Introduction

OT 'N' SWEATY (1972)
1) Swim; 2) Bad Mother Boogie; 3) Our Lil Rock'n'Roll Thing; 4) Bad Stuff; 5) Bringing Me Down; 6) Bedroom Mazurka; 7) Telling You; 8) Underneath The Arches.
If you thought this could not get any worse, you were wrong. By 1972, all that remained of the former spiny glory of Cactus was the Bogert-Appice rhythm section, yet somehow this did not deflate their ambitions — and the «band» plowed on, recruiting new guitarist Werner Fritz­schings (I'm sure everybody must have called him Wiener Schnitzel out of desperation, but who'd ever acknowledge that?), an extra keyboardist (Duane Hitchings) and a new vocalist called Peter French, who'd apparently done a short stint in Atomic Rooster before that, but was largely hired because it's kinda hard to distinguish his bawl from Rusty Day's bawl.
The new lineup persisted well into 1972, eventually releasing this album, a total mess whose only appeal is in how many things go wrong at once (sometimes intentionally). The first side was taken from a live show in Puerto Rico, either because the band did not have enough new studio material or, more probably, because it was high time to demonstrate the Live Power of the Migh­ty Cactus — which, next to a Live At Leeds or a Made In Japan, honestly gives the impression of a deeply drunk Little John with a quarterstaff against a pack of knights in full armor. Not that you wouldn't shed a tear at the fate of the kind fellow with his good motives and all, but a no-win situation is a no-win situation, especially considering that Cactus do not try to do anything except demonstrate sheer brutal boogie power. They cover ʻLet Me Swimʼ from their first record, and then they do two half-improvisatory pieces of boogie, and it hardly matters where they stop and where they start; all that matters is the lumpy dinosaurish swagger, for 17 minutes.
On the second side, they get off to a decent start with ʻBad Stuffʼ, a riff-based blues-rocker with a bit of real bite provided by the scrunchy guitar/bass tones — and if Skynyrd's ʻI Ain't The Oneʼ was not influenced by ʻLet Me Swimʼ after all, then it couldn't have been not influenced by this one at least — the verse melodies are practically identical. But even if we agree that ʻBad Stuffʼ is a bit of a good influence, then ʻBringing Me Downʼ is this band's totally non-sequitur take on rootsy soulfulness, with sentimental keyboards, gospel harmonies, and ecstatic lead vocals, as if the ghost of Leon Russell suddenly visited them in their sleep, or maybe they were inspired by one of Joe Cocker's Mad Dogs & Englishmen shows or something. I cannot even honestly state that this is a bad song — it is simply hard to take seriously, sitting there all alone among their drunken antics. The next two songs safely bring us back to more familiar, less shocking, but quickly forgettable territory, although at least ʻBedroom Mazurkaʼ is kind of a special song title (no musical references to Chopin, though — imagine that).
The best thing I can say about the album, and the band in particular, is that the All-Music Guide describes the style of the record as «rambunctious», «rowdy», «celebratory», «boisterous», «freewheeling», «brash», «rousing», «aggressive», «rollicking», «confident», «raucous», and «energetic», and every word of it is absolutely true, so if these are your core values in listening to music, 'Ot 'N' Sweaty should be a pre-defined masterpiece. Maybe with just an extra pinch of melodic invention, subtlety, or individuality, it could even have been a half-decent record. As it is, I think I'll just stick to my Get Yer Ya-Ya's Out — the Stones may not have been so loud and «boisterous» on stage as these guys, but they went out there to play actual songs, rather than simply demonstrate how good they were at generating «rambunctiousness». Thumbs down.
CACTUS V (2006)
1) Doin' Time; 2) Muscle & Soul; 3) Cactus Music; 4) The Groover; 5) High In The City; 6) Day For Night; 7) Living For Today; 8) Shine; 9) Electric Blue; 10) Your Brother's Keeper; 11) Blues For Mr. Day; 12) Part Of The Game; 13) Gone Train Gone; 14) Jazzed.
