Happy Trails

One of a million bands from the 60s psych wave, but on the trippier acid jams side more than the garage rock side. This all starts with a basic blues groove on the Bo Diddley beat and a chugging choogle from the rhythm guitar backing a heap of noodle from the lead guitar, who has the classic psych sound: sticking to blues scales but delivering a deliciously nasty tone from a fuzzy SG through a loud amp, modulated with wammy, wah wah and a whirling Wurlitzer. The bass is the best bit though, ripping jazzy walking lines with a rock swagger. The jams rise and fall and move through a few segments with tonal and stylistic shifts until it disintegrates into a sparse feedback and noise jam before coming back as a rave up. I'm as predisposed as can be to enjoy this sort of thing and only found it only fine. Maybe more accessible but way less exciting than the same year's Live/Dead which does the dark spacey psych and the rave blues both way better. Mainstays of the San Francisco scene, I think they're very much a you had to be there kind of band, eclipse by their contemporaries.

Favorite: Cavalry

I get the feeling I’m not supposed to like this based on other peoples’ reactions, but oh well!

4/5

"Happy Trails", le deuxième opus de Quicksilver Messenger Service, sorti en 1969 et enregistré en grande partie en concert, est souvent cité parmi les reliques importantes de l'ère psychédélique de San Francisco.

Après un écoute attentive – voir une deuxième si on a le courage de s'infliger une telle épreuve plus d'une fois – cet album se révèle être une expérience particulièrement ardue, un monument qui finit par lasser plus qu'il ne fascine.

Le principal problème de "Happy Trails" réside dans sa structure même. Conçu comme une longue suite live occupant la majorité de l'album, avec le fameux "Who Do You Love? Suite" s'étalant sur plus de 25 minutes, l'oeuvre sombre rapidement dans une démonstration de virtuosité certes présente, mais terriblement vaine. Les guitares de John Cipollina et Gary Duncan s'entremêlent, s'étirent, vibrent et trémulent à l'infini, mais sans jamais réellement construire quelque chose de mémorable ou d'engageant sur la durée. On assiste à un déballage technique, une sorte de compétition interne où chaque musicien semble vouloir prouver son endurance, oubliant au passage l'auditeur qui, lui, décroche bien avant la fin du premier quart d'heure.

Ce qui aurait pu être l'énergie brute et captivante d'un concert se transforme ici en une bouillie sonore interminable. Les jams s'éternisent sans véritable direction, tournant en rond sur des motifs répétitifs qui finissent par user la patience la mieux trempée. On a l'impression d'entendre les mêmes phrases musicales revenir encore et encore, légèrement variées, mais jamais transcendées. L'effet hypnotique recherché se mue en une torpeur pesante, un sentiment d'être piégé dans une boucle temporelle où la fin du morceau semble une délivrance inaccessible.

Le choix de reprendre le "Who Do You Love?" de Bo Diddley comme pièce maîtresse, pour ensuite le déconstruire et le réassembler en une multitude de segments aux noms ésotériques ("When You Love", "Where You Love", "How You Love", "Which Do You Love", "Who Do You Love - Part 2"), aurait pu être une idée audacieuse. Malheureusement, l'exécution manque cruellement de concision et d'impact. Les transitions sont souvent laborieuses, et l'ensemble peine à maintenir un semblant de cohérence narrative ou émotionnelle. On passe d'un segment à l'autre avec l'espoir d'un regain d'intérêt, mais cet espoir est systématiquement douché par une nouvelle démonstration de guitares bavardes et peu inspirées.

La deuxième face, avec des titres comme "Mona" (une autre composition de Bo Diddley, étirée elle aussi) et le "Calvary" instrumental, ne parvient pas à redresser la barre. "Mona" souffre des mêmes maux que la suite précédente : une longueur excessive et un manque de substance mélodique qui rendent l'écoute fastidieuse. "Calvary", bien que plus structuré et possédant une ambiance cinématographique western intéressante, arrive trop tard et ne suffit pas à sauver l'ensemble du naufrage. Il offre une couleur différente, certes, mais après avoir enduré la première face, la fatigue auditive est telle que l'on peine à l'apprécier à sa juste valeur. On se surprend à regarder le temps restant sur le lecteur, espérant la fin de ce qui ressemble davantage à un test d'endurance qu'à une expérience musicale enrichissante.

On pourrait arguer que cet album est le pur produit de son époque, où l'expérimentation et l'improvisation étaient reines. D'autres groupes de la même période, comme le Grateful Dead, ont également produit des œuvres live foisonnantes et improvisées. Cependant, chez ces derniers, on trouvait souvent une âme, une construction, une sorte de magie collective qui justifiait les longues plages instrumentales. Avec "Happy Trails", cette magie opère rarement. On reste sur le quai, observant un train de musiciens qui s'amusent entre eux, sans véritablement nous inviter à bord.

L'album est donc un témoignage d'une certaine scène, d'une certaine approche de la musique live, mais en tant qu'objet discographique destiné à une écoute domestique, il rate largement sa cible. Il est l'archétype de l'album que l'on respecte pour son statut historique plus qu'on ne l'aime pour ses qualités intrinsèques. Il est long, oui, désespérément long. Et chiant, pour quiconque recherche un minimum de structure, de mélodie accrocheuse ou simplement d'efficacité dans la transmission d'une émotion.

