Search - Bubble Puppy :: Gathering of Promises

Shows some surprisingly good potential...

Squire Jaco | Buffalo, NY USA | 01/26/2010

(3 out of 5 stars)

"I had a copy of the single "Hot Smoke and Sassafras" back in the early 70's, but never heard the whole album until just recently. Make no mistake - HS&S is the standout track here; but the rest of this album has some pretty worthy offerings too, with nice vocals and harmonies, a very active drummer, a melodic bass player, and some killer guitar riffs.



I couldn't help but hear similarities to other bands in many of these songs - The Who, The Kinks, Jimi Hendrix, Shocking Blue, etc.; no outright thefts, but a riff here, a melody snippet there... Yet it seems like these guys had a ton of talent, and possessed decent enough songwriting abilities to be much more popular than they were. Good evidence of this lies in the bonus tracks - four of those tracks were not on the original album, and they are all great.



(Too bad all the bonus tracks are in mono, and not in the best production shape. I would LOVE to hear those songs with nice clear production instead of the Kenner Close 'n' Play quality that some of them have here... ;-)



Other than HS&S and the bonus tracks, some of the finer songs for me were "Beginning", "Lonely", and "Hurry Sundown".

A nice little hidden gem of an album from the late 60's.



I value interesting music that is played and recorded well. This cd's rating was based on:

Music quality = 7.3/10; Performance = 9/10; Production = 6/10; CD length = 9/10.

Overall score weighted on my proprietary scale = 7.7 ("3-1/2 stars")



"

One Clear Flash of the Future

Christopher A. Fulkerson | San Francisco | 04/17/2009

(4 out of 5 stars)

""Hot Smoke and Sassafras" is one of the best psychedelic songs of the 1960s, a classic visionary masterpiece with the precision of a Swiss watch. A band that wrote all songs like this one could have changed popular music. It is a shame the group never reached this level again, writing too often in a cheesy ballad style reliant on triadic chords instead of riffs and lines, though the first album has perhaps a few other good things on it. For its second album the group took the name "Damian," since they were intimidated by being confused with "Bubble Gum" music. Not the bravest marketing position even taken, especially since the "Bubble Gum" music in vogue at the time of the first album was all chewed up and sticking to the pavement by the time of the second, "Damian," album, and is now long gone. They should have dumped the title song and called the album "In the Midst [or is it Mist?] of Sassafras," and they would have gotten farther. Bubble Gum was created in frank unapologetic money-making cynicism; Bubble Puppy was trying to be the real prophetic thing. To this day I think if someone kicked everything but "Hot Smoke and Sassafras" off the Bubble Puppy space ship and went completely in the direction of that little composition, they could achieve marvelous things. "Todd's Tune" does not merit a single appearance, let alone being on BOTH of their albums!"

Mike

M. Knodel | 04/03/2010

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I still think these guys are excellent I listen to them when I was a kid"