Mid-ranking American band who put a couple of albums out on Elektra Records in the early seventies. Their best known song, Get Back, hit the lower level of the Singles Billboard Chart in 1970 but I prefer these two, the second and third songs from their self-titled debut album of the same year.
The first, The Other Side, is reminiscent of Big Star before the event, a name that seems to be coming up here as a reference point on the blog recently. It indicates what a prevalent sound that romantic mix of strummed guitars and yearning vocals, drawing most obviously on the legacy of McCartney's Beatles songs, was for the early part of the seventies. Catherine the track that follows, on the album and here, hits a similar spot.
Strangely, Lester Bangs, writing for Rolling Stone at this point, was very taken with them. He called the album 'as satisfying a definition of a mainstream rock band as we've had this year.' 'He goes on to describe it as 'nearly faultless... communicates the vitality of American youth and American music.' I wouldn't go that far as to my ears the record dips slightly towards the close but the album does have a likable, dependable, good-time feel to it. Their second record, Rotten to the Core, offered slightly diminished returns both critically and commercially and the band was gone within a couple of years.
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