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Wednesday, October 7, 2009

??!! / History / Zzzzzzzzzzzzz Feedback to the Future: Chicago Transit Authority's "Free Form Guitar"

Posted by Dave Segal on Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 5:09 PM

I've been meaning to tell you this for a while, but it slipped my mind. Perhaps some of you know about it already, but what the hell, here goes: Over a decade before Sonic Youth's Thurston Moore and Lee Ranaldo sculpted their first feedback symphony, Chicago Transit Authority's Terry Kath beat them to the idea with "Free Form Guitar" off 1969's Chicago Transit Authority (I just scored the vinyl for a buck, which is why it's fresh in my mind).

Yeah, the same group that went on to record such dentist-office fluff as "If You Leave Me Now" and "Hard to Say I'm Sorry" were on some proto-Sonic Youth (hell, proto-Glenn Branca and proto-Rhys Chatham, too) shit. Even Jimi Hendrix, whom Kath was homaging with "Free Form Guitar," reportedly thought the CTA axe master was better than he was.

Comments (7) RSS

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Even if much of it is filler, I love all Chicago before Chicago 16. The first one is clearly the best, and this track is one of the reasons.

Posted by mackro

on October 7, 2009 at 8:30 PM

Wouldn't it be perfect with Peter Cetera doing some gutteral screams a la Yamantaka Eye over the top of it? Or Robert Lamm dry-humping a Mellotron? Ah, hindsight.

Posted by Paul Pearson on October 7, 2009 at 9:50 PM

Chicago 5, I think is the one...the one that looks like hardwood floors...is genius. Proggy as HELL. For horn rock tho' I'd still say the first Blood Sweat n Tears LP is whatcha really need!!

Posted by nipper on October 7, 2009 at 9:55 PM

Chicago 7 (the bright golden one) is their last GREAT album... They were always great when doing double albums. from there, they had great moments...again, until 16 (ugh).

let's not ignore the greatness of their rockdisco hits "Alive Again" and "Street Player" (from Hot Streets and Chicago 13 respectively)

it's too bad Cetera went on to perfect douchey wedding fodder. He had (stressing "had") a great singing voice, and his few soft pop songs from the 70s were alright. The true darkness came when the 80s producer came along, make no mistake.

Chicago are probably my favorite band whom most of my acquaintances don't get or like, and that's cool.

It's too bad Terry Kath wasn't a little more careful with the booze and guns in '78... ;_;

Posted by mackro

on October 8, 2009 at 12:45 AM

Actually, Paul, your dream is kinda half realized with the song "A Song For Richard And His Friends" off Live At Carnegie Hall. Too bad it's the only good track on that box set. But you get a lot of Kath's gutteral guitar feedback with the keyboardist pounding on it, and background mutterings of "oh no!" every now and then. It's mostly politiprog, but the inbetween parts are pretty raucous.

Posted by mackro

on October 8, 2009 at 12:51 AM

Oh, that's right mackro! That one's not bad at all. It's like Mingus with teen-protest lyrics, but those Kath tangents are really interesting.

I can't ever listen to Chicago At Carnegie Hall without remembering Lester Bangs' review. "Anybody that tells me that it's not the heaviest album of the year just doesn't know his math."

Posted by Paul Pearson on October 8, 2009 at 1:56 AM