In astronomical terms, Population II stars are the oldest observed stars that form the nucleus of the galaxy. They contain less metal and are less luminous than younger stars, but a whole lot cooler. That’s pretty much the perfect metaphor for Randy Holden’s lost-and-rediscovered 1970 “solo” LP Population II, a masterpiece of heavy psych and molten riffing that has been revealed to be a quasi-Rosetta Stone for doom metal, particularly the stoner branch. Like Sir Francis Bacon’s The Wisdom of the Ancients, Population II is a meditative exploration of form and process, presaging elements of the heavy music that followed. But, as the kids like to say, it’s also a mood.
Holden first began to sketch out some of the musical advances of Population II on Blue Cheer’s 1969 LP New! Improved!, where he’d briefly replaced the equally iconic guitarist Leigh Stephens before quitting in frustration. Side B of New! Improved! features three songs, including an early version of “Fruit & Icebergs,” written and performed by Holden, all ripe for further exploration. A chance encounter with another Bay Area acid rock refugee, drummer Chris Lockheed, generated the idea for a new kind of power duo, where Holden would play guitar and sing, while Lockheed stood in for a rhythm section by playing drums and bass (with a keyboard and pedals) simultaneously.
In a cruel, but perhaps not that unusual twist of fate, Holden and Lockheed spent over a year sculpting the songs and rehearsing a mammoth stage production that yielded exactly two live performances and an album that languished in legal limbo with a minimal number of promo copies pressed and nothing resembling an official release until decades later. This means very few people got to experience the superior force of Holden and Lockheed performing with enough amplifiers to blow your hair back. Delays in the album’s release also meant that Black Sabbath’s debut technically came first, but 1970 also gave us Atomic Rooster, Sir Lord Baltimore and Deep Purple’s In Rock, so perhaps it’s best to just honor Population II as part of the same stone soup.
Like Jimi Hendrix, Holden probably did not put much stock in his own voice, but his bluesy style serves his compositions well. Similarly, Lockheed proves to be an adept and unfussy timekeeper on Population II. But everything is ancillary to the sound of the guitar, and Holden telegraphs his intent from the opening lines of the album opener “Guitar Song”: “I love the sound of a guitar playing, yeah / I love the way it makes me feel inside.” His re-envisioning of “Fruit & Icebergs” features a riff so nice he employs it again to close out the album’s first side. And the mammoth album closer “Keeper of My Flame” demonstrates why Holden deserves a spot in the pantheon of guitar gods after a lifetime of being on the outside looking in. Welcome to the Decibel Hall of Fame; we acknowledge all your sacrifices.
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