Search - Blodwyn Pig :: Basement Tapes

" A Pig Makes Good " Bloodwyn Pig - The Basement Tapes

11/11/2003

(5 out of 5 stars)

"As a complete fan of Mick Abrahams it was great to take a casual look at the CD'S available for Bloodwyn Pig and find " The Basement Tapes"
Great fidelity througout as well as fine blues rock guitar from Mick!
In case you dont know Mick Abrahams he was a founding member of Jethro Tull and treat yourself to their first album. Mick's tone is always superb as well as his playing and Tull got gradually worse as Ian Anderson tightened his grip on the band.By the time Tull had released " Aqualung " they were on the way to some kind of weird sing song junk not heavy riffage! I now know why Mick split...he is 100% Blues and Rock.
Several of the Pigs hits are here sometimes twice as the original band doing the numbers in early 1970's then again live in 1974 with a version of the Pig that released no album.
Remember to put on the track " Drive Me " and turn it up and check out Mick wailing away....It was a real pleasure to hear a fine guitarist at what he does best great blues based rock guitar with a great bottom and an ammazing jack Lancaster on Sax!
If you dont own and "Bloodwyn Pig " be sure to purchase " A Head Rings Out" that is their first album and a must it contains a great slide track " Dear Jill " as I have told you before buy it now and enjoy!
Buy this CD!!!"

PIGGY WIG WIG

Peter Baklava | Charles City, Iowa | 05/25/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Like a lot of people, I approached Blodwyn Pig by way of Jethro Tull. Mick Abrahams was a 'force to contend with' in the original Tull line-up, and he and Ian Anderson came to loggerheads about the direction the group should take.



Abrahams split, but the group he formed was no mere spin-off. Blodwyn Pig was every bit the equal of Jethro Tull. Abrahams was and is a first-rate blues guitarist. His electric guitar stylings are instantly recognizable, and he is also a master of acoustic fingerstyle blues guitar. Sax and flute man Jack Lancaster shared Ian Anderson's fondness for imitating jazzman Roland Kirk. Lancaster even replicated Kirk's trick of playing two horns at the same time.



The tracks on Basement Tapes were drawn from BBC sessions that Blodwyn Pig did in 1969, and later in 1974 during an abortive attempt to reform the group ( the '74 edition of the band also includes former Jethro Tull drummer Clive Bunker.) These tunes fully illustrate just how eclectic a group Blodwyn Pig was. They feature guitar/sax passages that wail as hard as King Crimson's "21st Century Schizoid Man", plus examples of Abrahams' off the wall sense of humor (best example: "Mr.Green's Blues").



Blodwyn Pig was as good as any band playing between 1969 and 1971---extremely innovative and exciting. Don't miss this one, or the two classic studio albums, "Ahead Rings Out" and "Getting to This." Five stars."

Should have stayed in the basement.

Arthur Payson | 01/05/2007

(1 out of 5 stars)

"I'm a huge Mick Abrahams fan, and my guitar playing was influenced by his performances with Jethro Tull as well as Blodwyn Pigs first album A Head Rings Out...but that was a long time ago. I recently bought the Basement Tapes with the hope of finding some newly discovered examples of Mick brilliant guitar work. What I found was profoundly disappointing and I can't believe that he would have ever authorized this albums release. At best, some cuts are simply average performances of old tunes, at worst Mick sounds rusty and out of practice, struggling through poor performances of his earlier brilliant solos. Perhaps this is another example of how the inspiration, ambition, and hope of the sixties, as manefested through rock music, can never be recreated. Micks exciting, spontainious, and original guitar work seems to have been a product of his place in time, now long gone."