Old Enough to Forget

The Seventy Sevens, the 77's, The 77s ... depending on what era you started with you're likely more than familiar with all of the variations. The band's debut album must have been gestating a while before Exit was able to secure distribution. The back of the jacket has this as 1982 as that's when it was recorded, and the songs are mostly from 1980, with one of the newer ones 1981 and a cover of "Denomination Blues" that was attributed to Ry Cooder. This isn't an album I'd heard back in the day as the Christian bookstore I relied on was pretty good at bringing things in if I asked, but I had to know what to ask for. By '83 my initial infatuation with a lot of Christian music had run its course, and my ability to try and like stuff that was inferior had more or less been exhausted. That isn't to say there weren't bands I still followed, but they were in the minority, and they tended to be good bands. The first couple of 77s albums flew under

In the fall of '84 two albums dropped that were huge for me. Toto's maligned Isolation , and Don Henley's Building the Perfect Beast . Toto's album will be another day but today I'm sitting in the basement with the music on and pretending in twenty one again and discovering the album for the first time. David and Steve from Toto show up here quite a bit which I always thought was cool. I'd heard "Boys of Summer" on the radio and that song was so good, and the fact I had a Grateful Dead sticker on my car at the time only added to the fun. I always think of the album as being excellent, but honestly the two songs I really associate with the album are the aforementioned "Boys of Summer" and "Sunset Grill" ... I try not to think about "All She Wants to Do Is Dance" because I still think it's a giant musical turd. I still remember pouring over the credits while listening to the album, and "Boys of Summer" drove me

Two Worlds came out in 1985 and the '80s had a sound, and by gum this was it. The flat splat of the drums, crisp guitars and gang vocals and sparkly keyboard parts. Body Electric was one of those bands who never really got out of the starting blocks. I remember seeing a poster for the band's debut on the wall at Little Mountain Sound. It was a cool cover, but all I knew was it was Frank Ludwig's new band, and as talented as Frank was, I never really got into his stuff. When "Do You Think They Can Tell" got some minor airplay in Vancouver I thought it was pretty cool, but it was the ballad "Don't Look Back" that clicked with me. That was an awesome song. So I picked up the E.P. and with only 5 songs, it was really all killer no filler. The album was produced by Bill Henderson and it sounded like a continuation of his '84 release Look In, Look Out . The album felt like a taster of things to come, except there wasn't anything else. This was a

Out There Tonight came out in '77 a year after the band's debut, and it was an album I'd been looking for since discovering Garfield a while back ... okay, last year. The band was a pleasant surprise, and I really enjoyed how Garfield French approached writing and how the songs were structured. It was progressive (I throw the term around, but basically to me it's a catch all for anything that isn't overly formulaic) and a little meandering, but not haphazard. This was carefully assembled and the off the cuff nature of Garfield's vocal delivery was deliberate. Think of Tommy Smother's acting all spontaneous and interrupting poor Dick with his meandering comments ... except nothing was random, it was meticulously crafted.   After I posted my post about the band's debut I found Garfield's Facebook page. The page was inactive, but I figured I drop Mr. French a note to tell him how much I enjoyed the album. To my surprise I got a reply, and we traded a co

The summer of 1979 belonged to The Knack. Produced by Mike Chapman who was half of the infamous dynamic "Chinnichap"duo with Nicky Chinn. Mr. Chapman had an ear for candy and by gum (bubble gum, baby!) with The Knack he managed to catch lightning in a bottle. The album would go double platinum in the States, and in Canada it would move over 400,000 copies.  The album was a big deal. Or so you'd think. The reality is a little more complicated. Going back to my teenage years "My Sharona" was the song that propelled the band into the stratosphere. Kids everywhere could play the opening riff, and like "Smoke on the Water" it gave the song a sense of simplicity that belied the song's complex structure and numerous changes. It's a mini masterclass in musical excellence and there are no bum notes or wasted space. You don't even have to hear all of the opening riff to "name that tune." I ate it up until it made me sick, and so did an awf

City Nights was Nick's second solo album, and for most of us it's "Hot Child in the City" that he's best known for ... as a solo artist. He's still somewhat infamous as the guy who left Sweeney Todd just as they were taking off ... but for many years now he's been touring with as Sweeney Todd so I guess he ended up having the last laugh anyway. Regardless, there's no denying how good "Hot Child in the City" was ... it was huge on both sides of the border, and Nick's balancing of the glam elements mixed with rock and emerging new wave was pretty impressive. A big part of this was the songwriting team of James McCulloch and Nick Gilder. When Nick left Sweeney Todd, it was with guitarist and songwriter James, and if Nick had a secret sauce it was James' both as a writer, and more impressively - a really tasty and economical player. The album was produced by Peter Coleman, and Mike Chapman. Both had deep roots with power pop and glam. Mi