Skip to main content

Lighthouse - Sunny Days

Bin diving at my local record store where there were more than a few choices to make. After picking out a half dozen treasures, I figured I'd stop looking and leave before I caused myself trouble at home. Lighthouse was one of those ridiculously large bands in the early 70s I didn't understand. I mean really, BTO was just four guys, The James Gang was three, until they weren't, what in the world do you do with a dozen guys in a band?

Of course I had a radio — it was the first significant purchase I made with my money from cutting lawns. I think at the time it cost about 35 bucks, and had FM and other high frequency things I never got to use living out in the suburbs away from the reach of the big city FM signal.

"Sunny Days" was a great song. I remember thinking it was cool and didn't switch to the other AM station when it came on. A few years later, when I got my first record player, the obligatory K-Tel anthologies would feature a myriad of cut up and edited classics, among them "Sunny Days" and other golden nuggets that would form a lot of my musical tastes.

I'm spinning the record as I write this, hearing most of the songs for the first time. I'm struck by how diverse the music is, and how well it holds up. Yeah, it was the 70s, and while I lived through them I was just a kid, so the nuances of the period were, and still are for the most part, lost on me. What I have is the music. Which runs all over the place: rock, jazz, country rock, and lots of horns and even (gasp) vibraphone.

DIGRESSION ALERT

Anyone else immediately think of Monty Python when you read the word vibraphone? Let me refresh your memory: "Now lesson 2: Noises. Noises are a major embarrassment source. Even words like "tits", "winkle" and "vibraphone" cannot rival the embarrassment potential of sound."

END ALERT - Please resume your reading at a normal speed

Like so many bands of the time, their schedule must have been absolutely punishing, and likely exhilarating. They started out in 1969 and by the time this dropped in '72 they'd released three gold, and three platinum albums in Canada (okay, I'm not sure if they were certified at the time, but they are now). I was pretty pleased when I found this, and honestly other than "Sunny Days" didn't really know what to expect. For sure it's a period piece, but it's also pretty good too.

I found it really interesting when reading up on the band that composer Howard Shore was a member during their early years. Yes, that Mr. Shore — a frequent collaborator with David Cronenberg, scored the movie Big (and a shit-tonne of other great films) and won Academy Awards for his work on The Lord of the Rings.

Aside from a few pops and clicks, mostly between tracks, this one was pretty good after getting cleaned up. The jacket was in decent shape and was an enjoyable listen all the way through.

"Sunny Days" indeed (see what I did there?)


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Styx - Paradise Theater

Styx was hands down one of my favourite bands as a kid. They were a strange band, even back then. They were a hard rock band, almost progressive at times, who had a penchant for sucky ballads. I know there's a tendency for people to zero in on "Babe" as the song that killed the band's credibility. The roots go way back to almost the beginning when Styx released "Lady" on their second album. It showed a side to the band that needed to be kept in check, and for the most part the band kept things on a pretty tight leash. The band had been setting a gruelling pace, releasing an album a year (two in 1972) and by the time they released Paradise Theater (if I end up writing theatre later it's because that's how we spell it here) in 1981 they'd dropped ten albums in less than a decade. I snapped this up as soon as I saw it, and it became a fixture on my turntable. Like the band had announced on "Borrowed Time" from 1979's Cornerstone , ...
Post a Comment
Read more

David Baerwald - Bedtime Stories

The little sticker on the shrinkwrap says, "You may remember David Baerwald from David & David's Boomtown ..." You bet, I remembered David Baerwald. Back in 1986 Boomtown was an album with moments of sheer brilliance. The whole album may not have been as top shelf as the first few tracks, but that didn't matter - it is an excellent album. I waited for a follow-up ... and waited, and then in 1990 it was a solo David, David Baerwald,  who dropped Bedtime Stories . I snapped it up. "All For You," the opening cut, is still my favourite song on the album. It was mesmerizing. I'm not sure if the song got any airplay, it may have, but that may have been wishful thinking on my part as it was on a lot of mix tapes at the time and I heard it a lot in the car. The CD had a great booklet with all of the musician credits and lyrics. Oddly, when I found a sealed copy of the record (a great score), it just had a plain paper insert - the picture of David walking wit...
Post a Comment
Read more

Gary Numan - The Pleasure Principle

"Cars" was really the only song I knew by Gary Numan. I knew the name of the album the song came from. Over the years bits and pieces of trivia are accumulated, but in terms of his music it was still distilled down to one song ... It would be too easy to write Mr. Numan off as a one hit wonder, and I suppose in terms of actual chart hits this was his defining moment as a solo artist. Of course this really means nothing, as Gary Numan would drop an album a year pretty much through to the end of the '80s. He'd then slow down a little but continued to make music. While The Pleasure Principle was Gary Numan's debut solo release in '79, he actually cut his teeth on a couple of albums in a band called Tubeway Army, first with the band's self-titled release in 1978, and then on Replicas that came out in April of '79. By the end of Tubeway Army's run most of the band would follow Gary into his solo career. Paul Gardiner, who had been with Gary from the b...
Post a Comment
Read more