The Best Budgie Post, ever

Think I was kidding? Budgie was, for a long-haired pot smoking 1970's child a great band......in
retrospect now, maybe not as great as I/we thought they were, but a lot of later metal creditted them as quite an influence......maybe a little generic, maybe a bit unoriginal, and mayb at times a little silly (the "concept album" "Deliver Us From Evil" which seems to be about impending WWIII and actually starts off with a track called "Bored with Russia" was maybe not the most ingenious of ideas.....in fact it sounds, frankly, a LOT like something Rush or Styx might have done in one of their we-are-oh-so-serious-artists phases......

What the hell Budgie could do, though, was rock the fuck out, simply stated. They took the traditional power io limitations set by Cream and tightened them up, and when it sounded good it sounded GODDAMN good. From Cardiff, Wales, Budgie was originally guitarist/singer Tony Bourge, bassist/singer Burke Shelley, and drummer Ray Phillips.....they've shifted members many times over the years, with Shelley being the only constant.....I think that they still plod around today, although I'll pass on anything they have to offer, and the discs I will present will at leat attempt to stay out of the "road to Suckville" period as much as possible.

Well, then.....album #1, the creatively titled
"Budgie", is stacked with some good hard rockers, nothing too profound, bustill, in 2013, crank up "Guts" or "Homocidal Suicide".....badass rockers and not the only ones. Album #2 "Squawk", (1972) is even better, argueably their best (I'd pick it as my favorite), it includes the smoldering "Hotter than a Docker's Armpit" and "Drugstore Woman", these guys were meant to play 6-7 minute jams with some silly lyrics thrown in....they would stay a bit too long at the fair, we shall see, but .......

1973 brings us to arguably their OTHER best album, "Never Turn Your Back on a Friend", which features the great "Breadfan" (a classic of early 70's metal,later covered by Metallica (Metallica also covered "Crash Course in Brain Surgery")) but gets brought down by a horrendous version of "Baby Please Don't Go" which sounds as though it is being sung by maybe Geddy Lee on a lot of Pain meds (Shelley's voice had the POTENTIAL to be as annoying as Lee's, to his credit, never did he fully develop that "potential")....anyways, "Never" is a great album, as well, this was a hard ass rocking 1970's band, right at it's peak.

These guys knew their formula at the time as
well.....the next year they released "In For the Kill", a similar album with some good, longer jamming tunes "Crash Course in Brain Surgery", "Zoom Club" among others.....with Budgie it was like clockwork.....an album a year, with 6-7 tunes generally in the 5-6 minute range as well as maybe or two 8-9 minute epics, centered around some fine guitar and drumming, and some questionalbe (at best) vocals and lyrics.

Following the formula, in 1975 they released "Bandolier" with a new drummer, without missing a beat......the closer, "Napolean Bona (Part 1 & 2)" is about as close to a sense of humor as your going to find around here. In 1976, they released "If I Were Brittania I'd Waive the Rules", which seems to be their best-known album (I am uncertain), I really didn't/don't care for it.....the corner seemingly had been turned toward suckville (in the metal game, it can be a damn sharp turn), however, I must give credit for the 1978 release "Impeckable", which is a definite improvement over "Brittania" and includes one of thier better (although somewhat out of character) tracks, "Melt the Ice Away".

For my money "Melt the Ice Away" pretty much
capped it off, the early 1980's albums "Power Supply", "Night Flight" and the aforementioned hilarious concept album "Deliver Us From Evil" are paint by the numbers post-1970's metal, just the kind of REASON why we NEEDED a punk movement, EXACTLY to the degree that Poison and the like were the reason we needed a grunge movement in the early 1990's.

They reunited in 2006 (!) for something called "You're All Living In Cuckoo Land", which I have never heard and am sure I can live without hearing, the road to suckville has been documented well enough here without the complete trip to Embarassment City.

Got four live boots here, sounds like, in true power trio tradition, they could crank out some noise on stage. All three are from the late 1970's when they were at their rocking best.....first is 2/8/75 in London (title: "Breadfunsy"), opening with a fine long jamming version of "Breadfan" and ending with an excellent "Napoleon Bona (Part 1 & 2)"......they, like other trios (Cream, GFR, Rush, Motorhead) seemed really made for the stage rather than the studio in my opinion. I have a 7/3/76 set from Malmo Sweden, interesting because the set list is quite different from the 1975 set, (I think only "Parents" makes both sets)...and finally a pair of discs from 1978, combining two shows, one from Milwaukee and one from LA, two VERY similar sets (Each has a version of "Breadfan", "Love For You And Me", "In For the Kill", and "Breakin All the House Rules".....they are what they are, good stuff in my opinion, reminds me of high school and the late 1970's.......

