Michael Damian - Love is a Mystery

Ah, Michael Damian. Well, it was bound to happen at some point. To be honest I've been actually looking forward to this, mainly because I had packed a lot of baggage in advance and was just waiting for a chance to unload on what I was hoping would be a big pile of monkey droppings. I'd have my revenge for "Rock On" and nothing was going to get in my way.

Everybody knows that actors are often just frustrated musicians who were too pretty to be taken seriously. Then again, why is it that musicians want to be actors? Sigh.

The album I found was his 1984 debut "Love is a Mystery" on Columbia. Dang, this label was home to some pretty awesome acts. Maybe this was a novelty release. Thankfully the copy I found for my dollar had the liner notes, and the core band was Michael on vocals and keyboards - and chimes (couldn't find a triangle?), Larry Weir on guitars and keyboards, and Tom Weir on drums. A quick peek on the internet revealed that Michael, Larry and Tom were siblings. I'm guessing in the pecking order if they were Osmonds, Michael would be Donny.

I dropped the needle and waited for the banshees to be unleashed ...

This is what I had feared, but also to be honest had secretly hoped. It didn't suck. This was better than Jack Wagner's 1984 album - although unlike Jack's lone killer (have to give props even if you don't want to) "All I Need" there wasn't a big song here. This was miles away from being as good as "Hard to Hold" - Rick Springfield's album from the same year. However, it's not really fair to lump them all together - although it is fun.

Love is a Mystery is for all that a pretty decent pop record. It's steeped a little more in the later 70's power pop and rock than in the '80s techno leaning stuff that was emerging in '84 and frankly this is a good thing. The songs are quite good, even if they're a tad generic. Michael's voice is better than I expected and he services the songs. While there's nothing about his tone that really jumps out as unique I did enjoy myself. The majority of the songs were written or co-written by big brother Larry and he's got a pretty good ear. Although there were a couple of his songs that wore their influences on their sleeves. "Will You Make Up Your Mind" had more that a nod or two to Journey's "Anyway You Want It" and The Cars "Just What I Needed" and "Hard to Find Girl" sounded like a kissing cousin to Fleetwood Mac's "Tusk" but it was more a feeling than anything, and frankly it was more interesting to hear, than it was distracting.

This wasn't the shit show I had anticipated (let's be honest I wanted this to suck, and suck HARD). I was probably more critical of this because I came in wanting to take a dump on a nearly forty year album for fun. The fact that the album mostly won me over makes me wonder what I'd have thought of this if I hadn't brought so much baggage to the party.

You may have won this round Mr. Damian, but in the immortal words of Dr. Claw, "I'll get you next time, Gadget!"

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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