The Dog That Bit People

Original copies of this album reportedly sell for some $750. I’m not sure the music itself is worth that much, but an absurd moniker like The Dog That Bit People has to be worth something. Formed from the remnants of the more sensibly yet less creatively named Locomotive, this UK-based quartet’s self-titled debut was first released in 1971 on Parlophone Records. Veering away from the psychedelic sounds of its predecessor, The Dog That Bit People plays an acoustic-flavored brand of progressive-influenced hard rock. The album’s overall vibe is decidedly relaxed—“Lovely Lady” and “Walking” are particularly mellow—but the band isn’t afraid to flex its muscle. “The Monkey and the Sailor,” “Sound of Thunder” and “Red Queen’s Dance” feature plenty of fluid guitar leads and a thunderous rhythm section, while the distorted vocals and sinister lyrics in “Reptile Man” give the album its darkest, most aggressive moment: “Scaly skin and yellow teeth with hair down to his toes/creeping through the slime/its reptile man.” The Dog That Bit People was a commercial disappointment and the group disbanded. Sadly, this wasn’t the only Locomotive-related project to fall through the cracks; keyboardist Norman Haines Band’s Den of Inequity suffered a similar fate when it was released that same year.

Notes: The Dog That Bit People actually took its name from a short story by American author James Thurber. Here an audio-only YouTube clip of “Reptile Man” from the band’s self-titled debut: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NHK-P_rEzak&feature=related (look carefully under the comments section and you’ll see several postings from John Caswell, the band’s original guitar player).