These guys were a pretty damn good band for my money.....they rocked hard, and in the 1970's
(decade of the quaalude) that was job #1.....like s many bands of the era they began to think of themselves as "serious artists"( I have included the ridiculous "Deliver Us From Evil" here as it is pretty damn hilarious to listen to), I have no "Best of Budgie", I assume there is one somewhere but filling up a CD with worthwhile jams for smoking a little bit would be no problem......for this 51 year old, it'll always PARTIALLY be the late 1970's, and, really, what the fuck was so bad about the late 1970's?

BUDGIE-01 Guts/02 Everything In My Heart/03 The Author/04 Nude Disintegrating Parachutist Woman/05 Rape of the Locks/06 All Night Petrol/07 You and I/08 Homicidal Suicide

SQUAWK-01 Whiskey River/02 Rocking Man/03 Rolling Home Again/04 Make Me Happy/05 Hot
as a Docker's Armpit/06 Drugstore Woman/07 Bottled/08 Young Is a World/09 Stranded

NEVER TURN YOUR BACK ON A FRIEND-01 Breadfan/02 Baby Please Don't Go/03 You Know I'll Always  You/04 You're The Biggest Thing Since Powdered Milk/05 In the Grip of a Tyrefitter's Hand/06 Riding My Nightmare/07 Parents

IN FOR THE KILL-01 In For the Kill/02 Crash Course In Brain Surgery/03 Wondering What Everyone Knows/04 Zoom Club/05 Hammer and Tongs/06 Running From My Soul/07 Living On Your Own

BANDOLIER-01 Breaking All the House Rules/02 Slip Away/03 What Do You Want For Your?/04  I Can't See My Feelings/05 I Ain't No Mountain/06 Napolean Bona (Part 1 & 2)

IF I WERE BRITTANIA I'D WAIVE THE RULES-01 Anne Neggen/02 If I Were Brittania I'd Waive the Rules/03 You're Opening Doors/04 Quacktor and Bureaucats/05 Sky High Percentage/06 Heaven Knows Our Name/07 Black Velvet Stallion

IMPECKABLE-01 Melt the Ice Away/02 Love For You And Me/03 All at Sea/04 Dish It Up/05 Pyramids/06 Smile Boy Smile/07 I'm a Faker Too/08 Don't Go Away/09 Don't Dillute the Water

POWER SUPPLY-01 Forearm Smash/02 Hellbender/03 Heavy Revolution/04 Gunslinger/05 Power Supply/06 Secrets In My Head/07 Time To Remember/08 Crime Against the World

NIGHTFLIGHT-01 I Turned To Stone/02 Keeping a Rendezvous/03 Reaper of the Glory/04 She
Used Me Up/05 Don't Lay Down and Die/06 Apparatus/07 Superstar/08 Change Your Ways/09 Untitled Lullabye

DELIVER US FROM EVIL-01 Bored With Russia/02 Don't Cry/03 Truth Drug/04 Young Girl/05 Flowers In the Attic/06 N.O.R.A.D. (Doomsday City)/07 Give Me The Truth/08 Alison/09 Finger on the Button/10 Hold on to Love

LONDON 2/8/75-01 Breadfan/02 In For the Kill/03 Parents/04 Who Do You Want For Your Love/05 In the Grip of a Tyrefitter's Hand/06 Napoleon Bona (Part 1 & 2)

MALMO SWEDEN 7/3/76-01 Breaking All the House Rules/02 In the Grip of a Tyrefitter's Hand/03 If I Were Brittania I'd Waive the Rules/04 Parents/05 Black Velvet Stallion/06 Who Do You Want For Your Love/07 I Can't See My Feelings/08 Sky High Percentage/09 Zoom Club

MILWAUKEE 4/5/78-01 Love For You and Me/02 Licking My Wounds/03 Smile Boy Smile/04 In For the Kill/05 Breakin All the House Rules/06 Breadfan

LOS ANGELES SUMMER 1978-01 Breakin All the House Rules/02 Zoomclub/03 Sky High Percentage/04 Love For You and Me/05 In For the Kill/06 Breadfan