1975 Catch Up “Vol. 1” on Calig

Well, it’s not Krautrock, more like K-Fusion in a Berlin Herbie sort of way, but is still pretty fun. The congas (Hans Herbst) add a nice side element, and it’s all originals except for the pretty unbearable “Spinning Wheel”. Hey, you know what, Euro Jazz dudes from the seventies? NO ONE wants to hear jazz covers of Blood, Sweat, & Tears. I know this for a variety of reasons, one of which is that I took my mother to a BS&T concert many years ago as she was a big fan, so I am intimately familiar with their schtick. On the whole it wasn’t bad. David Clayton Thomas, the singer, was amusingly gargantuan and had a winking grin thing going on with the blushing housewives in the audience throughout the show, sort of like the Chris Farley version of Tom Jones. Blood’s tunes are pretty lite mayo in a mildly country-bluesy AM radio pop sort of way, but there’s hooks galore and some solid horn arrangements and I really didn’t mind it at all. The great thing about aging bands playing to aging audiences is that they start at 7:01 for a 7pm show, and have the set list of hits + encore nailed and wrapped by 8:20, tops. I had mom in bed by 10. Anyway, what do you want me to say about Catch Up? It’s totally solid and pretty groovy jazzy funk that you can headphones-boogie along with the Rhodes solos to, but lacks the real inspiration of the Headhunter it so aspires to be. Charley Antolini is tight on drums, while Max Greger Jr. handles piano, electric piano, organ, Mellotron, and Moog. I sort of feel like Max would have been better off with less options. Milan Pilar on bass doesn’t really make his presence known in a significant way, but he’s fine keeping time. I guess I’ve tried to cull this one now and again over the years, but ended up keeping it. "Blues For The Kaiser" is definitely the moneycut!