Cherry Red [Release date 29.05.26]

Quicksilver Messenger Service – yet another of the “summer of love”s musical heroes – bubbles back to the classic rock surface.

These are the real heroes, an authentic rock band who, for better or worse, embraced psychedelia and its attendant counterculture credentials. And although they eventually succumbed to the lure of pop, their first two studio albums were classics of the genre.

And once again the UK’s reissue/remaster heroes, Cherry Red rises to the occasion, releasing this 7 CD boxset.

Quicksilver Messenger Service (1968)
Happy Trails (1969)
Shady Grove (1969)
Just For Love (1970)
What About Me (1970)
Quicksilver (1972)
Comin’ Thru (1974)

The names Gary Duncan, John Cippolina, David Freiberg and Dino Valente are no doubt etched into some mythical hall of fame. Key members of a band who could’ve and should’ve, just like their contemporaries, Jefferson Airplane and The Grateful Dead – and Spirit and Moby Grape too if you want to stretch the string a little.
(the late Skip Spence played for Jefferson Airplane, Moby Grape and QMS at separate times, but lost out to drugs eventually.)

Their self titled debut, on the cusp of the hippie era, hit the ground running. “San Francisco Bay Area Melodic Folk Rock” at its best. There was no hesitation. ‘Gold and Silver’s triple metre waltz time sounds like the basis for The Stranglers’ 1982 hit, ‘Golden Brown’. Maybe not. The 12 minute ‘The Fool’ drags a bit, but ‘Light Your Windows’ wears its influences especially well. A handful of bands seemed to spoon out large helpings from the communal rock/folk/psychedelic pot to everone’s satisfaction.

That thought hits hardest on Happy Trails. The band’s second studio album.
An endless, substantially revised version of Bo Diddley’s ‘Who Do You Love?’ camps out on side 1, and his song ‘Mona’ leads off Side 2.
It makes sense. Bo Diddley was one of rock’s foundation Stones. For bands like QMS, it was a launchpad for their individualised sense of rock, folk, and psychedelia, one that would last them through the decade.

What goes unsaid is that jams demands an almost brutal degree of self-discipline. Spontaneous improvisations need kept under control, the band needs to be tight. They need to sound connected.
It was a skill evident among many Bay Area bands, like Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead, Hot Tuna, and not least QMS.

A rock version of Appalachian Folk Song ‘Shady Grove’ provided the title track for the band’s third album.
This was quite daring … trying something different before their fans had truly acclimatised themselves to the rock/ psychedelic jams on albums 1 and 2.

The band’s guitarists, Gary Duncan, bass and Dino Valenti, lead, had reappeared, having served their time out of the band.

And so CD 4, Just For Love appeared quickly thereafter.
A (little) more user friendly than the previous recordings, the title track is a close blood relation of the Airplane’s ‘White Rabbit’.
‘Fresh Air’ proved to be the band’s one and only hit single, which was ok for an album band.

1970 in the USA trailed massive anti war protests and a serious destabilising of the US economy. CD5, What About Me, reflected those times in song, as well as turning its head to familiar subjects like psychedelia, ‘All In My Mind’ and romance, ‘Long Haired Lady’.
It sold well.

Sixth studio CD, Quicksilver, took us back to the beginning of the decade, when folk rock and psychedelia intertwined in an attractively tuneful manner. They were old hands now, almost reading each others minds in the studio. Valenti continued to write the bulk of the material.
Piano/guitar shuffle, ‘I Found Love’, and the haunting ‘Fire Brothers’ and are like real, actual pop songs.

The 7th album Cumin’Thru, sees them lacking some of the fire that burned fiercely ten years before.
Only the hard rocking, well disguised tongue in cheek duo of ‘Doin’ Time In The USA’ and ‘California State Correctional Facility Blues’ are fluent and impressive. (Duncan and Valenti allegedly did some drug related jailtime earlier in their career.)

There’s a cornucopia of live material and bonus studio tracks spread across the 7 CDs in this clamshell boxset anthology. Plus an illustrated booklet, with a new essay, featuring exclusive interviews by journalist Mike Mettler (current music editor for Sound & Vision magazine).

David Freiberg is the the only band member left standing. *****

Review by Brian McGowan

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

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Power Plays w/c 25 May 2026

BABY JANE Midnight Highway (Sped Up) (indie)
ASTRAL ROCKS The Flame In Me (Astral Rocks Prodns.)
INDIGO SYNDICATE dwn4smr (indie)
THE SKBS The Prying Eye (indie)
AGAINST THE CURRENT Dead Man Walking (indie)
ICONIC Tears Keep On Falling (Frontiers)

Featured Albums w/c 25 May 2026

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2003 – 2025 (Singer Songwriter)

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