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Described by Rolling Stone as “a Welsh band with its heart in San Francisco – specifically, in the elongated and textured music of Quicksilver and the early Dead”, Man released their debut album, Revelation, in 1969.

One track, Erotica, which featured a simulated orgasm, ensured brief notoriety, and Man attempted to capitalise by naming their follow-up Spunk Rock, but label United Artists flatly refused, so it was given the title Two Ounces Of Plastic With A Hole In The Middle.

As various band members came and went, Man released two albums in 1971, followed by Be Good To Yourself At Least Once A Day (the one with the fold-out map of Wales) in 1972 and Back Into The Future the following year, before one of the leavers (frontman Roger ‘Deke’ Leonard) returned for Rhinos, Winos & Lunatics in 1974, produced by Queen man Roy Thomas Baker.

“Roy was a canny bastard,” Leonard told Classic Rock. “We were all against using him, but the label held firm. And it was odd; we rubbished just about all of his suggestions, but ended up agreeing to them because they were right.”

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Every week, Album of the Week Club listens to and discusses the album in question, votes on how good it is, and publishes our findings, with the aim of giving people reliable reviews and the wider rock community the chance to contribute.

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Other albums released in February 1974

• What Were Once Vices Are Now Habits – The Doobie Brothers
• Here Come the Warm Jets – Brian Eno
• The Silent Corner and the Empty Stage – Peter Hammill
• Valentine – Roy Harper
• Burn – Deep Purple
• Old New Borrowed and Blue – Slade
• Kiss – Kiss
• Phaedra – Tangerine Dream
• Pretzel Logic – Steely Dan
• Badfinger – Badfinger
• A New Life – Marshall Tucker Band
• Radio City – Big Star
• Rock ‘n’ Roll Animal – Lou Reed
• Saints & Sinners – Johnny Winter
• Slaughter on 10th Avenue – Mick Ronson
• Thunderbox – Humble Pie
• Todd – Todd Rundgren
• Twin Peaks – Mountain
• Unborn Child – Seals and Crofts

What they said…

“The second half may be the band’s artistic high point – bookended by the pomp-wah instrumentals, Intro and Exit, it contains the unusually sultry Kerosene and the epic Scotch Corner, which builds up from rattling snare and picked guitar verses to beautiful choruses of harmonised vocals.” (AllMusic)

“Compounding once and future Iceberg Deke Leonard with two Help Yourselfers and the minimum quota of Williamses and Joneses, this is the best record to come out of San Francisco in quite a while, pretty impressive for a band that never saw the Golden Gate till after the thing was released.” (Robert Chyristgau)

“[The band] seems more interested in making good records than in jamming into the dawn. Rhinos, Winos & Lunatics has more tracks – six – than most Man albums, and each has been carefully structured. The California-style hazy openness is still evident, but it’s been built into songs rather than appearing as the end product of improvisation.” (Rolling Stone)

What you said…

John Davidson: A Welsh Allman Brothers? Who knew? If anyone had told me this was from an American band, I’d have had no reason to doubt them.

Rhino is a languid, slightly bluesy, guitar rock album enhanced with piano and keyboard. I gather from reading online that they reined in the rambling jam band trappings to deliver shorter songs on this album, but it still has that vibe, particularly on side two, which features the six-minute Kerosene and an even longer jam in the nine-minute Scotch Corner.

I like the guitars, but I’m not loving the vocals or the song style. It’s good but not something I would generally choose to put on.

Robby Jackson: It felt like Yes trying to jam like the Allman Brothers. I liked it. Nice pick for the week.

Chris Elliott: Think I hear a long Welsh winter and a lot of smoking more than the Allman Brothers. The album cover and title rather support my theory.

Mike Canoe: As of right now, Rhinos, Winos & Lunatics is more likely to be one of those albums I’m glad I’ve heard than one I’m going to keep coming back to.

