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Randy Bachman - Survivor

Freeways marked the end of Bachman-Turner Overdrive in 1977, and the next year Randy Bachman emerged with Survivor . I remember seeing this in the bins and thinking the cover was really cool. There was Randy in partial silhouette, his bellbottom jeans disappearing into the fog on the stage. His classic white Strat was partially visible, and the simple title Survivor said all that needed to be said. He was the last man standing. In the early '80s I picked up a copy and was looking forward to finally hearing what I had missed. It was profoundly disappointing. Undeterred, I had still managed to pick up a lot of things Bachman. I had a copy of Union with Fred Turner, and aside from a couple of songs it was forgettable. I also had the two Iron Horse records ... one decent, the other not so much. Heck, I even had Axe , Randy's first solo album (I still pull it down once in a while). So it's not like Survivor stopped me from being a fan ... Survivor is an odd record. It's...
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Steel Breeze - Steel Breeze

You may not be able to judge a book by its cover ... but you can often get an idea of what's going to be inside. I mean, a shirtless pirate with huge pectoral muscles and an eye patch sweeping a scantily clad damsel in a dress? You know you're going to read about penis euphemisms for a hundred and fifty pages. Just because the internet is full of pointless jibber-jabber, here are a few of my favourites: Man-Root Thorn of Lust Engorged Wand Pillar of Marble Scepter of Desire Monstrous Invader Wedding Tackle What does all of this bodice-removing slang have to do with Steel Breeze? I'm working on it. Like a book, the first thing to catch one's eye is the album cover. For a new band in particular, this is a do-or-die first impression. Once you have a bit of cachet, you can release a cover with nothing on it. Ask The Beatles, or AC/DC, or Spinal Tap, but for everyone else, covers matter. The cover to Steel Breeze's debut was about as eye-catching as the cover of The Yell...
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Gerry Rafferty - City to City

City to City was a giant killer. Saturday Night Fever had been number 1 for 22 weeks in the States, and for one glorious week in July 1978, Gerry, the antithesis of disco, was number 1. Of course, what goes up comes down, and a week later the Rolling Stones would claim top spot. However, in Canada we weren't so lucky. Here, it was Andy Gibb who knocked him out of the top spot. A week later, The Rolling Stones' Some Girls claimed top spot in Canada. What this has to do with anything is ... not much. I just think it's cool that Gerry was once the flavour of the day for a week. "Baker Street," arguably his most famous song, was huge, and it pulled the album along with it. It would go platinum in the States and double platinum in Canada. City to City marked Gerry's triumphant return after the dissolution of Stealers Wheel and his forced exile. The musical climate in '78 was a hodgepodge of great rock and roll that served as a safe place for those trying to...
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Aldo Nova - Aldo Nova

Aldo Nova seemed to come out of nowhere in the spring of '82. "Fantasy" didn't sound like anything else at the time - it was rock, wrapped in new wave structure, with searing guitars and layers of synths. If this was the future of rock, count me in. Throughout the album, Aldo's frenetic guitar playing was paired with a singing voice that at times seemed too thin to pull off the songs, but Aldo didn't seem to care and he went for it ... all in, baby. The album went double platinum on both sides of the border, and suddenly there was a new kid in town (suck it, Glenn Frey). To the uninitiated, Aldo Nova is remembered as a one-hit wonder - if he's remembered at all. Not everyone fell off the bandwagon after his debut, as his next record, Subject , would go platinum in Canada and gold in the US. However, by his third album, Twitch , an album that still went gold in Canada, there were a lot more empty seats on the wagon. His career trajectory may have gone in th...
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1927 - ...ish

In the early '90s I was rummaging through the discount discs at A&B Sound and I stumbled upon a couple of CDs by a band called 1927. I had never heard of them, but something about them looked cool. Pre-internet there was no easy way to find out about bands and stuff, so music had to stand on its own merit. Getting the two albums at once was fun, like the old Monty Python gag it was an instant record collection. Thankfully both ...ish and the Neapolitan self-titled album were really good. It would be ...ish that I played more often, not that I remember it being the better album, it's just the one I pull out when I think of the band. This was Australian synth heavy pop with big guitars and great vocals. Yes, back in the '80s Australia had a sound, go figure. 1927 sounded a bit like Icehouse. It wasn't so much Icehouse as it was that vocalist Eric Weideman sounded a lot like Iva Davies, who was by default - Icehouse. Icehouse at the time was hot. ...ish came out a y...
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Robert Johnson - Close Personal Friend

The cover for Close Personal Friend stood out for a number of reasons, and none of them particularly complimentary, but my goodness, it looked like fun, and those oxblood penny loafers, man, those were something. This wasn't supposed to come home with me, but dang it, this was on ... Released in 1978 on Infinity Records in North America and Ensign Records in the UK, Close Personal Friend was on a label with some pretty solid artists and somehow managed to implode and decimate a number of promising bands in the process. Who'd a thunk releasing an album by Pope John Paul II would cause such havoc in pop music? The year was '78 and here was Robert Johnson sporting a delightfully egg-shaped haircut and holding a sunburst Les Paul, and those shoes. Maybe I was too harsh, all of that is complimentary. He looked like Moon Martin's doppelganger, right down to the glasses, and looked like a shot from a cold nightmare ... although Robert was the better dresser, and a hell of a ...
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Walter Egan - Not Shy

Walter Egan is probably best known for his 1978 hit "Magnet And Steel" that featured backing vocals by Stevie Nicks and Lindsey Buckingham. It was one of those hits that seemed to be on the radio all the time back in the summer of '78. One of the weird things about gold-selling singles is how muddy the waters are when you try and double check stuff. In this case I suspect Columbia moved a shitload of plastic 45s and declared it to be gold. I guess the suits figured they could save a buck and not pay to have RIAA certify the record. After all, it was a pretty big hit in the US and was also a decent hit here in Canada. Not sure what this has to do with anything, other than I found it interesting that nothing showed in the RIAA database. The music business is show business and apparently there's no business like show business. The art of sleight of hand ... Well, as often happens I've veered off into the weeds and am now trying to decide on calling for a Mulligan or ...
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