Look who's back. Seeing as how the 2000s are so totally open to everything, and how there were plenty of youngster bands around playing heavy Seventies-style music, Bogert, Appice, and Jim McCarty came back together — not just for some nostalgic touring, but to record new music as well, with the same old swagger as if the thirty years in between never happened. Of course, the original vocalist was murdered in the interim (Rusty Day was shot to death in 1982 by some drug dealers), but they hire a new one, Jimmy Hunes, who sounds almost exactly like Rusty — and the band plays on precisely the same way that it used to.
Of course, it also sucks precisely the same way that it used to: the fourteen songs recorded here all share the same classic aesthetics — loud, bulgy, brawny, perfect for a dinner party that also involves some mudwrestling and some TV-tossing. The old boys in the rhythm section have not lost a bit of that old power, the guitarist tosses out the same old derivative leaden blues-rock riffs and screechy blueswailin' solos, and the vocalist... well, I do believe he got the contract only under the condition that he'd exclusively do the things that Rusty used to do. Oh, and they also have an additional member on harmonica — Randy Pratt, usually playing with the New-York based Lizards, another one of «those» bands that I mentioned in the last paragraph.
Amusingly, I do not feel nearly as bored by this record as I was by all the other Cactus records (except maybe for the first one). There's a humorous side to some of the tunes, including a rather tongue-in-cheek fast boogie anthem to themselves (ʻCactus Musicʼ); a couple of the songs, like ʻYour Brother's Keeperʼ, are pleasantly funky, mildly reminiscent of classic Aerosmith (who themselves owed a certain debt to Cactus originally); the last track almost borders on artistic-ex­perimental (the instrumental ʻJazzedʼ, which does not have much to do with jazz, but is an inven­tive synthesis of metal and funk, with a whole bunch of riffs from both genres spliced together, sometimes to cool effect); and a few of the vocal melodies are even catchy in a way — ʻMuscle And Soulʼ makes me want to sing along, as does ʻDoin' Timeʼ.
The biggest flaw of the record is its length — sure it's been a long time, but no time is long enough to make anybody want to sit through a whole sixty minutes of «Cactus music», especially when it includes one too many superslow blues tunes (ʻDay For Nightʼ — why don't you leave this kind of stuff to Buddy Guy?) or power-chord based anthemic screechers (ʻShineʼ). The tiny acoustic tribute to the late Rusty Day is a nice gesture, but unless you are well acquainted with the situation, it's just an extra minute and a half of generic blues plucking. And did they really have to bring back the ʻHow Many More Yearsʼ groove for yet another faceless try (ʻThe Groo­verʼ)? All these numbers are completely expendable.
Okay, so the entire album is expendable, but at least if you really loved the old Cactus, there is no reason for you to stay away from the new (old) Cactus — in terms of consistency and stubborn­ness, the record gets an A++, easy. I do thank them, however, for staying away from the studio ever since, even if as a touring outfit they seemed to be active at least as late as 2012.
BLACK DAWN (2016)
1) Black Dawn; 2) Mama Bring It Home; 3) Dynamite; 4) Juggernaut; 5) Headed For A Fall; 6) You Need Love; 7) The Last Goodbye; 8) Walk A Mile; 9) Another Way Or Another; 10) C-70 Blues.
SET FIRE TO THE NIGHT! BRING ON THE BLACK DAWN! SET FIRE TO THE NIGHT! BRING ON THE BLACK DAWN! Hmm, not a bad message for the last day of 2016. The song's lyrical message mostly has to do with ecology, but it does not take a great leap of imagination to give it an overall apocalyptic interpretation — ecology, economy, politics, whatever — and with that opening near-thrash metal riff, this is one heck of an apocalyptic tune, far heavier than any­thing on Cactus V or, for that matter, pretty much anything this band ever put out in its prime. Simple, brutal, tense, melodic, and catchy, it's, like, the perfect song to summarize 2016, and the only question is: how come it had to take a band like Cactus, of all people, to bring it out?
Particularly since I was hasty enough to thank this new line-up for staying away from the studio — which they did for ten years, but the temptation to say something new must have been too hard, and here they are again, with the notable exclusion of Tim Bogert, still present on two of the tracks but essentially replaced by new bass player Pete Bremy, who currently performs the honors for both the resuscitated Cactus and Vanilla Fudge. In situations like these, you can never really guess the odds, but there is always a higher-than-zero chance that the musical revenant will hit upon something vital, and Black Dawn at least makes sure to correct certain mistakes that were committed with their previous comeback effort. Namely, it is shorter, which always helps with one-trick ponies like Cactus; it is heavier, which always helps with brawny bastards like Cactus; and it is more riff-centered, which always helps with anybody in the hard rock business.