Half of the songs, like opener Taking the Easy Way Out Again, Kerosene or Four Day Louise, sound as dated as the album cover looks, while Scotch Control, California Silks and Satins, and The Thunder and Lightning Kid have a more timeless quality. It’s interesting to hear Roy Thomas Baker’s production on something as rootsy and bluesy as this album when I’m most familiar with his work with The Cars and previous club picks like Queen’s Sheer Heart Attack and the “new waving” of Alice Cooper on Flush the Fashion.

My quick research suggests that Man is only the third Welsh band the club has reviewed and the first that doesn’t start with the letter B, like previous picks Budgie and Badfinger. Welcome aboard, Man.

Graham Tarry: I love all the Man albums, especially the one sided ‘suite’ on this one.

Kari Hautakoski: Excellent band, a great album. By the way Welsh Connection from 1976 is even better.

Philip Qvist: Man, another group that I had heard of without hearing any of their songs, and a band that had future Dire Straits drummer Terry Williams in their ranks for a few albums. Judging by the constant changes it also looks like Man never heard of the phrase “a stable lineup”, or if they did they never took it seriously.

So onto Rhinos, Winos and Lunatics, and it looks like this Welsh outfit was definitely influenced by the likes of the Allman Brothers Band, with the record featuring one nine minute epic (Scotch Corner), and two six minute plus songs (Kerosene and Four Day Louise). It’s little wonder that most songs were credited to the whole band.

That said it is the relatively brief four plus minute opener, Taking The Easy Way Out Again, that caught my ear. With three guitarists, with one doubling up as a keyboard player, I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by the nature of the songs on offer here. It’s not bad but it definitely isn’t an At Fillmore East either. A 6 or a 7 from me.

Brian Carr: Weedly jam band music has a very faithful following, but I personally am not a fan. A cursory perusal revealed nothing that drew me in.

Keith Jenkin: My introduction to Man was around the time of release; a record I now know was less in the jam band/exploratory vein of their earlier releases and is quite song-focused by comparison. Only Side Two’s Scotch Corner stretches towards the ten-minute mark.

I also found an uncanny resemblance here with some of the early music by Wishbone Ash. Roy Thomas Baker produced the album, and I expect his skills help give the record its more direct feel.

Side one is near perfect in my opinion, and the wonderful California, Silks and Satin would be a tune you would swear was by Crosby, Stills and Nash or perhaps America if listening to it blind. One of the albums from the seventies that has gone the distance for me, it’s also – against some decent competition – my most played title from the Man catalogue.

Greg Schwepe: This week’s selection of Rhinos, Winos, & Lunatics by Man evidently gets us back to the Off The Beaten Path Series with, once again… a band I’d never heard of. But then again, I’m pretty sure Man was not high on the Programme Director playlists on FM rock stations here in the US… at all.

This review is based on just the tracks that would’ve appeared on the original release, not the Expanded Edition that appears on streaming platforms. And for once, my review is going to be fairly brief.

Listening to Rhinos, Winos, & Lunatics, I found nothing jarring, dissonant, or annoying to drive me away. That said, I found nothing intriguing, interesting, or inviting to make me listen to this album (or the band, for that matter) ever again. Kerosene was probably my favourite track, and I’m on the fence about that.

6 out of 10 on this one for me. Nothing that made me hit the Save To Library button, but nothing to cause me to hit the I’ve Had Enough button either.

Final score: 6.50 (30 votes cast, total score 195)

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When Bill Bruford’s former tech Pete Roth asked the prog veteran to play jazz for fun, no one realised it would bring the veteran prog drummer out of retirement. In 2024 the Pete Roth Trio started taking themselves seriously – but as the band leader tells Prog, they’re still aiming to have fun above anything else.

Growing up in a small town near Baden-Baden in Germany, with his grandparents playing as enthusiastic amateurs and his father having enjoyed a semi-professional career as a younger man, Pete Roth was constantly surrounded by harmony. Having dallied with piano, sax, accordion and other instruments, he decided to learn guitar.

