Old Enough to Forget

Tommy Shaw. Man, back in the day Tommy Shaw was my favourite part of Styx. Like most kids my age it was The Grand Illusion and Pieces of Eight that put the band on the map. Not to shit on Dennis, this is about Tommy so it's Tommy's songs that'll get top billing here. I remember hearing "Fooling Yourself (The Angry Young Man)" on the radio sporadically, mainly because radio in a small town sucked. Although sometimes at night I could pull in a Vancouver AM station. Then came the big guns "Blue Collar Man (Long Nights)" and "Renegade" and if that was all he ever wrote that would have been enough. But like they say on TV, "BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE!" There was so much more, Cornerstone had the awesome "Boat on a River" Paradise Theatre contained "Too Much Time on My Hands" and um, he played guitar on Kilroy Was Here . I am not sleeping on his debut with the band, Crystal Ball , where as a newbie he was gifted the ti...

This was a watershed album for me. For a couple of years from '81 through '83 I listened to a lot of Christian music. Some good, some really good and a lot of really ... really questionable stuff that was truly awful. At the time I played Colours a lot ... I mean, A LOT. Even at the time despite my desire to like everything on it, the album was felt wildly uneven but I ... did ... not ... care. I loved this record. I'd first heard Resurrection Band in the spring of 1981 (sometimes memories do have a time stamp) when a friend played the opening track to their 1978 album Awaiting Your Reply. "Waves" sounded like Led Zeppelin, which at the time wasn't actually a selling feature for me. People may not remember but there was a time not that long ago when music like this was controversial. Many of the televangelist talking heads proclaimed this was THE DEVIL'S MUSIC. What Resurrection Band and their contemporaries were doing was truly out of the ordinary for Ch...

Heavy Metal is one of my favourite soundtrack albums ever. True, not every song is a winner, but boy howdy the hit to miss ratio here is Hall of Fame worthy. The opening sequence when the Corvette drops from the Space Shuttle to Riggs "Radar Rider" blew my mind. It still absolutely boggles the brain that Riggs did not include the songs they contributed to the soundtrack on their debut and only album - oh what should have been. Then again, a lot of the songs here were only available on the soundtrack - both a good thing and a bad thing. It’s good for me since I own the soundtrack, but after buying several albums by the featured artists, I was hoping some of those songs would appear there too. Unfortunately, they didn’t. I digress.  Heavy Metal  (the movie) showed a lot of boobies, and I spent a fair bit of time channelling my inner Den ... "Oh boobies." One vignette after another were loosely braided into an overarching story that was cool but didn't make any sen...

Frank Turner is a bit of a conundrum. I can't rightly recall how I first heard of Mr. Turner, but I ended up with copies of England Keep My Bones (2011) and the two albums that followed, Tape Deck Heart (2013) and  Positive Songs for Negative People (2015). The only song I can remember is the all too short "Eulogy" that opens his 2011 release. I do remember them as being pretty decent, even if they didn't stick with me. I obviously liked him enough to pick up more of his stuff. That's the problem (one of many) with getting old, the neural pathways required to make those associative connections with time place and music are well worn and the ability to carve fresh tracks alongside the long establish ruts is pretty much an improbable task. However, my ability to appreciate music in the moment has not diminished. I'm as quick to pass to judgment as I ever was. If anything I'm more self aware and will often take the time to intentionally listen, really liste...

A while back I'd found City Boy's second album Dinner at the Ritz and I'd made a comment about being on the lookout for more of their stuff. Well, I didn't have to look that hard or wait that long. In addition to finding Young Men Gone West I also snagged a copy of Book Early, both of which have been patiently sitting waiting. There are others out there ... it's just a matter of time, and space ... I'll need more space soon. Before the recording sessions started drummer Roger Kent left the band, and Tony Braunagel from Crawler was brought in to play on Young Men Gone West . The dual lead vocalists Lol Mason, and Steve Broughton were awesome and really worked off each other. Their voices are fairly similar but not entirely alike. Sort of like how people used to confuse Henley and Frey. Mike Slamer the band's guitarist has a lot of room to stretch throughout the album but never overplays or resorts to technical noodling for the sake of the noodle. The...

Steven Page has been quietly releasing albums since his departure from Barenaked Ladies back in 2010. I'll be upfront and admit I don't have a dog in the fight as to whether the band is better off with him or without him. Honestly I was a casual at best and while I have a few of their CDs I more or less stopped listening after their 2001 release  Disc One that collected their greatest hits from 1991 to 2001. I had no idea he had recently (dates and times are relative around here) released Excelsior . Over the last 25 years I've more or less watched from the sidelines. When Steven left Barenaked Ladies, I  watched along with millions of Canadian their reconciliation that wasn't a reconciliation for the Canadian Music Hall of Fame back in 2018. That performance absolutely silenced any doubters that this, THIS was the version of the band we needed, but wouldn't get - and that's okay. As cool as that Hall of Fame moment was it somehow manage to exclude o...