Japrocksampler: Flower Travellin' Band - Anywhere (1971)

Em 1970, o rock japonês, inspirado pelas bandas Surf americanas como The Ventures ou os The Tornados, tinha-se tornado uma anedota de si próprio. Nesta altura, muitas bandas estavam a descobrir e a emular aquilo a que apelidaram de "New Rock" inspiradas por bandas como Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin ou King Krimson. Porém, esta nova página do rock japonês encontrou muitas dificuldades em ser escrita. Na cena japonesa era praticamente impossível encontrar vocalistas que emanassem as mesmas qualidades selváticas de Ian Gillan ou Robert Plant por exemplo. E a energia e força de Keith Moon, Mitch Mitchell ou John Bohnam era impossível de igualar pelos bateristas japoneses, conhecidos pela delicadeza do seu toque.
O "new rock" parecia uma miragem até que "Anywhere", 1º álbum dos Flower Travellin' Band foi editado.



Sobre o álbum, o Cope diz; "Ostensibly a covers album that included versions of such behemoths as '21st Century Schizoid Man', 'Black Sabbath' and 'House of the Rising Sun', ANYWHERE was actually a hugely inventive record. The Sabbath title track was reduced to a proto-Doom crawl more reminiscent of modern bands such as Boris or Reverend Bizarre thn the original by Ozzy'n'Co. Flower's version of '21st Century Schizoid Man' lost its braying King Crimson sax, its prissy snare-led drumming and its la-de-la Greg Lake-in-a-washing-machine-vocal, all replaced by a proto-metal power trio with a demented and shrieking ork on lead vocals. 'House of the Rising Sun' became an entirely different song with new chords and arrangement that placed it firmly on LED ZEPPELIN II. Even better was Flower Travellin' Band's own sixteen-minute-long 'Louisiana Blues', a stunning epic in tradition of the Doors at their most driving (MORRISON HOTEL meets L.A. WOMAN), complete with bottleneck guitars and wailing blue harp courtesy of singer Joe Yamanaka. Here at last was evidence that the japanese could indeed do the hard-rock thing!"

Flower Travellin' Band - Louisiana Blues


Procurem o link do álbum no texto :)