Dragon's debut has been pigeonholed as a second or third-rate prog-rock product, but that misses the mark. Essentially, they melded Traffic's pastoral art-rock approach with classier Procol Harum-style pop and progressive instincts, throwing in a healthy dose of their own quirky personality and character. There's only six songs but it doesn't ever feel like it drags (like a lot of other prog rock records) as even at this early point in their career these savvy-before-their-time New Zealanders are fairly good with a pop hook ("Going Slow"). They have no qualms jamming out on longer passages either, as the dual suite of "Weetbix" followed by "Graves" shows. Solid performance overall.

So here is an interesting case – old-school archival label Cleopatra Records decided to unearth this rarity and release to the public after some forty-odd years – the essentially “lost” album which Marriott and Greg Ridley were recording as a separate project from Humble Pie. The Ridley-Marriott pairing was more focused on what would seem to be a rather confused R&B/Soul/Funk/Hard Rock hybrid, and that is why it suffers, because they were trying to do too many things at once, and then plain just ran themselves ragged. There are individual tracks here and there which are notable. For example, TWO covers of James Brown’s “Think” – one with a drum machine and a second with live drums and sax solos called “Think 2”. “This Ol’ World” and “Midnight of my Life”, on the other hand, ring out like funeral pyres for the band itself. The version of “Rain” that is heard on this album as well. They sound so tired and down-trodden. The only real, heavy rocker is “Let Me Be Your Lovemaker” which, feels pretty subdued in the middle of these soul ballads and piece-meal exercises like “Snakes & Ladders” and “Charlene”, where you can tell everyone was just wanting the thing to come to an end. And I think that is the other aspect of Joint Effort which is notable – the feeling of bringing the proper end to what was really a nice run for the band, when all is said and done.

Millennium Collection is a good place to start if you want to dive into the Pie. Most of the material was taken from the super group era, reflecting just how dynamic and creative that arrangement really was. However, practically nothing is selected from the group’s first three albums, except for two singles which everyone knows about – “Natural Born Bugie” (here listed as “Natural Born Woman”, and in an abridged version) and “Big Black Dog”. Most of the super group years representation comes from Rock On and the Fillmore live album. It would have been a little better if just one or two cuts from any of first three Pie efforts could have been included. Maybe “Heartbeat” or “Desperation” or “Live with Me” to knock out “C’mon Everybody”, IMHO. The remaster job on all of the tracks is great, and the packaging is good as well, although it would have been nice to include some pictures of Frampton, and not just the shots of the Clempson era of the group.

You may find this as King Biscuit Flower Hour Presents Humble Pie In Concert which was released four years earlier with a different cover and added “I Don’t Need No Doctor” to the track list. But no matter what version you have, the material comes from a concert at San Francisco’s Winterland Theatre in either May or June of 1973. So, that means we are dealing with the post-Frampton/Clempson/Blackberries lineup of the band, which is interesting, in that we get to contrast between that and the “super group”/Fillmore live album and see what happens. In some respects, there is no contrast at all. Many of the characteristics of Fillmore – Steve’s singing banter between songs, the carryover of material itself, the sheer energy of the experience – are either firmly in place or only further amplified. But I do sense one big difference between Fillmore and Winterland – desire. No doubt the band playing the stage at Winterland is still big, tough, meaty, and packs tons of thunder, but at the end of the day, it’s a Vegas-revue compared to the hungry, make-or-break bunch that stormed the stage at the Fillmore East. At one point, Marriott introduces the Blackberries and I feel like all of their names should be flashing behind them in lights and sparkles. This is just before they cover the ‘Stones “Honky Tonk Women”. It all smacks vaguely of Elvis and the jump suit crowd, not the rough and tumble Humble Pie I’ve come to know. However, the band does deliver where it matters most – in the music department. I do, by and large, like most of these songs, and furthermore, the quality of recordings is very nice and clear. You just have to understand, compared to the Fillmore experience, this is the slicker, more professional sounding Humble Pie on stage now – far more concerned with sheer audience interaction and back-and-forth bantering than putting any new spin on overplayed material like “30 Days in the Hole” or “C’mon Everybody”.

This rather roughshod document is a collection of 20 tracks from Marriott’s Clear Sounds studio. “The Scrubbers” were a loose collection of musicians Steve had brought together – Humble Pie and others – in order to record what was supposed to be his solo album. The end result was brought to A&M Records. Upon hearing it, their reaction was not a good one, and what ensued was the fits-and-starts ending of Humble Pie, which consisted of the Street Rats album and corresponding tours. The material contained within has ended up in various re-recorded forms on Street Rats, Marriott’s first solo album, and Small Faces reunion which happened later in the 70s, although those are albums I have yet to hear and I am going off of literature I have read in other quarters. The first few times I heard this I was really mystified, mainly at the sheer volume and scope of the work. I could see why his record company was aghast – on many of the tracks Marriott’s general attitude was quite the reverse of his normal fan-friendly Humble Pie persona. If anything, it was like he had immersed himself in a ton of Funkadelic and Sly Stone, including Sly’s crazy lifestyle. Upon further listens, not only was the above the case, but it’s probably the last interesting change for this multi-faceted artist before, the downhill slide really started to take hold. That, and well, it came off a bit like a big party with a bunch of his long-time bros is somewhat commendable, at least in the modesty department. Whatever the case, there is so much material of note – good, bad, cleanly or horribly recorded, nicely or intentionally ill-executed – that it is nearly pointless to trot out individual standouts or bad songs. I should point out, though, I really do not think there is a stereotypical “bad” song on this disc. It’s hard to say what is bad or good, when these guys are essentially tweaking around on various levels for the hell of it, see what works, what might go here, there, et cetera. But I think the base ideas are winners. Yes, you are bound to come across a track that makes you wonder what the hell was happening while tapes rolled – the cover or “Be My Baby” or “Lend us a Quid” comes to mind – but for every hare-brained experiment there is something to redeem it. The version of “I Need a Star in My Life”, for example, far outweighs what was eventually cut for the Marriott album. It shines like a beautiful beacon here. On the flip side of this streak of beauty, there is the grittiness of this version of “Street Rat”, which contains far more desperation and ugliness than the album version ever did. And that is the general game you can play with Scrubbers. Pick out one or any number or tracks, compare them to the versions on whatever proper album they were released, and odds-on, it’s better heard on this album than any other.