He worked after-school jobs and bought his first guitar as an 11-year-old in December 1991. His teacher introduced him to the music of Joe Satriani and Steve Vai, and soon his horizons widened further into jazz, where players including Pat Martino, George Benson and Joe Pass exerted their influence.

In 2011 Roth released his first album, Meridian, followed by Circus In The Sky three years later. However, it’s fair to say that, lauded as a young talent in the jazz world, most Prog readers didn’t know of his work until he joined forces with Bill Bruford.

Marking the influential drummer’s return to headline performance after a 13-year hiatus, as well as his first appearance on an album new material in 19 years, Group Chat by The Pete Roth Trio showcases Bruford, Roth and bassist Mike Pratt’s ability to walk the tightrope between composition and improvisation. “The secret,” Roth says, “is that we’re a band of equals and we have each others’ backs.”

How did you meet up with Bill Bruford?

I’d moved over to the UK and was studying at Guildford, where Bill was teaching. Before that I’d been his drum tech for a number of years, so we already had a nice friendship. In 2022 we began playing together, just for the love of the music, jamming along to our favourite jazz standards and coming up with material just for playing and rehearsing.

There was really no band at this point, and no idea we’d play publicly. That didn’t happen until 2024 when we started doing a few small gigs that were local to us – again, just for fun.

What made the trio more of a going concern?

By 2025 we were doing more and more gigs, so we had to make a decision: either we needed to step out of the situation entirely and return to not necessarily facing the public, or take the trio seriously and make the necessary commitment.

That commitment included playing at 2026’s Cruise To The Edge, where you were on the bill that included Marillion, Big Big Train and other prog luminaries. What was that experience like?

I have to make a confession: I’ve not really grown up with prog, nor do I know much about it – so Bill was filling me in about who was who. I’m a huge fan of Adrian Belew, who I knew from his work with Zappa; and of course I was aware of his King Crimson history. Adrian’s band was spectacular. I loved it. Although I don’t know too much about prog, I love good music.

How did you guys go down with such hardcore prog fans?

I think we were the outliers, doing something entirely different to anybody else on the ship, so there was a danger of people feeling a bit short-changed. But actually we had the exact opposite experience. – when we played, people took to it so easily. We were really happy. We did two shows; I think the audience wasn’t quite sure what to make of the first. But then they all came for the second, and it was just a party. It was amazing.

Is being labelled a jazz act a help or a hindrance?

I think calling us a jazz trio is a poor description. We all come from different influences. Bill has a rock background, but he also has a love of be-bop. Mike falls into the funkier side of things, and there are all kinds of things in my playing.

Group Chat, sourced from live performances, was a while in the making. Why was it important for it to be a live album?

We were adamant that we weren’t going to record a studio album. Live is what we do. Our band is built on individual trust, spontaneity, interaction, and total improvisation in some places. We’re talking about building things from absolutely nothing onstage, in many cases every night in a slightly different fashion. Obviously we have certain frameworks; I think improvisation also needs corners and boundaries.

Does it bother you that a large part of the audience is in the room for Bill?

A lot of people say, “We came for Bill, but we stayed for the trio,” and that’s very encouraging to hear. There’s no point in denying that Bill is a giant in our world. But the thing is,he never says anything like, “I’m 77, I’ve made 91 records, I’m in the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.”

When we’re in the room together, it’s as three equals. He could very much put his foot down and tell us all what we should be doing because it’s his name that’s selling the tickets – but he doesn’t do that at all.

The reason it’s called the Pete Roth Trio is simply that when we started, Bill didn’t want to be all the way to the front, doing all the admin and all the boring stuff that you have to deal with again. He wanted to be that kid who just loves playing the drum kit, and that really works for all of us.

Group Chat is on sale now.

London-based post-surf psychedelisists The Misty will be delighted with their week’s work, as their Neverknows single triumphed over that fella who used to sing in Led Zeppelin in our Tracks Of The Week contest. Congratulations to them!

