Are we ready to retire the phrase “Lost Classic” yet? With thousands of people starting bands, there are bound to be a bunch that never really make it, and some of those reasons are fair. I don’t know if Jodo and their sole release Guts (or ‘Guts’ if you want to go by the album cover) count as a “lost classic”—I know, writing this, I looked everywhere for my copy of the CD, only to discover it might actually be lost. Does that count? Otherwise, while everything here is perfectly listenable, much of Guts feels like a showcase of the band’s obvious influences that never really congeal into something uniquely their own.
If you’re looking for some bonafides, well, allow me to enlighten you as to why Guts spoke to me. Apparently, Ritchie Blackmore was a big fan and helped get the group signed to Decca. Throw in production duties by Derek Lawrence (Deep Purple, Wishbone Ash) and engineering by a certain Mr. Martin Birch. The band continued to stand out in 1971 with guitarist Rod Alexander’s sweet leads and the fact the lineup featured two lead vocalists—one white, one black.
So, an obscure hard rock act championed by Ritchie Blackmore, produced and engineered by the guys who made some of my favorite records…and that oddly beautiful sleeve, which doesn’t tell you a damn thing about what you’re going to hear. All (potential) music to my ears—so why am I still largely ambivalent?
I think in the end it comes down to how much these songs sound like castoffs from other, better bands. Opener “Nightmare” gives off enormous Cream vibes, while “I’m Still Trying” echoes Overnight Sensation-era Frank Zappa & the Mothers of Invention so much it maybe oughta be a crime (I still love it). There’s a lot of that Wishbone Ash/Uriah Heep boogie blues rock that was popular at the time, and I can hear a lot of what the proto-metal outfits like Grand Funk Railroad and Free were putting out, and it’s just…fine.
When they inject some little progressive melodic lines, it stands out a bit more, like on the Kansas-lite of “Seventeen” and the charging “Wish You’d Never Been Born.” Other than that, I don’t know that I really need Jodo, but for the songs that work, I’ll take it.
That Zappa feel really threw me in a good way.
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