Of the plethora of touted "private press hard rock monsters" out there, very few live up to the swaggering riff-fury of west coast blasters Oda. Commonly known as the 'Black Album,' the first clobbering platter by the quartet was released on their own tiny Loud Phonograph Records imprint and now commands large sums - but is actually worth the heavy hype.
The band naturally centered around Randy Oda, a multi-talented ax shredder and keyboardist, and the lineup was filled out by his brother Kevin on drum assault, Art Pantoja on lead bellows and rhythm guitar, and galloping bassist Kyle Schneider. The Oda brothers were born in Alameda County, California, attending Kennedy High School in Richmond, and started the band while still teenagers at the beginning of the '70s.
Oda was influenced by hard UK rockers like Deep Purple, Zep, Free, and the Who, and they gigged all over the Bay Area, with Randy garnering comparisons to Jeff Beck's molten six-string mastery. Their 1971 self-titled LP fully displays their blistering talents, but despite some local airplay on KSAN radio, the band packed it in by '73.
This would not be the end of the Oda story, as Randy joined CCR's Tom Fogerty in the outfit Ruby afterwards, laying down his licks on two LPs that flirted with the mainstream, while staying true to his highly electric guitar muse.
In 1983, Oda actually reformed for one more LP on Loud Phonograph, entitled 'Power Of Love.' The comeback album delves a little deeper into radio friendly power pop, which makes sense, as in '82 Oda co-wrote 'Think I'm In Love' with Eddie Money (which, let's face it, is Money's best song by like a mile).
Randy would also collaborate with Fogerty as a duo, and the posthumous 'Sidekicks' album (released after Fogerty passed) listed the clearly-integral Randy Oda as "arranger, composer, guitar (acoustic), guitar (electric), keyboards, primary artist, and producer."
In the 2000s, Randy would start another band with his brother called Opo which means "to lay a foundation" in Hawaiian, and Oda would reform to play a benefit in 2015 along with other obscure and heady/heavy Bay Area rockers like Savage Resurrection and Country Weather (some live footage of the event shows the band still rocking hard).
At last, Riding Easy is legitimately reissuing Oda's first smoking, gargantuan LP with bonus tracks, so crank this one up in your '70s Camaro with the windows open, and some dirt weed joints a-blazin'.
