Old Enough to Forget

Eddie Money always seemed like a guy who was just on the cusp of being a really big deal. He'd get close, but he never really quite made it to the front of the line. His debut album was released in December of 1977, but the album gained traction well into 1978 with songs like "Baby Hold On" and "Two Tickets to Paradise," which were arguably two of his biggest songs. I found this one in a bargain bin that warned me the album was sold "as is" and buyer beware. The vinyl looked fine to me ... and there were a couple of copies. I asked if I could swap covers, as one of them had Eddie sporting a wonderful ballpoint pen moustache, and the cover I ended up with had an old CFUN radio station sticker on it. I was fine with that, as CFUN had a lot of nostalgia associated with it - there was a time the two stations worth listening to in the early '70s were CKLG and CFUN, and you could bounce between them on your radio and find something worth listening to. Od...

Ten-year-old me didn't know what to think of the song "Rock On" as it was an unusual thing, but strangely hypnotic and cool too. It was etched into my developing musical preferences. I never forgot the song. I blame Jack Wagner for Michael Damian being able to release his version of "Rock On" - yeah, I know that's not fair or accurate, but dang it, the only singing soap opera star I need (I was going to try and work an "All I Need" reference in there somewhere, but it seemed like a lot of work for zero payoff) is Rick Springfield. Let's just pretend that never happened, shall we? (Although I will reluctantly admit his cover version was "okay".) Before finding this album, the only other song by David Essex I was aware of was "A Winter's Tale," a song I found a few years ago that has become one of my favourite holiday tunes. It is a stunning piece - although my daughter thinks it's rather "meh," but likes tha...

I was thinking about bands with two drummers (mainly because I'd just finished listening to Dickey Betts & Great Southern), and 38 Special popped to mind. It was them or Adam Ant, and at the moment (because, well, you never know) I don't have any Adam Ant. So it was 38 Special, and as I'd recently found a mint copy of Tour de Force , I figured this was worth a spin and a reminisce. My first introduction to the band was through a cassette copy of Wild-Eyed Southern Boys my little sister was given by someone she babysat for ... I think that's where it came from ... who knows, maybe she stole it. As she didn't have a cassette player and I did, I "borrowed" it - forever (until I lost it). I seldom made it past the first song - "Hold on Loosely" blew my mind, and it didn't take long for me to get the triptych of releases from 1981 through 1983. Each album had something special, but honestly, trying to remember any of the deeper album cuts elud...

Here we are, the last Sunday of the month. While two in a row, I wouldn't say I'm in a pattern yet. It's at least setting a precedent. Five for Fighting No. 2 is a bit of an odd bunch this time around. I still think it's pretty cool, even if it is kind of all over the place, which is how I like it. I'm still working through the backlog of albums from the dollar bin, and a couple of new sealed albums that I was pretty stoked to find. However, I've picked up quite a bit lately and little piles have started to build in the basement. Which usually means I'm going to get an earful from the wife. The one album I was really curious about from this batch was the Mike Lesley one - good thing I'm not a cat. If I was, I'd need more than nine lives. Anyways, here's the second instalment: Five for Fighting Mike Lesley - Mike Lesley (1976) James Taylor - JT (1977) Arlo Guthrie - Alice's Restaurant (1967)  Valdy - Country Man (1972) Real Life - Heartland (...

I was pretty excited to find this. Dickey Betts is a pretty amazing guitar player and a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band. He and Duane were early pioneers of dual lead guitars in rock - oddly enough, there was a time when it seemed like every Southern band except Skynyrd had to have two drummers, too. After Duane's untimely death, Dickey would take over as the band's lead guitarist. His work on "Ramblin' Man" and "Jessica" are enough to earn him a place at the head table. When I found a really decent copy of Dickey Betts & Great Southern , I wasn't sure what to expect, but I was hoping for some hidden gems. Not having credits was a bit irritating, but not insurmountable, as the internet is a treasure trove of great and useless information. According to what I could find, there are seven members, including two drummers (nice), but the front and back cover only has six guys. Maybe the drummers had to flip a coin to see who could have the...

