Styx - Pieces of Eight

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 I that was a compilation of 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 albums had - although as it turns out I've not forgotten old John either.

With Pieces of Eight I started to collect their albums, and despite the sphincter clenching reaction I have to "Babe" from Cornerstone, I was drawn to their rock songs. I loved that the credits on Pieces of Eight included who played lead guitar (sadly the liner notes were missing from my replacement copy, but they're in the CD booklet so I'm still good). From my first exposure to JYs guitar playing I loved his work - oddly I never really liked the sound of his voice. Tommy was the new kid (although this was his third with the band) and I often found myself drawn to his songs, and he too was a great player. Even now I wouldn't say I'm Team Tommy, or Team Dennis (although if pushed I'd lean to Dennis today, but yesterday it was Tommy) I was into Styx - the band.

With the band's eighth album they seemed to find the balance between their progressive roots and their rock sensibilities. It's funny to listen to this now as it's really not as great as I remember. It has "Renegade" and "Blue Collar Man" and right there is why my memory regards this as an excellent record. My often referenced friend Gerry had in his possession a pair of homemade speakers that were each the size of an industrial sized refrigerator and the had what seemed like a 36 inch bass speaker, several mid range and tweeter speakers and horns and they were loud. We were in a church basement for some youth thing, and he'd set up his "stereo" and for the weekend we played records and practiced being nice to each other. Of course we had to play "Queen of Spades" a song that melted my face when I was a kid. It was the perfect balance of Dennis DeYoung's penchant for over the top theatrics with a blistering guitar track - as it was written by JY and Dennis that makes sense. The sheer volume attained by those "Cloud 9" speakers is the stuff of legend. Ah, memories. I wonder whatever happened to those things ... they're probably holding up a bridge in Northern British Columbia.

The first side was decent, and it's good for all that, and I really like "Lords of the Ring" the guitar parts are awesome. I wonder if they'd pitched this to Ralph Bakshi for his 1978 (much maligned) Lord of the Rings. However, the band really hit it out of the park on the second side. Heck, even the weird throwaway "Aku-Aku" that  closes out side two worked, as it felt like the band needed to take a breather before ending the album - basically allowing the listener to relax a little and process the awesomeness that had come before.

Rolling Stone of course that great bastion of knowing what was good (just to clarify, I was being sarcastic), didn't quite feel the same way, "... sheer self-aggrandizement on the most puerile level." Yup, whoever wrote that wasn't in their mid-teens and in love with guitar driven rock. The reviewer went so far as to question what was wrong with the people who liked this "slop" - yeah, slop. To that I still say, "Please sir, can I have some more?"

I normally try not to go back to buy on vinyl what I have on CD, but when I found a gold vinyl copy that wasn't too pricey I couldn't help myself. It looks cool, and I like it.

What other reason do I really need?