Published on Jan 27, 2004
Quick history lesson: The Frost was a hard-rocking garage band
based in Detroit that released three studio albums in a very brief
career that only lasted from 1968 to 1970. Led by ace guitarist and
lead vocalist Dick Wagner, the band achieved minor success in the
northwest region with their brand of abrasive hard rock that
recalled the similar sounds of their peers and rivals the MC5, the
Stooges, the Amboy Dukes, and Alice Cooper. However, after not
being able to achieve a wider range of success, the Frost split up,
with Dick Wagner going on to become a highly demanded session
musician who eventually lent his brilliant guitar playing and
considerable songwriting abilities to such superstars as Lou Reed,
Alice Coope, and Peter Gabriel throughout the 1970s.
This brings us to this alleged compilation CD, a false
advertisement if I ever saw one. These aren’t a bunch of tracks
culled from the band’s three albums, but rather the entire CD is a
live performance from the Grande Ballroom in Detroit in 1969 — yet
nowhere on the front or back of the disc does it mention anything
about a live recording. Only once you flip open the liner notes
does the truth become clear. Maybe I’m just overly sensitive, but
this bothers me more than it perhaps should. I’m personally not a
big fan of live recordings, so obviously a live album being passed
off as a best-of compilation does not sit well with me at all.
Sure enough, the sound quality throughout is rather weak. The
muffled, sloppy production is quite distracting and prevents the
songs from realizing their full potential. I’m sure a lot of this
material sounds better in studio form, whereas here I’m left with a
less than stellar impression, which is a shame considering that
it’s my first exposure to this band.
To be fair, the renditions are energetic, and Dick Wagner’s
guitar playing is surprisingly diverse, running the gamut from
countryish leads to blues riffs to eastern flavored melodies to
distinctive solos effortlessly. Wagner’s vocals have a soft, almost
folky quality that were unique when compared with the similar bands
of the genre that I mentioned in my opening paragraph.
But too much of the material is standard late ’60s hard rock
fare that unfortunately isn’t particularly memorable, at least not
in this live form. Stuff like “Donny’s Blues” is about as generic
as it gets. The “Take My Hand / Mystery Man” medley however is
fantastic — a unique display of quirky songwriting that
foreshadows the theatrical and bizarre style of the early Alice
Cooper records to come along shortly. The album-closing frenetic
workout of “We Got To Get Out Of This Place” is a ferocious,
seventeen-minute psychedelic stomper that provides the ultimate
showcase for Wagner’s astonishing guitar chops, leaving no doubt in
the listener’s mind as to why he became such a highly sought-after
session musician in the immediate post-Frost years (though I could
easily do without the seemingly endless drum solo).
Obviously, with slightly less than half of the album featuring
music truly worth listening to, and the fact that the erroneously
titled
The Best Of The Frost is in actuality a live album, I cannot
really recommend the album as a starting point. Of course, if
you’re already a Frost aficionado familiar with the studio albums
and seek a live account of the band in their prime, then naturally
this disc is worth having. Personally, I have a hunch that the
individual studio albums are a far more impressive listening
experience, and I plan to seek them out and see if I’m correct in
that assumption. Now, if only someone would put out a real “best
of” for these guys.