Yahowa 13 - 1974 - Savage Sons Of Yahowa

Father Yod/Yahowa's strange journey continued to take unpredictable twists on Yahowa 13's second album. Like Father Yod & the Spirit of '76's All or Nothing at All, this was so sonically unrelated to any of their prior recordings that it sounded like the work of an entirely different group of musicians. Unlike All or Nothing at All, it was also a change for the better. Not entirely accidentally, Father Yod himself does not appear on the album, ceding control of the music to Sunflower Aquarian, Djin Aquarian, Rhythm Aquarian, and Octavious Aquarian. It is obvious that one or more of these guys must have been huge Neil Young & Crazy Horse fans, as about half the songs are rougher approximations of his hard rock sound circa the early 1970s. And while those cuts are derivative, they're not half bad either. The vocals on "Edge of a Dream" are an especially spooky Neil Young soundalike, and "Red River Valley" has a nice hard rock spin on the kinds of melodies Neil used on compositions like "Old Man." "Making a Dollar" is rustic hard country-rock Crazy Horse with a touch of Harrisonesque Beatles. A few of the cuts eschew the overt Young influence for eccentric, roots-flavored hard rock. The vocals on these are so much throatier and blacker -- in the mode of a grainier Dr. John or War -- that it doesn't seem they could possibly be the work of the same singer. (The credits, as usual for Yahowa, don't shed any definite light on the situation.) This is the first Yod/Yahowa disc that can be accepted as a legitimate rock record on its own terms, rather than as a novelty of sorts. Were it done by some other obscure band on an independent label, one wouldn't think to make the connection between the music and the sort of eccentric mysticism that Yod and his followers practiced. The album has been reissued as one disc of the 13-CD God and Hair: Yahowha Collection box set.

1. Edge of a Dream (2:11)
2. Fire in the Sky (5:07)
3. Just Sitting Here (4:01)
4. A Thousand Sighs (7:30)
5. Red River Valley (4:48)
6. Man the Messiah (4:57)
7. Making a Dollar (5:34)
8. I Thought I Am (4:40)
9. Oh Ya Ho Wa (2:01)

¡Aquí!