Music / Blue Cheer

"Blue Cheer is heavy. Cosmic. Kinetic. It affects the visual and physical senses. Spiritually aware.
And we have already sold 100,000 albums."

—Text of this magazine ad promoting Vincebus Eruptum

Blue Cheer was an American Psychedelic Rock/Blues Rock band from San Francisco, active from the late 1960s until 2009, when longtime member Dickie Peterson died of prostate cancer. Their first album, Vincebus Eruptum, was a major influence on Heavy Metal music, with its thick guitar assaults.

Srudio discography:

• Vincebus Eruptum (1968)
• OutsideInside (1968) (half studio album, half Live Album)
• New! Improved! Blue Cheer! (1969)
• Blue Cheer (1969)
• BC #5 The Original Human Being (1970)
• Oh! Pleasant Hope (1971)
• The Beast... Is Back (1985)
• Highlights and Lowlives (1990)
• Dining with the Sharks (1991)
• What Doesn't Kill You... (2007)
• Blue Cheer #7 (recorded in 1978, released in 2012)

Their work provides examples of:

• Canis Latinicus: Vincebus Eruptum is a nonexistent Latin phrase. ^Explanation The closest use of the phrase in real life could be either "vinculis erupto", which translates to "bonds broken up", or "vinculis erumpti", which translates to "prison break" (which is oddly appropriate, given their cover of the prison song "Parchman Farm"). As an in-joke, if you type in "Vincebus Eruptum" as your input on the Latin to English setting on Google Translate, the phrase is translated as "Blue Cheer".
• Cover Version:
  • Their rocking covers of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" and Mose Allison's "Parchman Farm". Not to mention their covers of The Rolling Stones "Satisfaction", Bob Dylan's "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry"and Albert King's "Born Under a Bad Sign" .
  • Their version of "Summertime Blues" was in turn covered by The Who and Rush.
• I Am the Band: After the dissolution of the original trio, Blue Cheer became a Revolving Door Band, with Dickie Peterson as the only member to appear on all the albums. When he died, the group split up permanently.
• Letting the Air out of the Band: Inverted with their cover of "Satisfaction", which slowly starts up then goes into the usual Cheer overdrive.
• Heavy Metal: A major influence on the genre; in fact, some consider them to be one of the very first heavy metal bands.
• Rearrange the Song: They gave "Summertime Blues" an acid rock makeover with plenty of guitar pyrotechnics, including replacing a few of the lyrics with instrumental solos.
• Rock Trio: During their first two albums and parts of the third.
• Trope Maker: Of Heavy Psych, a subgenre of Psychedelic Rock, that relied on Epic Rocking and thick guitar assaults. It served as a historical link between 60s rock and metal music.

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