That still does not make it any sort of masterpiece, but throw in some fast tempos (the band really sounds on a high energy kick here) to complete the picture and somehow, defying all expecta­tions, this 21st century Cactus ends up with their best studio album ever — in forty-six years, that is. No other track has the same level of intensity as ʽBlack Dawnʼ, probably the first and last Cactus song that I might actually be tempted to take seriously, but ʽHeaded For A Fallʼ is a fast-going, fun-loving romp, sewing on a poppier chorus to a riff that feels like a variation on AC/DC's ʽWhole Lotta Rosieʼ; ʽYou Need Loveʼ honors the legacy of Rod Stewart's ʽYou're My Girlʼ, with similar stuttering exciting interplay between the guitars and the drums; and ʽMama Bring It On Homeʼ is an exercise in copping the precision and tightness of the New Wave of Heavy Metal-era bands like Judas Priest, though McCarty still cannot resist the temptation of drowning everything in excessive thick distortion.
The slower, bluesier tracks are predictably less impressive, although ʽC-70 Bluesʼ is probably as close as they come to recapturing the absurdly feedback-choked sonic textures of their early slow blues — completely impossible to distinguish, in fact, from the way they used to play in 1970, right down to the most minute details of the drum patterns. The acoustic guitars are brought out only once (ʽAnother Way Or Anotherʼ) as an element of contrast to the aggressive wah-wah guitar; and the album's other instrumental piece, ʽThe Last Goodbyeʼ, is a life-threatening blues jam that takes the Beatles' ʽI Want Youʼ as a reference model, with similar doom-laden descen­ding chord sequences and hell-borne hystrionic solos on top — slow, but still fun.
All in all, Black Dawn seems to succeed where its predecessor failed; and it does so, first and foremost, because Cactus have no high standards to match — where something like Black Sab­bath's 13 sounds like such a tremendous disappointment because it aims at bringing back the magic of 1970 and fails, Cactus had no «magic» to begin with, and it is far easier for them not only to bring back the atmosphwere of their 1970, but even to top it, provided they show some discipline and capitalize on their strongest points. And they do. And, as the title track shows, they clearly have a bone to pick with society today, and it helps, too: at least in the studio, they never really used to sound as pissed off as they do on some of the tracks here. Not that this signals a rebirth for classic hard rock or anything (I've long given up believing in «rebirths» anyway), but it is a good hard rock record, the likes of which in 2016 you can only encounter among living fossils like these. Thumbs up.
ADDENDA
FULLY UNLEASHED: THE LIVE GIGS (2004)
CD I: 1) Intro/Long Tall Sally; 2) Bag Drag; 3) Evil; 4) Parchman Farm; 5) Alaska; 6) Oleo; 7) No Need To Worry; 8) Let Me Swim.

CD II: 1) Big Mama Boogie; 2) Heeby Jeebies/Money/Hound Dog/What'd I Say; 3) No Need To Worry; 4) Parch­man Farm; 5) One Way... Or Another; 6) Bro. Bill; 7) Swim; 8) Bad Mother Boogie; 9) Our Lil' Rock'n'Roll Thing; 10) Bedroom Mazurka.

Okay, as absurd as it may sound, this almost comes close to a great album. See, even though by and large Cactus totally sucked as a studio band with an obligation to come up with original songs and shit, live they could, indeed, get «fully unleashed». The live side of 'Ot 'n' Sweaty never did proper justice to their capacities — not only because it already lacked the original gui­tarist, but also because there were physical limits on the length of the tracks that downplayed their jamming skills. However, with this sprawling 2-CD mammoth, presenting an entire 2-hour long show (the original lineup's last gig at Memphis, Tennessee, on December 19, 1971) plus an assorted selec­tion of other live tracks (including, for some reason, the entire live half of 'Ot 'n' Sweaty as well!), Rhino Records have made the nearly impossible — made me re-appreciate the band's talent and re-assess their status.
