vinylspinning:

Fu Manchu: No One Rides for Free (1994)

Remember when good music still came out of Orange Country?

Well, I give you stoner stalwarts Fu Manchu, whose formative hardcore years as Virulence in the 1980s obviously didn’t preclude them from shifting gears in the next decade and then cruising out to the California desert, just like one of those vintage custom vans so often depicted on future LP sleeves, including one’s plush interior on the cover of No One Rides for Free.

As I wrote in my All-Music Guide review, virtually all of Fu Manchu’s career-spanning musical ingredients are already in place on this full-length debut, as evidenced by elastic-riffed engines for hot-rod poetics like “Time to Fly,” the fan favorite “Ojo Rojo,” the hypnotic “Superbird,” and almost funky “Snakebellies.”

In contrast, the sleepy surf rock of “Free and Easy (Summer Girls)” remains a startling career anomaly, wisely never repeated by vocalist/guitarist Scotty Hill, bassist Mark Abshire, lead guitarist Eddie Glass, and drummer Ruben Romano – the latter pair of course later departing to form Nebula in 1997. 

At which point Fu Manchu’s drum stool was filled by former Kyuss man Brant Bjork, who, I’d forgotten, was the acting producer on No One Rides for Free! 

Well, that makes sense!

“I revved it up, hundred and one; Kansas City, here I come!”