Eight Seconds - Almacantar

I always meant to pick this up, mainly because "Kiss You (When it's Dangerous)" was so good. For whatever reason, most likely budget - I never bought it. Oddly none of the myriad of '80s anthologies I've collected over the years has the song on it. It sort of faded into obscurity as far as I was concerned. Then a while back it popped into my mind, I likely heard it on the radio - I don't think it matters, but I jotted it down on my little pad of paper where I have my list of wants. Right next to Riggs, Alpha Band, and Randall Waller I wrote down Eight Seconds, and what I thought was the album title When Seconds Count. You'd think carrying around the internet in my pocket I'd have just looked it up - nope. When Seconds Count was by Survivor, if you're wondering.

Eventually I did find it, and the album was titled Almacantar, and this time I did use the internet in my pocket to figure out what the title meant. Well, to save you time it's a staff instrument used to calculate the sunrise and sunset - I guess it's a little like a sextant, and the angle ranges from 15 to 30 degrees. So looking at all the gears and unidentified green head on the cover that shows a range from 30 to 60 degrees I must be missing something, but it's not going to keep me up at night.

The album opens with "Sincere" that bears more than a passingly resemblance to Night Ranger's "Rumours in the Air" from 1983. The band then gets right to it with "Kiss You (When it's Dangerous)" and all is forgiven. This is a great song. It's got it all, except a shredding solo, but honestly it would have distracted from the song - besides the keyboard riff is perfect.

As the songs progressed, all of them quite enjoyable, I started to confuse what I was hearing with The Fixx. It's not like Andres del Castillo is a carbon copy of Cy Curnin but boy howdy there are certainly some pretty strong nods from March Cesare's funky articulated bass playing, and while the guitars aren't in the same league as Jamie West-Oram, they're quite good and are fitted exactly where they need to be.

I suspect this is due as much to producer Ruper Hine as anything. Mr. Hine had produced (among others) Reach the Beach as well as the 1986 release Walkabout by The Fixx so it's not like they were recording in a vaccuum. However, it's unfair to call Eight Seconds mere clones of The Fixx, sure there are similarities here and there, but they were more a product of the mid '80s than anything. After all, Rupert Hine also produced SAGA, Howard Jones, and even a couple of really good Chris De Burgh albums and those albums didn't sound like The Fixx.

They were really good, and the album was a pleasant surprise. I expected one good song. Getting an entire album of mid '80s goodness was just gravy. There really are quite a few hidden gems to be found here. Eight Seconds is a band that kind of makes you wonder what if?

It didn't help that any momentum the band had with Almacantar was wiped out when their follow up album, that was already coming two years after their initial brush with success, was delayed another two years and when Big Houses was finally released there was really no one waiting for it. The band would break up shortly after. Timing is everything and these guys deserved a better run than they got.

Oddly enough when Myles Goodwin retired from touring with April Wine, it was Marc Parent who got the tap on the shoulder to step into his shoes.

Garfield - Strange Streets

I'd seen this before in the bin, but kept flipping through the stacks. I'd see it a few more times, each time stopping to look at it a little more. There was something kind of cool about the cover where the stylized Celtic knot had the dotted yellow line - it was a strange street for sure. I pulled the record out of the jacket and I was struck by the centre image. There was the familiar Mercury label, the same one I'd seen a thousand times on BTOs Head On album. Well, I'd bought things based on odd associations before - like when I had to buy anything that Solid Rock Records released (this was generally a good thing) who knows maybe this was a hidden gem. There weren't any real scratches or rash, just a lot of dirt and dust - it seemed to clean up okay, but we'll see how it goes. The album opens with the title track, and this wasn't straight ahead pop, or rock. It was leaning to the progressive, but with a pop bent. Oddly enough the vocals reminded me of Mi

Hoodoo Gurus - Mars Needs Guitars!

The first time I got this album it was a gift from my old roommate Otto. For a goofy little nebbish he would occasionally surprise me with some left of field musical treasures. Although, I still think he was reaching a little when he brought home the new "Led Zeppelin" album by Kingdom Come and forced me to listen to "Get it On" over and over again. I'd not listened to Mars Needs Guitars in a long, long, long time. The first thing that I jumped out at me was how David Faulkner's vocals reminded me of his fellow countryman Peter Garrett from Midnight Oil. I think the reason this never occurred to me was at the time I didn't have any Midnight Oil until Diesel and Dust in 1987. I'm not saying it was all the time, but there were a couple of songs where it stood out. Not a bad thing, just a thing. Even at the time this felt slightly out of step with what was going on in 1985. It seemed like everyone was using drum machines and synthesizers and having t

Saturday Night Fever - The Original Movie Soundtrack

It was going to happen sooner or later. Nostalgia is a cruel Mistress...she can dull the sharpest edges and over time can even soften the hardest of opinions. I found this in the dollar bin, and frankly at a dollar I was worried about what this would cost me. Not only from a monetary perspective, but my time, and more important my credibility. Fourteen year old me was screaming "Don't you dare. DON'T DO IT! Put it down. Walk away!" Then there was grey bearded me holding it and looking at it, thinking, "How bad could it be? I actually kind of like "Staying Alive" and me buying this record won't bring disco back, and no one will have to know I bought this." I pulled the album out of the bin, and carefully took out the records. They'd seen better days, and there were a couple of decent scratches that would no doubt make their presence known later. The jacket was in decent condition, and both of the albums had the original sleeves. I dusted the

Old Enough to Forget

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