Formally, the classic Cactus line-up on stage did not do much of anything that they did not do on the studio records, except stretching out the songs (sometimes to really absurd, Zep-worthy lengths: ʻNo Need To Worryʼ goes on for 20 minutes, all solos included). But either they really went out on a limb that night, trying to make their last show as memorable as possible, or, if that was their usual style, then it must be assumed that (not unlike quite a few other hard rock bands) they held back in the studio, whereas on stage all four players, all the time, tried to be louder, wilder, more frantic and hysterical than anybody else. It does not get much better than on the opening ʻLong Tall Sallyʼ — in the studio, slowing down the Little Richard original never made sense, but here you won't even have to remember that this is a Little Richard original. It's not at all important what this is in the first place! That is, as long as the guitarist guts his guitar like a screeching pig, the bassist lays it on so thick you'd think he had steel cables for strings, the drum­mer pounds like Bonham's younger brother, and the vocalist knows no other mode than ripping his voice to shreds (and he still has something left by the end of the 2-hour show).
Essentially, this is pre-Spinal Tap-era, «everything up to eleven»-style stuff, but this is precisely how they manage to add excitement to their generally clumsy-lumbering manner of playing. In the studio, their Godzilla just wandered around, mindlessly bumping into corners, but here, it actually breathes fire and demolishes skyscrapers, sometimes at a frantic pace (despite the pre­sence of some super-slow blues, the overall pace of the show is much quicker than the average pace of any of their studio records). Check out the final wild romp of ʻBig Mama Boogieʼ, or ʻParchman Farmʼ, or McCarty's feedback stunts at the end of ʻLet Me Swimʼ — crude, tasteless, brainlessly violent, and perversely awesome.
Of course, nearly three hours of material is overkill, but the re-release of the Puerto Rican mate­rial from 1972 really does not count, and an extra live ʻParchman Farmʼ is quite welcome. And I suppose that Cactus cannot be appreciated any other way than in «total sprawl» mode: anything less than completely-over-the-top and killer boredom sets in. But frankly, I am really surprised at how much I enjoyed most of these 15-to-20-minute live tracks — even the medley of rock'n'roll oldies, although it is performed in the silly-lumpy-glammy way that most people were doing them in the early Seventies (think Uriah Heep or Queen), is appealing in their unsophisticated, unpretentiously rustic mode of performance. Even that ultra-slow ʻNo Need To Worryʼ: the guitar solo that McCarty plays at the beginning is so utterly ridiculous, it must have served as a basic inspiration for all introductory solos by Angus Young.
In brief, if you do want to hear Cactus, this is the album to hear, and the most ridiculous thing is that we all had to wait more than thirty years to hear it. Not that it could have withstood compe­tition with Live At Leeds or Made In Japan, had it been released in 1972 as a triple live LP, but I'm fairly sure it could have endured at least as a cult classic. Anyway, even if the music is dumb, I still love me an album that pulls all the stops, and on December 19, 1971, these guys were on some rich barbecue fire, so a thumbs up, by all means. As far as I know, there's also a sequel out there (Live Gigs Vol. 2), but since the material predictably overlaps, Vol. 1 is everything a sane music listener really needs from these guys.

THE CAKE

THE CAKE (1967)
1) Baby That's Me; 2) World Of Dreams; 3) You Can Have Him; 4) Medieval Love; 5) Fire Fly; 6) Rainbow Wood; 7) I Know; 8) Mockingbird; 9) Ooh Poo Pah Doo; 10) Stand By Me; 11) What'd I Say.
Could there possibly be such a thing as «nostalgia for 1964» in 1967? Even if there could not, it is hard to believe these days that The Cake, an all-girl group established in New York around 1966, was not intentionally going against the current trends and sticking to the old ways of The Ronettes and other Spector-related bands, at a time when white ladies were beginning to opt for various kinds of change (the Mamas & Papas model, the Grace Slick model, the Janis model, the Joni Mitchell model — quite a bit of choice out there).
