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Fuse - Fuse (1968)

Track listing:
  1. Across the Skies 4:35
  2. Permanent Resident 4:24
  3. Show Me 4:17
  4. To Your Health 6:02
  5. In a Window 5:54
  6. 4/4 3/4 4:02
  7. Mystery Ship 3:23
  8. Sad Day 5:49
  9. Hound Dog 2:55
  10. Cruisin' for Burgers 5:01

Notes

Rick Nielsen - guitar, keyboards
Tom Petersson - bass
Joe Sundberg - vocals
Chip Greenman - drums
Craig Myers - guitar

Cheap Trick's roots extend at least as far back as the late '60's, when the band's future founder and guitarist Rick Nielsen and bassist Tom Petersson were members of a band called Fuse. Not to be confused with any of three '90's artists who have gone by the same name, Fuse played blues-tinged hard rock on the order of Cream and the Yardbirds. At the time of the release of Fuse's only album in 1968, Nielsen was 21 and Petersson was 19, and the band's other three members were a year or two younger still. Their youthful vigor makes the self-titled album riveting and fun. Although the music of Fuse bears little resemblance to that of their future band, the presence of Nielsen and Petersson is evident and distinctive throughout; the two clearly had remarkable chemistry from the start. It's easy to imagine the Nielsen composition "Sad Day" being performed by Cheap Trick. "Fuse" is well worth discovering. In 2001, the album was finally released on CD in the U.S. with two bonus tracks from the band's first single: a garage-rock version of the classic "Hound Dog", and its band-written B-side "Cruisin' For Burgers".

Fuse made a little-known album for Epic at the end of the '60s, and is chiefly remembered for including two future members of Cheap Trick: Rick Nielsen and Tom Petersson. The album is an average, perhaps somewhat below average, late-'60s hard rock recording. It looks forward to some facets of '70s metal and art rock in its overwrought vocals, tandem hard rock guitar riffs, and classical-influenced keyboards. It was reissued, with two bonus tracks from a single, by Rewind in 2001.
Fuse was originally the Grim Reapers, and aroused interest from Epic after they were seen supporting Terry Reid in Chicago in mid-1968. Changing their name to Fuse, they recorded a self-titled album in late 1968 under the unlikely auspices of producer Jackie Mills, who later produced The Brady Bunch. The album did virtually nothing, and although they did have enough material for a second album, they would not release another LP prior to their breakup in 1970.