David Essex - Rock On

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 that I am so passionate about it, so it evens out.

I found his debut album Rock On in the dollar bin, and I'm listening to it for the first time - the vinyl is in amazing shape, what a find. I have a nice cup of coffee and the dog is sleeping by my feet and no one is around. Ideal conditions to take this in.

The album opens with "Lamplight," which is interesting, but I'm not really sure what it was trying to be. Apparently it was a hit. The first few songs are kind of cool, weird and interesting and quirky. Ah, here comes "Rock On." My goodness, this song sounds fresh still. I love this song. I may not have known what to think of this nearly fifty years ago (wait, how long now? WTF, when did that happen?), but this song is worth the dollar I paid for the album. Anything else I get out of the release is all gravy.

The second side opens with a spacey, almost reggae song titled "Ocean Girl." Oh yeah, here come the steel drums ... this is an unusual song. Man, you have got to give it up for the early '70s stuff - you could pretty much do anything and get away with it.

Reading the back cover, there's a notation in the credits where it lists Ondes Martenot - John Morton. I had to look that one up, as I had no idea what that was. Well, apparently it is an instrument invented by a guy named Maurice Martenot. Sound-wise, the closest thing is a theremin, but this is a bit different. Let's just say it sounded cool.

So far, not a lot of gravy, but it is an interesting listen, and I will go back and run it again because I'll have missed things the first time through. It is an eclectic mix of songs and styles - heck, he's even covered "For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her," originally by Simon and Garfunkel - which is a pretty brave thing considering Art Garfunkel has some pretty big shoes to fill. He gives it a shot. The song is nicely arranged, and it maintains a bit of the atmospheric and dreamy elements of the original, but goes off in a slightly different direction.

One thing I noticed was that at lower volumes the album sounded sort of anemic, so I turned it up a little more and listened to it again, and lo and behold, things came to life.

The album was an interesting experience. You can hear his penchant for theatrics and the dramatic. I guess I was hoping to find a buried treasure full of songs that would be as awesome as "Rock On," but that wasn't the case. It's not quite my cup of tea, but I'm still pretty stoked that I found a copy. If nothing else, hearing "Rock On" was enough for me.

Billy Rankin - Growin' Up Too Fast

Growin' Up Too Fast was never widely released on CD (if at all), and it was one of the albums I really wanted to get back after a basement flood wiped out my vinyl collection in the '90s (when no one really gave a shit about records, and my insurance gave me a couple hundred bucks for an appraised $10,000 collection). Way back in 1984, my (dearly departed and greatly missed) buddy Dave let me borrow his cassette copy, which included a bonus track of "Get It On (Bang A Gong)." When I eventually bought the album, I didn't know it was a bonus track, or even what a bonus track was. If that sentence was hard to read, just go back and skim it. I'm sure you'll get the gist. I'd find out later Billy was an off-and-on-again member of Nazareth and wrote some absolutely killer songs for them. At the time, though, all I knew was this guy laid it out cold with the opening cut, "Baby Come Back," then proceeded to lay down one killer tune after another bef...

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 , ...

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 continues 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 beg...

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