Zomby Woof - Riding On A Tear (Reissue) (1977/2002)

Zomby Woof was a German symphonic rock formation, the name is derived from a Frank Zappa's his Mothers Of Invention composition. The band is rooted in 1971 when guitar players Heinrich Winter and Udo Kreuss joined Frank Keinath on bass and Thomas Moritz on drums in order to form a band that still had no name and no gigs. Soon Frank moved away and no replacement was to be found. As a consequence Ulrich Herter, another guitarist, joined the band and Udo Kreuss changes to bass guitar. Shortly afterwards the two keyboard players Matthias Seelman-Eggebert (Hammond organ) and Matthias Zumbroich (keyboards) also joined which meant that the sound changed, influenced by PROCOL HARUM. During the Hayinger Festival in 1974 (featuring German bands KRAAN, BIRTH CONTROL and EMBRYO) the band had their first tv appearance but in 1976 Thomas Moritz and Matthias Seelman-Eggebert left the band to concentrate on their studies and Bertha "Bea" Maier joined them on drums to form the line-up that can be heard on their LP. In 1977 they tried to earn a contract by sending the demo tapes from intense rehearsals to several record companies. Eventually the label Jupiter from the capital Munich accepted the band and the recordings started in the Olympia Music Studios in the spring of 1977. There they found a Mellotron, of course out of tune! Thanks to Udo Kreuss this incredible instrument was cleaned untilit functioned again. So despite the fact that the band didn't own a Mellotron, you can enjoy this ubiquitous keyboard on their album. On the cover you can witness the band in front of one of the slides they used during their shows. In the autumn of 1977 the LP was released by Jupiter and distributred by BMG Ariola. One estimates that eventually the sales went up to 5000 copies, a very reasonable number for such an uknown German band! A second LP on the Jupiter label never saw the daylight because Steve Kazan, the man who was responsible for this type of music was sacked because he got on everybody's nerves. In 1979 Berthold Maier and Heinrich Winter left the band to form Alarm. The were replaced by Achim Czech on drums and Harald Horvath as singer but this was not a sudden but rather gradual change in the line-up. Together with an additional vocalist named David Hanselmann (previously with MESSAGE and TRIUMVIRAT), this line-up recorded a second LP named No Hero in 1979 but the band was unable to find a record company. Without a recording contract and future prospects Zomby Woof split up, the last gig took place in their hometown Reutlingen on July 8th in 1980. Their music is very pleasant and melodic, vintage keyboard driven 24-carat symphonic rock. It sounds far from derivative, my closest comparison is Eela Craig and some Camel. The CD release contains the original nine tracks and four bonustracks (the single Dora's Drive and the B-side Mary Walking Through The Woods and two unrelased songs entitled Highwire Dance and Back Home from rehearsals) plus a 32 page booklet.