David + David - Boomtown

David Baerwald and David Ricketts released Boomtown back in 1986. I remember when I first heard this on the radio. I was enthralled. Who were these guys? I've only experienced this feeling a few times, one memorable time when I was driving my little sister home after a New Year's Eve party and I heard for the first and only time "Last Plane Out" by Toy Matinee. Thankfully the DJ mentioned the band as I committed that to memory.

Hearing "Boomtown" was like that. Who were these guys? They would show up on MuchMusic and they'd talk about their tour, and how much they liked their opening act Robert Cray, who was riding a wave with the success of his Strong Persuader album. I don't know why that stuck with me - trivia is a wonderful thing and my accumulation of useless knowledge will certainly come in handy when the zombie apocalypse hits.

Of course I bought the album right away - and the lead off track was the money shot, but then it was followed up by "Swallowed by the Cracks," another really strong song. This in turn was followed by "Ain't So Easy," another incredible pop song wrapped around vivid imagery. All three were singles, but here at home I don't remember hearing them - but it didn't matter, they were on most of the mix tapes that year. It was an indelible opening salvo.

I'll be honest and admit that it was those first three that captivated my imagination, and when I think of the album it's these three songs that come to mind. There are a half dozen more songs, but for whatever reason I never really got past the first side very often.

It's been a long time since I sat and listened to this one start to finish. The closing track on the first side, "Being Alone Together," seemed like a tonal shift. The song is still great and filled with vitriol, but it didn't have that buzz the first three had. This isn't a shot. Listening now, I appreciate this far more than I did back then.

The second side is the one I decided to spend more time with. Sort of a belated apology for ignoring it for all these years. If anything, the songs are more complex and challenging. David Baerwald's voice was equal parts growl and storyteller, and the music was there to convey and support the emotional gut punch. It's weird hearing this now, and really paying attention. There is a vague sense of familiarity as I hear the songs again, as it isn't like I never played this side, but it still feels very much like a new discovery.

When "Swimming in the Ocean" started I perked up. The interplay between the guitars, with the staccato bass between the notes and the driving beat, combined with the moody vocals, made this a killer song. It was very '80s without the weird synth cheese. My goodness, what a groove. The album closes out with "Heroes," a song that would hint at the direction Mister Baerwald's solo work would take with more of an organic Americana bent.

It's quite an emotional journey over nine songs, and don't make the same mistake I made in focusing on the "hits." Take the time to soak it all in. I'd always thought of this as an excellent record - it turns out it was more excellent than I remembered.

This would be their one and only release, and of course I'd have loved to have more - but I suspect they said what they had to say and that was enough.

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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