD booklet/insert, so there's confusion there, compounded by
the fact that track two is both "25" and "Longhair" (that starts about 8
minutes in FWIR).  So there's four tracks listed, five tracks indexed, but
yet six tracks on the actual CD.  Again, the title track "Tab" is over a
half-hour long, so it's a full length release for sure.

I think perhaps the most necessary MM thing is 'Viva Las Vegas'.

Grakkl (FAA), who saw them just once when they opened for an absolutely
miserable group called Korn.  I didn't make it through ten minutes of them,
and even though MM only played 45 minutes, I'm glad it wasn't the other way
around!  What Doug saw last week doesn't sound so bad now, remembering these
butchers!