The Rising Storm

"The fact that the Rising Storm was back last week at first seemed significant only to the small number of people who knew they went away in the first place, which was mainly their friends and relatives. But one other group of fanatical fans took notice: hard-core record collectors."

            Boston Globe (1981)

 "With or without the distance of more than a decade, it was hard to reconcile the humble efforts of one preppy garage band with the cries from the collectors that here was the greatest thing since the opening of Tut’s tomb."

           Boston Magazine (1982)
 

"You’ve probably never heard of the Rising Storm, a schoolboy garage-band that roamed the halls of Phillips Academy in Andover 25 years ago. And you probably wouldn’t have if the group’s only album . . . hadn’t become one of the most collectible disks ever released."

           Boston Herald (1992)

"Twenty-five years ago, the Rising Storm played Abbot-Phillips Academy mixers for $50 a night and made a record to sell to friends and family for $3 a copy. Last year at an auction in Italy, one of the 500 copies of the vanity label record sold for $1,300."

            Lawrence Eagle-Tribune (1992)

"A cult following . . . A reunion tour . . . Middle-aged investment bankers crawling on their bellies like reptiles . . . For the most utterly obscure rock band in America, midlife doesn’t get any better than this."

"An Italian collector recently paid $1,300 for a copy of the album Calm Before. At that price, it would rank among the 50 most collectible albums, according to Goldmine, a magazine for music collectors."

"While still at prep school in the mid-60’s, this New England group recorded one of the rarest and most respected garage band albums . . . . This effort was distinguished from many other recordings of the sort not by the respectable covers . . . , but by the beautiful, haunting original folk-rock ballads."

            All Music Guide to Rock (1995)
 
"The Rising Storm played strictly for fun, duly splitting up once they graduated from high school. A dozen or so years after Calm Before was released, however, a renewed interest in sixties music had spread across the globe and the long forgotten band was rightfully deemed legendary cult heroes."

           Twist and Shake (1995)
 
"Little did the six members of that student garage band – mixing hard driving originals and covers of classic blues, rock and soul material – realize the album would later come to signal the height of 60’s garage rock and become one of the most sought after original albums of today."