Anyway, it is hard to tell to which extent Jeanette Jacobs, Barbara Morillo, and Eleanor Baroo­shian were their own creations and to which extent they were molded and marketed by their managers, Charles Greene and Brian Stone (same ones who originally took care of Sonny & Cher) — but one thing is clear: this album sets out to prove that it is perfectly possible to provide Spec­torian music without Spector himself being involved, and comes fairly close to proving it. The girls' vocals, once they all come together, are astoundingly similar to The Ronettes, and the ar­rangements, recorded at the same Gold Star Studios where Spector did most of his work and handled by a large chunk of the Wrecking Crew, reproduce the wall-of-sound to perfection.
The first side of the album is, in fact, as close to girl-group-pop perfection as could theoretically be. The first two songs were written specially for the band — ʽBaby That's Meʼ by Jack Nitzsche and Jackie DeShannon, and ʽWorld Of Dreamsʼ by Dr. John: big, pompous, sunny, friendly anthems that should be part of any Sixties' lovers' collection, period (even if ʽBaby That's Meʼ shamelessly steals vocal moves from ʽDon't Worry Babyʼ, and ʽWorld Of Dreamsʼ does not progress anywhere past the first verse). By the time of the third track, they are beginning to get more than just good — more creative, with a slowed-down, psychedelicized version of the old country-rocker ʽYou Can Have Herʼ (amended to ʽHimʼ, of course), building tension as each new verse gradually climbs up the scale, and the strings add further grandiosity.
The biggest surprise comes with the next three songs — all of a sudden, the girls are not merely performers and interpreters, but songwriters, and the songs they write are in a completely dif­ferent mold: a three-part suite, presented as a «pseudo-live» chamber orchestra performance (with some crowd noises and tuning up sounds preceding the actual songs) and written strictly in the baroque-pop genre, with strings, woodwinds, and multi-part harmonies. Perhaps a song title like ʽMedieval Loveʼ is a little too telling, but the harmony and string arrangements on all three tracks are surprisingly complex, and the melancholic mood is infectious. This may be about as «authen­tic» as, say, any similar genre exercises by The Monkees in their psychedelic period, but if you do not set your expectations on a ʽFor No Oneʼ / ʽEleanor Rigbyʼ level, these are quite pleasant and tasteful genre exercises — considering that Morillo and Jacobs, credited as authors, pretty much came out of nowhere, a very impressive start.
Unfortunately, no surprise like this can be sustained for too long, and the album's second side is a big letdown — as if they suddenly discovered they were out of material, and hastened to stuff it with adequately recorded, but generally useless covers of such standards as ʽStand By Meʼ and ʽWhat'd I Sayʼ. Jessie Hill's ʽOhh Poo Pah Dooʼ is also slowed down, but the new groove adds little of interest to the old one — and, overall, where the first side, with its wall of sound tech­niques and loud strings, had an interesting mix of Motown, baroque, and psychedelic elements, the second is more traditional, brass-based R&B that hardly stands competition with Atlantic, despite everybody's best intentions.
Still a thumbs up — it may be clear from the start that the group did not have much of a future in 1967, but after a while, some dead ends end up sounding much more alive than others, and The Cake, or at least its first side, will be a cool discovery for all those who want to make their knowledge of the greatest era in pop music as comprehensive as possible. Besides, now that you know about this album's existence, you can always cut your opponent down to size with a «Cherilyn Sarkisian? Bah! Who needs that? Eleanor Barooshian — now you're talking!»
A SLICE OF CAKE (1968)
1) Have You Heard The News 'Bout Miss Molly; 2) P. T. 280; 3) Sadie; 4) Tides Of Love; 5) Walkin' The Dog / Something's Got A Hold On Me / Big Boy Pete; 6) Extroverted Introvert; 7) Under The Tree Of Love And Laughter; 8) Annabelle Clarke; 9) Who Will Wear The Crown; 10) Island Of Plenty.
