Socrates Drank the Conium

I believe this is my first ever opportunity listening to a rock band from Greece, and my goodness- Socrates Drank the Conium has totally put me in a *great* mood tonight! Well I guess I shouldn't be surprised- yet another country from somewhere in Europe capable of flooring me like only a few American bands can. By that I mean, it seems like America is overloaded with mediocre bands while a band like Socrates Drank the Conium deserves just as much attention as, say, Poco or the Doobie Brothers. Not that Socrates Drank the Conium even remotely RESEMBLES those bands, mind you. These guys are, to put it honestly, much better (and I *like* Poco and the Doobies).This is one extremely underrated album. Let me mention some of the songs. "It's a Disgusting World" sure doesn't seem *that* disgusting when you take into account this track has an absolutely *blazing* guitar jam. I mean, I'm totally floored here folks. It's intense in a way that makes me confused why it never gained any popularity back in the 70's. Take Deep Purple's "Highway Star" and raise the intensity level a few notches, and that about describes this piece of metal delight. The bonus of adding a flute solo at just the right moment gives the song a distinct style.Another really amazing song is "Underground". The bassline is groovy, the Jimi Hendrix-like fuzzy electric guitar solos are neatly (and brilliantly) scattered throughout the song and it's just splendid, and the psychedelic-tinged vocal melody immediately reminded me of the Beatles. It's highly melodic, too. The lyrics are wonderful. I have zero complaints! A song that totally should have became a huge hit. "Bad Conditions" is like a Beatles-inspired pop song based around a very heavy and bluesy guitar riff, and once again, it's extremely melodic. I love the way the lead singer sings the line "Tomorrow we shall catch the morning trail" and the electric guitar does a neat little trick right at this spot."Blind Illusion" is just a terrific blues-based display of guitar swirls with a spooky bassline appearing around halfway through before changing tempo. I love it. The riffs are awesome. The intro to "Live in the Country" blows me away with some dazzling guitar licks before quickly morphing into a standard rock song. It's pretty good, though perhaps the albums only weak point. Fascinating band.This band really IS underrated. I'm sitting here trying to decide exactly WHAT my favorite aspect of this bands style is- their songwriting, guitar solos or bass work. I really have trouble coming to a decision. It's all good.

BAND'S HISTORY BY MATT BARRETTSocrates Drank The ConiumSocrates will probably never get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. But while other groups were becoming well known in the free world, this Hendrix-style blues band was playing to standing-room-only crowds in a small club in Athens, during Greece's military dictatorship, a period when even Rolling Stone albums were hard to find, and for a time illegal.by Matt BarrettSocrates was Yannis Spathas and Antonis Tourkoyorgis on guitar and bass respectively. During the period that they were playing in the Kitarro Club they went through several drummers including George Trantalidis, all of them terrific. In Athens during the early seventies, when the 1967 military dictatorship was still in control, there were a number of rock clubs in the area around Victoria Square and in the Plaka. Poll and Morka played at the Elaterion. Socrates and Exidaktilo played at the Kitarro. As Dorian Kokas, the founder and leader of Morka told us one night "We used to race through our set and play everything fast so we could get out early and go to the Kittaro and catch the last set of Socrates." Musicians loved Socrates.Socrates sounded like several bands that were popular at the time, Jimi Hendrix Experience, Deep Purple, Blue Cheer, and Black Sabbath come to mind now when I hear their music from that early period, though the majority of their material was original. There were songs that were crowd favorites such as "Close the Door and Lay Down", "Starvation" and "Underground", but often the highlight of the evening was when they did their Hendrix songs like "Voodoo Chile", "Message of Love" and "Red House" or jammed on songs like "Kansas City" with singer Jimi Quidd (later of the NY Dots) and Greek-American blues guitarist John Kronis.Spathas played a Fender Strat, long straight hair hanging down almost to the guitar, he was motionless except for his hands which effortlessly ripped out the most fluid, solos and riffs. He always hooked the chord to his amp over the bottom cutaway so he would not step on it and pull it out during a solo, I suppose. It was sort of his trademark in a way and we would watch him tune up and wait for him to do it which meant to us that the music was about to begin. He would play some mind-boggling riff to make sure the volume was right or the guitar was in tune and they would be off. Antonis Tourkoyorgis played bass and sang and if Spathas gave the appearance of being introverted he was the complete opposite. He was also a great bass player. The powerful sound this little three-piece band with their stacks of Marshalls put out in the Kittaro kept us coming back night after night. In all honesty I have to say that to this day I have not heard any band, three-piece or more, fill as much musical space. Seeing the Who in 1976 I found myself comparing them to Socrates. OK, the Who is the Who. But apart from the personalities, the songs I knew and the flamboyance, were Townshend, Entwhistle and Moon as good a band as Socrates? No way. Led Zepplin? Nope. You'd have to ask someone who had seen Hendrix or Cream to make the judgement about those bands but I can't imagine anyone being better than Socrates on a good night and as far as those nights in the Kittaro went I don't think they ever had a bad night. They were too good to have a bad night.What made them so remarkable was the guitar playing of Spathas. Even today listening to the solos he played in 1972 I still can't believe the music he was making. Brent Lambert of Kitchen Mastering, quite a guitar player himself, after hearing several Spathas solos from thirty years ago said "If this guy had come to America he would be a guitar hero and everyone would know his name." If you liked the way Hendrix, Ritchie Blackmore, Jimmy Page and Eddie Van Halen play you will love Spathas and if you play guitar yourself you will wonder "If this was thirty years ago and he is still playing how good must he be now?"Socrates made two albums as a three-piece, both pretty awful because of poor mixing and mastering though the songs and performances were good. In those days producers had no idea what to do with a group like Socrates. It would be like recording Rage Against The Machine after spending 20 years doing Herman's Hermits. Later the group added a lead singer and different variations of guitarists, keyboards. At one time both Spathas and Tourkoyorgis played guitars. Vangelis Papathanasiou, otherwise known as Vangelis joined them for an album and made them more of a progressive-rock band with lots of keyboard, synth and guitar interweavings. But the three-piece version of the band's first two albums and the original rock-blues style was probably their best shot at world fame.Socrates still plays. They are again a three-piece with Spathas and Tourkogiorgis joined by Makis Gioulis, a fine drummer in the traditon of the band. Asteris Papastamatakis plays keyboards on some material and a female vocalist named Markela Panagiotou, harmonizes and does duets with Tourkogiorgis and sings a couple songs on her own. Still the best part of the night for me is when the band strips down to the core of guitar-bass-drums and they play the old songs from the Kittaro or jam on some Hendrix tunes. Maybe I am just nostalgic but I can't help listening to them and thinking of what might have been. Had it not been for the fact that they were at their prime during the dictatorship then maybe Greece might have been known as the country that gave us Socrates instead of Yanni. Then again oppression can breed great art as an instrument of rebellion. Socrates with their long hair, beards and high-energy blues and rock and roll were a window on the world outside and the reason people crammed into the Kittaro every weekend. For that reason they belong alongside the great bands of Rock and Roll History.Essential discography:-Socrates drank the conium (1972, Polydor)-Taste of conium (1972, Vertigo)-On the wings (1973, Polydor)-Phos (1976, Vertigo)

One of the best rock bands of the 70's. Every CD they made in the 1970's is a must have. These guys would of been huge if they were in the USA.

All right, I got it in great condition, I recommend it.