Pirate doppelgangers

I'm having an odd week. Yesterday I talk to a friend of mine (whom I don't see that often) named John. Only it turned out that he was actually someone else named John who looked exactly like my friend. It took me about 5 minutes to figure this out.
I had the same experience musically this week. I got two double, mostly live or live in studio CD's by bands called the Pirates.
The first band was a comeback effort from the Johnny Kidd Pirates from the UK. Kidd died in 1966, and the band split. However in the mid 70's they realized they still had a following and came back without Kidd. They started out playing their old stuff, basic 50's rock & roll and rocked up blues standards. However influenced by the NWOBHM they started writing some slightly heavier material, and on a few songs almost got up to Motorhead territory. The double disc has pretty much thier entire 70's catologue, to the point of being redundant. I know one song is on there three times. But it's good, fun stuff.
Meanwhile, when the UK Pirates were in their dormant period, a guy named Terry Dolan started a SF Bay area all star project, which was built around former Quicksilver Messenger John Cippolina and his hard rockin' Copperhead era band. "Terry and the Pirates" had some really big name people sit in with them at various times. A virtual Bay area who's who of all stars. This is also a two disc set, recorded live or live in studio. They played more of a west coast mix of hard rock, down home R & R, and blues rock. But the difference between the Pirates SF and the Pirates UK is subtle. They are both really straight ahead Rock & Roll bands with a little hard rock thrown in. The UK band is a little more punky, while the SF band has a little more surf guitar to them, maybe some country. I'm not saying that they really sound alike, each has a clearly distinctive style. I just think it's kinda cool that there are two excellent bands in the same general R & R/Blues/HR ballpark that share the same name. More like bookends than twins really. They make a nice pair.
This happened to me once before, when the bands Stray and Baker-Gurvitz Army recorded albums called "Hearts of Fire", both in 1976 I think, and each album was a 50-50 split of great songs and experimental disco crap. Strange how these things happen.

You're getting old.

EvyMetal wrote:

You're getting old.

What do you mean 'getting'.


We talked about these guys before i think, Out Of Their Skulls is great english pub rock. Nearly to the standard of Dr. Feelgood, Eddie And The Hot Rods and Duck's Deluxe. Good stuff, great cover of Milk Cow Blues.

Yeah. They also do a nice "Honey Hush". The SF Pirates do a nice cover of "Train Kept A'rollin". Even so, I shouldn't really have lumped them together. Pirates UK was a 3 piece, while Pirates SF actually feature 3 guitars at times. I'm just having a lot of fun listening to both of them right now, so I just thought I'd give 'em both a mention.

People need to be hipped Sahb to alot of these great forgotten bands.

rattpoison wrote:

People need to be hipped Sahb to alot of these great forgotten bands.

Especially the UK Pirates. Their classic era from 62-66 was very crucial to the development of hard rock.

Oh yeah definately Johnny Kidd, when you write a song as good as "Shakin' All Over" your a legend automatically. Big influence on the Who who covered that legendary track. Although the Flamin' Groovies did a better cover of it.

I don't know. I didn't bother reading the whole post.

The name rings a bell. Didn't Motorhead cover one of their songs? Or was some member of Motorhead in one of those bands? I know there is some kind of Lemmy connection, I just can't remember what it is.