Blue Cheer

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Biography

San Francisco, United States (1968 – 1971, 1988 – 2009)

Blue Cheer is an American group of the late 1960s and early 1970s, who helped to pioneer music. Based in San Francisco, original personnel were singer/bassist Dickie Peterson, guitarist Leigh Stephens, and drummer Paul Whaley. A power trio, the band was named after a variety of LSD promoted by underground chemist and Grateful Dead backer Owsley Stanley. This variety of LSD took its name from a popular laundry detergent. Their first hit was a cover version of Eddie Cochran’s “Summertime Blues” from their debut album Vincebus Eruptum (1968). The single peaked at #14 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart, their only such hit, and the album peaked at #11 on the Billboard 200 chart.

The group’s sound was hard to categorize, but was definitely -based, , and very loud. The band has been subsequently acclaimed as an influence on , , heavy metal, and . Julian Cope has written, “In 1968, nothing but nothing in America and Britain sounded as brutal as Blue Cheer except for The Velvet Underground.”

The group underwent several personnel changes after the 1968 release of Outsideinside, and then through yet more changes during and after 1969’s New! Improved! Blue Cheer (different guitarists on side 1 and 2). After Leigh Stephens was replaced by Randy Holden, formerly of Los Angeles garage rock band The Other Half, in 1968, Blue Cheer’s style changed to a more commercial sound à la Steppenwolf or Iron Butterfly. For the fourth album Blue Cheer, Holden, who had left during the third album, was subsequently replaced by Bruce Stephens. Stephens later quit and was replaced by Gary Lee Yoder, who helped complete the album.
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  • APESWAG

    These boys are tight and loud as frik

    30 Apr 11:35pm Reply

  • Amurpo

    really nice

    27 Apr 5:36am Reply

  • AnalForsage

    Vincebus Eruptum is a great album but honestly, Outsideinside is such an underrated album everyone should give it a listen if they haven't done so already.

    22 Apr 10:07am Reply

  • Plague94

    Bullshit lonechaney300 the flatted fifth, devil's tritone, powerchords downtuning tell me something Tony iommi did different that Leigh Stephens did not do. You are right He was influenced by Cream as well as jimmy Hendrix, but he left out Blue Cheer. In the 1991 documentary Don't Blame Me, Ozzy Osbourne and [b]Tony Iommi[/b] point to Blue Cheer as having an [b]enormous[/b] impact on [b]their sound[/b]" Watch the video if you don't believe me. It took those three 1966 power trios to create Sabbaths sound. Blue cheer being the primarily force according to http://inflooenz.com/?artist=black+sabbath&submit=Search They are one of the first if not the first heavy metal band.

    23 Mar 1:59am Reply

  • LoneChaney300

    Plague94, DON'T SAY SHIT! Tony Iommi NEVER cited Leigh Stephens. http://www.dinosaurrockguitar.com/new/node/26 He cited Eric Clapton, Django Reinhardt, Jeff Beck, Jimi Hendrix and Jimmy Page. http://inflooenz.com/?artist=tony+iommi&submit=Search And he is also influenced by Jazz, you moron. And the riffs of Leigh Stephens are quite different of Iommi's riffs. I do not know where these brats of today take this information picks. In any interview of Tony talking about his influences he always cites jazz and guitarists like Jeff Beck, Hendrix, Page, etc. Just being really fanatic Blue Cheer's fan to be inventing this bullshit that he had been influenced by Stephens.

    18 Mar 11:49pm Reply

  • Plague94

    @HeroinVelvet don't be naive tons of Hard rock and metal bands were Influenced by this band, including 75% of stoner rock/metal bands like Kyuss, Monster Magnet, Witch, and Sleep. in a 1991 documentary Tommy Iommi cited Leigh Stephens as his main influence on guitar. They are also cited as Sabbath's the primary on http://inflooenz.com

    30 Jan 9:44pm Reply

  • gydota

    био на русском писал один из галлюциногенов

    8 Jan 2:25pm Reply

  • HeroinVelvet

    "so, basically, they just stripped down hendrix's music of its soul and now they're the pioneers of heavy metal", "So I don't understand too, sounds like hendrix rip off to me." What is wrong with people these days?

    13 Dec 2012 Reply

  • Eglantinetje

    I love this! Clearly ahead of their time, and I'm guessing they also were a big influence on Stoner bands. Priceless and timeless!

    9 Dec 2012 Reply

  • FakePlasticDick

    So I don't understand too, sounds like hendrix rip off to me.

    23 Nov 2012 Reply

  • Roncsipar

    also Oxford Circle did blastbeats

    10 Nov 2012 Reply

  • Roncsipar

    folkfag, "As a young teenager, Blue Cheer scared me because older teenagers told me that a dog at a Blue Cheer concert dropped dead from the sheer volume of their amplification. My only contact with their music suggested this was very very likely to be true - hell, their guitarist only left the group when he went deaf!" - source: http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/feature/blue_cheer/

    10 Nov 2012 Reply

  • MathianSim

    folkfag00 obviously doesn't understand that Vincebus Eruptum is pure soul; pure, raw, unrestrained fucking soul.

    10 Oct 2012 Reply

  • ponder_muahaha

    Oh hey, there's a progressive faggot here. Somebody kill him, please.

    8 Oct 2012 Reply

  • folkfag00

    so, basically, they just stripped down hendrix's music of its soul and now they're the pioneers of heavy metal

    6 Oct 2012 Reply

  • Ales_7

    Una reseña del debut: http://45yomusic.blogspot.com.es/2012/08/blue-cheer-vincebus-eruptum-1968.html

    16 Aug 2012 Reply

  • BelphegorPepe

    Early Metal

    6 Jul 2012 Reply

  • emergingsynergy

    http://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/albumofthemonth/the-godlike-genius-of-blue-cheer

    31 May 2012 Reply

  • oldiesfanjohn

    RIP Dickie and Leigh..I had heard we lost Leigh,recently.

    27 May 2012 Reply

  • HumbertoGillan

    LOVE IT!!!

    3 May 2012 Reply
    • All 320 shouts

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