Of all their albums, this is probably the one I return to most often. A lot of the appeal is nostalgia, but also time and place. That, and I happen to really like this one. I was too young to fully appreciate Hotel California when it came out - I loved the title track, but I didn't get the album until many years later. When The Long Run finally dropped in the fall of 1979, the music I was listening to then was part of my most formative years, and this fit right in with a lot of my other favourite artists. New technology was starting to emerge as well, and the drum machine hand clap on "Heartache Tonight" was considered cutting edge. I heard a radio interview where Don Henley was explaining the drum sound and how they were going to replicate that in concert. Considering their last studio album, not counting the Christmas single, was a couple of years earlier, it was an eternity between albums - and when they finally did get together to record the follow-up to Hotel Califo...

My goodness. Right out of the gate "I Need Love" hits it out of the park. I honestly had no idea what to expect. I sort of figured this would be one of those easy-to-shit-on records because no one else knew about it either when it came out in 1981. Derek St. Holmes oddly seems to really be channelling his inner Sammy Hagar. Admittedly, I don't have the deepest well of recordings with Derek to draw upon. Double Live Gonzo! from Uncle Ted about sums it up for me. Don't get me wrong, that album is the cat's pajamas and security blanket all rolled into one. I like Sammy, but he was never my favourite vocalist. So I guess I sort of expected Derek to sound like Derek ... maybe it's Sammy who sounds like Derek and I have it backwards. That said, Derek is all swagger, and Brad Whitford was finally allowed off leash to play lead, and he's really solid. The rest of the band was rounded out with Dave Hewitt on bass and Steve Pace on drums. The album was produced by T...

I got this back in 1984 when it came out. "Naughty Naughty" grabbed me the first time I heard it, and to this day is still one of my guilty pleasures. The solo composed of tire skids still cracks me up. I honestly couldn't remember any of the other songs when I pulled this down for a spin. It had been a long time since I'd given this a listen, so I figured it was due. Now, you're probably wondering why my album cover has CBC written in pen on it ... well, that's because it came from the CBC archives. I lost my cover years ago (I could tell you the story, again, about the great crawl space flood, but it's a painful memory, so I won't bore you), and I found this copy in the dollar bin and bought it just to have the cover. I cleaned up the record inside and gave it to my friend, who told me it was, and I quote, "Terrible." I pressed him as to why, and he mentioned a bunch of artists he liked that were quite different than Mister Parr. So I ended...

How could I pass this up? This was one of the original pressings, BR 6959, but it's not like it made this any more valuable. It was still a dollar, but dang boy howdy, a dollar well spent. I sure would have liked to have had the insert, but never having seen the original, who knows if it actually had anything on the inside. The album cover was in decent shape, and the vinyl, especially on the first killer side, cleaned up so well I was surprised. Mint, baby. The second side had a little rash, a pretty good nick on "Terraplane Blues" that lasts a few spins around, but nothing to spoil things. I wasn't even in my teens when this came out, and I can't remember when I first heard songs by the band. Over the years, of course, "Slow Ride" would take on a life of its own when my kids started playing it on Guitar Hero - a game that frankly brought classic rock into the mainstream, even if only for a moment. The title track was also a great song. It's too bad...

I knew Poco from "Crazy Love," a nice and easy radio-friendly hit growing up. As an Eagles fan, I knew about Poco because they seemed to leak bass players. First Randy Meisner, and then a few years later Timothy B. Schmit. Mr. Schmit had the distinction of first replacing Randy in Poco, and then doing so again in the Eagles. "Crazy Love" was a pretty cool song, and even though I liked some "country" rock I never got any of their albums. Now, to put this in context, this wasn't a snub. Back in 1978 I didn't have a lot of records. I had a small allowance and no job, so I didn't have the means to go out and indulge. However, in later years when I'd be making up for lost time by picking up the early Eagles albums and similar records, it never crossed my mind to look for Poco. I got lucky and found a decent, but very dirty, copy of the album in the dollar bin. As expected there was no insert, but everything cleaned up really nicely - except I we...

