I remember getting into Steppenwolf way back when I was just a young pup in high school; I found their first two albums at a local music store and absolutely devoured them. Once I had done that, I eagerly searched out everything the band had released to that point.<\/p>\n
Then, I found Early Steppenwolf<\/i>, a collection of live recordings made from a May 1967 concert when they were still known as \u201cThe Sparrow\u201d. I can still vividly recall my first response to the record: \u201cWhat the fuck is this<\/i>?!?\u201d<\/p>\n
Of course, now I\u2019m older, and have come closer to achieving Buddha nature\u2026 which means I can listen to this again in this day and age, and realize that it\u2019s an interesting but flawed picture of the early history of John Kay and crew. But, when those flaws do hit\u2026 man, are they painful.<\/p>\n
In fact, let\u2019s get the main flaw out of the way \u2013 specifically, the side two-filling, 21-minute extended version of \u201cThe Pusher\u201d. That is to say, it\u2019s about 11 minutes of Steppenwolf trying to be the Grateful Dead with an extended sonic melange of absolute noise, followed by about a four minute jam that eventually turns into the opening chord progression. Look, I have listened to enough psychedelia in my time to understand that this was a product of its time. But Steppenwolf was anything but a psychedelic rock band, and nobody \u2013 I repeat, nobody<\/b><\/i> \u2013 asked for \u201cThe Pusher\u201d to be stretched into a 20-minute mind melt, half of which makes absolutely no sense to the heart of the song. I\u2019d have rather had this shortened to \u2013 oh, let\u2019s say <\/span>nine minutes, and have a few more of Steppenwolf\u2019s early songs included on this album.<\/span><\/p>\n T<\/span>he first half of <\/span>Early Steppenwolf<\/i> is what makes the experience worthwhile. It\u2019s not that the five songs that make it up are anything spectacular, but they do offer an interesting snapshot of the band in its infancy. (Of course, this disc came out about a year after Steppenwolf\u2019s self-titled debut, so it might not have been as eye-opening to listeners in 1969 as it can be in today\u2019s day and age.) <\/span>Only one of the five songs – \u201cTighten Up Your Wig\u201d – made the cut onto the debut album, so it is interesting to hear Kay and crew plow through the other songs, especially when trying to make covers like \u201cHowlin\u2019 For My Darlin\u2019\u201d their own.<\/span><\/p>\n It\u2019s hard to call <\/span>Early Steppenwolf<\/i> a filler album, as it was one of three they released in 1969. If anything, it might have been their record label capitalizing on their increasing fame. It might have been a stop-gap live offering until a full-length concert could be recorded (which would arrive one year later). It could have been that Kay and crew earnestly wanted to take a look back to the origins of the band, and present those songs to the listener who might have arrived at the party a bit later.<\/span><\/p>\n Whatever the case, there is enough on <\/span>Early Steppenwolf<\/i> to keep even casual fans interested, but is most definitely not required listening. And, tread carefully when it comes to the drawn-out version of \u201cThe Pusher\u201d\u2026 just don\u2019t say you weren\u2019t warned.<\/span> \t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":34509,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7243],"rating":[5619],"class_list":["post-46352","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-steppenwolf","rating-rating-c"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46352","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=46352"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/46352\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34509"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=46352"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=46352"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=46352"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}