Grand Funk Railroad

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Grand Funk Railroad, sometimes shortened as Grand Funk, is an American popular rock band during the 1970s, touring extensively and playing to packed arenas worldwide. David Fricke of Rolling Stone magazine once said, "You cannot talk about rock in the 1970s without talking about Grand Funk Railroad!"

Known for their crowd-pleasing arena rock style, the band was well-regarded by audiences despite a relative lack of critical acclaim.  The band's name is a play on words of the Grand Trunk Western Railroad, a line that ran through the band's home town of Flint, Michigan.

Originally a trio, the band was formed in 1969 by Mark Farner (guitar, vocals) and Don Brewer (drums, vocals) from Terry Knight and the Pack, and Mel Schacher (bass) from Question Mark & the Mysterians; Knight soon became the band's manager, as well as naming the band as a play on words for the Grand Trunk Western Railroad, a well-known rail line in Michigan. First achieving recognition at the 1969 Atlanta Pop Festival, the band was signed by Capitol Records.

After a raucous, well-received set on the first day of the festival, the group was asked back to play at the Second Atlanta Pop Festival the following year. Patterned after hard-rock power trios such as Cream, the band, with Terry Knight's marketing savvy, developed its own popular style. In August 1969, the band released its first album titled On Time, which sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold record in 1970.

In February 1970, a second album, Grand Funk (or The Red Album), was awarded gold status. Despite critical pans and a lack of airplay, the group's first six albums (five studio releases and one live album) were quite successful.

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"Bad Time" is a song written by Mark Farner and performed by Grand Funk. The song reached #4 on the Billboard Hot 100 on 7–14 June 1975.  The song appeared on the band's 1974 album, All the Girls in the World Beware!!!

The song was produced by Jimmy Ienner and arranged by Tony Camillo.  It was the group's fourth single to reach the Top 10, and was their final Top 40 hit in the U.S.

"Bad Time" marked the end of the group's two-year run as 'Grand Funk', during which time they scored all their major hits. Following this song, their name reverted to 'Grand Funk Railroad'

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"Inside-Looking Out", often written "Inside Looking Out", is a 1966 single by The Animals. It was a substantial hit in their native land, reaching number 12 on the UK Singles Chart, number 21 in Canada, and number 34 in the United States on the U.S. pop singles chart. The song is very loosely based on a prison work chant entitled "Rosie," attributed to C. B. and Axe Gang, that was collected by musicologist Alan Lomax and released in his album Popular Songbook.

In 1969 it was covered by Grand Funk Railroad, who on their album Grand Funk added some marijuana references to the lyrics such as changing the original's "rebirth" to "reefer" and "canvas bags" to "nickel bags" ("burlap bags" in later reissues). It was a concert staple of the band for years and is included on their Grand Funk Live Album.

A reworking of portions of the song was also recorded by the Austrian band Novak's Kapelle in 1969 as "Hypodermic Needle". It was later covered by doom metal band The Obsessed, released on their 1999 compilation album, Incarnate and again by The Greenhornes on their 2001 self-titled second album. In 2001, Eric Burdon released a live cover on Official Live Bootleg 2000.

Other covers included by Gerry Joe Weise, Shot on Site, The Mops, and The Rationals. Grand Funk's version is sampled in the songs "Sound of da Police" by KRS-One and "High 5 (Rock The Catskills)" by Beck. Canadian guitarist Pat Travers also covered the song in 2003 on his album Power Trio.

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In 1974, Grand Funk Railroad recorded the song[5] for the group's album All the Girls in the World Beware!!! Reaching number three on the Billboard Hot 100 on 22 February 1975,[6] it was an indisputable hit and thusly became one of the band's best known songs.

It also ranked number 74 on Billboard's Hot 100 year-end chart for 1975 (but the 27 December 1975 print edition of Billboard, which contained the Hot 100 for 1975 that Casey Kasem followed, erred in placing it at #6 and in placing all the songs from #6 through #73 one position lower apiece).[citation needed]

Their version of the song appeared in the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas on the fictitious radio station K-DST.