Old Enough to Forget

I picked this up in the dollar bin a couple of months ago, and after some TLC, the vinyl cleaned up surprisingly well. I mean really well. The gatefold was in decent shape, but if there were any liner notes, they were lost to time. This was an album that intrigued me, and the song I was most excited to listen to was "Rock & Roll, Hoochie Koo," as I was curious to hear how different this was from the version I was most familiar with: Rick Derringer's 1973 killer from his solo debut album All American Boy . Oddly enough, only a few months after Roadwork was released in 1972, The Edgar Winter Group would release They Only Come Out at Night , and the rest, as they say, is history. That album would yield two of his biggest hits in "Frankenstein" and "Free Ride," both of which would be forever cemented in the foundations of what would become classic rock. However, this isn't about that album. This is about their double live album Roadwork . I was com...

I was feeling a bit bummed out, so I went to the basement looking for something to raise my mood from shitty to something just slightly less than grumpy. I riffled through the albums that were in my "pending listen-to pile," and there was Zappacosta's 1984 self-titled release. This was an album I always meant to buy when it came out, and never did. Don't know why, I just didn't. "Passion" was a song that melded all the great elements of early '80s pop, and even the follow-up single "We Should Be Lovers" was great. When I was looking through a discount bin and saw a decent-looking copy with pristine vinyl, it was finally time to pick up the album. Like Paul Janz, Zappacosta built pop songs around his ability to carry a song through the power of his voice. The album kicks off with "Passion," and while the song is very much of its time, it's still a great listen and propels the album through a series of familiar and very strong s...

Sweeney Todd will forever be remembered as the band who released "Roxy Roller," a song that was everywhere when I was a kid. The song was pure glam, and Gilder's sultry vocals enhanced it. Despite his high-pitched delivery, there was a cockiness to the song that made you want to strut - or at the very least put on a pair of roller skates, be a rebel, and skate counter-clockwise. After the debut, Nick Gilder would leave the band, along with guitarist James McCulloch, and collaborate on Gilder's "Hot Child in the City." For a short time, Bryan Adams would join Dan Gaudin, Budd Marr, and John Booth, and they would release one more album and even re-record their seminal hit. I have a few collections that include "Roxy Roller," so it was a jarring surprise to hear the album cut. The guitar solo is vastly different, and the running time is about a minute longer. I've actually gone back and played the song a couple of times just to be sure. This is ab...

A while back on a SAGA page, someone posted a picture of a ticket stub with the name Starcastle crossed out, and SAGA written in pen. I don't know why this stuck in my memory, but it did. One day I was looking through the clearance section at an old video store that had recently added a record section, and I found a couple of cool-looking albums. Among them was this Starcastle album featuring a great cover. With the Hildebrandt signature, I'm going to assume this was done by the brothers. I'll look it up later.* Right off the bat, there was Roy Thomas Baker's name in the production credits, so if nothing else there was some muscle behind it and someone at Epic believed in the band. The back cover shows six rather dashing and very serious-looking fellows, two of whom had fine moustaches, and the guy in the back row far left could have been the inspiration for Michael Sadler's (lead singer from SAGA) epic 'stache from the '70s. I was pretty stoked, to be hones...

This is my favourite Kansas album. Other than a couple of songs I'd heard on the radio, I didn't really know much about the band. I do know my buddy Gord liked them, and I first heard "Relentless" on one of his mix tapes - and that was an awesome tune. I didn't really have any baggage when it came to the band. When I picked up their 1982 release Vinyl Confessions , I didn't realize there was a changing of the guard when a young John Elefante replaced Steve Walsh on vocals. By the time Drastic Measures dropped in 1983, I'd gone back and picked up the excellent (to me) Audio-Visions and had started collecting the band's back catalogue. I was really getting into the band. I'll be the first to admit my preferences leaned toward the rock songs, and the more meandering wiffle waffle stuff I put up with to get to the rock songs. Yeah, I'm thinking about "A Glimpse of Home" from Monolith with its pure cheese old-timey sci-fi radio intro... b...

1981 was a great year for Daniel Amos. First, Horrendous Disc was finally able to see the light of day after being held up in red tape and label shenanigans at Solid Rock for a number of years. Then, a few weeks later, they would release the first volume of the Alarma! Chronicles. This would start a lifelong love for the band and the many offshoots and tangents that would follow. It was Horrendous Disc I picked up first, and I'll admit it was because of the association with Larry Norman and Solid Rock Records. Many of my favourite artists were on this small label: Larry Norman, Randy Stonehill, and Mark Heard. So when this showed up I immediately bought it. Other than my small circle of friends who had similar taste in music, no one else seemed to have heard of these bands. There were no "hits." It was word of mouth. The cover was awesome, the insert photos were awesome - the band looked awesome. I dropped the needle and the first cut hooked me good. "I Love You #1...

