Emergency - Entrance (CD)

The band was formed by sax player Hanus Berka, who discovered brass rock music whilst living in the US for a short while. He moved back to Europe, meeting up with fellow Czech musicians Otto Bezloja (bass), Dusko Goykovic (trumpet), Jiri Matousek (keyboards) and Milos Reddy (vocals) who were touring with a production of Hair. They formed the band, together with famous German drummer Udo Lindenberg and guitarist Barry Newby, and released their debut, self-titled album for CBS Records, in 1971.This album showed a group with many influences, sort of a mixture of Chicago/Blood, Sweat & Tears style brass rock meets East-Euro jazz and blues. The follow-up album, Emergency Entrance, released in 1972, also on CBS, saw the replacement of Newby with Frank Diez (Armaggedon) and Lindenberg with John Redpath. This was arguably their best album, as the third album, Get out to the Country, saw the band at their most commercial and was, by and large, a great disappointment, even though this album featured the talents of Karthago vocalist/percussionist Peter Bischof and Demon Thor/Twenty Sixty Six and Then keyboard player Veit Marvos. Supertramp guitarist Richard Palmer-James also featured on this album, which was their first for the famous Brain label. Which brings us to this, their final album, which now featured new drummer Todd Canedy, ex-Cusco, and Frank Diez, back in the fold after a short stint in Atlantis (the band, not the waterlogged continent!). The album, which comes a close second to Entrance, was their most progressive to date and featured a good collection of songs and instrumentals. The band disappeared without trace in the mid seventies.