I honestly figured this was worth the dollar. Going in, I knew that "All I Need" was an earworm - back in 1984 I worked in an office where we had a TV in the break room. Whoever got there first could choose the channel, regardless of how many other people would end up in the room. At least that was my interpretation of the rules. Most afternoons I'd have to sit and suffer through General Hospital . However, there were enough times where I'd get there first and change the channel to watch Looney Tunes that people made a concerted effort to beat me to the break room. So with respect to General Hospital, it provided interim employment to Rick Springfield and, like Pernell Roberts, got to play a doctor on TV - although Rick got to play another character as well, a rock star named Eli Love (I am not making this shit up). Given my love for his music, I can give him a pass. However, there was another young cocky character named Frisco Jones who in the '80s was breaki...

Styx is one of my favourite bands ever ... if I was to tick off on my left hand my top bands it would often run something like April Wine, PRISM, Styx, Toto and Cheap Trick. Depending on where I was on the curve, some of them would change, but Styx was pretty constant. I often forget SAGA, and when I remember I just add them to my list and pretend I have more fingers. It's a bit blurry now what I got first - I'm thinking it was the blue vinyl Best of Styx , a compilation of songs for their Wooden Nickel albums. It was a treasure to me, and when I lost it I was pretty bummed out. I've been looking for another copy. In my junior high school the band room had a great stereo and we were allowed to listen to records when on break. I remember hearing Styx's Grand Illusion , and later Pieces of Eight , there. I also remember someone bringing in a John Travolta record and having to sit through Razzamatazz - let's just say it didn't have the same positive impact the Styx...

I make no apologies for liking Rick Springfield. I had to flip a coin to pick whether to play Working Class Dog or go with 1983's Living in Oz . Tales you lose, if you want to read about "Jessie's Girl," it'll be another day on a different post. From 1981 through 1984, Rick Springfield put out an album a year, each going platinum in the States. Oddly enough, in Canada Living in Oz sold less than Success Hasn't Spoiled Me Yet , and that one sold less than Working Class Dog -  he was trending down up here in the Great White North. Which was a shame, as Living in Oz was pure power pop driven by the guitar wizardry of the incomparable Tim Pierce. Funny, if you read the reviews that were out at the time, Rick was a bit of a conundrum. He was supposed to be the pretty-boy pop star who wasn't supposed to have actual musical chops. He was also an (gasp) actor on a soap opera. The man had no shame. Since I didn't watch daytime TV, I never saw him with a steth...

The debut album by Lake was released in 1977 (in North America), and I picked it up in 1980 or 1981 - I can't remember exactly, but it was my senior year of high school. The first time I heard of the band was when I bummed a ride with a buddy when our art class went on a field trip. This was when you could still load up a car and drive off the school lot. Anyway, he had a cassette copy of the album, and he really liked the song "Jesus Came Down," which was odd to me as he swore like a sailor with Tourette's syndrome. Anyway, it was a bit of a drive (these things are relative in a small town), and I got to hear most of the album. True to his word, "Jesus Came Down" was indeed a pretty awesome song. In fact, it was a really solid album, and I played it a lot. Over time, I'd end up with a few of their albums. I didn't play the second album as much - although I've not heard it in over forty years - and their third album, Paradise Island , I really li...

Back in the day I bought one ABBA album, and it was their 1981 swansong (okay, they've since released Voyage , but it's after their best-before date so I'm not counting it, even though I bought it), The Visitors , and for me that was enough. Of course I'd end up with a couple of best-of CDs and a few of their other albums. Then my daughter went through her Mamma Mia phase, and a decade later we had to watch Mamma Mia! Here We Go Again , which had stretched things pretty thin as I thought they'd more or less used up their best songs in the first one. That, and it looked like Cher would break if she moved too quickly. I never really went through an anti-ABBA phase, and I liked a lot of their songs - but I didn't go out of my way to broadcast this to my friends. Apparently they were often categorized as disco, but they were just vanilla pop that didn't offend your parents. However, as I'm listening to this, my wife yells downstairs, "Honey, are you on...