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Great moments in (somewhat) obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Humble Pie, “Bang!”, 1969

Brian Leiter

Steve Marriott left the Small Faces to form more of a blues rock band with Peter Frampton and others; they made it fairly big in the U.S. in the early 1970s (Frampton left shortly thereafter), but this song comes from their first album, As Safe As Yesterday Is, which had some success in the UK, but almost none in the U.S.  This is a studio-produced video clip from 1970 of the song:

We've featured Humble Pie several times over the years, but barely scratched the surface of the output of one of the best bands, now largely forgotten, to come out of the British blues explosion.  Feel free to add links to your favorite clips in the comments. 

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4 responses to “Great moments in (somewhat) obscure rock ‘n’ roll: Humble Pie, “Bang!”, 1969”

  1. Galen Strawson

    I well remember them. For no intelligible reason this reminds me that in the very earliest days in which music became available on the web, I was quite sure that my daughter Georgia wouldn’t be able to find The Supernatural’ — Pete Green’s four transcendental notes. She found it.

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  2. John Rapko

    My Humble Pieing never went beyond '30 Days in the Hole', which cannot count as (somewhat) obscure. But Galen Strawson's comment about Peter Green suggests a post that I would be very interested in seeing: asking your readers to link to and briefly discuss the first 'transcendental' music performance they searched for on-line and, lo and behold, found.–I withhold mention of my first and favorite, but I've been amazed to see actual filmed performances that I had not known existed, such as Gershwin playing the piano, Uncle Dave Macon, Hank Williams, Django Reinhardt, Edith Piaf, Roscoe Holcomb, Buddy Holly, a full set by Eddie Cochrane, Bukka White, Sister Rosetta Tharp, Sun Ra in the late 1950s, etc.

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  3. Dean C. Rowan

    My introduction to Humble Pie was through my high school library's LP collection, Eat It or Rockin' the Fillmore, I forget. These days I get a kick out of the band's "bootleg" series, e.g., https://www.discogs.com/master/1647356-Humble-Pie-Official-Bootleg-Box-Set-Volume-1

    "Transcendental music": I think this refers to music one really admires. I find all music transcendental, even garbage like Bruce Springsteen or Beyoncé. But I've been in this gig for a long time, and we never needed an Internet to treat us to special finds, recordings of our favorite artists performing our favorite works. For example, The Amazing Korneyfone Record Label's Genesis release As Though Emerald City revealed to me an impressive side of the band at a time when I most enjoyed them.

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  4. Dean C. Rowan

    More on the transcendental, with a special emphasis on "dental": I recently had a cavity filled. After firing up the drill all Alec Baldwin-like, the good doctor asked if I was okay. "Better than okay! I have stacks of music I love that sounds like this." And I do. I forwarded to her office a YouTube recording of Xenakis's "Persepolis," some of which indeed sounds like the drilling of teeth. These noises take me places I've never been, etc.

    But for sheer off-the-charts, not Humble Pie by a stretch nuttiness, dig Michael Jackson, "Beat It," every note a C.



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