En conclusion, "Happy Trails" est une pièce de musée sonore qui a mal vieilli et qui termine avec la note de 1 sur 5.

The first song on the album was a rendition of Bo Diddley's Who Do You Love (a 25 minute rendition, broken down into 6 parts). Overall, a mid psychadelic rock album. Founded in good music, but the acid takes a hold of them a few times. I will say, I like their version of Who Do You Love way more than George Thorogood's

Favorite songs: Who Do You Love - Pt. 1, Mona

Least favorite songs: Where Do You Love

2/5

It was ok, but it didn't make me go crazy about it.

Album art completely threw me. This is exactly the type of surprise I was looking for from the generator. I had never heard of Quicksilver Messenger Service and glad I now have. Great record. Shocked to learn it was live. Could be seen as self-indulgent jam session though. 3.5/5. Adjusting up to a 4.

Brilliant for 3/4 of the album but it really started to drag towards the end. Such a pity, shave 10 minutes off of this and it would’ve been in my overall Top 10

This was ok, just kind of long feeling. 3/5

This isn't for me. I like songs on my albums, not a singular song or two that take entire sides of just jamming. I'm sure it's good, but it's not for me.

This was quite good. Hadn't heard of the band before, have added them to my library, and will definitely be listening again

4

I’m at a 4.5 that I’ll surprisingly bump up to a 5.

From the album cover, I sort of assumed we’d get country music, and I was dead wrong – this is psychedelic rock, recorded seemingly live, and as such, I think there was a slight collective PTSD from that endlessly long and rather drab Grateful Dead album we got a while ago. Not a bad album, mind you, but a really fucking boring one. It did not help that the first 6 tracks of this are a 25 minute setpiece riffing on one track.

Thank the good lord above that these guys know how to make 25 minutes actually sound captivating – I actually really, really enjoyed the opening suite that starts this album. It is just one long extended riff on a track, and therefore, maybe the longest cover I’ve ever heard, but they do a great job of keeping it fresh. It certainly helps that each little changeup is its own track here, to keep those changes really obvious, and to stop it from *feeling* like a 25 minute slog. Each individual segment does have its own vibe, and I really, really enjoyed “When You Love” in particular, just for being totally eerie as hell, especially when the audience noises come in.

Mona is fine. It’s sort of Hendrix-y, but a bit too lowkey, without being fully in harmony, & it doesn’t really get its own conclusion, which threw me off. It is part of another 3-track set though, and Mona’s shortcomings are quickly resolved by both “Maiden of the Cancer Moon” & “Calvary”, which both really clicked for me. The former feels very Hendrix-y, even with how short it is – it finds the harmonization between everyone and the energy that “Mona” doesn’t. Calvary is a remarkably strong 13-minute track that has a really nice, building, swirling structure reminiscent of Western movies and militaristic soundscapes, before sort of settling into a more serene & ethereal tone for its final 5 minutes – a calm after the storm, if you will.

I would’ve ended the album there, mainly because the Happy Trails cover falls flat on its face as a final track after all that, but regardless… I dunno, I really enjoyed this. This is, at its very basic core, just 50 minutes of a jam session, but it does feel infinitely better than that Grateful Dead album that we all had a bit of an ick towards, and I’m just glad they’re flexing their technical chops in a more fulfilling way that doesn’t feel self-serving and pretentiously artsy. It’s probably no less than a 3 – I think the people giving this a 1 or a 2 on the site either have no patience for these sorts of albums, or they just really did not pay enough attention to care about the little details that I found captivating. Realistically, it’s definitely not a flat 5, since it does have a little bit too much empty air at times, but I feel no shame in giving it the bump; I liked it a lot, and for 1969, I think this is about as good as you can ask for in terms of “50 minute jam session” albums.

Nah.

I don't really know what to think about this. Sid one is a long jam on Bo Diddly's "Who Do You Love," and it has some fun moments. Overall I was far more irritated than inspired. The little guitar experiments - harmonic tapping, scraping the string, etc. - just annoying sonically. "Cavalry" was rhythmically inventive but, like the rest of the album, lacks energy.

Noodling. Self-indulgent and doesn't add any value to the song.

I guess this is then the perfect template for every country-rock flavored jam band that came after, so, good job?

This felt less fully formed as an album than just a live recording of a concert. It sounds like it would be a good time and the jamming was pretty good, but as an album experience it was relatively weak. The Who Do You Love Suite had both good and meh moments. When You Love and Which Do You Love I really liked, but I didn’t care for Where You Love.

Jazzy vibes, but didnt really work for me

Happy Trails is a decent little album. This album does seem to go for a country sound for some of it despite the album mainly being psych rock and i think it sounds good here. The guitars themselves were really well handled and generally had some cool riffs and leads. However, the main issue with this album is one word, repetition. This album mostly consists of the same type of sound throughout and while it does sound good, with it's 50 minute runtime, it could get pretty tiring to listen to after a while. Despite that, this album is still a decent one that i don't regret listening to.
Best Song: Who Do You Love
Worst Song: Where You Love

Kind of a trip if you can stick with it.

Psychedelic rock is growing on me. This was a decent listen, although not terribly different from track to track.

Unfocused guitar noodling. Random noises. God save us from late sixties San Francisco jam bands. If I could give this less than one star, I would.

Not as bad as I thought it was going to be . Almost enjoyed it