In third place, behind Robert Plant, came The Violent Hour and their corpse-friendly single and video Already Dead, so congratulations to them, too. This week’s contenders are below.

Cardinal Black – Saving Grace

One of those guitarists who makes the instrument speak, sing and emote in a way that feels as natural as breathing, Chris Buck pairs like a dream with the rich, lived-in soulfulness of singer Tom Hollister on Saving Grace. It was initially recorded by Hollister about 10 years ago, and enjoys a powerful new lease of life in the collective hands of his Cardinal Black bandmates. Watch out for more on their next album, Second Sign Of Life, heading your way in the new year.

Starcrawler – Kick Me

Lead singer Arrow de Wilde directs and stars in the pink n’ black high school frenzy accompanying the new Starcrawler single. Built on a mad-catchy distorted guitar hook, it channels old-school punk rage into a tight groovy pocketful of sass, tearaway style and bullshit-free rock’n’roll. Ahead of tour dates with the Sex Pistols and Dinosaur Jr, it’s a buzzy, promising taster of their next album – also called Kick Me – on its way in 2027. Nice.

Stephen Wilson Jr – Yellow Brick Home

Quietly devastating, Stephen Wilson Jr’s new single’s greatest strength is its ability to shift in ways you’re not quite ready for. Lyrics that flip the basic Wizard Of Oz narrative into an uncliched meditation on the chaos of human existence (and accepting it). A melody that seems to settle into a melancholy major-key groove, suddenly soaring up into something much bigger but still full of subtle introspection. Call it an allegory for life, call it clever songwriting – either way, if you’re interested in country music full of dark, contemporary shadows, you’ll want to hear this.

Girish & The Chronicles – Fading Away

Probably our favourite so far from the India rockers’ upcoming new album, Fading Away packs an intense, adrenaline-building punch, spanning the oomphy hard rock of their first releases with the pensive grunge textures of more recent tracks. For all its moodiness, though, this one feels bright and anthemic – a commanding, quietly interesting banger you’d feel pumped to hear live.

The Temperance Movement – Broken World

We just heard this cut from the sessions that reaped the Temp’s much-anticipated comeback record, New Promise Land Incorporated (out now), and are rather taken by it. Taken from a special edition ‘white label’ CD version, Broken World is an immediate but contemplative piece of rock’n’roll, its lean, jutting verse guitars giving way to a warm chorus full of bittersweet touches. The sort of song with an emotional pull that sneaks up on you. Great live sound and overall mix as well.

Grönwall – Written In The Scars

“This song is a reminder that everyone you meet is fighting a battle you know nothing about,” says the H.e.a.t frontman-turned-commanding solo artist (and sometime Michael Schenker touring vocalist) of this powerful, moving highlight from his solo album, Bad Bones – informed to a large degree by his own trials of the last few years. “Be kind. Always. And be proud of your scars. They’re reminders of your strength, what you’ve survived and everything you’ve overcome.”

Zebra – Walk With You

Zebra are back! The 80s rockers are about to release their first album in 23 years, and if lead single Walk With You (co-written with Kiss man Paul Stanley) is anything to go by, it’ll be a treat. Produced by the late, great Jack Douglas – who did the same job on their debut album back in 1983 – it finds Zebra still sounding like Zebra, and Randy Jackson’s voice doesn’t appear to have aged in the slightest. “I’m really proud of the way it came out,” says the 71-year-old. “I think Zebra fans are going to love it.”

The Jailbirds – Where Is The Rock N’ Roll?

Opening with the excellent lines “Major Tom to ground control /
Where is my rock n’roll?”, Mississauga quartet The Jailbirds achieve what a lot of modern, riff-centric rock bands fail to do on Where Is The Rock N’ Roll?, and that’s write a memorable chorus. According to the band, the song is “a loud, straight-ahead reminder of what the band believes rock should sound like”, and it’s a classy chug, no mistake. Catch ’em live at the Townehouse Tavern in Sudbury, Ontario, this Saturday.