Requested Albums: Gipsy River Queen (1979), Smut The Other Half (1979) and Duesenberg Setsuna (1977-1978)

We interrupt the regularly scheduled programming to bring you the previously postponed State of the Union Address.  Here it is:

"It sucks."

Unlike the music here.  From Germany Gipsy's River Queen (aka No. 1), from Japan, the previously unreleased band Duesenberg, and from the States, The Other Half's Smut.  Note that despite the genre descriptors which so often describe this as prog rock for the purposes presumably of hiking up the price of LPs, there is no real progressive content here, but if you're looking for basic hard rock, all 3 albums are great.

The Other Half, hailing from Northwest Ohio, made only one album unfortunately, starting with a long instrumental power chord intro a la Song Remains the Same (I mean the song, from Led Zep's 5th album) and an exposition of the, presumably imaginary here, debauched life of the rock star, the energy never lets up all the way through to the end.  From the second track (title track Smut), the wonderful line stuck out for me:
"she never liked tractors, so they call her a hoe..."
which probably couldn't be used in hip hop today due to its archaic reference...
I guess they fancied themselves wonderful lyricists, because on closer listen, the following 'poem:'

I like little pussy
her coat is so warm
and if I don't hurt her
she'll do me no harm
etc.

Finally, they don't quite escape the influence of the big progressive spirit of the seventies, either that or they couldn't resist the creative insanity of the drugs they were taking (as my wife would say) with one track (Animal Crackers) featuring some really nifty chords and a funky-ass bassline covering some very unusual rifferific territory:





Reminding me a lot of the Edgar Winter's Animals track.

Ave Caesar, Rock-ituri te salutant !!