Show #158: Masters of Reality

April 20th, 2008

I’ve been wanting to post a show by Masters of Reality for some time but haven’t found any recordings of sufficient quality until recently. Everything was a poor audience recording but now I’ve gotten a hold of a decent one as well as an FM broadcast. Better late than never, I suppose.

I more or less discovered MoR by accident. It was 1988 or ‘89 and I was a high schooler perusing the shelves at my local record store when I spied their debut eponymous album.

Being a fan of Black Sabbath I figured that that was where MoR got their name and figured I’d give them a try. Besides, the album cover was really cool. When I finally listened to it, the influence of the Sabs was minor in comparison to that of Led Zeppelin and Cream. It was hard rock with a blues influence, but it wasn’t very pronounced. There were no Muddy Waters covers; just good rock. The guitar riffs were muscular & catchy and the drumming kept things moving straight ahead with nary a hint of John Bonham nor Ginger Baker to be had. Drummer Vinnie Ludovico was more reminiscent of Charlie Watts. Googe held down the bottom end on bass, Tim Harrington played lead guitar, and Chris Goss added his guitar and voice. Goss and Harrington co-wrote the songs. Goss’ voice was really the oddest thing here. There was no screaming nor moaning. His tenor was smooth and seemed to float above the churning music as it churned along.

MoR disappeared for a while but returned in 1992 while I was in college with Sunrise on the Sufferbus. Only Goss and Googe remained from the first album. However, no one less than Ginger Baker was behind the drums. The Masters were Goss’ baby now as he had the bulk of the songwriting credits. Sunrise also showed something new musically. There were guitar riffs aplenty but they were a little more bluesy, less insistent. And Baker added a bit of swing to their sound while. In addition to the hard rock, Goss contributed some softer, more melodic tunes such as “Jody Sings” and “Rolling Green” which were more akin to The Beatles than Cream.

Baker would part ways with the band and be replaced by Victor Indrizzo. The band recorded their third album, The Ballad of Jody Frosty, in 1994 only to have their record company reject it. While a bit more than half the album would find its way onto subsequent albums, Goss put the band on hold for a few years. A new MoR album didn’t see the light of day until 1999. In the meantime Goss started producing the likes of Queens of the Stone Age and Kyuss.

(Photo found here.)

This week’s show is from 4 December 2001 by which time the band was essentially Goss with a revolving door of co-conspirators. This is a good-sounding recording of the band’s performance at the Roadburn Festival in Tilburg, Holland. Be warned: there is clipping to be had, unfortunately. Not sure who bumped the levels up so high.

Setlist:

Deep In The Hole
Third Man On The Moon
Doraldina’s Prohpecies
Also Ran Song
Rabbit One
Time To Fly – Blue Garden
VHV
Why The Fly
John Brown

Download show

Masters of Reality

Here’s “Blue Garden” from a couple years earlier in 1999.

Related posts:

1. Review: The Dynamics – First Landing
2. Show #84: Running Down the Voodoo
3. Review: The Treats – Reservoir Tales
4. Show #114: Groundhogs Day
5. Show #54: Neko Case