Old Enough to Forget

Always Tomorrow is another of my beloved Marco Polo Platters. The first thing that caught my eye was the cover. Okay, that was the second thing. The first thing was the clearance sticker, but dang the cover gave me a good chuckle. The cover for Always Tomorrow  is a weirdly wonderful juxtaposition of perspective on a familiar image. It's a picture taken from inside the Hotel California looking out into the world. Some will get it, some won't ... most won't care. It's the font in the bottom right that pulls it all together. Dagnabbit that album was twenty years when Bethany Cosentino was born, so I'm guessing her parents had a decent record collection. Of course I could just be seeing things, and this is all a giant load of horseshit. I don't think so. Best Coast is a dreamy pop band who likes to incorporate jingle jangle guitars into their music. The music is weirdly nostalgic for me. It may be new but structurally this is what I grew up with. Ah, the more thi...

Prism was a band I loved - right up until I didn’t. But it was complicated, because I still loved the band, but it was conditional. Those first two albums on GRT were foundational for me. Heck, Armageddon was as cool as it got, but if push came to shove, I’d throw the band under the bus without a second thought. Then came Young and Restless , an album with some (one for sure) killer songs, though honestly, I didn’t consider it essential. When Small Change dropped in 1981, I remember really liking the cover - Norman Rockwell, how can you not? My old friend Robert Baldwin (rest in peace, Robert, you were one of a kind) was the only person I knew who had it (apparently there were 49,999 others who had it too). I remember seeing the record in his room and teasing him for owning it. We sat and listened to the record; the first track sounded like classic Prism, but the rest didn’t. That’s how I remember it. Looking at the back cover there were major changes in the band: Ron Tabak, the vocal...

Eddie Money. Not one of the names that immediately pops into my mind when I think of rocks great vocalists, but when the guy sings man, he's right up there. He's got the swagger and delivery and he doesn't sound like anyone else. He sounds like, money.  I've always liked a lot of his music, but I didn't have a lot of his music. I had a few albums, his '78 sophomore album Life for the Taking, and his '82 release No Control t hat had "Think I'm in Love" a song that still make me grin like an idiot. I The last one I bought was Can't Hold Back  from 1986, because it had "Take Me Home Tonight" on it. Dang that song was so good. It also had a cover of Stan Meissner's "One Chance" but to me it wasn't nearly as good as the original. No Control  is a really decent record, and one I probably appreciate more now than I did when I was nineteen. The big songs back then are still the big songs now. "Shakin'" is...

All Dressed Up is one of the best albums you've never heard. Released in 1982 David Roberts was poised to be a big deal. At least here at home in Canada ... before the conquering the rest of the world. The album was slick with enough rough edges to appeal to the rock guy in me. It didn't hurt that the album contained a who's who of the best session players on the friggin' planet. This came out the same year TOTO IV and musically All Dressed Up borrows more from the late '70s light funk and jazz grooves than the harder West coast AOR that was starting to percolate to the top of the charts. It was really good. So what happened? I remember watching David perform "Boys of Autumn" on the Juno Awards, and he was up for Most Promising Male Vocalist in '83 but lost out to Kim Mitchell, who was so far removed from being considered a "new" talent that it is mind boggling to me the guy was even nominated. Oh well.  I don't know how well the album...

I've never really watched Law and Order , or any of the endless spin offs, but I know the opening sequence. Which got me to thinking, wouldn't it be cool if I could get Steven Zirnkilton (I looked him up to give him credit) to narrate an opening segment to one of my blog posts. Actually, this post would be good. Close your eyes and read it while thinking of Steven's dulcet tones. Oh, right, maybe open your eyes so you can see. You'll have to figure out how to imagine his voice on your own.   "In a criminally competitive musical landscape, many albums are lost to time - forgotten, out of print, absent from streaming - these are considered especially elusive. One such album is Midnight Fire by Randall Waller.” Yes that's right I finally found a copy of Midnight Fire to replace the one I lost many years ago. Talk about a blast from the past. This is Randall Waller's lone entry into my personal discography. The date on the label says it was from 1980, but I di...

I found this one still in the original shrinkwrap and the cover looked interesting. It was on Capitol Records and it didn't hurt that I recognized producer Marshall Crenshaw's name on the back cover. I always love a good hype sticker, and the implication here was that this was full of hits. Three of them. Score! When I dropped the needle I was stoked to hear the opening notes to see what this was going to be ... I had cranked it a little louder than normal and I stood there looking down at the needle waiting ... then it hit. This is my favourite part of a new record. The anticipation. The opening guitar riff hit me in my happy place (the best feeling ever), and after a few licks of guitar tastiness, Gwil's voice came in and he's got his own thing going on. Part Americana Roots Rock, mixed with good old fashioned Southern Rock. I actually thought he sounded a bit like Pat MacDonald from Timbuk 3 mixed with Dan Baird from Georgia Satellites, and a dash of Steve Earle when...