While the neo- edition of under the leadership of made the most records and gained the most fans, the group produced its wildest and most seriously rockin' music during its earlier incarnation with on lead vocals. Through the studio albums and certainly back up this argument, the most powerful document of the sheer flamethrower strength of the original first emerged stateside on an obscure album called . Taken from a cassette recording of a radio broadcast by the -era group not long after completing and shortly before the singer quit the band, is an amazing merger of low fidelity and high energy. The sound quality is fair at best and frequently sinks down to lousy, but are on fire from the first note of to the final blast of with letting loose with all manner of furious guitar, pounding out the big beat with no sense of shyness, and belting out the tunes like his vocal chords were made of steel and he and his bandmates were tapped into a 220-volt power source. The occasion of this show was the final week of San Francisco's hippie-era palace , and while you have to wonder what the folks who came out to see headliners made of ' opening slot (the DJ who occasionally interrupts the proceedings sounds both stoned and quite puzzled), for sheer energy this ranks with the finest to ever emerge from the Bay Area. also offers the only recorded opportunity to hear belt out the classic as he left the band before it could be committed to tape in the studio, and his no-quarter performance makes one sigh at what could have been. A less-crummy sounding tape of the same broadcast was later released by as ( co-founder wrote the understandably enthusiastic liner notes for both releases), but got there first, and it remains a sentimental favorite and a cherished relic of the vinyl era. Play it loud -- really loud. ~ Mark Deming