Sometimes the anticipation and mystery of the unknown are greater than the reality once it's revealed. I found this album the same day I found the debut album by The Karroll Brothers, and at the time I mentioned I was pretty stoked to find this one. The Karroll Brothers album was a wonderful surprise. This one was a surprise too, but for different reasons. Let's get a couple of things out of the way right up front. I'm a casual J.D. Souther fan. I have a couple of his albums and, aside from his "hit" "You're Only Lonely," they were rather forgettable. However, his contribution to the 1988 movie Permanent Record (where I became a fan of Keanu Reeves), "Wishing on Another Lucky Star," is one of the finest pop songs EVER written. For that alone, I consider myself a fan. Chris Hillman is another guy I know more about than I actually know. I do have one of his albums, and I remember enjoying it, but I can't actually remember any of the songs...

Sniff n' the Tears is generally regarded as a one-hit wonder. That may well be the case, as dagnabbit and boy howdy, their one hit "Driver's Seat" was an amazing song that cut through the heavy fog disco had settled over the musical landscape in the late '70s. As much as I like shitting on disco, the late '70s was also an incubator for some great rock to come. Besides, by 1979 disco was in its death throes, so as we approached the '80s things were looking up - if only I'd been aware that disco's rebranding sneak attack would come in the form of dance music and ten-minute extended club mixes. I picked up a Sniff n' the Tears best-of CD years and years ago, and to be honest I didn't spend a lot of time with it. I wanted to have "Driver's Seat" and essentially ignored the rest. I did that a lot. So much stuff, so little time. I'm bin diving the other day and there's The Game's Up . The jacket was pristine, there was n...

I know this is my second post about BTO, but this was a cool find for me. I had mentioned I had been looking for the B.T.O. Japan Tour album for years, and last fall my wife and I were hanging around Commercial Drive checking out the shops. She shopped for clothes, and I stood around looking lost for the most part. It was a beautiful fall day, and as we made our way along the Drive, there on the corner was a small stall with a guy selling records. They were between five and ten bucks, which was a little high considering the condition of some of the records, but as I'd been forced to endure a few clothing shops, I felt justified in stopping to see what was there. There were quite a few records I wanted, but I already had them on CD, and the general agreement was that if I had it already, I didn't need to get it again. I've mostly stayed true to this, as frankly I spent a lot of money buying discs to replace the snap, crackle, and pop of my old record collection. There were ...

Loverboy dropped their sophomore album in the fall of 1981 and cemented their place among Canadian rock royalty. (It's a small club, but a club nonetheless.) The first two songs on their debut are classics, but for years I didn't really connect with the rest of that album. It felt like mostly filler back then - and honestly, it still does, but I'm more forgiving now. However, the follow-up, Get Lucky , was something altogether different. They delivered a masterclass in pop/rock that would polarize kids all over the country into two camps: "This rocks!" / "This sucks!" This was decades before Nickelback would take over the mantle of most divisive band in the land. I will publicly apologize to my old dear friend Steve Little, who loved "Gangs in the Streets." Just after the album came out, a bunch of us were hanging out, and Steve had his little cassette player and seemed to be playing this song and Gary Numan's "Cars" over and over...

The last of my Christmas bin purchases - and it turns out it wasn't a Christmas album at all. It was just a very unusual (in the most awesome way imaginable) album by a few horn players with a great sense of humour. Since I bought it for Christmas, I'll post this the day after Epiphany and start the new year with something a little more unusual than my normal fare. Trying to describe this is a little like trying to taste a menu by looking at it. For those of a certain age who remember The Gong Show, imagine one of the weirder acts like The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo (fronted by Richard Elfman, Danny's older brother) who managed to captivate the judges without getting gonged and actually win their episode. From the little I can find on these guys, The Rotor Rooter Good Time Christmas Band were very much in the same wheelhouse as the future Oingo Boingo boys - and they were only lads. The Rotor Rooter Good Time Christmas Band were seasoned players who made one lone al...

It's Epiphany, and the last of the gifts have been given. We are at the end of the Christmas season. So what do you do when there's nothing really left to say about the holidays? You play an instrumental album - and who better exemplifies instrumental rock than The Ventures, the best-selling instrumental band of all time. When I found this, my inner kid was overjoyed. I loved "Walk Don't Run" and, of course, their version of the Hawaii Five-O theme. I had never heard a full album by the band, and didn't really know much about them other than they were early guitar heroes. The Ventures Christmas Album was released in 1965 and it hit the charts, landing on the charts again in 1966, 1967, and 1968. A pretty cool feat. The Ventures, for a period of time, had their guitars made for them by Mosrite, and these are the guitars featured on the cover of the album. Signature models, before signature models were really a thing - not counting the Les Paul, of course. It wo...

Happy New Year, but Christmas isn't over yet. Although it's that weird space where you know the end is coming and you hold on a little tighter, it's a losing effort. The tree is starting to cover the floor in needles, it's almost time to get the boxes up from the basement - but not yet. I figured getting two artists on one platter was reaching a little in terms of a marketing ploy, but I figured at least there was truth in advertising from the folks at RCA. I didn't have a lot of Eddie Arnold in my library other than a couple of his Christmas songs, which aren't on this collection, so I'm coming in cold here. This will be a journey of discovery, and I love hearing new-to-me stuff. While Henry Mancini is a known name to me, I don't know him for his Christmas music. He's known for some beautiful classics, but to me, "Peter Gunn" is worth all the marbles, and the cherry on top isn't "Moon River - it's the Pink Panther theme. I kno...