Happy Trails

Recht nerviger Mix aus Country und Jazz. Idee gelungen, Ausführung misslungen.

No idea what was going on here. Sounded like an average high school garage band.

The Good: We are on happy trails!
The Bad: They lead nowhere…
The Ugly: The messenger service wasn’t quick enough…

Not my cup of tea…
The only positive thing I can say about out this is that the album title reminds me of a Godley & Creme song “The Last Page of History”, which is followed by this insanely great song which nobody knows, but I do…

So, thanks to this, I spend a lovely 44 minutes listening to an album which is NOT on the 1001 list, because Mr Dimery seems to think that my life will be better having listened to this crap…

2* for it being music...

Hey guys? Just because you had a good band sesh with the boys doesn't mean you have to put it on a self-congratulatory album, y'know? You can just enjoy the experience in and of itself.

I can only imagine this degree of guitar wankery and aimmless/tedium are far more enjoyable if you’re high on lsd. If there is a redeeming element it is the surprise of discovering what i assume is the original version of Mona, which was covered by Henry from Neighbours in his short lived foray into pop stardom.
Any nostalgia is quickly (more precisely slowly over an excruciating 13 minutes) ground away by Calvary. Ending the album with what sounds like a drunk in a western bar says it all.

I mean.. frankly... what the fuck?

Not as bad as the Liars album, or Trout Mask Replica, which I still hate with a firey passion but this was shit.

1/5

Does meander, but that's kind of the point, and it's still interesting music.

Psychedelic rocker. Glad to hear it for first time. More like this!

I can see this not being everybody’s cup of tea. But as a blues/rock fan, some parts of this album are very enjoyable. Unfortunately a couple of the tracks lost me. But interesting enough for me to be glad to know about this project.

nice

Easy to follow crowd pleasing jam

I prefer their debut album by quite a bit, though critics generally say that it doesn’t capture these essence. Happy Trails is interesting but to me lacks variety and is a more intelligent release. The band had a lineup of significant talent and is always worth a spin.

Atrocious snoozefest

Started ok but finished poorly

Who, when, where, how, which... why????!

I hadn't heard anything about the album or the band before. The first impression from the cover made me expect bad country music. But it wasn't like that. I liked the album. There wasn't anything on it that I absolutely have to hear again. But as a support act at a concert of giants or at a festival, it would certainly have been fun. 3/5

I actually like the opening of this album, but including several tracks of meandering guitar wank and minute long stretches of just noise, really takes away from any illusion that this is a master piece.

I’m not keen on the Grateful Dead, so I was probably never going to enjoy their non-union Mexican equivalent.

I come back from vacation and pausing my activity, and the first album I get is called "Happy Trails". It's funny how such coincidences can happen.

Anyway, I can't say that I've heard of the Quicksilver Messenger Service before. They are a psychedelic rock band that broke big in the San Francisco Bay Area as part of a wave of album-oriented acts that didn't rely on singles to achieve success. This album, in particular, is a compilation of live performances across both Fillmore venues and various studio recordings and overdubs. After giving it a listen, I consider it a decent record, albeit more as a novelty than anything truly innovative.

The focus of this record is on the covers they pulled off, specifically the 25-minute medley of Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love", running through multiple movements of sweeping guitar and bass improvisations. It's technically impressive with the degree to which they played their instruments and came up with new renditions for that song and the other Bo Diddley cover, "Mona". But outside of the group's demonstrated skill on those covers and a few original instrumental compositions that were fine, there isn't much to write home about here. Happy Trails is a solid album for sure, but in the grand scheme of psychedelic rock, I wouldn't consider it that much of a standout. Take that as you will.

Quicksilver Messenger Service's ode to rock-n-roll, i.e., Bo Diddley, is one of the great (live) guitar records of all time, rivaling The Allman Brothers' At Fillmore East. The six-movement suite of Diddley's 'Who Do You Love' affirms the improvisational potential of rock music, but it also testifies to its meat-and-potato edge. Extending a 2:18 classic to 25:22 is risky business, and could easily devolve into messy self-indulgence, but this never does, fortified by an unwavering commitment to Bo's rhythmic signature. This is continued on 'Mona,' another Diddley staple, while the final three tracks are a gorgeous tumble into what Emily Dickinson dubbed 'the letting go.' For music this austere, there's also uplift and relief. Happy trails, indeed.