Thursday, February 22, 2007

Golden Avatar: hara krishna rock part 2



Golden Avatar " Change of Hearts LP Jazzy 70s rock with some strings. I guess you could bag on it and call it Godspell like. The vocals remind me of Ed from firehose, but my wife says Will Oldham(which in her world is not a compliment)9 Tracks 1976 on Sudarsharn Records. 2nd track "Questions,Questions" kicks off with some congas and has a decent sax solo. Kinda fusiony. A heavily orchestrated "bhagavad gita" lays out a song length summary of arjuna's struggles. Flute riff is nice. Vocals really have that Ed from Ohio feel and the song veers from feebly symphonic to upliftingly soft rock to steely danish guitar solos. The mid 70s sound is heavy on this record. "Seers of Truth", "You are not that body", and "govinda" are other songs with a more overt nod to Krishna. In fact "you are not that body" has some real tower of power horn stabs and comes the closet to rocking in a kind of overproduced blue oyster cult kind of way (the groove is like "career of evil"). Definitely the highlight track and the only one I would put on a 70s Krishna mixtape.
The record finishes strong with the track "time for going home" with the chorus "going back to godhead". Ill synthesiser solo half way through after which it breaks down into a maha mantra fade out. I guess this would be the 2nd contestant for Krishna
Record is dedicated to his Divine Grace and uses a lot of Krishna graphics, but doesn't seem to be devotees as musicians. Thanks list includes George Harrison, Stevie Wonder, Neil Diamond and John Fahey?? Unique mix. I can't help but picture a bunch of dudes in California wandering through the wreckage of the 60s struggling to figure their lives out and creating this in an effort to sort it out. Not unlike the parents in the movie Valley Girl. I imagine recording sessions cut short for colonics and regression therapy. And even though it is easy to bag on, it has some elements that are endearing. You can tell they are swinging for the fences and that will cause you to strike out as much as hit home runs. That said it is unlikely I will be pulling this out of the crates too often.
This was the 2nd of my mailorder purchases to arrive and based on the music here, I was beginning to doubt the wisdom of this decision to become the leading expert on Krishna Rock, but wait until the next installment when things really start looking up. I am still hoping for the Hara Krishna version of the Black Sabbath, and if there is a Hara Krishan Blue Cheer please let me know ASAP!

I selected the graphics from the inner sleeve for the photos because the front cover was a little heavy on winged fairies (as opposed to the Pink Fairies)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

There is a vedic metal band called Rudra:
http://loadown.blogspot.com/2006/05/rudra-aryan-crusade-2001.html