Montrose - Montrose

OK, this one really is a guilty pleasure. I know that it is over-the-top silly and clichéd, and any band with Sammy Hagar is mighty suspicious, but coming at a time when radio stations played pure crap and glam was still in its infancy and punk hadn’t yet reared its anarchistic head, anything with guitars this heavy was worth owning!

Ronnie Montrose had played in Edgar Winter’s band previous to this – and was featured on his hit, “Frankenstein” – when he gathered the then-unknown Hagar and a rhythm section and created this heavy metal excess. The man could really play guitar and came up with enough rockin’ riffs to keep 70’s rock kids more than satisfied.

This is pure, relatively dumb, hard rock with no apologies, no sophistication, no subtlety, but plenty of heavy metal attitude. Silly lyrics abound, such as “Bad Motor Scooter”, “Rock Candy” (“hot, sweet and sticky”) and “One Thing on My Mind”. Ronnie does give a nod to his influences with “Good Rockin’ Tonight”, but overall this is the type of music that punk rock was rebelling against (but I was still listening to)!

Still, for those who dig simple, 70’s riff-rock, this is a fairly over-looked but still good example.