Here's some wasted, wasted sounding biker rock to welcome the Spring. Phafner's accurately-named "Overdrive" is one of those shockingly rare (50 copies allegedly) private press records I read about on The Acid Archives and immediately hunted down and obsessed over (thanks to the magic of sharity). This is for those days when Blue Cheer sounds too upful, and you need some open-road whiteboy blues blow-outs to help the whiskey down.
These Marshalltown, Iowa natives seem to confirm all my prejudices about the rural midwest, with the opening "Plea From the Soul" being a thrilling slab of smalltown ennui carved out with plenty of distorted solos. Next comes the manic, pounding yet somehow morose "Uncle Jerry", with the same paradoxical upper/downer quality as "Paranoid" or "My War". "Whiskey Got my Woman" is a lumbering blues-rock jam, like "Electric Mud" at 25 RPM, with more Quaalude-addled soloing.
The second half is back to the uptempo/downer-vibed rockers, with the priapic "Rock and Roll Man" choked brilliantly by the barbiturate haze.The intro to "Red Thumb" carries a distant ring of folk rock (probably via Zeppelin III and IV), which then leads back onto the Steppenwolf highway of fuzzed-out abandon. The closing title track is probably the most upbeat tune on the record, with a solid mid-60s garage vibe filtered through the early 70s dream-death prism.
I dunno if this has been reissued, but if it has you should probably buy it.
It has been re-mastered and they are working on new material.
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