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Iron Butterfly: Live at the Galaxy 1967
Iron Butterfly Live at the Galaxy 1967 CD Album Review

Iron Butterfly: Live at the Galaxy 1967

Classic Heavy/Psychedelic Rock
3.5/5.0

Long before there was classic progressive rock, English or otherwise, or modern prog rock, even shoegaze music, there was the psychedelic rock of the Sixties. Iron Butterfly was one of the seminal bands offering their twisted, heavy and psyched out melodic rock.

Iron Butterfly Live at the Galaxy 1967 Band Photo

Iron Butterfly: circa 1967.

If you mention Iron Butterfly, most people remember only one thing: In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida (baby). I remember the buzz around elementary school when we heard that a local AM radio station was going play the full song, not the radio edit, mind you, at midnight. We all stayed up late that night. But the band was doing things before that album (and afterwards as well which mostly sucked).

Live at the Galaxy 1967 represents a time prior to that legendary album, even before they were signed to Atlantic Records. They did a three month stint at the venue, only a few doors down from Whiskey. Here the band was pumping out their thumping sound laced with fuzzed out, psychedelic, guitars and whirling spaced out organs. Generally, the songs were largely instrumental; if there were words, on this recording, you can barely hear them. Butterfly's music was essentially organized improvisation to smoke reefer to. They were the psyched out alternative side to Hippie brethren Grateful Dead's folk, rock, and blues groove to smoke even more reefer to. Eventually, with visits from Eric Clapton, Jimi Hendrix, and Jimmy Page at the venue, these shows got the band signed, and the rest, well, you know.

Ultimately, this album is going to find it's place either as a diehard Iron Butterfly fan's must have album or as an historical artifact for the music collector, a snapshot of a seminal time, the beginnings of proto-metal or progressive rock. Either way, if, in your locale, you're permitted to roll your own bone of medicinal marijuana, then you can slip on your bell-bottom pants, don your tie-dyed shirt, and psych out to Iron Butterfly live.




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In Short

If, in your locale, you're permitted to roll your own bone of medicinal marijuana, then you can slip on your bell-bottom pants, don your tie-dyed shirt, and psych out to Iron Butterfly live.

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