Cake's second and last album was even shorter than the first — just ten tracks, clocking in at around 26 minutes — but it also was a big step forward for the group, and certainly makes you wonder what the future could have in store for them if the record had at least a little bit of com­mercial success. Here, the seeds that were sown with the three-song «medieval suite» of The Cake optimistically spring up with a whole series of such compositions, as the ladies write more than half of the songs on their own and significantly cut down on the Phil Spector / Motown as­pects of the debut — and the results are almost surprisingly astonishing. (I write almost, because in this age we seem to be finally accustomed to the idea that women even in the Sixties could be accomplished songwriters; the element of surprise rather concerns Decca executives, all of them probably male, who allowed Jacobs, Morillo, and Barooshian to record and release their own stuff. Now that's thinking progressively!).
Baroque, psychedelic, and even Kinks-style Brit-pop influences are all over this platter, as the girls weave a fully credible, if not tremendously original, musical tapestry of isolation, melan­cholia, and claustrophobic amorousness. Like many other artists at the time, they often prefer the detached role of a Greek chorus onlooker — even the song titles, preferring to refer to ʽMiss Mollyʼ and ʽAnnabelle Clarkeʼ rather than ʽIʼ, indicate that, and it gives the songs an aura of extra depth and wisdom; more importantly, they are simply fine songs. ʽMiss Mollyʼ, woven out of acoustic guitars, harpsichords, clarinets, chamber strings, and intricate relations between lead and backing vocals, goes through several tempo shifts and several personal stories — all it lacks is a particularly heart-tugging hook, but even in the absence of that the whole thing just oozes class and distinction on a general level. ʽAnnabelle Clarkeʼ, on the other hand, is a little less interesting in terms of atmosphere, but goes for that hook with gusto — "Annabelle Clarke has learned to live life better" cuts across almost as sharp as "what a drag it is getting old" or "he's a dedicated follower of fashion".
Probably the most unusual tune of them all is ʽExtroverted Introvertʼ, preserving the group har­mony principle but also multiplying it with a wild samba beat, baroque string flourishes, and a poppy vocal melody at the same time — a crazyass combination that somehow works, creating an atmosphere of amicable madness and, for that matter, fully corresponding with its musical weird­ness to the paradox expressed in the title. But that is not to undermine the coolness of the nearly accappella ʽUnder The Tree Of Love And Laughterʼ, a tune that sounds far more grim and de­pressing than the title suggests; or the psychedelic swoop of ʽP. T. 280ʼ, switching between tight rhythmic pop and atmospheric folk sections and throwing every instrument they could lay their hand on in the studio into the mix; or ʽIsland Of Plentyʼ, ending the record on a touchingly opti­mistic note that can probably be traced all the way back to oldies like ʽBig Rock Candy Moun­tainʼ, only here its burly country roots are all overgrown with psycho-baroque weeds.
Even the few R&B leftovers are fun — the big medley in the middle is, for some reason, intro­duced with a few out-of-tune bars of ʽThe Wedding Marchʼ, and then they tie three different tunes to the same rhythmic pattern, as if subtly mocking the genre that got them started; and Dr. John's ʽWho Will Wear The Crownʼ is a good energy ball to explode in the middle of all that baroque mopeyness, just as it begins getting a bit too mopey-ish. This is precisely the kind of pro­portion that was needed on the first album — except it was reversed there, downplaying the girls' strengths in favor of their ordinariness. A Slice Of Cake, on the other hand, does it precisely right, and ends up as a charming way to spend 26 minutes of your Sixties-lovin' time, and a good reason for an enthusiastic thumbs up. Sure, it wasn't that big a crime to have it overlooked in mid-1968, when masterpieces sprung out of nowhere on an almost daily basis — but in our modern era of «anything goes», it certainly makes more sense to dig it out, dust it off, and give it a fair reappraisal rather than go on a hunt for those present day artists who try to make it sound like 1968 all over again without having a clue of what it was actually like in 1968.
Alas, once the record was done, the girls pretty immediately vanished into total obscurity — for a little while more, their heads still occasionally bobbed above the water, either backing up Dr. John on his tours or even working, of all people, with Ginger Baker's Air Force (hey, I told you they were special, didn't I?), but, unfortunately, the lack of recognition just ended up killing off any songwriting ambitions that Jacobs, Morello, and Barooshian may have had. Too bad — with a little more perseverance and a little luck, they could have had quite a progressive future waiting for them, but I guess you can't have your Cake and eat it too. (Sorry, couldn't resist).
CAN