Along with Black Sabbath, Bay Area power trio Blue Cheer pioneered heavy metal. If you suffer from tinnitus or whiplash from excessive head-banging, you can ultimately lay the blame at these longhairs' shit-kickers. But Blue Cheer weren't all about brute force and eardrum-rupture; they could psych out with some of the best of their lysergic San Francisco brethren. You've probably heard their nuclear blasting of Eddie Cochran's “Summertime Blues,” but the Cheer's catalog bulges with plenty of other mane-shakers that will have your hands reflexively forming diablo horns. The latest incarnation of Blue Cheer (Dickie Peterson, Duck McDonald and Paul Whaley) has lost some girth and potency, but when Blue Cheer dip into their well of Richter-scale rockers, at least three-fourths of hell could break loose.
Sun., Feb. 3, 7 p.m., 2008
