PICKlNG APPLES
From The Springfield Union,Springfield Mass, Thursday, December 10, 1970
Turns out that .1970 may yet end on a nice note (or notes, in this case) thanks to the friendly fellow at Apple Records, the home of the Beatles. What with John,
Paul, George and Ringo having split during '70 it looked like a bleak Christmas for rock fans, but Apple has come up with the next best thing to reuniting the Beatles -they've given us Badfinger (Mike Gibbons, Joe Molland, Pete Ham and Tom Evans).
Sound Alikes
If you really dug , the Beatles (as most of us do) you may be instantly turned on by the fact that Badfinger sounds just like the Liverpool lads. Then again, you may be instantly turned off figuring they're just a cheap imitation. They're the guys
who did "Come and Cet it" the theme from the Ringo-Peter Sellers flick, THE MAGIC CHRISTIAN, but that disc didn't do them justice. Now they're very much
into what's going on with a new LP,No Dice..
There's nothing here but pure nogimmick rock, both fast and slow. Their hit single, "No Matter What" (which sounds so much like the Beatles at 65 it's uncanny) is here, along with 11 other good ones(you don't find many LPs with 12 cuts any more, but this is one of them) and the level of the performance on every number is so high that it's up to the standard of the Beatles in every department. The guys wrote all the material and Pete Ham although he isn't in the Lennon-McCartney class quite yet, seems to have the kind of talent for getting it all down on paper that John Lennon and Paul McCartney had in happier days .
In Addition to "No Matter What" we especially liked "Blodwyn","Better Days", "Midnight Caller" and "Without You".
To make a long story a little bit shorter, if you're only going to get one record for christmas, make it this one.This could be the band of the '70s.
By ROGER DOUGHTY
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