Troyka

...tic post-Cream guitar thrills with gruff, hyper-macho vocals on their lone long-player. Troyka were originally from Edmonton Alberta Canada, which has a huge Ukrainian Canadian population. Many people here in Alberta (Calgarian's in particular) jokingly refer to Edmonton as 'Edmonchuck'. The group was comprised of Robert Edwards, Michael Richards, and Ron Lukawitski. They moved to Montreal and performed as a quartet in 1966, then regrouped back in Alberta as a trio. There, in an homage to their shared Ukrainian heritage, they dubbed themselves Troyka (though whether their namesake was a powerful triumvirate or an antiquated three-horse cliche has certainly blurred with the passage of time). Troyka even comes speckled with Slavic elements (two tack-on instrumentals, the lilting ‘Introduction’ and the closer ‘Troyka Finale’, bookend the record), but for the most part it relies on crotch-heavy amplification to counter the relative paucity of ideas here. ‘Natural’ for instance, sports some prime virtuosic guitar work, though the constipated vocals reek of facile sexism – as if an axe and some fine chops weren’t enough to get you laid without pubescent posturing like, “Hey mama, won’t you come down by the river, and give me some”. ‘Rolling Down the Road’, with its nearly proto-speed metal, fares better, channelling frantic hyper blues into an almost MC5-like abandon. Other tracks hint at a more delicate side, especially the wistful soft-psych instrumental ‘Dear Margaret (Malagosia)’, with its Spanish tinges and flecks of John Williams-ish guitar. Troyka were often hailed for their legendary live sets – one particularly raucous set at New York’s Fillmore East saw them flagged back for a triple encore. By 1970 they seemed to be hitting their stride, scoring a coveted support slot in Toronto for the mother of all troikas, Leslie West’s Mountain. But alas, while poised to secure a page in history alongside the Band, the Grateful Dead and Janis Joplin, aboard the infamous bourbon-LSD- and-barbiturate-laced 'Festival Express' cross-Canada train tour in the summer of 1970, guitarist Rob Edwards left to tend to family concerns, and thus fame turned to footnote for Troyka. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.